h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No worries. I'm a bit sad in that I'm facinated by ancient history and if there's any new (to me) information it's always nice to check it out.
However if you think I can be of any use, just ask.

Ive made the change about the city state. Changed it to just being a state to the north of Greece.

Its finished, although i might be getting some more info on legion vs phalanx warfare which may need to be added

Nope didnt get anything relevant that needed adding.

*Assumes that this is the only reason that his entery has been sat here for many months while other enteries have been picked, subbed, and whacked on the front page*

*Dances*

Why do i dance? Cause no bugger is watching me

I'm sorry you never found any of the information usefull. Ho hum. However there are still a few points about the essay I don't agree with.

1. The phalanx was still the favoured millitary formation after 400BC.
It wasn't untill about 220-190BC that the Legion assumed dominance. See Polybius.

2. It's debatable that Alexander III extended his realm to the border of India. Alexander never really had a realm. Certainly not that far east. His army swept through all of Persia and into India and won battles. But he never created anything, a realm or otherwise. When he left with his army things went back to how they were before he arrived. See Quintus Curtis Rufus.

3. The essay gets erratic at the end, it jumps from Alexander III to Hannibal back to Phillip II. And you headed the paragraph talking about the Carthagians as "Post Macedonian Phalanges". When there was nothing 'Post' about it. The Macedonians were still in charge of Greece even after the end of the 2nd Punic war. And they were still using the phalanx. See Polybius.

4. In the 2nd last paragraph you missed Polybius, and hence Scipios (who subdued both the Carthage and Macedonia) point. In that it was the Roman ability to choose the battlefield that saw the downfall of the phalanx. See Polybius.

1. I tend to disagree. With Phillip, he had shown the world how to crack the unbreakable phallanx, and Alexander proved the method worked. The phallanx simply wouldnt have the dominance it once had. With people copying Alexanders methods (as always happens in warfare - see sparta and rome), armies tended to use more and more archers due to the simple fact that they could actually now stand a chance of killing people instead of bouncing off bronze armour (see macedonnain phallanx description and greek phallanx description).
It wasnt dominant, it was now just a formation used because no one had the innitiative (and courage) to try a new one. The Romans did that, although slowly (as you said with Polybius).

2. By the same definition, Genghis Khan never had an empire.. And if i remember rightly he conquered pretty much all of China and as far as Turkey (my knowledge is sketchy at best here) yet being mongolian and specialising in moving warfare, he never built anything permenant.
Yet i wouldnt question that Genghis was a fantastic general much like Alexander (also favoured light cavalry), who did a lot of conquering. There was just no reason to stop and build when the armies they had were too big to do that, and it was possible for the most part to live off the land. See Sun Tzu for more on that.

3. I disagree with you hear also. Whilst Macedonia may have indeed controlled Greece, it simply wasnt the super power it once was. Once again it can be compared to the mongolian empire upon Gengis' death, when a succesion or rulers took over and made little differance (e.g. his son Ogodei, who pushed the army to Vienna, then forced a retreat through his own death, and Mongke who died in battle later on). Macedonia brought the evolution of the phalanx to its peak. Armies before this period had been phalanx only afairs, with only minimal other elements (Egyptians chariots, greek slingers/archers) that had little impact.

4. I totally have to disagree. Terrain can only grant so much of an advantage, and it is folly to believe that the phalanx met its downfall through a lot of poor tactics.
At the end of it all, when all is said and done, on flat ground, equal numbers, the phalanx was just too bulky. Given suficient space, an enemy formation such as the legion could quickly encircle the phallanx, especially a macedonnian one, which relied on moving forward and not side to side. Only the Spartan phalanx had any speed to it in turning, and the spartans were trained from birth. There speed and manuvereability is the reason why Phillip and Alexander's light cavalry regiments proved to be so decisive.


I hope thats cleared everything up.

Yeah that's cleared everthing up.

In point three you say that the Macedonians brought the Phalanx to it's peak. Yet in point one it's a tired old formation lacking innitiative. Also Phillip crushed the Greek Phalanx with the Macedon Phalanx! Tell me where did you dig up the interesting revelations about the more and more archers? I appreciate Alexanders use of calvary was startling and brilliant. But if you review all his major battles you'll see the influence Parmenio and the Phalanx had. His calvary Coup de Grace would never have occurred without it doing the hard work! And I never questioned Alexanders generalship. I questioned your use of the term realm. Why you've repeatedly brought Gengis Khan into this I don't know. Compare like for like. Roman, Ptolomeic Egyptian, Sueliccid etc,etc...
Macedonia wasn't the superpower it once was? Macedonia was as strong then as when Phillip II died. Again what's the relevance to the Great Khan and his successors?
As for the last point. Who better to tell how (as you put it) the pinicle of art of phalanx warfare met it's match than the biographer of the man who subdued it. Obviously however your sources know better.

