How Long does a Fight Take?

[Patrick Waterson]

The temptation is to try for, say, ten turns of 20 minutes each or twelve of 15 minutes each, but the problem, as ever, is that once things started happening they could happen quite quickly, and the ideal turn is of about the same length as the historical 'command loop'.  This could be 30 seconds to 30 minutes depending upon the army and the circumstances!

Furthermore, time tends to be flexible in action: not just subjectively, when it speeds up in direct combat (and apparently 'speeds down' for some unfortunate individuals who tend to become early casualties), but also because two lines can batter away at each other for some time without result or a contingent can fold very rapidly and create an opportunity that a talented leader can exploit with speed and effect if in the right place at the right time: I am thinking of Alexander at Issus, where he clove through the Kardakes and headed straight for Darius, winning the battle in short order - probably within 10 minutes or so, the rest being phalanx-rescuing and pursuit.  Rapid resolution may have been one of the factors that made Alexander's victories so surprisingly cheap in Macedonian lives and he achieved rapid resolution by going for the decisive point: the Persian leadership.

Which leads to a question: would a hypothetical ideal rules set best model this feature by giving a talented commander extra movement/combat capability?  Would he get to fight, win, move and fight again before the opponent could respond?  GMT Games' Great Battles of History series reached in this direction by allowing a 'momentum' die roll for a commander who had just finished his move: if he rolled equal to or below his initiative rating he got another go - straight away.  His troops, however, would pick up some loss of cohesion for moving multiple times, it being assumed that momentum and maintenance of formation were mutually antagonistic.

One factor that made for long duration battles was when both armies were predominantly infantry of matched ability, equipment and technique and cavalry was very much a junior arm.  Livy VII.33.13-15 narrates the closing stages of a battle between Romans and Samnites c.344 BC: the Romans have tried their occasional trick of having the cavalry charge the centre of a tired enemy line - it just bounced off.

"The battle had now lasted a considerable time; there was dreadful slaughter about the standards of the Samnites, but as yet no retreating anywhere, so determined were they to be overcome by naught but death. [14] And so the Romans, who saw that their strength was fast ebbing away in weariness and that little daylight yet remained, were filled with rage, and hurled themselves against the enemy. [15] Then for the first time were there signs of giving way and the beginning of a rout; then were the Samnites captured or slain; nor would many have survived, if night had not ended what was now a victory rather than a battle."

If we assume the battle began around noon (there seems to have been plenty of time for deployment and subsequent speechmaking) then it lasted from noon to a summer nightfall.  This could be anything up to nine hours: an infantry struggle with brute force as its main characteristic.  Such an action was exceptional

"The Romans admitted that never had they fought with a more stubborn adversary." - Livy VII.33.16

but demonstrates how long two essentially infantry armies could fight a fiercely contested engagement.