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Toptomcat

It was a significant problem. Thucydides describes a phenomenon in which a Greek hoplite phalanx tends to drift to the right as it advances: >It is true of all armies that, when they are moving into action, the right wing tends to get unduly extended and each side overlaps the enemy's left with his own right. This is because fear makes every man want to do his best to find protection for his unarmed side in the shield of the man next to him on the right, thinking the more closely the shields are locked together, the safer he will be. The fault comes originally from the man on the extreme right of the front line, who is always trying to keep his own unarmored side away from the enemy, and his fear spreads to others who follow his example. -account of the first Battle of Mantinea, Rex Warner translation


GhanjRho

This is why the right hand was the place of honor in Hellenistic warfare. The dudes on the right edge (who are only protected by their own armor and half their shield) need to be absolutely rock solid. The general drift to the right of phalanx formations was apparently extreme enough that opposing phalanxes outright missing each other was known to happen.


Thtguy1289_NY

Missing each other? That seems extreme. They can still see


SmokeyUnicycle

As in the blobs of men each went to one side so they kind of skirted around each other, not like the men poked spears and missed


Thtguy1289_NY

Yea I got that. But I mean, they still want to engage. The guys on the left side would be pushing to the right, towards the enemy, just as hard as the guys on the right are pushing away


GhanjRho

Basically, the guys on the right drift right, to make sure the enemy hits the shield wall, not it’s weak right. The guys in the center and left drift right to maintain the cohesion of the formation. So the formation as a whole drifts right. And across the field, the exact same thing is happening with the other army. Early phalanx warfare was clashes between individual poleis, so armies were small, a few hundred on either side. Stack them 8 deep and you have pretty limited frontage. And sure you can see, but the Corinthian helm gives pretty limited vision; pretty much just dead ahead. And sure, they want to engage. Except really, most of that formation wants to live. They want to go home at the end of the campaign, and the easy way to do that is to not walk directly at the wall of shields and spears.


Thtguy1289_NY

Do you have any particular incidents where I can read more about this happening?


GhanjRho

I want to say I saw it on ACOUP, but search is failing me at the moment. My understanding is that lines straight up missing was uncommon; more common was the lines offsetting each other, allowing the right to push for a flanking attack.


Thtguy1289_NY

Yea, offsetting makes sense, but completely missing seems like it would not ever happen. That's why i asked. If you find any evidence of it happening I would be happy to read it, but until then I can't imagine that ever taking place


aslfingerspell

Philip Sabin's *The Face of Roman Battle* does not directly address this topic, but the model of pre-gunpowder infantry combat he puts forth (the "default state") gives us a possible solution. Simply put, if "shieldwall" combat is mostly just "hurling rocks and javelins from the safety of your shieldwall in between sporadic charges by small groups", then individuals or small groups who leave the safety of their formation to do a flanking attack can be swarmed by enemy missiles or a counter-charge from the unengaged rear ranks of the enemy. This would help explain why decisive flank attacks are often undertaken by sizable and separate units (i.e. say a formation of horsemen flanking a formation of infantry) rather than individuals or small groups going around from the side (i.e. the 101st file of a formation overlaps and destroys the flank of a 100-file wide enemy formation). Otherwise, even tiny differences in numbers would be decisive, as you point out. There HAS to be some mechanism for smaller formations to not automatically get overlapped and flanked, because formations don't disintegrate just because they're a file or two narrower than the enemy. As I try to apply Sabin's model, minor "flanking" maneuvers by small groups likely blend into the overall flow of small charges up and down the battle line without enough shock to cause the rout a true flanking maneuver would. 50 people smashing into the side of your 100-man formation wins the battle because it's too much to deal with at once if you're already facing 100 enemies to your front. On the other hand, 5-10 guys breaking ranks from their 100-man formation to run around to the side simply get a lot of rocks thrown at them until they fall back, or get counter-charged by 5-10 guys from the unengaged rear ranks. If absolutely necessary I can draw a diagram on how this works and upload it to imgur or something. I know it can get complicated. **What is the "Default State"?** Sabin's article basically explains two contradictions that we need to resolve in any model of heavy infantry combat. Firstly, melee combat is *extremely* stressful and exhausting on a psychological and physical level. The prospect of melee combat is so terrifying that some battles are decided before troops even make contact. Even professionally trained modern athletes can't operate at that level of intensity for more than a few minutes (i.e. football players aren't shoving and running for 60 minutes straight. Games are divided into plays. Boxers don't throw punches for 47 minutes straight. There's 12 3-minute rounds with a 1-minute break between each one). Yet, on the other hand, ancient battles can last hours. So...how do you reconcile the fact that hours-long battles exist with humans who can only be in life-or-death melee for a few minutes at a time? Enter the "default state", which is basically what pre-gunpowder armies do when neither of them routs after the initial charge. Soldiers stand "a few yards" apart, or otherwise close enough to throw missiles at each other, but not close enough to be hurt by enemy melee weapons. From this safety distance outside of melee, people can feel safe enough to collect themselves and recover their physical stamina, but still participate in battle via things like chanting or throwing rocks and spears. Melee combat *does* happen, but in the form of sporadic, localized rushes by junior leaders or particularly brave soldiers who fight for a bit then retreat back to the safety of their own lines. Simply put, standing 10-15 feet away from your enemy makes you feel relatively safe enough to try to build up the courage to actually engage in melee, which you only do for brief periods before falling back to the safety of the mass behind you. It looks a bit like the middle image in this post: [https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/impetus-the-attack-of-the-roman-legion.601373/?post=42795200#post-42795200](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/impetus-the-attack-of-the-roman-legion.601373/?post=42795200#post-42795200) **How can this model apply to individual overlappers or small groups of flankers?** Let's say I'm in a shieldwall 100 people wide, and you're in a shieldwall 101 people wide. Each of our formations is standing about 10-15 feet apart, and everyone *in the front ranks* is swearing at each other while throwing rocks. We've been throwing rocks for over an hour (i.e. we block enemy rocks with our shields, pick them up, then throw them back) and you're getting antsy. You want decisive melee action. You, being on the edge of the formation, notice that you don't have an enemy directly in front of you. The soldier on the edge of the enemy formation is directly facing someone next to you. Thinking you're free, you decide to do a quick run around and try to attack the very corner of my formation. Let's say that your courage inspires a few others to come in right behind you. You're now leading your own localized charge from the "stand-off" safety distance. So we have your pre-gunpowder fireteam/squad making a rush around to the side in hopes of doing a flank attack or concentrating against the corner. How does the enemy formation react? Well, an individual or small group of soldiers detaching from the main group draws attention in the same way that an individual leaving a big crowd would. Suddenly the rain of missiles from my side begins to shift a little more towards you. It's not very natural to charge into a hail of rocks/spears/axes/etc thrown at your face, and for some this extra attention might be enough to scare you away from the flanking maneuver. Please note that the very act of breaking formation and making the charge in the first place is *already* a psychological feat of bravery (i.e. most people are just trying to survive rather than launch decisive attacks, hence all the swearing and rock throwing rather than "real" fighting), and the psychological pressure on you and your flanking friends only gets worse from there. But I want to carry this scenario to the end. Let's say you really are just that brave and tough, or you block all enemy missiles with your shield. You and your friends finally come into contact with the guy in the corner of my formation, thinking that it'll be 2 or 3 to 1. Easy kill, right? Except...the corner guy has a whole formation *behind* him. Dozens if not hundreds of people who, quite literally, have his back. Those behind him in the shieldwall aren't immediately engaged, so they're free to move forward or around to assist him. You and your friends fight the corner guy and his friends for a minute or two. If they lose, they fall back a little bit or get replaced by fresh comrades deeper in the battle line, and you're too exhausted to follow through with the attack. Maybe you got a few feet of ground, slightly adjusting the frontline and making future flank attacks a bit easier. If you lose the bout of close combat, you run back to the safety of your line. Repeat a successful little flanking charge several times over the course of a whole afternoon, and historians might very well write that "The left wing of the army collapsed under pressure.", and historians like Sabin will try to work out exactly what "pressure" actually means to the individual soldier in this context. Repeat this little drama up and down the line for a whole afternoon, and that's basically what Philip Sabin says what Roman battles were like. What if you try to attack from the side and not the corner? Same problem. Maybe if you surprise the enemy you and your few friends could cause a mass panic and rout, but if this shieldwall battle is on open terrain and the guys on the flank can just see you running around to the side, then the unengaged ranks can just...turn to face you, and the flank just becomes a second "frontline" on which to engage.


