Basic army organization and unit names

[Aldarion]

How well does the following work? Both linguistically (translation) and organizationally?

• Middle Byzantine unit names
  • greek name – meaning – latin translation – number
  • thema – "emplacement" (Greek tithemi – "I put, place") – aetas, dispositio
    • I place, put – posui
    • alternatives: instruere, corpus (body)
  • tourma – (Latin turma - "swarm, squadron") – turma
  • droungos – (old Gaulish dhrungho "tribe, group, throng, crowd") – drungus
  • bandon – (Germanic bandwo) – bandus, bandum ("ensign, banner")
  • * alternative: vexillatio
  • kentarchia – centuria
  • kontoubernion – (Latin contubernium – "common tent, friendship") - countubernium
• greek name – meaning – latin translation – number
• thema – "emplacement" (Greek tithemi – "I put, place") – aetas, dispositio
  • I place, put – posui
  • alternatives: instruere, corpus (body)
• tourma – (Latin turma - "swarm, squadron") – turma
• droungos – (old Gaulish dhrungho "tribe, group, throng, crowd") – drungus
• bandon – (Germanic bandwo) – bandus, bandum ("ensign, banner")
  • alternative: vexillatio
• kentarchia – centuria
• kontoubernion – (Latin contubernium – "common tent, friendship") - countubernium

• final organization
  • decuria / contubernium (10)
  • manipulus (5 contubernium - 50) (in current organization - turma (50))
  • centuria (10 contubernium - 100) (in current organization - centuria (100))
  • bandus (or vexillatio???) (2 or 4 centurias - 200 - 400) (in current organization - manipulus - 200)
  • drungus (2 or 4 bandon - 400 - 1 600) (in current organization - cohors - 400 - 800)
  • turma (2 or 4 drungus? - 800 - 6 400) (in current organization - nonexistent)
  • corpus (or legio???) (2 or 4 turmae - 3 200 - 12 800) (in current organization - legio - 5 200)
    • 4 infantry + 2 cavalry turmae - 4 800 - 12 800
  • corpus (??? - if "legio" is used for unit one down - 2 or 4 legions - 9 600 - 19 200) (in current organization - corpus - 15 600)

Note that I am aiming for organization similar to Byzantine themes:
Theme (Byzantine district) - Wikipedia

So would presence of additional level of organization between drungus/cohors and corpus/legion be significant? Also, would it be better to use basis of 2 or 4 for unit organization? Especially in light of need to form a hollow infantry square.

EDIT: Also, I am thinking of making infantry 1/3 pikemen, 1/3 crossbowmen, 1/3 men-at-arms (using pollaxe).

Second question is, what would be the balance of troops? This is the threat overview:

Current Vetronian military system is a result of two major experiences: Fomorian Wars and Ghuzz invasion. Both of them, but especially Fomorian invasion, have helped shape national identity – while tribal (ethnic) identity and loyalties are still significant, people strongly identify with the Empire as such. Invasions thus strongly promoted loyalty to the crown and to one's own ethnic group at the expense of loyalty to local leaders and large magnates.

Fomorian Wars

Fomorians are a species of humanoid amphibians. They are hostile and monstruous beings who come from under the sea. In period from 1200 to 1450 AUC they had ruled major parts of Vetronia, and minor invasions and conquests continued until 1920 AUC. They had conquered almost entire Vetronia around 1300 AUC, but after paired defeats in the Battle of Black Tooth (Fiacail Dubh) and Siege of Vetronia, their control gradually slipped.

Because of Fomorian amphibious ability, no place in the Empire was safe from their attacks – seas and rivers provided them with essentially unlimited military reach. As a result, mobility became paramount. Military adapted wagon-fort tactics from eastern nomads. As Fomorians had managed to conquer most of the Empire for a time – imposing tribute of two-thirds of children, grain and cattle – resistance had been forced to adapt mobile hit-and-run tactics.

These tactics were also used against the very same nomads. Mobile wagon camps were used as fortified bases from which light cavaly rode out to hunt raiders while infantry remained behind to guard the camp. Whenever possible wagons would be reinforced with ditch and pallisade, but they were never abandoned as wagon fort is much quicker to set up and pull down as a response to surprise attacks.

As land was recovered, first legions and then individual soldiers were given lands with which to support themselves, freeing up standing military for offensive warfare. Initially, mercenaries were employed as well. These however were unreliable, and often turned to plundering Vetronian land after their contracts had ended. As such, standing military was expanded, and used to hunt down the very mercenaries the Empire had once employed.

Ghuzz Wars

As Ghuzz expansion reached the borders of the Empire, Vetronian military was forced to contend with militarily superior opponent. This has led to strategy of battle avoidance on both sides: Vetronia cannot afford losses of troops, while Ghuzz are aware that Vetronian superiority in weapons and armour would lead to unfavourable kill/loss ratios. Thus main Ghuzz way of waging war is through raids, while Vetronian response is to contain raids and reply in similar manner. Vetronian border forces block the mountain passes after Ghuzz had already passed them, while field armies shadow Ghuzz invasion forces, thus limiting the opportunities for resupply and also limiting the damage to the countryside. Fortresses (castles) are used as bases from which to launch attacks against enemy raiding parties and supply lines while also serving as places of refuge and storage of anything useful, thus denying the enemy army supplies. If possible, punitive raid is launched at a different area of frontier.

