Friendly Fire, Blue-on-Blue in ancient battles?

Hello,

I think I stumbled over a very interesting topic which could even have implications for EB.

I recently read “Backfire: A History of Friendly Fire from Ancient Warfare to the Present Day” by Geoffrey Regan and learnt very much. Content: In Backfire, military historian Geoffrey Regan asks: how can this happen? How widespread is it? To what extent is it covered up? In this startling and revelatory study covering an impressive sweep of history from the days of Alexander the Great up to the 21st century (including Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, the Gulf War and Afghanistan), Geoffrey Regan describes the incidents in detail and examines the causes behind them. This harrowing and engrossing study examines the truth behind the most tragic examples of military incompetence and sheds explosive new light on a sadly ancient problem.

So far, I assumed the Ancients solved the natural problems of fighting, e.g. in phalanx, but the author tells that blue-on-blue was so widespread that it was generally accepted as inevitable and thus hardly mentioned in any battle description of the ancient historians.

Questions I’d like to discuss:

- Greek hoplite battles were often decided by the depth of ranks because of the pushing power provided. At least I thought so. The author states that being pushed from behind deprives from the opportunity to dodge and strike out thus leading to quick death.
- While the front ranks were fighting the soldiers behind surely threw every kind of missile they could grab. The author claims that this behaviour cost a significant amount of own fighters their lives. Usual and generally accepted.
- The Macedonian phalanx is described almost as a slaughterhouse of its own. The soldiers wielding their pikes in five ranks easily could kill comrades in the rear with their bronze spikes especially when in desperate fighting.
- In general, it is claimed that the greatest enemy of an army in a fight was being packed to close together to wield the weapons.
- Another aspect: uniforms. Simply incredible. There must have been badges, what do you think? In the book the author talks about two famous examples where identification failed. In the Athenian night battle at Syracuse and a battle between Athenians and Thebans where the former surrounded the enemy on both flanks only to start fighting each other when the two wings met in the back of the enemy. This fact would have deprived the generals from many tactical options and could be resolved with common sense, so what’s about any kind of uniform?

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Originally Posted by Immortales

Hello,
[I]
- Greek hoplite battles were often decided by the depth of ranks because of the pushing power provided. At least I thought so. The author states that being pushed from behind deprives from the opportunity to dodge and strike out thus leading to quick death.
- While the front ranks were fighting the soldiers behind surely threw every kind of missile they could grab. The author claims that this behaviour cost a significant amount of own fighters their lives. Usual and generally accepted.
- The Macedonian phalanx is described almost as a slaughterhouse of its own. The soldiers wielding their pikes in five ranks easily could kill comrades in the rear with their bronze spikes especially when in desperate fighting.
- In general, it is claimed that the greatest enemy of an army in a fight was being packed to close together to wield the weapons.
- Another aspect: uniforms. Simply incredible. There must have been badges, what do you think? In the book the author talks about two famous examples where identification failed. In the Athenian night battle at Syracuse and a battle between Athenians and Thebans where the former surrounded the enemy on both flanks only to start fighting each other when the two wings met in the back of the enemy. This fact would have deprived the generals from many tactical options and could be resolved with common sense, so what’s about any kind of uniform?

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My Opinion
1) but the fact, Hoplite vs hoplite battle usually gives up more captives than death, but the death toll often include most prominent citizens and generals, who usually lead from the front as an exemplary manner.
2) Throwing things is the jobs ofakontistai and peltastai kinds, a Hoplitai would have allready burdened with his own large aspis and armour, so it was really hard to bow and took something from the ground to be thrown... but throwing spears, missed javelins and swords in desperation is generally maybe... acceptable... in some sort of condition... put aside the fact that many citizens do have a javelin throwing activities at gymnasium... they won't as bad as riotters throwing rocks...
3) I don't know about that, but i suppose the butt-spike is considerably duller than the front... and they are well drilled enough to respect teir comrades at their backside... well, maybe this was happened among the ranks of Pantodapoi and Deuteroi, but Klerouchoi and Pezhetairoi upwards are significantly well trained and drilled...
4) That's true, read more about The Romaioi vs Hannibaal battle at cannae.
5) Looks like the lack of RTW clone-troopers uniform cause them... really funny...:laugh4:

I too always wondered about uniforms and the like.
Simple enough when dealing with distinct cultures such as Roman legions and Celts or whatever distant culture was being fought. But when mercenaries were brought in th e battle or infighting between the same or similar culture occured how the hell did people know who was who when the battle turned into a moshpit or as the OP mentioned in night battles. I doubt they would have pulled a RTS/RTW game on us and all be wearing blue or red or whichever color they agree on. Also I doubt a badge could be very visible. I've never been in a battle before but it seems to me that if the formations broke and it got to moshpit stage friendly casualties would be very numerous. There had to be a way of getting around this, unless I'm missing something entirely and it was not a problem.