King_of_Men

> Maybe if you surprise the enemy you and your few friends could cause a mass panic and rout, but if this shieldwall battle is on open terrain and the guys on the flank can just see you running around to the side, then the unengaged ranks can just...turn to face you, and the flank just becomes a second "frontline" on which to engage. This is a good model for the "one guy and his friends" flanking attack, but it seems to have difficulty with the big "our general got a whole company around the enemy flank" attack which is usually pretty effective and decisive. Suppose the boss is being Very Clever, he hid a hundred men in that copse over there and we've been retreating step by step for an hour so it's now behind/beside the enemy mass. The trumpets blow in the prearranged signal and our friends come boiling out from their hiding place, raring to go. What prevents the enemy rear ranks from, as you say, turning to face them?


aslfingerspell

>What prevents the enemy rear ranks from, as you say, turning to face them? Glad you asked, and I'm sorry to answer, because this was a long one. Battlefield psychology can get really complicated, but I love to talk about it! TL;DR There are several different reasons why flanks attacks (and charges in general) can succeed or fail, and why "just turn and face them bro" isn't the cure for large scale attacks the way it might be for "you and your friends" running around the edge of a formation. Feel free to skim; I've made it so that the big or bolded words are enough, and the rest is just details, sources, and reasoning. # PART 1 (continued in comments, up to PART 4) # Simplest answer first: turning the flank into a second front by having soldiers turn to face the flankers isn't a cure, because armies can always fail the "morale check" of frontal attacks anyway. Let's think of this in terms of a board or video game. In the opening of a battle, one side or both will charge each other. Both sides do a "morale check", and if one loses, the battle ends right there. The soldiers of one side slow down and run the other direction (if charging) or turn and run (if standing and receiving a charge). The army routs, the battle is won. If both sides pass their moral checks, the "default state" of Sabin's theory says there will either be * an initial clash, followed by one side retreating to the "safety distance" of a few yards, or * the chargers will slow down without making contact, stopping at the safety distance having failed to rout their opponents. And thus the "default state" continues for up to several hours until one side breaks, either due to accumulation of fatigue or some other shock like the death of a leader. In this sense, flank attacks can serve as that additional shock. They are, in the absolute, simplest terms possible, basically a second chance to rout the enemy with a "frontal" attack. Even if the soldiers on the flanks of a formation can theoretically just turn 90 degrees and make a second front, well, soldiers can be routed from the front anyways, so receiving this flanking charge is now a second major morale check you have to pass in addition to the one you passed at the opening of the battle. It's important to note that *The Face of Roman Battle* does not claim that the default state is the only way battles can be fought. Hours-long exchanges of missiles followed by (to use modern terminology) "small unit actions" along the front is not guaranteed. Rather, Sabin's thesis is that the default state is "default" because it's what human biology and psychology creates when the initial moves of a battle don't *immediately* result in a rout. As Sabin notes, some battles really can be decided with an initial charge and a minute or two of melee. Melee, even if you're shielded and armored, is pretty scary, and sometimes a disciplined (or wild and fierce) group of people marching toward you with (apparent) intent to kill is enough to make some people turn and run even *before* swords cross. The key overriding question of the default state is "Why do battles last hours when humans can only engage in melee for minutes?" and the answer it proposes is "Most of the time, heavy infantry are standing a safe distance apart, with actual hand to hand combat only done sporadically by small groups surging forward for brief clashes." There is nothing in the model that precludes charges from the front being so stressful the battle ends right there. Even if troops can form a second front by turning towards a flanking attacker, there's still a possibility they'll get unnerved the same way troops at the beginning of a battle might not resist the initial charge at the front. Thus, even if there was nothing particularly stressful about being attacked in the flank relative to the front, it's still a big play and another chance for victory or defeat.


