What was the style of warfare during the crusades?

Answer 1

the europeans used knights mounted on horseback laden with mail, lances, swords, shields and helmets. this made them the medieval equivalent of a tank. they relied on an organised formation and a charge that would crush enemy formations. the templar knights were the masters of this discipline, whilst many french knights, looking for glory on the battlefield, hot-headedly broke out of lines in a very disorganised manner. European crusader armies would be far more willing to fight in one big battle and crush the opposition with powerful charges. they were slow, but destructive.

the seljuks employed a more loose formation whereby they would use faster, more agile horses ridden by men with considerably less armour than their crusader counterparts. this enabled them to make hit and run attacks, launching arrows from afar and basically harassing them for days and days, hoping that eventually one of their arrows would pierce the crusader armour well enough to kill them. saladin had his horsemen do this for days whilst Richard was marching along the coast. Richard countered this with a solid defensive marching formation. they also liked to poison water supplies, to reduce the numbers of knights through disease, starvation and thirst. their way of fighting was far more guerrilla-like, as is to be expected given that they know the land far better.

Richard's victory at arsuf shows how the two fighting styles clashed. as said before, saladin's troops harassed the crusaders all along the coast between acre and jaffa, undoubtedly picking off some crusaders. however, Richard stayed close to the sea and his supply ships, so he would not be so susceptible to death by lack of water or food as many crusader armies had before him. then when it came to the crunch at arsuf, a main battle, Richard's better experienced kniights won the day. you have to remember that whilst many of saladins men were good archers, they were also farmers, shepherds etc. the European knights, on the other hand, fight for a living back home, so are much better warriors, especially when 1 on 1. they also had better armour, so when it came to these head on clashes, they were a force to be reckoned with.