Skirmishes in the Ancient and Medieval world

[Valhalla]

Hi everyone

Well, first of all, I'm sorry if this is a little offtopic, but it's something I need to ask, and really I haven't found information about it anywhere, so, maybe one of you guys may guide me, or at least point me in the right direction.

I've been wondering about skirmishes in the ancient world, and even in the medieval world. I know that in the middle ages there were a lot of skirmishes, specially between little groups of mercenaries, or maybe even little detachments of a bigger army. I also suspect that it also happened in the ancient world, of course, it's natural. Maybe the residents of one little village decided to raid another, and all the men there picked up their weapons and fought the men in the other village, or so. This is easily imagined if we're talking about Celts, Germans, Britons, Thracians, or other "barbarian" peoples, but what about Romans for example?

I've heard that they usually tried to avoid the skirmishes, not in the later period of the Roman Empire, but in the period of the Republic. But although they may have tried to avoid skirmishes, sometimes they maybe they HAD to fight that way, and NOT using their army or whatever. My question would be, were there some kind of "special" troops used for this occasions? I don't know, it doesn't seem right that, for example, a little group of roman raiders included Hastati, Principes and Triarii... The same with greeks, macedonians, persians or any other "civilized" peoples. Did they skirmished often? Used some special tactics? Any data on this would be extremely appreciated

Because it seems illogical to think that there were only huge battles between gigantic armies, I'm sure there were skirmishes, and they were important too.
Also, if anybody knows something about skirmishes in the time of the Crusades, it would be really appreciated.

So, that's it, thanks a lot in advance
Regards

[jlopez]

Hi everyone

Well, first of all, I'm sorry if this is a little offtopic, but it's something I need to ask, and really I haven't found information about it anywhere, so, maybe one of you guys may guide me, or at least point me in the right direction.

I've been wondering about skirmishes in the ancient world, and even in the medieval world. I know that in the middle ages there were a lot of skirmishes, specially between little groups of mercenaries, or maybe even little detachments of a bigger army. I also suspect that it also happened in the ancient world, of course, it's natural. Maybe the residents of one little village decided to raid another, and all the men there picked up their weapons and fought the men in the other village, or so. This is easily imagined if we're talking about Celts, Germans, Britons, Thracians, or other "barbarian" peoples, but what about Romans for example?

I've heard that they usually tried to avoid the skirmishes, not in the later period of the Roman Empire, but in the period of the Republic. But although they may have tried to avoid skirmishes, sometimes they maybe they HAD to fight that way, and NOT using their army or whatever. My question would be, were there some kind of "special" troops used for this occasions? I don't know, it doesn't seem right that, for example, a little group of roman raiders included Hastati, Principes and Triarii... The same with greeks, macedonians, persians or any other "civilized" peoples. Did they skirmished often? Used some special tactics? Any data on this would be extremely appreciated

Because it seems illogical to think that there were only huge battles between gigantic armies, I'm sure there were skirmishes, and they were important too.
Also, if anybody knows something about skirmishes in the time of the Crusades, it would be really appreciated.

So, that's it, thanks a lot in advance
Regards

Skirmishes did happen but usually the sources only mention the ones that had some influence over the campaign. If you read about Hannibal's campaigns in Italy you'll find a lot of manoeuvering of the main armies and smaller scale clashes between foraging parties and IIRC fighting over mountain passes. The Roman campaigns against Macedonia and in Iberia also have a fair bit of skirmishing. In most cases the troops involved were mounted and light infantry altough heavy infantry was used nearer the camp to gather building materials and could get caught out by enemy raiders

[Valhalla]

First of all, thanks for the answer, I would've answered yesterday but the light went off at night, because some old lady had a leak in her pipes on the 13th floor.

That's what I wanted to hear. Why did those skirmishes happened (for example, as you say, foraging parties, guys looking for materials to build the camp attacked by raiders, explorers vs explorers, vanguard vs explorers, and all that. I also would like to know more about the troops used in these skirmishes. Yeah, I know, light troops. But by light troops we mean just archers / slingers / javelinmen, or also melee light troops? Maybe even Hastatii (for the romans of course)? Or Hastatii / Principes with different equipment?
I don't know, I was hoping there was something like Roman patrols, Greek patrols, maybe even camp patrols or something like that, something that was well known, and some documentation about it.

Maybe a little group of raiders attacking a Roman outpost? Would Roman outpost in the time of the republic have had Hastatii, Principes and Triarii or other troops? Besides archers and some cavalry, of course.

Any more information about this would be really appreciated.

Jlopez, I'll answer your PM in a few moments

Thanks again

[ATXPaul]

I know the Greeks at least had light peltasts (javelinmen with shields for CQB) and light hoplites who only wore a helmet, tunic, shield and spear/sword for light skirmishing.

[DonMatthew]

hmm... all i know if the defense is good..no army can pass your guard.. good defense is a good offense..

[ValentinianVictor]

I'd suggest getting hold of a copy of Milner's translation of Vegetius, very informative about the use of skirmishers. Their main role was to delay the enemy, screen your deployment and then move behind your main battle line where their role was then to provide overhead fire and to pursue broken enemy.

[nikgaukroger]

The OP was on about skirmishes nor skirmishers - although the former would almost always include the latter

[Strategos69]

My advice is that you take a look at Caesars' Civil War books. They describe some campaigns in fine detail, which means that you will have some descriptions of those skirmishes. They did involve heavy troops as well as lighter troops, any of them with different roles. Skirmishes are usually described in the context of sieges. I guess this kind of warfare is more prone to that kind of fights. I guess that the kind of description you are looking for (more usual in detailed accounts of campaigns) has been lost as we mostly have summaries of those "campaign notes".

[pezhetairoi]

You'll find some examples of greek/persian skirmishes in Xenophon's two books: Anabasis and Hellenica. As the 10 000 greeks attempt to escape persia, there are many minor battles. He's a good source, he was a soldier and he was actually there. It seems that the rank and file took part, usually with their regular equipment. The light troops were really in their element here, and good quality light troops really showed their value.
Probably some good points in his other two small books: On Horsemanship and The cavalry commander. In these he describes some of the uses of cavalry as patrol, raiding, recon, harassment -- all which can result in skirmishes. In fact, he seems to suggests this as cavalry's primary use. You can probably apply this to most ancient world armies, many of them would have studied Xenophon.

The Alexander writers also hint at some skirmish activity, not much detail however. But the Agrianian javelinmen, the Hypaspists, the Prodromoi are often detached for smaller "skirmishy" type battles.

[peteratjet]

I think that a lot of the skirmishing that went on at the operational level, as distinct from screening and harassment on the battlefield can be regarded as abstracted out into the scouting roll, terrain selection process and deployment sequence at the start of a FoG game. On the other hand, there were cases where skirmishing escalated into a full scale battle that neither side was expecting, as at Cynoscophelae. FoG doesn't really try to deal with that type of encounter battle, where you might expect to see deployment batches entering the battle sequentially, with some chance of delay. Could be done as a scenario I suppose.

[ValentinianVictor]

There is an account in Ammianus of Roman skirmishers engaging Sasanid cavalry, although we are not told the outcome other than the fact that it appears they then retired behind the main battle line. Most accounts of battles in Ammianus appear to have skirmishers pelting the enemy with missiles before the main battle lines engaged.