Sorry to be irritating, but is this intentional?

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ok for on thing shield wall is different from a phalanx and why would you take something from twc forums as a fact 
 
Phalanx300 said:
Viking_Dane said:
ok for on thing shield wall is different from a phalanx and why would you take something from twc forums as a fact

A Hoplite Phalanx is essentially a shieldwall.

no its not

a shieldwall is more comparable to a testudo (turtle) than a Phalanx.
its main use is to defend the formation from attack using the shields, a phalanx is a spear formation that has a slightly more offensive use.

they are similar but not the same
 
From what I can gather there is no real difference between a hoplite phalanx and any other shieldwall such as the traditional Germanic shieldwall. There would be differences in the way in which the men were ranked up etc, but the end result is the same, with the same tactical uses and abilities.

On a side note, I hate using the term "phalanx" to describe the formation used by Classical hoplites. From what I can gather, the phalanx specifically refers to the mass pike formation used by the Macedonians and their Successors. For that reason, I prefer to refer to the Classical Greek "phalanx" as a Hoplite shieldwall.

Just my 2c
Kvedulf
 
nilloc93 said:
no its not

a shieldwall is more comparable to a testudo (turtle) than a Phalanx.
You are wrong. The hoplite phalanx, the Skjaldborg, the Sparabara "wall" and the Testudo are ALL shield walls. A shield wall is any mass formation consisting of infantry with large shields, arranged in an overlapping manner.

You are trying to see the phalanx as unique, when in fact it wasn't. The main characteristic of the hoplite phalanx is its depth - most other shieldwalls were rarely more than 4 men in depth, while phalanxes, due to the limited size of their usual battlefields, were often very deep, usual depth being 8 men.

You saying that other shield walls couldn't be used offensively is simply wrong - at Ethandun the Saxon shieldwall charged in an orderly fashion and broke the Norse one, despite fighting up a slope.
 
hey all. Ive been trying a few different SP mods lately, and I figured I'd check out this one, since i used to play the Peloponnesian war on the original M&B several years ago and it was awesome. However, I was quite unsure if I should DL due to the main thread stated very clearly that it was in alpha, so I had actually decided not to dl. Then I saw this thread :smile: I just love the fact that some factions may have 4 times as many units as an other and still get slaughtered. (just because most of their units are crap) Im just loving the idea. So now Im downloading the mod. Can't wait to get a giant 2 handed sword and plow through thousands of persian slaves!  :mrgreen:
 
Diavolo said:
hey all. Ive been trying a few different SP mods lately, and I figured I'd check out this one, since i used to play the Peloponnesian war on the original M&B several years ago and it was awesome. However, I was quite unsure if I should DL due to the main thread stated very clearly that it was in alpha, so I had actually decided not to dl. Then I saw this thread :smile: I just love the fact that some factions may have 4 times as many units as an other and still get slaughtered. (just because most of their units are crap) Im just loving the idea. So now Im downloading the mod. Can't wait to get a giant 2 handed sword and plow through thousands of persian slaves!  :mrgreen:

Not going to happen. The Persians can still inflict casualties. For example, I beat an army of ~200 hoplites and peltasts with ~150 Persians, Medes and Hyrcanians losing only about 10 dead (mostly archers because they use throwing axes instead of bows for some reason).

Also, the Persians don't have any numerical advantage here.


P.S. Persian troops were never slaves.
 
the persians them selves werent slaves but the bulk of their army were slaves
 
Viking_Dane said:
the persians them selves werent slaves but the bulk of their army were slaves


well Persians allowed native rulers to rule as they were a customed to, and they never forced the conquered to become Persians (unlike Greeks with spread of Hellenism)  I think people should stop taking the movie 300 as an actual historic source
 
Viking_Dane said:
the persians them selves werent slaves but the bulk of their army were slaves

No. Their army consisted of three parts:
1. Persians and other Western Iranians - the core of the army, providing the best infantry (yes, infantry, which was grouped in composite units of archers and spearmen) and the best cavalry;
2. Provincial auxiliaries - these varied in quality, but they used cultures that had military culture or infrastructure in place, like Egyptians and Mesopotamians for dedicated heavy infantry, eastern Iranians for archers, etc, etc, thus they were not slaves but good quality troops;
3. Mercenaries - mostly Saka cavalry, but included any kind of foreign troops fighting for money.
 
Roach XI the Magnificent said:
Viking_Dane said:
the persians them selves werent slaves but the bulk of their army were slaves

No. Their army consisted of three parts:
1. Persians and other Western Iranians - the core of the army, providing the best infantry (yes, infantry, which was grouped in composite units of archers and spearmen) and the best cavalry;
2. Provincial auxiliaries - these varied in quality, but they used cultures that had military culture or infrastructure in place, like Egyptians and Mesopotamians for dedicated heavy infantry, eastern Iranians for archers, etc, etc, thus they were not slaves but good quality troops;
3. Mercenaries - mostly Saka cavalry, but included any kind of foreign troops fighting for money.
This.

