Did barbarians fight in tight formations?

[Hurin_Rules]

I was just thinking about some of those total war movies, and how the barbarians fight essentially in shapeless mobs with no real formation. Now, this would be accurate for some barbarians, but would it be accurate for all? I tend not to think so.

I can't imagine that the Visigoths at Adrianople fought as mobs, nor the Celts at Allia. Surely, some of the barbarians would be capable of forming a line or a shield wall and of fighting in formation?

[Leet Eriksson]

definitly the "barbarians" did have some organisation,they also had their own special tactics,i don't think they really fought as mobs..

[Kraxis]

Not all fought as mobs, that is certain.

But I do believe that the Allia force was rather loosely connected, most of them seeking individual honour rather than maintaining a formation. That said it doesn't mean they wouldn't be able to tactically move around the Roman position (as it seems they did).

[biguth dickuth]

i think that their infantry sometimes used wedge formations in order to break through enemy lines. i think they were pretty close to each other, when using this formation, so as to make it work.

[Mithrandir]

Moved to the history experts in the Monastery.

As for the wedge formation, was it really used ?

I cant imagine an army actually formin a wedge http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif

esp since it doesnt seem strong with the first guy getting doubled and the rest flankwed

[spmetla]

Bad Re-enactors (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.cavazzi.com/roman-empire/diverse/pics/corbridge-legionaries/wedge-01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cavazzi.com/roman-empire/diverse/reenactment-corbridge-2002-legionaries.html&h=305&w=500&sz=35&tbnid=5fnwAr0ivasJ:&tbnh=77&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwedge%2Bformation%2Broman%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8)

Supposedly it was used to break well formed enemies. It relied a lot on the soldiers behind interlocking their shields and shoving the guys in front and seeing as man except for the last row has two guys shoving him it'd plow right into the formation and allow the Romans to dominate with their close quarter Gladius, this was most likely really effect against tightly formed macedonian phalanx. I can't find any sources of it's actual use and only know it's theoretical use so correct me if I'm wrong.

[Seven.the.Hun]

with proper leadership and or discipline, anyone that might be called 'barbarian' would be a superb soldier...conquering soldiers have the best moral, and as history goes, were quite adept at killing...

[PSYCHO]

Your quite right in your assumptions Hurin_Rules. The 'barbarians'weren't always the stupid dumbasses running around in huge mobs that some seem to believe.
Many did used complex formation fighting. The Celts in particular used shield walls, phalanxs, testudos, open staggered unit formations, column and line formations, squares and circles.

I think some of the info can be found in THIS (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=19;t=14057) thread

My2bob

[Nowake]

Your whole thread you mean http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Nelson]

IIRC, Caesar said that the Gauls could mass into a formation with their shields above themselves to approach a Roman fort much like a testudo.

The Gauls were also very good at fortifications. They were anything but stupid.

[PSYCHO]

Quote[/b] (Nowake @ Mar. 01 2004,04:06)]Your whole thread you mean http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-smile.gif ..ah...yer...I guess.

[biguth dickuth]

Quote[/b] (Mithrandir @ Feb. 28 2004,12:44)]Moved to the history experts in the Monastery.

As for the wedge formation, was it really used ?

I cant imagine an army actually formin a wedge http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif

esp since it doesnt seem strong with the first guy getting doubled and the rest flankwed

I, unfortunately, can't give you a link about where i read about the celts using infantry wedge formations to break up the enemy, because i simply can't remember where i read it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
I was trying to find it before posting here again, but i couldn't.

However, i remember reading that a wedge wouldn't really have just one man at the front line but just fewer men than in the last line. So the wedge had more a "trapeze" shape, rather than a triangle.
This shape must be historicaly correct because i know that others have used it too (e.g. the byzantines' cataphract cavalry)
Also, it wasn't the whole army that formed a wedge but only a part of it.

Anyway, i cannot assure you that the celts really used the wedge formation and how often they did it, because i cannot find the source of my comment. I suppose then, you shouldn't consider my comment very reliable.
Therefore, if i find something more "cohesive", i will post it here for you

[Rosacrux]

My 2 Eurocents:

One has to bear in mind that the "barbarians" (at least with the Graeco-Roman sense) were usually better fighters individually than their Graeco-Roman counterparts. That would be true with other "barbarians"-civilized people duels as well - think of Arabs vs Byzantium-Persia, Mongols vs China and the Muslim kingdoms of Asia, Turks vs Byzantium, Vikings vs everybody in Europe etc.

Why? Well, everybody can figure out why: the "barbarians" were usually accustomed to a life of fighting, hard survival, tough living conditions, a tribal organization that required a constant exhibition of individual prowess and valour etc. etc.

So, they were "physical" hardened fighters, while their more civilized counterparts had to strive (by training and drilling) to reach an acceptable level. Partly, that is why the "civilized" fighting methods evolved and became quite sophisticated.

In some occasion, when sophisticated fighting techniques and individual prowess combined (like in the cases of the Spartans, the Samurai and other warrior-castes throughout the world) the result was quite impressive.

But those cases were usually a notable exception, not the rule.

Having said that, the "barbarians" would of course fight in some sort of formations, but didn't have to, at least from their own viewpoint. Their fighting pattern resembled their social organization - loose ties between the members of the "army", individual valour above the general good, physical way of fighting etc. etc.

"Barbarians" formed potent armies when led by a truly good general and (most importantly) when they managed to overcome their tribal differences and formed larger bodies. We've seen this in the case of the Mongols - united by force by the strong hand of Chinghiz Khan, they transformed from a couple dozen tribes of stinking (literaly) barbarian nomads to the most formidable army the world had seen in their times. As for generalship - "barbarians" served extensively in Roman, Greek, Byzantine armies, as mercenaries. They performed excellently, fighting in the same formation as their "civilized" counterparts. Hell, even the army that conducted the magnificent double encirclement at Cannae had a host of barbarians in it (Celts, Iberes, Numidian etc.).