Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

I'd like to suggest some theoretical comments on scouting and terrain
based on Classical and Byzantine sources.

1) Scouting is essential to understanding and utilizing terrain
effectively in ancient warfare, EXCEPT:

2) Societies with evolved internal military systems for internal
conflict resolution with minimal contact with foreign military systems
tended to use customary or agreed battlefields and placed little or no
reliance on scouting. In short--it just wasn't part of their experience
of warfare. (Early Hoplite Greece springs to mind.)

3) Scouting was composed of multiple strands of reconnaissance activity,
just as it is today. Scouting included direct reconnaissance by the
general, reporting from trained scouts sent on special patrols, and the
interrogation of prisoners and enemy deserters as well as the experience
of allies, veterans, or local guides, all collated by the General
himself (not much staff work.)

4) Scouts, as such, tended almost always to be picked light cavalrymen
under Warrior definitions. Let me digress for a moment and say that
Phokas suggests that LI can be used as scouts if they are given
horses... I think this is not to let them scout on horseback, but to
allow them to ride to the patrol area, dismount, patrol, and get back in
a hurry mounted. My experience of reenacting on a large scale has
taught me that a patrol of 3-5 dragoons who know their business will
scout any terrain, including woods and marsh, more effectively than five
times their numbers of foot scouts. It's not that they ride their
horses into the woods--it's that when they find something, they can
report in no time and be back on the job. And they can break contact
with an enemy so much more quickly than infantry that the chances of
them being intercepted and destroyed, even by other cavalry, is not
high. This reenacting experience is reflected in the writings of
Raimondo Montecuccoli, in Roger Stevenson's masterful work "Conduct of
Detachments in the Field" (1762) and in most of the writings of the
Horse and Musket period. Even in the broken country of America during
the Revolution, dragoons were the premier scouts. End digression.
Classical sources don't seem to dispute the idea; Maurice's Strategikon
(Dennis translation, p. 104) details the use of scouts, always mounted,
in some detail and with a modern eye to both gaining information and
restricting the enemies gaining of information; other Byzantine manuals
also detail ways of deploying the army on the march to deceive an enemy
as to its size, etc., etc. The Taktika says timely reporting is
essential, because the enemy can move or reenforce especially if he is
mounted. This timeliness requirement clearly requires mouted scouts,
even if they went into the bad terrain on foot.

5) Although the books of Aeneas Tacticas left to us are mostly concerned
with seigework and internal disorder, it's clear from his tone and
commentary that he is aware of the importance of terrain and scouting.
In the recent (Oxford 1993) and very readable "Cavalry of Classical
Greece" Spence goes to some trouble to indicate that later Greek Cavalry
were not only capable of reconnaissance but expert at it, and we can
reason from Phokas' Byzantine writings and his references to works now
lost that other 4th and 3rd century authors wrote extensively about
scouting by Cavalry. Spence does note, however, and I think it's
important, that Xenophon barely mentions scouting--that in effect, until
the total war of the late Classical and early Hellenistic period,
scouting just didn't weigh heavily on the Greek mind UNLESS they were
fighting in Asia. I include this tiny detail to note that scouting is
an idea and then a system of actions that is NOT always CULTURALLY
important.

6) Foot scouts in woods and other bad terrain would seem sensible if the
universe consisted of a set of endless Warrior boards, but my sense from
the ancient sources and from my own experience, real and reenacting, is
that however efficient one's foot scouts may be, the enormous lag in
their reporting times renders their efforts pretty meaningless compared
to the rapid report of a mounted scout. And mounted scouts could and
did dismount to scout--the Scythians knew all about it, witness the
representations of men lying behind rocks watching something with their
horses tethered behind them, etc., etc. If you imagine that two ancient
armies encamped between one and nine miles apart, you then can factor
the "travel time" scouts needed to put in just to reach the enemy. Add
in the relative security of the mounted man--if detected, he can flee;
vs the relative insecurity of the dismounted man--and confident scouts
return more accurate reports.

Whew, that was long winded. Okay, having said all that, here's the
thing. THE RULES ARE FINE.

