this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
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Is it true though? In the above example, the attackers could just concentrate their attack on one side forcing the defenders to support there and thus weaking the line elsewhere which then can be attacked in return. So in reality I think it is really difficult to hold such a formation.
Wasn't that the great advantage of the Romans that they trained this kind of stuff a lot and thus were actually able to more or less hold these formations.
But I would guess most battles ended up looking more or less like the lower example.
You have to keep in mind no one had this kind of bird view and no one could directly tell every soldier what to do while at the battlefield. So every soldier in the end is just fighting for their own survival eventually resulting in chaos.
You can't stack up your troops like in video games, so that wouldn't work. If the attackers were concentrating on the left side, then the defenders could breach the right side and encircle the attacking army.
Also keep in mind - you pretty much can't command your troops during the battle. Once the battle is unleashed, only chaos remains. You can only try to predict the flow of the battle and position your troops accordingly and prepare the early-stage orders.
Vaguely, but definitely not in a 1:1 manner like on the dance floor
The inability of commanding trots is why seasoned soldiers are so important. You can't train for eventualities but experience soldiers recognize what to do without direct leadership.
NCO-equivalents were also immensely important once it became apparent that low-mid level command could still be effectively exercised in the heat of battle. Roman centurions, for example, got paid 16x an enlisted man's salary by the time of the Early Empire precisely because it was recognized just how vital they were (and also because centurions took massive casualties and needed a bit of an inducement for anyone with a bit of brains in their skull to still want to stay in that front-line position)