Ranks or files

[simonw]

Anthony,
The moment I posted my last comment I knew that I hadn't mentioned social and religious organisation and beliefs but these don't materially alter my main contention; namely that the ancients were people just as mentally capable as we are today (AI excluded)and so were perfectly capable of extremely sophisticated management protocols; probably better than we are today in purely man-management capabilities on a grand scale (they had so much more practice in the absence of machines).

Their military drill capabilities were therefore as likely to have been as sophisticated as anything known at later dates. Genghis Khan's campaigns were influential in developing Blitzkrieg theory and practice. The 'arrow riders' were designed and trained and organised to facilitate rapid communications throughout the Mongol Empire and so the importance of rapid communications was well recognised and understood; even if they didn't have radio or telegraph.

Philosophically, there's not much than hasn't been thought of already by someone in the ancient world and personally, given the nature of ancient warfare and it's fundamental reliance on hand to hand combat between massed formations of men with a variety of weapons and fighting styles, I am extremely dubious of any contention that unit drills were not as sophisticated (at times and in some armies) as any of a later date.

The ancients should not be underestimated. They managed to do things that we can't do today because the knowledge of the ancient technologies has been lost (e.g. rope technology for trireme hypozōmata). The Olympias reconstruction had to resort to steel cable!
Cheers
Simon

[simonw]

"Regular professional militaries were rare." Not that rare. Maybe more limited in scale; yes, but many 'Empires' had a core of military professionals. How can you expect an amateur to be competent as an Assyrian charioteer without there being a professional underpinning for the technology, operational training, and animal husbandry, I'm not sure.

[Erpingham]

The ancients should not be underestimated.

I don't think I have but I don't think this line of argument will lead us to further enlightenment.  If anyone has a different angle which may prove fruitful, now's your time. 

[Erpingham]

"Regular professional militaries were rare." Not that rare. Maybe more limited in scale; yes, but many 'Empires' had a core of military professionals. How can you expect an amateur to be competent as an Assyrian charioteer without there being a professional underpinning for the technology, operational training, and animal husbandry, I'm not sure.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about Assyrians, though I believed that most of the troops were raised from the countryside as needed, rather than an embodied professional force.  A professional core I will grant you - the Egyptians also had a permanent chariot corps at times.  But can you not see the strain on the argument? A permanent core = regular army = capable of complex drill like 18th century linear warfare armies?  As I said, I tend towards caution in making these leaps.  And again, I think I'm repeating myself, so I open it up to new approaches to the problem.

[simonw]

So pikemen in Tercios were better drilled than Macedonian pikemen under Alexander the Great?

[Erpingham]

So pikemen in Tercios were better drilled than Macedonian pikemen under Alexander the Great?

Not sure who has suggested this but my own view is probably not.  The amount of drill required was probably similar.  But I will caveat this. Although I've studied quite a bit about 16th century tactics, I have mainly been interested in other nationalities' armies and not the Spanish.

[Jim Webster]

I thought that I ought to do was do what I should have done from the start, dig out my copy of Asclepiodotus
He was probably a theoretician rather than somebody who led armies but given he was 1st Century and may have at the very least studied at Rhodes, he may have been an ephebe in his day and there were plenty of people about who knew 'drill'

Section 12 is the drill commands plus a description of the military evolution to go with
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Asclepiodotus/12*.html

I'm more confused, the LacusCurtius translation isn't the same as the Loeb

Evolutions can have up to four quarter turns to the right (or the left)

Anybody have a crack at the Greek?

But according to  https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Asclepiodotus/10*.html#4

  It is a quarter-turn, when we close up the entire battalion by file and rank in the compact formation�43 and move it like the body of one man in such a manner that the entire force swings on the first file-leader as on a pivot, if to the right on the right file-leader, and if to the left on the left file-leader, and at the same time takes a position in advance and faces 'by spear' if pivoting right and 'by shield' if pivoting left.

As I read it, it seems to mean that to turn 90 degrees the file leader on that flank stood still and the other file leaders pivoted around him, keeping in line, but with their files following them.

