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Jamwad Hilder
Apr 18, 2007

surfin usa

Buschmaki posted:

How did Greek mercenaries like, work in practice? Since hoplites were a citizen militia wouldnt cities be uncool with some of them just sorta leaving to go fight for some other dudes for money? My only assumptions are that some aristocrat would get exiled and just have a bunch of his supporters leave with him and fight for money or like, some sort of diplomatic relationship would exist between the polity hiring mercenaries and the one supplying then where they'd be like, "Okay it's cool if you just pay some of our citizens to fight for you."

It's a specific instance, but after the Peloponnesian war, for example, there were plenty of men who had known nothing but war their entire lives. Some of them chose to sell their services as professional soldiers abroad rather than go home and learn how to be a farmer or an artisan or whatever. This is how Xenophon ended up fighting for the Persians.

And speaking of Persia, there were many Greek colonies in Anatolia. It's not unreasonable to think that the Persian satraps there might hire soldiers from those colonies due to the Greeks reputation as being formidable soldiers. They could also probably just force them to provide soldiers at times, because the Achaemenids conquered the colonies in the 500s.

Edit: the other thing I'd mention is that it's a citizen militia, and the citizens are providing their own gear. It's not a professional army for the most part and the state does not provide them with anything. If you're the 3rd or 4th son of a minor land holder with few prospects for inheritance, there's nothing stopping you from just walking off with your weapons and armor and trying to make a living as a mercenary. There's no local garrison commander or whatever to say "no" and there aren't really any rules or regulations.

Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Apr 18, 2022

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cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
This is a few centuries later of course, but some of the hellenistic kingdoms had more money than men they were willing to arm so the demand for mercenaries was high and people took advantage of the opportunity. It wouldn't surprise me if the math worked out similarly in classical Greece because a state like Athens only had like 1/3 of its population eligible to be a soldier, but the slaves and free non-citizens were still productive and produced income that could be used to hire mercenaries

Mandoric
Mar 15, 2003

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Swords have a tendency to become iconic weapons probably because they're much easier to carry, instantly recognisable as a weapon, and can't really serve any other purpose than being a weapon. The people who write the martial legends see the swords hunt up on the mantlepiece and whatever because the spear wouldn't fit/has been repurposed as a clothesline or whatever/splintered and broke and was replaced with a new one dozens of times. Same thing with the whole samurai myth developing around swords even as they primarily actually used spears, bows, and rifles, because the sword is the one that's actually remotely practical to carry every day.

The samurai sword-myth was also a deliberate choice to enshrine the weapon useless for large-scale war as the sidearm and magisterial badge (daisho only, shorter and single swords were restricted for commoners immediately before and after this era, but not really during!) of a retained warrior caste who the sole surviving direct feudatory would really rather not have thinking of large-scale war.

Slim Jim Pickens
Jan 16, 2012

CommonShore posted:

What this has me pondering now is how it fits in with the question of the legions, especially the maniple system, as an anti-hoplite formation. That checkerboard pattern seems like it would be really good at making this type of phalanx formation destroy its own cohesion simply by giving way in some places but not in others, effectively getting the block to shear itself apart. It even seems to give some context to the question of the triarii, namely they're only brought in against an opponent that maintains will after having its formations carved up...

It's all a bit questionable.

The biggest leap of logic in that tweet thread is that the assertion that Macedonian phalangites are confirmed to do the push. It's unsourced, and it seems at odds with the way phalangites have a two-handed pike, a smaller and more awkward shield, less armour, and more varied enemies. There's other stuff too, but this is a lynchpin argument for that guy and its weak. Quick and short little mention, as is popular for twitter education.

As for the Romans, they spent a ton of time fighting non-greeks like Celts and Samnites and Iberians. The idea that they would adopt a specifically anti-phalanx formation is suspect. Then you have the textual evidence, which doesn't really describe the checkerboard so much as just gaps of unspecified size which facilitated movement for the Romans, not a trap for phalanxes.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
A lot of pre-modern armies (and some modern ones) are basically everyone bringing whatever they can afford or have on hand, from peasants with pitchforks to nobles with full suits of armour, but I don't think that's incompatible with training and tactics. A fair few classical Olympic sports are basically military drill, javelin an archery in particular coming to mind (and more modern versions like biathlon) and I wouldn't be surprised if it was normal for men to train to keep fit and their skills sharp for the next war to come along, or just for something to do. You see it elsewhere in history, like mandatory archery exercises in Britain to ensure a ready supply of longbowmen.

