Classification of infantry - the return of the revenge of the extra medium foot!

[Duncan Head]

I am uncertain how you are defining this myth.

I suppose in the sense that rulesets make the MI less effective against HI though capable of going toe to toe with them, and more effective against LI. He should either be effective against both (your example) or something that doesn't fight HI in melee but can chase away LI.

OK, I see. But the original WRG LMI were not simply "more effective against LI", surely; they could outfight (but not necessarily out-skirmish) LI, and out-skirmish (but not outfight) HI - more or less your second version above.

The DBx rules elide skirmishing and close combat together, and I think that's what's made Auxilia an LI-killer who will lose in melee to HI (in the open, of course, and with due modifications for grading).

But then people have been talking about Warband as a type of MI as well, and their capabilities in DBx are very different.

[RichT]

Surely it should be (assuming we buy the intermediate MI):

HI - Melee - Good : Ranged - Bad
MI - Melee - Fair : Ranged - Fair
LI - Melee - Bad  : Ranged - Good

(both in terms of games and history).

Plus -
HI - Slow, bad on terrain
MI - Medium, fair on terrain
LI - Fast, good on terrain

Peltasts - Classical peltasts are lightly armed javelin chuckers, LI by any normal definition. Hellenistic (and perhaps Iphicratean) peltasts are by Asclepiodotus' definition 'intermediate' types, the MI of the above (and in reality represented more by thureophoroi). In practice, Hellenistic Peltasts (capital P) are pike-phalangites with smaller shields who might also have used lighter spears for cross-country work.

I think your (Justin's) reading of Asclepiodotus re intervals is forced, but even letting it stand, A is talking about Hellenistic pike phalangites, so you can't just apply that to ancient infantry en masse, Romans and all. I agree that A implies that psiloi used the same intervals as phalangites (it's what I said below) but I don't think anyone would argue that psiloi ever used one cubit intervals.

[RichT]

I think so far we have established that the ancients didn't see things in clear-cut binary terms.  There seem to have been three infantry types (H/M/I).  H and I seem clearly delineated but what amout M?  But there also is a question of troops that could be in two categories at various times.  How well could these men transform during battle or were they stuck as one of their options for the whole battle?

I've wondered whether such types should be classified before a battle one way or the other and be stuck that way for the duration. Which would work OK for some but not so much for others eg Roman legionaries, who should (arguably) have some ability to change roles in the course of a battle.

All these categorisations are attempts to simplify and standardise what are really a complex set of characteristics, and arguably representing all the characteristics independently (as some rules do) is more accurate and flexible.

My thoughts rules-wise are that the core features of a combat unit are:

Morale
Speed
Manoeuvrability
Melee attack
Ranged attack (and range)
Defence

Obviously these are interconnected in various ways. Maybe better to rate units accordingly and forget about trying to force every square peg into one of three round holes. Downside being eg Phalangites (HI, Pike) is neater and more intuitive than Phalangites (Mo:4 Sp:2 Ma:2 Me:5 Ra:0 De:3) or whatever. And there are still some (eg Antigonid Peltasts) whose abilities vary according to how they are equipped and used at any particular time.

[Justin Swanton]

Maybe there's a simpler way of dealing with the classifications. For infantry there is ranged combat and melee. Ranged combat may have been variable in intensity but there had to be a certain equality in melee - if you can't go hand to hand against an HI adversary with a decent chance of beating him then you don't engage him in the first place. That gives you three types:

1. Pure melee infantry. Includes the standard warband classification. Also Auxilia types like Spanish Scutarii. They are prepared to fight other heavy infantry types like Romans and Carthaginians.

2. Pure missile infantry. The LI or psiloi of rulesets. They will not engage in melee combat with HI. In DBA/M this is replicated by them being easily beaten but not destroyed by HI in good going, fleeing instead.

3. Mixed types. Peltasts, massed archers and the like. This subdivides into can/can't melee with HI. Peltasts can skirmish with LI on equal terms and LI will fare against them in melee as badly as against HI, i.e. they won't melee with them if they can help it.  Peltasts, like LI, will not melee with HI. They can however melee with cavalry. Massed archers must have some sort of melee ability as they can't evade. Achaemenid archers have pavises and spears, longbowmen have some body armor and swords. And so on.

