Battlefield signalling

[Jim Webster]

I like the idea of the dust markers

Jim

[Dangun]

I had never really thought about it before, but the scarcity of sources for battlefield signals, is a little perplexing.

What are we to make of a battle narrative when the cavalry does x, or the right wing does y? Do we just assume that the signal was always unrecorded? Do the narratives lead us to over-estimate a general's ability to control?

Why was describing signals concerning the camp and march more interesting a topic to our sources than the description of battlefield signals?

[Erpingham]

Why was describing signals concerning the camp and march more interesting a topic to our sources than the description of battlefield signals?

I would suggest it wasn't.  March and camp signals were easily regulated, easily transmitted and received and used day after day, rather than one off in battle, so they were probably more common and this is what is reflected in our sources.

It seems to me from what we've assembled is a lot of armies have no more than basic signalling capability (General advance, general withdrawal, rally after pursuit - this last perhaps being the equivalent of "to me!").  Some armies had more sophisticated signals (Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Chinese were noted) but even here there is implicit recognition of the limitations of signals - hard to make out in the din and dust of battle - and "shout and repeat through the ranks" seems a popular alternative.

[Jim Webster]

That might have been the advantage of the old Battle cry. Once you heard people start shouting it, you knew you were going forward

Jim

[Justin Swanton]

This raises to the question: how much control should a player be allowed to have over his troops? It's probably the biggest point of divergence between realism and playability: Rome Total War is an extreme case of realism sacrificed for playability, but most rulesets tend to give the player too many puppet strings. The abandonment of orders mechanisms reflects I suspect a tacit acquiescence to playability as the prime motivator for wargaming. After all, who wants to issue a string of orders to the different commands, then discover one's opponent has second-guessed one's intentions, and spend the rest of the game a nearly-helpless spectator of the dismemberment of one's army. That would be realism. 

[Mick Hession]

This raises to the question: how much control should a player be allowed to have over his troops?

"Should" is a subjective term IMO and depends heavily on what the player wants to get out of the game. For much of our period battlefield generalship ended with deployment. After that, the general's role was either to inspire (e.g. leading by example in the front rank) or to manage reserves locally by committing rear lines to plug gaps. The wide sweeping maneouvres we see on a lot of tabletops tended to occur rarely, and to be limited to especially talented leaders with well-trained troops and I suggest that most historical generals had relatively few decision points once battle was joined.

Unfortunately games that boil down to "line up and kill whatever is in front of you" tend to make for a boring gaming experience, especially when you consider that wargamers fight far more battles than any historical general ever did. Most successful rules therefore grant unrealistic levels of control to players to generate the decision points that make the gaming experience interesting.

Cheers
Mick 

[Duncan Head]

The level of control may or may not be unrealistic, depending who or what the player represents. The C-in-c? The C-in-c plus the other generals in the army? The entire command structure? I forget who it was, but I do recall on some list or other someone(*) suggesting that we actually represent not so much an individual as the presiding genius or daimon of the army as a whole. 

(*) Note the precise source citation that is my trademark 

[Erpingham]

Before we lament the loss of order mechanisms and their contribution to realism, we might like to think were they really realistic or did they represent and essentially gunpowder era system dropped into an earlier period?  Is a world of generals standing on a convenient ridge firing off small message chits, or using complex signalling systems, realistic in our period?  Did every unit have detailed orders which they stuck to to the letter regardless until changed? Or were the main components of an army mostly on their own once everything kicked off and their commanders were left to use their skill and judgement to bring the army battleplan to fruition?  And did the minor bits of the army do what they always did in the place in which they were told to do it?  Not offering a definitive answer here but there may be more than one way of viewing what is realistic.

[Jim Webster]

The level of control may or may not be unrealistic, depending who or what the player represents. The C-in-c? The C-in-c plus the other generals in the army? The entire command structure? I forget who it was, but I do recall on some list or other someone(*) suggesting that we actually represent not so much an individual as the presiding genius or daimon of the army as a whole. 

(*) Note the precise source citation that is my trademark 

That makes sense.