MikeCrotch
Nov 5, 2011

I AM UNJUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF MY SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE RECIPE

YES, IT IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMPLE DISH

NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL TO USE A PEPPERAMI INSTEAD OF MINCED MEAT

YES, THERE IS TOO MUCH SALT IN MY RECIPE

NO, I WON'T STOP SHARING IT

more like BOLLOCKnese
It's really worth noting that we have a lot less information on how the manipular legions fought than you might think - there is no consensus on how the triarii were used at all, and the exact role and use of the velites is also pretty unclear.

It seems to be that the legionary fighting style was more individual and involved more of a "rotation" of guys as they got killed or tired, which necessitates gaps in the line so you can shift guys about. There was a discussion a while ago about how different ideas of civic virtue in Greece vs Rome led to different fighting styles, with the Romans have more of a thing about "virtus" and emphasising personal courage and excellence, which led to different military styles. Maybe. Or it might have been the other way round! This stuff is always pretty murky.

Imagined
Feb 2, 2007
That sort of stuff always makes me wonder what aspects of our lives today are considered so basic and ubiquitous that no one alive today has described them in writing to any detail. Imagine 2,000 years from now some scientist finding, I dunno, golf clubs and golf balls but no written or recorded descriptions of the game and trying to reverse engineer what people did with them based on nothing but the equipment.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


Slim Jim Pickens posted:

As for the Romans, they spent a ton of time fighting non-greeks like Celts and Samnites and Iberians. The idea that they would adopt a specifically anti-phalanx formation is suspect. Then you have the textual evidence, which doesn't really describe the checkerboard so much as just gaps of unspecified size which facilitated movement for the Romans, not a trap for phalanxes.

whether it seems suspect to you or not, that is the case. the romans fought in phalanx until they got their asses thoroughly kicked by the samnites (this was pretty early in roman history) and adopted the maniple, which was a samnite idea originally. the roman maniples proceeded to easily roll over other polities that fielded phalanxes in basically the same way that the samnites had beaten the romans. an army using maniples automatically puts a phalanx-using enemy in a tough spot even without speculative tactics like checkerboard formations...the terrain tolerance is higher (phalanxes require very flat terrain), so the romans could simply engage a phalanx on a gentle slope and gain an advantage, and the "joints" in the formation allow centurions to push their men forward into flanks or breaches independently.

a block of guys with spears is not a greek idea. they are the ones who are famous for it, and our word for the formation, phalanx, is greek; but as i said before, this is a ubiquitous weapon system. we don't know much about the fighting styles of the celts, gauls, iberians, etc. so it's hard to say whether they formed into spear blocks or not. regardless, the romans weren't just adopting an "anti-greek" formation by using a formation that's inherently destabilizing against phalanxes.

in any case, it's not as though the maniple system's anti-phalanx nature makes it unsuitable for fighting against other formations. the whole point is that it's flexible and evolves throughout the battle based on the decisions of independent commands on the ground rather than being the kind of "fire and forget" formation that had generally characterized large-scale warfare previously.

MikeCrotch
Nov 5, 2011

I AM UNJUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF MY SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE RECIPE

YES, IT IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMPLE DISH

NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL TO USE A PEPPERAMI INSTEAD OF MINCED MEAT

YES, THERE IS TOO MUCH SALT IN MY RECIPE

NO, I WON'T STOP SHARING IT

more like BOLLOCKnese
I was under the impression that the Samnites did fight in a hoplite style formation? In any case we have very, very little information about them as iirc Livy was the only person whose writing about the Samnite wars survived.

feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

cheetah7071 posted:

This is a few centuries later of course, but some of the hellenistic kingdoms had more money than men they were willing to arm so the demand for mercenaries was high and people took advantage of the opportunity. It wouldn't surprise me if the math worked out similarly in classical Greece because a state like Athens only had like 1/3 of its population eligible to be a soldier, but the slaves and free non-citizens were still productive and produced income that could be used to hire mercenaries

1/3rd eligible to be a hoplite which was not the only part of an ancient Greek army. Metics in particular were still subject to military service and hoplites tended to have a slave as an attendant.

