DBM(M) List Construction - e.g. Japanese, Koguryo, Tibetan, Indonesian, Hsia

[Dangun]

I was just wondering whether anyone knew how the DBM list writers come up with the specific ratio of troop types for less well sourced armies?

For a lot of  armies, there is hardly any evidence for what equipment was used (e.g. Japanese, Indonesian) , let alone in what ratios. So I am just wondering how its done?

I am particularly interested in lists like Japanese, Koguryo, Tibetan, Siamese, Indonesian, Hsia, Herul, any pre-medieval steppe army.

(This is not a criticism at all, in the absence of evidence it could be pure art. But when I see an intentionally specific detail in an army list, it often suggests I should look for some piece of evidence or source, that the authors had that I haven't seen.)

[Duncan Head]

Guesswork and snippets, mostly. The Xixia list, for instance, was an original draft by Chris Peers back in the DBM days, largely unchanged till DBM 2d edition when I sent Phil Barker some suggestions based on a couple of articles (Kychanov on Xixia nomads in Khazanov's Nomads in the Sedentary World; McGrath article on the Song-Xixia war 1038-44 in Battlefronts Real and Imagined), and he turned it into something different (but not quite what I'd suggested).

Those articles give a few numbers: 5,000 Imperial Guards in six units (I may have inadvertently told Phil 6,000) and 3,000 Iron Sparrowhawks in a total army estimated at 370,000 or 500,000. But a lot of it is informed guesswork.

[Andreas Johansson]

largely unchanged till DBM 2d edition when I sent Phil Barker some suggestions based on a couple of articles

That should be DBMM 2nd edition I believe?

Are Japanese armies particularly badly attested, BTW? My impression was that the source material is tolerably plentiful from the "Early Samurai" period forward?

[Dangun]

Are Japanese armies particularly badly attested, BTW? My impression was that the source material is tolerably plentiful from the "Early Samurai" period forward?

Quite right. From the 8th C. on, you get a lot of material.

But for Japan, I was particularly interested in the Early Japanese list.
From the 4th C. you get some grave contents. But that's it. No domestic literature, no domestic paintings, no inscriptions...
A bit before that there is hardly a civilization to represent, no writing, no coinage, no cities, no roads, no horses, no iron smelting, no buildings of any size.... large family groups beating each other over the head with pottery?

In the lists there are conspicuous details...
* For example, the Japanese list includes pavises as early as the third century. That has come from somewhere, and I would be fascinated to find out where.
* The Koguryo list includes "sonbae," which I have asked about before, and I really do wonder where that came from.
* The Heruli are 50% a specific javelin-throwing (not archer) psiloi, and certainly for the 3rd C. I can't find any significant description of their equipment, so that's come from somewhere.
* etc.

[Duncan Head]

But for Japan, I was particularly interested in the Early Japanese list.
From the 4th C. you get some grave contents. But that's it. No domestic literature, no domestic paintings, no inscriptions...
* For example, the Japanese list includes pavises as early as the third century. That has come from somewhere, and I would be fascinated to find out where.

The earliest example is the large Kitoragawa shield illustrated in Michael Fredholm's Slingshot article. He gives it to a spearman, but, especially since it has subsequently become clear that there is also archaeological evidence for smaller shields, it could equally be an archer's standing pavise.

* The Heruli are 50% a specific javelin-throwing (not archer) psiloi, and certainly for the 3rd C. I can't find any significant description of their equipment, so that's come from somewhere.

More precisely, the Herul psiloi are half shieldless javelinmen Ps(I) and half shielded javelinmen Ps(S). This derives from  Procopius' 6th-century description of Herul slaves fighting shieldless, and being given shields if they distinguished themselves. Leading presumably to bodies of "slaves" being partially shielded and partly not. As with many details, it's then projected back and forward through the whole list for want of any specific contradictory evidence.

As to why the slaves are javelin-armed Ps in the first place, I am not sure. But there is a general idea that some German tribes used the poorest half-free men as light infantry archers; the idea that the Heruls used javelins instead may be connected with their use of cavalry who shoot (also Procopius) but are thought, as Germans, to shoot with javelins rather than bows.

[Dangun]

These details are interesting, but because they are so wildly speculative, it would be nice if the lists included a footnote, just to know where it had come from. Although this evidence only gets us to some of the plausible weapon types, and tells us nothing about an armies troop mix.

More precisely, the Herul psiloi are half shieldless javelinmen Ps(I) and half shielded javelinmen Ps(S). This derives from  Procopius' 6th-century description of Herul slaves fighting shieldless, and being given shields if they distinguished themselves. Leading presumably to bodies of "slaves" being partially shielded and partly not. As with many details, it's then projected back and forward through the whole list for want of any specific contradictory evidence.

Is it a good idea to use evidence from outside a list's history and project back? (in this case using 6th C. evidence for a Heruli list which ends in the 5th C.) And a no-specific-contradictory-evidence test would be very permissive.

Although without evidence it might be better than no list at all?

[Mick Hession]

The problem is that for many ancient cultures we have very little actual evidence for details or army composition or even armament (weapons deposited as grave goods might be evidence for actual use or could be simply votive, for example). Same applies to written sources as the sum total written about peoples who were not themselves literate (or whose writing is incomprehensible to us, like Etruscans) can be tiny - I suspect the corpus for the Heruls might run to a couple of hundred words whilst the Attecotti get perhaps 50. Also, we often don't know whether ancient authors were writing a journalistic discription or following a literary convention about barbarians. 

