why didn't armies just equip their soldiers with a bow and arrow and have them run around in squads like modern soldiers do?
Were they too retarded to think of this? Would i have been considered a strategic genius if i was born back in those days?
back in medieval times
it's called horse archer
why wasnt everybody a horse archer then
there is only small region in euro-middle east that has terrain as flat as eurasian steppe terrain
Horses were expensive, like owning a Rolls-Royce today for most countries. Aside from that, a disciplined line infantry with pike could defeat a calvary charge. That leaves horse archers which are effective but require an invention that wasn't around until later (stirrups) and the bows you can use on a horse aren't the strongest and are just not great for sieges and woody terrain. It also takes an insane amount of training to pull off.
There's only a few circumstances where ranged calvary completely dominate. The eastern steppe is one of those places which is why you saw the golden horde in East Europe but not Italy and Spain
Bows required extensive training to be effective as main weapon, and infantry and cavalry back up to not get bulldozed by light cavalry. Their bows were not as strong as you might think. During the crusades, you had knights looking like hedgehogs, and fighting without even getting hurt
Took even longer to train them, and their equipment was more expensive. And then, they were an inconvenience during sieges, you had to feed the rider and horse. But certainly very effective in raids and open field battles, just look at Belisarius campaigns
Were horses really that useless during sieges? Wouldn't they just be repurposed for logistical tasks? The besieging party still needed to supply it's soldiers.
Supply line used wagon and ship both on river and sea retard. Not only an horsey offered way less capacity it also demand a huge amount of drinking water
You had different breeds of horses. Some horses were breed for war others for carrying stuff. Needless to say, war horses were more premium than normal horses. If owning a horse was like owning a car, owning a war horse was like owning a tank.
why isn't every unit in a modern military some form of fighter pilot? why bother putting boots on the ground?
the answer is the same: it's expensive and requires too much training. not to mention only a select few people can actually be pilots.
Communication, sperg.
couldnt they just use doves
No because the hawks would eat them
because if you split up into a hundred different tiny groups the horsemen will just ride you down one at a time
modern soldiers can split up because they can communicate with radio over long distances
ancient soldiers used drums, trumpets, and flags to signal one another and coordinate actions
this means the entire army has to stay relatively close together, splitting your army once meant you would have no idea what was happening to the other half or where they were for days
You could block all arrow fire with shields.
you can block bullets with shields as well however
basically OP, what you are describing is how a company of bandits would operate
cover as much distance and as many different roads as you can, and if one of your parties is captured or killed its not the end of the world because you still have the rest of your company dispersed through the province
that wouldn't work in war, but it's not a bad strategy for independently ripping off merchants and returning with plunder to your stronghold
kind of like how viking raids worked too
Random arrows may cause casualties, but they were rarely decisive except at close distances and in volley fires.
>why didn't armies just equip their soldiers with a bow and arrow and have them run around in squads like modern soldiers do?
Because the striking power of a bow is a hell of a lot less than a rifle.