The Macedonian double whammy

[Erpingham]

I think somewhere way back in this topic there is a general affirmation that cavalry could, and did, charge infantry.  How successful they were depending on the cavalry (as Roy said, quality of men and horses, motivation) and of the infantry (training, cohesion, general ferocity)  There was no magic formation that rendered cavalry invulnerable while make infantry queue up to be slaughtered - it was tough and deadly stuff.  For example, Almoghavars didn't fight cavalry in blocks, the broke their spears in two to make them more handy,  mixed withthe cavalry,  disembowelled the horses and despatched the riders who were unseated.  Not pretty.  So rather than fantasy formation stuff, if we want to see why Alexander's cavalry did well, perhaps more attention to circumstances might work?  Could it be their leader used his army to create the circumstances to be decisively exploited by mobile elite strike force?   

As to Issus, I'm going on the documents presented but building everything on one sentence from Diodorus which seems at odds with the other accounts does seem weak.  Sometimes contradictions in the sources can't be reconciled.  I note we are getting into the grammar stages of the argument (what is the subject of this verb etc.) which is way beyond me.  But just from all the English tanslations, I would get the idea that Alexander extended his army to the sea, not necessarily his infantry.

[aligern]

I was reading an article today by an academic, Stewart IIRC . It was about Procopius comparison of Belisarius and Witiges. Stewart has written before about this and has deeply analysed the source ( Well Procopius) . It would be very difficult not to see that Procopius was altering and editing to prove the point that Roman coolness and self discipline is key innthe Byzantine victory against barbarian rashness and hot headedness Belisarius moves on to be less volatile where Witiges becomes paralysed as the Roman army moves closer tonRavenna, taking the forts that actually would be in a besieger's rear.  Actually its more lijely that Witiges resorts to negotiation once his last hope of a land based relief army evaporates and because the Byzantines control the sea...oh and the grain silos get burnt down. One is keft with the strong  impression that the details of the campaign and battles may well have been adjusted to make, what is tobProcopius, a bigger point. Now Procopius is a good historian, as far as we can see and is widely believed. The difficulty with Arrian and Diodorus and co, or rather our analysis of them is that they are not writing with a thematic bias that is being discussed. They are all using sources that themselves have biases and defects due to their sources and the natural bias of their sources. Someone who is a commander in Alexander's  army  will have belonged tona faction and will have written to  please a particilar audience and will have had their own views on causation.

There is an element of Donald Rumsfeld's Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns about all history writing.  and thus all words cannot be weighed equally.. Plutarch, for example, in writing a speech for Marius before battling the Teutones puts words into  great man's mouth that tell us what a true Roman Marius' is and how connected he was to his man.  Plutarch almost certainly does not know what Marius actually said and would not have worried because its the sub text that his audience who have opinions about Golden age pleb descended commanders expect to hear.

My take on Issus so far ( Thanks to Richard for collating and presenting the sources) is  that the important thing is that Alex must cover the sea flank and wants to stay  away from possible outflanking in the foothills on the other flank and that, as the field opens out on the left cavalry are sent to engage the Persian cavalry that are threatening the oeft flank because flank is still opening out  and Parmenio can no longer keep moving left without opening up a gap in the centre.  These cavalry might well engage ahead of Parmenio's infantry because it  is quite normal  to do that  as the infantry protect the rear of the cavalry. Perhaps its a bit medieval in concept, but it is not outlandish.  What I think Justin)s recent post  tells us us that the nature of the deployment  on the left wing is not sufficiehtly important to be emphasised.
On Alex)s right wing the main aggressive action takes place.  Inask the experts here whether the Macedonian cavalry here fight the hoplites frontally.? It seems to me that the likeliest target is Persian infantry or Persian cavalry abd we would  find consensus in the Companions charging them? and then taking the hoplites in flank.  The hypaspists would  then be advancing on the left flank of the cavalry to protect them from being  taken in the flank when they are halted.