As a result, military consists of cavalry and mounted infantry in order to increase mobility, though dismounted infantry is also utilized in larger set-piece battles. Frequency of raiding has also had social impact: while small-scale peasant holdings are easy to rebuild, large estates, with their significantly greater investment in mills and infrastructure as well as frequency of more-vulnerable crop such as vineyards, are far more vulnerable. Due to this and imperial policies, there are few large landowners.

Main feature of warfare against the Ghuzz are raids and counter-raids by irregular troops. Field battles and sieges happen, but are much less frequent. They are also much less destructive. Major campaign requires months of organized effort to prepare, and thus cannot be hidden from enemy. Raids of less than 1 000 cavalry can be organized by both sides in matter of days, and are thus impossible to predict or intercept. Ghuzz frontier beys are captains of chief frontier fortresses, and their soldiers draw livelihood from such raids; thus prospect of peace on frontiers is impossible.

Undead

The undead – zombies, revenants etc. - typically appear at night, but also sometimes during the day. They most frequently appear around and at the sites of satanic and/or magical rituals. Frequency of appearances is significantly increased when skies turn purple, leading to full-blown invasions.

All types of undead can only be killed by swords. Any other weapons cannot stop them except through total destruction – unless magic animating them is broken, even severed or shattered limbs will keep moving and attempting to kill, or even reconnect to the original body.

The undead, unless freshly killed – with all the muscle remaining more-or-less intact – are somewhat slower and stiffer, less agile, than living people, with walking speed limited to around 0,5 – 1 meters per second. They also cannot pass streams of water that come to above their waist.

While they are normally mindless killing machines, going in straight line towards targets, some types of undead, when present, can bring cohesion and direction to armies of the dead. The war against the undead is permanent and total – there are no truces and negotiations. Any person killed may be raised as an undead. As a result, war of attrition always favours the undead side. Casualties have to be kept to minimum.

The undead do not need to sleep, eat or rest. They are not restricted by logistics or pack animals, though slow marching speed of some types of the undead as well as need to avoid water does restrict mobility.

They are also immune to fear. Unlike peasant armies, they will not break in the face of heavy cavalry charge. Neither will they retreat if pitched battle does not go their way. However, unless controlled by a necromancer or a revenant, they do not have any battle tactics – approach being to simply blindly rush at the largest nearbly concentration of living humans.

CONCLUSIONS AND ARMY SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Vetronian military consists exclusively of a) professional troops in the capital area and b) provincial troops of small landowners. These are infantry and cavalry alike. Provincial troops are divided into field armies consisting of heavy and light infantry, heavy and light cavalry, and scouting/reconnaissance cohorts which consist of mounted infantry and light cavalry.

 

[TheKillerBs]

Which is the theme equivalent here? Is it the top level?

 

[Aldarion]

Which is the theme equivalent here? Is it the top level?

Yes.

 

[TheKillerBs]

Yes.

Awesome. So, what I would suggest for the top level is comitatenses, going by the logic that thema is to strategos as comitatenses is to magister militum, and strategos was originally the Greek translation of the magister militum.

 

[Aldarion]

Awesome. So, what I would suggest for the top level is comitatenses, going by the logic that thema is to strategos as comitatenses is to magister militum, and strategos was originally the Greek translation of the magister militum.

Comitatenses comes from comitatus, which means "to accompany". Basically, comitatenses were field armies which accompanied commanders on campaign. And level up from that are praesentalis, which is literally "army in (emperor's) presence". So both comitatenses and praesentalis are actually equivalent of Byzantine tagmata. Themata have no equivalent in Roman army of antiquity; but thema - according to Constantine Porphyrogenetos - comes from Greek thesis - "placement", though perhaps closer origin is tithemi - which literally means "I put, I place". In Latin, the equivalent would be locatio, collocatione for "placement" or posui, locus for "I put, I place". Neither really sounds good for army unit (though loci is a possibility); so instead I went with corpus ("body"), though I also considered caterva ("group") - but latter sounds more like a term for a squad or a platoon.

And this is one of main reasons why I opted to take Western Roman Empire as basis for my setting. As limited as my knowledge of Latin is, I have enough of it to catch at least some of mistakes or illogicalities. WIth Greek, I would be stuck to merely using original Byzantine terminology, with no clue wether it makes sense in context - my entire knowledge of Greek comes from studying Byzantine terminology.

 

[TheKillerBs]

Comitatenses comes from comitatus, which means "to accompany". Basically, comitatenses were field armies which accompanied commanders on campaign. And level up from that are praesentalis, which is literally "army in (emperor's) presence". So both comitatenses and praesentalis are actually equivalent of Byzantine tagmata. Themata have no equivalent in Roman army of antiquity; but thema - according to Constantine Porphyrogenetos - comes from Greek thesis - "placement", though perhaps closer origin is tithemi - which literally means "I put, I place". In Latin, the equivalent would be locatio, collocatione for "placement" or posui, locus for "I put, I place". Neither really sounds good for army unit (though loci is a possibility); so instead I went with corpus ("body"), though I also considered caterva ("group") - but latter sounds more like a term for a squad or a platoon.

And this is one of main reasons why I opted to take Western Roman Empire as basis for my setting. As limited as my knowledge of Latin is, I have enough of it to catch at least some of mistakes or illogicalities. WIth Greek, I would be stuck to merely using original Byzantine terminology, with no clue wether it makes sense in context - my entire knowledge of Greek comes from studying Byzantine terminology.

Huh. Learn something new every day.