Vanilla 1.1.8 is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.
Since many of us are interested in fantasy, which often has battles in it, I thought I would start a thread in which we discuss military tactics and how to write better battle scenes.
I’ll start the discussion with a few questions:
1) Where in a formation would the general be positioned? I remember reading one source saying it was the army’s right wing, but that makes me wonder, how the heck did the guys on the left wing hear their general’s orders?
2) How, when attacking an enemy city or fortification, would you get rid of archers on a wall, especially if the archers are shielded by parapets?
3) Where on the battlefield would archers be positioned? I’m guessing it is the front side so that they don’t accidently hit their compatriots.
1) I thought it was near the front. And he’d use signals, not just words, because if you had a large army, you’d have the hearing problem anyway.
2) I’m going to go all mediaeval and say ‘fling dead cows at them’. I think it involves shooting the archers back, or coming up behind them. Alternately, use a battering ram on the wall and go from there..
3) they’re positioned up high and to the back, not at the front.
“I thought it was near the front. And he’d use signals, not just words, because if you had a large army, you’d have the hearing problem anyway.”
That’s what I thought, too, but I did some research on ancient battle formations and found that, for the Romans at least, it was at the right wing.
“they’re positioned up high and to the back, not at the front.”
What if the battlefield is a level plain and there is no higher ground?
Damn it. I am about to start my French homework, when I go on II to check if the threads I follow have any new posts. Instead, there is a military tactics thread. No homework getting done tonight…
1) Most armies were led by a group of commanding officers, who would be positioned wherever they were best able to command the men. The men on the left wing would not be taking direct orders from the commander of the right wing.
2) You storm the walls, or set up a siege to starve them out. Either you lose a lot of troops or you wait for weeks, sometimes months, to take a position.
3) It varied depending on conditions and what sort of archers you’re talking about. I think the standard for medieval armies was to have the archers begin in front, exchanging volleys of arrows, before retreating to the flanks or rear when the infantry advance.
Examples of different uses of archers on the medieval battlefield:
1. Hastings, 1066; English: Yellow, Normans: Red
Typical of medieval armies, with archers in front trying to soften up the enemy so the infantry can break them.
2. Agincourt, 1415; French: Blue, English: Red
Here the archers are in defensive positions, behind the infantry and flanking the charging enemy.
http://l-clausewitz.livejournal.com/
Most of what you need to know for general fantasy purposes (and then some).
War scenes are seldom entertaining unless you focus on the problems of an identifiable character.
I mean, war scenes can only be interesting when they are dramatic—etc, characters act and change internally due to external circumstances. The actual tactics are irrelevant for the most part.
Then you would use the general’s conflict as a source from which to decide what happens. For example, he has to choose between sacrificing a squadron for the war, how easily does he succumb to the temptation in the heat of battle? Or at the end does he feel guilt or brush it out? etc. These change the dynamics of the whole story.
I would say you have the knowledge, just not the experience. Different things.
Can someone write an article about what exactly was wrong with a really bad battle scene like the Battle of the Burning Plains? And show a battle scene well done? The contrast and compare would help me a lot.
True enough. A story is just a noble lie of sorts, but filled with truth.
I disagree, I think tactics have some importance to the story. Even if it’s not detailed or highlighted, the author should be aware of strategies that may lead the protagonist into the position he will be in (if the protagonist is a soldier at the battlefront). Even if the reader is unaware of it, the author should know what they’re leading their protagonist into.
I think the author should know what their story is about and find the best way to communicate it and make it interesting.
That’s what I’m saying. But it still needs to be well-researched.
From my knowledge it seems that authors can often just skip through the battle scenes if they desire and if they’re really good it doesn’t seem to matter. Based on that insight I see that good battle scenes are generally filled with character development and plot twists. That also implies it is possible to drift between expression and narration so long as we show the story “highlights”.
I often wonder how authors wrote about foreign countries and cultures before research became easy.
My point exactly. The kind of authority great authors have doesn’t stem from vast knowledge of the material world but the inner world of their mind. They write with authority, though they might be making shit up, and it can still sound good because they understand people.