It would be nice if scouting influenced terrain choice. I agree with
those people who say that tournament games are about home field
advantage, although I'll turn that on it's head and say that most
cohesive regular armies probably outscouted their Barbarian opponents
even in the Barbarians home terrain. Some Barbarian armies had cultural
scouting systems built in (Scythians) but remember that no matter how
good the SCOUTS are, it's the reporting of data to the General and his
collation and expression of that data that matters JUST AS MUCH as the
guys in the field collecting the intelligence. And that strikes me as
very, very hard to determine from history. Could a Scythian King
actually, rationally collate reports from prisoners and scouts and his
own observations and proceed to make modern decisions about battlefield
choice and so on? I can't say. Sounds like a good discussion for a
beer. We do, however, know that a Byzantine General, even some
city-bred whanker, could simply read Maurice or Phokas and receive
enough wisdom to avoid disaster. This is the ultimate systemic triumph
of the regular scientific approach to warfare--the ability to pass
wisdom from veterans to novices without losing a couple of armies in the
process.
There's a book out on the Roman Scouting/Spy system that is missing
from my bookshelf--Latin title, I'll get it later when I discover which
light fingered friend has it--but it makes a good case that the Early
Imp Romans were capable of LR Recon, spying, humint, tactical recon, the
whole shooting match. If this assessment is correct, Roman armies of
the EIR period should probably outscout all opponents--doesn't matter
how many LC the enemy have, the Romans have the SYSTEM to collect (over
a period of years) collate, and disseminate the goods to their leaders
and even down to the unit commanders. I'm not suggesting we actually do
this--just pointing out that scouting points alone would not
historically determine the outcome of the scouting contest.

So--many armies scouted, most armies used light cavalry, some armies
were aware of the importance of terrain, some armies really only fought
at home against traditional enemies with traditional methods and didn't
need to learn all the messy arts of reconnaissance. Some armies had a
system to collect intel. Most did not.
For the tournament game we all love, the current system is elegant
and satisfactory. Don't like woods in the center of the board? All
kinds of things you can do to avoid them--roads, open space, other more
devious ploys I'll keep to myself. Want an open battlefield? Plan for
it. And, if the dice go against you and you end up facing four woods,
heh, heh. Heh.
Part of the game.

Chris Cameron


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[joncleaves]

I am not considering combining scouting and terrain.

What I am considering is changes to the impact of CLIMATE on terrain choices.

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian and Sarah <cgc.sjw@...>
To: WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 12:25:20 -0400
Subject: [WarriorRules] Terrain and Scouting


I'd like to suggest some theoretical comments on scouting and terrain
based on Classical and Byzantine sources.

1) Scouting is essential to understanding and utilizing terrain
effectively in ancient warfare, EXCEPT:

2) Societies with evolved internal military systems for internal
conflict resolution with minimal contact with foreign military systems
tended to use customary or agreed battlefields and placed little or no
reliance on scouting. In short--it just wasn't part of their experience
of warfare. (Early Hoplite Greece springs to mind.)

3) Scouting was composed of multiple strands of reconnaissance activity,
just as it is today. Scouting included direct reconnaissance by the
general, reporting from trained scouts sent on special patrols, and the
interrogation of prisoners and enemy deserters as well as the experience
of allies, veterans, or local guides, all collated by the General
himself (not much staff work.)

4) Scouts, as such, tended almost always to be picked light cavalrymen
under Warrior definitions. Let me digress for a moment and say that
Phokas suggests that LI can be used as scouts if they are given
horses... I think this is not to let them scout on horseback, but to
allow them to ride to the patrol area, dismount, patrol, and get back in
a hurry mounted. My experience of reenacting on a large scale has
taught me that a patrol of 3-5 dragoons who know their business will
scout any terrain, including woods and marsh, more effectively than five
times their numbers of foot scouts. It's not that they ride their
horses into the woods--it's that when they find something, they can
report in no time and be back on the job. And they can break contact
with an enemy so much more quickly than infantry that the chances of
them being intercepted and destroyed, even by other cavalry, is not
high. This reenacting experience is reflected in the writings of
Raimondo Montecuccoli, in Roger Stevenson's masterful work "Conduct of
Detachments in the Field" (1762) and in most of the writings of the
Horse and Musket period. Even in the broken country of America during
the Revolution, dragoons were the premier scouts. End digression.
Classical sources don't seem to dispute the idea; Maurice's Strategikon
(Dennis translation, p. 104) details the use of scouts, always mounted,
in some detail and with a modern eye to both gaining information and
restricting the enemies gaining of information; other Byzantine manuals
also detail ways of deploying the army on the march to deceive an enemy
as to its size, etc., etc. The Taktika says timely reporting is
essential, because the enemy can move or reenforce especially if he is
mounted. This timeliness requirement clearly requires mouted scouts,
even if they went into the bad terrain on foot.

