best troops on right flank

[Oaty]

I'm just wondering why it was a standard for a typical battle to put your best troops against the enemies worst. I know this was'nt standard for every battle but it was typical in quite a few battles from my learnings. My only guess was that neither side wanted to lose there elite and professional soldiers. By doing this they could typically see if the battle was won or not and decide to withdraw/retreat with the loss of only there peasant squabble and very few elite troops lost. This is just my reasoning of why this was done and would much appreciate a good answer from someone who is knowledgable about this

[mercian billman]

Putting your best troops against the enemies worst is done so that they can defeat the enemy flank, then turn in against the enemies best troops.

Once melee is engaged retreating your best troops under the wrong circumstances will cause them to get killed. They gotta turn the flank while you hope your left flank (elite troops were usually on the right) holds long enough against the enemies best.

[Rosacrux]

at least in classical Greek, the positioning of the best troops (and the Generals) on the right flank, had a perfectly practical reasoning: the synaspismos (the shield wall) which was the prime strength of the hoplite phalanx, had a tendency to slip sidewise, because every man was seeking better cover behind the shield of the man in his right. And since the shield was held with the left hand, the right side would remain uncovered, unless there was another guy with a shield next to you. Well, in the last column to the right, there was nobody to cover the men with their shields.

So, the bravest-best-elite units would take the right flank, in order to maximize their survival potential and also stop the phalanx from "sliding" to the right and thus maintain a strong, solid frontline. Since that was also true for the other hoplite phalanxes, usually the "good" troops were pitched against the "average" troops (left flank of the enemy formation).

Sometimes that was not the case: in a battle during the Corinthian war, the Spartans took (presumably) the right flank of the Pelloponesian formation. The Athenians proceeded to take the left flank of the anti-lakedemon alliance formation, since they figured that if the Spartans prevailed, their side was doomed.

Well, they were right: The Spartans exploited a break in the Athenian ranks (when they tried to follow the Thebans who did a little shifting in the other flank of their formation) scattered the Athenians, turned the flank and consequently routed the whole enemy force

[Leodegar]

Quote[/b] (Rosacrux @ April 30 2004,22:57)]at least in classical Greek, the positioning of the best troops (and the Generals) on the right flank, had a perfectly practical reasoning: the synaspismos (the shield wall) which was the prime strength of the hoplite phalanx, had a tendency to slip sidewise, because every man was seeking better cover behind the shield of the man in his right. And since the shield was held with the left hand, the right side would remain uncovered, unless there was another guy with a shield next to you. Well, in the last column to the right, there was nobody to cover the men with their shields.
seems like the greeks needed some left handed men...

[Kaatar]

They also led from the right so they could beat the opponent infront of them and then wrap around the middle or left.

[squippy]

Yes, because of the slipping sidewise phenomenon mentioned above, battle lines had a tendency to rotate counter clockwise, so one might say the "driving right" is an emergent phenomenon of melee combat.

[SwordsMaster]

Hannibla in Cannae had best troops on both flanks... Ask the romans. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Red Peasant]

The left wing was a very bad place to be in Greek hoplite warfare, even for decent troops. A pointed example is the battle of Nemea in 394 BC when a Spartan led force faced off against a coalition of troops including Athenians, Boiotians, Argives, Corinthians and Euboians. The Spartans dictated the place of the battle to negate the allied cavalry advantage and a face-off ensued. The allied command rotated by the day with those holding the command going to the right flank.

When it came to the Boiotians' turn to hold command they decided to attack, leaving the poor Athenians to hold the left wing against the best Spartans. Both formations moved to the right with the Boiotians routing the Spartan left but the Athenians had to move right to avoid opening a gap in the line. They were taken en-flank by the Spartans and butchered, who then took out each allied formation in turn without breaking rank, rolling up the allied army including those who returned victorious from routing the Spartan left. The Spartan allies lost 1,000, the Allies 3,000 but the Spartans claimed to have lost only 8 of their own. These losses were hoplites, therefore heavy casualties. The Allied losses would have been much greater if the Spartans had more cavalry, for the Lakedaimonian hoplites themselves held rank and discipline as was their tradition.

[Impaler]

Well Hannibal had a battle plan in which he needed to place the Romans in a position right in the middle of a circle and cut them down. The Carthaginian infantry was placed on the right and left because they had the discipling to follow the orders necessary for this plan while the Celts and Gauls were ready to charge headlong.
Rosacrux is right for the tactical reasons. The phalanx was always moving to the right. If added the fact that the right place on the formation had a special prestige and honor then we can understand that the best troops were placed in this place.

[meravelha]

Apart from the 'slippage' of the shield-wall already referred to, isn't it the case that you'll usually attack on the right wing because you hold your shield on your left side?

That way your attacks go in 'shield first' as it were.
The alternative is to attack with troops exposing their right sides. One assumes that left flank attacks _can_ be done safely but it would require more maneouvre, more formation handling and so would take longer to contact - and giving more time for the enemy to respond.

[Auxilia]

I read somewhere about the tactics of the Holy Roman Empire armies. It seems that the honoured right-hand position dominated tactics right up until Napoleon came along and upset the apple cart somewhat. It seems that the Holy Roman Emperor's own forces would deploy first, and then the troops of each state present would deploy to the left of them, according to how favoured that state was (so the less liked you were by the Emperor the further to the left your forces would be).

Crazy
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-stunned.gif