I would like to know where you getting your information from. I think some of it at best misguided.

PS I have a copy of The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I've read it, it's very good.

I enjoy our discusions, despite your mistakes! However I'll be away the weekend so that'll give you extra time to prepare. See you Tuesday.

"In point three you say that the Macedonians brought the Phalanx to it's peak. Yet in point one it's a tired old formation lacking innitiative."
you misunderstand. The macedonians brought the phalanx to its keep, thats a given, but they stopped adapting it after that. The macedonian phalanx, whilst being the best, was also pretty much the last. The other units (as you mentioned to me) were in addition to, rather then forming the main body. Like in greece with the standard phallanx, it is likely that given time, most nations would have adapted there forces to be similar to that of Macedonia (from your basic phalangite to your light cavalry)

The archers? I seem to remember a line or two of text about the phalangites wearing no armour (bits and bobs, but nothing substantial). It makes sense tactically therefore, to employ more archers against the Macedonian phallanx. Although light cavalry might have run them down, any general worth his salt would of hired a few more archers.

The macedonian phallanx was great at keeping the enemy away from you. Man to man a normal greek phalangite would be hard pressed to get to the macedonian phalangite, but the greek prefered armour. This meant that whilst the normal greek phallanx could act independantly and stoicly (steady advance, bit of a push, everyone goes home) the macedonian phallanx needed to smash in the front and move quickly to be sure of doing damage, with the cavalry sweeping in to add weight of numbers. Like the article says phallanx warfare wasnt that bloody, only about 5% of the people that walked onto the field would die now if you do the maths, two phallanges smash into each other, each 50 strong, and only 5 die over the course of a battle? Now do the same thing again, but have the stoic formation broken up by cavalry sweeping.

"I questioned your use of the term realm. Why you've repeatedly brought Gengis Khan into this I don't know"
You said that - It's debatable that Alexander III extended his realm to the border of India - by realm i assume you meant any form of empire. You said that its debateable because alexander didnt build anything. Neither did Mr. Khan... (did quite the opposite really). What im saying is that whilst the romans actively built when they expanded, others didnt see it as a necessity. In the case of Gengis once they surrendered he taxed them and moved on to the next place. Not to sure exactly how alexander went about it, but i should imagine he too would have taken the Sun Tzu road and lived off the land.

The relevance is that in Phillips reign, and Alexanders, the realm expanded enourmously. Then it stopped. I was using the example of Gengis Khan again because it fitted so nicely. The expansion stopped on his death really (same with Alexander) and then didnt increase from there. There was plenty of land to be conquered, just no will to do it.


I would gladly give you a full list of the many many links, but ive got that much stuff on it i dont think id have the patience (all printed off).

I read the Art Of War about a year ago, and another translation a few times before that. At the moment im trying to get through the book of five rings.


I look forward to your return

O Danny boy where are we going with this thread.

Were digressing onto all sorts thats what were doing.

"What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?"

Ok then.

I'm gonna take us back a bit. To the origional 4 points I made.

(1) Phillip and Alexander still favoured the phalanx. Phillip and Parmenio showed how it could be used to maximum advantage. The Macedonians kept on using it right up untill Alexander V. It was used by Hanible in the 2nd Punic war. When the Seleucids and the Ptolomies fought both favoured it. In fact the Seleucids never modernised their army untill Antiochus IV in 169BC.

What I'm trying to say is all your arguments about the phalanx and it's flaws, Alexanders calvary, Archers, etc are correct. However your statement about 400BC is incorrect. Fact, it was still the formation of choice untill the Romans showed theirs to be better.

Sorted. I hope so but fear not...

(2) Alexander and Ghengis are not a good comparison. In motive and execution there campains were completly different. Their similarities are size and success. Alexander never lived off the land. His tastes were refined and usualy catered for by local dignitries. The thing about India is Alexander went there, won some battles and left. Literaly within weeks of his leaving it was as if he hadn't been there. The same charge can't be levied at Ghengis. Some historians feel Persia still hasn't recovered!
I don't feel realm is the correct word. Pedantic, yes. Correct, debatable?

(3) Your essay doesn't read right, it jumps about at the end.

It just does.

As for the last one.

(4) It's easy to look at older forms of warfare and discuss their pros and cons, pick apart their flaws and weaknessess. However this is the 21st century. We have access to computers with vast amounts of data. Authors, experts and proffessors have written reams of papers and books on the subject. Hell if we really wanted to we could recreate the battles on some dodgey BBC 2 programme (actually I quite enjoyed that). But thats not the same as what actually happened.