I can't stand the myth of Persians using slaves as soldiers. The Persian empire abolished slavery of any kind (though it may have been practiced in secret, idk). I think this myth is based on the fact that other late-period Eastern armies used elite cores of slave soldiers (like the Ayyubid Mamlukes and Ottoman Janissaries). However, these were far from being undisciplined hordes.
 
MrExpendable said:
Roach XI the Magnificent said:
Viking_Dane said:
the persians them selves werent slaves but the bulk of their army were slaves

No. Their army consisted of three parts:
1. Persians and other Western Iranians - the core of the army, providing the best infantry (yes, infantry, which was grouped in composite units of archers and spearmen) and the best cavalry;
2. Provincial auxiliaries - these varied in quality, but they used cultures that had military culture or infrastructure in place, like Egyptians and Mesopotamians for dedicated heavy infantry, eastern Iranians for archers, etc, etc, thus they were not slaves but good quality troops;
3. Mercenaries - mostly Saka cavalry, but included any kind of foreign troops fighting for money.
This.

I can't stand the myth of Persians using slaves as soldiers. The Persian empire abolished slavery of any kind (though it may have been practiced in secret, idk). I think this myth is based on the fact that other late-period Eastern armies used elite cores of slave soldiers (like the Ayyubid Mamlukes and Ottoman Janissaries). However, these were far from being undisciplined hordes.

I think what this myth is based on is that modern Western Europe and America look at ancient Greece as "Western" and identify with them.  So the Persians or other "Easterners" are looked at the undemocratic tyrannical slaveholders.  In actuality Greeks modern and Ancient have more in common with Armenians and Persians then they do with Anglo Saxons.  So in other words its modern political propaganda
 
MrExpendable said:
Roach XI the Magnificent said:
Viking_Dane said:
the persians them selves werent slaves but the bulk of their army were slaves

No. Their army consisted of three parts:
1. Persians and other Western Iranians - the core of the army, providing the best infantry (yes, infantry, which was grouped in composite units of archers and spearmen) and the best cavalry;
2. Provincial auxiliaries - these varied in quality, but they used cultures that had military culture or infrastructure in place, like Egyptians and Mesopotamians for dedicated heavy infantry, eastern Iranians for archers, etc, etc, thus they were not slaves but good quality troops;
3. Mercenaries - mostly Saka cavalry, but included any kind of foreign troops fighting for money.
This.

I can't stand the myth of Persians using slaves as soldiers. The Persian empire abolished slavery of any kind (though it may have been practiced in secret, idk). I think this myth is based on the fact that other late-period Eastern armies used elite cores of slave soldiers (like the Ayyubid Mamlukes and Ottoman Janissaries). However, these were far from being undisciplined hordes.

Persians didn't abolish slavery. They used slaves to work the soldier's lands and stuff. Yet they were no worse than Greeks in that matter.


The average Persian soldier was better drilled and more trained than the average Greek, since the average Persian was actually drilled and trained.
 
As a note, every ancient army used slaves in one form or another, if the camp was attacked they'd fight or die along with anyone else in there.

The Greek armies used slaves as Peltasts regularly, hell the Spartan armies used helots (glorified slaves) for a HUGE proportion of their armies.

though it's not so much about the training with Persians it was the sheer variety of troops that they could levy from across the Empire that made their armies very versatile, of course this also meant it took years to prepare for a large campaign like the invasion of Greece, which made it a logistical nightmare.

((i can find sources for all of this but atm "Cardiff university lecture I had a few weeks back" will have to suffice as it's 6 Am and I should be sleeping not trawling the internet :razz:))
 
tigershark said:
though it's not so much about the training with Persians it was the sheer variety of troops that they could levy from across the Empire that made their armies very versatile, of course this also meant it took years to prepare for a large campaign like the invasion of Greece, which made it a logistical nightmare.
Not really. These were the major troop types found in the army:
1. Sparabara - archers shooting from a shieldwall. Western Iranians, Elamites/Kassites and Scythian infantry fought this way;
2. Heavy infantry - Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Anatolians and Greeks, fighting in phalanxes;
3. Light infantry - most minor contingents, like Cappadocians, Hyrcanians, Indians, Ku****es, etc;
4. Light cavalry - Hyrcanians and Scythians;
5. Heavy cavalry - Persians, Phrygians, Medes, Massagetae.

That's it. Not to mention that the levies were generally trained troops, and that the core of the military was the 120-150 thousand strong Persian-Mede imperial force.
 
The average Persian soldier was better drilled and more trained than the average Greek, since the average Persian was actually drilled and trained.


Bull**** bull**** bull****.

Every greek army was trained, and some city states (IE. Sparta)  Had their youths train from birth to be worriors.

And the persians..Well, they were not trained that much, just the basics, and the slaves (or light troops) were given next to no weapons, and robes for armur.
 
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