# Militia Training



## Queshire (May 14, 2014)

One scene I have in mind is the main character learn how to fight through local militia training but I'm not confident that I can write a scene without making a butt of myself. In the setting guns exist, but they're rich men's weapons, so the militia wouldn't be trained in them and the militia's training would focus on fighting the monsters of the wilds. I figure they would mostly use pikes or similar weapons. I think if I could just get some dos or do nots as a militia recruit would be enough for me to be able to write the scene.


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## Gurkhal (May 14, 2014)

For one thing I would say that they pobably won't focus much on any individual fighting but rather focus on fighting as a group, due to them using pikes and such.


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## ThinkerX (May 14, 2014)

Assuming competent instructors, the big focus's would be

1) walk in step while holding a long pointy object (spear or pike),

2) basic blocking / stabbing moves with spear or pike,

3) lots of exercises - pushups, running, climbing, that sort of thing, to build up muscle and endurance.  Might eventually include running with a weighted pack.

Initially, to prevent accidental injury, the recruits would most likely be issued staffs rather than spears.  Item 3 would probably come first.  

You say guns are weapons for the rich.  How about bows?  Given sufficient time, the drill instructors might test the recruits and offer the more proficient grounding in basic archery.

Also, what's the time frame here?  Days?  Months?  A successive weekend type deal?


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## wordwalker (May 15, 2014)

Often considered the best manual for fantasy military training: _Sheepfarmer's Daughter_ by Elizabeth Moon (1st Lt., US Marine Corps).


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## Malik (May 15, 2014)

Pushups were instituted to get soldiers out of foxholes and over trenches, and out of the prone firing position into a charge. They have almost zero actual practical value aside from that unless something heavy tips over on you. The Army is finally -- FINALLY -- talking about removing them from the physical fitness test. Marines don't test the push-up at all; they test the pull-up, instead. Which, pound for pound, is just about the best indicator of practical, real-world-usable upper body strength. (I personally think a legless rope climb suffices.) A grown man who can do 15 pull-ups can carry a very large load -- or wear a ****load of armor -- without wrecking his back.

Pressing things over your head is much better at developing functional strength than doing pushups. In my series the knights and soldiers have daily contests to lift heavy things overhead and everyone wagers on the outcomes.

Throwing iron bars for distance strengthens the muscles required for a cutting blow with almost any weapon. Vegetius recommended it in _De Re Militari_ and it was standard training for a thousand years.

Wrestling in any form -- whether they have ritualized flowing forms with lots of bowing and shuffling, or schoolyard-level catch wrestling -- is just about the best possible training you can give a man for hand to hand combat. Because when that pike snaps or he gets knocked over, the dagger or shortsword or axe is coming out and then it's hand-fighting for all the marbles, and that's basically just wrestling with something sharp in one hand. Wrestling also helps determine who has what fighters call "heart"  -- that ability to keep going no matter how overwhelming the circumstances are against you, and to keep getting up and getting back in the fight when you've had your butt kicked. Some people naturally have it; most don't. Heart goes a long way. The sergeants and marshals will note the guys who have heart. They'll become the squad leaders and the ones singled out for special weapons or training or any of that "Chosen One" BS that everyone loves so much. From the advent of organized warfare up until about twenty years ago, military training was brutal, and for good reason. You can learn almost everything you ever need to know about a man by kicking his ass. 

(EDIT: This is why, today, the courses from which we draw our most elite troops -- the Special Ops guys in all their stripes and flavors, whether it's a Special Forces HALO team parachuting into enemy territory from 20,000 feet or a Civil Affairs detachment doing conflict mediation in the conference room of a Sheraton hotel in the Taint of Africa -- concentrate on psychologically wearing recruits down; we want to see if what truly lies at the center of your being is something that we need. Some people crumble when the world ends; others become magnificent.)

If you want your marshals or sergeants to develop -- or test -- recruits' strength, flexibility, balance, and coordination simultaneously, have the recruits hold something heavy over their heads at arms' length, squat ass to grass without lifting their heels, and straighten up again. (Try it. But have a chiropractor on speed dial, first.) Most grown men today can't do it with a broomstick, much less a barbell. My nephew captained a regional Rugby team last year and this was the only strength test the coach asked each prospective player to do. 

Anyway, I hope this helps.