There again I have been wrong before

[Erpingham]

I remember going through this with Justin. It looks clear but actually is confusing. If you just pivot round the front corner, everybody has to go forwards and shuffle sideways.  Yet that does appear to be what it says.

Later drill manuals would use an external pivot for this, but this advances the unit and moves it in the direction of the wheel, whereas the tactician seems to suggest no movement to the flank.

[Mark G]

So no compare that to an 18th century manual for a single batallion.

It's like comparing a hay cart with an articulated lorry.

Different requirements, different outcomes.

No ancient general would conceive of a movement like Leuthen, so they had no need to create the drill to perform it.

They would be baffled by the advantage that hours of marching drill brought, just as a Prussian would be baffled by the hours of weapons training at the posts brought.

Neither is better implicitly, so let us ignore Simons pointless straw man of denegrating the ancients. And just look back at the simple question.

[Jim Webster]

I remember going through this with Justin. It looks clear but actually is confusing. If you just pivot round the front corner, everybody has to go forwards and shuffle sideways.  Yet that does appear to be what it says.

Later drill manuals would use an external pivot for this, but this advances the unit and moves it in the direction of the wheel, whereas the tactician seems to suggest no movement to the flank.

As I read it, your unit would end up no more to the flank, but would now be in front of its original position?

[Erpingham]

As I read it, your unit would end up no more to the flank, but would now be in front of its original position?

That's how I would read it - like pivoting a wargame element. The original line of the front would be the flank and the outer flank would be one unit's width further forward (for a single quarter turn).

In real life, though, it's hard to do with multiple ranks.  Caution in interpretation is called for.

[Jim Webster]

As I read it, your unit would end up no more to the flank, but would now be in front of its original position?

That's how I would read it - like pivoting a wargame element. The original line of the front would be the flank and the outer flank would be one unit's width further forward (for a single quarter turn).

In real life, though, it's hard to do with multiple ranks.  Caution in interpretation is called for.

Trying to visualise it, it might be easier to do it this way if your unit has a neighbour on, for example, the right flank but wants to face left.
There's none of the 'entangling' you get with unit bases when you try to wheel, as the unit as it manoeuvres only takes up it's original frontage. Until the very end when everybody shuffles into place

If the unit is wider than it is deep, say 10 ranks and 8 files, then it won't interfere with troops to its flank anyway.

[simonw]

Mark,

"and cadence marching (in step),

Not true in ancients at any time."

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I'm afraid that I don't believe this assertion.

Simon

[simonw]

Mark,

"none of the ancient armies had the drill and training to perform the same movements that later infantry did - because they never needed to."

I don't believe this assertion either (except of course for loading muskets).
Simon

[simonw]

Mark,

"No ancient general would conceive of a movement like Leuthen, so they had no need to create the drill to perform it."

I bow to your much superior knowledge of the Prussian military but to assert that ancient 'equivalents' definitely never existed is perhaps going too far, in my humble opinion.

It seems to me that Genghis Khan used similar tactics on a grand scale but with Mongol cavalry (e.g. feigned withdrawals, speed of manoeuvre, lateral outflanking manoeuvres etc.).

also, what did the Triarii do at Cynocephalae? What did Alexander the Great do with the Companions at Gaugemela? These latter two instances seem  (off the top of my head) to have involved lateral movements in the face of the enemy.

They are not facsimiles of the Leuthen manoeuvre I agree but there are similarities in some of the elements (lateral movements of elite/well-trained troops) and also the thought processes behind them.

If you are proposing a uniqueness specifically for the combination of the unit drill and command structure of Frederick's troops in detail which then specifically enabled them to perform the manoeuvre at Leuthen as envisaged by Frederick in advance (he attempted it twice before I believe) then you are  correct and I agree that there may well be no precise ancient equivalent in the detail. (i.e. dedicated training troops to in advance to perform a specific lateral movement on a grand tactical scale).

But if you are asserting that no ancient army ever had adequate drill/training to perform an equivalent deception using a rapid, hidden lateral movement after a withdrawal behind terrain, in order to outflank an opposition deployment, then I cannot agree that such a tactical capability was beyond all ancient armies in terms of plan conception nor actual physical enactment.

Sorry

Simon