The jain description of the action is not about the formation that Alexander adopts , its obviously not 'news'. what is worthy  to retail to the audience is the  fighting between the noblest Persians and Alexander himself. That is presumably because tge conflict is symbolic of the war. The Persians are brave, but not as good at hand to hand as Alexander. They don 't  run until Darius does  and he will not  face the Macedonian king. That  conflict may have an element of invention, because the point  is the symbolic one.  Do the sources wish to say tgat any particular firmation wonntge battle?  I think not, their secobdary concentration is how the Macedonian firce expanded to cover tge frobtage on the move which is a tour de force, probsbly catching the opponent whilst redeploying.

aRoy

[Erpingham]

There is always a danger in our received accounts of reading them as if they were written for modern military historians.  Heroic clashes and character-revealing incidents may be more stylistically important to author and audience than precision about formation.  Certain words with a common place meaning may be read as technical terms (e.g. wedge, othismos) causing a focus on a passage the author didn't intend and probably couldn't imagine.

[Justin Swanton]

There is always a danger in our received accounts of reading them as if they were written for modern military historians.  Heroic clashes and character-revealing incidents may be more stylistically important to author and audience than precision about formation.  Certain words with a common place meaning may be read as technical terms (e.g. wedge, othismos) causing a focus on a passage the author didn't intend and probably couldn't imagine.

Careful about discounting the authors' ability to be precise with their terminology. Arrian uses the term 'wedge' - embolon (which BTW I knew could mean a ram-like formation as well as a wedge) - when describing Alex's combined cavalry-infantry assault at Gaugamela, and he defines the same term in his Ars Tactica. Arrian was a military theorist who knew the precise technical terms for formations and tactics, and it is natural to assume that when he said wedge he meant wedge - especially as he says "wedge, as it were" for Gaugamela, implying he knew exactly what a military wedge was and also knew Alex's formation was close to it but not exactly it.

[Erpingham]

A fair point about Arrian knowing his military terminology better than many others.  In this case, though, he is interpreting an earlier source which may, or may not, have been so precise.  As you've said, the fact he qualifies his use of the word embolon (wedge/ram) suggests he isn't thinking Alex has created a formal wedge formation but is using the word less formally, in the way we might say "the advance drove a wedge into the enemy line" .

[Justin Swanton]

A fair point about Arrian knowing his military terminology better than many others.  In this case, though, he is interpreting an earlier source which may, or may not, have been so precise.  As you've said, the fact he qualifies his use of the word embolon (wedge/ram) suggests he isn't thinking Alex has created a formal wedge formation but is using the word less formally, in the way we might say "the advance drove a wedge into the enemy line" .

Well....Arrian is clear that it was specifically the Companions and the part of the phalanx on the right wing that formed up "a wedge so to speak",  which is more specific than unnamed units driving a wedge-shape dent in the enemy line. My take is that the ilai formed up with the Agema, which IMHO (arguments upon request) numbered about 2000 men and deployed 16 deep for a width of 125 yards when in intermediate order. A 200-man regular ila in wedge formation would deploy 60 yards wide at the most; the 300 man royal squadron deployed, when in wedge, about 70 yards wide at the most. Presuming there were 8 ilai at Gaugamela (I'm doing this off-the-cuff so feel free to correct me) then they would probably have deployed 2 ilai wide and 4 ilai deep in front of the Agema. Definitely ram-shaped.

If the Hypaspists were also involved, that would create a frontage of 250 yards (2000 hypaspists + 2000 Agema), with the ilai deployed 4 wide and 2 deep. My take is that only the Agema was under Alex's direct command (Nicanor commanded the Hypaspists at Issus and Gaugamela) and hence meant to work in concert with the Companions, so this option is less likely.

[Justin Swanton]

As an idea, here is a suggested rule for implementing the double whammy in a DBM(M) context (this provisionally applies only to Republican Roman cav as the consensus seems to be that they at least did it):

Before executing a whammy attack, attacking cavalry must be directly behind and adjacent to attacking infantry and the attacking infantry must be frontally adjacent to enemy infantry's front or rear edge (not side edges). The attacking infantry accompanied by attacking cavalry can attack enemy infantry in the same turn they move adjacent to it.

