On the checkerboard formation

[pezhetairoi]

How did the Romans actually replace the hastati with the principes? Wouldn't the gaps left between the maniples actually mean the barbarian enemy could just swarm into the gaps and outflank every maniple instantly and hit them from three sides if not all four at once, if the principes were not immediately behind the hastati? Did the hastati open up into a full line to fight before closing up into a block to withdraw through the gaps in the principes' line? And that raises the question of their vulnerability when opening and closing. Any input? It's a question that has been plaguing me to no end.

[TWFanatic]

Good question. Very good question. Unfortunately I don't know the answer, so I'll have to wait with you.

[Spoofa]

I think they've talked about this before, they dont know exactly how it worked.

[Sand]

Im not an expert by any means but I understand that the reason enemies did not flood through gaps between the maniples was because of the style of warfare the Romans encountered and practised.

Fighting in armour, carrying a shield and weapons was extremely tiring physically and draining emotionally - It must have taken hours to butcher the Romans at Cannae after they devolved into a mob. It was also quite a challenge to persuade citizen levies [Roman troops in the early Republic were farmers, not professional soldiers though obviously experience came with time] to risk charge into a mass of enemy, and vice versa.

Because of the above combat was not a single charge and melee, but an extended bout of skirmishing [hence all the missile weapons carried by Roman, Carthaginian and barbarian troops], rallying by the officers to charge, a short bout of melee, and then parting to rest whilst rallying for the next charge. Victory came when one side or the other was exhausted or disheartened and turned to flee. Then the mass of casualties would occur.

The army that could feed in rested men, with aggressive leadership tended to carry the day. The Roman system allowed them to pull back the first line and advance the second in good order and Roman commanders practically by default were extremely aggressive. The Roman system seems odd but it was suited to the type of warfare the Romans encountered - skirmishing/short spells of melee where morale and stamina were decisive factors. At least, thats my understanding of it.

[The Internet]

With the enemy they faced (barbarians mainly) they faced an enemy that charged in groups (tribal groups mainly) so the Romans never had to deal with their entire front line being over-run. To deal with these tribal groups they had their own "groups" to combat them (their groups obviously being the maniples of hastati and principes) and then they added their own twist on it by giving the army a system where they were able to rotate and refresh the front ranks to keep the frontline fresh, unlike the barbarians who got tired out and over-powered.


Thats my take on their military layout anyway, it can never really be confirmed or denied unfortunately.

[KuKulzA]

fortunately in my Aedui campaign i have some veteran gaesatae, botroas, gaeroas in an army so I usually just... charge...
shock and awe tactics... an army of naked ferocious barbarians chargin down on you Camillian farmers...

but rambling aside I think Sand is right. Also, the Greeks and Phoenicians tended to fight in conventional field combat with front ranks advancing, etc. so the Romans being able to rotate fresh men would allow them to constantly pit fresh troops against gradually tiring hoplite-types

[Comemnus]

Sand is mostly correct. This is why centurions were so important because they were the ones that led the assaults, they were the ones who worked their men's courage up to actually fight, they were also the ones to have th highest mortality rate in the entire legion for just these reasons. Much of a n ancient battle was the two sides facing at each other and trying to work up the courage to come to grips.

also you have to realize that if the Roman's enemies moved into the gap between he maniples they would be flaked too wouldn't they , then it would be just like a zipper... a zipper of doom.

[micasa]

I don't know anything about the real Roman world but in the EB Roman world I've noticed a couple of things:

Using the checkerboard formation:

I put the Hastati in front with a row of Heavy Hellenic Skirmishers behind with their skirmish ability deactivated. When the enemy charges the Hastati toss their pila, then as the enemy closes with the Hastati the Skirmishers toss their javelins. From what I've seen you're correct. The enemy formations tend to wrap around my Hastati formations but that allows the Skirmishers to keep tossing javelins at their now exposed flanks and rears. Lots of casualties. Also, the Hastati bear the initial brunt of the enemy charge. If the enemy squads have not yet fled by this stage then a swift charge by the third line, my Principes, usually deals the death blow. Any attempt to flank me brings my fourth line into play, the Triarii. Sometimes I let the enemy's flanking troops actually charge my units from the flank before I charge them in turn with my Triarii, depending on the morale of my troops being charged.

This sum of tactics has worked well for me against the Arverni and Aedui.