In Hoplite warfare you're so closely packed together, you're enemy is the guy looking at you. And uniformal paintings on shields were probably also to remedy this problem. Like the Spartans having Mora emblems early on. :book:

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Originally Posted by Phalanx300

In Hoplite warfare you're so closely packed together, you're enemy is the guy looking at you. And uniformal paintings on shields were probably also to remedy this problem. Like the Spartans having Mora emblems early on. :book:

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Yes i belive so too, and thats when enters units/regiments/companies caracterization And unit Mystic. Roman legions werent all look alike.They had diferent shields also.
Also for the misticism and inspiration for the soldiers and please dont forget the battle plan. Becouse thats the porpuse of the chain of comand, the battle plan where devised by Generals, comunicated to the lowers ranks, and so on by a proper chain of comand, and realized by the battle groups. If a generals did stop devising plans, and stop giving orders, the entire army will become somehow cripled, sometimes in a fatal manner.
All those things which Romans help to perfect and become truly masters in doing so. If a unit were atacked they will defend herself, but they will not porsue any other action without orders.(some units were ill disciplined, could mess the whole battle) in night battles things get a little tricky, thats why they mainly do it when ambushes and raids, to week enemy numbers, or in assaulting walls.

Its very safe bet to say that the more organized action the less the friendly casualties. if we could check the results.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Immortales

- The Macedonian phalanx is described almost as a slaughterhouse of its own. The soldiers wielding their pikes in five ranks easily could kill comrades in the rear with their bronze spikes especially when in desperate fighting.

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Wow, whoever said that was lame. Have you ever seen the butt-spike of a typical Macedonian sarrisa? It's not supposed for stabbing, rather than a counter-weight (brings the center of mass closer to the human, which in turn results in less effort of keeping it raised) to the length of the pike. Nothing so deadly about a sarrisa butt-spike.

A hoplite's dory buttspike now (the so-called "sauroter" or lizard-killer), that's another story. When the tip of a dory broke, it wasn't uncomon for a hoplite to stab with the butt-spike instead. Helmets with holes matching the width and shape of dory butt-spikes have been found, which basically testifies that.

Maion

Pretty sure pike phalangites used their butt ferrules to finish off wounded enemies underoot the exact same way you know. In fact to my knowledge that of the sarissa was pretty much a direct imitation of the doru's. Anyway, AFAIK the pikemen rarely if ever suffered *serious* injuries from each others' butt-spikes - but IIRC at least one book suggested greaves were pretty much standard issue to limit accidental shin wounds.

It would probably be more effective to curb stomp downed enemies in a macedonian phalanx Gears of War style since it would be a pain to raise your pike to stab down or walk past the enemy and stab back. Not to mention that it would reduce stand off range if the front couple ranks are lifting their pikes to stab enemies in the face.

Done by the rear-rankers who already held their pikes high you know. And stomping on a dude in armour and likely still holding a shield - with sandals - doesn't strike me as terribly likely to be a very good use of your time, especially if you have a leveled sarissa to manage...

These guys weren't those GoW steroid monstars you know.

AFAIK, the only usage of the sarrisa butt-spike was to act as a counter weight and to be planted into the ground. Not to mention raising thw whole pike to kill someone who has fallen would probably be auwfully clumy to do to say the least.

Maion

Those were the main uses of the doru's sauroter too. Besides, if the guys are already holding their pikes upright, do you have any more convenient means of disposing of fallen enemies underfoot to propose ?

No, indeed. But the image of someone stabbing his fallen enemy with a 6m pike just seems a bit weird to me. The dory, after all, is considerably shorter than the pike and easier to rotate and "play" with. I could be very wrong here, anyway. But what I mainly try to say is that the fear of stabbing the guy behind you wouldn't be as great as stated. Especially for pikemen.

Maion

...do I need to repeat that the stabbing of wounded guys underfoot was done by the rear-rankers whose pikes were already pointing to the heavens and hence required no meaningful shifting of position or grip at all...?

1)Indeed perhaps the pushing power created some short of disadvantage for the frontliners who were caught up ,between the enemy shiled wall and his own hoplite comrades ... i suppose those guys up front must have really been hardpressed that way... their own manouveribility drasticaly hintered
however i don't think many things could have been done to avoid the push...the reason being that IF the enemy phalanx decided to push on and you did not... your own frontliners would collapse and get stabed anyway...
2)the phallanx was what??? 16-32 men deep??? that's around 40 meters in depth -MAXIMUM!!! surely any archer/slinger troops in the back could shoot waaaaay longer than that ... so i don't suppose many friendlies died this way...
3)watchman and maion made some useful points abt this hypothesis...
4)the key word here is panick... if hoplites panicked, losing their cohesion AND were also enveloped they would certainly stomp eachother to death...hoplites all around the phallanx pressing towards the center would create overwhelming pressure resulting in asphyxiation , people would be stepped over and so on... that is the most catastrophic worst case scenario however...

I highly doubt an archer could manage to fire his arrow straight into the back of his comrades (Which would be the wrong way to fire one anyways), although a slinger could simply lose his footing, and send a bullet into the skull of some poor phalangite.

AFAIK sling bullets tend to have a relatively level trajectory, and are thus rather ill-suited for any kind of "close fire support"; for that kind of thing archers work better, and dudes with javelins even more. AFAIK it was perfectly normal in late-period Roman warfare at least for the rear-rankers to carry multiple light javelins and make themselves useful by lobbing those into the ranks of the enemy infantry behind the clashing first-rankers - though, usually the enemy was returning the favour...