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Look up the Battle of Cannae, wherein Hannibal successfully encircled a force of approximately 80k Romans and killed approximately 70k of them. This wasn't bow

by beloch 9y ago

Look up the Battle of Cannae, wherein Hannibal successfully encircled a force of approximately 80k Romans and killed approximately 70k of them. This wasn't bowmen vs infantry but, primarily, infantry vs infantry. The battle was effectively won once the encirclement was completed, but killing people in close quarter combat is an agonizingly slow process unless there's a rout. Encircled soldiers can't rout. The slaughter continued until darkness, and only after dark did the battle cease, leaving some survivors (night battles were exceedingly rare in antiquity). Imagine being in the middle of an army that is being driven into a more and more compact mass of panicking humanity, knowing that you've lost and are doomed to die, but that death does not arrive for, possibly, the better part of a day! Livy reported of the Romans that, "Some were found with their heads plunged into the earth, which they had excavated; having thus, as it appeared, made pits for themselves, and having suffocated themselves." I'd take one good charge and death by a storm of arrows over that any day.

germinalphrase 9y ago
Really puts a point of the phrase "to bury one's head in the sand" - doesn't it?
Fifer82 9y ago
Thanks! Another great overview by this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MroGPObEZzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MroGPObEZzk
jrimbault 9y ago
I actually thought of the Battle of Cannae during the episode of Game of Thrones Battle of the Bastards.
- netzone 9y ago
  Sure. I'm sure you think of it during most medieval show that has some sort of warfare, some variation of it is almost always featured, though as far as I know tactics similar to that had been used long before that particular battle.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Encirclement Is very old tactics the medieval period actually used this and much more modern tactics effectively combined arms warfare.
    - Scea91 9y ago
      Encirclement was just the outcome. What was really interesting to me in the battle of Cannae was the feigned retreat.
Someone 9y ago
Why would being surrounded matter in this case? It’s not like the Romans ran out of food or weaponry. Actually, if infantry groups large enough to maintain a front meet hand to hand on flat terrain, and the soldiers are of similar strength, losses should be about 1:1 and proportional to the length of the front because the larger party can’t put more soldiers near the front than the smaller one (if anything, the larger party would be able to give its soldiers more rest) (If the smaller group gets too small to easily keep up a closed front, this changes; it gets torn apart fast because each defender would be needed almost all the time to prevent the front from breaking, and also would face >1 enemy. Guns, spears, or artillery change things even more, as they allow the larger group to land more blows per enemy head than the smaller group _above_ the proportion of the sizes of the armies) So, all else being equal, the much larger Roman army should have been able to break that encirclement. ⇒ either things weren’t equal (were the hastily created Roman legions less experienced or less well trained?) or was panicking the important factor?
- valuearb 9y ago
  Take 100 sword bearing barbarians and form them in a circle shoulder to shoulder facing inward. Take 120 legionaries and form them in a circle inside the barbarians circle, also shoulder to shoulder but facing outward. The legionaries circle can't hold 120 men, or even 100, it's likely closer to 90, so the other 30 legionaries have to wait inside the circle. So now it's 100 vs. 90, each of the fighting legionaries on the circle has to fight the man in front of them, while avoiding a thrust from the extra men along side them. Meanwhile the other 30 wait, listening as their comrades are being slowly killed. But it never begins as a circle. Instead the solid line of legionaries is outflanked, barbarians rush around them causing panic in the rear lines at both sides. The men at the end of the line are butchered quickly, they can't fight the men in front of them while being attacked from the side. So masses of romans at the ends of the lines were killed and the survivors on the ends ran back behind the center of the line until they formed a tightly bound ball of men, those buried in the center unable to fight, while the now greater numbers of their opponents are free to attack the outer line from all directions.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago

by beloch 9y ago

germinalphrase 9y ago

Really puts a point of the phrase "to bury one's head in the sand" - doesn't it?

Fifer82 9y ago

Thanks! Another great overview by this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MroGPObEZzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MroGPObEZzk

jrimbault 9y ago

I actually thought of the Battle of Cannae during the episode of Game of Thrones Battle of the Bastards.

netzone 9y ago
Sure. I'm sure you think of it during most medieval show that has some sort of warfare, some variation of it is almost always featured, though as far as I know tactics similar to that had been used long before that particular battle.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Encirclement Is very old tactics the medieval period actually used this and much more modern tactics effectively combined arms warfare.
  - Scea91 9y ago
    Encirclement was just the outcome. What was really interesting to me in the battle of Cannae was the feigned retreat.

Someone 9y ago

Why would being surrounded matter in this case? It’s not like the Romans ran out of food or weaponry. Actually, if infantry groups large enough to maintain a front meet hand to hand on flat terrain, and the soldiers are of similar strength, losses should be about 1:1 and proportional to the length of the front because the larger party can’t put more soldiers near the front than the smaller one (if anything, the larger party would be able to give its soldiers more rest) (If the smaller group gets too small to easily keep up a closed front, this changes; it gets torn apart fast because each defender would be needed almost all the time to prevent the front from breaking, and also would face >1 enemy. Guns, spears, or artillery change things even more, as they allow the larger group to land more blows per enemy head than the smaller group _above_ the proportion of the sizes of the armies) So, all else being equal, the much larger Roman army should have been able to break that encirclement. ⇒ either things weren’t equal (were the hastily created Roman legions less experienced or less well trained?) or was panicking the important factor?

valuearb 9y ago
Take 100 sword bearing barbarians and form them in a circle shoulder to shoulder facing inward. Take 120 legionaries and form them in a circle inside the barbarians circle, also shoulder to shoulder but facing outward. The legionaries circle can't hold 120 men, or even 100, it's likely closer to 90, so the other 30 legionaries have to wait inside the circle. So now it's 100 vs. 90, each of the fighting legionaries on the circle has to fight the man in front of them, while avoiding a thrust from the extra men along side them. Meanwhile the other 30 wait, listening as their comrades are being slowly killed. But it never begins as a circle. Instead the solid line of legionaries is outflanked, barbarians rush around them causing panic in the rear lines at both sides. The men at the end of the line are butchered quickly, they can't fight the men in front of them while being attacked from the side. So masses of romans at the ends of the lines were killed and the survivors on the ends ran back behind the center of the line until they formed a tightly bound ball of men, those buried in the center unable to fight, while the now greater numbers of their opponents are free to attack the outer line from all directions.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago