Little Battles

[dwkay57]

Being tales for those who have trouble sleeping or need to get out more......

Not sure if this heading is supposed to be for this sort of thing, but we'll see. I attach two recent battle write ups of my solo 6mm battles.

The first has appeared in the Greek army research thread and did spark some discussion which has morphed into the Command and Control thread.

The second (Trinovantes v Spartans) was a re-fight of an earlier battle between the Trinovantes and the Athenians. Whilst I couldn't re-create the random dice throws and had tweaked the rules a bit, the terrain and the Trinovante battle plans were the same. The Athenians won but the Spartans didn't, and I'm struggling to work out what might be stopping the Spartans recreating their historical reputation.

Any comments or feedback welcome.

[Patrick Waterson]

David, I think the root of the problem is, as you point out, here.

"This warband then felt strong enough to take on the Spartiates. At this point the Spartan morale
started to falter. The Laconians were unwilling to support the Spartiates and the Tegans and
Messene allies clung to the hills worrying about the flanking troops appearing behind them."

The question is: why?

Actually there are two questions:
1) why do irregular warbands do so well against Spartan and allied hoplites, and
2) why did Laconian morale fail at the critical point in the battle?

Patrick

[Prufrock]

Interesting battles, David.  To add to Patrick's questions, why did the Laconians fail to support the Spartiates in the second battle?  Was that a command and control failure or a morale failure? 

They're nice looking games, and as I also use hex mats occasionally I'd be interested to know what rules you are using.  I used to use Commands & Colors: Ancients, but have gone off those rules a bit of late.

Thanks,
Aaron

[dwkay57]

Aaron,

The rules are of my own design (as featured in Slingshot 282) and so feature quite a lot of my own "preferences" which may not be historically accurate.

Patrick and Aaron,

The Laconians failed to support because of low morale. The two units in that division were at 13% and 42% respectively. They also had enemy chariots close by and several unengaged enemy divisions in adjacent hexes. Both of these factors, together with their losses made them unwilling to attack heavier or larger enemy formations although they would have stood to receive a charge.
The warband by contrast was still at nearly 75% strength, had won their most recent melee, their general behind urging them on and generally got carried away.

The Trinovantes are classified as "barbarians" and not "irregulars". I use both classifications. Barbarians tend to start with higher morale than irregulars (and regulars) and enjoy a different scale at which their morale decays making them more resilient when things get tougher. They are also "warriors" as opposed to "peasants" which improves their weapon skill dice.

I have tweaked the weapon skill dice that the "elite" troops (e.g. Spartiates and Laconians) use as this might improve their edge and at some point I ought to try out downgrading the warbands to peasants to see if that has an impact. I've also altered the way the collective morale of an army is calculated which might tip the scales more in favour of the early victors.

Of course this might not have the desired outcomes......

[Patrick Waterson]

One learns by experimentation, just as in real life. 

Because Spartan hoplites never met Britons in combat (at least as far as we know) we do not have a direct guide for expected results.  However, given the ease with which hoplite armies in their heyday mastered every military system pitted against them, with the occasional exception such as Aetolians in rough country, I would expect hoplite losses against warbands to be quite low even if the fight took some time to decide, and would expect hoplites of Spartan calibre to show a clear superiority in combat.

Ergo, to restore the Spartans to their historical prominence they need to get better and/or their opponents need to get worse.  The changes you suggest look promising, and will force the Trinovantes to rely on outflanking to win a success.  This would see a cunning Spartan general pick a narrow battlefield precisely to avoid being outflanked, just as Suetonius Paullinus did against Boadicea (Boudicca).  The resultant zero-sum situation (narrow battlefield = Spartans win; wide battlefield = Spartans lose) would probably be not too far from what one would expect in real life (had British tourists made it to the Med back then) and would mean one side or the other would have to adapt its style quite radically if it found itself caught on an unfavourable battlefield.

Thus, on a wide battlefield the Spartans would perhaps be driven to trying a double-line deployment which might even end up as a hollow rectangle (not unlike Alexander the Great at Gaugamela, but unless they can hit something valuable they are not guaranteed the same result!) and Trinovantes on a narrow battlefield would quickly catch on that the opposing left is the place you want to hit with your best warbands in deep columns whereas the enemy right, with the good troops, just needs to be kept occupied by something it would not break your heart (and more importantly your army's morale) to lose.

