When were platoons and squads first used?

[klapton]

The maniple would have served as a way to keep the formation when deploying and advancing, so men would know where they should be. I don't know any battle in which it could have been used as a tactical unit, and indeed would have been too small for that role. As someone stated above, you need a certain firepower (shockpower in this context) for this, plus an efficient command system down to that level.

A checkerboard seems to me absurd as a combat formation. Faced with a continuous line, the men at the extremes of each "cell" would have to fight against 2 or 3 enemies, would succumb most of the time, the "cells" would become thinner and the gaps between them wider. That formation would have been used for deployment, that is, between the column (a marching formation) and the line (a fighting formation).

I didn't see anything eccentric in Delbruck's work (maybe in his time he was). Granted, after 80 years, it is outdated (particularly the latter volumes), but as a starting point in the study of ancient warfare I know nothing better (not that I know a lot of literature on the subject, by the way).

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Philippe:

[QB] History, as we imagine that we know it, didn't exist back then (lucky them).

When you take all of that together (funny numbers, aversion to boring details, preference for elegant sound bites invented for the occasion)

you really start to wonder if it is possible to ever know what happened on an ancient battlefield. There was a wonderful article on this subject that was written just after WWI on the battle of Marathon (was probably by N.G.L. Hammond, but my memory is fading) in which the author points out that even with the excessively boring modern record-keeping, an examination of both sides' primary source material for the typical WWI small unit action (what we play in CM) will usually give totally conflicting accounts of the same events. And that's with meticulous records and no particular axe to grind (but a lot of fog of war). And that's why it's so difficult to write a good historical scenario.

I think perhaps I hold you in the same disdain you apparently hold for modern historians.

I'd suggest that if your view of modern history is really so dim, you may want to expand your reading to include less dry accounts. Cornelius Ryan, Rick Atkinson, Pierre Berton, even Stephen Ambrose come to mind, if "popular" history is more your cup of tea.

Reliance on "primary source" material, such as you tout, is poor methodology just as over-reliance on single sources. I think today's historian is in a unique position - depending on his skills - to convey a greater sense of what really happens in battle to non-combatants than ever before. Certainly there are many more options for data collection than 2000 years ago, not just due to technology but to simple things like universal literacy among the rank and file and the willingness and ability both for them to record their experiences, and for historians to want to read them and assign them a position of importance.

I am sure Joseph Goebbels would have been quite content to be a herald in the middle ages or a historian-scribe in antiquity, but I would still rather reed John Keegan.

[Other Means]

the disposition of the Mongol army under Ghengis Khan:

Tulughma

A Mongol battleformation

Tumen 10,000 man division, made up of ten minghans, led by a noyan appointed by the Khan.

Minghan

1,000 man regiment, made up of ten jaguns, led by a noyan appointed by the Khan.

Jagun

100 man squadron, made up of ten arbans. The arban leaders selected their own leader for the jagun.

Arban

10 man unit and smallest unit in the army. The men in the arban selected their own leader. Each arban had two or three yurts for food distribution, supplied by a regular corps of provisioners.

i've read the Mongols kept a single scout out ahead of his unit, which were ahead of the Jagun. so i'd guess that unit would be his Arban, which took independant tactical action at times. this would make it a platoon i think. all this was 12th century.

[Other Means]

oh yes, they also had their own staff college at this time, together with engineers, logistics officers, quartermasters, spy handlers, map makers, hospitals...quite advanced really. i think they would have beaten any army in history up to the widespread use of gunpowder.

[c3k]

Commenting on Delbruck: I've read his first book and it was immensely educational. Or so I thought. I enjoyed his logical analysis of actual army size compared to the reports of millions. Is there a valid reason to dispute his findings?

Thanks,

Ken

[Philippe]

Originally posted by klapton:

A checkerboard seems to me absurd as a combat formation. Faced with a continuous line, the men at the extremes of each "cell" would have to fight against 2 or 3 enemies, would succumb most of the time, the "cells" would become thinner and the gaps between them wider. That formation would have been used for deployment, that is, between the column (a marching formation) and the line (a fighting formation).

I didn't see anything eccentric in Delbruck's work (maybe in his time he was). Granted, after 80 years, it is outdated (particularly the latter volumes), but as a starting point in the study of ancient warfare I know nothing better (not that I know a lot of literature on the subject, by the way).

The nice thing about Classical Antiquity is that it's very old and doesn't change much (or very often). And when it does change, it's usually a disaster, like that time about a hundred years ago when some archeologist actually had the temerity to find a play by Menander in a mummy casing. Careers and reputations were ruined, and he was told not to do it again. He didn't.

