IGX

Agrippa911 wrote:I've better knowledge of ancient warfare but some similarities should apply. I'm following the model advocated by scholars like Goldsworthy.
You probably started with the leader addressing his troops, pumping them up. Presumably with larger armies the general would need to make several of these to different groups of soldiers.
When it was time, he'd signal the attack, by musical instruments (horns, trumpets, drums, etc...) and begin advancing. The soldiers would either hear this or they'd simply watch their standards (whether unit or army) - if it was advancing then the battle was on.
What happens next is the big unknown - no author records the technical details of battle so we're having to extrapolate from much later wars where we more sources, human psychology, veteran accounts, etc... The general theory is that 99.9% of soldiers don't want to die (they want to make their opponent do that) and in a world without modern medicine (no antibiotics or painkillers), no Geneva Convention, and lots and lots of sharp pointy things - running into combat was a terrifying experience. None of this wild running, you'd maintain formation because that way you knew your right and left flank was being covered, if you fell there would be someone behind you to try to cover you if you could crawl back through the lines. That wild melee you see in pretty much every depiction of combat is nuts and no sane soldier would take those risks.
So what happened? One of three things:
Both sides are mega-pumped and close into battle and start swinging at each other.
One side chickens out, the unit routs away (called a 'tearless battle')
Both sides don't panic and run but aren't determined enough to close into swinging range - this probably happened the most
If both sides shambled to a halt, they'd do so at a safe psychological range - out of range of any melee combat. There the unit leaders, the nobility, the veterans, the 'hard men' would try to psych the unit up for combat. The men would be jeering, yelling insults, invoking the gods, etc... all to psych themselves up to march those last dozen meters into potential death. Eventually some would get their courage up and advance, they'd pull the unit alongside them (lest they be left unsupported). The two lines would contact and the majority would be swinging defensively - hiding behind their shield and trying to stay alive. The 'hard men' (whether nobles, centurions, veterans) would be actively trying to kill their opponents and break that formation.
Eventually everyone would tire out and the two sides would shamble back to a safe distance and catch their breaths. Wounded would filter to the back. Then the process of psyching themselves up for another bout of combat would begin. This could go on for hours - only a short amount of time would be actual fighting. Eventually one side would either take too many casualties and break, or their courage would fail and they'd rout.
Obviously if you had formations of elites (such as fully-armoured knights) then there'd be more willingness to close compared to an untrained Greek hoplite militia. The number of casualties from the actual fighting would be low, most of the dead came when one side ran away and were cut down from behind.

Bob Wildes wrote:How would this guy possibly know the details of something that happened that long ago?

I would imagine that he is a prodigious reader, but how can he be sure that the authors he read did not have a bias or were simply repeating a story that was already 300 or so years old when they wrote about it.

Bollocks.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

Bob Wildes wrote:How would this guy possibly know the details of something that happened that long ago?

I would imagine that he is a prodigious reader, but how can he be sure that the authors he read did not have a bias or were simply repeating a story that was already 300 or so years old when they wrote about it.

Bollocks.

Some of it can be pulled from the historical record. You have X number of legions in a battle that lasts Y hours with only Z casualties. In an all-out Braveheart style melee, you'd have a significant percentage of participants dead in minutes.

I think Grossman gets into this for the Civil War in On Killing. If you had motivated killers on both sides, battles should have been much shorter with much higher casualties. You wouldn't find so many abandoned weapons on the battlefield that were loaded with multiple charges.

tonkadtx wrote:That guy knows shit about medieval warfare. The fact that he mentioned "centurion" proves it. I guess you could stretch to include Rome since Medieval usually starts with the fall of the Empire...

The Roman Legions practiced a true Combined Arms approach to warfare mixing missile, artillery, horse and infantry. They used incredibly harsh discipline to enforce formations and they deployed in a three line formation that allowed the rear lines to bolster and replace the front line.

Bob Wildes wrote:How would this guy possibly know the details of something that happened that long ago?

I would imagine that he is a prodigious reader, but how can he be sure that the authors he read did not have a bias or were simply repeating a story that was already 300 or so years old when they wrote about it.

Bollocks.

Turdacious wrote:Deals with more modern war, but an important aspect that's often left out of these discussions:

Pinky wrote:I hope that guy never writes a screenplay.

ImUndaYourBed wrote:Plato hates you, Dr.