Anyway, enough waffle on my part.  Pray proceed and play.

Patrick

[aligern]

Could the Trinovantes (Are they Essex Boys?) pull off an outflank in open field?  I rather think they would have to set up an ambush and that means meeting the Spartans in woods or  cut up terrain.
I suppose masses of chariots might disconcert the Spartan cavalry who are a poor lot and then proceed to skirmish with the Spartans and hope for a Sphacteria effect?

Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Given an opponent of limited frontage and scant mounted forces, I would expect the Trinovantes to have - and probably be able to use - considerable overlap capability.  A thundering horde of Gallic chariots almost turned the fortunes of the day at Sentinum, and a thundering horde of British chariots in a similar situation might well do the same.

One suspects that a Spartan army with Trinovantes foot ahead and Trinovantes chariots behind is not necessarily going to be a bookmaker's favourite.

While the Trinovantes might well hope to pull off an ambush in difficult terrain, such an action would need the cooperation of the Spartan commander ("Oh, look, some difficult terrain: let us march blindly through it in a narrow column rather than, say, sending cavalry and psiloi to reconnoitre") - some Roman commanders could be (and were) thus obliging, but a Spartan king or general with this degree of incompetence would be a rare find.

[dwkay57]

Another report for those still struggling to get to sleep....

This was the first time out for the Athenians in their new command structure. As a result of the "command and control" thread discussion I moved all the hoplites into a single command under the Strategos, rather than spreading them about. This had quite an interesting impact.

I'm still painting up more Thebans, so my small Corinthian army were pressed into service as their allies to balance up the sides. For once the Corinthians actually did more than stand on the periphery.

[Patrick Waterson]

The moral seems to be not to let the C-in-C die. 

I wonder if the effect of a C-in-C's death may be overrated.  In hoplite battles where the C-in-C came a cropper, his side sometimes lost (Leuctra, Amphipolis) but occasionally won (2nd Mantinea), and while his demise certainly did not help his side it does not seem to have precipitated a flight.

My impression is that the loss of the C-in-C in a hoplite battle would remove the positives associated with his presence/existence but not add any negatives (at Leuctra the Spartans fought like tigers to recover Cleombrotus' body and only then succumbed to Theban pressure), unlike a Hellenistic battle where if the king goes down one can expect his forces to follow suit.

When one had an elected/appointed strategos leading the field, his loss did not seem to have quite the same impact.

[dwkay57]

Having finally managed to paint a few more Persians (they seem to take forever for some reason), I wanted to try them out but in something a little different from the usual line them up style battle. Hence the invasion scenario with some elements from various real life battles. It was an interesting and probably the longest (in terms of duration) battle I've fought going well into the 12th period before it really became obvious which side had lost.

[Patrick Waterson]

Interesting fight, with a couple of unusual elements:

1) The Persians were handled rather well while the Greeks were handled noticeably badly (historically it was usually the other way round, but players are players).

2) The Thebans were fighting against the Persians.  This must be unique. 

One feature of these actions is the appearance of poor quality Greek 'militia' in the Greek OB - my impression of the period is that Greek citizen troops were generally of fairly uniform status and fairly good quality.  Where they made up numbers was in fielding large numbers of light infantry (psiloi) - at least one per hoplite - and although these do not feature much in Herodotus' and Thucydides' accounts, their skirmishing potential is evident (and, in cases such as Sphacteria, explicit).

Would it be worth considering dropping 'poor' status altogether for Greek troops?

[dwkay57]

Thanks for the feedback Patrick - As it was a solo battle, I hope the difference in handling reflected the different structures of the two sides (the Persians were a single army with subordinate corps all them of commanded by "loyal" officers whereas the Greeks were 3 different allied armies) rather than any disturbing personality traits on my part.

The relative morale of the two sides may have played a more significant part. WRG "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars" indicates that the hoplite levies were really part-time troops with limited training in most cases and the Osprey "Plataea 479" suggests that the Persians should be regarded as more professional than the Greeks. These observations may have caused my classifications to become too skewed, but apart from Plataea do we have any record of the Immortals in battle? (I'll ask on the army research thread and see if there is a response)

Raising the Greek militia to the next skill level ("trained") would have made a minimal change under my rules as the majority of the dice used for assessing damage is dependent upon formation and fighting style irrespective of training levels and morale class. The upgrade would have changed their weapon skill die from 2,1,1,0,0,0 to 2,1,1,1,0,0 which doesn't alter the odds much. Moving to the "elite" level does though!

