Biblical Lists

[Niceas]

Niceas--I can't argue. (Okay, I can, but I shouldn't.) What we know about the Bronze age is utterly dwarfed by what we don't know... Did they practice swordsmanship? Did it have a practical effect on their fighting style?

That, I guess is what I was getting at. For the Romans, you got archeology, but you got literature too, like some of the sagas where you get description of sword (and spear) play, that gives one more than one data point.

I'm not here to throw rocks, more just thinking out loud.

Anyway, your Myceneans rock, so yeah, getting them on the field isn't a bad thing.

[Kineas1]

Exactly, and for most of the Bronze Age, we have 0-1 data points...

Hah! I know who you are, Niceas. Just wait until I start naming my Mycenaean warships after GCUs...

[Niceas]

Exactly, and for most of the Bronze Age, we have 0-1 data points...

Hah! I know who you are, Niceas. Just wait until I start naming my Mycenaean warships after GCUs...

Heh. I'm sure "Lesbian Spank Inferno" will go over big. (Hey, who was living on the Isle of Lesbos at this time, anyway?)

[carlos]

I think we should take Homer's works as the basis for the army lists.

[nikgaukroger]

We were going to use Troy

[RichardD]

We were going to use Troy

Surely Coupling and the Culture would be more fun, though. I want to see elements of Porn Buddies in support of Rapid Offensive Units!

[Kineas1]

Sarah and I took our honeymoon on Lesvos. Local history says Achilles took Briseis from Lesvos (no wonder she was so annoyed). Actually, I own a Mycenaean army because there was a mound behind our hotel in Skala Eressos, and at the top was/is a Bronze Age fortress, and when we went swimming there was this Bronze Age Mole out in the water...
And Sappho was from Skala Eressos, where her school was located. She may have been a Lesbian by birth, but she spent a lot of time visiting this warlord named Alcaeus... I'm suspicious...

Greece is very inspirational, both to the writer and the gamer...

[Unclemeat]

I have really enjoyed these posts although I am posting a bit late to join in the main discussion.

1) I think if you put the Minoans and Acheans together in one list some distinction should be made between the Minoans and their Lance equipped nobles in Dendra armor and later more bow and spear oriented chariots. I would suggest Undrilled heavy CH Elite, Lancer,Swordsmen

2) Myrmidons vs Romans. As a game, we are generalizing armies from 1500AD to ?? BC A Roman Legionaire is a skilled swordsman because he was constantly training to use his sword to fight his foes. Vikings are Swordsmen, Dismounted Knights are Swordsmen, Egyptian Kopeshmen are swordsmen and yes certain Bronze Age warriors would be swordsmen. I don't think they would be skilled swordsmen as the definition in FOG states they train to a very high level and while it is true we haven't seen training manuals, wall paintings, stelae or anything else which gives us physical evidence their training, the fragility of many of the narrow bladed early bronze age swords would seem to indicate these were weapons to stab unarmoured foes (run over by the chariot wheels perhaps), stick in between the plates of the Dendra armor, and slash around, but would soon dull or break fighting against other swords or metal armor.

The more broad definition of swordsmen is fine for many early troops as it includes those throwing jav as part of the melee. I agree however that they would have been impact foot, but maybe they should be more like Gauls:
Protected HF, undrilled Impact+Swordsman

3) Shock chariots in the Bronze Age--remember in the Bronze Age foot soldiers in almost all cases were undrilled, unmotivated peasants who would have run away if they could. Havinga line of chariots bearing down on them was usually cause enough to break and run. Once they broke you could kill 'em with bow or stick'em with Lance/spear, take your choice.

I highly recommend: The End of the Bronze Age by Robert Drews as a great read on this time period and the destruction of the Acheans/Hitittes/Minoans/and Mittani civilizations.

Bob

[nikgaukroger]

Vikings are Swordsmen, Dismounted Knights are Swordsmen, Egyptian Kopeshmen are swordsmen and yes certain Bronze Age warriors would be swordsmen.

Not all of those will be swordsmen in the lists methinks - Vikings for example are likely to be Offensive Spearmen (but not that classification can include significant sword use).

I highly recommend: The End of the Bronze Age by Robert Drews as a great read on this time period and the destruction of the Acheans/Hitittes/Minoans/and Mittani civilizations.

Indeed a good read but not generally accepted as I understand it. I recall reading that he had now somewhat pulled back from his position in this book.

[Kineas1]

Have to say that I liked End of the bronze Age when I read it, which was before I spent six years studying the subject and decided he was all wet in every one of his major areas. The whole sword thing--anyway, it's as if he hadn't read a lot fo the other scholarship on the subject, but did a ton of original research and came to his own conclusions--which, to be honest, is valuable and refreshing--but not always right. hope that makes sense.
however, the one point I'll really argue is the "drilled" part. I think that the notion that Bronze Age soldiers were undrilled peasants is part of a view of 'progress" that is hard to defend. Bronze Age soldiers were as good as they could be because the alternative was slavery and death. bronze Age soldiers were the result fo 3000 years of military evolution, not the first soldiers in history (I recommend that every wargamer read "Prehistory of Mind" to get a firm grasp of what anthropologists and pre-historians now see as the world before the world, so to speak. Scary stuff--like, organized warfare in 8000 BC...). or looked at another way, from Kossos to Pylos to the 36 seal stones I have photos of--the Minoan/Mycenaeans sure piad a lot of tribute to footsoldiers in art and jewellry if they were crap... contrats to images from other cultures... do an image count of chariot illustrations vs. footsoldier illustrations...

