In response to Chris Hahn's article in Slingshot 329, I have begun a topic in which further consideration can take place.
so, do we have a viewpoint on this from 2 perspectives - as readers of history and as wargamers? Are the 2 mutually inclusive?
Quote from: Holly on March 22, 2020, 06:51:04 PM
so, do we have a viewpoint on this from 2 perspectives - as readers of history and as wargamers? Are the 2 mutually inclusive?
Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but we again need to consider scale and abstraction.
In the real world, all interpenetration boils down to passing through gaps - no individual soldier ever passes through another. It may be gaps between individual files or between larger unites like centuries or squadrons, but gaps of one kind or another.
For a wargame the question then is, do we represent the relevant gaps directly on the tabletop, or do we abstract them away as included inside our figures, units, or elements? Gaps between individual files are only going to be directly represented in 1-1 skirmish games, but gaps between squadrons or the like may go either way in a battle scale set.
Interpenetration rules are only called for when we've abstracted away the relevant gaps. If they're directly represented we just move our toy soldiers through them.
What Andreas said.
I was glad to see I was part of the triumvirate by the way. A great honour. Also a veteran, which I suppose is good.
From reading Chris' literature review of rules, it seems there are three approaches:
- only light infantry and light cavalry can interpenetrate, and they can interpenetrate any
- others (all?) can interpenetrate, but (apart from LI and LC) they suffer a penalty eg disorder
- everybody can interpenetrate everybody else
To use Dave's categories, as a reader of history I'm pretty sure that:
- light infantry could interpenetrate heavy infantry (by passing through the diastemata kata taxeis, whatever precisely that means)
- light infantry and most cavalry could probably interpenetrate other cavalry (because cavalry squadrons formed up with gaps between them acc. to Polybius)
- cavalry could probably interpenetrate heavy infantry (judging by Arrian and Byzantine examples)
- (following from above) drilled infantry could probably open gaps to allow cavalry or anyone else through, or indeed enemies (chariots, Gaugamela, elephants, Zama)
- Roman legions could interpenetrate other Roman legions (again precise details of how obscure, but they could do it)
As a wargamer - I don't need to care about all this as I play high level gridded games where all this can be abstracted away. If I did play traditional games, I would probably either want to enforce something like the above, or keep it simple; actual examples of all the above are very rare except LI through HI and Leg through Leg - so I would allow those and ban the rest.
I guess, we can become too distracted by the thought process of interpenetration on the battlefield rather than the actual recorded examples or implied abilities of troops. So generally do we accept that drilled troops (regulars if you like) are much more likely to be able to allow interpenetration than say warbands or tribal bodies - of course the order is important. We could take this discussion beyond the confines of the mechanics to the examination of the actual circumstances - eg if bodies tended to approach in open order then this shouldnt present too many issues as opposing lines close, so formations close up making this process much more difficult. Is the best advice to stick to abstract means but apply grades of interpenetration depending on the proximity to battle the bodies are?
Quote from: RichT on March 22, 2020, 07:18:04 PM
From reading Chris' literature review of rules, it seems there are three approaches:
- only light infantry and light cavalry can interpenetrate, and they can interpenetrate any
- others (all?) can interpenetrate, but (apart from LI and LC) they suffer a penalty eg disorder
- everybody can interpenetrate everybody else
One needn't go very obscure to find other approaches. Frex, DBMM allows mounted to interpenetrate foot (with some exceptions, because Phil Barker). I believe I've seen similar things in other sets, but can't think of an example right now.
Quote from: Holly on March 22, 2020, 07:34:00 PM
So generally do we accept that drilled troops (regulars if you like) are much more likely to be able to allow interpenetration than say warbands or tribal bodies - of course the order is important.
As Jim mentioned in the original thread, at the "Elephant Battle" the Galatians are supposed to have opened their ranks to let their chariots pass through. Now, does this mean that irregulars could also manage the trick, or that the Galatians were more regular than we tend to give them credit for - or that Lucian, writing centuries after the event, got it wrong?
Not only Republican Roman but also armies of the Italian peninsula commonly employed two infantry lines (the Romans later refining it into 6 before finally settling back to 3) - Livy: 2.19; 2.65; 9.32; Dionysius: 8.85.1. Regardless of the scale, it make sense to physically represent these lines on the wargaming table, particularly as the second line could sometimes be used independently of the first, for example to counter the envelopment of a wing - Dionysius: 9.11.3. Since one line would take over from the other that means the front line fell back through the rear line. So for Romans, Latins, Sabines, Samnites, Volscans and others we need to allow interpenetration of heavy foot through heavy foot.
