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What with not actually knowing anyone who served in the military during a time in history where combat required leather armor / chainmail, swords and horses, archers, etc, what I'm finding my story really lacks is the detail about the daily life of being a soldier (well, an mid-lower officer really) in such a time.

Trying to search online has lead to a decent number of sites about actual combat using these weapons, but even though my MC is a soldier, the main plot of my story doesn't actually involve a large scale war or even a large scale battle, as much as it involves maneuvering around a "headquarters" type area (is headquarters even the right term? It sounds too modern) and making it seem realistic. Even though the majority of the story takes place away from any large group of soldiers, the portions that DO take place at this "headquarters" are vital to the story and quite climactic, and anything that sticks out as too modern, or just plain wrong is just going to ruin the mood and the story.

That being said, does anyone have advice on what site / book / movie / TV show / anything displays a credible setting for soldier life and soldier encampments for a fantasyish/historically low-tech setting?

"Headquarters" refers to a general command post, in ancient (pre-automobile) times it would have refered to the quarters of the commander (sometimes it still does). As an obvious coinage, I don't think that you need to worry about using it in your story any more than any other English word. You might be talking more about a station or post, though.

Your story is outright fantasy, with fairies and stuff, right? You might want to look into Eastern medieval military systems to supplement your research. Of particular note would be feudal Japan, but the vast material wealth of the Chinese also produced some interesting evolutions throughout their history. The concept and often practical use of "magic" is more apparent in Asian military development during the relevant period, which is why I mention it.

But like I said, information about the details of logistics for soldiers in a given milieu come from the general milieu. Regular soldiers often have access to fairly good but not quite top notch goods, particularly in a milieu where the general level of wealth is very low and economics are based on...protection arrangments as much as or more than on currency implements. In that case, entry into the regular military is very competitive or perhaps exclusive, probably a mixture of both. Another way of understanding that is to remember that in many ancient militaries only the officers (nobility) were dedicated military, the mass of troops in wartime were drawn from the servant classes by conscription. An imperial military could be considered as a special case of continuous use of the wartime model but with more economically sustainable means of recruitment and an allowance for advancement from the ranks. Conditions for the rank and file wouldn't be as bad as for those in "mobilized serf" armies, but they still wouldn't approach the conditions for gentry or whatever you call 'em.

A neat book I have about details of ancient warfare is ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE LOGISTICS OF THE MACEDONIAN ARMY by Donald W. Engels.

Non-fiction because it's usually more factual (although often dry as a bone to read), historical fiction because someone else before you has already done that research and has put what they've learned into a published story--an example for you to learn from.

Steven Pressfield:
Gates of Fire
Tides of War

Michael Curtis Ford:
The Ten Thousand
Gods and Legions
The Last King
The Sword of Attila

For Military Fantasy:

John Marco:
Tyrants and Kings (trilogy)

Most battles that involved swords to muskets rarely lasted more than 45 minutes. The battle usually only lasted 15-30 minutes. It wasn't until the modern rifle was invented that soldier could fight for extended periods of time because most of the physical effort was running, and not wearing heavy armors and swinging around weapons. The best trained warriors/soldier could fight longer, but the average soldier usually couldn't. This would be a typical midevil Europe battle, or pre-Sparta/Alexander the Great era combat...

Battles typically invovled cannon fodder, i.e. poorly equiped serfs turned soldiers, trying to force the other army to pull forward their cavarly/reserves. The first group to release their calvary/reserves was the army that got too tired to fight and lost.

There are of course exceptions. The Romans and other very organized and wealthy groups turned every soldier into killing machines. Thus the Romans ruled the world. In the case were you have Roman type battles (or you could argue Spartan-like battles and armies), the winner was usually decided by the best strategist, or by numbers. The ancient battle of Thermopylae is an excellent example of the what a group of expert warriors and a genius tactician can accomplish:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

Close quarters battles are very tiring for anyone. The massive amounts of adrenaline CQB releases will exhaust your stamina in a few minutes whether or not you actually do anything. The only way to avoid this is to be in an entirely different class from your opponents, such that there isn't a realistic possibility of them killing you anyway. Or at least to believe you're in a different class. Which might only get you foolishly dead.

While I'm sure they don't just sit around twiddling their thumbs, I really don't have enough of a grasp on what day to day tasks they would be up to without a big bad enemy on/in their borders to fight.

