drifting advances

Where are you from Ronisan? Have you had restrictions placed on your social contact? Here in the UK we have had a fairly significant lockdown. We really do have plenty of time on our hands and not a whole lot to do! A morning of element bases, graph paper, and trig tables was most welcome. 

Seriously, though, the essence of the thread was whether it was possible to produce a significant sideways displacement when advancing as a group move. Until it was attempted, one might think it would be. Evidence as supplied by Stevie indicated that really it isn't.

On the broader theme of your post, if you allow "a little bit" of leeway, you the need to decide where that leeway ends. And so the debate re-ignites.

And finally, word is that Phil Barker did not initially treat DBA rules as particularly prescriptive and just sort of pushed the pieces around. I am sure this is fine amongst like minded individuals, but try to extend that philosophy outside what remains of your gaming circle after a few passive-aggressive weeks and you will probably find you will soon be looking for a different rule set!

Scott

Ronald,

Thanks. On looking back through the thread, I notice that the table of x and Y coordinates was produced by Arnaud, not Stevie. Arnaud is a university lecturer in, I am pretty sure, mathematics, so we might expect some precision! I think we were all just using our spare time to give an accurate answer to the question posed.

Scott

live and let live ...

This is a claim often made by modern scholars...although it is interesting to note that this
phenomenon rarely seems to appear in the actual contemporary accounts of actual battles,
(although Thucydides does mention it in his account of the Battle of Mantinea in 418 BC),
perhaps because the Greeks were aware of it and often countered by having their most
disciplined and dependable Hoplites on their right wing to nullify the effect.

It certainly doesn’t appear to be a problem with other spearmen such as the Anglo Saxons.
Then again, being in a ‘shield wall’ would be a largely stationary formation, and not something
that could be maintained when moving fairly rapidly.

                                           ------------------------------

On a separate issue, I do get annoyed when modern historians go on about rear ranks ‘pushing’.
Even Donald Kagan in his “Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece” talks a lot about
‘rear ranks in a column pushing their friends in front of them’, with no mention of fatigue.
(See books.google.co.uk/books?id=xx6orLkVV4YC&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false )

Many modern historians and scholars assume that the best troops at the front did all the fighting and an
ancient melee was like some sort of rugby scrum, with the rear ranks pushing the front ranks forward.
This is rubbish. The truth is that when rear ranks push people at the front are crushed to death!
Especially if both sides are doing it. The front ranks certainly couldn’t use their weapons effectively.
No, the real reason they fought in multiple ranks was because of fatigue.

Consider modern boxers, at the hight of physical fitness, wearing little more than shorts. After some 12
three minute rounds they are knackered. Now imagine these same boxers with heavy bronze helmets,
body armour, and carrying large wooden shields, marching long distances over the countryside, and then
having to fight continuously for a couple of hours or more. They would be exhausted after only a few minutes!
That is why they were in ranks…each would fight for a short while and then step back to rest while another
stepped forward to take their place.

This explains why pikemen were in deeper formations, 16 deep. A pike is over twice as long as a spear, and
needs two hands to hold it, because it is over twice as heavy. And being twice as heavy, they become tired
twice as quickly, therefore need twice as many ranks to avoid everyone becoming fatigued.

It also explains the exceptionally deep formations, up to 50 ranks deep, used by the Theban general Epaminondas
at the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC against the formidable Spartans. After the first 8 or 12 ranks had fought and were
tired, the Thebans still had some 40 fresh ranks to rotate into the line against the now exhausted Spartans.

That is the very account that modern historians frequently quote Timurilank.
Here is a another account of the Battle of Mantinea in 418 BC, directly taken from Thucydides:-
www.livius.org/sources/content/thucydides-historian/the-battle-of-mantinea-418-bce/

However, as I said before, it is interesting to note that this ‘Hoplite-drift-to-the-right’ effect is not
mentioned in other Hoplite encounters, and doesn’t appear in any of the following engagements:-
    Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, between the Athenians and Persians.
    Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, between the Greek allies and Persians.
    Battle of Delium in 424 BC, between the Boeotians and Athenians (with an unusually deep Theban
                                            formation, 53 years before Epaminondas used it at Leuctra in 371 BC.
                                            The Thebans also used an unusually deep formation at Tegyra in 375 BC).
There is also the battles of Cunaxa in 401 BC, Leuctra in 371 BC, the second battle of Mantinea in 362 BC,
and Chaeronea in 338 BC...none of which mentions any ‘Hoplite-drift-to-the-right’.

Indeed, one would have thought that all ancient armies suffered from this effect, especially pikemen and
even Roman legionaries, as the man on the very far right of the battleline would be wary of his unshielded
right side...but we never hear of Carthaginian spearmen ‘drifting-to-the-right’.

So was Thucydides wrong, or was he merely exaggerating this effect?
Or perhaps one or both commanders at the battle of Mantinea in 418 BC deliberately encouraged this
drift and made no attempt to counter it as part of their battleplan. If so, then it becomes more of a
tactical manoeuvre by Hoplite generals rather than inherent behaviour of ancient spearmen.