[Patrick Waterson]

The one time the Immortals did enter combat against Greek troops (apart from Plataea) was at Thermopylae, where they met the foes they loved to hate: the Spartans.  Also present were various other Greek contingents, and:

"When the Medes had been roughly handled, they retired, and the Persians whom the king called Immortals, led by Hydarnes, attacked in turn. It was thought that they would easily accomplish the task. [2] When they joined battle with the Hellenes, they fared neither better nor worse than the Median army, since they used shorter spears than the Hellenes and could not use their numbers fighting in a narrow space. [3] The Lacedaemonians fought memorably, showing themselves skilled fighters amidst unskilled on many occasions, as when they would turn their backs and feign flight. The barbarians would see them fleeing and give chase with shouting and noise, but when the Lacedaemonians were overtaken, they would turn to face the barbarians and overthrow innumerable Persians. A few of the Spartans themselves were also slain. When the Persians could gain no inch of the pass, attacking by companies [telea = large formations] and in every other fashion, they withdrew.

It is said that during these assaults in the battle the king, as he watched, jumped up three times from the throne in fear for his army. This, then, is how the fighting progressed, and on the next day the barbarians fought no better. They joined battle supposing that their enemies, being so few, were now disabled by wounds and could no longer resist. [2] The Hellenes, however, stood ordered in ranks by nation, and each of them fought in turn, except the Phocians, who were posted on the mountain to guard the path. When the Persians found nothing different from what they saw the day before, they withdrew." - Herodotus II.211-212

The designation 'militia' for Greek citizen infantry is highly misleading.  Greek citizen troops were the best infantry in the world in the 5th century BC, and on the Persian side only the Immortals even came close.  Persians - especially the Immortals - were brave, even suicidally brave, but were quite outclassed both in terms of equipment and training.  Regarding the Persians as 'more professional' than the Greeks is especially misleading as it gives the impression that Persian equipment, training and tactics were superior whereas it was actually the other way around.

A good demonstration of this is that after Cyrus the Younger made his unsuccessful bid for the Persian throne Persia's rulers did not field additional 'professional' troops on the pattern of the Immortals but started hiring mercenary Greeks in considerable numbers and relying on them as the cutting edge of Persian armies.

[dwkay57]

The description of the Lacedaemonians pretending to run away and then turning on their pursuers doesn't sound like our traditional interpretation of how hoplites fought. It sounds more like the actions of a Homeric hero from a previous era. If our interpretation is right that hoplites fought in close order with overlapping shields and in deepish formations then I'm not too sure how I can picture this working. I know there is some evidence for the Spartans having lightly armoured hoplites (Figure 17 in WRG's Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars) but these seemed to used for chasing off skirmishers rather than taunting the opposition and then giving an exhibition bout in front of their mates.

[Patrick Waterson]

Spartans actually seem to have been quite versatile: Xenophon comments favourably on their extensive training.  In a straight hoplite battle they usually have little scope to display their full repertoire, but in a situation like Thermopylae they can exercise their talents to the full.

The break-off-run-counterattack technique is particularly interesting.  Against other Greeks this might or might not work, but the Medes and Persians obligingly interpreted retirement as flight, and chased after them with severe loss of order and formation.  The Spartans knew what they were going to do (so had obviously been practising) and their opponents had no idea what was about to happen (it presumably took place behind the wall, out of sight of the rest of the army, so was a fresh surprise for every contingent sucked into the trap).

Leonidas' men seem to have been using the break order - move fast - regain order principle that seems to have lain behind a number of classical manoeuvres.  In this case, a swift about-turn followed by each file putting distance between itself and the foe, then another about-turn and rapid adjustment into a perfect line followed by a charge against a now disordered foe would be doubly effective, as the shock of seeing the Spartans suddenly facing them in perfect fighting formation would paralyse counter-action and inhibit reforming to meet the Spartan charge.

Spartans were highly-trained, and royal retinues probably the most highly-trained of all.  The unique circumstances of Thermopylae allowed them to use tactics which may have been part of their normal repertoire or may have been devised specially by Leonidas for the occasion.