New show featuring RTW

[Kraxis]

Indeed him, he sounds like he has a piece of chocolate on his tongue all the time. A sort of lespering. But he was great. He did, though, sacrifice his skirmishers needlessly.

[ghostcamel]

Nobody will remember the skirmishers....

[MacBeth]

Yep - General Sir Peter de la Billiere is the man. From naughty schoolboy thru SAS to command UK forces helping to liberate Kuwait in 1991. He wore original 1942 Eight Army 'desert rat' sholder patches for that one!

[Kraxis]

So I'm the only one that saw it?
It was quite nice as they actually went to both battlesites and went over the battles from good viewpositions. Sir Peter even attempted to charge uphill with a pike at Issus.

[Spuddicus]

The American was likely Chuck Horner, USAF Ret.
He was the air operations commander for Desert Storm.

[Spino]

Recreating Alexander's battle strategy is usually a sound decision, except when you're facing an opponent who also KNOWS everything about Alexander and therefore is expecting that kind of stunt.

Given Alexander's penchance for discovering and exploiting his opponent's weakness I doubt he would have used the exact same tactics he used at Gaugamela against a proven tactician like Hannibal who commanded an army of comparable quality. Alexander would have known Hannibal to be a crafty fellow and anticipated it.

Although I must say the oblique formation Alexander deployed against Darius at Gaugamela would really have thrown a wrench in Hannibal's crescent shaped trap.

[Kraxis]

I believe a more classical approach to the matter would be better. The Romans failed because they bunched up in fighting the individual units. Phalanxes would not bunch up, instead they would make the cresent work against their enemies as they would be defeated in detail. And when the central unit was broken then a really dangerous situation would present itself to Hannibal. Use the cavalry to try and plug the gap, or hope the phalanxes wouldn't advance that fast. In any case Alexander wins out as his infantry is superior and Hannibal can't get the cavalry superiority he needs to.
Of course this would require that either the central phalanx could defeat the central unit quite fast, or that the other phalanxes would halt. I believe that Alexander's troops would be albe to halt and retain their cohesion unlike the later Successors.
And I'm certain the phalanxes could defeat the cresent for a simple reason. The main troops of Hannibal, the african contingents, were not even in the line, and not even poised to recieve the phalanxes.