People who knows military tactics, plz look here!

[[MKF]Kapten]

I need someone who knows more about military tactics than me, preferebly ancient tactics.

When I created my campaign setting I wanted it to be different from the classic medieval thing. The changes I made was:

*I removed feudalism and instead had a strong trading network that make land one way to earn money instead of essentially the only way.

*Civilisation is small; the civilised lands are located around the coastlines of the two eastern continents and the rest of the world is essentially inhabited by barbarians. The barbarians are a menace but not a real threat to civilisation.

*There are no horses strong enough to carry a man; possibly I do away with horses and replace them with some fantasy beast that can pull things but not be ridden.

This sounds like the ancient times, and so it is except for the existance of advanced metallurgy. This means that there are good steel for weapons and armor.

Now, the question I had is this:
Without cavalry I suppose that the army will have two essential parts: Chariots and infantery.

My present model of a civilized army in this world consists of:
-Heavy infantery with shields, breastplates, greaves and helmets. This is the force that will either tie up the opponent or make it break on offence or to just take impact on defense.
-Professional flankers, more lightly armored troops with weapons that are good against the heavy infantery. These soldiers try to get around the flanks of the enemy to defeat it.
-Lighter infantery (essentially conscripts) who cover the flanks for the professionals and acts as a shield for the professional flankers (against missiles mainly)
-Archers and sling shooters who soften up the enemy before the attack or before the enemies attack.
-Light chariots with bows who acts as crappy mounted archers.
-Heavy chariots who to some degree acts as knights.

Does this sound realistic enough? Have I forgotten something about warfare without cavalry?

[Valamir]

*There are no horses strong enough to carry a man;

...

Without cavalry I suppose that the army will have two essential parts: Chariots and infantery

These aren't entirely mutually exclusive but keep in mind that a horse strong enough to pull a reasonable load is strong enough to carry a man.  In fact, the heavy knightly warhorses were really specially bred draft animals.

So if you don't have rideable horses, your chariots would have to be pulled by something else.  If memory serves some ancients had chariots pulled by asses / onagers, but these are a far cry from the romantic race chariots of Ben Hur.  They're more like ornate peasant carts with archers riding in the back.

possibly I do away with horses and replace them with some fantasy beast that can pull things but not be ridden.

Ummm, why do you need a fantasy beast?  Just use oxen.  They did most of the heavy work anyway.

This sounds like the ancient times, and so it is except for the existance of advanced metallurgy. This means that there are good steel for weapons and armor.

Now, the question I had is this:
Without cavalry I suppose that the army will have two essential parts: Chariots and infantery.

Depends on the terrain.  Chariots are of limited value in rugged or wet terrain.


There are alot of good books on the make up of the armies of the ancient world:  Greek, Persion, and pre empirical Rome especially.  Many of them are lavishly illustrated and written in fairly lay terms and focused specifically on the organization and development and the why's and wherefors of the military.

I'd suggest picking up a couple of those.

Do a search on Ancient Armies, or Greek Phalanxes and the like on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles and you'll get lots of titles.  I have several in my library at home that I've found particularly useful.  I could get you the titles later on.

[[MKF]Kapten]

Ummm, why do you need a fantasy beast?  Just use oxen.  They did most of the heavy work anyway.

Did they use oxen to pull war chariots? Arent they too slow?

[Keith Senkowski]

If you are looking for a society that did not have/use horses, take a look at pre-Eurpoean Native American Cultures.  They didn't have the benefit of horses.

Keith

[MrGeneHa]

So if you don't have rideable horses, your chariots would have to be pulled by something else.

Another option is to have a chariot pulled by two or more horses.  For most of history, horses tended to be smaller than modern racehorses.  Think ponies.  But even ponies can be ridden.

Depends on the terrain.  Chariots are of limited value in rugged or wet terrain.

First, a nice posting offsite about chariots and terrain:
http://www.livinghistory.co.uk/1100-1500/articles/xw_137.html

Chariots were used in soggy Celtic Britain.  These chariots were very lightweight wood and wicker affairs drawn by two horses.  It carried a driver (think squire) and the warrior.  The warrior would chuck javelins until he was ready to fight on foot.  Much of Britain is quite boggy, so heavy chariots weren't an option.  But I doubt if they'd use chariots after a heavy rain (correct me if I'm wrong).
http://members.efn.org/~celtic/welsh_chariot.html
http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/boudica/chariot.html
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Phil_Masters/chariots.htm

Chinese and Hittite chariots sometimes carried three men (I don't know how many horses pulled these).  They focused on archery instead of javelins.