I only mention this because the notion that something involving Classical Antiquity could be outdated is a little ironic given that the material itself is outdated. What changes is our perception of the past. This perception always changes over time, and, give or take a little insight, one set of fashions for interpretation is probably not much better or worse than another. Part of the appeal of Classical Antiquity is that it is a notorious mirror -- Greeks and Romans always look just like us no matter who we are, but for some weird reason the descriptions of them are different depending on the viewer. I know that my Greeks and Romans are truer to life than Gibbons' 'outdated' vision...but I wonder what Gibbon would have said. (Decline and Fall has great footnotes, by the way).

The quincunx is the formation that the handbooks tell us the Romans used before the Marian reform. That doesn't mean, of course, that the handbooks are correct. Personally I don't find the notion very convincing either, but without examining the relevant texts anything I say would be pure speculation. Over the years I've found that the handbooks are frequently wrong, especially when it comes to military matters.

By characterising him as a genius who can't be ignored I'm signalling that I'm something of a Delbruck fan myself and that anything I say to support him should be taken with a big grain of salt as well.

The problem with Delbruck was that he was an enthusiast, and like most enthusiasts would get carried away and lose his sense of proportion. Superior discipline and methodology along with this vaunted sense of proportion is supposedly what distinguishes the amateur from the serious scholar.

Delbruck was also prone to doing things that no serious classical scholar would be caught dead doing, like organizing students into improvised phalanxes and marching them back and forth on the Gymnasium playing field to see if their formations fell apart. The serious scholar would point out that only the ancient texts exist (plus the CIL and the odd archeological site), and that anything you do on the playing field is pseudo-science because it sheds light on how you spend

your leisure time and little else. In other words he was too focused on what went on in his reconstructions and not focused enough on the texts. I still remember the look of icy horror that crossed my advisor's face when I suggested that it might be interesting to set up a model of

Greek city-state politics based on game theory - after that he stopped asking to see my translations of Thucydides.

The minute you start moving away from the texts (and moving around on the vacant lot behind the Gymnasium) the serious scholar will get a queasy feeling in his stomach and start muttering about the Ernle Bradford school of literary criticism ("Odysseus went to all of these places because I can sail my yacht there") while remembering that Polybius is the greatest historian who ever lived because he tells us so, over and over and over (a bit like Liddell Hart and the superiority of the indirect approach, which he sees lurking under every bed).

Personally I don't think there's much wrong with Delbruck's general ideas. And I always like to check what Delbruck had to say about a particular ancient battle if I happen to be studying it. Ancient battles are finicky things, however, and each one has its own weird historiography and textual quirks. I don't really want to know how often Delbruck gets it wrong, but my sense is that he gets it right about half the time, and that's really pretty good. If you want a wonderful example of how easy it is to mess up with this kind of thing, read Peter Green's first reconstruction of the battle of Granicus in his history of Alexander the Great. It's deliciously wrongheaded and probably the worst reconstruction of an ancient battle ever written - so bad that to his credit Green actually recanted in the second edition. And yet Green is one of the best and most serious scholars of his generation (and for once I actually mean that in a nice way).

So the bottom line with Delbruck is that you have to take him case by case. Sometimes he's right on the money and nobody else is seeing it, and sometimes he's merely interesting.

And notice that in this entire discussion we've fallen into the trap of assuming that battles were the important determinants of military historical events. Sometimes they were, but often they weren't, but either way they make much better reading than what was really going on half the time.

[hoolaman]

Originally posted by Philippe:

The minute you start moving away from the texts (and moving around on the vacant lot behind the Gymnasium) the serious scholar will get a queasy feeling in his stomach and start muttering about the Ernle Bradford school of literary criticism ("Odysseus went to all of these places because I can sail my yacht there") while remembering that Polybius is the greatest historian who ever lived because he tells us so, over and over and over (a bit like Liddell Hart and the superiority of the indirect approach, which he sees lurking under every bed).

I don't know if anyone saw a documentary called "ancient builders" or something, where a bunch of arcaeologists got together with engineers etc, and tried to build some classical structures such as a famous roman bridge or an easter island statue, using ancient technology.

Some they found very difficult to do even with some modern know-how.

Or a show called "battlefield detectives" where they get out on old battlefields with military tacticians and recreate battles using both physical evidence and literary accounts.

Such practical demonstrations can be very useful. I think some academics cling tightly to their doctrines, and are nervous of people proving that their interpretation of ancient texts has come to a conclusion that is impractical in the real world. Why shouldn't the practicality of Roman formations be relevant if experiments are done somewhat scientifically.

Every other branch of academia must prove their theories beyond doubt by experiment, why not historians.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Philippe:

The minute you start moving away from the texts (and moving around on the vacant lot behind the Gymnasium) the serious scholar will get a queasy feeling in his stomach and start muttering about the Ernle Bradford school of literary criticism ("Odysseus went to all of these places because I can sail my yacht there") while remembering that Polybius is the greatest historian who ever lived because he tells us so, over and over and over (a bit like Liddell Hart and the superiority of the indirect approach, which he sees lurking under every bed).