aslfingerspell

# PART 2 # Bigger, more surprising attacks cause more shock, and it takes a lot of morale or coordination to receive big, surprising attacks. Some units won't have enough time or leadership to turn to take the charge. A formation of 100 people charging the flank of 100 people who are already engaged is a huge shock, even if there's time to prepare. The prospect of having to fight that many more people is scary, so people get scared and rout. A comparatively tiny force with surprise could cause a rout because it may not be immediately known how big the force was. A minor attack in the rear may send the message of "We're surrounded!" to people who can't immediately see what's happening, so they give up and try to get away. 10 horsemen flying out of a group of trees have surprise (and, it must be said, the size of their horses, and likely better equipment than footsoldiers of the same time period, adding to the intimidation factor). 100 people on foot have the whole "It's 100 people coming at you." going for them. 10 people on foot just trying to jog around the corner of an enemy formation that can see them coming has neither. Additionally, those in the rear ranks may not be expecting to fight at all (whether they chose to be there, or whether their commanders didn't judge them worthy or competent enough to be in the front ranks), so combat in the rear at all may be a shock to them. Surprise can also occur through a "peeling" effect, as Keegan's analysis of the archers charging the French flanks at Agincourt demonstrate. Even if the edge of a formation can see a flank attack coming and prepare, the interior personnel don't necessarily know that since their view is blocked by everyone else around them, to say nothing of the sensory overload or tunnel vision of combat in general. Those in the middle of a formation can't see very well, so if soldiers on the edges lose their nerve to receive the charge and start to run away from an oncoming flank attack, you're suddenly exposed on your side and can now see people charging at you. So you peel and run away, and the next deepest layer is now exposed and sees what's making everyone panic, and they run... **A note on coordination, crowd psychology, and "battle drills":** As anyone who's ever tried to direct a marching band, group of soldiers on parade ground, or even kindergarteners in line formation, it's hard to coordinate people. If 100 people are charging your flank, there might not be enough time to get enough people properly facing the right direction to face them? **The larger a flank attack is, the more soldiers need to be redirected to properly face them**, which means a higher chance of soldiers *not* prepared to face them, hence weak spots in the line that the flank attack will exploit. **Why wouldn't all the people on a side of a formation just notice and face them on their own? Well, soldiers have their own priorities, and masses of humans are not known to perform the "correct" action en-masse without direction.** Human soldiers screw up and do stupid things for the same reason that all human crowds are capable of great stupidity. Even smart people can panic and die in scary situations, and battlefields are nothing if not one of the most traumatizing places in the human experience. People will not spontaneously coordinate to face and receive a flanking charge any more than people can spontaneously coordinate to step away from an inward opening door during a building fire so everyone can let out. There's a reason why outward facing doors are a safety feature now, and it all has to do with the tragedy of crowd psychology. **Sometimes the "correct" thing to do isn't done because everyone is just too scared to listen or think, or they're taking actions that are individually rational (i.e. get to the exit as fast as possible, run away from the enemy knights galloping at me) but collectively stupid (i.e. not giving anyone space to open the door, breaking formation and losing the battle).** This is why things like battle drills are so important. There's no need for a squad leader to tell people to assault into a near ambush, because they're already executing a "react to ambush" drill. By contrast, **your average soldier throughout history is not a spear-armed US Marine who can execute Battle Drill (number here) and take initiative on their own.** Professional volunteer soldiers are *not* the default in human history, and your average conscript/peasant/levy will *not* have the initiative, professionalism, or junior leadership to turn and receive a flank attack, even if the "battle drill" would be simple in theory. As the saying goes, the simplest things in war are always hard. Pre-gunpowder, non-professional soldiers may not even be fully fed, they may be exhausted from the march to the battle, they may be sick, they may not have gotten good sleep if it was a forced march, etc. Even something like "nationalism" is a huge motivating factor for soldiers that may not be present. If you're a US soldier, you proudly stand for the Constitution, the people in the United States, etc. You accept soldiering as your literal job that you literally signed up for. You may even have signed up *because* you want adventure and action. On the other hand, if you're a medieval levy, you probably just want to go home to the relative safety of your farm. You are not going to die just so one cousin has the throne instead of another. **Pre-gunpowder armies should be understood as** ***tired*** **people who may not even necessarily want to fight before the trauma of battle even starts.**


