05-27-2013, 02:57 PM
Dear Macedon (although I would love to seek as many opinions/opposing views as possible from anyone who's interested),
Once more our posts can get too long to follow easily, so I shall pick and choose a bit, but if there is an element I miss, please let's address it. I'm actually keen that we might try to raise sub-topics discretely as it will make it much easier to follow in a 'conversational' style - let alone stop us both from writing an epic each day! So.....
Firstly - two things to not misinterpret - I am not claiming a 10-man wedge existed, I was noting that it is the perfect sensible size for one - bigger, actually, is far worse as we will come to. Secondly, that, no, I was not claiming the Republican Roman Cavalry used the 'Cantabrian' tactic - it was just an example. As to my views only ever becoming a 'fringe theory' - well, that's possible, but only if people aren't willing to re-look at what's actually written and, more importantly, what is not.
Can I confirm, please, that you are a fair scholar of Ancient Greek, perhaps professionally or a serious amateur - but that you're not a military man? There would be no criticism implied whatsoever - but I do ask if you have any vested interest in believing what has been written and only in what has been written? I ask this, having been relatively happily 'forced' into a sleepless night when I came back down and re-read Arrian and Ascl. (Aelian is on the way!). For I can then also ask - do you know of any source that actually describes the physical elements of men fighting hand-to-hand? For the Ancient Greek Tactics are all about deploying and moving around the battlefield - not about actual fighting.
In addition, you inform me that Polybius describes his cavalry deployed in files rather than ranks - and I challenge that, for he doesn't. More importantly, whilst we are given structures, names, ranks and layout of the heavy infantry component of Greek armies (presumed to mostly discuss pike-phalanxes at that stage), we are never given that for cavalry - simply discourses on shapes. 'Shapes' and formations that are detailing the initial formations adopted and then help move formed bodies of troops around the battlefield. None of them describe how 'shock cavalry' fights (later). So, given Polybius might well have (given my contention) wanted to give a Greek term/rank to the 'adjutant' to a Roman Decurion - what Greek term would he have used? I suggest he used the closest analogy (that of file-closer) to actually describe a 'rank-closer'. If there's clear evidence that I'm wrong, please, just let me know?
This is all because I do believe we have to make sensible assumptions, logical (indeed) connections and some interpolation to fill in the blanks. Especially when our sources are not particularly military men who have experienced battle close up and are then describing from that knowledge. For you assert above that Arrianus is a man who has 'seen battle and arrayed troops for combat'. Has he? Unless I am (and will happily be) mistaken, Arrianus was a Greek priest, who travelled widely and obtained the favour of Hadrian. The cavalry exercises he witnessed were likely a demonstration for him - and it certainly reads like that, with no evidence that he knew what and why he was seeing. Certainly as a provincial Governor it is possible that he was at a battle, but was he actually there? He doesn't claim that and it is only apparently accepted wisdom that he is actually 'Xenophon. It doesn't actually matter whether he is, or not, but at no point has he necessarily acquired any experience to consider him a 'General' who knows how to deploy troops, let alone how they fight.
When it comes to 'shock cavalry', I am prepared to front a view (not a theory) that shock cavalry fight in lines (potentially stylised wedges if they confirm). The Greek cavalry of Alexander and the Roman cavalry of the Early Republic were 'shock cavalry' (without missiles). I certainly invite any horse-specialists to particularly chime in, for I only have very limited riding experience, although I have studied many periods of history's cavalry. I found this link which may be of interest to this element:
http://garyb.0catch.com/cavalry_charging...antry.html
I would argue that the information there doesn't quite go far enough - but I will be specific. All I have ever discovered is that charging cavalry operates in lines - for a very simple reason. If there are more charging horses immediately behind the first (as all these tactical manuals might suggest), then as soon as the first meets the enemy and slows or is stopped, then there's nothing but a mass pile-up and failure. A modern car travelling at a likely comparable 30mph, with brakes designed for the task, on nice flat roads and with nice sticky rubber tyres takes an official 75ft to stop. I would therefore argue that successive ranks of cavalry in lines when charging would never be less than 100ft apart, and sensibly they would be more. Any period in history from Alexander to Napoleon.
You control a line of cavalry from one end - the right hand end so you can wheel to the right whilst presenting your shields to the enemy, and because the senior position is on the right. To complete that control you need someone at the other end of the line to make sure it comes round. This is why the idea of 3 ranks of 10 men constituting a troop will have the Decurions at one end. The senior leads the troop. A line charges with a second following 'closely' to add the second shock and make sure anyone now the other side of the first line is dealt with and the third line follows a little more slowly to plug any gaps and prevent flanking of the first two. Each rank probably 150ft apart at least (giving them 100ft to slow and 50ft to wheel) - that's why you need 3 Decurions - because they fight as separate sub-sub-units.
I'm sorry to say that the sort of thing seen in the 'Ride of the Rohirrim' in LOTR3 was lovely - but rubbish.
So, is that too bold? Is it not common sense and logical? Is there a source that says that just isn't true - for there's even dear old Arrian telling us that horses in depth don't provide the same value as infantry (end of Tactics 16).
Finally - yes, I do dare to question the sources when common sense (I'll leave 'logic' aside :wink: ) and a lack of the detail we're looking for exist. Interpretation and interpolation are necessary. There is indeed one source (wait a while :whistle: ) that I will even propose is not only wrong, but perhaps has mislead people for a very long time and it could be regretted that his text even survived (when so much else is lost) - but we'll leave that one on the side for a while.
