phalangitai... too few spears?

[The General]

Then mecanized warfare talks shall be done as you say...

I'm from Finland (-> "Winland"), and so urban warfare wasn't our number one priority (we just have too much forests, swamps and countryside here ).

Modern estimates seem to put Darius's army to 50,000-120,000 at Gaugamela (I'm leaning towards 100,000 because such a big fuss wouldn't probably have been made if the Persian army barely outnumbered Alexander's). The only other battle he was outnumbered was Issus and possibly Hydaspes (iirc!).

And none of this is really relevant; Alexander was famously aggresive in his battles. However, I really don't think that Phalanxes were able to charge, otherwise that would've been mentioned surely somewhere. It might just be, but I can't recall any mention that phalanxes would've charged at the double at their enemies or taken them by surprise, rather they advanced upon them.

It's not just that their had a 6-7 meter long pike, they had five rows of them pointing at the enemy and three to thirteen rows of men behind them. To their sides they would've had their companions as close as possible so as not to present any gaps within the formation. I just don't think it would have been feasible to have several, dozens even units of 256 men running out on the field in good enough synchrony not to disturb the formations, while possibly being peppered by arrows and javelins and certainly while under the watchful eye of their opponent.

If phalanxes were as maneuverable as you think, why is it that their biggest weakness is consired to be the inability to maintain formation on uneven ground and respond to flanking and rear attacks?

Meh, where are the experts of hellenistic warfare when you need them!?

[seienchin]

What? In Gaugamela there was a huge gap between the phalangitai and the hetairoi. But hey think a little bit critical. Off course nobody today knows what really happened at gaugamela.
Anyway lets not forget that the phalangitai were an evolution of the hoplites, who were an aggressive atacking unit, but still pinned the enemy down (Which infantry except skirmishers doesnt?)

[Ludens]

However, that would be a subject for another topic, I'm afraid, we're risking incurring Ludens's wrath if we continue talking about armoured warfare here.

Ludens is far to interested in reading to considering being wrathful.

Yes, we have moved off-topic but unless someone wants to continue about the original question about pike animations, I have no problem with discussing the battlefield role of tanks/phalangites.

[The General]

What? In Gaugamela there was a huge gap between the phalangitai and the hetairoi. But hey think a little bit critical. Off course nobody today knows what really happened at gaugamela.
Anyway lets not forget that the phalangitai were an evolution of the hoplites, who were an aggressive atacking unit, but still pinned the enemy down (Which infantry except skirmishers doesnt?)

Hoplites phalanx was essentially a Greek variation of the familiar shieldwall, as far as I know, and not really comparable to Makedonian phalanxes. Also I don't think hoplites were meant to pin the enemy down but break it. In traditional Greek warfare battles were decided by phalanx formations after the initial skirmish phase was over - both sides engaged, pushed, and the one that broke, lost.

Phalanxes were far too rigid to my understanding to be considered an aggressive attack unit designed to break the enemy upon contact - if it were, why would there have been need for heavy cavalry, "the hammer"? Obviously when dealing with almost identical armies phalanxes could operate without heavy cavalry support (their opponent wouldn't have such either) and things could be decided by what could be called push of pike. However when they encountered opponents such as Romans with notably different tactics and troops the unsupported phalanxes were at trouble.

As a sidenote, I read this again in my search for confirmation for my speculation, it's a quick but interesting read, I find. And seriously, I'm no expert on Hellenic or Hellenistic warfare, I've just read tids and bits here and there, a book every now often, use these forums and played EB.

[tarem]

sure the sarissa phalanx advanced and even charged every now and then, but even at Gaugamella they nearly payed sorely for this. there was (or so it seams) no way to maintain formation by doing so. Pidna is the best example of this. even at Cynoscephalae, in order to keep up the advance one flank had to drop their sarissa making them an easy target for the legions. can this actually be moded, to drop the sarissas altogether if you want to make the phalanx run?