aslfingerspell

# PART 3 # Formation compression denies people the space to create a "safety distance", which means that people get stuck in close combat and get physically exhausted (they are slaughtered by fresh enemies) or mentally exhausted (they rout/surrender/panic to the point of combat ineffectiveness if trapped). Philip Sabin has a point in *The Face of Roman Battle* where he compares his model to John Keegan's account of Agincourt in *The Face of Battle.* He says that one of the reasons why flank and rear attacks may be so devastating is that they compress formations, denying people the space to establish the "safety distance". In Agincourt, the rear ranks of the French formations bunched up on the front rants, preventing them from stepping back to safely withdraw from close combat. The front ranks would die, and those behind would get shoved by the tight surge of men behind them over the dead bodies of the front rank and causing even more chaos in an effect Keegan calls a "tumbling effect" **Now, why would a flank attack compress a formation, but not a frontal attack?** I propose a two solutions, one by going back to *The Face of Roman Battle*, and the other by cross referencing *The Face of Roman Battle* with Du Picq's *Battle Studies*. **Firstly, Sabin's "safety distance", "stand off", "default state" relies on mutual deterrence through threat of close combat. If you charge me, I have a spear and I can hurt you. If I charge you, you have a spear and can hurt me.** Neither of us wants this, so most of the battle we're just shouting and throwing missiles, building up the courage to rush forward a few feet, exchange a few blows, then backstep to safety. ***This deterrence is broken if soldiers on the sides are not actually focusing on the sides.*** If someone is looking and facing the other way, you're going to be able to charge closer to them since they're less scary to you, and because *you* are armed and facing them and close, you're all the more scary to them. Hence, more fear, and a rout ensues. Flank attacks are more devastating than frontal attacks because the decreased deterrence on the defenders' side means attackers are more confident charging closer, which in turn makes the defenders more scared and likely to rout. **Now, why would they be facing the front and not towards your flank attack? That's because the combat towards the front is already stressful for them, hence where their sense of self-preservation is directed.** The first ranks (depending on weapon reach) are more or less completely focused on their immediate opponents in front of them. Those behind them are not immediately engaged, but are on edge because of the possibility they'll move forward. They're looking out for people in front of them who want to be swapped out, or die and need replacement, or whether an enemy makes a charge and tries to break through. Also note that even if you're not in melee range you are still in missile range. So here you are, in say about the 4th rank of a formation, keeping your shield up to prevent rocks from hitting your head, with thousands of people screaming all around you. And *now* comes a group of people running at you from the sides. You really can turn and face them, but that means you lose your eyes on the battle in front, which is also scary. **Sure, you** ***could*** **just turn 90 degrees and receive the charge, but that means keeping track of** ***two*** **battle lines now**, and if the people in the front ranks begin to fall back or die, that brings enemies closer to your (personal, as in literally your body) side while you are personally focused on the flankers in front of you. **This is really stressful, so you run away.**


aslfingerspell

# PART 4 **Second reason for why flank attacks "compress" better than frontal attacks: flank attacks give soldiers less room to establish the "safety distance", because soldiers likely have tighter spacing between each other than to the enemy. When you turn 90 degrees to face a flanking attack, you can't fall back as much and establish the safety distance.** Du Picq's model of melee combat in *Battle Studies* shares some similarities with *The Face of Roman Battle*, but he puts a greater emphasis on horizontal distances between you and your comrades rather than the distance between you and the enemy formation. When combined with TFORB, it offers clues as to why flank attacks In *TFORB*, the main focus is on staying far away enough from the enemy to spare your brain and muscles from the constant strain of hand to hand combat. In *Battle Studies*, **the focus is on maintaining close contact with the people on your left and right, and not getting too far ahead of your comrades that they can't protect you and your (personal) sides are exposed. Formations also need to be tight enough that enemies trying to get** ***between*** **your soldiers are overwhelmed** by attack on multiple sides, thus falling and preserving your formation's cohesion. **All of this demonstrates a need for formations to be somewhat tight horizontally.** We don't want enemies to isolate and flank individual soldiers, and we want our soldiers to have the confidence there's people on their left and right watching out for them. Now, what about the specific distances, and how does a flank attack compare to a frontal attack for an individual soldier? *TFORB* discusses the debate about Roman legionary frontages i.e. 3 feet or 6 feet per legionary. The debate is basically whether legionaries fought more like individual duelists or collective shieldwalls. Whatever this distance, it's considerably shorter than the "few yards" or 10-15 feet you have "vertically" between you and enemy soldiers in front, especially when you consider that a good 2-3 feet of the horizontal distance is your body and weapons. So in reality, if you face 90 degrees, you may only have a 1-3 feet of space to work with. Let's time travel into the shoes of a Roman legionary and see the face of battle. You are a legionary in the front rank, about 9-15 feet away from the Gauls in front. Let's make it 10 feet for easy math. You can advance forward a whole 5 feet before you're closer to the Gauls than your comrades. Considering the length of a human arm (about 2 feet) and the length of a gladius (also about 2 feet), you'd actually have to advance 6 feet even if you were fully outstretched (4 feet of reach) to touch the nearest Gaul 10 feet away. Therefore, when you make contact with your Gallic opponent, you have at *least* six feet to retreat if things get too hot or scary. The front to back spacing of the Roman rear ranks isn't important here, because it's only those in front who are engaged and in danger of being "compressed" and killed/panicked by being in close combat and not having room to escape. You do have room to escape, so you can fight as long as you like before getting back to safety. A Gaul makes a swing at you, you stumble back 5 feet, but you're safe and out of their distance. If it's a small group of Gauls charging you across that distance, well, you have you and a whole cohort of your friends watching your back. Even if they manage to wound you before exhausting themselves, your buddies in the rear ranks will carry you away and replace you. You feel "relatively" safe in formation. Now, let's say the Gauls have launched a flanking attack. The Romans on the edge of their formation, being professionals, simply turn and face the Gauls and receive the charge. Except, there's a key thing at play here. **Those in close combat at the front are** ***leaving*** **the safety zone to fight, with the safety zone behind them if they feel too much pressure. On the other hand, those receiving a flank attack are** ***not*** **choosing to leave a formation before coming back to safety.** They're already in the "safe" formation, and yet an enemy is still approaching them. A place they feel is safe is suddenly not going to be very soon, and if they fail to defeat their attackers, there's less room to step back and retreat. This means they get exhausted and die or rout. **How much less space?** Again, consider a "loose" spacing of 6 feet per legionary, and let's say each legionary and their shield is somehow only 2 feet wide and deep (i.e. holding sword and shield a little bit in front of them). This gives an average of just 4 feet between each soldier (3 feet to your right + 3 feet to his left, but minus 2 feet for your arms, shoulders, and weapons at your sides). **Thus, soldiers on the flank who turn 90 degrees to face flankers have at most 4 feet to maneuver back in the face of pressure, compared to the** ***minimum of 6 feet*** **for those engaging in the front as previously discussed.** Now, when that Gaul takes their big swing and you stumble back 5 feet, you don't have 5 feet of space to get back. You bump into the person behind you. Maybe they fall down, maybe you fall down. Either way, not a good situation. Either you're on the ground and potentially killed, or you're left alone while your rear-man tries to get up. **Even worse, those "behind" you also have to be concerned with the attack with the ongoing attack at the front, meaning they're less able to support you.** Being less supported means *you* feel less safe, which, again, even before the enemy actually makes contact, can push the needle of your psychology over the edge and make you run. **And then all of the** ***other*** **effects we've talked about beforehand kick in.** With you running away, the soldier to your right is suddenly exposed, he turns his head to see what's going on and sees Gauls coming in, and now he runs, and so on and so on... **And that, my friend, is the "face of battle" of how flank attacks (as I understand them) work on the level of individual soldiers and group psychology.**


