Ranged Weapons - Part 1: SkirmishingWe're now ready to consider the use of ranged weapons - javelins, slings, bows or arbalests. They have in common that they allow to engage enemy units at distances greater than hadn-to-hand combat, and that may mean if the other unit has no ranged weapons that an attack can go unpunished because the opponent cannot strike back.Typically units doing ranged combat have been relatively light to keep them mobile (and possibly cheap), but there's no particular reason this must be so - it seems quite possible to wear heavy armor and still operate a crossbow for instance. Generally the presence of ranged weapons makes a battlefield quite a bit more complex with new possibilities for tactics and counter-tactics, and we will look at some of the uses for ranged combat in the following.
The PeltastWe've talked before about the use of light infantry to screen the flanks of a heavy main battle line, and that these light units should not engage in full combat with heavy infantry but rather keep them occupied. If the light infantry is equipped with ranged weapons though, the whole idea of skirmishing can be taken to a wholly new level.Peltasts have historically been such a type of light infantry, armed with several javelins and equpiied with a light shield. When compared with the hoplites that made up the phalanx, a peltast doesn't seem to amount to much - and yet, in the Battle of Lechaeum, a force of peltasts defeated 600 Spartan hoplites. The scenario example05.cfg is somewhat inspired by this event. If you load it, you see a line of Spartan hoplites facing another line of Athenian peltasts:
For ranged weapons, we're going to need (much) larger battlefields, so this is a good time to learn about a few new commands that manage the display. With crop <xlow> <xhigh> <ylow> <yhigh> you can select which part of the battlefield to display. Here the numbers are the fractions from the left and upper edge of the currently displayed field, so crop 0.25 0.75 0.25 0.75 selects the center portion of the battlefield. Using zoom <scale> you can magnify or shrink the resolution - the scale here is the size of a single cell, so when you select a smaller number like 5 m here, you need a large screen or crop to a small area. Initially not all of the Spartan units are shown because they overlap at a resolution of 15 m per grid cell, but if you crop and zoom in you can resolve the line. Once you're done, you can reset the display to the initial resolution and crop via zoom out So, what can the peltasts do? If you fight the scenario 'as is', they can (and will) outflank the Spartan units and try to attack their line from behing. Alas, it is to no avail - the hoplites have better weapons and armour and will still win most of the time, the Peltasts can achieve a victory just about 15% of the time.
Ranged weaponsWell, we haven't used those javelins yet, so it's a good time to learn how to do that. Let's look at the definition of the unit first:
In addition to the attack value, the peltast also has a ranged_attack and ranged_damage value that tell the simulation how well the unit handles the weapon and how dangerous it is. In addition we need to provide with num_shots the number of projectiles a peltast carries while shots_per_min indicates how fast they can be fired. range is the maximum range a projectile can achieve and projectile_type specifies what actually flies - this is used for the drag model to estimate how much energy a projectile loses across the range. To make a peltast fire, we can add to the unit declaration - or better to the formation declaration - the orders
That should be fairly self-explanatory and instructs all peltasts to start throwing their weapon when they reach less 30 m distance to the enemy - which incidentially is the weapons range. If you now re-run the simulation, you'll get reports about ranged attacks before the lines meet - the peltasts are showering the Spartans with their javelins right before the two lines crash - and the victory probability is now with 62% decidedly on the side of Athens. There are two factors at play here - first, the rain of projectiles does actual damage to the phalanx, but it also disrupts their ability to properly fight for a period of time, so an attack right after throwing javelins faces somewhat less stiff resistance.
Hit and run tacticsNow, the current orders tell peltasts to throw their javelins just before they engage in close combat. Some won't really exhaut their supply of javelins that way, after all the two lines are moving together - and the hoplites could also go faster. Can we make sure that all javelins are thrown before peltasts engage?Yes - by commanding a hit and run pattern.
There's now two more distances - the closer one defines when the unit starts to turn away from the enemy. This isn't the distance of closest approach (otherwise javelins with 30 m range would be useless) - dependent on how fast the unit can turn around and how fast it is moving (and how fast the opponent is moving) it can actually get closer. It's one of the parameters that are best tuned in a one on one setup. The distance to engage then tells how far from the enemy the unit tries to separate before it turns back for another volley of javelins. Since the default order when running out of ammunition is to engage the enemy in close combat, we do not need to make sure the peltasts attack after all missiles have been thrown. Finally, the parameter speed defines how quickly the unit should move when executing the pattern. If you run the scenario, you can observe peltasts approaching, throwing and then retreating. Some may be caught in close combat in the fray, but by and large the phalanx is now repeatedly showered with javelins. Running it though, it hardly changes the odds.
What is wrong? Looking at a few simulations in interactive mode, you might see that some peltasts are already engaged and being chopped to bits while others retreat to turn back for another volley - perhaps it takes to long to go around and support the units in close combat? Changing the distance to disengage to 45 m indeed does the trick - now Athens can win over 72% of encounters. There's one last improvement we could make - if units get caught in close combat in the initial approach, their javelins go wasted. If they had a chance to separate, they could still use them. So try to command the peltasts to skirmish instead of just attack - that gives them the chance to separate and throw. And suddenly peltasts win a whopping 85% of battles by a consequent hit and run tactics, denying the phalanx consequently the solid engagement in close combat in which it would excel. The hoplites in the phalanx could try to move faster, but then so could the peltasts, and since they carry lighter equipment, they're always going to be faster. There is practically nothing the hoplites can really do against this kind of attack - and this gets even more true when we imagine using skirmishers which are much more mobile, have greater range and more deadly weapons - like mounted archers. So the lesson here is that heavy infantry must be supported by other types of units if it is not to be anihilated in this way. Continue with Ranged Weapons Part 2: Softening a line. Back to main index Back to science Back to historical battle simulation Created by Thorsten Renk 2022 - see the disclaimer, privacy statement and contact information. |