It also provides a fig leaf for the fact that we're a lot of tinkerers who want to be everything from the centurion to the Imperator

Jim

[Justin Swanton]

What I'm trying to do with the Optio orders system (any resemblance to a promo blurb is purely coincidental  ) is allow for local initiative whilst constraining overall initiative. Orders counters don't oblige a commander to do anything other than personally progress at his own speed to a particular segment of the battlefield which itself is large enough (5x5 squares or about 10x10") for him to do interesting things once he gets there. How he makes his command follow him is entirely at the discretion of the player, and once in the battlefield segment the commander has considerable scope for local action. The only limitation is that he cannot perform grand tactical manoeuvres - like moving from one wing to the other - without orders.

A few more games will establish how well it works. BTW anyone up for playtesting over the internet?

[Dangun]

The level of control may or may not be unrealistic, depending who or what the player represents. The C-in-c? The C-in-c plus the other generals in the army? The entire command structure?

That is an elegant solution.

But we probably have even less evidence for what degree of autonomy / initiative a subordinate general, let-alone a centurion, might have...
It is difficult... yet the sources refer to some quite complicated maneuvers - interpenetration of heavy troops by skirmishers, the mysterious line relief/rotation. Presumably someone initiated this type of maneuver with a command?

[Patrick Waterson]

The level of control may or may not be unrealistic, depending who or what the player represents. The C-in-c? The C-in-c plus the other generals in the army? The entire command structure?

That is an elegant solution.

But we probably have even less evidence for what degree of autonomy / initiative a subordinate general, let-alone a centurion, might have...
It is difficult... yet the sources refer to some quite complicated maneuvers - interpenetration of heavy troops by skirmishers, the mysterious line relief/rotation. Presumably someone initiated this type of maneuver with a command?

Withdrawing skirmishers seems to have been an army-level command (cf. Polybius III.115.4: "then the legionaries took the place of the light-armed and closed with the enemy") so would have had an army-level signal.  Line relief seems to have similarly been an army-level occurrence, as the Romans - at least post-300-and-something BC - seem to have exchanged the complete line or none.

The obvious chap to have initiated such a command would be the consul, or the C-in-C in a non-Roman army.  Incidentally, line relief does appear to have been a one-time relief rather than a periodic rotation, and the relieved line seems to have taken station directly behind the line relieving it, providing moral and perhaps a little physical support.  This at least is what I extract from Livy's account of the Battle of Vesuvius in Book VIII, chapters 8-10.

I forget who it was, but I do recall on some list or other someone(*) suggesting that we actually represent not so much an individual as the presiding genius or daimon of the army as a whole. 

(*) Note the precise source citation that is my trademark 

We do perforce represent every level of command from C-in-C to file leader, as tabletop figures are incapable of thinking or even moving for themselves.  There is really no way around that.  As someone on some list or other has undoubtedly pointed out, real armies are not manoeuvred around by 450-foot-tall deities with dice and measuring tapes, but then real battles are not fought by lining up metal (or plastic, or terracotta) statues and expecting them to get on with it.

Our goal is presumably to design for effect, so that the player has approximately the same options and choices as historical troops would have had at every level of command meaningful at the represented scale of the action.

[Patrick Waterson]

Another example from Caesar's ready stylus, this one from his battle against the Nervii at the river Sabis (Sambre) in 57 BC:

"Caesar had every thing to do at one time: the standard to be displayed [vexillum proponendum], which was the sign when it was necessary to run to arms; the signal to be given by the trumpet [signum tuba dandum]; the soldiers to be called off from the works; those who had proceeded some distance for the purpose of seeking materials for the rampart, to be summoned; the order of battle to be formed [acies instruenda]; the soldiers to be encouraged [milites cohortandi]; the watchword to be given [signum dandum = 'the signal given', perhaps for beginning battle]. A great part of these arrangements was prevented by the shortness of time and the sudden approach and charge of the enemy. Under these difficulties two things proved of advantage; the skill and experience of the soldiers, because, having been trained by former engagements, they could suggest to themselves what ought to be done, as conveniently as receive information from others; and because Caesar had forbidden his several lieutenants to depart from the works and their respective legions, before the camp was fortified. These, on account of the near approach and the speed of the enemy, did not then wait for any command from Caesar, but of themselves executed whatever appeared proper." - Gallic War II.20

Displaying the 'standard' (actually vexillum - a flag dangling from a crosspiece) was the signal for the men to arm.  The trumpet signal was, depending upon how one reads the text, either an auditory reinforcement of the same, as the translator has it, or (more likely) was the signal to recall men engaged in finding materials for and working on the rampart.  Then the men had to form up and finally - after the indispensable pre-battle speech (Caesar had to abort this on account of lack of time) the (unspecified) signal for battle is given (he details this in II.21 where he makes a 'short speech' to one legion and then, as the Nervii are close, gives the signal for battle).