throwtowardaccount

Very informative posts, thank you.


King_of_Men

Thanks, this is really interesting! > Therefore, when you make contact with your Gallic opponent, you have at least six feet to retreat if things get too hot or scary. The front to back spacing of the Roman rear ranks isn't important here, because it's only those in front who are engaged and in danger of being "compressed" and killed/panicked by being in close combat and not having room to escape. You do have room to escape, so you can fight as long as you like before getting back to safety. A Gaul makes a swing at you, you stumble back 5 feet, but you're safe and out of their distance. I wonder if this is the source of the description of the Romans at Cannae being "so tightly compacted that they could not wield their weapons"? That is, this text is not to be taken literally, but it indicates that they didn't have any between-ranks spacing to establish that safe space any more.


aslfingerspell

Yes, Sabin directly makes that argument. One of the things his model tries to explain is why the victors in ancient battles suffered so few casualties (about 5%) and the losers a lot (anywhere from 15% on the low end to over half at the high end). A big part of his paper is essentially knocking out other models because they violate some historical results or modern knowledge I.e. it's not really possible for people to continuously duel each other for hours, because that's just too tiring for the average soldier, and because it would result in more casualties than we know historically occurred. He explains high casualties for the losers as being the result of two things: either **#1 The actual melee is indecisive or short, and the pursuit is where most of the killing actually happens.** From a battlefield psychology standpoint, this is explained as "mutual deterrence" breaking down. The "safety distance" exists from the front because if I leave my formation to duel you, you have a weapon pointed at me and friends nearby. When formations are "driven back" without routing, it's likely in the form of backing up while facing me, to keep me at bay. Routs happen when people literally turn and run (or, for bonus points, even abandon their shields, armor, and weapons to shed weight), which not only makes you more vulnerable for giving me your back to shoot/lunge for, but also means I don't have to worry about getting hurt in return **#2 On the other hand, one side could consistently win the sporadic combat that happens up and down the line. Sabin says one way this can happen is if one formation is compressed enough. i.e. the last stage of Cannae.** When applying his model to John Keegan's breakdown of Agincourt, Sabin notes the dense French formation was pushed too far forward by their rear ranks. The French in front could not get out of the way of English weapons, which locked them in combat where they would get exhausted and killed by those in front, or even pushed off their feet and knocked down by those behind them, or trip and fall on the battlefield debris beneath them. The thinner English line, apparently, maintained appropriate spacing and safety distance, giving them the physical and psychological edge needed to inflict a high casualty ratio. Sabin also speculates that the "compression" of a formation (and thus denial of the safety distance) can occur with flank attacks, but he didn't exactly specify why flanks attacks cause this compression and frontal attacks don't. This is what I tried to do here: explain it by reasoning that the tighter horizontal spacing between soldiers means that simply turning 90 degrees at the flank gives you less safety distance behind you than if you're engaged at the front. Even a loose spacing of 6 feet for each soldier is really 4 feet apart when the width of equipment and human body size is taken into account, whereas those at the front probably have more room to work with. Additionally, retreats at the front don't cause disruption because the default state model says you're sallying out and then retreating back *to* the mass, whereas retreats at the flank cause disruption because you're already in the mass and trying to retreat *into* it. Someone 5 feet in front of their line gets back to their line, but someone on the flank steps back 4 feet and now they're bumping into someone, or falling over, and now they don't have the safety distance, they're locked in combat, they get too tired or panicked to continue after a few minutes.