In rulesets then make anything that doesn't shoot but can melee against foot HI, but grade them: Scutarii inferior to Hastati and so on. The non-melee shooters are skirmisher foot. Mixed types are generally inferior in melee against HI but drive LI away (all else being equal LI should never win a frontal melee fight against mixed types or HI, ever). Mixed types can stand up against cavalry, at least the non-lance-armed types.

And goodbye MI.

[RichT]

And goodbye MI.

Haven't you just renamed MI as 'Mixed types'?

[Justin Swanton]

And goodbye MI.

Haven't you just renamed MI as 'Mixed types'?

Are they that in WRG? I'm familiar only with DBx and FoG.

[Erpingham]

And goodbye MI.

Haven't you just renamed MI as 'Mixed types'?

Are they that in WRG? I'm familiar only with DBx and FoG.

Richard's MI are an attempt to classify afresh.  Actual WRG MI were close combat infantry with no armour or non-metallic armour IIRC.

[Tim]

Surely it should be (assuming we buy the intermediate MI):

HI - Melee - Good : Ranged - Bad
MI - Melee - Fair : Ranged - Fair
LI - Melee - Bad  : Ranged - Good

(both in terms of games and history).

Plus -
HI - Slow, bad on terrain
MI - Medium, fair on terrain
LI - Fast, good on terrain

Peltasts - Classical peltasts are lightly armed javelin chuckers, LI by any normal definition. Hellenistic (and perhaps Iphicratean) peltasts are by Asclepiodotus' definition 'intermediate' types, the MI of the above (and in reality represented more by thureophoroi). In practice, Hellenistic Peltasts (capital P) are pike-phalangites with smaller shields who might also have used lighter spears for cross-country work.

...

Works for me. I suspect that there MIGHT be a 4th type that covers the cases you listed as well as others such a post Punic Wars Roman legions (and I include Auxillia in this), plus what we know of Germanic and Celtic tribes; here the formation is slightly looser than your HI type but where the missile capability is really part of Melee to all intents and purposes. I would not be willing to fight to the death for the difference but what I read of the accounts suggests it is likely. However I strongly suspect that leadership, motivation and training might make more difference than the type of HI. (This is a risky proposition as it does rely upon assuming 15th-17th century practice accurately reflects the behaviours the theorists had picked up from the ancient texts).

[Patrick Waterson]

Richard's MI are an attempt to classify afresh.  Actual WRG MI were close combat infantry with no armour or non-metallic armour IIRC.

Correct.  In WRG, HI are close formation infantry with armour (and EHI are close formation infantry with additional armour) whereas MI are close formation infantry with minimal or no armour, or at least substantively less body protection than HI.

Richard's proposed 'MI'/Justin's 'Mixed Infantry' equate on the surface to WRG's LMI ('loose medium infantry') and the slightly less athletic LHI ('loose heavy infantry'); these are troops who are assumed to use looser formation (Phil Barker subsequently revised this, giving regular LMI/LHI the same frontage as their MI/HI compatriots) and could cope better with challenging terrain.  Irregular LMI/LHI still operate on a wider individual frontage, either because it is still believed they did or as a means of emphasising their less effective discipline.

WRG's LI are the archetypal loose or dispersed formation skirmishing light infantry we all know and love.

One challenge with Richard's proposed H/M/L system (which seems to work nicely for classical armies) might arise when representing close formation archers on the Egyptian model (which was acquired by many Biblical period armies).  These share the shooting characteristics of 'L' with the terrain handling characteristics of either 'M' or 'H'.  Massed mediaeval missile troops might similarly cross categories.

[Andreas Johansson]

1. Pure melee infantry. Includes the standard warband classification. Also Auxilia types like Spanish Scutarii. They are prepared to fight other heavy infantry types like Romans and Carthaginians.

Nitpick, but surely neither Gaulish warbands nor scutarii nor legionaries were pure close combat types - they all threw javelins also.

