Sardis Again

[MengJiao]

  In all the highly contradictory primary accounts of this supposed battle, the one constant is that the Persians suffered a major defeat when they crossed a river to attack the Spartans.  So if we remove the ambush or suppose that it hit the baggage train and the Persian camp, we are left with the possibility that the Spartans more or less lured the Persians into attacking across a river at some point.
   The other factor to consider is that Tissophanes was executed by the King of Kings for some unimaginable foul-up associated with this battle (or non-battle).  So -- in the view of other people at the time Tissophanes should have  pressed his attack and won.  So the Persians get 30 a extra rout point bonus if they get all their surviving troops across the river -- also Tissophanes gets to avoid execution.
   Another twist to bear in mind is that -- whatever happened or did not in the battle -- Tissophanes and his second-in-command, Arieus, both survived with relatively intact forces suggesting that historically they only were lured once and the second case in some accounts was more of a stand-off.
   Anyway, in this scenario the Persians attack as the King of Kings no doubt would have wanted them to do.
   Here is the initial set-up and the Spartans have the initiative and have placed a planned withdrawal on the mercenary hoplites of the survivors of the "Ten Thousand"...

PS...another article suggests that Xenophon's account of some kind of battle is more plausible than the ambush story...plus it looks to me like what the Persians were trying to do was to get ahead of the Spartans at this particular river crossing, but the Spartans came up more quickly than expected and the Persians ended up being defeated in detail before they could deploy (other than positioning their baggage rather enticingly it seems).  Had they arrived a few hours earlier, then this scenario (shown here) would be reasonable, if not historical.

[MengJiao]

 

PS...another article suggests that Xenophon's account of some kind of battle is more plausible than the ambush story...plus it looks to me like what the Persians were trying to do was to get ahead of the Spartans at this particular river crossing, but the Spartans came up more quickly than expected and the Persians ended up being defeated in detail before they could deploy (other than positioning their baggage rather enticingly it seems).  Had they arrived a few hours earlier, then this scenario (shown here) would be reasonable, if not historical.

40 minutes into the battle and it looks like the Persians will overwhelm the Spartan right (where the heavy fighting on the steep-banked river is happening).  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this apparently was not it:

[MengJiao]

40 minutes into the battle and it looks like the Persians will overwhelm the Spartan right (where the heavy fighting on the steep-banked river is happening).  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this apparently was not it:

  20 more minutes of fighting and things are getting twisted.  The Spartan mercenaries rout the Egyptian heavy infantry and start swinging around to threaten the rear of the surviving Persian heavy infantry (who are also Greek mercenaries, though not as hardened as the survivors of the "Ten Thousand") while the Persian medium infantry threatens the rear of the Spartan mercenaries and the Spartan cavalry hits the rear of the Persian medium infantry.  The fighting has been intense (two Spartan commanders wounded) and had all gone a little better for the Persians all this twisting would be turning out more their way BUT with the Persian army everything is fine until everybody starts running away.  Well before collapse time, so many Persian formations have routed that the fact that technically the army is still Okay doesn't mean all that much:

[MengJiao]

BUT with the Persian army everything is fine until everybody starts running away.  Well before collapse time, so many Persian formations have routed that the fact that technically the army is still Okay doesn't mean all that much:

  As it turns out, collapse was very near.  In turn 4, the Persians rolled extremely well and routed a Spartan mercenary hoplite formation so Spartan rout points were at about 50 (collapse at 130).  Then the Spartans got two hoplite formation moves in a row (mercenaries and then regular Spartans -- mostly helots in hoplite gear) and routed thousands of Persians across the whole front, whereupon (at 150 rout points) the entire Persian army collapsed -- end of battle.  The Spartan commander was killed, no doubt non-historically upsetting his sister who was the first woman to win an Olympic contest historically (4-horse chariot), but saving Sparta from appointing her husband commander of the Spartan fleet, so perhaps, non-historically, the Spartans would not have lost their fleet.

[bayonetbrant]

so was it more lucky die rolls, or just a overwhelming local overmatch?

[MengJiao]

so was it more lucky die rolls, or just a overwhelming local overmatch?

  Several things ended up favoring the Spartans versus what happened to them in the previous scenario:
1) shorter front
2)Not getting their mercenaries entangled in the woods
3)Neutralizing the Persian Cavalry at the river (its hard to see but in the earlier scenario the Spartans split their main hoplite force to block the cavalry and lost about 40% of their effectiveness and opened a hole in their array and lost command control of the split-off hoplites)
4) Not pushing too far with their peltasts
5) using their own cavalry to neutralize some Persian exploitation of gaps in the hoplite array

So despite a total rout point superiority by the Persians of about 350 (persian) to 250 (spartan), the Spartans were able to rout the Persian heavy infantry and light infantry which was enough to collapse the Persian Army.  Given that Tissophanes probably could correctly foresee this outcome, the King of Kings was probably wrong to have him executed.