Battle-line rotation during the combat

[Wander]

Yes, that's 25 minutes of fighting with five one-minute rests. Having watched the "Fight Science" show where they tested some top UFC fighters, I'll be the first to grant that those men are first-rank athletes.

But -- take a look at them after the fight. Most of the time -- assuming they went the full five rounds -- the winner is exhausted, utterly spent, after 25 minutes, because he's focused on using all his strength in that time. And the loser is generally worse off than the winner.

So, if a top athlete is exhausted after 25 minutes of fighting, with 5 minutes of rest time, wouldn't you rotate him out of the action? Considering that the battle isn't going to just stop because the front line is tired?

If I'm the general, I value my best fighters. They're the backbone of my army. I'm not going to let them get killed needlessly if I can help it.

[Q. Vipsanivs Praetextatvs]

I think that isn't the same an individual fight that a combat in formation.
Individual fights require more attention and effort.

I remember a passage from De Bello Gallico ,when Caesar, angry, is pushing a man to the formation because he has fallen, during the battle. I will search it.
This passage shows what I have said before.

I think that in a battle they didn't be all the time using gladius like in an individual combat...

[Mitra]

The battle lull would have the same effect ONLY if you rotated the troops when they reformed -- and that's one of the possibilities we've been discussing. If they rested in the same positions, then the rear lines would still be fresh, unused (and possibly a row of your best troops wasted back there!), and the front lines only a little rested.

This is possible but not necessary; the rear ranks are subject to same psi. stress of first and the equipment weight is the same. They are not fresh and battle ready, but stressed and terrorized without the emotional valve of phisical fight. I add that it is not obligatory to think at 20-25 minutes of continuos hit - vs - hit for the first ranks, but a series of short violent attacks followed by waiting time.

I'm not claiming there's evidence

No from you or others, sure; the problem it is not the propose speculative theories, the problem is affirm, like made in the first post from Velite, than these are the historical reality and sures (a concept that it is impossible to have for the many of ancient world things) without report a minimum of historical inference.

[Velite]

Wander wrote

The battle lull would have the same effect ONLY if you rotated the troops when they reformed -- and that's one of the possibilities we've been discussing. If they rested in the same positions, then the rear lines would still be fresh, unused (and possibly a row of your best troops wasted back there!), and the front lines only a little rested.

I'm not claiming there's evidence; people have presented quotes both favoring and against it. I'm saying it seems like a logical way to get the most from your soldiers. In effect, to maximize your chance of winning -- and I don't know any generals who don't want to win their battles -- especially while preserving as much of their army as possible intact.

I totally agree. This is also my thought

Wander wrote

So, if a top athlete is exhausted after 25 minutes of fighting, with 5 minutes of rest time, wouldn't you rotate him out of the action? Considering that the battle isn't going to just stop because the front line is tired?

If I'm the general, I value my best fighters. They're the backbone of my army. I'm not going to let them get killed needlessly if I can help it.

I totally agree with Wander. This is my same thought

Mitra wrote

This is possible but not necessary; the rear ranks are subject to same psi. stress of first and the equipment weight is the same. They are not fresh and battle ready, but stressed and terrorized without the emotional valve of phisical fight.

This is your thought, but in reality the things are different.
The milites in second or 3th lines are not terrorized neither stressed. They are instead very concentration on the what they have to do when they will have to take over to the contubernale, always holding well present that they have to cover and to help the own contubernalis. All the Roman milites had great trust in the own contubernalis. The Great team spirit and the good military preparation were their strength.
I have leastly tried this, and even if I knew not to die, my concentration was very tall to try not to be stricken and not to make to strike my contubernalis to my sides.
In me there was besides a lot of emotion in to relive that situation of fight. :wink:

Mitra wrote

I add that it is not obligatory to think at 20-25 minutes of continuos hit - vs - hit for the first ranks, but a series of short violent attacks followed by waiting time.

But who decides when the battle is had to stop for making the rotation of your lines?
The enemy not to obey to your commands, the enemy arrives to waves against your line, and could continue for hours. And your army cannot always suffer, but it should try to advance against the enemy fighting.
The rotation of the lines goes done well during the breaks in the fight, ok, but the breaks could happen after 30-40 mins or after one hour.
If your army doesn't have a form of rotation of the lines during the fight body body, your army it cannot withstand for a long time and soon it will surrender in some point.

You have to consider that enemy, besides fighting body body, it also effects wedges against your lines. And your army has to contain the enemy wedge and then to try to counterattack (a wedge effectively comes contained with the compression of all the lines of the centuria). To do this and other, for whole times, it owes us to be an exchange of men during the fight, otherwise your army won't withstand and will have enormous losses.