A couple of years ago I was toying with a set of homemade rules that would have both infantry and cavalry divided into heavies, who only fight hand-to-hand, lights, who only shoot if they can help it, and mediums, who did both, but I ended up concluding it didn't make sense, in part because the MI class would include a lot of types who might be described as "HI, except they chuck javelins". Legionaries, frex, are functionally speaking surely the opposite numbers of the phalangites of a Hellenistic army, not of the peltasts. And if MI get divided into ones who can melee HI at something like parity and those who can't, why do I pretend to have a tripartite division?

[Erpingham]

Nitpick, but surely neither Gaulish warbands nor scutarii nor legionaries were pure close combat types - they all threw javelins also.

I think we hit on a difficulty we have explored extensively before.  We could say they a close combat types because the javelin is part of their close combat technique (chuck and charge) but would it be true?   For these, I would be drawn to the idea of being able to deploy them as "Heavy" or "Medium" but either do away with the mid battle switch or reserve it for the regulars.

[RichT]

Well yes that is the argument against such categorisation; on the other hand things have to be rated and categorised somehow, so however you do it there will be wrong shaped pegs in wrong shaped holes.

However, to come to the defence of MI again - I'm not sure that legionaries are the opposite numbers of phalangites - I think they are fundamentally different. I think part of the problem with the way people interpret legion v. phalanx is that they think of phalangites as close order heavy infantry with pikes, and legionaries as close order heavy infantry with javelins and swords. Then they are at a bit of  aloss to explain the success of one over the other, other than by rating swords as more effective in combat than pikes (which is odd, when you come to think about it), or by penalising phalangites heavily for stepping off the billiard table, or turning or moving or having backs and sides (which is fair enough but doesn't address the whys).

I think (or I think I think, sometimes I'm not so sure) that the picture of legions as a sword-armed phalanx, going toe to toe with phalangites and beating them (if the ground is bumpy) is all wrong. Legionaries were something fundamentally different, a sort of heavy skirmisher, and they had a fundamentally different doctrine and tactical usage than the phalanx, viz that two thirds of their strength was held in reserve, and they engaged in small bodies able to operate independently, not in continuous solid blocks. Now any wargame rules are going to struggle with modelling those sorts of differences (most don't try) and abstracting them into some overall combat factor may be fair enough, but I think that approaching this bottom up - what weapons do they carry, what armour, so how do we rate them in combat - is going about it the wrong way. Equip a phalanx with swords and you wouldn't have a legion. If legions are able to melee a pike phalanx at something like parity then your rules are broken (unless they are abstracting the real differences).

Now I've wandered off MI a bit (slow day at work) but I think that categorising legionaries as MI might be the starting point for modelling them more accurately. This makes them equivalent to Hellenistic peltasts, which is as it should be (not to Classical peltasts, who are LI). The Romans found a way, by their use of reserves and mobile independent bodies, to turn heavy skirmishers or MI into their main battle winning infantry.

[Mark G]

By which logic, Richard, I think you move to seeing armour and weapons as secondary characteristics to the basic density of formation.

There are close formed, loose formed, and skirmishing.
Use that to determine movement and other such stuff, and leave weaponsxand armour and wild charges (no need for a separate war and) for factors in combat.

And enables formation changes to happen (like ancient Germans forming shield wall after a charge fails)

This is also, I am reliably informed, pretty close to the views of at least one well known gamer and ancient historian who writes rules.

It also allows dismounted knights in full armour to be treated with the space needed to wield their arms, a pet hate of many medieval gamers being their  rigid treatment in most rules because they are rated as heavy and therefore close formed and therefore slow.

And so on.

[Erpingham]

It also allows dismounted knights in full armour to be treated with the space needed to wield their arms, a pet hate of many medieval gamers being their  rigid treatment in most rules because they are rated as heavy and therefore close formed and therefore slow.

Doesn't this go back to an arms & armour classification, rather than a formation one?  How dismounted men-at-arms used their weapons under a formation based system described above should be a melee factor.  I'd be interested in the evidence for fast moving loose order men-at-arms, though, as the evidence I've seen places them in the close formed and slow category.

[Andreas Johansson]

This is roughly what I said in my "Myths of wargaming" talk to the SoA Conference, and in Slingshot, about 1990 

I dug out the Ss article (it's in #138, July 1988) and must say I quite enjoyed it, particularly the remarks on Hellenistic kings being typical wargamers!