And the conscripts were just fodder. They’d be pulled off the farms and forced into ranks and issued a sharp stick. You’d be lucky to get a spear with an actual metal point, because refined metal was scarce and expensive, and nobody expected you to live long enough to be worth investing resources in.
Not quite the case. While your life didn’t mean much, generally speaking, the limitations on military action in the pre-modern period come down to logistics - ie how many troops can be fed in a field army at once.
When there’s a limit to what you can do with numbers, you have to put some effort into quality. So SOME amount of equipment was considered necessary - the idea of the mass peasant levy carrying pitchforks and clubs only really comes into play for the most small-scale of intrafeudal and clan wars and the like, and even then, not always - unmotivated troops are quick to collapse against well-armed enemies. There are incidents of some particularly poorly-thought-out peasant rebellions being eliminated by mounted knights that they outnumber 20-1, or more, simply because, in a pitched battle, equipment and training DOES make a massive difference.
Even the uglier and more primitive forms of pre-modern states would generally see troops sent into battle with, at minimum, a metal-tipped spear and a shield. Even as far back as Ancient Egypt.
And the conscripts were just fodder. They’d be pulled off the farms and forced into ranks and issued a sharp stick. You’d be lucky to get a spear with an actual metal point, because refined metal was scarce and expensive, and nobody expected you to live long enough to be worth investing resources in.
Not quite the case. While your life didn’t mean much, generally speaking, the limitations on military action in the pre-modern period come down to logistics - ie how many troops can be fed in a field army at once.
When there’s a limit to what you can do with numbers, you have to put some effort into quality. So SOME amount of equipment was considered necessary - the idea of the mass peasant levy carrying pitchforks and clubs only really comes into play for the most small-scale of intrafeudal and clan wars and the like, and even then, not always - unmotivated troops are quick to collapse against well-armed enemies. There are incidents of some particularly poorly-thought-out peasant rebellions being eliminated by mounted knights that they outnumber 20-1, or more, simply because, in a pitched battle, equipment and training DOES make a massive difference.
Even the uglier and more primitive forms of pre-modern states would generally see troops sent into battle with, at minimum, a metal-tipped spear and a shield. Even as far back as Ancient Egypt.