The Maniple system:

I'm using this to fight the Hellenic tribes. A solid line of Hastati set to Gaurd Mode. It means they hold formation and don't tire as the enemy units charge into them and hack away at them. Casualties are also limited to a large extent. I also line up Hellenic Heavy Skirmishers in the second row to toss their javelins at the enemy. But, with a solid line of Hastati in front, once the enemy closes with my front line, you have to manually tell each Skirmisher unit to toss their javelins at the now closed enemy ranks. I hold that formation for quite some time (the Hellenes tend to be hardier following the initial charge than the Celtic units) until they're tired, very tired or exhausted and usually by then my Skirmishers are out of javelins. At this stage I divide my Principes line in half and send each one around the flanks, move my Triarii forward to fill any gaps made by fleeing Hastati and, when my Principes are in position, charge my Skirmishers straight forward through the Hastati lines for melee combat. Then the Principes close in around the sides. Even Thorakitai generally crumble at this point and try to flee. The bonus with this tactic is that, with generally few cavalry in my Roman formations when fighting Hellenic units, I've almost surrounded the enemy army. As they flee the casualties mount rapidly.

Both of these strategies rely on the enemy attacking me.

When I attack I divide my army into three Cohorts (for lack of a better word and it sounds cool):
In the centre I keep my Hastati backed by Skirmishers. Usually 5 to 6 squads of Hastati with an equal number of Skirmishers. Hastati are set to Guard Mode.

On my left flank, in box formation i.e., formation 3 (two Principes in front with two behind) four Principe squads separate from behind my Hastati and Skirmishers once I have approached the enemy formation. I halt the Hastati and Skirmishers and move the Principes around the left. (The enemy usually places its cavalry on my left flank and the Principes have a bonus fighting cavalry an I also want to keep my strongest units for the right flank). They move beyond the line of Hastati and Skirmishers to flank the enemy line and stop only when they draw parallel with the forward enemy line. Likewise, my box formation Triarii move around the right flank. If the enemy hasn't yet turned to meet my flanking Cohorts then I select my Hastati and double-click a spot somewhere behind the enemy formation. My Hastati are in Guard Mode so they run forward until they bump into the nearest enemy squad, halt, form up and only the front row of each Hastati squad hacks away at the enemy. All I'm trying to do with the Hastati at this stage is tie the enemy units down and stop them from turning to attack my flanks.

If the enemy line has turned to meet my flanking units then I take the Hastati off Guard Mode and charge them into the now flanked enemy units. Usually the enemy doesn't turn though.

With the Hastati engaged I charge my Skirmishers forward until they are directly behind the Hastati and order them to throw their javelins at the strongest of the enemy units. Then I take the firts two Principe squads and charge them into the flanks. Same with the Triarii. I now have four units in reserve, two on each flank, and when my Skirmishers run out of javelins I charge them into the fray with the Hastati. If the enemy formation is still fighting at this stage I charge the two remaining Principes and Triarii squads into the fight and remove the roginal two from each Cohort to give them a breather.

I ensure at all times, when attacking or defending, that my squads are Fresh before they charge. No matter how far I've had to march and how much time it took, possibly leaving very little time for the actual battle, I always ensure that my troops are well rested before the charge. Even if I run out of time before the battle concludes I know that my units are probably not going to rout and therefore be cut down in large numbers as they flee. Sustaining heavy casualties while trying to prosecute a war far from home is the death knell of any campaign and will set you back multiple seasons and even years as you try to rebuild your army. But that's a strategic map issue...

[pezhetairoi]

Interesting, that. The insecurities I perceived in the checkerboard formation and the limited frontage of the system meant that I never actually used it. I created 4-unit divisions instead, cohorts of a sort, with 3 up and 1 back as reserve or to shore up a line if attrition was getting the better of it. Gladly to say at least, I never have problems replenishing my troops even when far away, because I have a constant stream of reinforcements going up :D Just a year or two back I was in the Polybian era, with 3 fullstack legions up north deep inside Sweboz territory annihilating them. Every turn or so the army would face one or more Sweboz fullstacks, but at least 2 of the 3 would be attacking at any one time on the front line. Any legion losing more than 20% is withdrawn one turn's travel back, and given the attention of the reinforcement vexillariums that follow each army, whose numbers vary every now and then, so I never lost momentum, I'm proud to say.

That's ended now, though. Marian reforms have happened, now I can retrain almost anywhere! Ironically the only time my campaign was put completely on hold was when I had to convert my Polybian legions to Marian. XD Big mistake though, because they took advantage of it and churned out another 3 fullstacks. Darn.