[Karamazovmm]

remember what I described as the meaning of charge in the sentence? it doesn't contemplate the contact, it only contemplates the running, and sincerely a unit that was trained most probably by phillip, that is combat experienced, and most of all fought together for a long time? I can't see that they could really do that, you saw that picture, and you know that alexandros was pretty agressive in his batttles, and let's not forget that pyrros inovated, by interlacing the support into the phalanx.

And yes the phalanx was a evolution of the hoplite concept, and their style of warfare is pretty much what led to this "evolution", they fought in a agressive/defensive manner, their shields would be the integral part of the attack and defense, how?

1- advance as a unit
2 - block the enemy with your shields
3 - attack behind your shields
4 - if it fails, use your shield to push ty enemy to create a gap
5 - if it fails, slash ty enemy
repeat until done

the innovation was that by adding a longer spear you could avoid many of the casualties resulted by the attack of the swords. And tell me what other highly trained and cohesive (as in maintain formation) formation just doesn't perform at peak efficiency in uneven terrain?

Oh antisocialmunky, it was in Lebanon that the israelis noticed that you need an mbt in city combat, the merkava tank was the most successful tank in that war, the need for an mbt is as follows:

1 - give protection to the soldiers in the ground
2 - give close high power support
3 - intimidate

and I can assure you losing only four tanks in the entire war? incredible! since the streets were filled with rpg-7 and sa-7, most of the tanks were repaired and back to duty!

and since the infantry is very mobile, it will kill the enemy in the flanks

ps: I'm currently looking for information on phillips tactics, especially in the third sacred war, since I'm going to make an article about it, if anyone has something I would be indebted and very thankful

[antisocialmunky]

Noone here is claiming that Merkavas aren't great tanks but it still demonstrated their vulnerabilities to mass ATGM attacks when improperly supported.

As to the casualties:
40+ were hit, and 22 received pentrations.
5 tanks recieved catastrophic damage and of those 2 were destroyed by IEDs while the other 3 were repaired.

It still doesn't change the fact that one tank is worth many missiles and that its less than ideal to use them as just SPGs to support infantry.

[Karamazovmm]

Noone here is claiming that Merkavas aren't great tanks but it still demonstrated their vulnerabilities to mass ATGM attacks when improperly supported.

As to the casualties:
40+ were hit, and 22 received pentrations.
5 tanks recieved catastrophic damage and of those 2 were destroyed by IEDs while the other 3 were repaired.

It still doesn't change the fact that one tank is worth many missiles and that its less than ideal to use them as just SPGs to support infantry.

I'm not saying that you forgot about the merkavas, but hey, the decrease in casualties since the first lebanon war when they were deployed, is too great to be forgotten, and let's remember that those mbt were developed to be tank destroyers, but there primary role now is to fight in the cities, and as such they are much more susceptible to missile attack, and yes the IDF is the only army that is in constant atriction that can still say the excuse that the troops were not familiar to the equipment, for god sakes!

and even with all those tanks getting hit, only ten soldiers died.

but let me ask you one thing,

"AFVs are more analoguous to formation fighting heavy infantry that provide anchors in a line and a position for light troops to fall back to. They are powerful force that can engage in slugging matches while they can be taken out by bad terrain and inproper support."

why do you think that the AFV and not the mbt should be considered the heavy infantry? since their armor is just too thin? and yes I know they were variations for the concept of infantry killers... but let's remember that they're primary purpose is to carry the infantry, maybe you're correlating the development of the bradley (which was for the matter crazy) to the role of the panzer I to III in the WW2

[JMRC]

Definitely we moved off-topic. What most are not considering is the MTW2 engine itself. We have implemented the changes there and the AI will do what was programmed to do. Basically:

- when the AI controls the phalanx, it keeps moving towards the enemy and then pushes through their formation until reaching sword length. This happens even if we remove the swords, so we've decided to keep them for the melee. We haven't tested in defensive battles, where they were supposed to hold the line and not move forward.

