Summary of Ottoman Empire's battles in Europe during the Growth Period (1453-1606) (only sourced from wikipedia):

So they had superior tactics for a battle, but that doesn't explain the trend of decisively losing battles and still fielding huge armies and still being able to march further into Europe.

If he reads what happened he should be able to figure it out.

Yeah it does.

How. It doesn't talk about Ottoman recruitment and organization, it just says an army 20k strong just shows up like a week after the last one got wrecked.

I couldn't find it, can you point it out?

>Part of the Moldavian–Ottoman Wars
>Part of the Ottoman-Hungarian Wars

>Result: Ottoman victory, Moldavia becomes an Ottoman vassal for almost four centuries, Hungarian Kingdom partitioned.

how did these even happens? how did they keep losing 100k+ mens every fucking battle and still winning?

That's what I want to find out. Ottomans lose everything decisively with armies of around 100k and they can't help but move into Europe. There are only a handful battles they win, in which they again outnumber with margins.

the ottomans were always on the offensive, when they lost it was like having their toenails clipped, when some small principality in the balkans lost it was like the apocalypse

They didn't lose 100k men every battle.

Check the losses in the battles, the Ottomans always have heavy casualties like 50% or so.

Then read up on an ottoman recruitment.
Follow the trail.

I'm not him, but I still can't follow you. Are you trying to say that they had issues with devshirmah afterwards? Or that they couldn't settle Turkish people in these lands? Even so they still field large armies after the battle you refer to.

I am not saying anything.

For the sake of brevity, can you summarize the points you are trying to make? It's kind of unrealistic to expect everyone to read up a long wiki article and fetch the exact argument you want to point out. Summarize and we shall discuss.

First of all, it might help to look at other sources.

Secondly, I wouldn't necessarily take those numbers at face value.

Third, it's not like in a battle they lost their entire army was wiped out.

The point of my posts was to get op to read those articles and have his own argument instead of asking that needless question.

Of course I don't really care about wiki results, but that's what always being posted here, it's not like everyone posting here are up to date on history literature.

It mostly is heavy casualties for Ottomans according to wiki. Even in battles they win. The entire army may not have been gone but surely if you consistently lose half of it at some point you may run out of eager recruits.

But I am the OP. I've looked at something, found that it was inconsistent, and wanted to ask other people's opinions. It's also probably not an unnecessary question since no one here seems to be following what you are trying to point out with that reference.

It is a silly question.
The short easy answer I guess is recruitment.
Since you don't want to explore for yourself.

How is recruitment style of Ottoman army good for fielding large armies? During the period I looked Janissaries weren't the large portion of the army. Of course Timars in Europe were definitely better than Timars in other regions but the Turkish populations in these lands were lower than other parts of the empire, and you can't really convince locals to fight against Christians unless you do it devshirmah style. And it's not like they called sipahis from Middle Eastern regions for European wars, it's like medieval England calling ANZAC.

So I don't get how the recruitment style of Ottoman military helps with the situation. If anything it's much harder for Ottomans to field large armies in short notice, and some of the battles quoted occur in really small timeframe.

I fail to see the point you are making, and you are refusing to share your wisdom. So I guess good night to you.

Europe was too busy picking at itself to do anything about a real threat as usual.

So they marched, lost half the battles they were in, but they still gained ground while recovering from terrible casualties because Europe was too busy?

Europe was pretty successful at repelling Ottomans according to wikipedia in case you haven't noticed.

there was an attempt

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_of_Varna

>Venice
>Poland
>Hungary
>Croatia
>Bohemia
>Lithuania
>Serbia
>Wallachia
>Moldavia
>Bulgaria
>Holy >Roman >Empire
>Papal States and whoever served under them
>Teutonic Order
vs
>Ottoman Empire

>Result: Decisive Ottoman victory, Ottoman domination in the balkan

>domination
They/you do realize the Hapsburgs would fight with the ottomans for like two centuries over the area
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman–Habsburg_wars

>conveniently leave out the fact that the Ottomans had more men than the crusaders because most of them sent a couple thousand men at most

I couldn't get any actual explanations, so I'm just going to assume that wiki stuff are pretty biased.