The great horse warrior cultures tend to come from great grasslands and deserts.  City folk have always made very poor horsemen.  Perhaps the chariots are predominantly used by barbarians?  Or not.

Massed combat, however, is notoriously poor 'terrain' for role-playing.  Will the players be generals leading great armies?  Or a band of charioteers?  If not, then how do small groups of warriors fight and travel in your world?  Do they wear armor while travelling (which is hard to maintain w/o servants and near impossible to sleep in)?  I'm also curious what kind of metallurgy exists in your world.  Bronze?  Early iron age?  Fine damascus steel?

[Valamir]

Did they use oxen to pull war chariots? Arent they too slow?

Not that I know of.  But asses and onagers, yes.  Those are rideable, but not in the sense of warriors into battle.

Was there some reason behind your horse restriction.

Was it just because you didn't want to deal with mounted combat?

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, what's the agenda? If you only want to avoid knights, then just use the real reason why heavy cavalry didn't show up until later - nobody has invented the stirrup yet.

Ralph's point is generally true - if one animal can pull a chariot, it can carry a man as fast or faster. I do, OTOH, like the idea of several small animals pulling chariots. I'm seeing something like dogs, for example.

Another way to do it is just have some swift fantasy animal that just doesn't have a back that can be ridden on. Like lizards with spines (which can't be removed without killing the beast). Or has a gait that would throw any rider. That could work.

Mike

[Drifter Bob]

Yeah, what's the agenda? If you only want to avoid knights, then just use the real reason why heavy cavalry didn't show up until later - nobody has invented the stirrup yet.

Ralph's point is generally true - if one animal can pull a chariot, it can carry a man as fast or faster. I do, OTOH, like the idea of several small animals pulling chariots. I'm seeing something like dogs, for example.

Another way to do it is just have some swift fantasy animal that just doesn't have a back that can be ridden on. Like lizards with spines (which can't be removed without killing the beast). Or has a gait that would throw any rider. That could work.

Mike

I agree with mike, no need to make the horses substantially weaker, just eliminate the stirrup and fighting saddle and then have what they had in ancient times, very light cavalry which could only basically use javelins....

JR

[Tash]

Another way to do it is just have some swift fantasy animal that just doesn't have a back that can be ridden on. Like lizards with spines (which can't be removed without killing the beast). Or has a gait that would throw any rider. That could work.

Mike

Not even necessary to go that far into the fantastic.  Horses can be ridden because of the configuration of their spines.  There is something specific about the way their vertabrae lock together that allows them to carry weight in a certain region of their back (if you sit too far towards the rear of a horse you will seriously injure the animal).  If you take say, a Zebra, and try to sit on it you will kill it even though they are very simillar to horses in all other areas.

So just replace all horses with Zebras and you have horse like creatures that can't be ridden.  Another possibility: screw with evolution a bit.  Horses evolved out of a creature the size of a medium sized dog.  Dogs evolved from creatures the size of a horse.  Assuming this evolution hadn't taken place you could conceivably have horse sized dogs that were domesticated and used by humans for all sorts of purposes, except riding.  A dogs spine doesn't work like a horse's.  They can be "ridden" only under rare circumstances, a horse sized dog likely couldn't carry a human sized creature without being hurt.

So you could have massive, chariot pulling, armored War Dogs in your game without worrying about anyone riding them.

[Bankuei]

Hi folks,

Without appreciable calvary, archers become very dangerous in massed groups.  You can see how archers dominated for a period, particulary in Indian and Persian warfare.  The phalanx was another effective option for infantry based combat.  If you do go with chariots, the mounted archer was also a common field unit.

Chris

[Half-Baked]

Horses that are strong enough to pull chariots and carts are not necessarily strong enough to be ridden. Historically chariots appeared much earlier than cavalry. I'm not sure of the exact date, but they were used in warfare before 2000 BC I think. They were the superweapon of the period between 2000 and 1000 BC as illustrated by New Kingdom Egypt and the Mycenaeans in Greece. However, cavalry did not appear until about 900 BC. This is thought to be because horses with strong enough spines to carry a warrior had not been bred until then.