- when the player controls the phalanx, he can decide to be defensive or offensive:

--- if he uses in defense, the phalanx will hold for a while, but eventually the enemy may slowly walk through the pikes. The casualties will be high, though, so it's safer to envelop with other troops and get them from flanks or rear.

--- if he uses in offensive, the phalanx will have the same behavior as the AI controlled, because the "attack" order is the same. however, the player can be intelligent and do things that the AI can't do like pushing back the enemy formation and then become static. This actively pins down the enemy formation and makes it highly vulnerable to a rear attack, specially if cavalry. Unfortunately, the AI is not smart enough to take advantage of this tactic...


I hope this explains better what can and cannot be done with the MTW2 phalanx. In many ways it's better than the RTW one, but in the AI hands, it has several important flaws. We are always searching for ways to improve it, by using the models' boundingspheres, the unit mass and the animations, but I gave you the current "status report".

[The General]

remember what I described as the meaning of charge in the sentence? it doesn't contemplate the contact, it only contemplates the running, and sincerely a unit that was trained most probably by phillip, that is combat experienced, and most of all fought together for a long time? I can't see that they could really do that, you saw that picture, and you know that alexandros was pretty agressive in his batttles, and let's not forget that pyrros inovated, by interlacing the support into the phalanx.

It seems like we can't agree upon the term "charge". You seem to perceive it as a synonym for "engage" or "close upon enemy". In my opinion charge specifically refers to attacking enemy at a rapid pace, usually to break, penetrate or disturb the enemy formation (like Celts with their famous mass charge).

Like *cough* Wikipedia explains: "A charge is a maneuver in battle in which soldiers advance towards their enemy at their best speed to engage in close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic and decisive moment of most battles in history." Advancing at full speed and maintaining phalanx formation would seem rather hard, even on even ground, as sarissas were rather clumsy, even with training.

And yes the phalanx was a evolution of the hoplite concept, and their style of warfare is pretty much what led to this "evolution", they fought in a agressive/defensive manner, their shields would be the integral part of the attack and defense, how?

1- advance as a unit
2 - block the enemy with your shields
3 - attack behind your shields
4 - if it fails, use your shield to push ty enemy to create a gap
5 - if it fails, slash ty enemy
repeat until done

the innovation was that by adding a longer spear you could avoid many of the casualties resulted by the attack of the swords.

As far as I know, (traditional) hoplite mêlée was not decided by spears but the push factor (which is why Thebans crushed Spartan elite at Leuctra). The longer spears made it possible to field lighter, more mobile and nimbler units of Hoplites. Iphikrates started his reforms in the navy where longer spears were simply advantageous. I don't think swords were much of a factor behind his reforms, however, if you have sources, I'd be more than happy to educate myself.

As far as I know, Philip, inspired by Iphikrates and Epaminondas, reformed his army from an noble cavalry - peasant rabble (skirmishers and other light infantry) force into a force capable of defeating organized opponents in pitched battles. While he retained the noble cavalry element, he employed his infantry with sarissas, spears even longer than what Iphikrates (and his imitators) used to further compensate for his infantry soldiers' poor armament (Makedonian citizens were to a large degree farmers and could not pay for an expensive hoplite outfit; Philip had to pay for their armaments himself) - if his enemies couldn't reach his soldiers with their spears, the lack of (heavy/any) armour didn't matter (... if phalanxes were not flanked/disturbed at which point they'd get into mêlée...).

And tell me what other highly trained and cohesive (as in maintain formation) formation just doesn't perform at peak efficiency in uneven terrain?

There's a difference in my book between not performing at peak efficiency and losing enough cohesion to disturb and break the formation (what happened at Pydna).


Also thanks for JMRC for the update. It's a shame that AI phalanxes will turn from sometime nigh-impregnable formations (EBI) to ones that will break certainly, given some time... From one bad alternative to another (though perhaps not as bad as before).

