.gif)
From
Michael CampbellFrom Robert Sulentic
My copy of Asclepiodotus has this to say.
pg 279 of the Loeb translation. (Tactics VII. 4.)
"The Persians, Sicilians, and Greeks regularly used the square formation since it can hold the squadrons in both rank and file; but the Greeks modified the squadron formation by making it an oblong in mass, while giving it to the eye the appearance of a square. For they drew up the riders with a front of sixteen and depth of eight, bu they doubled the interval between the riders because of the length of the horses. And some made the number of men in length three time that of the depth and then tripled the interval in depth, so that it again appeared to be a square....Hence, if the number of the cavalry is a square number, thew will have to be drawn up in an oblong rectangle, but if the number of men is not square number and square must be formed, the depth will have to be fixed at three or four horsemen and the front arranged accordingly."
Also see Aelian xviii. 9.
on pg 283 there is a diagram (Tactics VII. 6-7.) of a some sort of sub unit showing a rhomboid of 36 riders. (I note that is very close in size to the Roman *turma* of 32 troopers.)
From Nigel Tallis
According to Theophylact S. at Arzamon in the C6th AD the Byzantine horse fighting Sasanian cavalry had to dismount to hold the reinforced Sasanians who were in an unusually deep formation. This suggests that the Sasanians typically were less or equal in depth to the Byzantines and that cavalry in depth had an advantage over shallower formations.
From Monty Walls
On the proposed new Cv(S) support rules - Evidence against:
a) 'De Re Strategica' uses phalanx as a generic term to denote a collection of units in formation (both infantry and/or cavalry). Under section 25 'Changes in Formation' it describes both widening and deepening the phalanx as appropriate to face your enemy's formation. Also in section 34 'Formation of the Phalanx in preparation for Battle' it describes the same things in similar terms. While 'De Re Strategica' is unclear at times on what kind of phalanx a given instruction applies to (ie infantry or cavalry), these 2 sections are rather generic in nature. Also 'De Re Strategica' contains archaic terminology which seem rather out of place in a Byzantine manual.
b) In Agathias's 'Histories', Agathias details Belisarius's last campaign where Belisarius opposes Bulgar/Hun raiding led by Zabergan. Belisarius has slightly greater than 300 heavily armed troops (Bucellari from context) which he splits into 2 groups, a group of 200 cavalry armed with javelin and shield which Belisarius places in ambush on both sides of a wooded glen, and the remainder with which Belisarius takes his stand in the center (Book 5, paragraphs 17-20). This battle occurs in 559 AD. (When the Early Byzantine list should be using deep formations for it's Bucellari (at least that's what the list says). From Agathias's description, it shows Belisarius splitting up his troops as he see's fit.
From Kevin Donovan
Lots of armies allow 1/2 of their Cv (O) to be upgraded to (S), players may think that this should permit them to give rear support. However I think a closer look at some of these lists indicates that this is not so. For example Dailami junior ghulams fought separately from the palace ghulams. Similarly there is no real evidence that lightly equipped Ottoman Sipahis drew up in deep formations backing up the better armed types or the guard cavalry. Mongol 'line' cavalry did not form up as the rear ranks of deep formations behind their guard cavalry.
From Fredrik Wallin
Medieval German Cv(S) (handgunners) were historically supported by lance armed Cv(O).
From Mike Campbell
I have finally found a few references to Greek & Persian cavalry depth. These are all quoted in Pritchett's "Ancient Greek Military Practices", part 1, "Depth of the Phalanx", Table 9: Cavalry and [Psiloi (in Greek)].
I've looked up the texts as indicated to see what the context is. Dascylium, Spartans vs Persians.
Spartans 4 deep are defeated by Persians "...in a column with a front of not more than 12 but many more deep." [Xenophon, A History of my Times (Hellenica) 3.4.13, Penguin translation] Total numbers not given, but said to be equal, and the Greeks lost 12 dead.
Mantineia (also Xen., 7.5.23 and 24) - Athenians & allies draw up 6 deep, Thebans draw up in "..strong wedge formations and.... had infantry (Ps??) with them in support...". Pritchet alternatively translates this as "more than 6 [ranks deep]" based on "Rustow's emendation" of [something] for [somthing else] - I can't quote the Greek sorry!
