How could flying soldiers influence medieval battle tactics?

Question

Two medieval armies are fighting one another. Their infantries are approximately equal, and their artillery pieces are well matched. During one battle, they enter what appears to be a stalemate.

Then one side reveals that they have a trick up their sleeve. A wizard, who has been secretly working for their king, uses the one power he has - giving soldiers the ability to fly. He can cast a spell on only one man at one time. Each one can continue flying for about ten minutes, at which point reality wakes up and the soldiers stop acting like birds and start acting like falling bricks. The exceptions are those that land before it's too late.

At the first battle, the other army is so scared that they just turn and flee. But they make up their mind that they will return and fight another day. And so they do.

How can the army with flying soldiers change their battle plans such that they can take full advantage of their new powers?

In the interest of making this less broad than it seems, I'll narrow down the areas I'm looking for:

• Attacking on multiple sides (i.e. the front and back, because the flying soldiers can easily get to the back) or otherwise moving their forces
• Attacking from the air, e.g. actual falling bricks
• Armor and weapons the flying soldiers could use.

And no, the wizard has no other powers. I know, he's a pretty sad wizard. But I want to keep this as simple as possible.

Note that it gets increasingly harder for soldiers to fly when more weight is added on. The soldiers may decide to not wear as much armor as they would otherwise - or at all.

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The top speed of the soldiers is about 20 miles per hour, and their top height is about 100 feet. The wizard can cast the spell about once every minute, so the soldiers are effectively staggered. The armies, though are each about 500 strong. Rather large, compared to the number of soldiers that can fly.

Answer 1

Ok, so, making a couple assumptions here:

Assumption 1. The way the spell magic is invoked requires sentience and free will. So no boulders for example, which by this assumption means that otherwise the wizard would himself have to direct such an attack thus defeating the apparent/best application of such a strategy.

Assumption 2. All else is equal, battle tactics, attack and defense strategies, strength and stamina of the soldier, all are the same/expected as normal, in other words no other magical or metaphysical interventions.

Problems

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Given the above the main problems that I see with this capability are:

1. 100 feet, although perhaps at a high inclination to the archer, is within target range for an expert archer.

2. At 20 mph, while faster than most game animals in areas of natural cover, is less than a flat out run for most game animals and still likely within the range of standard training for an expert archer. So it seems that well trained and committed soldiers who are trained as archers would thus have few issue keeping the heat on these flying attackers.

3. Obviously the restrictions on the wizard's ability to perform the spell and the restrictions on the magic prevent a sweeping advantage, so we have to make due with a trickle of soldiers who can fly, which would seem to require a well formed plan which adapts as the number of flyers increases, or which otherwise makes the best use of only a small number of flyers in an otherwise coordinated strategy. These subtleties make such a strategy difficult to form and be ready apply literally over night as the question suggests.

Suggestions and Responses to Other Answers

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Some of the other answers make good suggestions, but many are also based on assumptions.

1. Fire, for example is suggested by @Muz. A bucket of tar would work, but it would have to be carried on a chain to keep from burning the soldier carrying it. Otherwise lighting any such a projectile in the air would not be practical as I assume that nobody would have a Bic lighter or would want to fumble with flint or hot coals and tinder while being shot at with arrows and rain and wind would render on site ignition impossible.

2. Reconnaissance was suggested by @BowlTurner. That might be a good strategy, but I think it would be better applied at night when flyers could not be seen overhead, but could track the retreating force and come back with details of their camp whence the opposing force could send a covert unit into the night, avoiding lookouts and try to assassinate the leadership of the enemy camp. Otherwise if one of the flying soldiers is in a good position to directly assassinate the opponents command then he perhaps could be sacrificed for that purpose, if that turns out to be the case. This is assuming that victory is more about killing effectively than anything chivalrous.

3. @Will makes a good point about giving the opponents something to fear. Assuming that the first battle was a stalemate and the opponent already knows about the flying warriors, any surprises are basically out. The advantage in that sense is already lost... but if it weren't I would reserve the flying capability for the ground battle. Wait until the troops on both sides move in to clash. Have a number of soldiers who are capable of flying spread out over the entire force and instruct them to embellish their own abilities with the added edge of flight, but not to fly at length.