Caesar gives the impression that much if not all of this was done as and when the C-in-C gave instructions by signal.  Given the speed of the Nervii attack, there was insufficient time for Caesar to attend to it all, but the experience of the troops, who knew what was expected of them, filled the 'command control gap'.

During the battle, while Caesar was fully occupied straightening out the VII and XII legions on his embattled right, his subordinates acted with military common sense to save the day.  Labienus, whose left wing of the IX and X legions had routed their opponents and pursued them onto the high ground in the enemy rear, sent the X Legion to help out without being asked.  At about the same time, the commanders of the two legions covering the baggage marched to the sound of the battle cries and took a hand in the fighting.

Now it was the turn of the Nervii to be hard-pressed, but they either did not have a withdrawal signal or scorned to use one, so perished fighting to the last.

In his account of the destruction of Sabinius' legion by the Eburones, Caesar notes evidence of battlefield signalling exhibited by that particular tribe:

"But judgment was not wanting to the barbarians; for their leaders ordered it proclaimed through the ranks "that no man should quit his place; that the booty was theirs, and for them was reserved whatever the Romans should leave; therefore let them consider that all things depended on their victory. Our men were equal to them in fighting, both in courage and in number, and though they were deserted by their leader and by fortune, yet they still placed all hope of safety in their valor, and as often as any cohort sallied forth on that side, a great number of the enemy usually fell. Ambiorix, when he observed this, ordered the command to be issued [pronuntiari iubet] that they throw their weapons from a distance and do not approach too near, and in whatever direction the Romans should make an attack, there give way (from the lightness of their appointments and from their daily practice no damage could be done them); [but] pursue them when betaking themselves to their standards again." - Gallic War III.34

Caesar does not say how this command was issued: we may conjecture that a change in the note and timbre of the carnyxes (Gallic war horns) might convey the message, although someone would have to shout in the ears of the first few carnyx-blowers so they could change their tune and the rest follow suit.  How the Gauls signalled this change of orders is uncertain, but it seems they did have a signal for this purpose.

[aligern]

We are dealing here with Caesar's account of a battle that he was not at so he may be post rationalising a report from a survivor.
If we want to make sense of the Galluc actions, let us add a bit more than Caesar. It is highly lijely that the gauls assault the romans and then, when they prove a tough nut to crack,mthere is a pause. In that pause the word is passed down to move to a a more skirmishing form of warfare. Depending upon how we read the Latin this skirmishing warfare may be something that these Gauls practise and thus be a standard drill .

It might thus be that all Ambiorix has to shout and have uttered through the ranks is 'Plan B Bonny Lads!'. It must also be that this method is a drill because it is being carried out by Gallic units retreating and advancing upon an order.
It might, if course, also be that Caesar has borrowed a description of Numidians or Spaniards fighting Romans and just pasted it in to explain a common way of fighting with the javelin in the West.
Roy

[Erpingham]

"But judgment was not wanting to the barbarians; for their leaders ordered it proclaimed through the ranks "that no man should quit his place; that the booty was theirs, and for them was reserved whatever the Romans should leave; therefore let them consider that all things depended on their victory. Our men were equal to them in fighting, both in courage and in number, and though they were deserted by their leader and by fortune, yet they still placed all hope of safety in their valor, and as often as any cohort sallied forth on that side, a great number of the enemy usually fell. Ambiorix, when he observed this, ordered the command to be issued [pronuntiari iubet] that they throw their weapons from a distance and do not approach too near, and in whatever direction the Romans should make an attack, there give way (from the lightness of their appointments and from their daily practice no damage could be done them); [but] pursue them when betaking themselves to their standards again." - Gallic War III.34

Caesar does not say how this command was issued: we may conjecture that a change in the note and timbre of the carnyxes (Gallic war horns) might convey the message, although someone would have to shout in the ears of the first few carnyx-blowers so they could change their tune and the rest follow suit.  How the Gauls signalled this change of orders is uncertain, but it seems they did have a signal for this purpose.

This seems to me a very complex signal to be produced by horn playing, unless it is "Go to standing order no.3" or such like.  Unless the highlighted phrase pronuntiari iubet implies a musical signal, might this be better seen as passing an order by word of mouth?