Hoplites and Early Middle Ages

[Gurkhal]

Question: Could hoplite style soldiers, with some modification of their arms according to technological advancements, work against Early Middle Ages armies?

The reason as to why I am wondering is that I would love to have the iconic Classical Greek type of troops in a world which technological would be in the early Dark Ages? But could it work, because obviously if hoplites would not perform well against Early Middle Ages armies then they would obviously not be deployed for long; either replaced or their communities would have fallen.

 

[skip.knox]

I don't know if I would go with hoplites, but you might consider Byzantine armies. They could hold their own.
Byzantine battle tactics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[thecoldembrace]

Hoplites, or the heavy infantry phalanx formations used by the Greeks for the classical period would probably find quite a bit of difficulty fighting battles after the fall of the Roman Empire, mainly because their strengths were greatly undermined by their weaknesses.

When I was in my master's program, I did an offshoot of study on ancient Greek warfare applied in other parts of the world with some fellow colleagues. First off, yes it could work, given terrain and capable commanders. The traditional hoplite depended on the unit cohesion of the phalanx to act as a fist that could smash against their foe. If the army is only hoplite in nature, meaning heavy infantry in nature, without supporting roles, i.e. skirmishers or light infantry units and cavalry to hold it's flanks than the great weakness of the hoplite formation would quickly become apparent.

It depends on the level at which your armies operate at, and how integrated your forces are in multi-weapon systems. A simple rearm would not be sufficient to fight and win battles in the early middle ages for the reason that the bow became a very powerful tool as well as cavalry. An army comprised of nothing but tight knit heavy infantry would have major obstacles to overcome against foes who don't fight the same way. If a force of well organized heavy infantry such as a force of hoplites could be and probably would be ground down from afar by ranged weapons, and in close proximity would be surrounded and slaughtered, because that became for a large deal of time the type of combat that one would expect, and if this could not be achieved the attackers would slink back off until a more opportune time.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, armies in Europe were less articulated (most dropped down in size significantly) and well organized, well articulated armies could run roughshod over them with little time lost. If you go to the area that the Byzantine Empire held sway, their armies for a time remained the well articulated multi-weapon system that still used powerful heavy infantry to significant effect. Now these were not hoplites but their effect was similar, their shock effect behind the key.
I don't know if this answered your question but, to be honest, the tried and true battle tactics of the hoplite, phalanx could be effective in certain scenarios and would fail in most others, because front line battle squares were used by a select few cultures and abandoned by others.

 

[Gurkhal]

Thanks guys. I think that I was kind of suspecting that this would be the answer so I've got myself to blame if anything.

I totally see your points and shall change my ideas to a Greek-artistic style, crested helmets and stuff, Late Roman Army, althoutgh I shall probably keep some of the social issues surrounding the hoplite warfare, just change equipment and tactics.

 

[Shockley]

Depends on what kind of Phalanx you are talking about, as it would through a number of different incarnations and tactical styles.

Epaminondas didn't re-arm them or anything, but he positioned his phalanxes in such a way that, whenever they faced off with a traditional phalanx, they would steam roll his opponents. Essentially, all he did was put more weight on his left flank and advance his line in a staggered left-to-right deployment. Not only that, Epaminondas had massed his cavalry and best soldiers on the left flank, in contrast with the traditional placement on the right.

I point this out to state that any variation on the traditional straight line, right mass tactics of the ancient Greek world would be a major problem for a hoplite army.

The Macedonian sarissaphoroi were improvements upon the hoplites designed to destroy them. Your average Greek hoplite would have had a six foot spear, which is nothing to write off. The sarissa, the Macedonian equivalent, could be three times that length and then some. This gave the sarissaphoroi some major depth, and made them near-impenetrable during a direct assault. Beyond equipment, the sarissaphoroi was designed to be used with other units - it wasn't stand alone, and was almost always deployed in a way to augment cavalry usage. The hoplites could be deployed with cavalry (and this was a smart move), but this was not their purpose - they fought as independent units, never really forming a cohesive army.