In my particular case, the military in question is actually planning to assault one of its neighbors, and building a big nasty magical weapon before they make those intents apparent, but this buildup is secret, meaning most of its soldiers, including my MC, are going about the "normal routine" for peacetime until the higher ups tell them otherwise. Which would be ... what? Training?

Spartans were soldier-citizens, and combat was your life. During times of war the citizens (I believe you had to be a soldier to be a citizen, otherwise you were a servant/slave and had little to no rights) became warriors. During times of peace they had a trade (like a smith, or a mason, or a farmer) but maintained a strict training regiemnt. There was of course a standing army.

The standing army, and this was true in most pre-industrial/rennisanse societies, was also the police force. So the standing army would man watch posts, forts, patrol the roads, keep order in the cities/towns, etc.

In the futile era (midevil Europe) the standing army consisted of the officers (nobles, and your noble rank determined your rank in the army) and conscripts, which were essentially a level between serf/servant and nobility. More like a skill work position pulled from people of low birth.

Rome made being a soldier a job. You joined, you trained, you fought, and if you lived, you got to retire with honor a little bit of maney before you joined the workforce. In this case, and if there are Roman historians here you can correct me if I'm wrong, your rank in the military and government determined your social status, not the other way around like fuedal times. Money of course spoke volumes, too.

Then of course there are tribal barbarian like soceities. In this case there would be no real standing army.

Being noble in ancient society didn't involve having what we would consider good manners. In fact, if you look at the way languages more closely related to a feudal society are structured, it becomes apparent that the "good manners" of the nobility consisted of being free to tell everyone else to F___ O__ without fear of repercussion. Gentleman were courteous mainly in the sense that it was pretty damn stupid for peasants to take offense at anything a noble might say. Where the nobility spoke a different language from the peasantry, this resulted in a permament division between polite and vulgar terminology. English bears the marks of such a history.

It's true that a more recent nobility would be less likely to indulge in affectations than the nobility they'd overthrown. But the affectations weren't an essential part of belonging to the nobility, as shown by the fact that the nobles who affected them got overthrown

First off I would suggest reading Caesar's Gallic Wars. This is an online copy, although you might be better off getting a hard copy because there is quite a bit of it and it could get annoying reading it in the format presented. That said, you could possibly find an easier to read online copy.

You might findPolybius worth reading. Starting at 6.19, if you work your way through it you will get a fairly detailed account of the Roman army of the second century BC. He takes you through how soldiers were allocated, how the army was put together, the weapons and armour of the different types of soldier and officer, and has a quite detailed section on camp layout, including measurements, what was inside and how guards were placed and security maintained (I should warn you that this is more of a field camp than a permanent city barracks). He then has a little section on military court and punishments, and on the military awards that could be conferred. This is quite easily read on the Perseus web site because it splits the text into nice, neat sections and there isn't all that much to read. It sounds more detailed than he actually is but even so there is a great amount of information there and he is definitely worth reading.

Lastly, of the ancient authors I would possibly recommend Josephus' Jewish Wars. It has a fair amount of military information in it but also a lot that possibly wouldn't be of interest to you. Mostly, the military side is to do with manoeuvres and operations in the field but there might be some bits that would help you out. I wouldn't say this was something you should definitely read, only if you're interested, and the same applies as to the Gallic Wars with regards format.

Of the fiction writers I would recommend Valerio Massimo Manfredi. He's an Italian historian and archaeologist, and has written several novels based in the ancient world and dealing with the military aspect of it. They have plenty of interesting details here and there.

When Roman soldiers weren't fighting they were building roads. When they weren't building roads they were building aqueducts, and when they weren't building aqueducts they were building monuments, amphitheatres, temples and suchlike. The military not only won Rome's empire but they built most of it too. They were also involved at certain times in Rome's history in firefighting and peacekeeping within the cities they were based in.

This applies to the actual command of unit by its inherent personnel, as well as hierarchy of unit types from the smallest group of soldiers to the largest command.

Now, without a little more research I can't speak to Roman or Greek hierarchies of command, but I thought I'd just share something from current Army doctrines about unit hierarchies...

Some Army units actually have unit breakdowns beyond what I'll show here, and their tables of organization and equipment will vary according to their actual defined mission. This is typical U.S. Army terminology, by the way....

