The Republican army’s skirmish position

[Imperial Dave]

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/gb_army/the-republican-armys-skirmish-position/?fbclid=IwAR27b9RPGoYGqOobgqSVvvepcDHesjR4zF7pvvNuvcryOBJtHwcJlnvfWeo

another interesting article that's bound to generate discussion....

[Duncan Head]

This is one of several pieces by Gary Brueggeman, who used to have a very extensive set of pages online about the Roman army, but the original site I believe disappeared. Karawansaray are now giving him a platform for some of his work - see https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/gb_army for the index page.

[Imperial Dave]

thanks for the info and link Duncan, much appreciated

[Prufrock]

This is where we would normally have had Patrick drop in with a post  :-(

[Imperial Dave]

aye, you can imagine the detailed (and contrary) view he would have on such a proposal!

[Erpingham]

This is what Jasper Oorthuys said about the Brueggeman archive in his blog :

Many years ago (by internet standards) Gary Brueggeman started a website on the Roman Army, full of tactical and operational analyses illuminated by his own drawings. It disappeared for a while, then reappeared in a revised version on the romanarmy.info domain. A year or two ago, Gary and I got in contact and he told me that due to his age, he was no longer interested in the hassle of renewing domains and hosting contracts. As a result of those talks, the content of his site will be hosted here, in their own category. That does mean all pictures and links have to be revised, so it'll probably be a while before it's complete. For now, I'll just go down the sitemap and add pages one by one. Check back soon!

[RichT]

I like his diagram, but I'm not sure what point if any he (GB) is trying to make in that post.

[Duncan Head]

I am not sure that there is one single "point". It follows on from his pages about gaps in the lines, though, which you can see on the index page - particularly https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/gb_army/alternative-to-gaps-the-articulated-phalanx/ - he is saying among other things that the small gaps he proposes there are adequate for skirmishers to pass through.

I was struck by how close together he envisages the main lines to be when javelin-skirmishing starts. Not sure whether I am convinced or not.

[Erpingham]

I was struck by how close together he envisages the main lines to be when javelin-skirmishing starts. Not sure whether I am convinced or not.

He does go for quite a short javelin range.  The skirmish lines are only 20m apart.  Using the amentum (thong), modern experiments suggest a range of over 60m was possible.  You may not skirmish at maximum range, but would you get in so close?  Republican velites were pretty well armed by skirmisher standards so may have expected to mix it a bit.   20m is easily within distance to rush an opponent who has just thrown before he can recover himself.  And would the main lines be quite so close in to the velites?  Even with GB's shortened javelin ranges, he notes that the battle lines were within missile distance.  Why would they expose themselves like that?

[Imperial Dave]

interesting about the idea that once lines closed these 'avenues' disappeared

[RichT]

OK - then he doesn't (maybe I am being mean, or blind) seem to have anything new or interesting to say on the subject.

Things like this:

"The distance between opposing skirmishers is only 37 feet. This seems close but the distance from the foremost skirmisher to the first rank of the maniple is 87 feet. From the skirmishers at the back to the first rank is 117 feet and from them to the back rank is 132 feet. With an average range of only about 120 feet, if the skirmishers were much further apart they would not be within effective range of the opposing troops. The drawing below is a detail showing the 17 foot gap between maniples. The gap could probably be smaller, perhaps 10', and still provide enough room."

always make me groan. All these precise measurements! I can't imagine ancient battlefields were carefully laid out with men with measuring tapes making sure the lines and units were all the correct distance apart. There is a certain school of thought that wants to quantify everything, but I don't find it very helpful.

[Duncan Head]

I tend to ignore the precision, and assume that distances are approximate - are they Roman feet or English feet, after all? But I do find the attempt to put some sort of numbers on things quite interesting, especially in the context of the diagrams: an attempt to show "how it really looked" which is much more informative than the usual rectangular unit blocks. Even if it's wrong.

[Imperial Dave]

agreed. I'd rather a diagrammatic representation and (sort of) ignore the precise measurements to give a feel for what it might have looked like in reality

[RichT]

Yes I like the diagrams. I think these sort of visualizations, to scale etc, can be interesting to contemplate.

[Imperial Dave]

your comment about the tape measures on the battlefield did make me chuckle though Rich