WoodrowSkillson
Feb 24, 2005

*Gestures at 60 years of Lions history*

MikeCrotch posted:

I was under the impression that the Samnites did fight in a hoplite style formation? In any case we have very, very little information about them as iirc Livy was the only person whose writing about the Samnite wars survived.

No, they were hill tribes and kept using the terrain against the Romans. The Romans than learned from those struggles and adopted the maniple system.

Jazerus posted:

whether it seems suspect to you or not, that is the case. the romans fought in phalanx until they got their asses thoroughly kicked by the samnites (this was pretty early in roman history) and adopted the maniple, which was a samnite idea originally. the roman maniples proceeded to easily roll over other polities that fielded phalanxes in basically the same way that the samnites had beaten the romans. an army using maniples automatically puts a phalanx-using enemy in a tough spot even without speculative tactics like checkerboard formations...the terrain tolerance is higher (phalanxes require very flat terrain), so the romans could simply engage a phalanx on a gentle slope and gain an advantage, and the "joints" in the formation allow centurions to push their men forward into flanks or breaches independently.

a block of guys with spears is not a greek idea. they are the ones who are famous for it, and our word for the formation, phalanx, is greek; but as i said before, this is a ubiquitous weapon system. we don't know much about the fighting styles of the celts, gauls, iberians, etc. so it's hard to say whether they formed into spear blocks or not. regardless, the romans weren't just adopting an "anti-greek" formation by using a formation that's inherently destabilizing against phalanxes.

in any case, it's not as though the maniple system's anti-phalanx nature makes it unsuitable for fighting against other formations. the whole point is that it's flexible and evolves throughout the battle based on the decisions of independent commands on the ground rather than being the kind of "fire and forget" formation that had generally characterized large-scale warfare previously.

Celts and Gauls were the ones that the Romans got their armor from, and AFAIK there is no mention of them using full on phalanxes. The Iberians were another source of inspiration for the Romans as that is where the gladius is adopted from, and they fought in a style similar to the legions.

I think its important to note that there should probably be a distinction in this conversation between a "phalanx" of spearmen, and a "Phalanx" of Hoplites or Phalangists. You are right that a bunch of dudes with spears in close order is not that unique, but the whole weapon system and martial philosophy behind the Greek style ones makes them a bit more distinctive.

As for the triplex acies, as has been mentioned, we really do not know the full implementation. My takeaway has been that it is the order used during marching and for the reserves to be in. Before contact with the enemy, they would spread out and present a unified line, because it seems to me that always having your guys be flanked is just not good strategy. Battles took a while back then, and there were always lulls in the combat as the front lines tired. What the Romans had was a drilled system to more effectively replace the front lines. More quickly bringing up fresh troops, and then advancing into the still reforming enemy.

The way I'd see it working is below

Marching Order

XXXX____XXXX____XXXX Hastati
XXXX____XXXX____XXXX

_____XXXX____XXXX____XXXX Principes
_____XXXX____XXXX____XXXX

Before contact the rear centuries move up into the gaps, and the reverse happens when its time to pull back, with the reserves/principes moving up through the gaps

XXXXXXXX_XXXXXXXX_XXXXXXXXX Hastati

_____XXXX____XXXX____XXXX Principes
_____XXXX____XXXX____XXXX

Also its important to note that the Romans did eventually get rid of this, and moved to a more standard deployment of just multiple lines of infantry, and that is at the height of their success, so there does not seem to have been some inherent superiority of the triplex acies.

WoodrowSkillson fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Apr 19, 2022

FishFood
Apr 1, 2012

Now with brine shrimp!
The Roman manipular system and the equipment of scutum/pilum/gladius isn't really a response to the classical citizen hoplite, that era was long over by the time Rome starts fighting Greeks. Rome pops up in the Hellenistic era, where big kingdoms are using professional armies equipped along the lines of Alexander in huge combined arms formations. Mercenaries and professional standing armies had been the name of the game since the end of the Peloponnesian War. Some of them were equipped similarly to classical hoplites but there had been a shift to more lightly equipped troops like the Iphikratean peltasts or the later thureophoroi. Phalangites carried a smaller shield, too, and required a level of professionalism and drill that earlier hoplites just couldn't match.

This is the system the legions eventually defeat and I'd argue that it was a pretty even match. Rome faces a lot of early defeats against Hellenistic armies like those of Pyrrhus and Hannibal (although Carthaginian armies are pretty different from other Hellenistic forces) and really only pull through due to their seemingly endless manpower. There's also an argument that the republican form of government incentivizes just never giving up which is why when the two republics of Rome and Carthage fight over some farmland in Sicily it winds up a series of decades-long hellwars instead of the quicker surrenders of autocracies.

