Slitherine

and Sui since they are so close

These are my general ideas on what the T'ang are like. Are there any preliminary lists or ideas on what they will be like?

I think the Sui cavalry should be drilled, armoured possibly heavily armoured, superior, lance/sword
the T'ang... drilled, armoured, superior, and then what? I can easily see bow*/lance/sword for the best of them or bow/sword for many of them
the average cavalry Sui perhaps lance/sword or lt spear/sword if they are bad lancers or just sword. As the Sui and T'ang are rich the cavalry should be armoured or at worse protected.

Light Horse. The depictions of T'ang light horse are mostly (entirely?) parade. They might be armoured under their tunics as was common in the early period and so they could be instead Cav drilled, protected, average, bow/sword or LH drilled, unprotected/protected, bow depending on what you think they are.

The infantry are all over the place from good quality armoured foot to poor mob. Even early during Li Shimin's invasion of Korea the infantry, using mass conscription, varied greatly. However usually in the early T'ang the infantry (and cavalry) would be well equipped and trained. After the An Lu-shan rebellion in 755 AD the army drops in quality. That's not to say there weren't plenty of good troops, but discipline declined.

There is a problem with chinese troops in general under FoG. The trained infantry usually fight in a 5 rank deep formation which would be a single file under FoG if I understand it correctly. The cavalry are similar.

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zonk

zonk wrote:
There is a problem with chinese troops in general under FoG. The trained infantry usually fight in a 5 rank deep formation which would be a single file under FoG if I understand it correctly. The cavalry are similar.

--
zonk

No problem, just assume one base represents 2 and a half ranks.

Or that BGs represent different lines acting in close co-operation like the Roman Hastati and Pricipes.

zonk wrote: There is a problem with chinese troops in general under FoG. The trained infantry usually fight in a 5 rank deep formation which would be a single file under FoG if I understand it correctly. The cavalry are similar.

On of the advantages of a less than rigid scale is that you can bend the definitions to make things work. While the troops scales might say 3-5 ranks per base there really is nothing stopping a 5 rank formation being represented by two ranks of bases if it produces the right effect.

Cavalry (or at least non lancer cavalry) work very well in single rank as they can evade and it is highly likely that the lighter T'ang and Sui mouted will have the option to be cavalry as a result.

zonk wrote:and Sui since they are so close

Well, maybe. The Tang armies are quite complex. I studied them closely about 10 years ago, but would need to revisit my books and notes to really feel confident. These are just inital responses...

My initial impression is that the Sui cavalry were lance focused, but the Tang gradually adopted the Turkish bow/lance style of warfare (which would make the bow armoured cavalry under FoG)

zonk wrote: I think the Sui cavalry should be drilled, armoured possibly heavily armoured, superior, lance/sword

Yes, agreed.

zonk wrote:the T'ang... drilled, armoured, superior, and then what? I can easily see bow*/lance/sword for the best of them or bow/sword for many of them
the average cavalry Sui perhaps lance/sword or lt spear/sword if they are bad lancers or just sword. As the Sui and T'ang are rich the cavalry should be armoured or at worse protected.

Initially the Tang could be lance sword, but would become bow/sword. Armoured, drilled and either average or superior.

zonk wrote:Light Horse. The depictions of T'ang light horse are mostly (entirely?) parade. They might be armoured under their tunics as was common in the early period and so they could be instead Cav drilled, protected, average, bow/sword or LH drilled, unprotected/protected, bow depending on what you think they are.

My impression is that the light horse would be drilled LH bow unprotected. No sword.

However, there would be a lot of variety in mounted troops types available as they made use of mercenaries and frontier troops. So other cominations would be available - e.g. turkish bow/sword LH or cav; possible lancer types.

zonk wrote:The infantry are all over the place from good quality armoured foot to poor mob. Even early during Li Shimin's invasion of Korea the infantry, using mass conscription, varied greatly. However usually in the early T'ang the infantry (and cavalry) would be well equipped and trained. After the An Lu-shan rebellion in 755 AD the army drops in quality. That's not to say there weren't plenty of good troops, but discipline declined.
zonk

Agreed, the infantry are quite complex to sort out. Defensive spear and missile armed troops would be my immediate reaction, with a variety of mercebary and frontier troops and guard units to add variety.

While there may be a core of drilled troops, massive numbers of levies were sent to Korea to fight the Koguryo but were wiped out by the Koreans. A nice mural of the victory is displayed in Seoul at the War Memorial Museum. This was only one battle of many in with the professional soldier of the Korean class system defeated the Sui/Tang.

So the required list may need to contain both drilled and Undrilled troops among the battle groups.

I was referring to the Korean victory at the Salsu River in 612Ad. Of a 300,000 man Sui force, only 3,000 are reported to have returend to the main Sui force.

Another Korean victory would have been the 60 day seige at An-shih fortress in 645AD. The Tang assaulted the walls every day but failed to defeat the defenders.