I don't know if anyone saw a documentary called "ancient builders" or something, where a bunch of arcaeologists got together with engineers etc, and tried to build some classical structures such as a famous roman bridge or an easter island statue, using ancient technology.

Some they found very difficult to do even with some modern know-how.

Or a show called "battlefield detectives" where they get out on old battlefields with military tacticians and recreate battles using both physical evidence and literary accounts.

Such practical demonstrations can be very useful. I think some academics cling tightly to their doctrines, and are nervous of people proving that their interpretation of ancient texts has come to a conclusion that is impractical in the real world. Why shouldn't the practicality of Roman formations be relevant if experiments are done somewhat scientifically.

Every other branch of academia must prove their theories beyond doubt by experiment, why not historians. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Philippe:

And notice that in this entire discussion we've fallen into the trap of assuming that battles were the important determinants of military historical events. Sometimes they were, but often they weren't, but either way they make much better reading than what was really going on half the time.

How are you defining "military historical event?"

[Philippe]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Philippe:

And notice that in this entire discussion we've fallen into the trap of assuming that battles were the important determinants of military historical events. Sometimes they were, but often they weren't, but either way they make much better reading than what was really going on half the time.

How are you defining "military historical event?" </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Philippe:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Philippe:

And notice that in this entire discussion we've fallen into the trap of assuming that battles were the important determinants of military historical events. Sometimes they were, but often they weren't, but either way they make much better reading than what was really going on half the time.

How are you defining "military historical event?" </font>

[Philippe]

All I'm saying is that battles are a subset of military events and that military events are a subset of wars. Battles are not necessarily the most important component of their subset in spite of getting the most attention.

[Michael Dorosh]

Normandy being won in the steel mills of Pittsburgh...

Not that I disagree, but its an individual choice what one finds interesting or not. A well rounded historical understanding will touch on all the facets of military history; politics, economics, etc. I wouldn't necessarily put battle histories at the bottom of the pile - though certainly the types of accounts you mention from antiquity would suggest that we should, even modern interpretations are, as I've suggested, gaining in respectability.

If battles are largely things unknowable, I'm forced to believe that Winston Churchill's (or Adolf Hitler's) innermost thoughts are equally unknowable.

What was Mountbatten really thinking when he revived Dieppe without authorization? That may be as elusive as the number of straps on a Roman soldier's sandals - or the number of men in his squad.

[Philippe]

Not just the steel mills of Pittsburgh, though.

Think of the 100 Years War being won in a thousand little skirmishes that Froissart barely has time to mention. I doubt that there were ten big battles in the entire war, and the Valois lost most of them (I didn't say France because I'm not sure it existed).

I'm tempted to point to Pericles' strategy for winning the Peloponesian War, but it was blatantly economic. And it would have worked if he hadn't died of the plague.

The conquest of Anatolia from the Byzantines is usually attributed to two battles: Mantzikert and Myriokephalon. But if you look closely at what happened after each battle you don't see Byzantine authority collapsing -- and in the case of Myriokephalon they actually regained a bit of ground. The model is almost that the Greeks would lose a battle and then a few years later their authority would crumble.

Some say that the state of one's military is a reflection of what is going on in the larger society. I'm not sure that I buy into that, but in the examples I just mentioned I have to wonder if lost battles weren't symptoms of defeat rather than causes.

[Michael Dorosh]

The US Civil War is a more recent example of what you are saying. Ted Turner would have us believe the war was fought with perhaps 10 generals on each side, and decided in perhaps as many decisive engagements. And yet there were several hundred generals on each side, and each general had thousands of troops - regular and irregular. The war was fought not just in Maryland, but in the wild West, on the open ocean, and of course in the newspapers, cotton fields and those same steel mills in Pittsburgh....

So I think maybe I understand what you are saying....eh? Off to check my Civil War book of lists for the number of generals....

Ok, my list shows 583 Confederate generals and 428 Union generals. One US Brigadier General was named Jefferson C. Davis (!)

124 of them from both sides were killed in action; even if every general not killed never saw active command, that is a lot of generals that did...something Ted Turner or popular histories of the Civil War would never lead one to believe.

[Guest Mike]

The Russian Napoleonic organisation of 1810 had 4 companies per battalion. One of the companies was the elite company, made up of 2 platoons - one of light infantry Jaegers (Eger in Russian), 1 of Grenadiers.

The Jager platoon was used as a tactical unit in its own right, being expected to provide a screeen of skirmishers for the battalion, sometiems supported by the Grenadier platoon.

(IIRC from George Nafziger's booklet on the Russian Army of the Nappy Wars published by RAFM)