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## CupofJoe (May 15, 2014)

Malik said:


> ... and that's basically just wrestling with something sharp in one hand.


I love that phrase.
At a basic level I would also add that Militia train would probably be getting people to following orders that they don't understand and acting as part of a group. That don't come naturally to most of us especially if we start thinking that it might be painful and or dangerous. 
For me, that was what Drilling was all about. After hours/days/weeks of repetition the actions become muscle memory for the brain, as it were... 
The order is given, you react, just like everyone else does, and then think "Was this a good idea for me?" but by then you are half way there and so is everyone else and no one else has stopped, you don't want to be the first and let you mates down so you carry on...


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## psychotick (May 15, 2014)

Hi,

Don't know how advanced your recruits are, but I'm a firm believer that nothing will teach you better how to use a weapon than actually using it. So my thought is if they'retraining in swords they should be beating the hell out of practice dummies with them. Archers should be spending day and night loosing (?) at targets. Pikemen sticking pikes into targets and so forth.

At the same time they should be learning counters with shield and sword and pike etc, through countering attacks from the other recruits (presumably using practice weapons).

That only leaves you with general fitness and learning formations. Both of these should probably be achieved through endless drilling.

One other thing to remember. Most training will not be designed to create master swordsmen etc. Not on an army base etc. What they want are a lot of soldiers who can do the basics. So the training won't be very advanced. What it will be is thorough. Sure maybe a skilled warrior to could take down two or even three soldiers in a battle through clever technique. But when you can train scores of soldiers in a few weeks, and a master swordsman might take years to train that advantage would be quickly overcome by numbers. Battle is about winning however you can, not style as the movies would have you believe.

Cheers, Greg.


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## WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade (May 15, 2014)

Marching. Thats what they'll be doing. Marching in stupidly heavy packs, twenty-thirty miles a day. For months. The roman legions practiced marching and fitness for three to four months straight. Then they get their weapons. They'll be using double weight weapons and shields (if your men are pikers, then they might not have a shield; they could go Macedonian style with a small shield strapped to the fore arm, with the hand free for the pike.)

For any troop fighting in close order with a pole arm, they'd be practicing moving in it. That is where the skill lies; with spears/pikes, it all boils down to a pushing match, think about a rugby scrum, but with more men, and lots of pointy iron. They cannot charge if they have no order or cohesion, cant do anything. Marching practice gives them men skill, which gives them courage. 

Fitness and cohesion is what the militia would practice. They probably would fight mock battles, with staves or something, just to get them used to it, give them some backbone. 

Anyways, hope this helps and good luck with your writing mate!!!!


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## wordwalker (May 15, 2014)

Queshire said:


> One scene I have in mind is the main character learn how to fight through local militia training but I'm not confident that I can write a scene without making a butt of myself. In the setting guns exist, but they're rich men's weapons, so the militia wouldn't be trained in them and the militia's training would focus on fighting the monsters of the wilds.



Something else we haven't covered: a militia isn't an army.

"Militia" might mean any degree of full-time or part-time soldiering, or just some basics to be less useless if their town is invaded. It depends hugely on how your society looks at this; how much fighting do people do as civilians watching their own homes, or as a local force, or leave to a more organized army? Some militias push their recruits harder than others.

And, you say they mostly fight the monsters of the wilds. If that's something straightforward like an occasional ogre or orc troop rushing out of the woods, they might have the kind of military approach we're familiar with. But if it's closer to dire wolves prowling beyond the farms or such, their training could be as much about tracking and moving in the wilds as fighting. (And what monsters are there affect what weapons they learn. More bows? long spears to hold off big beasts? specialized tactics?) Humans being humans, part of the training will still be preparing for human wars and raids, but how much? And all of this could be part of the story's progression-- you might have a hero who's ready to spit a giant spider if he ever has to, but is shocked when fate forces him to kill a man.


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## Malik (May 15, 2014)

I was actually going to touch on that; the militia not being an army. 

The militia commanders won't be so much training the militia to fight as they'll be assessing what they've got to work with. There will be late nights for the commanders figuring out how best to use whatever skills the militia may or may not have. "Okay, they suck with pikes, we've got maybe a hundred archers out of the entire lot who can hit past twenty yards, but most of these mooks wrestle pretty well. Let's figure out what we can do with that."


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