Carthaginian Army Composition

[Guy_Focks]

Hello,

I've been playing eb for a quite a while now, and I've been left wondering what kind of army composition the Carthaginians historically used and the EB quivalent. I've already played campaigns where I just use heavy cavalry and elites, but now I want to experience a more historic gameplay.

[edit: whoops, typo in the title, could someone change that?]

[Intranetusa]

Hello,

I've been playing eb for a quite a while now, and I've been left wondering what kind of army composition the Carthaginians historically used and the EB quivalent. I've already played campaigns where I just use heavy cavalry and elites, but now I want to experience a more historic gameplay.

[edit: whoops, typo in the title, could someone change that?]

Have you tried the historical battles mod? It has a great collection of different Carthaginian armies. Carthaginian troops were pretty diverse, and varied a lot since they relied heavily on mercenaries and locals. Generally, I see a lot of Libby-Phoencians, Iberians, and Gallic mercenaries in their armies.

[seleucid empire]

i think really early armies had libyans and phoencians as their main troops but that was prob before the eb time frame. during the eb time frame i would use a small core of libyan infantry, 1-2 units of numdian cav. 1-2 units of spanish medium-heavy cav and the rest are iberian scrutari or gallic neitos. oh and dont forget balaric slingers

[Ibn-Khaldun]

When ever I play with the Carthaginians I recruit what ever mercenaries that are available. So, I could end up with armies that have 15 or so different units(liby-phoenicians, balearic slingers, numidians, iberians, greek mercenaries etc). Just be creative.

[Tanit]

The core of a Punic army generally consisted of the Libyan infantry, which eveolved with time. The only time when this wasn't the case is when Carthage was placed in a situation where it had to rely on citizen and Liby-Phoenician troops, in which case they formed the core of the army with the Sacred Band infantry forming the right wing of the Phalanx. But this only occured during the invasions of Africa and the Libyan/Mercenaries revolt.

Cavalry, Carthage always maintained a dominant cavalry force, much larger than their Roman equivalent, this is likely due to influence from Persian military doctrine, which was only emphasized by the battle-winning power of Macedonian cavalry. This cavalry consisted of a core group of citizen and/or Liby-Phoenician cavalry and then various subject and allied cavalry including Numidian, Iberian and later Gallic when they made allies among the Po valley Gauls.

Light Troops, Carthage always had a force of light troops that engaged before their main infantry and then fell back. Most commonly these consisted of Africans, Baleares and Iberians though they could also include Gauls and others.

Allied/mercenary infantry, The belief that Carthage's armies were largely mercenary is, quite frankly, largely overdone. Their armies were largely levies and allies, much like taking 3/4 of the Roman troops out of a Roman army and replacing them with more allies/auxiliaries. It is my belief that this system is more inherited from the Persian way of levying troops than from anyone else. These infantry could be mixed with the typical Libyans, replace them altogether, or fight to the flanks of them. It really depended on the commander and the situation. However, Carthage did use mercenaries, primarily during the first Punic War when their resources were stretched incredibly thin (the last 50 years had seen two major wars against Agathokles and Pyrrhus that had drained their manpower). And mercenaries would be used in much the same way as their more standard levies/allies/conscripts.

The evolution of Libyan infantry, The Libyan infantry were tribesmen from sedentary and semi-sedentary populations living within the Carthaginian sphere of influence. They were organized by, and at some point began being equipped by, the state to fight as the ancient Phoenicians fought at first, in a dense spear formation very similar to the Hoplite phalanx. this later evolved into a formation more akin to the Hellenistic Thureophoroi as a result of different events, but for the same reason. Both the Hellenes and the Carthaginians encountered the Celts about the same time and were introduced to the concept of the tall oval shield that would result in the thureos. Likewise chain mail filtered out of Europe to become a new standard in armour.

The last piece of the evolution of Libyan infantry comes in the form of the African Swordsmen. Many scholars are of the belief that the sword must have been a longstanding weapon or sidearm among the Libyans, or else the transition from spear infantry to sword infantry would have been impossible. However, towards the end of Carthage's existence, more and more Libyan troops began to use swords as their primary weapon which increased their use as assault troops. Some people tie this evolution to encounters with Rome, which may be partly true, but I think it was more encounters with Celts and Iberians that caused this transition, the way it caused it among the Romans. Take the Hastati for example, their name literally implies being armed with a spear, yet by the time of recorded Roman history they are armed with swords. Later the Principes would also adopt the sword, and then the whole Roman legion. I have always viewed this as a gradual evolution brought about by prolongued contact with Celtic and Iberian armies.


What haven't I mentioned so far? Oh yes, elephants and Phalangites. Elephants are a shock weapon, much like chariots, and also expensive and difficult to manage. They were used either as part of the cavalry on the wings, or as a blunt instrument to lead the charge of the army. Either way they are available to any Punic army of this period if you want them. Phalangites, the African Elite Pikemen. The truth is that they were not an elite unit, but rather an experiment. During the existence of Carthage, Rome had yet to demonstrate the flaws in a phalanx that it would later. The African Pikemen are a response to the dominance of Phalangites in the east. Although they are attested in some pottery and possibly on some coins, the main evidence for African Pikemen comes primarily from the battle of Zama. At Zama it was said that a unit of Macedonian Pikemen were part of the army. This is highly unlikely as Phillip had already surrendered to Rome and the whole Second Punic war involved very little direct confrontation between those parties, mostly just Romans supporting the Greek Leagues and Carthaginians supporting Macedon, which, if you think about it, is actually kind of insulting to the Greek world. What is more likely in my opinion is that Macedonian and/or other Hellenic instructors were brought over to train a corps of phalanx soldiers. This was most likely a response to Carthaginian defeats at Roman hands in earlier African engagements and in Spain where their infantry failed to match the Romans. The Macedonians had already proven that under the right leadership they could defeat Celtic forces as well as Greek Hoplites, so why not pit that fighting style againts Rome? Sadly the levied and barely trained soldiers were no match for Scipio's veterans and you know the rest of the story.

