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Sardis 395 BC

Started by MengJiao, April 05, 2017, 04:43:53 PM

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MengJiao


  Some secondary sources don't find any convincing core narrative for this battle and the primary sources (including Xenophon who was with
the Spartan army for part of this campaign) offer a confusing picture at best.  One way to reconcile the various primary sources is to suppose that
they report the battle from at least two different viewpoints: that of Herippidas, Xenophon's replacement and probably Xenophon's eyewitness source
and Xenocles who is not reported at all by Xenophon, but who plays the major role in all other narratives.  Herippidas (in my reconstruction) was with the main Spartan army (at the two red squares) and could not see what happened on the other side of the woods and watercourse from the Persian camp.  He reported a big battle.  Xenocles (at three red squares), led the ambush that (in my reconstruction) hit the baggage at the rear of the Persian column and went on to plunder the Persian wagons and camp (at one red square) -- he reported that the Persians ran away in total disorder.
  This all departs a long way from the scenario given in C3I 29, but all the Hoplite scenarios are a bit slanted toward a set-piece interpretation of events, though the account in C3I 29 is at least as garbled as any other.

   Anyway here is my version of Sardis at the moment (probably a bit late) that Xenocles and his 900 hoplites (in mixed formation) and 600 light infantry burst from the trees near the Persian camp:

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on April 05, 2017, 04:43:53 PM

   Anyway here is my version of Sardis at the moment (probably a bit late) that Xenocles and his 900 hoplites (in mixed formation) and 600 light infantry burst from the trees near the Persian camp:

  Things go pretty quickly.  Here is the end of Turn 1.  The ambush as scattered the baggage train (0-9 (- 3) per wagon captured) and the Egyptian and Assyrian heavy infantry are wading the river and driving back the peltasts.  Tissophranes (Bright-One, radiant-one) and the medium infantry are coming up on the right of the heavies.  The Greeks are acting aggressive and Herippidas and his men (survivors of the "Ten Thousand") are crossing the river and entering the woods.

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on April 05, 2017, 07:48:51 PM

  Things go pretty quickly.  Here is the end of Turn 1.  The ambush as scattered the baggage train (0-9 (- 3) per wagon captured) and the Egyptian and Assyrian heavy infantry are wading the river and driving back the peltasts.  Tissophranes (Bright-One, radiant-one) and the medium infantry are coming up on the right of the heavies.  The Greeks are acting aggressive and Herippidas and his men (survivors of the "Ten Thousand") are crossing the river and entering the woods.

  End of Turn 2...things are getting critical fast.  40 minutes into the battle and things are not looking very good for the Spartan Army (the Spartan king is leading it, but one account says there were 30 Spartans in the 24,000-man army).  On the Spartan left the cavalry are being overwhelmed while in the center the Egyptian heavy infantry is close to routing the hoplites and on the right most of the Spartan allies are still struggling through the woods.

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on April 05, 2017, 08:58:45 PM
On the Spartan left the cavalry are being overwhelmed while in the center the Egyptian heavy infantry is close to routing the hoplites and on the right most of the Spartan allies are still struggling through the woods.

  End of Turn 3 -- an hour into the battle.  The Spartan cavalry off to the NW have been bolstered by some hoplites and may hang on.  In the Center, the Egyptian heavy infantry has been repulsed by the Spartans, but the Persian medium infantry under Tissophanes have routed one phalanx so rout points are nearly equal at 80 (Spartans) and 78 (Persians).  Both will collapse at 120 so the end is coming pretty quickly for one or the other.

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on April 06, 2017, 07:07:01 PM

  End of Turn 3 -- an hour into the battle.  The Spartan cavalry off to the NW have been bolstered by some hoplites and may hang on.  In the Center, the Egyptian heavy infantry has been repulsed by the Spartans, but the Persian medium infantry under Tissophanes have routed one phalanx so rout points are nearly equal at 80 (Spartans) and 78 (Persians).  Both will collapse at 120 so the end is coming pretty quickly for one or the other.

  Things were close.  Just before the very last chit-pull of turn 4, the rout points were just over one hundred for both sides.  Then for the last chit-pull of turn 4, Agesilaus and the Spartan hoplites, hoping to recover the crumbling center of the Spartan line, counter-attacked the Persian medium infantry commanded by Tissophranes.  Things went badly.  The hoplites were routed and the Spartan Army collapsed giving an unexpected victory to Persia.

bayonetbrant

was that as much of a WWI-style linear slog as it looked in the pix?
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MengJiao

Quote from: bayonetbrant on April 10, 2017, 04:40:25 AM
was that as much of a WWI-style linear slog as it looked in the pix?

  With hoplites linear is the ideal.  The Persians are far more flexible at all levels -- and that flexibilty was something I was trying to get to work
in this particular scenario with the Spartans springing an ambush it seemed like the battle would be pretty wild and woolly and I thought the Persians
would actually have a pretty good chance -- though at this point (395) the two (Spartans and Persians) have been fighting each other for almost a century and they are becoming more similar -- for example Arieus is a Persian commander in this battle and at Cunaxa a few years earlier he was on the same side as the "Ten thousand" and the Spartans have some "Persian" cavalry...In this scenario,
the winning combination was a big hit by the Persian heavies and cavalry straining the Spartan line to the breaking point, followed by medium infantry exploiting gaps in the straining Spartan hoplite array.   On the other hand, the game system represents such things as a slog in that the cohesion loses build up fairly steadily and in some spots the slogging goes on quite a while.
So the answer is: this scenario went far into the totally attritional range -- But the key events were non-linear which was why the linear hoplite side lost.