Um, no they didn't. The Persians were famous for the fact that their army consisted solely of archers and cavalry. Even the cavalry was primarily bow-armed. Spears and swords were considered strictly auxiliary weapons. Though the Immortals and other Persian warriors were able to fight with spears, and some did at Marathon, they were still organized and equipped like light infantry and (for instance) did NOT fight in close-order. Really, all Heavy Infantry means is "close order infantry", and all Light Infantry means is "open order infantry, missile-armed".
The Persians were absolutely light infantry, and their cavalry was light cavalry, though they also had swords, so they could function as a sort of half-assed heavy cavalry against peltasts or the flanks and rear of other infantry. They couldn't stand up to real heavy cavalry in face-to-face battle (as demonstrated in Alexander's Persian campaign)
In any case, "light infantry" doesn't mean the troops have less fighting spirit, or are somehow morally inferior to heavy infantry. It just means they use primarily missile weapons, and are trained in open-order fighting. The Persians were doughty, and Xerxes rightly boasted that a single Persian could defeat three Spartans. (To which the Spartans replied that they all fought and conquered or died as a group -- i.e., they don't fight one-on-three duels, but as a solid mass).
>It is a misnomer to think the Persians were all lights, they were
>just lighter than the Greeks.
I repeat. Nope. If you want sources, I got 'em (Delbruck, Archer Jones, etc.).
>Historically light inf (peltasts) beat hoplites but this was rare,
>very rare.
Again, nope. The norm in ancient Greece was that if peltasts faced unsupported hoplites, the hoplites almost invariably lost.I won't go on for several paragraphs listing each time this happened, but 'twas the way it was. This was a well-known fact, and Xenophon remarks on it frequently in "The Persian Expedition", because they had few peltasts or cavalry and this made him very nervous.
On some occasions, peltasts destroyed units of hoplites using thrown stones. Since such a crude, short-range missile can defeat hoplites, it's easy to imagine what would have happened to the Greeks at Marathon if they'd timed their charge wrong, or if the Persians had not had their back to the sea (of course the Persians had not faced disciplined heavy infantry in centuries, and didn't know what to expect).
>Light infantry can rarely in themselves defeat heavy infantry
unless >they shoot them full of arrows and as the Persians found
against the >Spartans, this can take some time.
Yes, well that's exactly what light infantry do. They don't close with the heavies, they keep their distance and pelt them with missiles. And yes, it takes a long time. Heavy infantry or heavy cavalry brings about a quick decision. Light infantry and light cavalry takes a while. At Marathon, the Greeks won in a matter of minutes. At Thermopylae, the Persians took hours to win, but the victory was no less certain. When the heavy infantry of Arminius's Germans defeated the Roman legions at Teutoburgerwald, the fight did not last all that long. When the light Parthian cavalry wiped out Crassus' Roman expedition, it took several days. Again, the outcome was not in doubt -- it just takes longer for missile weapons.
I get the impression that Martin mistakes "light infantry" for lightly-armed troops who still normally fight in melee. While most light infantry carried melee weapons as well as missiles, it is of course an act of idiocy for them to try to use such weapons against regimented heavy troops.
>Next comes the problem of discipline. Light Infantry were often
>recuited in bulk to form a screen for the core of an army (the
>heavies). Historically there were few states that had regular,
>diciplined light inf. If discipline is not common among these
troops >than how can they be expected to perform these manouvers of
feint, >retreat and shoot against an oncoming phalanx?
Again, Martin confuses "poorly equipped" with "light troops". Most professional armies had well-drilled light infantry as a prominent part of their battle line. The Persians, the Greeks (peltasts), the Romans, the Byzantines, the Saracens, the English (longbowmen), the Crusaders (mainly crossbowmen), the Moguls, and the Chinese all had highly skilled light foot, and relied on them in battle. Even Charles the Bold had large numbers of handgunners.
In fact, the only armies I can think of that lacked good light infantry were armies that lacked any good infantry at all, either because they were cavalry-based (like the Mongols) or because the art of utilizing good infantry had largely been lost (as in Europe during much of the Middle Ages).
>Added to that, the morale effect of seeing a friendly unit attack
>and then suddenly run away was considerable.
Only in armies composed primarily of heavy infantry.
>My point is this: Tactically Lights _can_ be offensively
>superior to heavies but Strategically, if deployed correctly the
>Heavy will almost always win if they even get into combat at all.
Strategically, there is no difference between heavy or light troops. Your example of Alexander is poor -- he had light cavalry, light infantry, heavy cavalry _and_ heavy infantry in his army, and it's clear that a force composed of all four types is superior to a force containing fewer. Alexander was _superior_ tactically to the Bactrians and Scythians. Even so, he almost lost to them, because they relied on a raiding logistic strategy against him.
I don't really want to go into this subject in greater detail on the Glorantha digest, Martin. If you wish further discussion along these lines, let's do it off-line.
STRATEGY IN GENERTELA (AND EARTH)
An army can either choose to use a raiding strategy, or a
persisting strategy. Either may be utilized vs either military or
logistic objectives. This gives us four distinct strategies:
raiding/military, raiding/logistic, persisting/military, and
persisting/logistic. At some point when I have more time, I'll write
an essay on how this applies to Genertelan military campaigns and
history.
Sandy P.
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