Cessna
Feb 20, 2013

KHABAHBLOOOM

MikeCrotch posted:

It's really worth noting that we have a lot less information on how the manipular legions fought than you might think - there is no consensus on how the triarii were used at all, and the exact role and use of the velites is also pretty unclear.

Can you elaborate on this a bit?

It is my understanding that the Triarii were the "last line," veteran spearmen that held the back line, and Velites were light skirmishers.

Is this under scrutiny? Did Polybius lie to me?

CommonShore
Jun 6, 2014

A true renaissance man


Cessna posted:

Can you elaborate on this a bit?

It is my understanding that the Triarii were the "last line," veteran spearmen that held the back line, and Velites were light skirmishers.

Is this under scrutiny? Did Polybius lie to me?



My own understanding of the Triarii is that all we know is that they were the hardest veterans and the "last line" and that they were only committed a few times on record, so that for the most part their role is mysterious (and that's why they were the focus of my armchair speculation).

PittTheElder
Feb 13, 2012

:geno: Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

It's all a bit questionable.

The biggest leap of logic in that tweet thread is that the assertion that Macedonian phalangites are confirmed to do the push. It's unsourced, and it seems at odds with the way phalangites have a two-handed pike, a smaller and more awkward shield, less armour, and more varied enemies. There's other stuff too, but this is a lynchpin argument for that guy and its weak. Quick and short little mention, as is popular for twitter education.

As for the Romans, they spent a ton of time fighting non-greeks like Celts and Samnites and Iberians. The idea that they would adopt a specifically anti-phalanx formation is suspect. Then you have the textual evidence, which doesn't really describe the checkerboard so much as just gaps of unspecified size which facilitated movement for the Romans, not a trap for phalanxes.

I read his Cannae thread and the author also posits that the Romans are also intentionally using a literal push there. Which I found peculiar given that I have never really read anything about Roman armies trying to use a push in the post-Phalanx army?

MikeCrotch
Nov 5, 2011

I AM UNJUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF MY SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE RECIPE

YES, IT IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMPLE DISH

NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL TO USE A PEPPERAMI INSTEAD OF MINCED MEAT

YES, THERE IS TOO MUCH SALT IN MY RECIPE

NO, I WON'T STOP SHARING IT

more like BOLLOCKnese

Cessna posted:

Can you elaborate on this a bit?

It is my understanding that the Triarii were the "last line," veteran spearmen that held the back line, and Velites were light skirmishers.

Is this under scrutiny? Did Polybius lie to me?

It's a similar situation to the "hoplite push" situation, where people in the past made very firm assessments about how ancient battles took place without there really the evidence to support that. So the triarii *might* have been deployed in a hoplite style with spear and shield as a veteran reserve, but since their use wasn't really pivotal in any battle (or for whatever reason) we just don't have very much information about what their intended use and performance was on the battlefield.

Same with velites - we know they were young dudes deployed to the front as skirmishers of some kind, but were they javelin armed ranged skirmishes or duelist? Were they supposed to be forward skirmishers or basically a way to get hot blooded young men out of the more disciplined formation? It's just not really clear.

The main thing is with a lot of this stuff is you hear some very firm "*this* is the way a certain army fought" (wargames can be particularly bad about this) and we just don't have enough evidence to say that with certainty.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

I’m sad there is no graffiti showing formations

. You’d think that would show up in a graffiti cartoon. Maybe we just haven’t found one yet

WoodrowSkillson
Feb 24, 2005

*Gestures at 60 years of Lions history*

fundamentallyi think the push poo poo is getting bogged down trying to ascribe a tactic as the intended strategy

there are going to be times that the best, or seemingly best option is a full bore push to break the enemy. but it just seems like if that was the plan, Hoplites and such would have had different equipment to optimize for that.

Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
Do these military tactics hold up or is the real success of the Roman military dividing into units small enough to feel out the battle as it descends into chaos?

Elissimpark
May 20, 2010

Bring me the head of Auguste Escoffier.

euphronius posted:

I’m sad there is no graffiti showing formations

. You’d think that would show up in a graffiti cartoon. Maybe we just haven’t found one yet

Centurion: Men! On my count, Penis-with-comically-large-balls formation!