4. Following from #3 above, @BM asks an important question. How close to the target must the wizard be in order to cast this ability? Assuming the wizard can cast the spell from a distance, have the wizard pick soldiers at random and cast the spell on them. Inform all the troops of what will happen on the battle field and what they are to do ( same as above ) if they are spelled. Rather it would be more stunning and frightening to an opponent if the solders were to shout down their opponents while making great leaps and coming down on the enemy with axes chopping, spears thrusting them into the ground, swords used at the moment the realization sets in that the one attacking just did something supernatural. If a few of the solders at the head of the charge where to leap off of their feet and charge forward in flight, and as opposed to running the last 100 feet, that would be most unexpected and shocking. But more importantly it would not go unnoticed by the entire front line. Meet the opponent with fury, but do not boast with overhead flight, making yourself a target, so to speak. As long as the fear tactics are successful, then when the enemy looks like they don't want to fight, before they run away, proceed to hack as many of them to pieces as you can. The ones that do get away will likely not come back. It might make sense to have the ones who do fly forward at the charge to simply carry shields and knock down as many of the enemy as possible, plow through the enemy line and make holes for others to enter. Then get up and start hacking, hopefully those behind who rush the holes will be there momentarily to help. The ones just behind the enemy line will not expect a single soldier to plow through like that, he can take advantage of that surprise, but if gets swamped he can always leap dozens of feet back to the support of his own troops. Of course the strategy will evolve in the moment and must rely to some degree on the autonomy of the soldiers because it is new and has not been tested nor has anyone been trained to implement it before.

5. Several other answers are generally in agreement about general reconnaissance. @Erik makes a good point about giving the commanding officer the ability to fly so he can have more direct information about the unfolding battle, but he also mentions signalling. In the case of daytime, in-battle flight, for the purpose of signalling, and in combination with @Wingman4l7's calculation of 3.3 miles distance as the implied "safe distance" for the enemy's command, it would be necessary to have a signaling mechanism that would be practical from such a distance - this of course is assuming that there are no spy glasses/binoculars available. I would suggest small pouches of brightly dyed chalk or powder that would disperse in the air and create a large signalling plume so that information could be transmitted on site and the signal could thus serve as a location marker to reduce ambiguity in any relayed descriptions, however the person giving the signal would have to know what he was looking for and what the appropriate signal should be. However, the best application of such a signal would be merely as a decoy, to make the enemy command believe that their position had been compromised. But rather than simply receiving such a signal then pursuing the command as they retreat, it would be more effective to have stealth units flanking the area, positioning them via more cautious flight-based scouting and reporting. Keep in mind that flying high is visible, but low and fast is pretty standard when stealth is required, and 20mp is much faster than walking or running, about equivalent to galloping on horseback, but quieter.

Answer 2

I would guess their best use would be in intelligence gathering. Being able to see where the enemy is keeping all their troops and see the ambushes before it's too late.

As an attack vector they would be asking to be shot. Arrows are good at poking holes in things and archers like to practice on enemy targets. A flight of 100 arrows would be very hard to dodge, and even one arrow would be hard to avoid, since when it is coming at you it is just a brown dot, and it would be against a shifting background.

Answer 3

Three major advantages:

Height

Arrows going downwards are far, far more powerful than arrows going up. It would be incredibly difficult to shoot someone out of the sky if they're high enough yet still easy for the flyer to do serious damage with some loaded darts.

A taller person has much more advantage than someone shorter. They have a little more strength due to gravity. They can knock people down better. They have a better chance to hit the opponent's head and neck. So a flyer could just be levitating a foot high near ground and still get a significant advantage. It's incredibly similar to how cavalry functions.

Tactical Flexibility

This is huge. Imagine an army that doesn't care about mountains or rivers. We take our bridges for granted. Crossing a river is very dangerous and difficult. They can strike anywhere, take many existing forts by surprise, because most utilize nature as hazards.

Walls suddenly become obsolete. Soldiers can fly anywhere into a city and strike its weakest points.

Also flanking. A wall of pikemen may make it difficult for someone to charge past them, but a squadron of flyers armed with lances can strike many polearm formations from behind.