5) Although the books of Aeneas Tacticas left to us are mostly concerned
with seigework and internal disorder, it's clear from his tone and
commentary that he is aware of the importance of terrain and scouting.
In the recent (Oxford 1993) and very readable "Cavalry of Classical
Greece" Spence goes to some trouble to indicate that later Greek Cavalry
were not only capable of reconnaissance but expert at it, and we can
reason from Phokas' Byzantine writings and his references to works now
lost that other 4th and 3rd century authors wrote extensively about
scouting by Cavalry. Spence does note, however, and I think it's
important, that Xenophon barely mentions scouting--that in effect, until
the total war of the late Classical and early Hellenistic period,
scouting just didn't weigh heavily on the Greek mind UNLESS they were
fighting in Asia. I include this tiny detail to note that scouting is
an idea and then a system of actions that is NOT always CULTURALLY
important.

6) Foot scouts in woods and other bad terrain would seem sensible if the
universe consisted of a set of endless Warrior boards, but my sense from
the ancient sources and from my own experience, real and reenacting, is
that however efficient one's foot scouts may be, the enormous lag in
their reporting times renders their efforts pretty meaningless compared
to the rapid report of a mounted scout. And mounted scouts could and
did dismount to scout--the Scythians knew all about it, witness the
representations of men lying behind rocks watching something with their
horses tethered behind them, etc., etc. If you imagine that two ancient
armies encamped between one and nine miles apart, you then can factor
the "travel time" scouts needed to put in just to reach the enemy. Add
in the relative security of the mounted man--if detected, he can flee;
vs the relative insecurity of the dismounted man--and confident scouts
return more accurate reports.

Whew, that was long winded. Okay, having said all that, here's the
thing. THE RULES ARE FINE.

It would be nice if scouting influenced terrain choice. I agree with
those people who say that tournament games are about home field
advantage, although I'll turn that on it's head and say that most
cohesive regular armies probably outscouted their Barbarian opponents
even in the Barbarians home terrain. Some Barbarian armies had cultural
scouting systems built in (Scythians) but remember that no matter how
good the SCOUTS are, it's the reporting of data to the General and his
collation and expression of that data that matters JUST AS MUCH as the
guys in the field collecting the intelligence. And that strikes me as
very, very hard to determine from history. Could a Scythian King
actually, rationally collate reports from prisoners and scouts and his
own observations and proceed to make modern decisions about battlefield
choice and so on? I can't say. Sounds like a good discussion for a
beer. We do, however, know that a Byzantine General, even some
city-bred whanker, could simply read Maurice or Phokas and receive
enough wisdom to avoid disaster. This is the ultimate systemic triumph
of the regular scientific approach to warfare--the ability to pass
wisdom from veterans to novices without losing a couple of armies in the
process.
There's a book out on the Roman Scouting/Spy system that is missing
from my bookshelf--Latin title, I'll get it later when I discover which
light fingered friend has it--but it makes a good case that the Early
Imp Romans were capable of LR Recon, spying, humint, tactical recon, the
whole shooting match. If this assessment is correct, Roman armies of
the EIR period should probably outscout all opponents--doesn't matter
how many LC the enemy have, the Romans have the SYSTEM to collect (over
a period of years) collate, and disseminate the goods to their leaders
and even down to the unit commanders. I'm not suggesting we actually do
this--just pointing out that scouting points alone would not
historically determine the outcome of the scouting contest.

So--many armies scouted, most armies used light cavalry, some armies
were aware of the importance of terrain, some armies really only fought
at home against traditional enemies with traditional methods and didn't
need to learn all the messy arts of reconnaissance. Some armies had a
system to collect intel. Most did not.
For the tournament game we all love, the current system is elegant
and satisfactory. Don't like woods in the center of the board? All
kinds of things you can do to avoid them--roads, open space, other more
devious ploys I'll keep to myself. Want an open battlefield? Plan for
it. And, if the dice go against you and you end up facing four woods,
heh, heh. Heh.
Part of the game.

Chris Cameron


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




Yahoo! Groups Links






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Mark Stone]

Christian makes some excellent points here, and supplies all the primary source
references that I never seem to have at my fingertips.

I want to make sure, however, that people understand what the points of
agreement and disagreement are between us. There is a lot of agreement.

Scouting plays two roles, as I see it:
- it plays a significant role in determining where a battle is going to take
place
- it plays a significant role in determining how an army deploys once the two
sides have arrived at a field of battle

Warrior takes account only of the latter. With respect to the former, I agree
with everything Christian says, namely that in the operational/grand tactical
arena, foot scouts are of limited value even in rugged terrain, that mounted
scouts are superior and were actually used in preference to foot scouts, even
in rugged terrain.

Where we disagree, perhaps is in this: in Warrior, none of that makes _any_
difference in determining _where_ the battle will be fought. In other words,
scouting in Warrior has no impact on what the terrain picks are. I think some
correction to that would be reasonable, historically justified, and outside the
scope of the main game engine with which Jon does not want to tamper.