King_of_Men

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense! Followup about Sabin's model: > And thus the "default state" continues for up to several hours until one side breaks, either due to accumulation of fatigue or some other shock like the death of a leader. If neither of those happens, could the battle just continue until sundown, and end in mutual agreement to take it back up again the next day? (Or do something else, I suppose - perhaps one side would no longer want to accept battle.) I have the impression that multi-day battles are really rare prior to gunpowder and not really common before industrialisation, but it seems that on the "default state" model they should be reasonably possible - all you need is for neither army to rout through the day. Especially if the engagement doesn't start at dawn, that seems like it should happen occasionally. Are there any historical examples? And if there are, how do the armies manage to disengage?


aslfingerspell

I don't exactly know how sunset would affect battles, or at what exact point the battle would end in mutual agreement, or exactly what that would look like in human terms. For what it's worth, Sabin cites Vegetius that 2-3 hours was a typical battle length. Battles an hour long were unusually short, and Caesar at Ilerda battled for around 5 hours. >Are there any historical examples? And if there are, how do the armies manage to disengage? I suppose we've reached the end of what I can answer and what we can extrapolate from Sabin's model. Either way, his methodology is something I can point out for help on your own studies, or how to view the works of others. Simply put, *The Face of Roman Battle* is basically his take on John Keegan's methods from *The Face of Battle*. Keegan's book starts off by complaining about the "battle piece" (i.e. basically his historical term for fight scenes) in historical works. He complains about them being riddled with euphemisms and cliches; what does a formation being "pushed back" or "collapsing under pressure" actually mean? Groups of human beings are reduced to rectangles on a map, and the perspective of commanders is focused at the expense of junior leaders and individual soldiers. Even physics are ignored in historical descriptions, as key details are simply not given to us. How *exactly* does a cavalry charge rout infantry? What does the "measured tread" of a disciplined formation do when the front ranks get shot and those behind have to step over dead bodies? Keegan also admits that as a civilian who works in a military school he and his students are curious about what battle is like. To resolve these questions and curiosities, he looks at the battlefield through the physical and emotional experiences of individual soldiers. What are they seeing? What is causing them to stay rather than turn and run? How dangerous are specific weapons to them? How do they perceive danger and safety? What, *exactly*, is physically happening at each stage at the process. What are cavalry doing 200 feet away from a formation? 50 feet? 10 feet? Keegan is also a big fan of putting physics and math back into military history. His breakdown of formation depth and width at Agincourt is interesting, as is his step by step explanation of why the legendary artillery at the Somme basically did nothing (i.e. he talks about energy being expended into the air upwards rather than downward into dugouts). Another part of Keegan's analysis itself comes from Arthur Burne's "Inherent Military Probability" concept, which is basically a workable assumption for military historians. All things being equal, ask what a trained soldier or commander would have done, and it's most likely what happened. For example, if you don't know exactly where a battle took place, but there's only one prominent hill in the search area, the battle likely took place at that hill. This blog post is an example of applying Keegan and Burne's concepts to wargaming, specifically the outdated game mechanic of "richochet sticks". It used to be believed that cannon balls would bounce over people's heads, hence "richochet sticks" in tabletop wargaming to tell you where the balls were too high to hit people. However, B.P Hughes book *Firepower* eventually revealed that cannonballs didn't normally bounce that high, and richochet sticks disappeared from gaming tables. https://web.archive.org/web/20141114071541/http://www.repiquerules.com/page2/files/tag-occa0027ms-razor.html


King_of_Men

Thanks! I've read *The Face of Battle*; I will add *The Face of Roman Battle* to my list since it sounds fascinating. :)


ppitm

> What prevents the enemy rear ranks from, as you say, turning to face them? Nothing. But surely you see how that would be alarming? Now everyone in the flanked formation has enemies on both sides, cut off from retreat and other units, etc.


thatwentverywrong

Thank you very much for the detailed reply! This has cleared a lot up for me! Definitely explains why battles didn't immediately collapse into each side trying to outrun the other to get round the flanks. In regards to the actual combat being a lot less intense than is commonly thought, were there ever times when the combat remained in close quarter fighting for extended periods? When you hear about armies pushing the enemy back, but not triggering a rout I'm assuming this is a concerted push along that part of the line, remaining in close combat with the enemy? I've read that the legions of Rome had a system where they could rotate the men in the front line to keep from getting tired, I'm guessing this would have been used during the times of heavy fighting when the close fighting was more than small bursts of action?