If people, however, are minded to think that what is written, and only what is written, and that just because it's ancient that it's true - then we will not advance our understanding........
Once more our posts can get too long to follow easily, so I shall pick and choose a bit, but if there is an element I miss, please let's address it. I'm actually keen that we might try to raise sub-topics discretely as it will make it much easier to follow in a 'conversational' style - let alone stop us both from writing an epic each day! So.....
Firstly - two things to not misinterpret - I am not claiming a 10-man wedge existed, I was noting that it is the perfect sensible size for one - bigger, actually, is far worse as we will come to. Secondly, that, no, I was not claiming the Republican Roman Cavalry used the 'Cantabrian' tactic - it was just an example. As to my views only ever becoming a 'fringe theory' - well, that's possible, but only if people aren't willing to re-look at what's actually written and, more importantly, what is not.
Can I confirm, please, that you are a fair scholar of Ancient Greek, perhaps professionally or a serious amateur - but that you're not a military man? There would be no criticism implied whatsoever - but I do ask if you have any vested interest in believing what has been written and only in what has been written? I ask this, having been relatively happily 'forced' into a sleepless night when I came back down and re-read Arrian and Ascl. (Aelian is on the way!). For I can then also ask - do you know of any source that actually describes the physical elements of men fighting hand-to-hand? For the Ancient Greek Tactics are all about deploying and moving around the battlefield - not about actual fighting.
In addition, you inform me that Polybius describes his cavalry deployed in files rather than ranks - and I challenge that, for he doesn't. More importantly, whilst we are given structures, names, ranks and layout of the heavy infantry component of Greek armies (presumed to mostly discuss pike-phalanxes at that stage), we are never given that for cavalry - simply discourses on shapes. 'Shapes' and formations that are detailing the initial formations adopted and then help move formed bodies of troops around the battlefield. None of them describe how 'shock cavalry' fights (later). So, given Polybius might well have (given my contention) wanted to give a Greek term/rank to the 'adjutant' to a Roman Decurion - what Greek term would he have used? I suggest he used the closest analogy (that of file-closer) to actually describe a 'rank-closer'. If there's clear evidence that I'm wrong, please, just let me know?
This is all because I do believe we have to make sensible assumptions, logical (indeed) connections and some interpolation to fill in the blanks. Especially when our sources are not particularly military men who have experienced battle close up and are then describing from that knowledge. For you assert above that Arrianus is a man who has 'seen battle and arrayed troops for combat'. Has he? Unless I am (and will happily be) mistaken, Arrianus was a Greek priest, who travelled widely and obtained the favour of Hadrian. The cavalry exercises he witnessed were likely a demonstration for him - and it certainly reads like that, with no evidence that he knew what and why he was seeing. Certainly as a provincial Governor it is possible that he was at a battle, but was he actually there? He doesn't claim that and it is only apparently accepted wisdom that he is actually 'Xenophon. It doesn't actually matter whether he is, or not, but at no point has he necessarily acquired any experience to consider him a 'General' who knows how to deploy troops, let alone how they fight.
When it comes to 'shock cavalry', I am prepared to front a view (not a theory) that shock cavalry fight in lines (potentially stylised wedges if they confirm). The Greek cavalry of Alexander and the Roman cavalry of the Early Republic were 'shock cavalry' (without missiles). I certainly invite any horse-specialists to particularly chime in, for I only have very limited riding experience, although I have studied many periods of history's cavalry. I found this link which may be of interest to this element:
http://garyb.0catch.com/cavalry_charging...antry.html
I would argue that the information there doesn't quite go far enough - but I will be specific. All I have ever discovered is that charging cavalry operates in lines - for a very simple reason. If there are more charging horses immediately behind the first (as all these tactical manuals might suggest), then as soon as the first meets the enemy and slows or is stopped, then there's nothing but a mass pile-up and failure. A modern car travelling at a likely comparable 30mph, with brakes designed for the task, on nice flat roads and with nice sticky rubber tyres takes an official 75ft to stop. I would therefore argue that successive ranks of cavalry in lines when charging would never be less than 100ft apart, and sensibly they would be more. Any period in history from Alexander to Napoleon.
You control a line of cavalry from one end - the right hand end so you can wheel to the right whilst presenting your shields to the enemy, and because the senior position is on the right. To complete that control you need someone at the other end of the line to make sure it comes round. This is why the idea of 3 ranks of 10 men constituting a troop will have the Decurions at one end. The senior leads the troop. A line charges with a second following 'closely' to add the second shock and make sure anyone now the other side of the first line is dealt with and the third line follows a little more slowly to plug any gaps and prevent flanking of the first two. Each rank probably 150ft apart at least (giving them 100ft to slow and 50ft to wheel) - that's why you need 3 Decurions - because they fight as separate sub-sub-units.
I'm sorry to say that the sort of thing seen in the 'Ride of the Rohirrim' in LOTR3 was lovely - but rubbish.
So, is that too bold? Is it not common sense and logical? Is there a source that says that just isn't true - for there's even dear old Arrian telling us that horses in depth don't provide the same value as infantry (end of Tactics 16).
Finally - yes, I do dare to question the sources when common sense (I'll leave 'logic' aside :wink: ) and a lack of the detail we're looking for exist. Interpretation and interpolation are necessary. There is indeed one source (wait a while :whistle: ) that I will even propose is not only wrong, but perhaps has mislead people for a very long time and it could be regretted that his text even survived (when so much else is lost) - but we'll leave that one on the side for a while.
If people, however, are minded to think that what is written, and only what is written, and that just because it's ancient that it's true - then we will not advance our understanding........