I am inclined to at least countenance the ability of quite a few troops to allow interpenetration as long as they were not in close proximity to massed bodies of charging enemy.
Nice to see things already in swing :)
I agree there are two sides to this - the quest for evidence of what happened and the best way of representing it on a wargames table.
Given that our actual evidence is less full than we would like, we need to think how much we abstract things, based on scale and granularity, as already said.
For example, there are plenty of examples of early medieval cavalry withdrawing behind close-order infantry to regroup but fewer details of what happened. It seems likely that gaps were left/opened to let them fall back. We don't actually need to know if we abstract, but how we envisage it may help us build a comprehensive whole. For a start, early medieval infantry weren't drilled, so we need to allow this as a possibility to undrilled troops. It appears that this role was understood as part of a plan. Should it need some kind of command involvement to make it happen (whatever your complex manoeuvre test is perhaps)? What happens if one or other party is disordered? If we think of it as cavalry funneling through gaps, we have the analogy of pursuit to a castle or town gate, where attackers may be able to infiltrate with fleeing friends. How do we play that? Following the analogy, if the troops were sufficiently under control, their commanders could refuse to allow the cavalry through but the cavalry could try to force the issue.
Another area I'm not sure that has been fully explored is exchanging troops within a unit. The Byzantines, for example, could move rear ranks through to the front of their formations. Swiss pike blocks could extract halberdiers from the middle of pike blocks and detach them to act semi-independently on the flanks. How widespread was this? I'm assuming that we don't need a mechanism, just a rule that says "Byzantine infantry in good order can exchange ranks" or the like. Or we abstract another stage and just assume that they follow their exchange drill at the appropriate time and give them combat bonuses in the circumstances in which they do this (in this case, an anti-cavalry bonus).
yes, how do we model it on the tabletop. I am very uncertain myself as to the best mechanism. I have half a mind to model skirmisher screens as part of 'normal' massed line bodies that disappear once the first clash occurs and assume that they interpenetrate and 'disappear' at this point. Other troops just cover with rulings even if it 'looks' odd that close formed infantry pass through others and vice versa
This is shaping up nicely.
On Dave's last point does anyone know of a case where skirmishers couldn't interpenetrate their own main body and consequently were massacred?
Quote from: Anton on March 23, 2020, 01:11:52 PM
On Dave's last point does anyone know of a case where skirmishers couldn't interpenetrate their own main body and consequently were massacred?
All that springs to mind is Zama - not necessarily skirmishers, but a case of a main body not allowing friends to pass through, with bad results for said friends.
Generalising from this - passing through should normally be allowed (Hannibal had to specifically prevent it) but with possibility of bad consequences (which is why Hannibal prevented it).
Quote from: RichT on March 23, 2020, 04:35:36 PM
Quote from: Anton on March 23, 2020, 01:11:52 PM
On Dave's last point does anyone know of a case where skirmishers couldn't interpenetrate their own main body and consequently were massacred?
All that springs to mind is Zama - not necessarily skirmishers, but a case of a main body not allowing friends to pass through, with bad results for said friends.
Generalising from this - passing through should normally be allowed (Hannibal had to specifically prevent it) but with possibility of bad consequences (which is why Hannibal prevented it).
Interesting as one can possibly infer a couple of things from this passage:
1. Defeated troops expected to fall back through the support line behind them - that's what the support line was there for - so normally speaking Hannibal's veterans should have let them through, which implies they should have been in open order to facilitate the smooth passage of the Gauls and Carthaginian levies through their files.
2. The veterans were not actually a support line but there for a different purpose, and hence were not disposed to received troops through their files. They may well have been originally intended to envelope the Roman foot
a la Cannae and were disguised to
look like a support line, but did not have time to switch to open order and become one as the troops in front of them fell back.
good points Justin. I maintain that experienced bodies of troops would be familiar with maneuvers to allow forward screens or other troops at predetermined points of the battle of signals as long as there was sufficient time to do so. Maybe Zama is the exception that proves the rule?
Not sure if this has any place in the current discussion, but as well as voluntary interpenetrations, one can also consider cases of involuntary interpenetration or bursting through.
In the Battle of Culloden, the redcoats were deployed in three lines as shown below. Each line had 3 ranks of close order infantry, but there was the distraction of musket volleys and bayonets to consider. In their time-honoured fashion, the highlanders charged furiously. Quite a lot of them made it through the first line, significant numbers made it through the second line and there was at least one mad individual who fought his way through the third line, after which he apparently succumbed to his injuries.
Hope this helps.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Battle_of_Culloden_%28map_02%29.svg/2000px-Battle_of_Culloden_%28map_02%29.svg.png)
I'm not sure being bursting through the enemy is quite the same. I think the usual wargamer definitions involve units on the same side.