Aerial Bombing

They can light up flammable substances like fat and oil and bombard things. They can drop diseased carcasses.

This isn't limited to combatants - an aerial squad can easily raze or poison a whole city during a siege.

Answer 4

All answers so far treat flying infantry as just another unit. Ho hum. I think a wizard who is a one trick pony but a little wily might leverage this for the shock and awe value: like fighting Aztecs using horses and cannons. Strong weapons to be sure, but an opposing force outnumbering the Spaniards 1000 to 1 could storm and overwhelm them - if they understood what the weapons were, their nonmystical nature and their limitations. The key for this wizard is to leverage his trick to maximally scare the other side and crush their morale.

For one, ideally the wizard does not reveal his trick up front by having some regular dudes fly over in broad daylight, chuck some rocks and fly back. Insufficiently magnificent. The flying guys should wear wings and disguises (djinni!), come at night and pour flaming liquids on the enemy - or something comparably confusing and outré. The enemies should not be allowed to understand what is really going on.

Even if he has given away his trick by sending over the daylight rock chuckers first, he could then mix it up such that it is not clear to the enemy that he really has only 1 trick. Sort of like a play with one actor who wears different costumes and uses different voices. A team of flyers in a dragon costume could fly high above - an omen! A flyer at night could drop something scary into the camp from a great height - where did it come from? Flyers could do weird and unsettling things which would ultimately have more impact than plain attacks. The wizard's own side should not be privy to these doings but should be equally mystified. Finding themselves allied with strong magic will boost their morale just as it crushes that of the enemy. This could be an "Angels of Mons" type thing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons

Answer 5

The Wizard would be better off casting the spell on a man-sized boulder, and then just letting it fall on the other army.

Answer 6

Make the General himself fly. Being able to see what is happening from the skies and giving orders through waving flags would make your own army's recon much better than the enemies, which would probably turn the tide.

If you can only get a handful up in the sky, better make them valuable. The general, who needs as much information as he can to lead effectively, seems like the best choice.

Banner carriers might make for a good second option. The morale effect of seeing your kingdom's banner (preferably at ten times the ordinary size) flying over the battlefield would help a lot.

Answer 7

Cut the head off, and the body falls.

Send a flying attack squadron over the opposing army to assassinate the enemy commanders, who would normally be completely unreachable otherwise, safe behind their array of soldiers.

Ten minutes of flight time at twenty miles an hour means a maximum range of ~3.3 miles. If the enemy generals are not at least this far away removed from the front lines, after having witnessed the wizardry from the previous battle, then they have no one to blame but themselves.

Answer 8

Cast the spell on your best archers, sans armour. Have them attack from the air. Gravity on your side is a huge advantage when taking other archers, you can get really close to infantry for clear shots, and they`re very mobile at 20mph.

They can probably finish the battle by themselves at 10 kills a piece before the spell ends.

Answer 9

How close to the target must the wizard be in order to cast this ability? Who controls the flight: the target or the wizard? Does the flight spell have to be cast on the soldiers? Can it be cast on animals or inanimate objects?

For example, if it can be cast on ballista bolts, they wouldn't be affected by gravity, making the siege weapons considerably more accurate over very long range. It also would make them easier to reload. If he could cast it on the siege engines themselves, moving them quickly or to higher ground would be easier, even if it doesn't completely nullify the weight.

The additional speed of the flyers, coupled with the ability to ignore terrain, would make them excellent for sending messages between battalions, especially as knocking out the messenger would be particularly obvious, nullifying the Two Generals' Problem. This is especially useful if the wizard doesn't need to be anywhere near the soldier in question or even have line of sight on them, allowing the soldier to be regifted with flight after 10 minutes.

Even without sending direct messages, flying semaphore operators could be used to quickly and efficiently manage a large army spread over a battlefield.

Is the carrying capacity of the flyer a set threshold of the combined weight of the flyer + load, a set threshold of the load, or is the load relative to the carrying capacity of the flyer? If the stronger the flyer is, the more they can carry, having your largest soldiers with big hammers lead a flying charge — almost as fast as a mounted charge, but with considerable more manoeuvrability — could be devastating, particularly if followed by a more typical mounted charge.