With respect to the latter -- deployment once armies have joined for battle --
here I think the argument for the superiority of mounted scouts in all cases is
much weaker. The Scots in the highlands, the Welsh, the Gauls... I can cite
numerous examples of primarily loose order foot armies who, in Warrior terms,
would be routinely outscouted by their historical opponents, and who routinely
used ambushes as part of their tactical doctrine where those ambushes were
enabled by their ability to fight the battle on terrain suitable to their
style.

Let's be clear about this: sometimes you _don't_ get the terrain you want, and
have to fight under less than ideal conditions. That's the aspect of scouting
in which mounted scouts are always an advantage.

But if you are playing loose order foot and _do_ get the terrain you want,
history seems to suggest that such armies were capable of staging ambushes, and
did so routinely, even against opponents who would, in Warrior terms, outscout
them. I suggest that the problem is that once the battlefield is set, and is
determined to be quite rugged terrain, the value of mounted scouts goes down
and the value of loose and open order foot goes up.

Warrior makes no provision for this, and, in my opinion, therefore lacks the
capability to simulate a historically common ambush situation.


-Mark Stone

[Ed Forbes]

One also needs to point out that the Romans, on multiable occasions, ambushed
and destroyed 100% mounted armies with forces that were almost totally close
order foot.

Ed Forbes

-- Christian and Sarah <cgc.sjw@...> wrote:
... If this assessment is correct, Roman armies of
the EIR period should probably outscout all opponents--doesn't matter
how many LC the enemy have, the Romans have the SYSTEM to collect (over
a period of years) collate, and disseminate the goods to their leaders
and even down to the unit commanders. I'm not suggesting we actually do
this--just pointing out that scouting points alone would not
historically determine the outcome of the scouting contest.

.

Chris Cameron

[joncleaves]

Mark - do not confuse a core rule with 14.0. Warrior can make any provision it
likes for a scenario, ambush or otherwise, using scouting, or not, or something
entirely different.

My part in this discussion is specifically targeted at 14.0 and how it handles
the climate impact on terrain selection. The fact that folks continue to feel
constrained by 14.0 in the design of an historical battle is beyond me... I
hope the new 15.0 helps to fix that view.

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Stone <mark@...>
To: warrior <WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 17:03:44 +0000
Subject: [WarriorRules] Re: Terrain and Scouting


Christian makes some excellent points here, and supplies all the primary source
references that I never seem to have at my fingertips.

I want to make sure, however, that people understand what the points of
agreement and disagreement are between us. There is a lot of agreement.

Scouting plays two roles, as I see it:
- it plays a significant role in determining where a battle is going to take
place
- it plays a significant role in determining how an army deploys once the two
sides have arrived at a field of battle

Warrior takes account only of the latter. With respect to the former, I agree
with everything Christian says, namely that in the operational/grand tactical
arena, foot scouts are of limited value even in rugged terrain, that mounted
scouts are superior and were actually used in preference to foot scouts, even
in rugged terrain.

Where we disagree, perhaps is in this: in Warrior, none of that makes _any_
difference in determining _where_ the battle will be fought. In other words,
scouting in Warrior has no impact on what the terrain picks are. I think some
correction to that would be reasonable, historically justified, and outside the
scope of the main game engine with which Jon does not want to tamper.

With respect to the latter -- deployment once armies have joined for battle --
here I think the argument for the superiority of mounted scouts in all cases is
much weaker. The Scots in the highlands, the Welsh, the Gauls... I can cite
numerous examples of primarily loose order foot armies who, in Warrior terms,
would be routinely outscouted by their historical opponents, and who routinely
used ambushes as part of their tactical doctrine where those ambushes were
enabled by their ability to fight the battle on terrain suitable to their
style.

Let's be clear about this: sometimes you _don't_ get the terrain you want, and
have to fight under less than ideal conditions. That's the aspect of scouting
in which mounted scouts are always an advantage.

But if you are playing loose order foot and _do_ get the terrain you want,
history seems to suggest that such armies were capable of staging ambushes, and
did so routinely, even against opponents who would, in Warrior terms, outscout
them. I suggest that the problem is that once the battlefield is set, and is
determined to be quite rugged terrain, the value of mounted scouts goes down
and the value of loose and open order foot goes up.

Warrior makes no provision for this, and, in my opinion, therefore lacks the
capability to simulate a historically common ambush situation.


-Mark Stone



Yahoo! Groups Links






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jon and Mark -- Problem of being on digest. I wasn't actually
responding to Jon--and as I said, I think the system is elegant and
excellent as is. I was responding to a comment that in rough terrain
infanrty scouts should be worth more.

But as my digressions led to more digressions, I can see why Jon
thought I was trying to weigh in on a different arguement.

Chris C.

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