Are certain historic battles just impossible in the RTW engine?

[Foot]

For the battle of Tigranocerta I would recommend reading Chahin, M., The Kingdom of Armenia. Roman authors lie and in this instant there are some interesting points of contention that Chahin brings up.

Foot

[konny]

For the battle of Tigranocerta I would recommend reading Chahin, M., The Kingdom of Armenia. Roman authors lie and in this instant there are some interesting points of contention that Chahin brings up.

I seriously doubt the Roman opponents' numbers in any of the above listed battles. Approved army sizes of well organized Ancient states, like Rome or the Diadochs, usually did not exceed 50,000 men, with only very few exceptions much above this number, like Cannae.

Armies of more than 100,000 men were not regulary used before the late Napoleonic Wars. But that was achieved by dividing up the large body into smaller corps that did only join for short periods of a few days to full force, and were broken up again immediatly after battle (exception would be the main French army in Russia with the known consequences). Sizes of 200,000 and above were not possible before the late 19th Century because they require a railroad system to supply them.

Therefore I can't see how the so called 'Barbarian' opponents of the Romans (and Greeks as well) should have solved the logistical nightmare of moving around and supplying several 100,000 men time and again on the basis of a smaller population and weaker infrastructure where everyone else failed in this task. And of course, it is hard to imagine what stupied tacticans these strategical geniusses must have been, when they allowed their monster armies to be defeated time and again by a tenth of their strength.

[Foot]

The points of contention aren't numbers fielded but whether the battle ever took place at all.

Foot

[QuintusSertorius]

I seriously doubt the Roman opponents' numbers in any of the above listed battles. Approved army sizes of well organized Ancient states, like Rome or the Diadochs, usually did not exceed 50,000 men, with only very few exceptions much above this number, like Cannae.

Armies of more than 100,000 men were not regulary used before the late Napoleonic Wars. But that was achieved by dividing up the large body into smaller corps that did only join for short periods of a few days to full force, and were broken up again immediatly after battle (exception would be the main French army in Russia with the known consequences). Sizes of 200,000 and above were not possible before the late 19th Century because they require a railroad system to supply them.

Therefore I can't see how the so called 'Barbarian' opponents of the Romans (and Greeks as well) should have solved the logistical nightmare of moving around and supplying several 100,000 men time and again on the basis of a smaller population and weaker infrastructure where everyone else failed in this task. And of course, it is hard to imagine what stupied tacticans these strategical geniusses must have been, when they allowed their monster armies to be defeated time and again by a tenth of their strength.

The whole of the point around huge numbers isn't that they fielded them, and kept them mobilised and supplied for months on end. In most of the examples they were gathered together for a very short time, and often rarely directed or commanded by anyone in particular. Even if they won the encounter, they'd disperse almost immediately because they'd exhaust the supplies in any one area.

[konny]

The whole of the point around huge numbers isn't that they fielded them, and kept them mobilised and supplied for months on end. In most of the examples they were gathered together for a very short time, and often rarely directed or commanded by anyone in particular. Even if they won the encounter, they'd disperse almost immediately because they'd exhaust the supplies in any one area.

200,000 or 300,000 men do not magicaly appear or disappear even if the army is disbanded. A track of this size would have an aproximate length of 200 to 300 km. If we do not assume an excellent system of roads that would allow to move this force on 4 or 5 parallel tracks, it would require about one week to gather them on one spot - what is the miminum requirement to use them in battle (and in this calculation the entire army still hasn't moved a single meter in any direction).

Moving around 100,000 men in three columns and uniting them on a spot in a single day is a difficult task, something that required a change of organization during the Age of Reason and someone particular in command. Assembling armies of the size the Romans want us to belive were day to day business in Barbarian Europe and Asia under the conditons of the time and state of organization is an impossibility.

And we still have to calculate what size of population we need to assume to field armies of these sizes....

[Ibrahim]

so based on this, would a persian army as Issos or gaugamela actually be around 90-150000? interesting-changes everything about Alexandros

[The Persian Cataphract]

so based on this, would a persian army as Issos or gaugamela actually be around 90-150000? interesting-changes everything about Alexandros

Nope; Though Issus has been less looked upon than Gaugamela, again we must look at the common ratios in the inflated numbers given by Graeco-Roman sources. Again, Curtius Rudus lands at the comfortable spot of 250,000 men, though in all other instances, the numbers are drastically reduced in comparison to Gaugamela. I personally think no more than five myriads (50,000 men), because we need to heed the fact that Darius' army was campaigning to meet the threat (Apparenty, Alexander needed to execute a whole wheel movement, once the news of pursuit reached to him); Going as high as 100,000 means strained logistics. I also think no more than five "armies" (Each consisting of ten thousand men), because the sources mention precisely five men who are presumably commanders. Each of them could have been a baivarâpâtîsh or separate army commanders. The Achaemenid military organization was always rigidly decimal, so it seems to me the most plausible cap. The eminent Hans Delbrück believed that at Gaugamela, Darius had as little as 52,000 men, a significant portion of them cavalry, mainly due issues in logistics but also because of miniaturizations per ratio.

Gaugamela on the other hand, I've already mentioned 52,000 men, as given by Delbrück, but most others believe that Darius' army swelled upwards 92,000 to 94,000 men. Most estimates move around the 90,000 range. The difference lie mainly in the assessment of cavalry; The likes of John Warry estimate 40,000 mounted troops (Out of a total of about 90,000), while Delbrück thinks 12,000 is a more plausible figure (Out of 52,000). Both of them give a completely different picture of the Achaemenid army, even though the corpus of infantry more or less is the same (Only the figures of peltasts vary with any significance), because Delbrück brings some balance to a heavily equestrian contingent, though consistently within the flexible axiom of "For five infantry one cavalry" in Iranian terms; Warry's estimate provides us with a force where almost half of the total are cavalry.