The Roman Legion is a further development on this. For the Romans, cavalry, ballistae, etc. would have been incorporated into the actual unit, which would be spread out in a checker board pattern in comparison to the hoplite straight line. A hoplite line advancing against the maniple would receive some real damage from pila, ballistae, etc., something that the hoplite line was not designed to return. If engaged directly, the front line of the maniple would hold the Phalanx and the rest of the unit would peel out on the sides, surround and overwhelm the phalanx.

So, I am pointing out these earlier variations to support the idea that the phalanx itself was quickly outdated. All later military tactics, techniques, technologies, theories, etc. are built upon previous military attempts. So, your early medieval army is built upon something that was designed to beat whatever came previous, which has a chain going all the way back to the hoplites. They would be destroyed, simply because of the early inadequacies of the hoplites.

I am imaging, in my head, a battle between an army with knights versus the Greek phalanx, and it doesn't end well for the phalanx. They could not compete with that kind of mobility, the development of unified unit deployment, etc. It would be an easy fight.

 

[Dragev]

But don't you think that apart from the tactics they used, hoplites (adapted to the timeline) would be a powerful asset? It would be a united group of professional soldiers in heavy armor (= full chainmail for early middle ages and plate for late middle ages) and long spears, swords and shields; after all the shield wall was a common tactic in northern europe from at least 800 to 1200 and a unit with high quality gear, strong armor and lifelong training could be really scary.

 

[CupofJoe]

The massed Pike formation was used up to the 1600s if I remember correctly. But they would be considered light infantry when it comes to their armour I would guess. Landsknecht - wiki
What springs to mind when it comes to heavily armed infantry is their cost and lack of mobility.
I can't imagine that plate armour would be cheap to make or maintain. And I wouldn't want to go campaigning with them across a continent but as a defensive force... it is imaginable.

 

[Shockley]

Dragev: One of the major reasons that the shield wall continued to be used by the northern Europeans was that northern European horses were not quality. They had them for sure, but they were never implemented en masse because they just weren't that good. There's a reason why during the first major interaction between shield wall tactics and traditional medieval cavalry tactics (Hastings) the cavalry proved to be decisive in breaking the shield wall. Once quality horses are introduced, the shield wall is abandoned.

Also, the shield wall is not directly analogous to hoplite formations. The phalanx would keep the enemy from making direct contact with the line whenever possible - the shield walls would directly connect, with most of the fighting involving stabbing over and under the shields.

Furthermore, if you are talking about a military unit in chain mail, with medieval shields and medieval polearms, you aren't talking about the phalanx.

CupofJoe: I would argue that the landsknecht units are not direct analogs to the hoplites, in that they used a variety of weapons depending on the situation. A hoplite's sword would have been the final resort, most likely at the point where the phalanx had broken and he was fighting for his life. The landsknecht used massive swords (the famous zweihander) and halberds where necessary, preventing them from falling into the rigidity of the hoplites.

A more clear comparison would be the Spanish tercio, since the focus of that formation was essentially a wall of spears used to limit the enemy's movement into the front of the tercio. That said, the tercio has one major difference from the Greek hoplites - it was an integrated unit (like the maniple legion of Rome), including artillery, gunners and cavalry in its basic structure. Even then, the major failure of the tercio was that it lacked any real mobility - the same problem that the phalanx had. It's telling that Moritz of Nassau, the Dutch commander who really kicked the Spanish out of northern Europe, defeated the tercio by stealing strategies used by the Romans against the Greeks and Macedonians.