CrypticFox
Dec 19, 2019

"You are one of the most incompetent of tablet writers"

Azza Bamboo posted:

Do these military tactics hold up or is the real success of the Roman military dividing into units small enough to feel out the battle as it descends into chaos?

That is a really tricky question that people have been debating for a very long time. The view that small unit leadership was critical to Roman success is fairly common, but its a surprisingly difficult topic to actually dig into. Historically, a lot of scholars assumed that centurions operated as NCO equivalents, and that idea underlies a lot of the ideas about Roman small unit leadership, but there are some issues with this claim (such as the fact that centurions were very socially distinct from common soldiers, getting paid 10x more, as well as the fact that people could be directly commissioned as centurions, and that was probably the most common way to become a centurion). There is clearly still something to the claim that Roman armies could operate very effectively on a low level, but it can be really hard to filter out anachronistic impulses to view the Roman army as doing something that modern Western armies emphasize (in this case, NCOs and small group tactics).

Jamwad Hilder
Apr 18, 2007

surfin usa

CrypticFox posted:

That is a really tricky question that people have been debating for a very long time. The view that small unit leadership was critical to Roman success is fairly common, but its a surprisingly difficult topic to actually dig into. Historically, a lot of scholars assumed that centurions operated as NCO equivalents, and that idea underlies a lot of the ideas about Roman small unit leadership, but there are some issues with this claim (such as the fact that centurions were very socially distinct from common soldiers, getting paid 10x more, as well as the fact that people could be directly commissioned as centurions, and that was probably the most common way to become a centurion). There is clearly still something to the claim that Roman armies could operate very effectively on a low level, but it can be really hard to filter out anachronistic impulses to view the Roman army as doing something that modern Western armies emphasize (in this case, NCOs and small group tactics).

I would add on to this that people also tend to think of the centurions, and no one else, as being the only NCOs of the Roman army when that comparison comes up. But that's ignoring multiple other NCO-equivalent roles. Each century would have had:
1 Centurion
1 Optio - sort of a sub-centurion, stationed at the back of the century to maintain order instead of at the front
1 Signifer - the standard bearer, although it's debatable how much of an officer role they actually had. But as a prestigious and desirable role they would certainly have the authority to order troops around if it came down to it.
10 Decani - a decanus was in charge of each of a century's ten "tent groups" (sort of like a squad, I guess) of legionaries who lived, worked, and fought together day-to-day. They would have been in charge of maintaining the living quarters, discipline, and battle cohesion of their group.

That's 13 "NCOs" for one century of 80-100 men. The maniple, which was the basic combat unit of the Roman Republic, would have been made up of two centuries, so you can double that number to 26

BUT! The Roman's also aren't actually all that unique in terms of NCOs. It's a sort of popular pop-historical view that they won because of small unit tactics and initiative but it ignores the fact that their opponents weren't stupid either, it wasn't just one guy in charge and that's why they lost. In the Macedonian/Successor States, the base combat unit was a syntagma (256 phalangites in 16 files of 16). I'm not as sure of the specifics of just how many men were officers there, but we know that at the very least the man at the front, middle, and rear, of each file was some sort of NCO-equivalent in order to maintain cohesion. At the very least that's 48 NCOs plus there would have been an overall commander, a standard bearer, musician, etc., just like in a Roman century.

Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Apr 19, 2022

CrypticFox
Dec 19, 2019

"You are one of the most incompetent of tablet writers"

Jamwad Hilder posted:

I would add on to this that people also tend to think of the centurions, and no one else, as being the only NCOs of the Roman army when that comparison comes up. But that's ignoring multiple other NCO-equivalent roles. Each century would have had:
1 Centurion
1 Optio - sort of a sub-centurion, stationed at the back of the century to maintain order instead of at the front
1 Signifer - the standard bearer, although it's debatable how much of an officer role they actually had. But as a prestigious and desirable role they would certainly have the authority to order troops around if it came down to it.
10 Decani - a decanus was in charge of each of a century's ten "tent groups" (sort of like a squad, I guess) of legionaries who lived, worked, and fought together day-to-day. They would have been in charge of maintaining the living quarters, discipline, and battle cohesion of their group.