But back to the checkerboard topic. I'm starting to see the benefits of it now, I don't think I gave the piecemeal thing enough credit. I suppose you're right, the checkerboard system -does- work, assuming the first rank of the principes are right flush with the last rank of the hastati.

But now, one more question: How do the triarii come up? And if the hastati retreat past the principes to rest, wouldn't that mean they would have to withdraw completely off the main line of resistance? That would mean the flankers of the principe maniples would no longer have a threat of being outflanked themselves, and in fact, they could even lap around to the -rear- of the maniples, since the back door is now opened. Unless, of course, the triarii somehow came up. Did they pass -through- the hastati maniples? Or did they do some elegant sidestep so they were directly behind the principes, and time it just right so they sidestepped back into place where the hastati would have been, closing the backdoors in the principe line?

If the latter, it does seem an awful lot of synchronisation for the chaos, noise, confusion and complete exhaustion of the ancient battlefield, and hence to me doesn't seem very plausible, especially for what is essentially a citizen army that does not train all year round.

In fact, another question: Did Roman citizens get any compulsory training periods on the Campus Martis every year or something, to refresh or educate them in the tactics of the triplex acies? Or were they trained on the job, only when they were called up for campaign, before they set off?

[Maeran]

As I understand it, most of the training was done by more experienced soldiers on the march.

Personally, I chop and change tactics depending on what I expect the enemy to do.

If I'm up against a barbarian army that I expect to do an all out charge, I form a solid line of Hastati with Principes behind in something resembling the checkerboard of the quincunx formation (the Triarii ar behind that but only get used if the enemy throw their general into the fray). If the Hastati and cavalry cannot get the barbarian hordes running for the hills, or it looks like the Hastati will fail anywhere, I order my Principe's to attack, and withdraw my Hastati after the Principes are engaged. This isn't historical, but it's the closest I can get I think, since the game engine doesn't do the long series of charges and rallies that really happened.

With the dumb, dumb Hellenic factions, I can be certain that my skirmishers, or just the stupid AI will split the phalanx line up, so I use a more textbook version of the formation as mentioned earlier.

[Sand]

Regarding compulsory training, I dont believe so. Most Roman campaigns opened with a series of military disasters in which their levies were shown up for what they were - amateurs. Most training seems to have occured in service, on the campaign and the better Roman generals tended to delay active combat in favour of extended training, like Scipio who spent a year in Sicily training for the invasion of Africa. By the end of the 2nd Punic War many Roman soldiers had been in service for well over a decade [ The poor survivors from Cannae served until the end of the war, and some even longer] and their legions were at least a match for any proffessional hellenistic force. This doesnt appear to have been maintained during peacetime and the insecurity that military blunders caused appears to have contributed to the final decision to crush Carthage.

That said, they supplied their own gear so they would have some basic familiarity with it.

As to the triarrii, I understand that they would act as a rallying point for troops from the first line to fall back behind and rest, while the second line engaged the enemy. How the first line came through the triarii without chaos, not sure - probably there was a simple rule like "Always move through the gap to your left". Its also possible that when out of contact with the enemy that they just streamed through the ranks.

The Romans had a relatively large number of leaders attached to each unit [Apparently related to a good healthy republican distrust of concentrating power in one man - the rotation of command between three pairs of Tribunes seems weird, but it appears to have worked for them] right down to two centurions for each maniple so long as the maneuveres were relatively simple Im fairly sure it could have been pulled off given the strict discipline that was instilled.

As to who would cover the gaps for the second line - Id assume the velites would do so or the triarrii would move up. But either way, by Roman reasoning, at this point either the second line is busy slaughtering an exhausted and shaken enemy [so they wont be in any shape to exploit gaps], or the Legion is in serious trouble anyway.

[geala]

Indeed nobody knows for sure how they did it, and here I have read some very good ideas.

My imagination is that the hastati and principes were in a relatively loose order, with a space for a soldier of about 1,80 m. The two centuries of the maniple advance one behind the other, so they can manoeuver easily and avoid hindrances (unlike a phalanx). The centuries of the principes were normally behind the gaps between the hastati maniples, if not exceptionally (like at Zama) they were behind the hastati.