A squad is typically the smallest designated group, under the direction of a Squad Leader - a mid-level non-commissioned officer. (Some squads further break down into teams, etc.)

Four squads make up a platoon, typically under the supervision of a Platoon Sergeant (a more senior NCO) and a Platoon Leader (usually a low-ranking officer like a 2nd Lieutenant).

Four platoons make up a company, under the supervision of a First Sergeant and a Company Commander. The first sergeant is usually a senior NCO, and the Company Commander is a Captain. A company usually employs an Executive Officer as well, someone more senior to the Platoon Leaders, but not a Company Commander. Kind of a second in command.

Typically four companies make up a battalion.

Typically four battalions make up a brigade...

That won't tell you what people did "in garrison" (which is what it's generally called nowadays when you're not fighting somewhere, and which I think would be an acceptable term for your story), but it might give you information about the kinds of things they would _discuss_ in garrison -- in other words, war stories.

One question I have though, is do the numbers given on this site usually refer to actual battle / warfare? Or are they indicative of peacetime operations as well. In other words, in my novel (at the moment anyway) I have someone of general standing in charge of something in the regime of a colonel and a few captains, perhaps 5,000 men total. The idea being that with no large threat around, the men under his control are more fragmented than those numbers would indicate, spread out in the land policing towns and carrying out a large number of small jobs instead a few soldier-intensive jobs.

I suppose the real problem I have, is that only perhaps 5-6 officer level soldiers take any real part in my novel, so I thought it unwise to invent a hundred other characters to fill the void of colonels, lt. colonels, majors, captains, etc if they don't serve any purpose. But at the same time, making it sound like the headquarters run by this general only has a handful of officers smacks of unbelievability. So how do I make the military heirarchy sound realistic without bombarding the reader with a million different officers?

It is important that my MC be of enough importance in the ranks to be easily identified by random soldiers he encounters, yet low enough in rank that he usually only commands a few hundred men. Is this mindset/requirement alone setting myself into an unrealistic story? If there are hundreds of captains in the encampment, I doubt he would stand out, but having only a few captains under a general doesn't make sense either.

Are these phalanxes? Legions? E.g., the word "centurion" is an officer commanding 100 men (a "century"). Are they familiar with naval operations? (A lot of Roman naval battles were really land battles on boats. The Romans were good at fighting on land, and got devastated in pure naval battles. Once they started using grappling hooks to draw enemy boats to them, and then boarding them, they were in a much better position. A Roman soldier might be familiar with naval battles and boats.)

I'm rambling -- a parenthetical that's longer than the rest of the paragraph is a bad sign -- but I hope you see where I'm going with it. I'd read a lot for a while to get a better feel for what the men did in wartime; and that way you'll understand better how your characters should act in garrison.

The hike, both ways, will teach you much about marching. The week's stay will teach you what you can't learn out of a book about living in the dirt like a soldier and why some soldiers discover they are born scroungers.

I have, in fact, been hiking before where you take all the food you eat and all the supplies you'll need on your own back (with some friends) and hike for 2 days or so and then camp for a few days or a week and then hike back, so the experience you're talking about makes perfect sense to me. I guess the thing I'm wondering is, (and of course this partially depends on how I set up my world) if the "guardians" of the land, ie the military/police are travelling along well established roads from point A to point B to go about stopping a revolt, or whatever their business is, would they actually need to carry all their supplies with them? There are towns along the way that could replenish supplies, and my understanding would be, in a technology-hindered world, towns would naturally pop up about a day's walk/march from each other on well established roads.

Armies used to be dreaded like the plague for descending on villages and commandeering food the villagers needed. They didn't have great stores of food. Enough to make it through the winter and here come a hundred hungry men seizing food and leaving the village with maybe not enough to make it through the winter.

That's one reason battle strategies included what season, whether close to the sea for resupply from home or fruitful places, all sort of contingencies were critical to the success of a campaign.

Remember during the Revolutionary War soldiers were quartered in people's homes. It was for access to the food as much as shelter.

What sorts of food could a soldier carry? Hard breads mostly. Dried meat. If lucky a bit of dried fruit. Sharpe put it very succinctly in his rant about the extra mules having to carry enough food for the mules as well as the tents they were supposed to be hauling and how little benefit they actually got for the output in additional food for mules and the muledrivers.

