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

[Justin Swanton]

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?

It seems to be a sliding scale between Can Only Melee and Can Only shoot, with the inbetweeners (which include legionaries, warband, archers, peltasts, etc.) weighted towards More Effective as Shooters or More Effective as Melee troops. Legionaries are rated as more effective melee troops since their javelin/pila volley was of brief duration and designed as a prelude to a charge into melee where the fight was decided. Massed archers are more effective shooters since it is their shooting that does most of the work of demoralising the enemy. If they are willing to melee it is only as a last resort.

Those capable of melee however must be able to take on pure melee troops at an approximate equality (i.e. they won't necessarily lose even if the odds are against them). Which means IMHO that melee capable troops were all pretty much formed up in the same density so one man fights one man and not two - with the exception of a close-order pike phalanx which, in consequence, could frontally beat anything except another close-order pike phalanx.

[Andreas Johansson]

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

Would you extend this difference to other conventionally-considered-HI who threw stuff, like, say, vikings, early hoplites, and the byzantine infantry of the Strategicon?

Or, I guess, Galatians. They too would seem to be a lot who found a way to beat Hellenistic armies with sword-and-javelin infantry.

I'm not sure, BTW, that "the success of legion over phalanx" is something that particularly needs to be explained. Which Roman-Hellenistic clashes were actually decided by hot legion-on-phalanx action?

[Jim Webster]

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!

Pyrrhus was a typical wargamer, pile everything into the battle, forget about the campaign 

[Patrick Waterson]

Which Roman-Hellenistic clashes were actually decided by hot legion-on-phalanx action?

None, as far as I can determine.  Beneventum - elephants on phalanx (blue on blue).  Cynoscephalae - elephants on phalanx.  Magnesia - elephants on phalanx (another blue-on-blue).  Pydna - elephants on 'peltasts' (hypaspists), which by then were definitely part of the phalanx.

As late as Orchomenus (86 BC) even Sulla's best and finest legionaries were stuck against a humble slave phalanx until the latter were shredded by missiles.

[PMBardunias]

Mardonius' last words were:  "...but Arimnestos is HI..."

[gavindbm]

Discussing LI v MI v HI seems to ignore the potentially important question of their interaction with cavalry (& chariots)...and particularly cohesion in the face of a cavalry/chariot charge.  The way this interaction is envisaged to happen seems, to me, to be behind why in many rules a lot of Biblical infantry, hillmen and Aztecs are treated as an intermediate type which is less effective in close combat against mounted troops (particularly charging mounted).

[RichT]

Mark:

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

Maybe - I have a feeling that wargamers obsess about intervals just as they do about weapons (perhaps because they are quantifiable, and wargamers, generally speaking, are men, and men love numbers). I suspect that formation density, weapons and armour, and overall tactics, doctrine and fighting style all combine into a whole that isn't defined by any one of its parts. To model this in game terms, quite broad categories might work, with modifiers to model the specific differences.

There are close formed, loose formed, and skirmishing.

Well yes, though not necessarily defined by their file intervals. But yes, there are close order toe to toe hand to hand fighters, there are throw stuff and run skirmishers, and there are or appear to be intermediate jacks of all trades. MI.

Andreas:

Would you extend this difference to other conventionally-considered-HI who threw stuff, like, say, vikings, early hoplites, and the byzantine infantry of the Strategicon?

Dunno about the non-Classical/Hellenistic examples - not my period... Early hoplites - well that all comes down to origin of the phalanx arguments and that's a knotty enough historical problem without trying to turn it into a gaming problem . If early hoplites were van Wees style (open order, javelin chuckers, with intermixed LI) then yes, they sound like MI.

Or, I guess, Galatians. They too would seem to be a lot who found a way to beat Hellenistic armies with sword-and-javelin infantry.

Yes, Galatians sound like MI. Greek armies appear to have abandoned hoplite (HI) fighting to some extent in the 3rd C and adopted peltophoros or thureophoros equipment, presumably as a response to the Celts/Galatians - which to me means they became MI. When these armies continued to prove inferior to the ultra-HI of the Macedonians, the Greeks (at least, the Achaeans and Spartans) adopted Macedonian equipment, formation and doctrine (late 3rd C).

I'm not sure, BTW, that "the success of legion over phalanx" is something that particularly needs to be explained. Which Roman-Hellenistic clashes were actually decided by hot legion-on-phalanx action?

Well - maybe the need is to explain the success of legion-based armies over phalanx-based armies. True that there was on the whole a shortage of hot legion-on-phalanx action - which proves the point, the legions tried not to fight the phalanx frontally and if they did, they lost, being MI...

Patrick:

Beneventum - elephants on phalanx (blue on blue).  Cynoscephalae - elephants on phalanx.  Magnesia - elephants on phalanx (another blue-on-blue).  Pydna - elephants on 'peltasts' (hypaspists), which by then were definitely part of the phalanx. As late as Orchomenus (86 BC) even Sulla's best and finest legionaries were stuck against a humble slave phalanx until the latter were shredded by missiles.

Pyrrhus - too much of a mess to include...
Cynoscephalae - formed phalanx pushes back legions. Unformed phalanx broken by elephants and legions. Formed phalanx attacked in the rear by Roman reserves
Magnesia - phalanx surrounded after defeat or off field pursuit of flanking forces, ground down by missiles (and own elephants)
Pydna - formed phalanx pushes back legions. Gaps develop due to rapid and uneven advance, flexible legion exploits.
Chaeronea - formed (slave) phalanx ground down by missiles.

I think all these are better explained as missile-capable MI v. HI than as sword-armed HI v. HI.