According to wiki that's the only way Ottomans are able to win at anything anyway. They always send out bigger armies (2-3 times larger at times) get blown up or win decisively because European armies were under bad leadership, struggling amongst themselves, suffering from a disease.

That's part of the reason I started this thread, even in the period of rapid Ottoman expansion wiki makes it look like it was luck, which I don't think so. It's certainly not possible Ottomans to field larger armies all the time in shorter timeframes and lose constantly and rebuild the armies.

Regardless that battle is not during the growth period so I kinda skipped that.

didn't the fucking polish king fucked up ?

What did Ottomans actually do when Pike and Shot became a thing?

>didn't the fucking polish king fucked up ?
Poles aided the Turks, fucking backstabbers

I read two spy reports on the Ottoman empire dating to 1430 something and 1550 something, both are free on google books.

Ottomans emphasized speed in maneuver, marching and battle rather than traveling with heavy armor and bunch of trivial bullshit. The reports make it clear that Ottoman soldiers ate a simple diet on campaign, slept wherever they could and had horses with endurance. I cannot verify it at the moment but one of the reports talks about how an ottoman army could march 1.5 or 2 times as fast as a typical European one.

Feudal troops would be the heavy cavalry and even they traveled light by European standards, their armor being mostly mail, shields and a light lance. Infantry often consisted of simple bow armed soldiers, musket armed soldiers and god knows what.

>pic related, the antitheses to Ottoman military camps

To sum it up: Low equipment standards, therefore a large pool of recruits which coupled with a sort of proto-conscription could lead to large armies.

Its really funny how eastern Europeans wave these battles on the face of the Ottomans and call them weak while they still got ruled by those cunts for close to 400-500 years are are still Butthurt about it.

That kinda made sense until the point where you started talking about armor and equipment. 14-16 century armies were always badly equipped, regardless they're Ottoman or European. The armored portion probably was at most 5-10% of the bulk. It's not until very late that plate armor becomes a thing.

So I don't think lower equipment standards is a thing, it's more like an excuse to support Ottoman army had always had the quantity thesis.

>14-16 century armies were always badly equipped

What is your source on this? the least armored 15th century soldier in a Burgundian army would still be armed with a metal helmet, metal breastplate, mail sleeves, a mail collar.

Again it were the words of a 15th century man who went to the Ottoman empire and spied for Western Europeans who noted they were typically lightly armed.

I have none other than what I read online, but I do swordfighting a little bit and I know that formations, pike squares are not very useful against an armored opponent, usually the way it goes is you throw them on the ground and stab them in the gaps. I'd think people would've developed more anti armor tactics if armored majority were the case.

Also if the reference you have are paintings, Ottomans also have nice and shiny armor in paintings. Paintings are not really accurate.

can't fight the zerg forever m8

That's the problem, Ottoman conquest of Balkans was not Zerg rush, I think you just read Encyclopedia Dramatica as your source. Even Zerg cannot lose half the battles it is in decisively and recover.

Once the Habsburgs consolidated another power to be a European counterweight the ottomans were done. They fucked uo the scrubs of Europe cause they could focus the resources of a vast empire on a tiny Balkan state. They only campaigned when the odds were overwhelmingly in their favor. Once they had to face modern centralized European states they pretty routinely got btfo'd from Lepanto onwards. The Habsburg also did not care about Hungary very much and actually ceded the ottomans parts of it after destroying them in a war in return for an extended truce so they could focus on the real threat, France. The growth period
Is not that impressive when you look at who they were conquering in Europe. An "empire" that had been sacked and beleaguered by multiple enemies for centuries, the last remaining islands of a dying crusading order, some far flung Venetian colonies, and the destabilized Balkans.

The jannisarries were slaves not recruits

Their invasions were always deliberately planned, and had a specific site in mind. A large portion of the army was not soldiers, but sappers, siege experts, and other logistical staff. The ottomans were the most centralized state in the region during the growth period, so they consistently had an advantage on bringing resources to bear until the Habsburgs caught up

So in summary they didn't conquer at all?