I hold to the caution about drawing too many comparisons between a modern military and an ancient military (even in a fantasy milieu). But there are some fun blogs about everyday life in, say, Afganistan that might serve your purposes admirably. Some are fairly open about living conditions and so forth, others are...more guarded in presenting information that could have tactical value.

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On the plus side, the fashion ninja morale corps has provided us with a tv and a PS2, along with some various PS2 games! The only one I've played so far is Battlefield 2. Hopefully in real life war would be at least a little more organized and I would die less (but that empty helicopter was just screaming for me to jump in and pilot it!).

--Sam Chiu

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While I'm sure they don't just sit around twiddling their thumbs, I really don't have enough of a grasp on what day to day tasks they would be up to without a big bad enemy on/in their borders to fight.

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I think it's pretty much like any job where about 70% of the people do as little as they can get away with without being fired.

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It is important that my MC be of enough importance in the ranks to be easily identified by random soldiers he encounters, yet low enough in rank that he usually only commands a few hundred men. Is this mindset/requirement alone setting myself into an unrealistic story? If there are hundreds of captains in the encampment, I doubt he would stand out, but having only a few captains under a general doesn't make sense either.

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If you're MC isn't one of the people who has a major bearing on the command side of your military organisation then then you can draw a parallel with the Roman army system for what you want from him, and if he is then it could certainly be adapted so I don't see why it can't be possible.

I'll give a quick breakdown of the Roman legion around the time of the late Republic/early Imperial era and then explain where the officers split in. Basically:

One Legion = ten cohorts.

Nine of these cohorts consisted of six centuries, each made up of 80 men, depite its name, thus giving a combined total of 480 men. The first cohort, however, consisted of five double-centuries thus giving it a total number of 800 men.

That's the unit divisions sorted so now to bring in the officers. The legion as a whole was commanded by one man, the consul or pro-consul or somebody else. Beneath him was one tribune who acted as his second in command, and third down the chain was the camp prefect. Then came the general staff of five other tribunes. The only other officers in the legion were all centurions, each one in charge of a century, of which there were 59 on the numbers above. That's quite a few officers. However, they were then ranked. The top ranking centurion in each cohort also had control over the whole cohort too, and since the first cohort was the highest ranking cohort, the centurion who had control over that cohort was basically the highest ranked officer after the command staff and he went by the rank of Primus Pilus. This was a pretty respected position to hold and as a consequence he would very likely have been known to the rest of the troops. Yes, he technically had control over the movements of the whole cohort of 800 men but he was also centurion over just 160 of them and the rest of the men in the cohort also had centurions of their own.

So, after that long winded explanation, yes, there is no reason why your MC can't be known to all the soldiers, be fairly important, but still only command a few hundred men. There's no real reason either why he couldn't be more important to the overall running of the army than a Roman Primus Pilus was either if you want him to be. Of course, this does only really work if you have fairly small armies but if the Romans ever doubled up or more on their legions the officers would still be the same and one Primus Pilus would no doubt have had more authority than the others and if he had served in the army long enough could quite possibly be recognisable to everybody still.

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I guess the thing I'm wondering is, (and of course this partially depends on how I set up my world) if the "guardians" of the land, ie the military/police are travelling along well established roads from point A to point B to go about stopping a revolt, or whatever their business is, would they actually need to carry all their supplies with them? There are towns along the way that could replenish supplies, and my understanding would be, in a technology-hindered world, towns would naturally pop up about a day's walk/march from each other on well established roads.

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Smaller groups of soldiers are no different for towns than any other travelers. Commanders would supply leaders with sufficient trade goods or currency to buy food and lodging for smaller groups, with the exception of small groups connected to larger armies that are on the move.

Logistics becomes a major problem for any group of soldiers that number higher than ten. Large armies on the march generally supplied towns in advance, or warned towns of up coming needs, not always but generally.

Modern and past military almost always want soldiers to carry several days worth of rations in case of long stretches of territory with no support, or if the villages are burned and the fields destroyed in advance of a large army. All of this is in the background of the story -- how big is the general army? How well supplied? Are the soldiers expected to forage? If so, are they to pay for supplies or appropriate them? What level of force is authorized for appropriation? Is the enemy burning villages and fields? Are the civilian cooperative or uncooperative? Do the civilians have a surplus of supplies? In the past every situation has occured, thus what your story needs is what ever situation you feel your characters find themselves in.