What changes in tactics caused medieval armies to deploy in three “battles” during a field engagement? What made this tactically effective? Also, where was the vanguard, and why was it located where it was?

Having discussed this with @warsofasoiaf and doing a bunch of research, my conclusion is that the three battles formation isn’t an issue of tactical effectiveness as much as an organizational issue, whereas something like the flying wedge (which maximized the effectiveness of a knightly charge in forcing a breakthrough in the enemy line) or a shield-wall (which was both an excellent defensive tactic especially for armies relying on less experienced and less well-equipped forces) were tactical in nature.

The advantage of the three “battles” is that it’s a very simple organizational structure, which makes it well-suited to armies made up of feudal levies with relatively little experience of fighting together compared to standing armies. More sophisticated organizational forms require a good deal of coordination, which means you need an officer corps to make sure that all the different parts function. The Roman legion’s famed flexibility on the field, for example, would never have been possible without an elaborate officer corps of optios, centurions, military tribunes, etc. who were given wide discretion in the field to ensure that these kind of complex formations worked:

By contrast, a three-battle system didn’t need that level of complex organization – you had your overall general, your two or three commanders, and the men under them. The three battles had set locations (the vanguard at the front of the column or at the right of the line, the middle in the middle, and the rear-guard at the end of the column and on the far left) and set responsibilities that everyone knew ahead of time (the vanguard was responsible for scouting and foraging, the rearguard covered retreats, etc.) which meant that you didn’t need very good communication and coordination, and they were also political prizes that generals could dole out to reward their vassals (the vanguard being the place of honor).

Could Rickon really have lifted an old rusted iron sword from the crypts? Aren’t they really heavy?

This is a fantasy/genre/movie misconception.

Swords are not heavy, contrary to every D&D equipment section ever, because IRL they are relatively thin pieces of metal meant to cut things. Even the heaviest swords, those giant two-hand swords that people used to hack through pike formations and cut the legs off of horses, weigh less than 7 pounds. Your average sword weighs more like 2.5-3.5 pounds. Rickon Stark could certainly lift one.

Control would be a different issue. Having held my fair share of swords when I was a kid, it wasn’t difficult to lift one, but it was very difficult to use in an effective fashion, both because kids don’t have great hand-eye coordination to begin with, nor do they have the proper leverage due to their height, weight, length of arms, etc.

So I would imagine Rickon would find said sword very unwieldy. He would be dragging it along the ground, it would catch and snag on everything, he would probably drop it a lot, and any swings would go wildly off course and quite likely cause him to fall over.

This may be my most nerdy post ever.

Long ask sorry! I know you’re kinda covering the special cases of naval warfare with Constantinople and Blackwater, but I was just wondering how these battles normally occurred. It’s obviously before pre-gunpowder so was it mostly based on ramming like with classical triremes? Was the intended effect more immobilization or sinking? Additionally, what was the composition of navies? I know the Chola and Song dynasties had large standing navies, but what about Europe? Was it more merchant marines?

You’re more or less on-point – at least in the Mediterranean, where galleys were dominant and combat was pretty similar to classical Greece and Rome, focused on either ramming or boarding or disabling your opponent’s sails and/or oars.

However, in the North Sea, the Channel, the Baltic, and the Atlantic, sailing ships predominated over galleys because of the rougher waters – yes, the Viking longship had both oars and sails, but they didn’t really use galley tactics due to their smaller size and number of oarsmen. Hence, boarding was the whole game.

One thing that did distinguish medieval from classical naval warfare is that you essentially had the importation of the castle onto the sea. Hence, you get ships like these:

The forecastle and aftcastle got their names for very straightforward reasons – they were basically big wooden castles on either end of the ship that let you shoot your enemy from above and made it more difficult for boarders to come to grips with you. That, plus the fact that in order to support these castles you had to build bigger and taller ships which could just ride down the very low-lying longships, made these ships dominant in combat (although less seaworthy).

In terms of composition, it varied. To take the English as an example, there was both a royal navy, but also localities like the Cinque Ports and Portsmouth were also required to maintain ships, and mercenary fleets were hired, and merchant marines were impressed, at various times. Likewise, at times the royal fleet consisted of only two ships (in the reign of Richard II) and at other times as many as 700 ships (in the reign of Edward III). The thing to keep in mind is that wooden ships don’t have a very long lifespan, so unless you’re consistently putting money into maintenance, repair, and replacement, you can build an entire navy only to have it vanish, requiring a new navy to be built – which is one of the reasons the numbers and composition varied so much.