Answer 10

I would use the flying units as a suicide squad. I would have them carry some sort of flammable liquid and dispense it over enemy troops from above. Even if they are shot down by archers they will fall down and spill this liquid on the field . Now archers from my army can shoot arrows tipped with flame to these areas to spread fire and kill troops.

Answer 11

Use flight for strategic positioning. IE a Thermopylae esque situation. You have 500 soldiers on each side. Each soldier can fly for ten minutes at twenty mph which means they can travel 3.3 miles and arrive fresh at the fight. In an hour he can transport 50 soldiers 3.3 miles around the enemy and arrive unwinded.

Answer 12

The first thing to realise is that the other army is returning to fight. What does this mean? Well, you don't fight if you know that the foe is superior, so first, the opposing army will have thought of something that renders the advantage of attacking from the air nearly useless. Second, the commanding person will have convinced his forces that the ability to fly is evil (for the 'spirit' of the army).

So, taking that into account, how do you beat the opposing army? Take them unprepared, while making them think that they're taking you unprepared

How could this work? One way would be to split your 500 man army into 4 smaller groups. Send a couple of men (archers with bows) into the air towards the army with the appearance of either scouting or for assassination. Give him armour that looks heavy, but it actually relatively light (I'm not concerned with the effectiveness). Once they're spotted, have them flee slightly out of range of the other army, so that they get chased. At a predefined place, split the 2 flyers into 2 separate directions. If the chasing army splits, lead them into separate ambushes (the purpose of slitting the opposing force is to cause a little chaos so that the opposing force no longer acts as a whole, making them easier to beat). The two flyers splitting is actually a signal for 2 of the 4 smaller groups to prepare to attack from the rear while the other 2 groups have set the ambush. If the opposing army doesn't split up at all, lead them back to what appears to be your own army's camp (so that the opposing army thinks your army is vulnerable and attacks, only to find nothing there and be attacked in turn), where another 'scout' is sent up, which is actually a signal for the 4 smaller forces to come together and attack the opposing force from the rear and sides.

There are lots of different variations and ideas similar to this, but the general gist is, as always, to play on expectations and use unexpected tactics, such as using someone going up to/coming down from air as a signal, or making someone appear like they're sending a message somewhere, when it is actually a signal to some other part of the army, or just a distraction. This in then used to to take the enemy, who is unprepared for an attack. As soon as the other army expects you to do something, stop doing it.

Answer 13

Over time, the entire culture would evolve around flyers vs flatlanders - and I imagine defences would evolve as well (think walls covered in pikes). Just as our built environment has been constructed around the average height, weight, vision, reach, etc., you would see aspects of their society evolve in ways we likely cannot predict. I'd say a property like that might even drag them out of the middle ages fast.

But given that it's the middle ages, we might see a general slaughter in an attempt to seize the wizard and torture the secret out of him.

Answer 14

The top height of 100 feet and the slow flying speed makes flying soldiers excellent targets for archers, as others have pointed out.

How can the army with flying soldiers change their battle plans such that they can take full advantage of their new powers?

Easy. You don't use it when they can see it, and you use it for castle sieges or to get a few men, scouts, or assassins behind enemy lines. Given the limitations you have outlined here, on the numbers that can be in the air. The folks on the ground can easily track the ones in the air and be there to meet them when they come down, which will draw forces away from the main event.

I would give your flyers lightweight armored discs to deflect arrows, which would be on their feet.

Whoever your flyers are, they should be elite and able to cause death and destruction even without armor. Flying archers would be wonderful, in a general battle, but they will need to strike quickly and come back behind their own lines, long before it wears off.

Answer 15

To expand on the answer by @BM your flying guys would be better suited to scouting the enemy out and relaying orders to your soldiers quickly and efficiently. The main reason why the flying battle idea wouldn't work would probably be the archers.

If Army B (the army without the Wizard) is willing to come back to fight these flying people, they are probably not insanely superstitious (else they would not have come back willingly). This means they know your guys are vulnerable to arrows, especially if they strip their armor to make flying easier.

I imagine your Army B would simply let loose a few volleys of arrows and problem solved. It takes time for you wizard to make a sizeable number and Army B will not have to face the enemy until the wizard has given the soldiers this ability.

