The hundred years wars have been raging on amidst a warring Europe, England after taking Gascony from France was suffering the side effects of war just like France who borrowed 330 thousand florins from the pope in order to holster their military and has besieged Aiguillion with a force of 20 thousand with modern artillery The English intended to gather an even larger army in 1346 than in 1345, over 20,000 men.[31] This was supposed to gather around Portsmouth in February, but the date was postponed for two months, and then for another month. The Scots, incited by Philip, had been perceived as a threat by the English for some time; two years earlier the Chancellor of England had told Parliament the Scots were "saying quite openly that they will break the truce as soon as our adversary [France] desires and will march into England". Edward exempted the counties north of the River Humber from sending men to join the invasion force, and some limited financial commitments were made to them. It was also feared that with military resources committed to France, the South Coast of England would be exposed to French depredations, as it had been in 1338 and 1339. Extensive measures were taken to guard against this, including placing everyone dwelling within 15 miles (24 kilometres) of the sea under the control of local commanders. Both these measures reduced the force available to Edward, as did a degree of resistance to the new conscription regime. In an attempt to make up the numbers, the previous year's expedient of permitting convicted felons to enrol on the promise of a pardon if they served for the duration of the campaign was repeated, with up to a thousand being recruited. In the event he mustered perhaps half of his hoped-for total by the end of June.
Despite English efforts to conceal their preparations, the French were aware of them. Given the extreme difficulty of disembarking an army other than at a port, the English no longer having access to a port in Flanders, and the existence of friendly ports in Brittany and Gascony, they assumed that Edward would sail for one of the latter; probably Gascony, to relieve Aiguillon. To guard against the possibility of an English landing in northern France, Philip relied on his powerful navy. This consisted of requisitioned merchant ships and hired war galleys. The merchant ships were cogs, with a deep draught and a round hull, propelled by a single large sail set on a mast amidships. They were converted into warships by the addition of wooden "castles" at the bow and stern and the erection of crow's nest fighting platforms at the masthead. At least 78 were taken into royal service and fitted out as warships in Lower Normandy, and more in Picardy and Upper Normandy. Galleys were oar-propelled and highly manoeuvrable, making them effective for raiding and ship-to-ship combat, but relatively expensive. The French had hired a fleet of at least 32 from Genoa, and it was contracted to arrive in Boulogne by 20 May. In the event, by early July it had not got further than the Tagus roadstead, off Portugal. It has been suggested that the extremely slow progress of the Genoese may have been the result of English bribery.
Edward requisitioned the largest fleet assembled by the English to that date, 747 ships. It was scheduled to assemble by 1 March; this was first postponed to 1 May and then 15 May. By English common law, the king was required to compensate the owners of ships impressed into service, but in practice he paid little and late, which caused shipowners to be reluctant to answer summonses to arms. Edward himself arrived at Porchester on 1 June. He had originally planned to land in Brittany, but was frustrated by Northampton's failure to capture a port. He then focused on Gascony, and decided to reinforce Lancaster and confront Duke John of Normandy outside Aiguillon. The fleet took on sufficient supplies for the journey to Bordeaux and sailed from Portsmouth on 28 June. Not all the ships had reached the assembly point and Edward paused off Yarmouth for latecomers to arrive. By the time they had, the wind was foul and the fleet sat off the north east corner of the Isle of Wight for two weeks. This was the normal duration of the whole journey, and ships ran short of food and water. After the debacle of the previous year, Edward decided not to risk disembarking his army with the intention of resupplying and setting off for Bordeaux once more. He was aware that with the French focused on Aiguillon, northern France would be effectively defenceless. So, on 11 July, with the wind still preventing movement down the English Channel, he changed his plans and sailed due south and made landfall at St. Vaast la Hogue, 20 miles (32 km) from Cherbourg, on 12 July. The Genoese galley fleet was still well to the south of the major French port of La Rochelle, on the Bay of Biscay. The French cogs converted to warships or in the process of being converted had not yet assembled.
The English hired a small mercenary company of 120 soldiers tasked with ambushing convoys, patrols, scouting and tracking French soldiers, gathering intel.
Application form
Name: Appearance: (height, weight, hair color, eye color) Equipment: (weapons and armor) Age: Backstory: (1-2 paragraphs) Religion: Personality Ethnicity: Role: (regular soldier, captain of the mercenaries, second in command, third in command, NOTE: regular soldiers can be anything from archers to cavalrymen but they must have a sub role such as hunter, guard scout, quartermaster etc)
Please remove all the parentheses in the application
Rules: only the OP can RP French forces Stick to RL weapons and equipment that were available in Europe at that time No Japanese or Chinese stick with European ethnicities Feel free to create NPCs for the mercenary group tho Feel free to kill off your character and create a new one
Last edited by Marinor on Sun Jul 05, 2020 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.