To stop a wedge.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Hi Adrian,

Field defences imply that the troops employing them do not believe that they can defeat their opponent in open battle, either by their lack of numbers or by lack of morale. The reasoning behind this is that field defences prevent the defender from pursuing an enemy who breaks off or routs from combat.

I have to disagree there. It might, but it need not be the reason for such defences. It could equally mean they wanted to bolster the infantry on the flanks so as to be able to strengthen the centre, while the enemy could still be broken and persued over the flanks. Which I believe was a tactic employed by Belisarius in Parsia?

Ah, your thinking of the Battle of Dara in 530AD Robert? This exactly illustrates my point, Bellisarius was heavily outnumbered by the Sasanids and he dug some ditches to try and break up the Sasanid attacks. These were only partly successful as the Sasanids did force the ditches and engage Bellisarius. It was the interevention of a small group of Huns that saved the day.

You would think that such a bombardment would have that effect Nathan, but its clear in Ammianus and other works that this was rarely teh case. There are several battle accounts where casualty figures were given, its stressed that most casualties were caused when one army broke and the victorious one then slew the routeres in the pursuit.

perhaps these were batles in which no cuneus was employed? Supressing missile fire could also prevent cunei being formed up, keeping most defenders hidden under their scuta and unable to offer tactical support. This is how I believe plumbatae were used after the front lines had made contact.

If I remember correctly Robert practically all the accounts in Ammianus have the Romans and their opponents bombard each other no matter what formation they were in, it appears to have been a standard battle field tactic for all nations at that time. As to Plumbatae or Martiobarbuli, I have found no mention of these missile weapons in use during the 4th century, they are not mentioned by name in Ammianus, he does mention other missile weapons by their specific name by never mentions darts by any of their various names. I've not seen mention of them in Julian, Libanius or other works either, the only mention I can find is within Vegetius. Anyone have a 4th Century source they can quote?

And of course whilst the Romans did indeed put up a tremendous missile barrage at battles such as Argentoratum, that did not prevent the Allewmanni from breaking through the Roman front line and crash into the second where they were finally beaten off.

Missile fire is not the end to all attacks of course. And unfortunately the details we have about this battle are still very scanty, and we could even interpret the description as a Roman answer to the cuneus attack - open up and attack the flanks.

I tend to read both Ammianus and Libanius together when trying to decipher what happened at Argentoratum, they both have some interesting details that are missing in the others accounts. Still, where you get an account where the Romans lose less than a thousand men and the enemy lose over 5000 when they break and are pursued, that would tend to indicate that missle fire caused very few casualties, it was the hand to hand combat where most deaths occured. I'm in the camp that believes the missile barrages were more to bolster morale than to actually kill masses of the enemy (I was reading in Ammianus over the weekend an account where the Allemanni picked up the Roman javelins and other spear types that were thrown at them and threw them back at the Romans in turn!)