They moved always when odds were overwhelmingly in their favor, got blown up, ended up capturing anyway? That makes no sense.

So Habsburgs gave Hungary because they needed room to breathe? I don't think that's how medieval monarchs work. Still the majority of Habsburg wars are out of the timeframe I quoted.

The question was not when did Ottomans fail, it was how did they win, while constantly losing.

That has nothing to do with anything as far as I understand, please explain.

The question is if they were so well organized, how did they lose all the time and still "win"?

Pike and shot is a complimentary formation. Pike protects the muskets, muskets shoot people. Muskets were highly effective against armor

Look at every conquest. It was a Zerg rush

Sure it is bro. How gloriously did we remove kebab right?

I'm not expecting but if you do know off the top of your head, can you please point out which battles in growth period of Ottomans involved primarily pike and shoot?

>Ottomans lost every war ever but we let them have the balkans, constantinople, middle east, and north africa out of pity
T. butthurt at turks

That's the cavalry I was talking about and that is reported in the spy reports.

For 15th century European armies we have a ton of documentation and muster reports stating what kind of armor was the minimum expected.

Are you disputing the information in those spy reports (Bertrandon de la Broquière and Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq)?

The former even suggests any European army planning to fight Ottomans could probably ditch some of their armor because it wouldn't be advantageous against the Ottomans.

Sorry I wasn't the first pike and shot poster. I was just addressing the comment that pikes weren't effective against armor. I'll still try to answer. Pikes and muskets were used at Major sieges like Cyprus, Rhodes, Malta. They were used in the naval engagements most notably Malta. Whether they were used in open field battles in the regimented formations that pike and shot invokes I cannot say for sure. I would guess that they were though.

No ones saying they lost those wars. The question is how did they win despite the casualties and resources it took

Same poster. Meant to say Lepanto for the naval engagement

Can you direct me to equipment requirements thingy? I continued this discussion because I thought equipment of the armies of the time were kind of open to interpretation.

Also I failed to find the spy reports you mentioned, it's not for me to dispute their accuracy as I am not a historian but the main point of this whole thread is that sources are usually very biased against Ottoman Empire. So even though I'm not openly challenging them, I'm implying that they are probably not that accurate, also because no one would say more armor would not be advantageous unless you want to brag about your army, which is a trademark of historic bias.

I was the guy originally asking about how Ottomans dealt with Pike and shot. I didn't pay attention to the date OP posted I was just curious how the hell a typical Ottoman army would deal with it.

PS, despite what some might think Pikes actually do quite well against armor. I can think of maybe a dozen period accounts where it is remarked how pikes shattered armor or how someone clad in full plate got killed by one.

>how pikes shattered armor or how someone clad in full plate got killed by one.
Impossible, myth, a very badly made armor or 1 case out of millions.

myarmoury.com/feature_armies_burg.html

I can post the original French ones if you like which go in a little more detail. During the 15th century people started regulating stuff like this more and more though civic militias had been doing this for centuries.

I posted the names of the Spies in both are on google books. Anyways how would spy reports be biased against Ottomans by saying they traveled lighter and rode horses with more endurance (i.e. Arabians). Middle Eastern and Steppe people have pretty much always gone about with lighter armor then was typical in Western Europe, Seljuk and Fathamid sources all agree on this during the crusade and ascribe Crusader courage being due too mail coats and such.

Thanks I shall read them.

Well, it's not that hard to forge a spy report. It makes sense that Ottomans moved faster because they were mostly mounted troops but calling them badly equipped compared to any other nation at the time is just sounds like making excuses to me.

Moving fast still does not explain how they managed to get so many new recruits if they lost constantly.

He wrote the answer. The losses weren't necesserly soldiers or recruits for the battles. There were a lot of ''staff'' helping the army itself - like chefs, biographers, engineers, slaves to build shit up and so on. This is why their losses seem to be heavy.

The ottomans had an impressive supply chain. I recommend "Empires at Sea" by Roger Crowley. They would initially start out well equipped with everything they need. They even prebuilt components of their siege equipment and shipped it whereas other states would create them when they got on site. The situation would deteriorate during sieges that took longer than expected. That compounded with diesease helps gives us shitshows like the Siege of Malta and Siege of Vienna.