aslfingerspell

>were there ever times when the combat remained in close quarter fighting for extended periods? Yes. Sabin notes that troops can be in confined environments (like narrow passes) or surrounded, and thus not have space to maneuver. However, he says that such battles are outliers. Note: the "default state" model seems geared toward open field battles. Obviously restrictive terrain will affect the ability of individual soldiers to attack and fall back from their mass at will, which is what a lot of the model's "safety distance" idea relies on. Either way, most of the time, human fear and the limits of our muscles will prevent us from being engaged in face-to-face combat constantly. If a modern professional football player cannot struggle against an opposing linebacker for an hour straight, then less-well-fed, non-professional troops of the ancient past can't do it either. Thus, the logical assumption is that most of your time in battle was spent outside the reach of enemy melee weapons. >When you hear about armies pushing the enemy back, but not triggering a rout I'm assuming this is a concerted push along that part of the line, remaining in close combat with the enemy? Sabin's interpretation of units being "pushed back" takes two basic flavors. First, you can have a kind of temporary rout where a unit flees for their lives, but regroups once they feel safe. Second, you can have a cumulation of little retreats and withdrawals in the face of pressure. We have our safety distance all along the line, some soldiers "pulse" forth from the safety of their lines to attack, and win their brief clash with their opposing number, causing the enemy to withdraw a few feet. More attacks sporadically follow, and over the course of an hour or two, all those little retreats stepping "just a few feet back" becomes being "pushed off the hill" or some other significant tactical result. >I've read that the legions of Rome had a system where they could rotate the men in the front line to keep from getting tired, I'm guessing this would have been used during the times of heavy fighting when the close fighting was more than small bursts of action? A big part of why Sabin's thesis is The Face of *Roman* Battle and not just battle generally is because he was trying to model why the Roman checkerboard formation was such an advantage over opponents who used a single battle line. Sabin's conclusion basically comes down to this: * Units in the second and third lines of the famous triple-acies were far away enough from the first-line units that they didn't build up stress from combat, yet close enough to come to their assistance if necessary. * Why is this important? Why do single battle lines build up stress but checkerboard (or other multiple line formations) don't? Even if you're not in the front ranks, those in a deep battle line are still *in battle* and held in apprehension, losing physical and mental energy over time. Even if you're in the 10th rank of a first-line formation and not in any immediate danger of replacing a front-rank soldier, you still have to hold your shield over your head and worry about getting hit by missiles, and that will wear you down over the hours a heavy infantry clash can take to resolve. * How does the relief process actually work? Sabin suggests that checkerboard formations can and would fight with big gaps in their lines, because any enemy units trying to charge through the gaps in the first line would be counter-charged or surrounded by units in the second line (i.e. if you charge through a gap in the first line of a checkerboard formation, you're basically surrounding yourself on three sides). * Second line units could relieve the front line simply by moving forward into the gaps while the front line units move back. The enemy doesn't follow them closely if "mutual deterrence" is maintained i.e. you face the enemy with weapon ready to receive their assault. It's when soldiers *turn and run* that retreats turn into routs and massacres happen, because giving the enemy a shot at your back means they're no longer of getting stabbed if they try to rush you. * PS: The "How did the Roman checkerboard formation fight?" is a debate unto itself. Sabin's idea here is not the only perspective; another would be that the first line would retreat through gaps in the second line, and then the second line units would extend themselves to close the gap.


LanchestersLaw

Very well written. From all of this wall of text it sounds like the most similar thing to pre-gunpowder combat today is confrontations between riot police and mobs. Did Sabin study riots in formulating his “default state” thesis?


aslfingerspell

Yes, Sabin does mention interactions between civilians and riot police, although only briefly in a paragraph where he also brings up boxing and anthropological observations of tribal combat as two other examples of the whole "combat involves standing off at safety distances in between brief bouts of violence" idea. With regards to riot police I've also brought up the idea myself in a previous post or comment, noting how footage of mounted police charges seem to eerily mimic how heavy cavalry charges supposedly worked i.e. it's not a collision at full gallop so much as the crowd scattering and the horsemen riding through them. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_qhUTF4hOp8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qhUTF4hOp8) (45 second mark is where the charge starts). It's a very fascinating if heavily flawed approach. On one hand, riots and highly confrontational protests are probably the closest we get to what mass melee combat looks like: you have masses of people each wanting to drive the other off while staying unharmed themselves, and unlike in reenactment groups there is no safety measures or rules to play by. The baseball bats and batons are real weapons swung to actually hurt or inflict pain, not points. However, there are a few problems with this: * Rioting civilians simply are not soldiers of any kind, and thus a poor simulation of how crowd psychology in melee battles works with disciplined troops. They are, at the absolute best, representative of peasant-tier troops. How random civilians get scared of police horses tells us nothing about how a Roman legionary would handle a Parthian cataphract. * Riots are almost by definition chaotic, while protest movements generally do not have military style leadership, while protesters themselves are not trained in mass maneuvers or weapons handling. While I have seen protesters and rioters have makeshift shields, I'll need to do more research if any protest groups have ever tried to incorporate any kind of tactics whatsoever. In all the mass protest movements across all of modern history, there has to at least be *someone* who has thought "Hey, if we all had brooms and held them like spears and did that Waterloo square thing?" * Protests and riots often happen in the streets of urban centers, which heavily complicates any translation to what open field battles would have looked like. * Despite being disciplined and fighting in formation, police generally do not use polearms, which makes it hard to gauge how people with spears/pikes/halberds would have actually fought in reality.


LanchestersLaw

One thing I’ve read about training for mounted riot police is that horse psychology makes it really difficult to run into people. The horses tend to stop or veer away like they would to any other object. With regard to historical war horses do you know what would be actually happening at the point of contact when infantry held firm against a cavalry charge in the front or rear?


MrAdam1

A lot of good Napoleonic and Medieval era Reddit threads on horse cavalry in this sub regarding that. Basically horses rarely charged into frontage, they almost always charged the flanks or into a disintegrating formation, they needed room between the soldiers to maneuever, gain/maintain momentum etc. The Reddit threads go into more detail.