So we have a handful of lists (Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine) where we have _some_ reasonable organisation charts and maybe a couple of orders of battle (though we don't necessarily know if these are typical - if Wellington's only surviving Order of Battle was that for Waterloo I've no doubt some 41st century army lists would enforce that at least a quarter of all British armies in the Napoleonic Wars must field Hanoverians and Belgians); for everything else we've got fragments and how these are converted to army lists is a matter for the compiler.

So if you write a set of lists on the basis of what's known for certain you get a very slim volume but that's fine if you're writing a list for a relatively well-documented conflict like the second Punic War. If you compile them on the basis of what could have been fielded you often end up with a lot of quite generic, interchangable lists (e.g. because most late Germanic tribes probably had some combination of mounted men, warband and skirmishers then why not just have one late Germanic list that allows these types be fielded in any proportion?) and that can work too - each to his own.

For DBx army lists Phil Barker has generally chosen to take things that are known (which does not always mean they are right, necessarily) and make them a point of difference. Hence Heruls get their javelinmen because we have a reference to shielded slaves whilst the Sciri in the same list have archers because Procopius (I think) said Ostrogoths had archers and Sciri are assumed to be like them. That's his choice as list compiler and it's the choice of the players of his rules to follow his lists or propose alternatives (which they do!).

Cheers
Mick


   

[Duncan Head]

Is it a good idea to use evidence from outside a list's history and project back? (in this case using 6th C. evidence for a Heruli list which ends in the 5th C.)

In this case, probably the list's end-date should be changed: there was enough of a "Herul kingdom" in the 6th century for Justinian to intervene in a succession dispute, not just occasional bands of Herul mercenaries; so no good reason for their list to stop in 493.

And if one didn't use this evidence, what would one use instead?

it would be nice if the lists included a footnote

It would, but such notes as there are have been steadily reduced over the last couple of editions to prevent expanding lists needing more page space. Not a decision everyone agrees with. Such source-and-argument information could be put online, but then someone would have to do the work, and WRG show no sign of being interested. TNE was a step in that direction, but more evidence for proposed changes than for the status quo, and it fell out of use when the maintainer of the webpage drifted away from DBMM to his own rules; I don't think anyone has access to the site now.

Although without evidence it might be better than no list at all?

At least some people want lists for just about any army they've ever heard of, and if you (sc. the DBMM authors, in this case) don't write it, then someone else will. The DB* approach has always been to try to cover everything, not just the most typical or best-documented armies. Right or wrong, that's what they do.

It's a fallible process, and a continually changing one. The current DBMM lists, and all those inspired by them, trace back to the three volumes of lists produced about 1982 for WRG 6th edition. And they probably still contain some of the original mistakes.

[Jim Webster]

It would, but such notes as there are have been steadily reduced over the last couple of editions to prevent expanding lists needing more page space. Not a decision everyone agrees with. Such source-and-argument information could be put online, but then someone would have to do the work, and WRG show no sign of being interested. TNE was a step in that direction, but more evidence for proposed changes than for the status quo, and it fell out of use when the maintainer of the webpage drifted away from DBMM to his own rules; I don't think anyone has access to the site now.

TNE page is at http://tabulaenovaeexercituum.pbworks.com/w/page/14246690/FrontPage

I don't have the authority to comment or add

however I am a moderator of https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Tabulae_Novae_Exercituum/info

and do occasionally add people who want to access the archive

Jim

[Andreas Johansson]

I've often wished Phil kept records of what he based list details on, even if he reasonably enough won't turn the list notes into properly footnoted academic min-treatises. During the DBMM list revision work, it was often the case that neither he nor anyone else really recalled why something or other had got into a list.

[Jim Webster]

I've often wished Phil kept records of what he based list details on, even if he reasonably enough won't turn the list notes into properly footnoted academic min-treatises. During the DBMM list revision work, it was often the case that neither he nor anyone else really recalled why something or other had got into a list.

yes, it would be really useful if the various sources were quoted. If only to provide a jumping off point for people trying to move the lists forward

[evilgong]

Hi there

Duncan said

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It's a fallible process, and a continually changing one. The current DBMM lists, and all those inspired by them, trace back to the three volumes of lists produced about 1982 for WRG 6th edition. And they probably still contain some of the original mistakes.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>



And the bones of some of those 1982 lists can be seen in the original 1977 'Red Book' lists - like the EAP / LAP divide and many troop grades therein.

Chinese armies are a bit better covered these days, the Red book's single Chinese list was a smorgasbord of chariots, cattlephrakts and rocket launchers etc. 

I like WRG's philosophy of trying to cover everything,  which has probably inspired figure manufacturers and enthusiast researchers.  The opposite idea of just covering the major players is often found in Napoleonics where anything other than the big five is considered dangerously exotic.

David F Brown

[Dangun]

I've often wished Phil kept records of what he based list details on, even if he reasonably enough won't turn the list notes into properly footnoted academic min-treatises. During the DBMM list revision work, it was often the case that neither he nor anyone else really recalled why something or other had got into a list.

Writing footnotes for the Roman/Byzantine/Hellenic lists might well turn into a small book, but its the scraps that are worked with for the obscure lists that are perhaps more footnote-worthy, if only as Jim suggested...

...to provide a jumping off point for people trying to move the lists forward.