Rather, I think that most readers would have been as dumb to the material world as they authour would have been, and so would have accepted what was written as fact. Meanwhile, the more knowledgeable would have shaken their heads and said, “That’s not right.”
Today’s audience is much wider, and generally more knowledgeable about the world. They’ll know if you’ve made a mistake, and they’ll call you out on it.
I can easily call Asimov a hack who doesn’t have a damn clue what he’s talking about but that would be missing the point.
Question- if you’re a footsoldier or something like that, do you you know the finer strategic points of the battle? Basically, they tell you where to stand in the ranks, and then you fight til you die, right?
Oh, I see. I was wondering more about an American Civil War-era type army. For both the Union and Confederacy sides…
TELL ME O GREAT ONE!
:D
And to what specifically are you referring to, Corsair?
Waste Soldiers is right.
Ok, that made more sense. Thank you. I should probably research some of this stuff on my own, but it’s helpful having a bunch of people to ask if I’m feeling to lazy to walk all the way to the library. :D
Durandalski, I must say your knowledge of military tactics and history outstrips my own by a lot. How did you become so well informed on the subject?
@Durandalski- thanks for the info. I’ll have to dig up more info, but that’s a good starting point.
My American History teacher last year has a friend who does Civil War reenactments, so he came in and did a presentation on the life of soldiers and the battles and so on. It was pretty interesting, but what I thought was the most interesting was an original training manual for officers on the different commands and formations. It had little diagrams and everything on how to arrange soldiers in formations and how to charge and so on. It was cool on one hand to see what they taught officers with (although if that’s all the officers got, I can’t imagine they’d be too good…), but it did drive home the point about fighting from formation.
Isn’t that how we the Americans (I forget not everyone is from the US!) won the American Revolution, anyway? The British army had their nice red uniforms and lined up in rows, while the Americans fought more from cover, without a distinctive color of uniform that you could see fifty miles away. (also the backwoods farmers were awesome shots!)
Isn’t that how we the Americans (I forget not everyone is from the US!) won the American Revolution, anyway? The British army had their nice red uniforms and lined up in rows, while the Americans fought more from cover, without a distinctive color of uniform that you could see fifty miles away. (also the backwoods farmers were awesome shots!)
Yes, it was. We cowardly, dishonorable Americans fought guerilla-style, ran instead of surrendering like men and all of those “founding fathers” were traitors to the crown, ungrateful to King and Country.
I think I read somewhere that Washington preferred using small groups of people instead of the might of a cumbersome, slow army, because they were easier to maneuver.
Isn’t there a saying that amateurs think in terms of tactics, while professionals think in terms of logistics? Whether or not soldiers are on the battlefield when they’re needed with enough support to accomplish whatever needs accomplishing is usually more important that any tactic or strategy that they use on the battlefield.
Guerilla forces are effective not because they do a lot of damage to the enemy, but because they don’t require nearly as much logistical support as a traditional standing army. Their purpose is prevent either side from winning a decisive victory, knowing that the longer the conflict drags on, the greater the cost will be to the enemy. Washington’s army actually beat the british is one, maybe two, actual battles. Us Americans won because the British decided that we weren’t worth the trouble to occupy.
That’s true- supplies and orders from England would take, what, a month to get to the New World? Once the rebels started fighting back, it made it extremely difficult for them to keep a tight control on America.
I suggest from now on whenever we have an international dispute we send women from each country to wrestle in a giant match of mud wrestling while the men watch on TV. Would that be a better tactic for peaceful fighting?
It would probably fall under the “strategy” umbrella more than the “tactics” umbrella, but it does sound like a more, hm, enjoyable way to settle international disputes.
On the rebels being good shots…
Back in the day, everyone was mostly self-sufficient, particularly if you lived on a farm. So you’d have crops, of course, and smoke some meat if you butchered a pig or a cow, but a lot (at least the poorer farmers) also supplemented their diets with hunting. Bullets would’ve been expensive, though, so they basically had to be crack shots if they wanted their family to be fed well. So not all of them would’ve been great shots, but those from the country or farms probably would have been pretty good.
1 to 51 of 51