That's 13 "NCOs" for one century of 80-100 men. The maniple, which was the basic combat unit of the Roman Republic, would have been made up of two centuries, so you can double that number to 26

BUT! The Roman's also aren't actually all that unique in terms of NCOs. It's a sort of popular pop-historical view that they won because of small unit tactics and initiative but it ignores the fact that their opponents weren't stupid either, it wasn't just one guy in charge and that's why they lost. In the Macedonian/Successor States, the base combat unit was a syntagma (256 phalangites in 16 files of 16). I'm not as sure of the specifics of just how many men were officers there, but we know that at the very least the man at the front, middle, and rear, of each file was some sort of NCO-equivalent in order to maintain cohesion. At the very least that's 48 NCOs plus there would have been an overall commander, a standard bearer, musician, etc., just like in a Roman century.

In addition to those things, another thing about centurions that distinguishes them from NCOs is the fact they held fairly high command posts above the level of century. A legion only had 7 officers who weren't centurions, and 6 of those were tribunes, who were often quite young and inexperienced. Every other officer post was also filled by centurions, including the 10 cohort commanders. A cohort is roughly equivalent in size to a modern battalion, and no one thinks battalion commanders are practically NCOs.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


euphronius posted:

I’m sad there is no graffiti showing formations

. You’d think that would show up in a graffiti cartoon. Maybe we just haven’t found one yet

We do have art of some formations! Just, none from the manipular era that I'm aware of.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Swords have a tendency to become iconic weapons probably because they're much easier to carry, instantly recognisable as a weapon, and can't really serve any other purpose than being a weapon. The people who write the martial legends see the swords hunt up on the mantlepiece and whatever because the spear wouldn't fit/has been repurposed as a clothesline or whatever/splintered and broke and was replaced with a new one dozens of times. Same thing with the whole samurai myth developing around swords even as they primarily actually used spears, bows, and rifles, because the sword is the one that's actually remotely practical to carry every day.

Swords, it must also be noted, are considerably more expensive and more durable. The High Medieval Cavalryman may have done the better part of his fighting with his lance, but the lance is very unlikely to survive much combat. The sword, despite (and to some extent because) of being a sidearm, is far more worth embellishing and showing off.

Vahakyla posted:

Perfect. Found it. Finally this book on my shelf got into use.

Glad I could help!

Weka posted:

Has anybody framed the adoption of the spear as the primary weapon of the legions as a response to fighting against more mixed cavalry and infantry armies?

Not to my knowledge. I will say that interestingly, China has a specific tradition of anti cavalry swords.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhanmadao

MikeCrotch posted:

It's a similar situation to the "hoplite push" situation, where people in the past made very firm assessments about how ancient battles took place without there really the evidence to support that. So the triarii *might* have been deployed in a hoplite style with spear and shield as a veteran reserve, but since their use wasn't really pivotal in any battle (or for whatever reason) we just don't have very much information about what their intended use and performance was on the battlefield.

Same with velites - we know they were young dudes deployed to the front as skirmishers of some kind, but were they javelin armed ranged skirmishes or duelist? Were they supposed to be forward skirmishers or basically a way to get hot blooded young men out of the more disciplined formation? It's just not really clear.

The main thing is with a lot of this stuff is you hear some very firm "*this* is the way a certain army fought" (wargames can be particularly bad about this) and we just don't have enough evidence to say that with certainty.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Part of where it started to fall into place for me was realizing that the manipular legion as I learned it from video games is just a command and control nightmare. Then it hit me that if velites are supposed to be skirmishers, why are they wearing conspicuous headdresses? Makes more sense if the function of the velites is to give young men a chance to prove themselves in front of their seniors - the headdresses are for other Roman soldiers to recognize them. And then I learned that video games are building some very confident assertions on some very hollow ground.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

How likely are you to get your lancehead back after the battle?

Or a lancehead, anyway.

Siivola
Dec 23, 2012

Depends on whether you win or not. :v:

But also iirc the couched lance didn't become a thing for cavalry until the medieval period. I would guess that you'll break fewer lances if instead of charging with your lance you instead simply ride in and stab at people with it.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Tulip posted:

We do have art of some formations! Just, none from the manipular era that I'm aware of.

Swords, it must also be noted, are considerably more expensive and more durable. The High Medieval Cavalryman may have done the better part of his fighting with his lance, but the lance is very unlikely to survive much combat. The sword, despite (and to some extent because) of being a sidearm, is far more worth embellishing and showing off.

Glad I could help!

