Battle of hastings war games

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Turning Point Simulations. Twenty Decisive Battles of the World. War Game - to A. Description The background to Hastings is well known, with an English king Edward the Confessor, who had spent years before his crowning exiled in Normandy and encouraged Norman interests to off-set local rivals dying childless. Both Harald and William gathered forces to press their claims, Harald picking up a disaffected brother of the English king for local support.

The tactics of the battle are well known. Harold tried to surprise William in camp but good recon foiled that plan, so Harold lined his army up on the best ground he could find and dared William to take it from him.

William had many advantages - a far more professionally trained army, a mix of infantry and cavalry, and far more missile weapons at his disposal. He would need all of them, as the mixture of farmers and housecarls managed to create a shield wall that turned back every Norman attack - until the Normans hit on the idea of faking a retreat and encouraging the defenders to break ranks in pursuit.

While William expected the country to yield after the battle, the English persisted longer than is commonly recognized. Though Hastings ended at dark on October 14, it was not until Christmas Day, , that William was crowned king. Just added to your cart. Its boundary, shown in green dots on Figure 1, is implied by absence of Domesday manors, or manors with no meadowland and ploughland.

Figure 1 and Figure 2 show Roman roads in black, known ridgeways and trackways in red or white, and assumed trackways in white dots. These provided the only feasible way for armies to get around, because most of the region was low-lying bog or woodland too dense for carts. There were two possible routes for Harold to get to the battle theatre. There is no wargaming advantage in taking the westerly route, the ridgeway had no settlements for supplies and it would be difficult for carts.

If it was typical of most ancient forest ridgeways, it would have become overgrown when the Romans left because there was no longer a central power to organise infrastructure maintenance. Moreover, the western route provides no opportunity to muster with troops coming from Kent or with huscarls arriving by boat up the Rother.

Wargamers would take the quick and simple easterly route. It does mean crossing the Rother by ferry, but the King could requisition every boat and oarsman in the region to help. A wargamer playing the English would have an obvious starting place: To create a forward operations base close to the Hastings Peninsula, from where they could dispatch scouts, monitor enemy troop movements, create a picture of the enemy strength and position, and devise a plan of siege or attack.

The obvious place for a forward operations base is the last hill on the Rochester road before the Hastings Peninsula. We will refer to it as Great Sanders ridge G. It was good camp terrain: woody, close to running water, big enough for the English army, and protected on two sides. It overlooked all three of the Brede crossing points and the Hastings Ridge along which the Normans would have to march if they wanted to circumvent the Brede.

It seems to be a safe distance from the nearest possible Norman position. But then there is the conceit. When Harold chose the English camp location, he thought the Norman army was weak and footbound.

He had no reason to fear a Norman attack on Great Sanders ridge. It was 5km from safety at the Rother. The Normans had to be least 2km further away because they were south of the Brede. If Harold decided to withdraw, he would have thought there was no way the Normans could catch 2km uphill over 5km on foot.

In reality, they had several thousand experienced knights with trained war horses that could canter to Cripps Corner C before the English could run there, thereby cutting off a retreat and catching the English in the open.

This conceit is not an invention. It is explained in Roman de Rou. We will return to it in the main text. If the wargamers are right, the real battle narrative is as simple as it could possibly be.