I apologise for the "Blaaa", if it offended you, though it was not directed at you in person and was rather a general expression of personal irritation. However, I am getting annoyed with the persistent use of vitriolic and perjoritive comments such as "confused", "poor", "go read on the subject" etc. which, from a writer of your talents and experience, is an obvious attempt to denigrate and humiliate me to shut me up. If this is the way you treat disagreement, then you should be disaggreed with more often.
Your points:
>Persian infantry were _all_ archers. This is not really subject to debate as
>practically all sources agree on this, They had "native troops" inside the
empire >proper who fought in regimented ranks as a sort of piss-poor heavy
infantry. The >Greeks did comment on the Persians' lightness and of course they
would --
>the Greeks were used to a style of war in which there was _only_ heavy
infantry. >That said, the Persians did also carry swords and spears as
>secondary weapons, and thus were able to double as both heavy and
>light infantry when the occasion was needed. At Plataea, the Persians used
some >of their archers as infantry. They made poor heavy infantry compared to
the >Greeks, but this wasn't the cause of their losing the Persian wars.
The sources I read indicate that the Persians had heavy infantry in large numbers and the Immortals were part of this force (maybe a quarter of a campaign army). All these heavy inf were equipped with the bow but they were melee troops mainly. In some cases they fought very hard indeed. In fact they broke the Athenian centre at Marathon, thin though it was. The main contributers were the various races within the empire itself, including the Mede's, Cissians and Hyrcanians as well as actual Persians.
Herodutus commented on their poor discipline in relation to the Greeks: "In courage and strength they were as good as their adversaries but they were deficient in armour, untrained and greatly inferior in skill. Sometimes singly, sometimes in groups of ten men - perhaps fewer, perhaps more - they fell upon the Spartan line and were cut down" But this indicates a willingness to melee that the Greeks plainly saw quite often. This is the opposite of what Light troops (anyone carrying a bow) are supposed to do.
Added to this, the Persians at Plataea but up very stiff resistance. The Spartans only broke their line when their general Mardonius was killed. Few Greek hoplites could have done so well. Hardly the actions of a bunch of pure archers.
Also, the Persian army had a large number of Greek mercs, Thracians and Dacian Falx weilders at several different times. These men were certainly not archers. You obviously know this and mean the racial Persians when you refer to their army. I have been refering to their whole army, including subject peoples and mercs.
>I was trying to point out that light troops are no likelier to be trash than
heavy >troops, that's all.
Fair enough. Can't argue with that.
>Second, light troops unsupported are easily massacred by heavy cavalry. They
>are also unsuitable for holding or taking positions, as the nature of their
fighting >style and weaponry forces them to be very mobile on the battlefield.
Light troops >need to have heavy soldiers present to defend against heavy
cavalry, just as
>heavies need archers nearby to protect themselves against other archers or
light >cavalry. If the enemy has both light and heavy infantry, an army
composed solely >of archers is at a serious disadvantage.
According to your statements on offensive superiority, an army of archers should beat an army of heavy inf and light because they will have greater offensive mobility (hence superiority) due to the slowness of the enemy heavies.
>My point is, and has always been, just that unsupported light troops beat
>unsupported heavy troops, all things being equal. On the occasions where
>peltasts encountered hoplites by themselves, the hoplites were discommoded.
>The Thebans who beat the Spartans did so with heavy infantry, not archers, and
>anyone claiming the Spartan demise at Leuctra meant hoplites were useless
>deserved what he got when the Macedonians came to play.
I agree.
>All the Persians were melee troops as well as missile. But their primary
function >in battle was as missile-users. The bow was their main weapon, their
symbol of >war. I can't think of a single time in history where light troops
beat heavies by >meleeing against them, unless the heavies had already had
their formation >disrupted by missile fire or something. The Romans vs. the
Phalangites does not >boost your point because of course the Romans were heavy
troops, not light. >Saying that the Romans were better than Phalangites is not
a matter of different
>types of troops, but simply shows the interacting of two sub-varieties of
heavy >infantry.
Here I disagree with you. Philip V's Macedonian Phalanx had defensive superiority (I'm using the terms you used here to make my point) against the style, equipment and training of the Roman Legion. However, the Roman troops won due to their flexibility and quickness of movement compared to the unweildy phalanx. Therefore they had offensive superiority over the Macedonians. According to your own statement this makes them light troops, at least when compared to the Macedonians. The same Legionnaires meeting a bunch of Anatolian hillmen would have defensive superiority due to their formation and superior equipment and melee skills. The hillmen would have offensive superiority cos of their mobility and loose formation.
This is the point I'm trying to make. Each type of troop will have differing levels of superiority or inferiority depending on the opponent they face. To say "he's a heavy" hence defensive superiority etc is to put labels on a very varied issue.