Not to my knowledge. I will say that interestingly, China has a specific tradition of anti cavalry swords.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhanmadao

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Part of where it started to fall into place for me was realizing that the manipular legion as I learned it from video games is just a command and control nightmare. Then it hit me that if velites are supposed to be skirmishers, why are they wearing conspicuous headdresses? Makes more sense if the function of the velites is to give young men a chance to prove themselves in front of their seniors - the headdresses are for other Roman soldiers to recognize them. And then I learned that video games are building some very confident assertions on some very hollow ground.

That makes a lot of sense- the sword is the weapon that any soldier wielding it is most likely to come home with. (and quite likely other people's swords, if he's lucky)

The Zhanmadao there strikes me as probably something meant for soldiers who are very strong and very confident.

Also I did get the impression in pretty much all pre-modern warfare that visibility is VERY important, you need to be able to tell who your commanding officers are, where they are and what they want you to be doing. Something that remains pretty key pretty much up until like, the Napoleonic era, if the uniforms are any indication. The Velites dressing up obviously might also actually be a good idea for skirmishers specifically because of their role, as otherwise they might be mistaken for enemy troops and prone to friendly fire, as they're operating potentially out of view of the rest of the legion.

And to be fair to the video games, they need to figure out something to function as games, and I imagine many are going off the best guesses they have that are compatible with functional gameplay.


CrypticFox posted:

In addition to those things, another thing about centurions that distinguishes them from NCOs is the fact they held fairly high command posts above the level of century. A legion only had 7 officers who weren't centurions, and 6 of those were tribunes, who were often quite young and inexperienced. Every other officer post was also filled by centurions, including the 10 cohort commanders. A cohort is roughly equivalent in size to a modern battalion, and no one thinks battalion commanders are practically NCOs.

I feel like the divide here is that the Legions relying heavily on NCO-equivalents does not necessarily mean that Centurions would qualify- from all indications, they are very much officers of notable rank. Decurions might be worth some notice here. I know jack about military organisation, but ten men in one squad seems like a relatively small group to manage? Though seems like one of those ideal numbers to personally organise at once, though to know everyone personally and to assign to major and minor tasks, and have a little backup manpower on hand in case you need it.

Ola
Jul 19, 2004

:can:

https://twitter.com/DrDionGeorgiou/status/1516727765642457092

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

euphronius posted:

It just means man

:lol:, so the big ape dictator in Star Fox was called "man"?

I hope this wasn't on accident, because this is too good

Imagined
Feb 2, 2007
Reading James Howard-Johnston's 'The Last Great War of Antiquity' at the moment. I'm finding it extremely elegantly written and entertaining. The political impact of, essentially, football hooligans is particularly wild, and the concept that one could live one's entire life fighting life and death battles that later history will know literally nothing about other than 'it probably occurred' I will eternally find sobering.

ulmont
Sep 15, 2010

IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Imagined posted:

the concept that one could live one's entire life fighting life and death battles that later history will know literally nothing about other than 'it probably occurred' I will eternally find sobering.

I have bad news about how you’re probably living your life right now.

Imagined
Feb 2, 2007

ulmont posted:

I have bad news about how you’re probably living your life right now.

No poo poo? It's almost like that is exactly what I was saying.

Imagined fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Apr 22, 2022

Carillon
May 9, 2014






ulmont posted:

I have bad news about how you’re probably living your life right now.

:thejoke:

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

Just build a giant statue to all you've accomplished in life. Then noone will be able to argue with what you've accomplished

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Gaius Marius posted:

Just build a giant statue to all you've accomplished in life. Then noone will be able to argue with what you've accomplished

This is true.

Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

Gaius Marius posted:

Just build a giant statue to all you've accomplished in life. Then noone will be able to argue with what you've accomplished

Somebody already made mine.

Elissimpark
May 20, 2010

Bring me the head of Auguste Escoffier.
"Look on my Works, ye Mighty and... hey, why are you laughing?!"

Jeb Bush 2012
Apr 4, 2007

A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.
moving next to the most active volcano I can find and getting really into graffiti to ensure my name & opinions on my neighbours' sex lives will survive for millennia

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

Deteriorata posted:

Somebody already made mine.



Very tempted to rotate and push into the valley.

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Benagain
Oct 10, 2007

Can you see that I am serious?
Fun Shoe

Telsa Cola posted:

Very tempted to rotate and push into the valley.

Elden ring messages just keep getting more baroque

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