Either way the Athenians lost.
Polybius in Book 12, 18.3 says "..to be really useful cavalry should be drawn up not more than 8 deep, and between each troop there must be a space equal in length to the front of a troop so that there may be no difficulty in wheeling and facing around."
From Duncan Head
1. Polybios says somewhere that cavalry are no use more than eight ranks deep. He doesn't say specifically whose cavalry inspired this thought.
2. Xenophon's description of Athenian cavalry formations in the "Cavalry Commander" implies that a 100-man Athenian tribal squadron should form up ten by ten. But since Athenian cavalry squadrons were usually under-strength, this may not have been reflected in practice.
3. We already mention in the Book 4 list the case of the Jurchen-Chin, whose standard cavalry formation is five ranks deep - two of heavily-armoured lancers, three of lightly-armoured archers who move through to shoot and move back behind for the charge. Haven't seen the original source for this, but it's probably the Chin Shih dynastic history. It's in several modern sources, notably H D Martin's "Rise of Chingis Khan...".
4. Martin also cites one Chinese source who explicitly states that the Mongols formed up with their heavier-armoured men in the front ranks and the lighter behind, but doesn't specify a depth.
More from Duncan Head
Kevin Donovan queried the last point: Are you sure this is not Jin? There are Chinese sources which specify this for the Jin and many writers mistakenly use this as evidence of Mongol formations.
- and I said I'd check.
Basically Martin says as follows: (H Desmond Martin, "The Rise of Chingis Khan and his Conquest of North China", pages 33-34:)
"According to Ma Tuan-lin the army of Akuda (1113-23) was drawn up for battle in squadrons of 50 horsemen, 20 with heavy cuirasses and long lances in front and 30 with light cuirasses and bows behind."
[This is the Jurchen formation with which Martin is comparing the Mongols. We regard this in the DBM Jurchen-Chin list as one rank of Cv (S), since - as other writers' citations of the passage make clear - the Jurchen cavalry operated 5 ranks deep. Note that the source is the ethnographical work of Ma Tuan-lin, not as I mistakenly suggested earlier the dynastic history of the Jurchen-Chin/Jin - though there may be some stuff there as well. Martin does quote some secondary sourecs who do indeed seem to be mixing up the Jurchen and Mongol formations. However, he continues:]
"A Mongol squadron numbered 100 men and from Plano Carpini one learns that these were arranged at intervals with the heavily armoured troops of each stationed in front. Meng Hung omits to give the ratio between the heavy and light troops but makes a point of saying that such action was the duty of the front ranks."
Meng Hung's "Meng Ta Pei Lu" (Wade-Giles spelling) is a 13th-century source with eye-witness stuff on Mongol equipment and tactics. Martin's wording is not wholly clear but I take "such action ..." to mean a similar arrangment to that attributed to Carpini in the previous sentence, that is, heavies in the front.
What Carpini says, when giving his opinion on how European armies should fight against the Mongols, is:
"If there are any men not as well-armed as we have described, they ought to do as the Tartars do and go behind the others and shoot at the enemy with their bows and crossbows."
(Translation in Christopher Dawson (ed.) "The Mongol Mission" (1955), also as "The Mission to Asia" (1980).)
Carpini here clearly indicates that it is the practice of the "Tartars" to put their less well-armed men in the rear ranks.
Unfortunately, no-one here indicates either the proportion of armoured to lighter troops, nor the depth of Mongol squadrons - which is the key factor in deciding whether they should be treated as one rank of Cv (S) like the Jurchen, or as double-ranked Cv (S)/(O).
Kevin Donovan replies to Duncan:
Martin is seriously out of date. See John Masson Smith Jr's "Ayn Jalut: Mamluk Success or Mongol Failure?" (in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, Dec., 1984) p. 320 footnote 36 which states: "Martin (p. 33) would have all the Mongols armored and heavily armed by invalid analogy to the non-nomad Jurchid." Smith then goes on to describe the horses, weapons and tactics of the Mongols and how they differed from the Mamluks or other sedentary cavalry. At no point are the Mongols ever described forming up in units with heavily armored troops in front and lighter ones behind them.
