archaeogeek
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And yet they never lost against a single phalanx using power; there's a point where "this one was incompetent, this one too, this one doesn't count" starts being wishful thinking.
The Best Armies that never Fought with Each Other
- Thread starter Rex Romanum
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And yet they never lost against a single phalanx using power; there's a point where "this one was incompetent, this one too, this one doesn't count" starts being wishful thinking.
That sword cuts both ways though. If you can't compare a Diadoch phalanx with an Alexadrian one then you can't compare pre-marian legions with Caesar's.
Alexander's phalanx served the function of pinning the enemy in place until his heavy cavalry could strike the killing blow. Given the Roman's far greater tactical flexibility and their proven record of outmanoeuvring phalanxes this seems unlikely to happen.
Again, this cuts both ways, but far worse for Alexander. The Romans may have never faced a "true" Macedonian phalanx, but they did have experience against other phalanx formations. What could possibly prepare Alexander for facing Caesar's legions?
Alexander's heavy cavalry is pretty much all he has going for him. It'll make things interesting, but the Romans have cavalry of their own, and Caesar himself proved capable enough at dealing with a disadvantage in cavalry. If Alexander tries to use his cavalry in the same manner as he did against the Persians he will most likely die.
I respectfully disagree.
As a final point, bear in mind that one of these commanders knows a great deal more about his opponent than the other one, by simple virtue of living 300 years later. Caesar has a huge advantage even if you don't believe him to have a far superior army.
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The thing is, we do have at list a hint of how Continental armies compared to the US. General Sheridan was a military observer with both France and Prussia during the Franco-Prussian war. His observations were basically, that while the European armies were very brave and had solid young officers, they were very inexperienced and over-eager. In fact he stated in a letter to President Grant:
"-have seen much of great interest, and especially have been able to observe the difference between European battles and those of our own country. There is nothing to be learned here professionally, and it is a satisfaction to learn that such is the case. There is much, however, which Europeans could learn from us - the use of rifle pits, the use of cavalry, which they do not use well; for instance, there is a line of communication from here to Germany exposed to the whole south of Franc, with scarcely a soldier on the whole line, and it has never been touched. There are a hundred things in which they are behind us. The staff departments are very poorly organized, the quartermaster's department very wretched, ect."
And it is important to note that both France and Prussia were regarded as two of the best armies in Europe at the time.
Not really. I mean, here in the US, we're always told about how great the British Army was and that they were the best troops in the world, but the fact is, that Britain was not really a significant land power to begin with. And when compared to the other Continental armies, they were not very well equipped or supplied, and the men were very much the flotsom of the earth. Just look at the Crimean War for the contrast between the British and the French.
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-Boers against CSA army
-Frankish army of Charlemagne against Byzantine Army of Basile II
-Frankish army of Charlemagne against Byzantine Army of Basile II
Not to mention combining the generals together. Almost makes me jizz
Yet, everyone on the Forum seems to hate Conroy's 1865, besides the bad AH part.
I demand to see Vikings fight the Romans.
Also, Crusaders v. some Han Army would be cool. Not as ridu-cool as Chinese Crusaders...
The Prussians. In 1866 they defeated Austria in 6 weeks. In 1870 they defeated France fairly easily. These were the two great land powers of their time.
I take your point about a battle hardened Union army being good but not good enough against the Prussians
As Alamo said, you can't just ignore the eyewitnesses who were there and had experience in such matters. The Prussians may have had their beloved needle gun, but it had shorter range than muzzle-loaders, and in any case the Union had many repeating rifles of their own. And the one thing you can't possibly ignore is the supremacy of Yankee artillery. It's probably the main reason for every Union victory on the battlefield. Their guns were quite modern, with many breach-loading rifled pieces, and the crews were top-notch. The Prussians had nothing that could compare to them, and in wars of that period, artillery was the main killer.
I have to concede on the artillery because I'm not an expert on 1865 breech load/muzzle loading specs.