 

[thecoldembrace]

To talk hoplite, you talk mobility sacrificed for shock effect. No one would deny the use of shock effect as a key to battle, but as to how that shock effect is used and followed up. A hoplite in the traditional phalanx formation regardless if they were armed with upgrades in arms and armor would still suffer when armies adapted to be mobile, multifaceted fighting forces. The phalanx HAD to be supported heavily on it's flanks, because if the enemy got around the phalanx had a nasty habit of collapsing. The other thing was they were a slow moving armored fist prone to open forays by missile infantry. A good image of this is the Spartan defeat at the Battle of Sphacteria in 425 BC.
As time goes on, the use of firepower (missile infantry before guns) became a very important and pivotal role in determining the outcome of a battle. If you had a more powerful degree of firepower than your opponent you could do two things, whittle him down from afar (which is good because your men are fine), or force him to close and fight you on your terms.

 

[wordwalker]

Remember, the phalanx was at its best when: 1) it wasn't facing longbows or other later-developed missile weapons, 2) it wasn't facing full cavalry (no stirrups yet, and also) 3) it was fighting in rough Greek terrain where flanking wasn't always an option. (Thermopylae: block a tight pass. Marathon: catch them on the beaches.)

 

[Hyperbolus]

I'm not so sure how well a Greek phalanx would do. However, if you want to look at an ancient army that would do well against early medieval armies look to the Romans. I know Dan Carlin from hardcore history, has made the argument that a Roman legion from the late republic/early imperial period, would easily win any military conflict against any European army up to about 1100ad (excluding the Byzantine).

 

[Shockley]

As much as I admire Dan Carlin (Common Sense is my go-to news-based rant), I disagree with him on that.

While the decline of the empire was as much an economic and social event as a military one, the legion stopped winning wars handily fairly quickly, sometimes against fairly weak opponents. Some point to later Roman reforms as the cause of those defeats, but other defeats led to those reforms in the first place. Remember, the Romans struggled with the Germans when they were naked and starving - I don't know how well they would handle the German descendants under someone like Charlemagne.

 

[thecoldembrace]

The middle to late period Roman army had lost a ton of its luster, and became more and more barbarianised. Before these periods the percentage of natural Roman citizens in the legion was about 95%. Slowly as the empire expanded the roles had to be filled by other men from different cultures. At first they were trained the same way as the original legion but as time progressed the fighting tactics that made Rome a superpower with a first rate military devolved into the natural fighting style of barbarians.
Now as to the early Roman army fighting against say the Byzantine Empire? The Byzantines went for a time period an even more heavy army, with devastating elements of eastern warfare. They would under most circumstances run roughshod over the Roman army. Yet, they too devolved late which led to their eventual downfall against the Turks.

 

[Shockley]

That would work if all of Rome's major defeats were in the late empire, but some of them were quite early and even predated the empire:

- Battle of the Allia, 387 BCE against the Celts
- Battle of Arausio, 105 BCE against the Cimbri and Teutones
- Teutoburg Forest, 9 CE, against the Cherusci
- Battle of the Rhone River, and the Battle of Murdigala, 109 and 107 BCE respectively, against the Helvetii
- First Battle of Tapae, 87 AD, against the Dacians

Not exactly a great showing against the barbarians, especially since one of these battles effectively ended Roman expansion in Germania, another resulted in Rome being sacked and most required the service of a military genius to solve (Caesar against the Helvetians, Marius against the Cimbri and Teutones, etc.)

 

[stephenspower]

All this--and several other discussions--are so helpful. I have to have a war at the end of my WIP and but for a new technology that will be introduced haven't really worked out how the battle will go. I'm realizing that to figure out what the armies do now, I have to first figure out what they used to do and how some 40 years of peace has degraded and changed the composition of the armies.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Just a thought. Enlarge the hoplite's traditional round shields to tower shields and lengthen the spears to about fifteen feet. Then if you can ground them into the dirt when there is a cavalry charge you have the basis of a pike square. They were used in the middle ages and were an effective military formation. However, you would want to stack the inside of your pike square with capable archers to give them a useful attack capability or siege engines.

Cheers, Greg.