>I'm not sure what the point is you're trying to make here, but no one could
mobilize >militia for foreign wars, and plenty of countries had full-time
warriors, at least if >you count knights as full-timers.
Historically there were a huge number of examples of militias being used abroad. The Saxon select Fyrd(during the reign of Cnut for example), the Viking Bondi, the Assyrian subject hosts, the Sassanid levies, the Athenians (who were originally a city militia), the first Roman legions (who were farmers etc, recruited for the war. originally there were no permanent legions). Even the Byzantines used a militia (the Tagma system) system for raising campaign armies.
>Hardly anyone had a standing army -- just advanced nations like the Byzantines
>and Turks. A lot of nations relied on mercenaries in the later middle ages,
but this >wasn't a sign of unprofessionalism.
To me a professional is someone who does one thing full time. That is the definition. A knight is not a professional soldier, unless he's a household guard or in a military order (which was one reason why those guys were so good when compared to a feudal levy).
>"Staying power" and "defensive capability" have nothing to do with strategy,
except >insofar as you generate a strategy based on your tactical abilities.
Tactics and strategy are totally interlinked. One cannot use any strategy unless your troops have the capability to perform it. Therefore the tactical abilities (like staying power and mobility etc)of your troops have everything to do with your strategy.
.....my example of Alexander against the Scythians was "poor" .
>Go read on the subject, instead of theorizing. Alexander had plenty of light
cavalry >than he had heavy. Most were javelin-armed, which is perfectly
effective as a >missile weapon. You don't need equal numbers of a particular
weapon system in >order to achieve balance.
I disagree here. Horse archers will be offensively superior to javelin armed horsemen every time due to their range advantage. The type of weapon used plainly does have an impact. You have already said different categories of troops have disparities of effectiveness within their own bands. Here you seem to contradict this. Alexander had light cav but they were in no way offensively superior or even equal to the Scythians. They were less mobile and had less range in attack. All I was saying was that Alexanders army as a whole was defensively superior to the Scythians but _they_ were offensively superior yet still lost. That was my whole point.
Me:>My main objection to all this is the persistent attempt to simplify >a complex issue. Troops cannot be so easily classified into >lights, mediums and heavies. Is a man using a poleaxe in close >formation but with no armour a light? But he's in close formation >so he must be a heavy? So I take his axe of him and give him a bow, >he's then a light?
>See? You don't understand. YES a man using a poleax in close formation with no
>armor is heavy infantry. Armor has NOTHING to do with whether you are light or
>heavy. It only increases the power of heavies vis a vis one another. If you
take >the axe away from a man and give him a bow then yes, he's now a light.
That's the >whole point. Missile-armed men are light troops.
I was saying a man in close formation with a bow is suddenly a light. This means every close formation soldier given a bow or any missile is a light.
The Roman Legionnaires were armed with the Pilum. So they were light troops then, as I said, not heavies as you said? The Byzantine Cataphracti were bow armed as were the Sassanid Clibinari yet they were melee troops as well. In fact the Byzantine Tagma cavalry unit had bows and lances but they were rated for skill in each unit. The best bowmen were put at the back and the best lancers were at the front. So is this unit light, heavy or what? If you don't believe me read "L'Armee Byzantine A la Fin Du VI Siecle" by F.Assaresses (1909) which contains large chunks of the Byzantine tactical manuals by Strategicon Maurice. According to your own argument these armoured men would have to be lights (because of the bow), even though they use a 12 foot Kontos lance, have full armour and have barding on their horses. If this is the case then they will have they will have offensive superiority equivalent to light Mongol horse archers?
>Melee-armed men are heavy troops. Naked Gauls were heavy troops.
But they are just as mobile as light troops due to their lack of armour. If anything, naked gauls could outrun shield equipped peltasts, therefore they have offensive superiority over them and are then light troops, according to your own argument. True, the paltasts would get some with javelins but probably not enought to stop a determined charge and the gauls, being less encoumbered would easily catch up. (even if they didn't the peltasts would probably leg it - wouldn't you?)
>Chainmail-clad Turcopoles with crossbows were light troops. Don't Blaaa me
>until you know what you're talking about. I'm getting a little annoyed (just a
little, >tho). Please Martin, go read up on the subject. Miniatures and wargame
>definitions of "light, medium, and heavy" are based primarily on armor and
>weaponry. I'm not using that terminology at all.
Fair enough, I'm not using it either. I have read up on the subject but I'm not saying that I know more than you etc, all I'm trying to say is that I don't like this banding of troops into immutable bands. Each case of soldier vs soldier should be taken on its own merits. The offensive superiority/defensive inferiority etc categories are good but I believe that a single type of soldier/warrior can fall into a number of these bands depending on his opponent. I think it simplistic to say "he's heavy, therefore defensively superior to that light". As Forrest Gump said "thats all I have to say about that"
Martin
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