How effective is loose formation in combat?

[the_handsome_viking]

The question is quite simple, how effective is loose formation in combat?

One would assume, according to various historical texts and a close examination of the weapons of the Ancient Celts that a loose formation fighting style would on the offensive, be highly beneficial to make the best use of their weapons of choice, often longswords.

The question is, is this advantage properly represented in EB??

I recently just played a battle where I set all my swordsmen to loose formation and all out charged the enemy line, what ended up happening was my forces initially overwhelmed the Romans and made several units rout, right off the bat just because of the sheer frightening look of the attack.

That said, I was outnumbered and the two armies facing me had initiated combat with me so I thought "what the heck" and just opted for an all out charge against the Roman lines.

I felt this was a surprisingly historically accuracte battle because despite the Romans initially fleeing the scene, they eventually regrouped and fought in a much more dence formation and eventually beat my army, (I suppose the fact that the other army showed up at this point might have had a hand in the battle) but what seemed to be most interesting was the success loose formation had on my swords units.

So, does loose formation have its advantages outside of making your men harder targets?

And if not would it be possible to edit the mod to allow this to be the case?

[blacksnail]

So, does loose formation have its advantages outside of making your men harder targets?
Its primary intention is to avoid missile fire, to scare enemy armies by appearing to have many more men than you actually have, and in some cases to avoid as much damage from elephants (though the unit will much more likely rout).


And if not would it be possible to edit the mod to allow this to be the case?
No, I believe the loose formation game effects are hardcoded.

[the_handsome_viking]

Its primary intention is to avoid missile fire, to scare enemy armies by appearing to have many more men than you actually have, and in some cases to avoid as much damage from elephants (though the unit will much more likely rout).


No, I believe the loose formation game effects are hardcoded.

Very unfortunate.

[LordCurlyton]

Wouldn't simulating that just mean putting Celtic sword units in a not-as-dense formation as others (which seems to be the case)? As said, the loose in RTW is a missile deterrent only.

[NeoSpartan]

hum..... I will use the loose formation swarming technique with in my Great Gallic Campain with Botoroans, Botroans, and Gaestae (sp on all 3). :book:

I'll report back....

[blank]

From my experience, units in loose formation in melee will get their arse kicked by units in tight formation. Just because with tighter formation you'd have several soldiers fighting one ''loose-formation'' enemy.

[Danest]

Some units are already not quite as closely packed as others. Comparing certain skirmishers on tight formation to certain phalanxes on tight formation is a good way to see the difference. The skirmishers take up much more space even on tight, as they are spread out more. Some celtic units are probably also not as tightly packed on tight formation as the phalanxes would be.

[Pharnakes]

Phalanxes aren't actualy all that tight, not compared to hoplotai or simmilar.

[Danest]

Maybe I meant hoplite. Well, a lot of the greek/successor factions have units that fight in very tight formations compared to certain skirmishers in tight formation.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I found it's good to order units like Galatikoi Kluddolon in loose formation, because they can "infiltrate" the enemy's line easier. Quite senseless when the enemy is in such a dense formation like Hoplitai, of course.

[Bert Preast]

Casse sword-masters default to a loose formation. Odd really, as slingers still take them down like skittles yet when they get into melee it's like watching a lawnmower at work.

[geala]

Try to imagine what would happen if a bunch of sword swinging attackers would meet a relatively dense formation of spearmen or swordmen. They would perhaps outflank the denser troops but in the center every attacker would be confronted with defenders in front of him, at the left and the right, without support from his comrades and without the pressure of a denser formation. That is like suicide. I highly doubt that we have to think of the Celtic or Germanic assaults as wild runs without cohesion, at least after some experience with southern foes. Therefore I would not like loose order for melee infantry.

I use loose order for my skirmishers in front of my phalanxes (I'm obsessively playing Greeks:yes: ). It exposes the attackers to longer missile fire, disturbs their order and spares my better troops a bit (poor akonkistai however...), protects my cavalry and flanks from sudden attacks and so on. Loose order is not only for protection against missiles but also to control the space of the battle field.

[the_handsome_viking]

Try to imagine what would happen if a bunch of sword swinging attackers would meet a relatively dense formation of spearmen or swordmen. They would perhaps outflank the denser troops but in the center every attacker would be confronted with defenders in front of him, at the left and the right, without support from his comrades and without the pressure of a denser formation. That is like suicide. I highly doubt that we have to think of the Celtic or Germanic assaults as wild runs without cohesion, at least after some experience with southern foes. Therefore I would not like loose order for melee infantry.

I use loose order for my skirmishers in front of my phalanxes (I'm obsessively playing Greeks:yes: ). It exposes the attackers to longer missile fire, disturbs their order and spares my better troops a bit (poor akonkistai however...), protects my cavalry and flanks from sudden attacks and so on. Loose order is not only for protection against missiles but also to control the space of the battle field.

The nature of longsword combat pretty much revolves around flexibility, in the case of battle naturally you would want room to swing. I don't think the Celts necissarily just mad rushed everyone, it may have seemed like a mad rush but really, loose formation charges and fighting is quite frankly better for certain weapons, such as long swords, I recall reading about the transition from more tightly packed Germanic formations in classical times to much looser formations in the migraiton period, essentially due to the change in strategy and weaponry.

For example, classic Germanic shield bosses would be curved so that you could naturally punch someone if you needed to and smash their face in, however if you accidently brushed it up against the back of one of your own men, it wouldn't necissarily hurt them, however during the migration period what you saw in Germanic armies more and more was a spiked shield boss, this implies that combat was much more loose and physical, because you really would run the risk of stabbing your own men in the back in a dence formation with these weapons.

It seems very logical that the ancient Celts fought in a similar mannor, especially those wealthy enough to use long swords, I could see spearmen naturally trying to fight in a more tightly packed formation due to the nature of their weapons, but the advantage of a skilled longsword user is that he is quick, flexible, and has a highly verstile weapon that can adapt to many situations.

I don't really need to explain the fact that the Romans adopted an Iberian Celtic short stabbing sword for their tightly packed formations and why it had so much success against the Gauls. In short, if one of the most powerful aspects of Gallic warfare revolved around loose formation, warriors that needed lots of room to swing their deadly longswords, the answer to this was obviously a tight sheild wall with a short stabbing sword so that the loose formation enemy would have to cluster against their enemies shield wall and their longswords would essentially become useless, unless they didn't mind using their own weapons against their own men.

What I'm getting at here is, the Celtic way of warfare wasn't exactly stupid, it makes a lot of sense to use these long bladed weapons in such a fashion, heck, this method of combat didn't really ever fall out of use, however what the Romans did essentially found the loophole in this otherwise highly effective tactic.

I'm not sure if it's just pot luck or game code that allows my loose formation Celtic swordsmen to have so much success against certain foes, but it does seem somewhat more historically accurate that way.

I definitely think that longsword units should have some sort of boost when it comes to loose formation, and some sort of penalty for using dense packed formation, this is especially true when it comes to the Celts.

As for the Germans? from what I've read they were very fond of their dence formations at this time and seem to be represented in EB quite well, that said, I could and probably will for the creation of more unit types for the Sweboz.

[Watchman]

Speaking of the shield bosses, Byzantine military treatises apparently at one time recommended giving the front rank of an infantry formation spiky ones and the men behind them "flat" ones. The idea obviously being that in a close shieldwall push the spiky front ranks would be that much nastier for the enemy, while the rear ranks could still use their shields to physically push their comrades forward (the ancient hoplites apparently used the same approach).

This sort of creative mix-and-match approach seems to have been fairly typical of the lot.