Before the attack and after the velites returned the rear hastati century can turn and march in the gap, if a closed front line is desired. In one of the pauses of the fight they can turn and march behind to allow the principes to come to the front. Or, perhaps the safer version, the soldiers can shorten the distance between each other (from 1,80 to 0,90 m), with one side as the base, which will create century wide gaps in the front. Instead of turns and backmarching (difficult) only sidesteps were necessary. To have different spaces for the soldiers for different situations was also a method for the Greek phalanges.

Another possibility is that the centuries were beneath each other from the beginning and the legio fights with gaps in the front line. I don't have such a good feeling with this, but I know that some excellent scholars prefer this version.

I don't believe that the individual rows were changing during the fight (like in "Rome", part one) or the first rows were attacking repeatedly. To move like this in the thick of fray would have been very dangerous for the order and prone to disaster.

[Cash Staks]

How did the Romans actually replace the hastati with the principes? Wouldn't the gaps left between the maniples actually mean the barbarian enemy could just swarm into the gaps and outflank every maniple instantly and hit them from three sides if not all four at once, if the principes were not immediately behind the hastati? Did the hastati open up into a full line to fight before closing up into a block to withdraw through the gaps in the principes' line? And that raises the question of their vulnerability when opening and closing. Any input? It's a question that has been plaguing me to no end.

I've read a few books about how the Roman army would fight in battle and the latest one that I would reccomend is Greece and Rome at War by Peter Connely. It gives details about fighting styles from ancient Greece to Imperial Rome.

In any case, this authors believes that the army would draw up at battle in the checkerboard formation. When going to engage, the Hastati would close up, essentially that back half of each "square" would march left and then forward, thus presenting a solid line. Retreat was the opposite.

Now you pose the problem that retreating in the midst of battle would leave the Hastati open to all kinds of flanking and essentially create enormous holes in the formation. It seems that some historians believe battles were not a constant clashing of sword and shield, since this would tire out the men. Keep in mind they have armour, swords and shields to deal with. So a proposed theory is that there were breaks between clashes. This would give the Hastati time to retreat through the Principes and then the Principes could perform a similar manuever to close their line.

This is my understanding of how the Romans fought. It could be completely wrong however, and there is probably someone on the forums much more informed than I am about Roman battle tactics

[Watchman]

IMHO the mere sight of the fresh and heavily armed second-echelon maniples waiting beyond the spaces between the first-echelon maniples should have been quite enough of a deterrent to most. After all, if they tried to enter those openings they'd have the men at the flanks of the still-cohesive first-line blocks at their sides and a fresh rain of pila followed by nasty men with swords coming from the front, hardly an inviting prospect. Those gaps may well have been deathtraps waiting to close on anyone impetuous enough to enter them.

The Triarii with their heavy armour, imposing helmets and long spears would hardly have seemed any more of a welcoming prospect.

Presumably the swap between echelons was done during the inevitable "breathers" that heavy infantry cannot but have taken often enough during those long hours head-on infantry fights could take. Ditto for any "countermarching" of tired and wounded men to the rear and fresh guys into the front inside the maniples themselves. This sort of drill should have been easy enough to teach even the Republic levies - after all, other armies have made regular use of a whole lot more complicated formation evolutions with soldiers of rather lower calibre than the Roman reservists. Something like marching back and forth in synch is simple and fast enough to get into the heads of even the rawest recruits, and indeed was long something military training more or less started out with.

Although as it is difficult to see how all of the first-echelon maniples could have been unengaged simultaneousy (since it seems rather unlikely the entire enemy front line would retire to catch their breath and redress ranks all at once), the swap was presumably done on maniple-by-maniple basis as the local tactical circumstances allowed - and no doubt the entry of the fresh second-echelons rather helped persuade engaged enemies in the vicinity they had better take a step back and reassess the situation, thereby freeing the worn first-echelons to fall back.

I understand the Triarii were supposed to close the gaps between their maniples and thus form a solid unbroken phalanx in the old hoplite fashion when it became their turn though. As in principle their turn to engage came only if and when both the Hastati and Princeps had been spent and were retired to the rear, this would presumably have been a necessary move to allow the presumably by that point rather ragged maniples reform properly behind the Triarii shieldwall.

Of course, since the whole thing relied on unit drill and coordination it is easy to see why freshly raised Roman armies thrust into battle might do poorly - the men simply had not had enough time to integrate properly into cohesive units, making the maneuvering awkward. The "division of arms" was on pure financial grounds, and any given maniple would have soldiers from all over the Roman territories with greenhorns and veterans of previous campaigns all mixed together; obviously it would take a while before these mismashes learned to work together smoothly.