> "A Mongol squadron numbered 100 men and from Plano Carpini one learns that these were arranged at intervals with the heavily armoured troops of each stationed in front. Meng Hung omits to give the ratio between the heavy and light troops but makes a point of saying that such action was the duty of the front ranks."
This is not to say they are one unit or even that the horse archers actually fought behind the armored troops. After Smith, what would happen is that the heavies (who were usually very few in number if present at all) would remain stationary while several units of light cavalry would repeatedly charge the enemy, fire arrows, then run back to rest and remount while another unit of lights charged the enemy. This whole process would continue until either (1) the enemy either charged the Mongols and blew their horses in a futile pursuit at which point the Mongols would use fresh troops on fresh horses (including any heavies they had available) to finish off their blown opponents or (2) the enemy simply broke under the repeated attacks of the galloping horse archers (or of course the ever popular encirclement). In no case did the horse archers ever form up in the same unit behind heavily armored men. In fact the heavily armored troops seem to be a red herring in that they were often not present at all and when present contributed little to the fighting. Hulegu and Ghazan both withdrew the guard tuman from the theater prior the defeats ending their invasions in 1260 and 1303 respectively.
From Phil Barker
Maurice says of Sassanids:
They draw up for battle in 3 equal bodies, centre, left and right, the centre having an additional 4 or 500 picked troops. The depth of formation is not uniform, but they try to draw up the cavalrymen in each company in the 1st or 2nd line or phalanx and keep the front of the formation dense and even. The spare horses and baggage train are stationed a short distance behind the main line.
This looks like 2 distinct lines of cavalry in each of 3 commands.
More from Robert Sulentic
I found another explicit mention of cavalry depths.
This from Arrian's "Order of Battle Against the Alans" (The Ares Publishers edition translated by James De Voto.)
pg 118: "(20) Let the entire cavalry stand deployed by troops and basic units eight [deep] next to the foot soldiers. Let one part, [i.e.] two basic units, [stand] on either horn (=wing), having the hoplites and archers in front of them [as] a projection. The other [part should stand] in the middle of the legion."
I note that the next passage says this:
"(21) Let as many of thses as are mounted archers stand near the legion so as to shoot over it"
Hey! can EIR get a +1 for a supporting rank of LH(F) if they are facing mounted? (Hee hee hee, its worth a try...)
From
Michael Campbell
Also I have found another reference to cavalry depths in Arrian - this time in his "Tactica". I looked there because it's twinned with his order of battle vs the Alans quoted by another respondent on your web page:
Flavius Arrianus "Tactical Handbook", translated & edited by James G. deVoto, chapter 16. The translator notes that Arrian was discussing an idealised Macedonian phalanx, and presumably ancillary troops, and probably based much of his work on a now lost "Tactica" of Asclepiodotus, a student of Poseidonios of Apamea (135-150BC).
[some discussion of wedges & rhomboids]
"The best [formations] are [those] having double the number by length than by depth, such as, if [those] deployed along the "forehead" were ten, and [those] by depth [were] at five. Or if [they were] at twenty along the "forehead" at ten by depth.
Indeed such formations are oblong by number, but in shape they arrange [themselves] into a square. A horse's length from head to tail fills out the part of a square which by number [is] lacking in depth. Hence some even make the number of those deployed by length three times that by depth.
They thus think that they have established the square shape accurately, since the horse's length [is] three a human's breadth along the shoulders. Hence deploying nine by length along the "forehead", they deploy three in depth.
[This is so] since it is necessary not to ignore the fact that horsemen deployed by depth do not provide the same usefulness as depth among infantry [does]. For horsemen neither push those in front of them, [by] not being able to press horse upon horse, as pushings of foot soldiers along shoulders and ribs happen.
Nor, being continuous with those deployed in front of them, do they achieve the single weight of the entire throng. Rather, if they were to press together and densify, they more likely will upset the horses."