[Karamazovmm]

Thanks for the up, JMRC, as you can see we're not going off topic, and these are not he droids you're looking for.
And has someone tried to import the code for the phalanx animation from other TW title, like empire? if this works it could help you all with the formation problem (it's just a suggestion I might add, that I'm a terrible modder) And thanks for the up!

This might sound rude, and I'm sure it will be. RUDE!

Now after this, I can say that the why I put the meaning of charge that I utilize was for clarification purposes, because I knew you would say that charge is an attack, well so let's put it a different way, it's rapid deployment. (and not that i give a rats ass to what wiki says).

Done with this, it's impractical with the length of the lances that the hoplitai utilised to be "only" a matter of shield push (as I stated in my previous post) it's more of a matter of dinamics, you can't pierce someone with your lance if your're bashing shields with him.

There's a difference in my book between not performing at peak efficiency and losing enough cohesion to disturb and break the formation (what happened at Pydna).

Well for me the difference is there, but statistically doesn't count in this type of formation, when you loose some of that efficiency you can have a loss of cohesion and therefore you will break formation

And lastly we cannot argue about pydna, yes it was an important battle, but its almost as obscure as was the wars that I'm currently researching, see above post.

Summarizing, discussing ancient warfare is great, just love it (much better than to watch a 12 year old boy eating a pulsating heart that he, with the help of others, cut out of a recently captured prisoner, seriously it's loads of fun compared to this, nevermind the gang rapes, the cutting of limbs, the eating/insertion of potato mashers or IEDs). and not arguing that they were more humane back then. I strayed again, I apologize, but we can't be sure of anything, I'm not history channel to tell what conversation happened before the battle, the morale of the troops, the training or lack of thereof, we can't, and I can assure you mostly of what we know today and consider truth from a battle perspective is something of boderline bogus, not trying to diminish any historians or archaeologists, but we don't have the manual of the drills utilized for most of the units that happen to be in this mod,for the most part we don't and mostly can't trust the ancient historians, because of their exaggerated accounts in many situations, and so a considerable part of the knowledge that we have doesn't conform to be hardcore of a theory, they're suppositions.

ps: when I get home I'll take a look at the sources for this, but most are unpublished studies, I will see if I can get my hands on then for you

[Mindaros]

even at Cynoscephalae, in order to keep up the advance one flank had to drop their sarissa making them an easy target for the legions. can this actually be moded, to drop the sarissas altogether if you want to make the phalanx run?

Are you referring to the translation error by Livy when he misread Polybius who meant that they lowered their pikes?

[antisocialmunky]

I'm not saying that you forgot about the merkavas, but hey, the decrease in casualties since the first lebanon war when they were deployed, is too great to be forgotten, and let's remember that those mbt were developed to be tank destroyers, but there primary role now is to fight in the cities, and as such they are much more susceptible to missile attack, and yes the IDF is the only army that is in constant atriction that can still say the excuse that the troops were not familiar to the equipment, for god sakes!

and even with all those tanks getting hit, only ten soldiers died.

but let me ask you one thing,

"AFVs are more analoguous to formation fighting heavy infantry that provide anchors in a line and a position for light troops to fall back to. They are powerful force that can engage in slugging matches while they can be taken out by bad terrain and inproper support."

why do you think that the AFV and not the mbt should be considered the heavy infantry? since their armor is just too thin? and yes I know they were variations for the concept of infantry killers... but let's remember that they're primary purpose is to carry the infantry, maybe you're correlating the development of the bradley (which was for the matter crazy) to the role of the panzer I to III in the WW2

Yes Merkavas are nice if only to give your side a threat that forces the enemy to respond by focusing the enemy to target it or withdraw if that's what you're getting at. Its worth mentioning that heavy infantry also forced a withdraw of a weaker enemy, a set piece battle which they would win, or some nasty romp through the woods.

As for your other comment...

AFVs are a very broad group of things with various specializations. You have MBTs, troop carriers, recon, tank killers, anti-aircraft etc. I think you thought I was refering to specifically to IFVs.