Both military technologies probably began on the Eurasian steppe, north of Mesoptamia. The military and politcal history of the time revolved around the cycle of conquest by steppe warriors, the civilising of the conquerers and then their reconquest by the next lot of steppe warriors. Most military developments began in the steppe and the invention of the chariot may have provided such a military advantage that it allowed widespread conquest of civilised lands by steppe warriors. The Hyskos in Egypt to the Aryan conquest of the Indus River Civilisation in India.

With the use of iron the best infantry of ancient times was heavily armoured, like the Greek Hoplite or Roman Legionary. Massed formations of heavy infantry had more than enough protection from missile troops. The victory of the Greek Hoplite against the Persians is more than enough evidence for this. Battles such as Marathon (492 BC) Thermopylae (480 BC) and Plateau (479 BC) show the superiority of heavy infantry. Cavalry was the real bugbear of heavy infantry, not missile infantry. At the Battle of Plateau, once the Persian cavalry was neutralised by the death of their commander, the Greek hoplites won the battle by closing on the Persian archers. The fact that Persian commanders used Greek mercenaries as the core of their army further supports this. The most difficult opponents of Alexander the Great's army were the Greek mercenaries, not the Persian light infantry.

However, effective heavy infantry in the ancient world was only used in Greco-Roman world. This is probably due the social structure, where your small landholder had a greater stake in the government in Greek and Roman society. At least when their military was at its peak.

[Dan Sellars]

If you want some fun reading with this type of civilisation try the novel "Prince of the North" by Harry Turtledove.  

It's set in a world where thay has chariots and but not riding horses (mainly cos no one has figured out how to do it yet ;)

Other aspects of the world are quite nice too.

Enjoy,
Dan.

[Turin]

I agree with mike, no need to make the horses substantially weaker, just eliminate the stirrup and fighting saddle and then have what they had in ancient times, very light cavalry which could only basically use javelins....

Lets not forget about the Macedonian Companion Cavalry, very effective "Heavy" Cavalry.  From that time period, Thessaly supplied some effective heavy cavalry, and some of the persian units were pretty good, too.

The stirrup was important, but another important factor was the disciplined heavy infantry of that time.  Charging a Macedonian Phalanx, or Hoplite Phalanx head on would not be effective for classical or feudal cavalry.

Even in the middle ages, heavy cavalry could be stopped with the right combination of morale, weaponry, discipline, and armour of the infantry (probably in that order).  The Vikings, Branbacon spear armed infantry, swabian dimounted knights were all effective at stopping a heavy cavalry charge.  The pike armed infantry of the renaissance spelled almost as much a death to the future of heavy cavalry as firearms did.

The advantage of cavalry was mobility vs close order trained infantry.  And even the "lighter" cavalry of classical times had this advantage.

[Drifter Bob]

A real important component of classical infantry formations was the light-armed infantry, these basically being unarmored guys with javelins and / or slings and small hide or wicker shields, who could hit and run, protect the flanks, harasss enemy archers and cavalry, and etc.  These were an extremely vital part of Greek warfare which evolved into a stronger and stronger component of their armies, (especially by the Thebans after they finally defeated the Spartans)

The Greeks called these kind of troops "peltasts", and the Romans had something similar whith they called "Velites"

JR

[Turin]

A real important component of classical infantry formations was the light-armed infantry

Yeah, the greeks were of the opinion that the hoplite infantry was the end-all for classical battles.  Kind of natural they would think that way, after beating the persians.  But the Pelatasts were very effective in at least severely harrasing the hoplite formations.

The Greeks would later find out that while they could beat the persians due to the almost absence of any effective persian heavy infantry (and probably bad tactics/command by the persians), they would not be effective against a true combined force of arms which had effective heavy infantry, the macedonians (ok, they also had great generalship and tactics).

But MKF, if your looking for an infantry dominant campaign you could use a setting similar to say in 650-900 ad england/ireland, with Saxons, Danes, Norse and Celts relying almost exclusively on infantry.  Some good source material for the campaign could come from viking sagas or beowulf.