H'mm I appear to have gone off track. Apologies. My rant also appears to have gotten soppy...

Anyway I feel it's better to look at what actually happened through the accounts of people who were there. In this case Polybius. Yes the phalanx was inflexable. and this was is downfall. But it was this infexability that gave the Romans the ability to choose the battlefield. Which in turn gave them their victories. I can site actual accounts of this against differing opposition. Therefore I believe it to be true.

Forgot to use harsh language. Nevermind.

It might be worth pointing out I like the essay. These are minor points.

PS Marol Mannan, whats that all about by the way...

Cheeky

Ma'rol Mannans a charecter i created for an on site RPG gamee - where'd you find that?

1) Not like the Greeks or the Spartans. Even though the main formation, it didnt appear in the same ratio as it had done before. Other elements were brought in, where as before it was usually lots of phalanges and a couple of auxillary units running about. Thats why every single spartan homoioi was trained to be a hoplite and nothing more. Archery, horse riding, and other such mucking about was left to the slave classes.
This pretty much meant that no one used cavalry at the time, and if they did it was either in small amounts or as transport for runners. Alexander and Phillip, whilst still using the phalanx as a principle unit, didnt favor it to the same extent and used other units as well. It was possibly this peice of adaptation which caused commanders using the traditional greek phalanx the most problem.

Okay i may have gone off topic with that, so let me put it basically for myself to understand. Do you mean change the 400bc date to 160bc?

2) I beleive its correct, mainly because and form of realm, kingdom or empire can be destroyed over night under the right conditions. I think using the words kingdom or empire would give the wrong impression. However if others concure with you then ill happily change it.

3) Hmmm ill keep re-reading it but i cant spot it myself.

4) We are so not going to agree on this. You basically put the fall of the phalanx down to poor tactics on the part of the greeks, and lets face it they were the experts with the phalanx. It would have took some extremely poor tactics on the part of the greeks, whilst some amazing tactics by the romans in order to destroy the phalanx's reputation in such a way.
Also, do you have another non roman observer to concure with polybius? I only ask, as you probibly know well enough, eye witnesses some times see what they wish to see.

(I watched time commanders too, was rather good)

..from hill to hill, and glen to...

(1) Not 160BC, no that was when the Seleucids reorganised. It was redundant before then. Personally I think somewhere between 220 - 190BC. Thats the time when the Romans really put it to bed.

(2) Fair do's.

(3) I just think it doesn't follow a coherent time line. But again, fair do's.

(4) Agree to disagree. But I didn't mean poor tactics. Or at the very least not intentionaly poor tactics. I'll find out exactly who wrote it, but theres an instance where the Roman legion basicaly refused to meet the Macedonian phalanx where it was deployed (because it would have been very painfull). Instead they set up camp on the side of a hill (phalanx now useless), and proceeded to blockade the Macedonians. Eventually through a combination of lack of food, mutinous rumbelings and sheer pissed off-ness, the Macedonians attacked.

Without the correct terain and therefore their main weapon, the phalanx. They got fu<<ed.

To be fair it was either that or go home and do the same thing another day.

I'll get you references. Non Romans may be a problem. But I'll do my best.



As for time comanders. Did you see the episode with the Seleucids and Ptolomies. Maximum geeky overload. Nice.

Ps I've also joined the on site RPG. Just a humble padawn though.
I beleive your the reason everthing was exploding a couple of weeks back! Tsk tsk.

No non Roman or non Roman biased Greek references that I can find. That doesn't mean there arn't any out there...

Anyway how come this is still in peer review and hasn't been put in the guide yet?

Only the great goblin of the internet knows. It might have something to do with the fact i didnt want a certain person to subedit it due to problems ive had in the past (and recentl) with the researcher.

Other wise i have absolutely no idea. Ive seen an enter enter peer reveiw, go through, and be on the front page since this was ready and waiting to be picked up.

Funny eh

It is down to the Scouts to recommend entries or otherwise, so it is solely because this hasn't been recommended by a Scout. Presumably because the discussion is on-going and it's not clear if this is finished yet.

Hope that answers your question.

No more discussion from me then.

Jimster - Understood, just wondered whether a scout would have seen that at the start and been detered from picking it thats all.

Bubba - I have only vague memories of the time commanders battles, but i remember bits and bobs, like how ever single battle resulted in them lossing all there archers and then being surrounded.

When I had my picks (and currently I don't have any), I looked at this entry and decided it wasn't finished as there appears to be outstanding issues. It's always good when it's ready to go for the author to say so.

Or trying to set Huns up in a defensive position!

And all the wasted cavalry as well, ouch. Although i must admit that the spartans (although they were only on one episode, grrr) did marvellously.

Is there anything else outstanding that you can see.. er forgot your name mr scouty person type