Sap Points.... I'm just curious, what did they actually do....

[Cute Wolf]

Well, I'm just wonder about the sapping points in the siege battle. While I used them a lot to take down walls in most RTW mod (when artilleries is not available or too exspensive), I just read some civil engineering books, and come into conclusion that sapping walls is not just as easy as create underground tunnels, lit some fire / explosives, and run before the wall collapsed...

In fact, I was impressed that sapping walls, in EB period, is a near suicide works to do... while most stone walls are in good construction, there is a huge risk that the soils beneath the walls is fragile, and can lead to some severe cave in, that will kills the sappers, especially when we consider ancient people usually used uncemented stones mixed with sands for foundation... the risk of crushed by rocks is great, and earthwork of that time culd be brittle in the bottom, and bury the sappers alive...

But when I do the sapping in EB, put aside crews who die because enemy projectiles.... only the last men who was unfortunate enough to get hit by collapsing tunnels will die... and sometimes, they will be revived... and the more silly things is I can made entire tunnels and collapse a wall, just by using 9 men (heavily depleted) unit of sphendenotai....

Just curious, is there someone who knows what exactly the sapping job in EB timeframe do?

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Just a suggestion: You could simulate 'historical sapping losses' by giving yourself a house rule.

Which is: The unit which carries out the sapping, also has to be the first unit that charges into the breach, and the first unit to charge into the town square, fighting any defenders in melee.

Slingers and skirmishers, which are the most common sappers, are pretty useless in melee, and will get themselves slaughtered by the defenders. Thus simulating 'sapping losses'.

[gamegeek2]

In reality, you'd probably have slaves doing it back then.

[Cute Wolf]

In reality, you'd probably have slaves doing it back then.

maybe we should made Apeleutheroi trainable for that very job... sapping walls.... just take the sapping ability from all other units, save the lowest levies such as akontistai, and lugoae.

by the way, did they really just set a fire underground, or set an explosive?

[Ludens]

by the way, did they really just set a fire underground, or set an explosive?

Explosive? Oil and fire, more likely. Anyway, were there many instances of sapping in antiquity? AFAIK the Romans and Hellenes mostly relied on rams and projectile throwers.

[Cute Wolf]

I have read some refrence of sapping works, but only dated in Medieval period... that's why I'm curious if the soldiers of antiquity could do the feat without proper exsplosives.... I can think of the mechanism behind fire burning under the walls, and gas-exspansion that led to tunnel collapsion (and finally wall collapsion)... but who had the good Idea for the first time?

And do the sapping ability are remnants of Vanilla that RTW left, as Ludens allready points out?

[Ludens]

What they would do before the advent of explosives is set fire to the wooden beams, which supported the tunnel and the wall on top of it. When the beams collapsed, the tunnel would cave in and the walls were suddenly standing on this air. I doubt gas explosions were used: they did not have a means to transport gas and mining gas does not accumulate in such shallow tunnels. This is speculation, you understand: I know very little of sapping warfare.

[Cute Wolf]

no, I meant not exsplosive gas-exsplosion, but the burning process itself caused gas exspansion, pernetrate the ground, and causing less cohesion between soil particles (gas absorbtion physics)... of course, this will led the way of tunnel collapsing...

[Conqueror]

The Persian siege of Dura-Europos seems to have involved mines dug underneath the walls, and even an attempted counter-mining operation by the besieged Romans. Granted, that was 3rd century AD so well past the EB timeframe.