The facts are that it took the Union Army 4 years to defeat an enemy it heavily outnumbered and outgunned with only a minimal heavy industrial capacity.
Prussia 1865/66 was comparable in population to the US and had a LARGE DISCIPLINED army. This army defeated two MAJOR powers in the space of weeks to months.
Then there's discipline!!
As far as superior artillery is concerned I don't think the Vietnamese had superior artillery to the Americans in the late 1960's.
The Union took so long to win partially because Confederate generals were often quite smart, and partially because the typical Southern soldier, if not very well disciplined at all, was quite the tenacious fighter. Take Pickett's Charge, for example. An obviously stupid plan, but they did it anyways because they had guts. Hell, the Union soldiers did things just as stupid on a routine basis! Discipline can help you fight, but when panic sets in, it can just as easily disappear.
Anyhow, again, you can't forget the testimony of General Sheridan. The Prussians may have been disciplined, but they obviously weren't very flexible. A large and direct attack en masse to close in with the needle guns and destroy to enemy through shock value might have worked there, but as seen time and time again on American battlefields it never worked against entrenched infantry with heavy artillery support. Just look at what happened at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Petersburg, Cold Harbor, etc. Discipline tends to shatter when whole lines are disappearing from the rain of exploding shells. The diaries of Civil War veterans attest to this.
And your Vietnam is example is way off, in every way. I was talking about the superiority of artillery in the 19th century. Vietnam was in the 20th. In any case, that is still the case, the Vietnamese won on the strategic, not the tactical, battlefield through attrition. In the battles between the NVA and the USA, however, the USA typically won using superior firepower to back up the troops, from airplane strikes to, you guessed it, heavy artillery.
Man this is strange, on the rare occasions I am talking about the Civil War, I usually end up denigrating the Union, and when I talk about Vietnam, I usually talk about how good the North was. Odd I should be doing the opposite of both in the same post.
It's called trying to be balanced. It's a difficult skill and most people can't do it. That's what you just succeeded in doing.
They lost quite a few battles against Pyrrhus, who incidentally had the type of phalanx army (with heavy cavalry) that mostly resembled Alexander's.
Strange thing, the Prussians, despite their image of "I HAVE ZE VAXED UND POINTY MOUSTACHE UND ZE ZPIKED HELMET! ATTENTION! ACHTUNG, SCHWEINEHUNDE" and Iron Discipline, actually were very flexible in their tactics. They didn't form into long lines and bayonet charge en masse; they attacked in relatively small schwarms (20 man units), using many of those interesting German terms that keep cropping up later: Auftragstaktik, "mission based tactics", for example. Officers were trained to use their own initiative wherever possible (and often did, attacking from several directions at once.) They were issued with maps. And their soldiers were literate, numerate men, who could thus be shown tactical exercises, drawings, models and so on, and they practiced constantly. Hresvelgr, if any army in the world at this time isn't going to blindly goose step in close order towards volleys of bullets and shells, it's the Prussian army. If you want to trust foreign generals about the Prussians, how about trusting French observers at the Austrio-Prussian war, who, although they were impressed by Prussian agility, actually thought that their offensive tactics caused fragmentation as units broke off from line and column on their own initiative. (A foolish misinterpretation.)
The trouble in the Franco Prussian war was the the French usually fought entrenched on the defensive (at least, to begin with- once Paris was besieged, the situation was very different), and the Prussians thus had to attack their positions through a hail of chassepot fire. But here, the Union does not have the same level of French small arms superiority; most of its troops will have muzzle loading rifles (give or take a few repeaters and possibly a handful of maxims), which means the Prussians will be able to use their infantry tactics to a greater effect.
This isn't the army of Frederick the Great, or even of Ligny. This is the army which, using the breech loading rifle and small unit tactics, inflicted 5 to 1 kill ratios on Austrian infantry (with muzzle loaders, advancing in column, but making far better use of their artillery, which was mostly superior to that of the Prussians.) I would also point out that the muzzle loaders didn't to stop the Prussians at Konnigratz, for all their marginal range advantages.