Then this is the most pathetic way of reporting wars.

"The battle was on par, it was a tactical victory for us. But we killed many chefs, so that's nice."

So do you agree that sources are weird?

Eye witness accounts of Marignano, Flodden and battle of guinegate vs. not an argument

nice.

Thanks I'll look into it.

But this again takes me back to the original question, the Empire has everything, large army, good supply chain but still they lose all the time while progressing further into Europe. This still does not add up. It's so weird.

Why that? They still count as casualties.

Were you going to rebut my point with some information? There have been multiple posts here that show the ottomans almost always had an overwhelming numerical advantages. There were political reasons for why they often sent men in swarms to try to end a drawn out siege. Some ottoman commanders leaders feared for their lives and received orders to win at any cost. The reason for this is whenever a sultan ascended to the throne he needed a conquest to validate himself. It would be disastrous in those situations would result in failure. Any defeat or setback in general could be seen as a sign of losing divine mandate. So if you'd like to contest a point contest it. I'm an American with no Balkan descent so your remove kebob comment doesn't apply. People like you ruin this board.

Plates are usually angled, so spear usually slides right off, if it doesn't a well made armor can take it and maintain its integrity which means the guy who's wearing it would fall down.

There has to be something wrong with the plate armor to be broken by a spear thrust. Historically people didn't even swing or thrust swords at armor because it is useless and swords have a stronger cutting edge or thrusting tip.

Take a look at this, this is historically correct way to fight against an armored foe:
youtube.com/watch?v=5hlIUrd7d1Q

>control one of the most urban regions in the world
>from whence do these armies issue
You are also forgetting that their enemies were very disorganized.

I kinda discarded your comment for it was using memes. Remove kebab was a retort against you over using memes. So I was condemning you for the very thing you think I was doing. Anyway sorry for that it looks like you are willing to discuss.

What you pointed out here is how any of the 14-17th century empire works. There is really no difference between Europe and Ottomans from this aspect. Except that Ottomans had lands that were far more sparsely populated and didn't have the population advantage.

I'd posted this earlier in the thread. It's from a very late census but I believe it still is true for older times as well.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEQuataert2000110.E2.80.93111_158-0

Also Anatolia is bigger than any European state at the time (Ottomans didn't control all during the period I quote and Selim I for example had to go against Turks in the east in his reign so full support of Anatolia was even out of question) with comparable population. So it was not dense at all.

Also, you do follow that disorganized enemies won most of the battles right? They moved in even while losing battles, which is the main thing that is baffling me.

>population estimates of approximately 12 million (with margins of error) in the 16th century
These are from the Ottoman official registers, and France's population from that time is roughly comparable and the French could field large armies themselves, so I'm not really sure you understand the breadth and depth of what this data implies.

>disorganized enemies won most of the battles right
Political organization is just as important, though that's on me as I should have specified.

>These are from the Ottoman official registers, and France's population from that time is roughly comparable and the French could field large armies themselves, so I'm not really sure you understand the breadth and depth of what this data implies.
France is smaller than part of Anatolia with a homogenous distribution of French people which means that it is dense and you can easily raise a "French" army quickly. Whereas Ottomans relied on Anatolia for Turkish/Muslim recruits. I don't see how it is easy for Ottomans to field large armies compared to any other state.

>Political organization is just as important, though that's on me as I should have specified.
So Ottomans lost the wars but somehow integrated Balkans into themselves peacefully? That's too much for me to take.

Why would he lie about what he saw? He was writing a military report on the Ottomans for a planned crusade not a propaganda piece. A handful of people got to see his report and it was not published until several decades later. There is really no point in lying about key details.

I don't want to sound to harsh but you should stop conflating an objective statement regarding their armor usage with some sort of judgement. I mean he also stated a fortress in Syria had this one side which was easily assailable, that they typically rode with short stirrups and that their bowstrings were thicker than those of European bows. Those are simply his observations written down in a rather objective manner, not subjective statements or opinions.