Talking of which, though, you may get non-consensual break throughs of troops on the same side. Men-at-arms through crossbowmen and archers seems to have happened in several medieval battles (Courtrai, Crecy and Montlhery, for example).
just a quick two seconds on Nick's post.....it is an interesting observation and I wonder how many occurrences of this type of thing happened in ancient battles and what the 'set up' of the burst through troops was to 'allow' this
Much depends what we are counting.
Does opening lanes for chariots to pass through, where they are mugged by troops behind, count?
What about breaking a first line and going through the gap, only to be stopped by a second, as at Strasbourg?
I can think of a few medieval burst throughs, where the burst through force survived. English at the Standard, English at Verneuil, English at first day of Valmont (this last one seemingly because their line was too thin).
I haven't seen Chris's article yet, but one thing that I have wondered about is how consistent the ability of troops to perform a particular manoeuvre was. Do we tend to take an example of a capability at one time and then - unless a source says otherwise - assume that that capability was generally present, when it may in fact have been specific to a particular occasion, commander, army, etc.?
Obviously, rules-writers get around this uncertainty by limiting certain manoeuvres to defined troop classes (e.g., veterans), by introducing scenario-specific rules, by making difficult moves a drain on command points, or by inviting players to petition the dice gods to adjudicate through a manoeuvre/leadership test.
I think I'm probably in favour of the dice gods model at a tactical level and a defined troop classes or command points model at grand-tactical end.
Apologies if I've gone off on a tangent here...
Quote from: Prufrock on March 24, 2020, 12:37:24 PM
I haven't seen Chris's article yet, but one thing that I have wondered about is how consistent the ability of troops to perform a particular manoeuvre was. Do we tend to take an example of a capability at one time and then - unless a source says otherwise - assume that that capability was generally present, when it may in fact have been specific to a particular occasion, commander, army, etc.?
Obviously, rules-writers get around this uncertainty by limiting certain manoeuvres to defined troop classes (e.g., veterans), by introducing scenario-specific rules, by making difficult moves a drain on command points, or by inviting players to petition the dice gods to adjudicate through a manoeuvre/leadership test.
I think I'm probably in favour of the dice gods model at a tactical level and a defined troop classes or command points model at grand-tactical end.
Apologies if I've gone off on a tangent here...
nope, no tangents at all! :)
In the absence of hard evidence, I'm trying to think how things might have happened and how things might have gone wrong.
Should interpenetration be limited to historically recorded armies? Tricky. I think light infantry pass through should be pretty generic as it is common in many times and places. Cavalry through infantry I'm less sure. We know some regular practitioners (e.g. Imperial Romans, Byzantines) so maybe other drilled forces? But then medieval infantry did it on occassion, and they weren't drilled troops. Heavy infantry through heavy infantry - other than Romans what evidence do we have? So make this one Republican Romans only (I don't think there is evidence of Imperial line relief).
What could go wrong? I suspect this needed some degree of freedom from interference, especially for the undrilled. I also suspect disorder on the part of either party to the transaction would mess things up. So neither party in contact or disordered? Maybe special rule again for Romans, though I suspect they line exchanged in lulls, using their training to do the switch before the enemy could respond.
Automatic, diced for or special manouevre? I'd say not automatic, with some sort of test, or use of PIPs or having a special card - whatever your rules use to limit initiative like this.
I would be in favour of a disorder severity penalty depending on the type of troops trying to interpenetrate, their drill level and their proximity to the enemy. In such a system, in theory you could have close order troops being able to interpenetrate with other close order but only if done out of charge reach/ZOC and then causes a level of disorder that takes a bound to correct etc
on the actual live mechanism, someone mentioned about lulls in battle and the potential for lines to separate by mutual agreement thus allowing rotation of lines and/or bodies....?
The trouble (or troubles) with reading a battle account, seeing an instance of interpenetration, and trying to fit it into your rules, is/are a) you can end up with some very complicated rules and b) as we suggested in the pila thread, battle descriptions might mention something because it is atypical, not because it is typical. I might be inclined to try to limit it to where there is some definitely identified drill or doctrine.
Another approach is to think what outcome we are hoping to reproduce in terms of realistic player behaviours. We know for sure that armies often formed in two lines, LI in front, HI behind. So the rules are going to have to allow the LI to retire back through the HI or no player will ever put them up there but will find some other use for them. Similarly with Roman triplex acies - there has to be some sort of line relief/replacement ability, or there's no incentive to put them in three lines. Where armies aren't seen to form in multiple lines historically there may be no need to allow interpenetration, which might otherwise encourage players to use an unhistorical number of lines.