Since it only has ten minutes of effect I doubt 1 wizard could get more than a group of 10 soldiers enchanted before the first few started to lose this ability......meaning that they would have to go and individually attack the enemy.

Answer 16

It would not influence greatly a ranged battle but a siege yes, especially if you keep it secret. You can enter any fortress and open the gates at night.

Otherwise I think it's is useless since there is archers to shoot at your flying men.

Answer 17

Have the flying soldiers harry the enemy from above with their melee weapons while a cavalry attacks simultaneously. It would be difficult for the enemy to defend against a mounted charge while they are also being attacked from above (and potentially all sides) by flying foes. The cavalry would be much more effective against their beleaguered foes.

Answer 18

As was already mentioned I don't see any practical use for a flying troops in the actual combat. BUT. I see many great uses beside combat.

When you have a two armies of equal strength then direct confrontation is something you want to avoid. You want to play smart, get the upper hand and then crush your enemy.

Your flying troop could scout a bit. Flying might also proove useful in difficult terrain which might catch your enemy by surprise as you managed to traverse the dificulties much faster than he exected.

They could also fly into the enemy camp under the cover of the night and set their supplies to fire. Without supplies their army will starve. And starving army might surrender before any actual combat takes place.

Answer 19

Since the soldiers can only fly one every minute and only for a limited time they would have little use as a direct attack.

I would use the ability to gather a flanking force behind enemy lines by sending the soldiers to secretly fly to a designated spot until there was a large number of them gathered, then they could attack the enemy in force.

Answer 20

So what you can do is to teach cavalry how to make "flying jump".

1. Cavalry is not only fast but can't be stopped or crippled by regular cavalry stopping methods (Trou de loup or pikeman)
2. Cavalry can use normal terrain to hide well and literally just jump from behind the hill (mountains that would be considered natural wall would be easily overcome)
3. I would not be considered flying but just jumping so the weight issue would not be taken into consideration. They would just move in straight lines.

Answer 21

The flying could be very useful to an assasin on the battlefield, they could fly up, see where the enemy king of general is, and then use a long distance weapon like a bow or a spear, to eliminate the general. This would de-moralise the enemy side, and could help win the battle.

Once the general was dead, another soldier could be sent up with greek fire, an extremely dangerous incendiary flamethrower-like ancient weapon. After the fear and losses of the other side, they would likely desert or just be wiped out.

Greek Fire

Answer 22

Why even use soldiers? Instead have the mage lift burning pots of oil and precision-strike the center of the enemy formation. This would have a much greater impact than a couple fliers.

Besides that, if you must use humans , you'd want to go after the enemy artillery with your best troops, but this is hard to pull off with just 1 guy every minute (10 guys max). You could have them drop flaming oil canisters while flying (panic the enemy horses!). You could use them as a distraction: dress then up like dragons and draw archer fire while the army advances. Maybe train men to be precise archers while flying so they can snipe the enemy general, but that would take a lifetime of practice. Otherwise, just use them for scouting.

Answer 23

I can see kamikaze attacks could work well for some, or they could just forget arrows and pour boiling oil on the enemy from above - keep a chain of them doing it, and they would do well. It would also be easy to get them at night too - flit down, take out the watchmen from above with silent crossbows and then infiltrate the camp....

Answer 24

To simplify things, I'm going to call the wizard's soldiers Soldiers A, and the other soldiers Soldier B.

The best advice would be to attack on days when the Sun is bright and shines a lot; this way, when Soldiers A attack from the top, the Soldiers B would be blinded by the light from the sun, which would:

• disorientate them,
• make their neck/head ache from looking up a lot
• make them dizzy, and
• disable Soldiers B from targeting Soldiers A using projectiles either because they cannot see Soldiers A or because they are disoriented

Despite all these things and many more happening to the other team, Soldiers A will not have any of these side effects if they are concentrating down. Now for this strategy to be most effective, Soldiers A have to attack using ranged weapons from quite a distance from Soldiers B. This would further ensure that it would be near impossible for Soldiers A to even land a blow on the opposing team.

Answer 25

Either the wizard can levitate himself, or train another wizard to do the spell and levitate this second wizard.

The airborne wizard would fly over to the enemy HQ and levitate their leader.