Valete

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Why isn't it? LOL, ok sorry Magnus....

[Mitra]

This is your thought, but in reality the things are different.
The milites in second or 3th lines are not terrorized neither stressed.
.....They
I have leastly tried this, and even if I knew not to die, my concentration was very tall to try not to be stricken and not to make to strike my
contubernalis to my sides.

This is the point: you know that you not go to die, you know the people before you not go to kill you with all his force. I cannot take it as real battle condition in the same modality i cannot take the softair as the real simulation of modern infantry battle experience.

All this assumptions about roman work team squad, roman morale, etc are largely based over modern views of army cohesion model (of western armies); but the cohesion typology it is the product of socializing modality of society, and the roman world it is not our also in the military values scale importance.

But who decides when the battle is had to stop for making the rotation of your lines?

This is one of the point of various theories; many assume a natural, psicological behavior but this take many time to discuss all these.

In the fact many the soldiers acting in first lines can go out of control of officer orders, acting more like for instict, agressivenness, fear or experience. The Crastinus legionaries made a suicide attack to pompeian legionaries, decide themself to stop to run at the middle of path and restart. At Tapsus the Caesar legions start themself the attack against the orders, same aggressivennes at Gergovia.

Going back to first lines, I report some points:

1 the Cannae private oath of soldier: they must not leave the line, they can only for wound the enemy (and others things), so be in line and fight are not linked 1 to 1; the possibility to kill it is a good reason the leave the ranks (at least in republican era)
2 - Vegetius and Modestus report need a space of 6 foot between the first and the second ranks, because the first line need the space to advance and retreat, admitting the specularity with the enemy we have a kill zone of 12 foot where the first lines fight and can retreat under the protection of mass of fellow soldier
3 - In some battle report one of two army lines go back for many meters, at Bibracte for many hundreds: the idea this is a effect of phisical press is a little absurd, more probably it is automatic movement starting from the rear ranks, which perceive the fall back of lines before them, so the first lines follow for not lost the group protection. We a inference of this from Ammianus 16.12.48. Obvisously this are all hypothesis but source related and can be a work starting point. And before you tell me this is unrealistic, I make you note we have a direct testimony of this type of fighting wave with sword in gunpowder (middle of XVII century) era in India (with all the exagerations of case):

"Be it known to the reader that these two armies were not
ordered in the disposition obtaining in Europe. But one
division was close to another as the trees of a pinewood, in
the order that I have described..... I saw in this action, as in so many others where I was afterwards
present, that the only soldiers who fought were those
well to the front. Of those more to the rear, although holding
their bared swords in their hands, the Moguls did nothing
but shout ' Boquox, boquox !' (Ba-kush ! ba-kush /), and the
Indians 'Mar! mar!' (Mar! mar!) that is to say, 'Kill!
kill !' If those in the front advanced, those behind followed
the example, and if the former retired the others fled, a custom
of Hindustan quite contrary to that of Europe ; and if they begin to take to flight, by no method is it possible to stop
them." Manucci Storia do Mogor

[Wander]

Mitra:

While the men in the third, fourth, etc., ranks are undoubtedly carrying the weight of their armor and weapons, and undoubtedly under psychological stress, I don't think that can be anywhere near the stress of actually standing face to face with the enemy and trying to kill him while he's trying to kill you. In comparison, the rest is just waiting.

I do honestly think you underestimate the value of those who have done some degree of reenactment. While it's certainly less stressful when you know nobody's really going to kill you, the physical effects at least will be similar.

[Q. Vipsanivs Praetextatvs]

Mitra:

While the men in the third, fourth, etc., ranks are undoubtedly carrying the weight of their armor and weapons, and undoubtedly under psychological stress, I don't think that can be anywhere near the stress of actually standing face to face with the enemy and trying to kill him while he's trying to kill you. In comparison, the rest is just waiting.

I think that battle doesn't happens always in front of you, but, likewise, other soldiers can give psychological support to his comrades or intimidate the enemy, insulting or something like that.

[Mitra]

Mitra:

While the men in the third, fourth, etc., ranks are undoubtedly carrying
..............
In comparison, the rest is just waiting.

As i tell the fighters has the psi. valve of phisical action.

I do honestly think you underestimate the value of those who have done some degree of reenactment.

I don't understimate the reenactment but I know exist precise limits to historical reproduction possibilities and, over all, a true historical factual criticism start always from the sources.

While it's certainly less stressful when you know nobody's really going to kill you, the physical effects at least will be similar.

I don't agreed; the phisical/psicological changes created by combat stress are heavy.