I don't know where this leaves Medieval three battle arrays, other than making their own sets of rules and stop making things complicated for proper Ancients.
QuoteI don't know where this leaves Medieval three battle arrays, other than making their own sets of rules and stop making things complicated for proper Ancients.
So, three lines of Romans good, three lines medievals bad? :)
Medieval column of divisions armies are awkward at the best of times. I've been reading a few Italian battles recently and stacking units one behind the other was common. But we get reinforcements piling in from divisions behind, we get parts of lines going out sideways and launching flank attacks and all sorts of odd things happening. Medieval descriptions do give the impression that cavalry in particular didn't stay in their divisional lines but attacked and withdrew in smaller groups. Somehow these moved through and round other divisions. If we go to the later end of Italian practice we find
Bracceschi tactics, where squadrons rotated in and out of the line to take breathers, which seems the ultimate version of this.
On a more mixed arms basis, medieval armies often followed the same model as their ancient forebears (they'd all read Vegetius, after all :) ) and put light infantry to the fore, then withdrawn these when it was time to send in the close fighters. If we look at hastings, the archers shot first, then the infantry attacked, then there were waves of cavalry attacks as
conrois attacked and fell back. There must, therefore, have been interpenetration of lines here, probably aided by a static enemy, but I don't think the method is described.
I am of a mind to have the screen in a tabletop battle as part of the mainline troops that are assumed to disappear as lines close but this could be a little one dimensional
Quote from: Erpingham on March 24, 2020, 04:38:35 PMMedieval descriptions do give the impression that cavalry in particular didn't stay in their divisional lines but attacked and withdrew in smaller groups. Somehow these moved through and round other divisions.
They'd invented the element?
Quote
So, three lines of Romans good, three lines medievals bad?
Yup, seems fair. :)
Also I've been wondering where the name 'interpenetration' for this sort of thing comes from - I don't much like it as a term (it's easy to type wrong) and wonder if 'passage of lines' wouldn't be a better thing to call it - there's a whole mass of theory on passage of lines in other eras which while not all directly relevant might make for useful comparative stuff (for example I like the distinction between rearward and forward passage of lines - the former being what skirmish lines for eg do, the latter what cavalry exploiting through infantry do).
Edited as I got forward and rearward the wrong way round. I hate it when that happens.
is there anything in any military manuals...seems like a stupid question otherwise I'm sure others would have pointed it out by now? Was thinking the Strategikon for instance??
Quote from: Holly on March 24, 2020, 07:38:28 PM
is there anything in any military manuals...seems like a stupid question otherwise I'm sure others would have pointed it out by now? Was thinking the Strategikon for instance??
Units of cavalry passing through gaps between other units of cavalry. Maurice's chief concern is that the second line should have gaps that the first line can fall back through, or rally within, if beaten.
Interestingly, the gaps need to be about 1/4 the width of the units that are supposed to fall back through them. A reminder that, again outside 1-1 skrimish games, our units and elements are more rigid than real bodies of men, and we may require a rule for passing through "impossibly" small gaps.
(Actually, even in 1-1 skirmish games, figures, with bases and dynamic poses, are likely to be impossible to physically move through various gaps that a real soldier would find trivial to negotiate.)
its a good point Andreas, we tend to view 'gaps' as a physical barrier in the main if narrower than an element or unit
QuoteInterestingly, the gaps need to be about 1/4 the width of the units that are supposed to fall back through them. A reminder that, again outside 1-1 skrimish games, our units and elements are more rigid than real bodies of men, and we may require a rule for passing through "impossibly" small gaps.
Good point. The
Sylloge and the
Praecepta both have gaps in the infantry square for whole cavalry units to move through which are only 15 men wide. Not to mention potentially hundreds of light infantry (the light ranks of the infantry on unengaged flanks of the square were supposed to detach and sally out to attack the enemy on the engaged side from the flank). I think the practical issue was balancing a gap which could easily be closed with an ability to shift troops quickly through it. The implication, incidentally, is the sallying forth was not done with enemy threatening, so there would be time for units flowing fairly organically through the gaps to reform themselves when out in the open. In terms of rules, though, we can abstract the move to allow the cavalry to move through the infantry in good order provided no enemy capable of charging?
I dont see why not. Set a distance and/or reform requirement to check for nearby enemy ZOC/charge distances and thus abstract the 'squeezing' through gaps?
Just wondering, as this topic seems to be drawing to a natural close whether Chris feels he has learned anything more about the subject or whether he has anything from his ongoing researches to add?
well its definitely given me food for thought and also a build on Chris's excellent article