The reason I refered to all types of AFVs is that they impart a considerable advantage vs infantry at the cost of maneuverability and stealth. So unless something like a Maurader suit shows up, I don't think there's a too much of a need to partition it further just as you can partition line infantry of the past up as much as you want.

To be quite honest the analogy I made begins to break apart when you look at it that closely. Its meant to be very general :-p

I mean where do Helicopters, Cruise Missiles, A-10s, and Air Fuel Bombs fall under?

[tarem]

Are you referring to the translation error by Livy when he misread Polybius who meant that they lowered their pikes?

no not lowered (as in deployed for combat). the text i read said they actually dropped them to the ground and fought with swords instead.

[Karamazovmm]

Air Fuel Bombs fall under

over ty enemy!

and about the afvs, yes I got that wrong, sorry about that!

and yes it's pretty general, your and my assertion about the modernity use of the "phalanx", because in our time we have different vehicles for doing the same job, and each one has its strengths and weaknesses and you have to balance it (captain obvious reporting to bridge!)

nevermind that, the general I'm currently searching for a enciclopedia of battles that I have in pdf at my pc, current status not found and really pissed about it. Probably I can up for you to see, the other texts, well they are going to published by a college of mine, and as such he didn't give me the permission to pass to you, when it's realesed you can go to muse and download it, while you're there go and search battles+ancient+greek, but if you want some of my work (may not be in there database, but worth a try) Resource Wars and its Impacts over Human Rights: Study Case of the Liberia Civil War (1989-2003)

[Mindaros]

no not lowered (as in deployed for combat). the text i read said they actually dropped them to the ground and fought with swords instead.

Yes, but was the text written by Polybius or by Livy?

[tarem]

Yes, but was the text written by Polybius or by Livy?

i've been searching through the bibliography and i'm still not sure. the author uses Badian E. as a refference who in turn mentiones Polybius, but can't tell if it's direct translation or an interpretation from another hystorian

[Subotan]

The solution for having too few sarrisas? Two words.

Dual. Wield.

[Mindaros]

i've been searching through the bibliography and i'm still not sure. the author uses Badian E. as a refference who in turn mentiones Polybius, but can't tell if it's direct translation or an interpretation from another hystorian

The source would be useful to know, since iirc it is in that battle that Livy makes the translation error.

[vartan]

Also thanks for JMRC for the update. It's a shame that AI phalanxes will turn from sometime nigh-impregnable formations (EBI) to ones that will break certainly, given some time... From one bad alternative to another (though perhaps not as bad as before).

Why so eager to have godlike phalanxes? Loosen up...no pun intended

[Ibrahim]

What? In Gaugamela there was a huge gap between the phalangitai and the hetairoi. But hey think a little bit critical. Off course nobody today knows what really happened at gaugamela.
Anyway lets not forget that the phalangitai were an evolution of the hoplites, who were an aggressive atacking unit, but still pinned the enemy down (Which infantry except skirmishers doesnt?)

IIRC, didn't the babylonians record the fact that Darius only quit the battle after the army routed before him?

if that's the case, then we do know what happened. what we need are details.

speaking of loose phalanxes: why not reduce the area of ground a soldier occupies? I know that in Rome total war, you can make soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder. I ought to know-I'm apparently the first person to figure it out.

(yes, I'm Gen.JamesWolfe on TWcenter. and yes, I'm a hardcore SYW unifrom geek, as well as a paleontology student)

[The General]

Why so eager to have godlike phalanxes? Loosen up...no pun intended

What I tried to say that the situation would develop from one bad situation into another, different kind of 'bad' situation. This is why I added the part after the ellipsis, because the first part implied I liked undefeatable phalanxes, which is certainly not true.

[tarem]

The source would be useful to know, since iirc it is in that battle that Livy makes the translation error.

i finally located the source used in the book on the net:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20948552/B...oscephalae-197

and

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy33.html

it seams you were right, it looks like the translation you mentioned