proposal/question: romans fighting in roman fashion

[belliger]

hi. i propose something for the experienced modders:
as you know, the roman legionaries fought with the sword in a particular way:
quite loose formation, with each soldier occupying a 3 feet side of the line.
this is quoted both by polybius, vegetius, and indirectly by caesar.
the aim was obvious: use the arm-weapons at best in the thrusting , getting more chances to refill the gaps of the fallen comrades, chance to retreat the first ranks and substitute with new fresh ranks; and last but not least, chance to fill large lines with less men..
how could they deal and manage such action in the melèe, is a mystery for me. but the history is absolut: they did. you can read and see this especially in the Osprey books. see:
Osprey ELite 155- roman battle tactics
Osprey Warrior 071 - roman legionary.
and, moreover, it was effective and worked.

if i use 'loose formation', is not the same. the impact of the enemies makes them loosing (the fight).
could you make a mod that enhances this, a way that, for example, with the loose formation they have same strenght than in tight formation?
thanks

belliger

[Lysimachos]

It's not three feet to the right and three feet to the left but three feet for one man, which is quite loose in comparison to other formations at that time (i.e. phalanx) but not really that loose as in the "loose formation" in rtw. At least i think so.

[Watchman]

Their current in-game formation values give a sideways interval of a meter and depth interval of two. Loose formation is about double that IIRC.

Sounds about historically correct to me...

[belliger]

yes. but what i mean is if this interval that you say is for ALL the infantry formations, or just ofr the romans..

[Watchman]

Classical hoplites have like 0.6m sideways and meter in depth, IIRC most Celtic longsword types had about 1.2 meters to the side and something like 1.6 deep, skirmisher types generally have 1.6m side and 2m depth...

Sheesh, just look it up in the EDU.

[mcantu]

I thought that each Roman soldier occupied a 5 ft square. Is this correct?

[Watchman]

On a summary multiplication exercise, that seems to add up to pretty much the same at least as far as lateral interval goes...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The Roman foot is only around 10 inches, remember, i.e. three Roman feet is about 30 modern inches, or roughly 73cm, vs 36 and 90 respectively.

[General Appo]

A tip Belliger, don´t ever use Osprey books as a source. In fact I´d rather use Wikipedia then Osprey, even if they might have been correct in this instance.

[belliger]

oh.
why shouldn't use osprey?
they seem pretty good and well documented ....
(it is a real question, not polemic note)

[Digby Tatham Warter]

oh.
why shouldn't use osprey?
they seem pretty good and well documented ....
(it is a real question, not polemic note)

Because taken as a whole their not considered to be adequate for the degree of accuracy and detail demanded by the EB's, anyway that's my quess!

[Ludens]

why shouldn't use osprey?
they seem pretty good and well documented ....

They are not exactly bad, but they are limited by their format. Their objective is to paint a complete picture in a relatively short book. The result is there is little space to discuss the uncertainties and contradictions that plague classical military history. I can also imagine that they may not be based on the most up-to-date insights and theories. Popular history regularly lags behind the real thing.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

That's it in a nut shell. Lagging up to 40 years behind in some cases.