Drilled troops manoeuvring

[clivevaughan]

Something Richard said at the weekend about how we perhaps overate drilled troops' manoeuverability when in reality they didn't do all that much, set me thinking about what drilled troops were capable of historically.
Two particular manoeuvres spring to mind:
1. Both Macedonian/Successor phalangites and Roman legionnaries could form lanes in their ranks to let elephants or scythed chariots through. Presumably there was a time when they couldn't (Romans vs Pyrrus?) and painful lessons were learned, but if Romans and Macedonians could perform such maneouvres than I guess other drilled troops could have learned if they had to face elephant/scythed chariot enemies. Should this be an option in the rules that on passing a CMT drilled foot can let elephant/scythed chariots through to be deal with by light troops?
2. Romans could exchange a battered front rank with fresh troops - is this skill reflected in the rules? I know it would make legionnaries even more like uber-troops but such exchanging was something that they did do (although how well in practice and how often is perhaps another matter).

[shall]

On (1) I like the idea but I am not sure the specific complexity is worth it for the number of occasions it arises. But well worth an think and we'll add it to our list.

On (2) we used to have this in the rules but in fact a BG represents several maniples who would be busy doing this in the detail below the level at which you are commanding. Again it felt a really nice touch in tipping a forelock to history, but we didn't find it added much tot he game for the effort. We have taken w viwe to include only those things that are materialin effect.

Si

[nikgaukroger]

I am rather of the opinion that this opening lanes is a bit of a wargamers myth.

It is based on, IIRC, 2 examples which are then blown up into "typical behaviour".

First there is Gaugamela where Persian chariots are first fought by Makedonian light infantry who rough them up, they then refuse to charge the formed phalanx and then pass through the gaps betwen phalanx units and then do nothing lese in the battle.

Second there is Zama where Scipio draws up his lehiones with the maniples behind each other rather than in the usual quincunx (sp?) form. Velites out front as per usual and also filling the gaps. Hannibals elephants are fought by the velites and disrupted by noise from trumpets, etc. Some veer off and disrupt their own cavalry whilst others run down the gaps between the maniples, still fighting the velites and out the back to be rendered useless. The velites take heavy casualties from the fight.

So in both cases the chariots and elephants fight light troops before disappearing down gaps. I would think that abstracting this into the combat is reasonable.

Note that Sulla's legiones countered Pontic chariots with stakes.