It definitely isn't going to be all for the Prussians, though. At this point (1865?), Prussian cavalry was still "a thoroughly useless ballast on the army" as Moltke put it, which preferred shock charges to proper scouting. (In stark contrast to its superior performance in the Franco Prussian War, where it was actually mostly used for scouting-and did well in that role.) They also lack some of the Union's innovations (such as balloons, maxim guns, and a large navy, if that's going to be worth anything in this campaign-where is it being fought, coincidentally? It it's just "Prussia vs the USA", then neither side is going to be able to actually fight each other.)
I don't know enough about the Union army to be certain, but I'd put the advantage somewhat towards the Prussians, especially if they fight somewhere with railways, and their staff get time to draw up an enormous war plan.
The trouble in the Franco Prussian war was the the French usually fought entrenched on the defensive (at least, to begin with- once Paris was besieged, the situation was very different), and the Prussians thus had to attack their positions through a hail of chassepot fire. But here, the Union does not have the same level of French small arms superiority; most of its troops will have muzzle loading rifles (give or take a few repeaters and possibly a handful of maxims), which means the Prussians will be able to use their infantry tactics to a greater effect.
This isn't the army of Frederick the Great, or even of Ligny. This is the army which, using the breech loading rifle and small unit tactics, inflicted 5 to 1 kill ratios on Austrian infantry (with muzzle loaders, advancing in column, but making far better use of their artillery, which was mostly superior to that of the Prussians.) I would also point out that the muzzle loaders didn't to stop the Prussians at Konnigratz, for all their marginal range advantages.
It definitely isn't going to be all for the Prussians, though. At this point (1865?), Prussian cavalry was still "a thoroughly useless ballast on the army" as Moltke put it, which preferred shock charges to proper scouting. (In stark contrast to its superior performance in the Franco Prussian War, where it was actually mostly used for scouting-and did well in that role.) They also lack some of the Union's innovations (such as balloons, maxim guns, and a large navy, if that's going to be worth anything in this campaign-where is it being fought, coincidentally? It it's just "Prussia vs the USA", then neither side is going to be able to actually fight each other.)
I don't know enough about the Union army to be certain, but I'd put the advantage somewhat towards the Prussians, especially if they fight somewhere with railways, and their staff get time to draw up an enormous war plan.
Rubicon
Banned
Yes IIRC the Romans lost five battles against Pyrrhus, but they won the war in the end, and its not called Pyrrhian victory for nothing. Pyrrhus fought against pre-marian legionairs, hell he fought against pre-polybian legionaires.
Comparing Caesars veteran and professional legionaires with the legionaires facing Pyrrhus is like comparing a US marine from World War 1 with a present day US marine. Sure they're hard fighting soldiers, but the training, doctrine and equipment is so completely different that it's not even funny.
Caesar would bitchslap Alexander due to the evolvment of training, doctrine and equipment. If Caesar was better general I leave to another discussion.
I was under the impression that Krupps new steel breachloaders were the best field artillery in the world during this period? They certainly did horrible things to the French Army in 1870/71 and made up for the fact the Dreyse was inferior to the Chassepot.
Rubicon wrote:
It's paradoxical but true that the original Pyrrhic victories weren't Pyrrhic at all: the Romans suffered much heavier losses than Pyrrhus, but they could afford them and he couldn't.
It's paradoxical but true that the original Pyrrhic victories weren't Pyrrhic at all: the Romans suffered much heavier losses than Pyrrhus, but they could afford them and he couldn't.
The Krupps came in after 1865. Prussian artillery in the 1866 war was pretty poor. No, what he seems to be forgetting is the excellent Prussian infantry. They will lack some "shiny" US innovations (e.g. repeaters, sniper rifles), but make up for it with better tactics, intelligence, and massed breech loaders.