But as I seem to end every one of these posts...

it was the Bronze Age, and no one really knows.

[nikgaukroger]

Wholly agree on the drilled bit - there were many cultures throughout the bronze age(s) whose troops qualify as drilled under FoG.

[Unclemeat]

I think there is general agreement that most early armies had a small core of year round soldiers vs. season or for the campaign soldiers. Even in Egypt which had the largest number of what we would consider regular troops, only a few were under arms all year round as a garrison. The rest were involved in building projects, irrigation, and guarding slaves doing the same. Charioteers were drilled, and the host of men required for their upkeep would have been regulars too (horse trainers, chariot makers, arrow makers, bow makers, etc), although not necessarily. A recent show on the military channel showed about 4-5 Englishmen who went to southeastern Turkey and with a few ponies and a small firm that bends wicker furniture, they made a chariot and in a few weeks trained the horses to run in tandem. Although they were guessing as to horse furniture, they showed how accurate chariot archery was. If some local village furniture guys could make a chariot from a pattern, maybe the pharoah just sent an order out to the same guys of his hundreds of villages for parts and they were just assembled at the border fortress under professional supervision.

Bob

[Kineas1]

Saw the show--and thought that it was excellent, and a grand use of what reenactors CAN bring to history. I, too, seek to build a chariot...

I have to say that you made a lot of statements there, and as far as I know about Mycenaean Greece, none of them could be verified or disproven. HOW do we know that soldiers were part time?

And what exactly is part time? The British Army of 1777 was arguably the best in the world (they certainly won a great deal) but they were "part time soldiers" in that from October to April they did neither drill nor any military duty, and lived in groups as small as five-ten (JA Houldings Fit For Service). Vikings were part time soldiers... Saxon raiders... most Byzantine armies...

Chris

[Kineas1]

The other thing that makes me wonder about drilled and part time is the societal constraints on warriors. I run a reenactment group with 50+ members. We drill once a month, and more often in "the season." I know that I can turn a guy off the street into a passable soldier in about 4 hours. It takes three years to make him expert--the kind of soldier who can live out of his pack, move fast, fire six rounds a minute, fire live, all the millions of skills required to make him finction in an 18th century enviroment--but it takes about 4 hours to make him passable at drill.
Further to that, I also ran a drill team in the US military for 6 months. Perfection takes hundreds of hours of practice--like ballet, or fencing--but LEARNING the drill manual and the signals and orders associated takes--about four hours.
My point is that the line between "drilled" and "undrilled" is probably finer than many of us realize. It's just not that hard to march in step--but neither is it that magical...
And finally--what about Greek Hoplites? or Hippeis? The Spartans drilled all the time, and they were MARGINALLY better than the Athenians who drilled occaisionally--and not as good in the end as the Thebans. Or the cavalry--upper class merchants, who drilled for religious festivals and the like--parade guys. In both cases, campaign would quickly harden them up to professional quality--so if you caught an Athenian army early in the year, they might not be that good, but by the end fo the fighting season, they were quite formidable...

(shrug) who knows?

[Kineas1]

The other thing that makes me wonder about drilled and part time is the societal constraints on warriors. I run a reenactment group with 50+ members. We drill once a month, and more often in "the season." I know that I can turn a guy off the street into a passable soldier in about 4 hours. It takes three years to make him expert--the kind of soldier who can live out of his pack, move fast, fire six rounds a minute, fire live, all the millions of skills required to make him function in an 18th century environment--but it takes about 4 hours to make him passable at drill.
Further to that, I also ran a drill team in the US military for 6 months. Perfection takes hundreds of hours of practice--like ballet, or fencing--but LEARNING the drill manual and the signals and orders associated takes--about four hours.
My point is that the line between "drilled" and "undrilled" is probably finer than many of us realize. It's just not that hard to march in step--but neither is it that magical...
And finally--what about Greek Hoplites? or Hippeis? The Spartans drilled all the time, and they were MARGINALLY better than the Athenians who drilled occasionally--and not as good in the end as the Thebans. Or the cavalry--upper class merchants, who drilled for religious festivals and the like--parade guys. In both cases, campaign would quickly harden them up to professional quality--so if you caught an Athenian army early in the year, they might not be that good, but by the end fo the fighting season, they were quite formidable...

(shrug) who knows?

[carlos]

Yes, but would reenactors be able to perform complex manoeuvres under fire and fear?

[Niceas]

Well, there's training and then there's training. Sort of like how the Mid-Republican Roman list counts the Hastati and Principes as 'swordsmen'--the 'skilled swordsmen POA not coming into play until the Late Republican Army--after Marius' reforms and his getting some gladiators to teach them which end of the sword they were supposed to use.

But its a very good point on the accumulation of experience over time. Practice does make perfect, as the saying goes.

I think the real problem in terms of classing somebody as drilled or undrilled is in their battlefield behavior--that is, what did they do during battles. Did they maneuver in any meaningful fashion, or was it just "Scrag 'em, boys!"

Obviously we have more in the way of sources for Rome than Myceanae, and there's the rub.

[Niceas]

Yes, but would reenactors be able to perform complex manoeuvres under fire and fear?

That is the point of drill. And define "complex".

[Kineas1]

You do drill so that when you are terrified and want to puke, you can still perform. As I said--same for ballerinas and fencers...

And in general, I'd say (as a combat veteran) that reenactors of the better sort are probably better trained than most soldiers before 1900. But that's like a pie in the face of military history, so I'll just duck, now...

[Niceas]

But that's like a pie in the face of military history, so I'll just duck, now...

Incendiary today, aren't you?

I'm off to read your book now.