The attacking cavalry and infantry swop places, with the cavalry now in front and adjacent to the enemy infantry. The attack is executed with normal factors and modifiers. If the cavalry draws or loses the attack, it stays put or recoils, pushing the friendly infantry back, and that's it for the turn. If the cavalry wins the attack, it passes directly through the enemy infantry to the other side - unless there is something behind the enemy infantry that blocks its passage, in which case it stays where it is. The enemy infantry may be destroyed if doubled but does not recoil if there is a recoil result. Once the cavalry has passed through, the friendly infantry moves up adjacent to the enemy infantry and enemy infantry immediately fights the attacking infantry with a -2 modifier for being disordered by the cavalry. If the enemy infantry loses the combat with a recoil result it cannot recoil and is destroyed instead.

Only veteran class cavalry can take part in whammy attack. Are early Republican Roman cav veteran? They should be.

[Prufrock]

I'm not seeing anything convincing here, Justin.

To summarise, first you hang your hat on Diodorus being correct when he has the cavalry deployed in front of the infantry all along the line. Then you are happy to revise this to say that actually, the cavalry was deployed on each wing rather than across the whole front, but it was still definitely in front of the phalanx. You also seem to be arguing that the phalanx is anchored on the seashore - presumably so that you have cavalry in front of phalanx on the left too. And then you take what seems to be a metaphorical use of 'wedge' on the right by Arrian very literally.

So you are in fact doing quite a bit of shoehorning.

Alexander's success can be explained quite well without needing to posit a 'double whammy' tactical formation.

[aligern]

Issus is 333BC , Arrian is writing in say 120 AD . we may thus assume he is copying sources, I understand Ptolemy is one. Arrian's ability to name a formation exactly is not at issue, because it depends upon the sources in front of him. To support Anthony, it may be that Arrian is looking at a source that describes Alexander taking the right wing element of the phalanx (;is this the hypaspists? and the Companion cavalry and making an attack with a narrow frontage and a broader rear, a formation, sort of Mirroring an L shape to which the nearest equivalent is a wedge, because it breaks through and then widens that penetration.  The actual details are not of interest to Arrian's  350-400 year old source as it hurries on to which princes Alex kills and how he gets wounded.Wouldn't that satisfy everybody??
Roy

[RichT]

Remember there are two battles - Issus and Gaugamela, and the 'like a wedge' formation is at Gaugamela (nothing is said of wedges at Issus).

Arrian's main sources are Ptolemy and Aristobolus.

What you describe Roy is broadly how most people understand the attack at Gaugemela.

[Justin Swanton]

It might be an idea to step back a bit and look at the purpose of these historical debates. As I understand it, the SoA's remit is largely centred on pre-gunpowder military history as applicable to wargaming. The Society is not a university and the forum is not a doctorate examination room (thank heavens!). Most of the posters here, including myself, are not professional historians or academically qualified in history. Personally I feel the need to take off four years and read the sources from start to finish plus all relevant academic literature from the past hundred years or so. If anyone wants to finance the project, I'm in.

But none of that matters. Ultimately the Society is about wargaming, not history, and what we are looking for is whatever is historically feasible in our gaming rulesets. I realise that the only historical facts that are commonly accepted are those that are clearly and unambiguously expressed in several unrelated primary sources. So everyone agrees that the mid to late Republican Roman legion had three lines. But how the exchange of lines took place is not unambiguously expressed in several sources so there is and always will be disagreement over it. Personally I think it is possible to know how it happened by careful analysis of the source material in the original languages, but whatever any individual comes up with will not convince everybody else if the source material isn't explicit enough to begin with.