I also explained how less armor and proto-conscription enables one to raise troops faster. Imagine if conscription in the US was limited to males with an income of 100.000 dollar a year. Now that would shrink the eligible recruitment pool a lot wouldn't it? If some sort of devastating defeat were to happen one would be hard pressed to find replacements. In much the same manner Ancient Germanic tribes were able to field a larger relative percentage of their men than the Romans. The former told every able bodied man except slaves should fight while the Romans had minimal land or income requirements during much of the republican period.

Anyway, I think I am bored enough with this slowness of the thread.

In summary if I was able to make at least 1 person question the nationalistic/Christian narrative of "they came in numbers we were valorous we fought valiantly they won with trickery but we took back what was ours when the time came" I'm going to consider this thread a success.

Do you believe everything that is unclassified by US government in an era when people hold more power than 16th century? The historical resources should always be examined with skepticism otherwise you'd end up with armies ranging in millions.

Regardless of what I believe in on this matter, there are still things that don't add up. How did they manage to conquer said countries if they lost majority of the battles?

Sorry for replying so late;

I am wel aware how plate armor functions, I have a copy of Claude Blair and Tobias Capwell lying on my table. That said pole weapons such as pollaxes or halberds frequently managed to penetrate armor to a degree necessary to kill someone. A ten pound wooden stake with a sharp steel tip actually has quite a lot of force behind it. We have quite a few descriptions from the Italian wars where French Gendarmes dismounted and fought as pikemen and it's quite clear from those descriptions that pikes could kill a men in armor by themselves. Chevalier Bayard got stabbed by a pike and it went straight through his cuisses. Then there are the armpits which form quite a nice target. At flodden fully armored men-at-arms formed the first rank of pikemen, the left flank drove away the English and an English account names a few knights straight up murdered by pikes. Then the Scots got stuck in a ditch and they were slaughtered by English billmen.

16th century French didn't really raise "French" armies. They relied on cavalry drawn from the Gentry class but most of their foot soldiers were Swiss or German mercenaries or occasionally Gascons. Well okay some infantry was French but when looking at an entire army it's clear French people formed 30-50% of the said army.

>Do you believe everything that is unclassified by US government in an era when people hold more power than 16th century? The historical resources should always be examined with skepticism otherwise you'd end up with armies ranging in millions.

Well read it if you don't believe me and form your own opinion. The numbers he stated are quite reasonable and he suggested that a military operation by European powers should be no more than 30.000 men strong. We actually know from Middle Eastern sources right the way up until present day that Ottomans did indeed ride with shorter stirrups. Extant turkish arrows show wider notches which confirms their bowstrings were thicker than European ones. Something which is entirely logical, I believe many of those compound bows used strings made from animal parts.

Now onto the prize question: Battles don't mean shit (hyperbole).

What did Agincourt achieve for the English? Nothing, they had killed a bunch of people but their gains didn't solidify. Not until the English exploited the man-power weakness next year when they launched a long siege campaign which fought 0 battles but captured all of Northern France.

Sorry I was thinking about spears, pole arms are good.

>spear
>spear
>spear
I don't think you understand this, but a pike has FAR more force behind it than a spear does, especially if either party is charging.

Accounts of men being run through, shield, armor, and all, are as old as rome.

In addition, most people didn't have full armor. Pikes are murderous as fuck.

Slightly longer spears

Got your back senpai

...

Gorgets made from overlapping plates are quite vulnerable too

And one of my favorite anecdotes to top it off

>Once they had to face modern centralized European states they pretty routinely got btfo'd

>what is the holy league battle of preveza
>what is the crusade of varna
>what is the crusade of nicopolis

Close enough? This is the 1550 accounts and not the medieval spy report.

>The former even suggests any European army planning to fight Ottomans could probably ditch some of their armor because it wouldn't be advantageous against the Ottomans.

Why exactly? Wouldn't an armored fighter have an obvious advantage over an unarmored one?

mobility

I believe Ottoman heavy cavalry would wear something along the lines of this, though I am not sure this is all originally ottoman.

The Ottomans figured out field artillery and fire by rank, so I don't think pike and shot would be big problems for them. Fortifications and defense in depth seemed to have been their major hurdle into Central Europe.