[Wander]

Mitra: Have you ever served in the military? Ever been through an Infantry Training School, or some equivalent? A great deal of the program is based on simulated conditions of actual combat. In those simulations (which, in modern warfare, often involves crawling through mud under barbed wire while explosions and gunfire go off around you), a great deal of the idea is to get you accustomed to combat conditions in a safe environment, so that when someone really IS trying to kill you, you don't freak out. In essence, it desensitizes you to the shock of actual combat.

I have no doubt that Roman military training included something similar -- certainly fighting drills, in formation, with double-weight shields and the wooden rudis. In addition, for the blooding of new soldiers it was probably preferred to send them, with veterans, on something "easy" (where possible), such as looting villages, or battles where the enemy is vastly outnumbered. This would also help to inure them to combat.

With such training, by the time they meet in battle, the psychological factors -- while not gone -- are well known to the soldiers. They can cope with them. In addition, Romans placed great value on strength, physical and psychological, and hardness in the face of danger or pain. I've never been in a mass formation of armored men while someone is genuinely trying to kill me, but I am certain the stress increases with proximity to the battle line.

In short, the soldiers in the front rank will be under intense stress, but it will decrease as the ranks move back. Depending on the nature of the characters, some of the back-rank soldiers will be hoping the battle ends before they get to the front, but others (based on some guys I knew in the Marines) will be just itching for their chance to kill someone. That characteristic is still with us, and it was probably much stronger in a culture where people grew up watching and cheering killings in the arena.

As new soldiers harden into veterans, battle becomes a job. A deadly job, and dangerous, but still a job. It's just that following orders and facing possible death is part of that job.

That's my take on combat stress. I'm interested in hearing from veterans of other services and other nations.

[Magnus]

My post about the UFC figthers was supposed to say "but it's not un-feasible for the human body that is in top shape to accomplish incredible feats."

The next logical thought would be that after an estimated 10-15 minutes of armoured combat, those troops would need to be rotated if the combat was continuing. If legionary's were in as good of shape as UFC fighters, that's about as long as they're going to last before they are exhausted and open to attack.

Wayne, I think nailed the psychological aspect of it. If anything, the romans would be desensitized more than our culture, so combat would have less of a psychological impact.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

My post about the UFC figthers was supposed to say "but it's not un-feasible for the human body that is in top shape to accomplish incredible feats."

Wayne, I think nailed the psychological aspect of it. If anything, the romans would be desensitized more than our culture, so combat would have less of a psychological impact.

LOL, you could have correctd it, as the jist was understtod! :wink:

I would agree with Wayne about they would be less prone to psychological trauma compared to our own society. Raises many questions about todays society.... :?

[Mitra]

Mitra: Have you ever served in the military? Ever been through an Infantry Training School, or some equivalent? A great deal of the program is based on simulated conditions of actual combat.

Yes, i served in military and received infantry training (also if sure was not that of Marines); as you know these trainings are the effect of post-war studies on the combat efficiency and kill rates. Sure in a warrior world the violence is a daily fact, and the legionaries received a complete training; as this can prepare psicologically to a true battle we cannot know: the performances of imperial legions changed greatly from very good to very bad, and we know from the papyri much legionaries in the same centuries/contubernii are used for no training duties, so the training was not constant and made for "buddy team" (at least not always).

About always the rear ranks, it is relevant that the rout start from the rear of units (see the Sambre); this for sure no because of immedialty phisical danger but for perception (true or false) of potential danger situation of various nature.

[Q. Vipsanivs Praetextatvs]

I have no doubt that Roman military training included something similar -- certainly fighting drills, in formation, with double-weight shields and the wooden rudis.

double-weight wooden clava, not rudis (gladiatorial):

"Antiqui, sicut inuenitur in libris, hoc genere exercuere tirones. Scuta de uimine in modum cratium conrotundata texebant, ita ut duplum pondus cratis haberet, quam scutum publicum habere consueuit. Idemque clauas ligneas dupli aeque ponderis pro gladiis tironibus dabant."(Vegetius 1,11,1-2).


I think that we musn't compare too much modern army with Roman army (different people, different weapons, different ethic...).

[Wander]

I'm sure the training varied widely from legion to legion, if not even century to century, and the quality of the troops would be largely based on the quality of the training they got -- just as in modern military service.

As for the rout starting at the rear -- which was not always the case -- that probably had very little to do with the quality of the soldiers in the back ranks, and much more to do with the fact that, if the enemy is attacking your rear, then you're surrounded. Bad situation.

Besides, the rear is where I'd put the men I'd rotated out to rest.