Salamis in "miniature"

[Chris]

As the delayed Battle Day is rapidly approaching, just like the "usurper" did several centuries ago (okay, it was closer to five), I wonder if there will ever be a naval action considered for the annual event?

What about a battle that took place in India, China, or Korea?

Anyway.

Just posted a brief report about my solo battle of Salamis.

Here is the link: https://nopaintingrequired.blogspot.com/

Cheers,
Chris

[Duncan Head]

The perceived problems have always been:

- Will enough people be interested in putting on a naval game?
- Can we find an Asian battle with enough source information on terrain, army composition, and tactics used?

[Erpingham]

Naval warfare does seem to be a minor interest among members.  Perhaps its about the scale of things?  I have very fond memories of ancient naval battles in my younger days but actions were on a 1 ship = 1 ship basis i.e. a maritime skirmish.  Refights of major battles, or even recreations of squadron tactics like periplus weren't really possible.  So maybe lack of fashion has meant lack of development of modern rules that would handle a fleet battle from Antiquity in a satisfactory manner?

[RichT]

Naval warfare does seem to be a minor interest among members.

Naval warfare is a major interest for me, but I'm only a drop in the ocean of members.

I enjoyed your Salamis piece, Chris. The problem with Salamis (hardly unique among ancient battles) is that we don't really know where or how it was fought, or by whom, or how, or how the result was obtained. This of course hasn't stopped a million books being published about West v. East, The Battle that Saved Civilisation, The Battle that Saved the World and similar tosh (all selling loads of copies, no doubt).

Your decision to fight the battle in open waters is sensible given that we don't know exactly where it was fought, but in some form the narrowness of the waters of wherever it was fought were important, so I think Salamis is a battle that benefits from some terrain (ie land). It would be possible to test out, to scale, how different interpretations of the battle fit into the different possible locations. I've tried this digitally with my 'Trireme' simulation, and my finding from that is that sailing 600+ ships into the Salamis channel at its narrow point is out of the question (and yet, perhaps it was done? In which case I cannot imagine how).   

Perhaps its about the scale of things?  I have very fond memories of ancient naval battles in my younger days but actions were on a 1 ship = 1 ship basis i.e. a maritime skirmish.  Refights of major battles, or even recreations of squadron tactics like periplus weren't really possible.  So maybe lack of fashion has meant lack of development of modern rules that would handle a fleet battle from Antiquity in a satisfactory manner?

Naval games have always been hampered IMO by the desire to use a 1:1 scale - understandable in a way, and by comparison with naval games of other periods, but ancient naval battles, if they are to be playable, absolutely require the same approach to scaling as land battles (eg as Chris reports, one base represents 10 (or 8 ) ships). Then things like formations and diekplous need to be handled somewhat abstractly - which is good, in that we don't understand exactly how such things worked so it's better to abstract them, but also bad in that the results can be rather bland - I think people want to manoeuvre and ram their ships, not just roll a dice and determine losses (and yet - people are quite happy doing that with land battles). Naval battles can also be rather an attritional grind, especially big ones, with little for the player to do but calculate combat results.

I don't know the Corvus rules but believe they are 1:1 too. I think a successful ancient naval game needs to:
- scale piece:ship of 1:10 or similar
- represent formations and formation changes
- represent core tactics (board, ram, diekplous) abstractly if necessary
- represent different ship types and crew qualities (of course)
- allow pre-battle manoeuvre on an almost operational scale so that the battle is the culmination of maneouvres; this avoids the dull, chaotic attritional grind of two fleets lining up facing each other.

[Chris]

Gentlemen,
Thanks for reading and offering comments.

With respect to Duncan's points: Perhaps there might be a survey or poll taken at this coming Battle Day or the next? Perhaps there might be a poll published in a future issue of Slingshot? How much source information qualifies as enough? Is it simply that these civilizations did not write down or record their campaigns and battles? Is it more a matter of translation? I would be very surprised to find that there was no military history or import in ancient India, Korea, or China.

Thanks for sharing Anthony. My younger days at sea were more of the "Wooden Ships & Iron Men" kind . . . I wonder if a modification of these rules might be made for ancient contests?

I am not certain, but there has to be a few - at least - sets of rules for ancient naval battles.

Given the importance of Mare Nostrum and other bodies of water, it is interesting that naval actions would hold so little interest among members of The Society.

Rich: Appreciate the word play. (Doubt that my report will make any waves . . .) Thanks for the compliment. I agree regarding the problems associated with it (Salamis) and perhaps my effort was a simplification. Appreciated your remarks regarding ancient naval action in general. It is odd/interesting that while somewhat similar to land combat - at least in terms of rules, etc. (your mention of attrition and calculating combat factors and so forth), there is substantially less interest in such an important aspect of the ancient world.

General -
I wonder if Actium (31 BC) might be something to look at? Here, there is the potential for a land engagement in conjunction with a naval battle (such as it was).
I wonder if there are other examples of combined actions?
I cannot recall exactly, but did not Caesar's troops build some boats and take on a tribe in Gaul after seeing how poorly the Roman navy did?

In sum, it seems that a large body of water - I mean material or possibilities - is being ignored.

Thanks again.

Chris

[Duncan Head]

With respect to Duncan's points: Perhaps there might be a survey or poll taken at this coming Battle Day or the next? Perhaps there might be a poll published in a future issue of Slingshot? How much source information qualifies as enough? Is it simply that these civilizations did not write down or record their campaigns and battles? Is it more a matter of translation? I would be very surprised to find that there was no military history or import in ancient India, Korea, or China.

It's partly a matter of limited translations, but also a matter of different historiographical traditions. In Eastern sources you rarely get the sort of orders of battle, lists of units and descriptions of deployment, that you find in the Western traditions. Look at our Ancient Battles forum, which gives translations of ancient-medieval sources for various battles. I've put a few Chinese battles up there, plus one Japanese and one in India. Compare those to the accounts of Hydaspes or Pharsalus, for instance, and you may see the issue that concerns me.

The secondary issue, of course, would be how many players or groups would have the armies for one of the more "exotic" battles, or be prepared to paint them up. I really don't know, if we chose (say) Timur vs the Delhi Sultanate, how many people would be interested.

[RichT]

I am not certain, but there has to be a few - at least - sets of rules for ancient naval battles.

Some lists (boardgames as well as rules):

Tactical War Galley Games

Top 10 Ancient Naval Games

Naval Rules Online (very out of date, mostly dead links)

Also a fairly recent Osprey rule set: Poseidon's Warriors: Classical Naval Warfare 480-31 BC

[gavindbm]

Would love to see someone attempt the same sort of analysis and rules design for galley warfare as Phil Sabin did for classical land warfare in Lost Battles. 

I really have so little understanding of how much space a squadron of galleys took up, how they manoeuvred, potential outcomes of squadron v. squadron, how command worked, etc...

[Chris]

I second Gavin's questions and would also like to see someone or some body (club) with more experience and knowledge tackle this topic.

With respect to the gentleman's queries: would the same "ground" scale be used on the sea? In other words, 1 inch on the table represents so many yards or meters? Movement would probably be dictated by rowing speed - how many grades of this? For squadron versus squadron, does this not come down to ship versus ship? Morale then, at least initially, would be ship v ship as well. How could one retreat or recoil if one were rammed or ramming? As to command, I wonder how effective flags or other visuals were. Prior to an engagement, were there councils of war where the commanding admiral would spell out his plans for battle?

To reiterate, an interesting topic, well worth wading into . . .


Chris