Gavin:

Discussing LI v MI v HI seems to ignore the potentially important question of their interaction with cavalry

Yes good point. I think Romans are generally weaker against cavalry, which is well modelled if they are MI (hence, an ala and maybe a legion defeated by Antiochus' cavalry charge at Magnesia). Later Romans maybe converted themselves into HI/phalanx for just this reason.

[Erpingham]

    Discussing LI v MI v HI seems to ignore the potentially important question of their interaction with cavalry


Yes good point. I think Romans are generally weaker against cavalry, which is well modelled if they are MI (hence, an ala and maybe a legion defeated by Antiochus' cavalry charge at Magnesia). Later Romans maybe converted themselves into HI/phalanx for just this reason.

But you'd have to be careful with the intermediate category.   How poor would we want our MI to be against cavalry?  LI = hopeless, MI = in with a shout, HI = pretty untouchable? 

[RichT]

	Speed	Melee	Missile	on terrain	v. cavalry
HI	Slow	Good	Poor	Poor	Good
MI	Medium	Fair	Fair	Fair	Fair
LI	Fast	Poor	Good	Good	Poor

[Andreas Johansson]

Would you extend this difference to other conventionally-considered-HI who threw stuff, like, say, vikings, early hoplites, and the byzantine infantry of the Strategicon?

Dunno about the non-Classical/Hellenistic examples - not my period... Early hoplites - well that all comes down to origin of the phalanx arguments and that's a knotty enough historical problem without trying to turn it into a gaming problem . If early hoplites were van Wees style (open order, javelin chuckers, with intermixed LI) then yes, they sound like MI.

Thanks. I take you don't necessarily reject the possibility of HI who combine close combat with missiles.

I'm not sure, BTW, that "the success of legion over phalanx" is something that particularly needs to be explained. Which Roman-Hellenistic clashes were actually decided by hot legion-on-phalanx action?

Well - maybe the need is to explain the success of legion-based armies over phalanx-based armies. True that there was on the whole a shortage of hot legion-on-phalanx action - which proves the point, the legions tried not to fight the phalanx frontally and if they did, they lost, being MI...

I'd expect most HI to come off second best against a pike phalanx in a frontal fight, so I don't think it proves very much.

We agree, of course, that legionaries were lighter (in terms of fighting style - not necessarily equipment) than phalangites; the question is if they were sufficently so that they're better grouped with peltasts (sensu Asclepiodoti) than with the phalangites. So I suppose what we need is a decent corpus of descriptions of peltasts in battle ...

(Another option would of course be to have further classes: maybe phalangites are HI, legionaries HMI, peltasts LMI, and psiloi LI. Or, if you think phalangites are a bit of an aberration, EHI, HI, MI, and LI respectively.)

[Erpingham]

You could, of course, use the DBx trick of dividing them into S, O and I.  So legionnaries would be MI (S) and Peltasts MI (O)

[Andreas Johansson]

You could, of course, use the DBx trick of dividing them into S, O and I.  So legionnaries would be MI (S) and Peltasts MI (O)

You could, but you could also make phalangites HI (S) and legionaries HI (O). The trick is deciding which is more appropriate.

(Which, frankly, may be more  a question of exactly what HI and MI and (S) and (O) mean game-mechanically than of anything historical.)

[Erpingham]

You could, of course, use the DBx trick of dividing them into S, O and I.  So legionnaries would be MI (S) and Peltasts MI (O)

You could, but you could also make phalangites HI (S) and legionaries HI (O). The trick is deciding which is more appropriate.

(Which, frankly, may be more  a question of exactly what HI and MI and (S) and (O) mean game-mechanically than of anything historical.)

I think one of the problems is we are talking about generalising (or abstracting) over literally thousands of years of military practice over multiple continents.  If we were writing rules for Romans to meet Macedonians, we could focus our definitions more and have Phalangite and Legionary as their own categories, without worry how that might impact on Germans or Daylami or samurai.

[Jim Webster]

Mark:

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

Maybe - I have a feeling that wargamers obsess about intervals just as they do about weapons (perhaps because they are quantifiable, and wargamers, generally speaking, are men, and men love numbers). I suspect that formation density, weapons and armour, and overall tactics, doctrine and fighting style all combine into a whole that isn't defined by any one of its parts. To model this in game terms, quite broad categories might work, with modifiers to model the specific differences.

Whereas the ancients normally regarded the fight as going to the better men, all things considered. We could do away with all factors and just have one for Virtus 

[RichT]

You could drive yourself crazy (I know, I've tried) categorising and recategorising and adding factors and removing them. My primary objective in thinking of legionaries as MI, not as HI (O) or any such abhorrence, is to reflect Polybius' analysis of legion v. phalanx which claims that the key difference between them is that the phalanx requires clear unencumbered terrain and a fair open battle, while the legion can operate on all sorts of terrain and in all sorts of circumstances and types of combat. This is why I think legionaries are heavy peltasts, not light phalangites, and I don't think Polybius' distinction is at all well reflected by standard categorisations of legions as HI.

I take you don't necessarily reject the possibility of HI who combine close combat with missiles.

Some missiles ('HTW' as was) are clearly just an extra little something to add to melee (and maybe Roman pila are, or became, such, heavy ones at any rate). So yes I think some HI could have a missile capability (which in most rules would rightly be rolled up into their melee capability).

Whereas the ancients normally regarded the fight as going to the better men, all things considered. We could do away with all factors and just have one for Virtus

A perfectly good idea . Wargame rules can be Polybian - all about weapons, armour and formations - or they can be Livian - all about quality. DBA is staunchly Polybian, not even having any quality distinctions. Lost Battles is Livian in intent (one Veteran is worth eight Levies). Most go for a mix, which is probably best.