[seleucid empire]

i think the african pikemen are depicted inaccurately. i read that they were supposed to be hannibals most reliable troops and that during cannae they did a crucial flanking movement before the cavalry charge. i doubt they could have flanked anything if they were armed in a Macedonian fashion

[Sapper]

A great contribution by Tanit, thanks.

For myself I use the following House Rules when playing Carthage; I treat Libyan and Liby-Phoenicians as levy troops so that they make up the core of my armies, topped up by mercenaries only where necessary. I minimise the use of Poeni/Carthaginian citizens apart for using Poeni Citizen Militia as garrisons, so that I have few Elite African Infantry and Elite African Pikemen. I limit myself to a total of only two Sacred Band Infantry who are either in Carthage with the Suffet or with his protégée's army in the field (the Suffet returns immediately to Carthage on appointment and stays there, his protégée tends to lead the main army). Numidian Archers and Balearic Slingers provide missile support. The cavalry is based around maybe a few Carthaginian Citizen Cavalry but mainly Liby-Phoenician Cavalry with either Numidian Cavalry, or Iberian Light Cavalry if in Spain, as the light cav, plus mercenaries only when necessary. The only Sacred Band Cavalry I have is that you get with your Family Members. I usually have a few mercenaries in all my armies, but they rarely make up more than a third of the total.

I work hard at getting the Carhtaginian reforms as soon as I can, normally sometime before 230BC, as you get important improvements to the basic Libyan and Liby-Phoenicians. At this later stage I also try to give the main armies a unit or two of African Forest Elephants. Perhaps because I play a lot of sarissa phalanx heavy factions, Seleukeia, Ptolomaioi and Makadonia I am not too keen on using the Elite African Pikemen, I want the Carthaginians to be different. But I usually have a few, they are superb in defence of course especially in cities, but can be difficult to operate alongside the other more mobile troops when they are not the core of the army, which they usually are in the armies of the Diadochi.

[Blxz]

i think the african pikemen are depicted inaccurately. i read that they were supposed to be hannibals most reliable troops and that during cannae they did a crucial flanking movement before the cavalry charge. i doubt they could have flanked anything if they were armed in a Macedonian fashion

Are you sure the 'Pikemen' did the flanking? A spearmen unit could do that i guess but pikes are the big long sarissa weapons. I find it odd that a unit of pikemen would flank before cavalry.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

i think the african pikemen are depicted inaccurately. i read that they were supposed to be hannibals most reliable troops and that during cannae they did a crucial flanking movement before the cavalry charge. i doubt they could have flanked anything if they were armed in a Macedonian fashion

Pike phalanxes can flank, provided the phalanx is not already heavily engaged with the enemy, and that the men are well-trained. The formation can wheel easily and quickly if the pikes are in the raised position - and once the unit is facing the right direction, the pikes are lowered and the phalanx advances into contact with the enemy. Wheeling with the pikes lowered, though, would be more difficult, and very slow - but not impossible.

It took me a while to learn this in EB - to come out of phalanx formation (raise the pikes), redeploy the unit to face in a different direction, then go back into phalanx formation.

[Arjos]

Phalangitai were far more offensive than how they are portrayed in the TW's engines, they could sorta charge...
At Cannae, the crescent shape devised by Hannibal also didn't require his veterans to flank, it was the center that fall back, the pikemen (or spearmen it's unclear), only had to turn right or left, just like any phalangitai were used to do in military parades or battle deployments...

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

A great contribution by Tanit, thanks.
I am not too keen on using the Elite African Pikemen, I want the Carthaginians to be different. But I usually have a few, they are superb in defence of course especially in cities, but can be difficult to operate alongside the other more mobile troops when they are not the core of the army, which they usually are in the armies of the Diadochi.

I tend to use them as a defensive reserve, like the Romans use Triarii - or as flank guards on a defensive, immobile flank to keep the enemy busy while I maneuver on the other flank.

[Ca Putt]

you're mixing up terms here, at cannae there probably were no "elite african Pikemen" like those but other veteran African infantry I'm not entirely sure but I would assume that these are best represented with either Libyan (heavy) spearmen or Libo-phonecian (heavy) infantry.

Generally I'D suggest a core of 5-9 factional troops like the aforementioned including elites and / or elephants(1-2) The general 2-5 units of mercs and the rest filled up with Local troops. As a rough guideline I think 10% to 20% cavalry (in numbers) is reasonable and about 20% of the Infantry should be light(in numbers)

[Guy_Focks]

I'd like to thank all of the helpful repliers for their insight, this has really helped form a (somewhat) historically correct army.

[moonburn]

regarding the elite africans they where 2 the pikeman and the infantry so flanking was probably done by the elite african infantry and not pikeman

also the romans view as someone paying fighting man as hiring mercenaries but since we don´t know what kind of alliançes beteween kart hadast and their junior allies where made we can´t be sure that many of those called mercenaries weren´t just levies being rewarded (wich would make the post 1st punic war a kind of civil war by the lybians trying to regain their power if they viewed the punic inability to reward them properly as a sign of wekness)

for a people who are mainly traders paying their levies made sence since the money would return via trade and thus it would be a way for the state to reward the traders (the senators who controlled the trade routes with the semi nomadic lybians)