DH army

From: Martin Laurie <MLaurie_at_compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 21:45:30 -0400


Jose comments:
>And Martin, can you look hard at Dara Happa's story and tell me they hav=
e
an
>army to defeat every enemy? =

Potentially yes but in reality no. Almost any army of reasonible combine= d
arms
has the _potential_ to defeat another but the realities of command, moral=

and
opposing factors invariably chip in. DH has at various stages defeated every
type of foe but has also lost to every type of foe. So has the following=

Lunar
Empire. Though they have the units to use, do they have them in the righ= t
place?

Part of Jomes Wulfs success was that he used the right troops for the rig= ht
battle

Part of Tatius' failure was he used the wrong troops (Grazelanders) in th= e
wrong =

place (Esrolia - where the urban nature of the land and population densit= y
seriously
disrupts their raiding potential and speed of movement)

>They will have a regiment against any enemy
>past, true, but I am not sure they could defeat them then, and it is eve=
n
>worse now, after the ritual of many centuries has vitiated the
>once-effective tactics.

Ritual of many Centuries? The Empire only defeated Sheng in the last century
- - that was a struggle that would make the hundred years war look like a joke. =

They also invaded the south and conquered significant opposing armies. =

Hon-eel
also defeated the Orayan Pentans. Before the Dragon Massacre, the Empire=

successfully holds down all of Dragon Pass but for a few enclaves. Doesn= 't
seem
like a moribund army to me.

Their tactics haven't changed much BTW. The major Lunar reforms include the
altering of their order of battle to factor in the magical units but othe= r
than that,
they still remain a combined arms force one would recognise as the DH or =

Carmanian (even Spolite) Empire armies at their most cosmopolitan. =

On cohorts =

If the Romans mustered and army of three legions plus the odd auxilia cohort or two we =

are talking some 16,000 men. This would be pretty much the ENTIRE Lunar=

mobile field =

army. That is, every regiment they could spare to move and battle. Yet = to
the Romans
this would only be a fraction of their total military power. =

The Lunars do not have the same force structure as the Romans because the= ir
numbers
preclude it. Also, Roman military and social culture was pervasion and dominating. The =

Legions were a manifestation of this homogeneity as were the roads and other architectural =

features. In the Lunar Empire, most of the diversity of its various cultures is maintained and =

therefore the army reflects this reality. Mainly it is the Tarnils offic= er
corps that ties the =

divergent regiments together in a larger organisation. =

This is why they have no 5000 man legions and why they have no pressing need for a =

homogeneous tactial unit of the 500-600 man level. Remember that the Rom= an
cohort =

was formed as a sucessor to the inefficent maniple system because it simply didn't work =

in the larger legions or with the shift in their tactical dispositions.

Many of the Lunar officers are trained the same way and this is how they are cohesive. =

Alas this also means that they can misuse their troops quite badly. =

Reminiscent of the
British officers in the Americas sneering at their rustic colonial cousin= gs
for fighting
in skimish formation instead of nice neat lines. =

MGF potential would be a Tarnils officer from one of the Phalanxs transferring to a Peltast
regiment - "What a shower! No bloody discipline and their uniforms are scruffy!"

Martin Laurie


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