Zywack
Tiro
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Slinging for the soul
Posts: 17
Canada
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I've read a ton of books regarding medieval battles and a few regarding antiquity ones, but slings are often mentionned only extremely briefly. From what I understand in antiquity battles, they were mostly used in skirmishing and screening roles, kind of like the javelin-throwing units. Screening meaning that they were deployed ahead of the main heavy infantry and cavalry forces in very loose formations, like Rat Man mentionned (Not massed like medieval longbow formations for example). Generally, the screening forces mainly fought each other: However, if one side had a lack of screening forces (Either due to losing too many or not having a balanced army in the first place), then the skirmishing forces could shoot at the heavy infantry to cause hefty morale loss, injuries and death. If the heavy infantry came at them, they simply pulled back with their superior mobility. If the cavalry came at them, well... Cavalry in that era was generally less overwhelming than in the medieval era, but they were still obviously dangerous for the skirmishers and a skirmisher force that is far away from their own cavalry and infantry is extremely vulnerable to cavalry, especially on an open plain. On the other hand, horses made bigger unarmored and unshielded targets to the skirmishers.
Regarding protection, their best protection was not simply getting in melee with the enemy. Later era archers had maces or swords and gambeson armor, but I haven't read any account of slingers of any era having anything more than a dagger or any form of armor at all. However, I did see a few accounts of some slingers having small shields. Considering that you can reload and shoot a sling with only minor difficulty while holding a small shield and that most of the incomming danger from slingers would usually come in the form of arrows, stones and javelins, having a shield made a lot of sense. It probably wouldn't do a whole lot of good in melee though, considering the slinger lack of appropriate melee weaponry.
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