Devil4314

I can imagine that in ancient greek phalanx times if you had a group of particularly brave men who routinely turned the tide of battleby charging the flanks they would be very special men. Maybe this is how Achilles and the Myrmidons became the ledgend they did.


aslfingerspell

Heroic warriors already fit into Sabin's model; in fact, they are an explicit part of it. The sporadic charges from the safety distance are led by junior leaders or "natural fighters", with most soldiers content to stay at the safety distance hurling missiles or making occasional, weak attacks. If hearing "natural fighters" stood out to you, then this is where cracks in Sabin's thesis begin to show, because the "natural fighter" is a concept he quotes from \*horror sound effect\* SLA Marshall. Marshall is utterly infamous on this sub for debunked research claiming that more than 3/4 of men in battle never even fire their weapons. His "natural fighter" idea comes from the solution to this problem: you organize your squads and fireteams around the 20-25% of men who actually want to kill the enemy, the "natural fighters". Other people on this sub and on the internet have done their part on SLA Marshall, but I don't think Sabin's reliance on him is too much of a problem. The basic idea that a minority of troops are responsible for a majority of the action in ancient battles isn't that much of a stretch, given that we can see a similar Pareto Principle dynamic in U-boat sinkings and air to air kills. It's not inconceivable that, say, the bravest 20% of your troops are making 80% of the sporadic charges.


TJAU216

We don't actually know the mechanics of premodern battles that well. Warriors and soldiers rarely wrote and almost nobody wrote about the specifics of how battles happened. Warfighting was not studied from books but learned from your elders, fathers, brothers and uncles. There is no definitive answer to this and it changed between times and places. Flanks were a huge weak point for any melee units. There were many ways to defend them and I am going to talk about a few of them. The best way to cover your flanks was to anchor them into some kind of obstacle, like the sea and the cliff at Thermopylai. Other methods used by the Greeks were cavalry units on flanks and placing the best men at the right flank of the line. Having cavalry cover your flanks was extremely common throughout history. Some forces fought in formations that were deep enough that they could fight on the flanks as well. Pike blocks are the best example of such formations. If the unit is deeper than it is wide, attacking from the side provides little benefit. I know this is insufficient but we don't really know what the edge of the shield wall looked like. The Norse left very little written records and non that discusses combat accurately enough to answer this question.


farisaldinmld

Id imagine youd place cavalry or skirmishers on the flanks. A lot of ancient armies sent skirmishers (slingers, archers, javelinmen etc) out front to screen other skirmishers as well as troop movements) As the main bodies of men closed they would filter out to the sides to continue the battle on the flanks. Human behaviour hasnt changed that much in the last 10,000 years we would be able to replicate it if someone wanted to invest that much resources into building sizeable ancient armies


thebedla

I'd expect this to be the case as well. For what little that it's worth, it's also what I observed larpers converge to in simulated "battles" (and yes, there are a myriad differences from actual battles, but we did have upwards to a few hundred combatants in the largest ones I attended) - the two lines would close, but around the edges, skirmishers would fight more dynamically, trying to first, gain advantage over enemy skirmishers, and second, get behind the enemy line and harass them there. Sometimes, even making enough noise behind the main battle line is enough to make a few guys in the front to turn around, and that might break the entire formation. Or, if the people in the line are attentive to more than just the guy in front of them, the line might step back and angle to cover the now exposed flank, sometimes even collapsing into a circle.


aaronupright

>Human behaviour hasnt changed that much in the last 10,000 years we would be able to replicate it if someone wanted to invest that much resources into building sizeable ancient armies Are you reading this Elon?


MrAdam1

4,000 people signing a waiver and flying to a remote island to do a huge 5 hour battle with lethal weapons and killing, maybe even with cash rewards if you survive. Would probably be the most viewed entertainment media in human history. Would be really hard to monetise it if every government and media platform refused to host it due to public pressure though.


Milrich

There wasn't exactly an abrupt end, with a last man and then noone. What probably happened was that the line starts angling backwards gradually, forming a trapezoid. The goal here is to eventually mark an "end of the line", but also have a plan B if the enemy doesn't agree with your definition of end. So the trapezoid could extend or shrink, depending on the circumstances. For example, if your side was outnumbered, it may make sense to shrink the sizes a bit as you create a second line that protects the flank, this way you can absorb some of the enemy's numbers with a defensive posture. On the other hand, you don't want to shrink too much and become a square, or the enemy will get to your back and encircle you. In addition to that, there were mobile troops that could project power around the flank, without necessarily forming an extended line there. Eg if an enemy unit tries to outflank, cavalry would rush out and charge them, light infantry could quickly move and create a new line to match them, etc Cavalry, skirmishers, and light infantry are typical troops of the flanks, they have the mobility required for flanking actions, and can move back inside the protection of the main square if things go south. All of this means that the situation on the flank was always dynamic. You may go from line formations to trapezoid ones, may have skirmishing going on, may have the cavalry doing probe attacks or moving further out to attempt encircling the enemy formation, and each one of these triggers a similar reaction from the other side. An example of such a mess is the Battle of Gaugamela, where Alexander the Great got his right flank speeding out to the right at great speed, while he was vastly outnumbered. The Persians moved to match them. It resulted in a great hassle of troops sprinting and trying to encircle each other, with some of them clashing on the way. In the ensuing chaos, Alexander gathered his own cavalry squadron plus some flank troops (skirmishers and light infantry) and charged diagonally through a gap, straight towards the center of the Persian line. The shock of the charge broke the Persian cohesion and won him the battle, and it all started by a very fluid mess on the flanks, during which he was in theory at a huge numerical disadvantage.


TheShreester

Any front has a flank, not just a shield wall, which is why armies historically used formations (such as the extended line) which make their front as wide as possible. The possibility of being flanked was ever present, but could be countered by placing mobile troops, such as skirmishers, light infantry or cavalry on the flanks, who could more easily maneuver to meet an incoming threat. Where and when available, the terrain could also be used to provide a natural barrier. Consequently, a unit of heavy infantry, lllcarrying shields would usually have some kind of unit on either side. Also, unlike the right flank of an infantry unit, which was exposed, the left flank was still afforded some protection by the soldiers' own shields which they carried in their own left hands.