Doesn't matter either. What we are interested in is what is plausible enough to be used on the gaming table. Sometimes the historical basis for some things wargamers take for granted is tenuous (Kallapani anyone?) but who cares? They could have been that way and they work in a game so wargamers use them. The Society could do the wargaming community a real service if it used the resources of its members to determine what is feasible for pre-gunpowder armies. Alex did seem to use a composite wedge/ram at Gaugamela. Is it feasible he could have used it at Issus or even Chaeronea? Would it improve gaming experience to introduce it as a tactic? How many other armies might have used it? (cue Romans) And so on.

Bearing in mind that we are talking about feasible, not common-accepted as proven. I think there's a need for it. How many game designers have actually done original historical research since Phil Barker anyway? To what extent does Phil's research stand up today?

[Mark G]

Exploring the feasible ends at page 5, usually before.

To keep "exploring" after that is just pushing an agenda or seeking to prolong an argument. 

[Justin Swanton]

Exploring the feasible ends at page 5, usually before.

To keep "exploring" after that is just pushing an agenda or seeking to prolong an argument.

Great! Then double whammy, as discussed up to #74 (end of p5) is in the bag. 

[Erpingham]

It might be an idea to step back a bit and look at the purpose of these historical debates.

Well, I think of them of ways of improving my knowledge of military history.  Therefore, it is quite important that they are based on the evidence.  As I've mentioned before, I think one of the problems we have is "wargamer" history which is based on various dated popular books and novels and one of the things we can do with this forum is to bring in more modern thought and evidence (histories, art, archaeology etc.).

That's the historical bit of the society remit.  It overlaps with the wargaming bit to various degrees.  Quite a lot if trying to refight historical battles, less so if you just want some vaguely historical entertainment.  Where you go with that is up to your own preferences/tolerance for anachronism.

I think I would be concerned with an idea that, because we are all (or nearly all) hobby historians and wargamers, we can be satisfied with a poorer quality history.  As to the not having the time to spend in years of full time study, the answer is to channel Newton and "stand on the shoulders of giants" (or at least slightly taller people) rather than try to do it all from scratch.  Let them do the hard work then read what they write critically. 

Anyway, that is where I am coming from.

[Justin Swanton]

It might be an idea to step back a bit and look at the purpose of these historical debates.

Well, I think of them of ways of improving my knowledge of military history.  Therefore, it is quite important that they are based on the evidence.  As I've mentioned before, I think one of the problems we have is "wargamer" history which is based on various dated popular books and novels and one of the things we can do with this forum is to bring in more modern thought and evidence (histories, art, archaeology etc.).

Absolutely.

That's the historical bit of the society remit.  It overlaps with the wargaming bit to various degrees.  Quite a lot if trying to refight historical battles, less so if you just want some vaguely historical entertainment.  Where you go with that is up to your own preferences/tolerance for anachronism.

I think I would be concerned with an idea that, because we are all (or nearly all) hobby historians and wargamers, we can be satisfied with a poorer quality history.  As to the not having the time to spend in years of full time study, the answer is to channel Newton and "stand on the shoulders of giants" (or at least slightly taller people) rather than try to do it all from scratch.  Let them do the hard work then read what they write critically. 

Anyway, that is where I am coming from.

It's not about poorer quality history or doing it from scratch. We can certainly lean on professional historians and apply their research to wargaming-relevant topics. Take for example the fragmenting line thread. Can we deduce to what extent lines that advanced did fragment? Or what kind of lines fragmented, e.g. untrained levies vs professionals? What do the historians say?  Once we know what Academia (and possibly some personal research by members - not everything that interests us has necessarily been looked at in depth by professional historians) has to say on the topic, is it worth implementing in wargaming and if so how? One possible idea is to oblige an impetuous line that advances into contact with enemy to throw a die for each base: a 1 or 2 and the movement is slowed (say by half a base width). this presumes the entire line could contact the enemy with a normal move. This rule would oblige a canny player to hold his impetuous troops in check until they are very close to the enemy, and then let them go - the bad die throws wouldn't affect them as they would contact the enemy anyway. Is that historical? Does it affect gameplay?

But maybe this is all taking wargaming too seriously.