Soldiers marching.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Or, in other words, your mileage may vary.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Or' date=' in other words, your mileage may vary.[/quote']

 

 

I seem to have repped you recently...

[tkdguy]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

http://www.renaissancesoldier.com

[Comic]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Knowledge of the terrain, too, is important.

 

Do you have local experts? Spies? Scouts? How much and of what quality.

 

Are you trying to be unobserved, or intend to be seen?

 

Are you moving toward a seige, to reinforce an ally, to chase a foe, to meet an oncoming enemy head-on?

 

Where will meeting them be most advantageous? Typically the force that has the field first has the advantage.

 

Will there be popular support along the way, or popular resistance?

 

Or, to save time, I could point you to Sun Tzu's Art of War. It's shorter, and better written.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

While we're recommending books, Garnet Wolseley's _Soldier's Pocket Handbook_ sold in the millions in the last century. It is _way_ harder to find than Sun Tzu, but much more crunchy, and it is the one crunchy book on this stuff that you can find. Plus, it has a kicka--s plum pudding recipe.

Information animal, vegetable and mineral, in one easy volume.

[Kristopher]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Oh and if you've ever wondered what the air/speed velocity of a swallow carrying a coconut is...

 

or at least the metabolic requirements of a marching Roman legionary were, here's more information than you probably ever wanted

http://bjsm.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/32/3/261.pdf

 

Cheers, Mark

 

OK, I lied about the swallows

 

Link requires registration before the info can be viewed.

[Markdoc]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Link requires registration before the info can be viewed.

 

Oops. Sorry about that - since the server verifies admission automatically (and I often am logged into the network even from home) when I click a link, I often go straight to the page without seeing a log-in.

 

I posted the link mostly as a joke, since the bulk of the article is about the metabolic requirements required to meet roman marching standards and it goes into far more detail than I suspect anyone here would want. However there is one relevant bit:

 

As the Roman mile was equivalent to 1665 modern Imperial yards, the Roman pound was 0.721 pounds avoirdupois, and the hour was then a flexible unit of one twelfth of the daylight hours (the standard modern hour being a relatively recent—that is, 14th century—development), this corresponds to a march rate of some 3.4 mph at the full step and 2.85 mph at the military step, carrying 43 lb 4 oz avoirdupois.

 

In short, a legionary was expected to do a bit less than 3 mph in full kit on a standard march and a bit over that if they were in hurry: about the same as modern light infantry.

 

cheers, Mark

[Kristopher]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

And how many calories a day does that come out to?

[Markdoc]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

And how many calories a day does that come out to?

 

No idea - the article is looking at oxygen and glucose requirements to maintain that pace and concludes, based on the measurements of legionary bodies (and comparing it to modern high-performance athletes) that the pace set was just below the threshold of lactic acid accumulation - which would have let them maintain that pace for sustained periods of time without damaging their muscles.

 

They also say:

But it is also apparent from the equivalence of the metabolic rates of the unladen full step and the laden military step that the ergonomic advisers to the Roman military seem to have had a good understanding of the energy demands of sustained activity. How they established this challenges the imagination.

 

Knowing the Romans, they probably established it by finding out at what speed troops died or collapsed from marching and then setting it a litle lower than that.

 

cheers,Mark

[MorpheousXO]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

...

Knowing the Romans, they probably established it by finding out at what speed troops died or collapsed from marching and then setting it a litle lower than that.

 

cheers,Mark

 

all I have to say is... LOL

[LordGhee]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Mardok, get into the Spirt!

 

 

THAT IS WHAT SLAVES ARE FOR!

 

Lord Ghee

[The Weapon]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Yeah, what he said.

 

But as a rough rule of thumb:

 

Group carrying supplies on wagons or seige gear, 8-10 miles a day.

 

Group all or most on foot, carrying their own gear, about 20 miles a day (if they are well disciplined)

 

Group riding and carrying their own gear around 25 miles a day

 

Group riding carrying their own gear with plenty of remounts, abot 30 miles

 

Figure than in the short term the last 3 groups can double their mileage, but they start to straggle, lose men who drop out, pile on the LTE loss, etc and that they can triple the distance for a day or tow by pushing themselves to the absolute limit, but will disintegrate as afighting force after a couple of days like that.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Being organised enough to supply from a friendly area you go through can nullify the effects of forced marching. Harold Godwinson was particularly good at fast redeployment. Most of his victories were due to the "Where did he come from?" trick.

[Markdoc]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Being organised enough to supply from a friendly area you go through can nullify the effects of forced marching. Harold Godwinson was particularly good at fast redeployment. Most of his victories were due to the "Where did he come from?" trick.

 

Yeah, Harold made good use of a small elite group of mounted huscarls, but he tried the trick one time too many. His forced march from Stamford bridge to London impressed his contemporaries - he covered 200 miles in only 7 days, for an average speed of nearly 30 miles a day (though he did have the advantages of both being in friendly country and having an excellent road network). But even so, to do that he had to leave most of the northern fyrd behind: they were still trickling into his camp when the battle of Hastings started a week later and thousands probably never arrived. The loss of the fyrd archers in particular is though to have weakened the English army - we know there were many of them at Stamford bridge from the thousands of arrowheads dug up and Harald Hardraada was reputedly killed by an archer: but there is little mention of them at Hastings, where the norman archers seemed to have enjoyed an undisputed field. Even Harold's huscarls who made the trip with him and who were probably pretty much all mounted, were probably exhausted, at any rate, he paused several days in London, before setting out again, allowing William time to consolidate his position.

 

It was an impressive effort and if William had landed a week later, history might have been very different, but there is a limit to how fast you can go, and Harold's marches, while impressive, fall into the 20-30 miles a day range already outlined.

 

cheers, Mark

[The Weapon]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Yeah, Harold made good use of a small elite group of mounted huscarls, but he tried the trick one time too many. His forced march from Stamford bridge to London impressed his contemporaries - he covered 200 miles in only 7 days, for an average speed of nearly 30 miles a day (though he did have the advantages of both being in friendly country and having an excellent road network). But even so, to do that he had to leave most of the northern fyrd behind: they were still trickling into his camp when the battle of Hastings started a week later and thousands probably never arrived. The loss of the fyrd archers in particular is though to have weakened the English army - we know there were many of them at Stamford bridge from the thousands of arrowheads dug up and Harald Hardraada was reputedly killed by an archer: but there is little mention of them at Hastings, where the norman archers seemed to have enjoyed an undisputed field. Even Harold's huscarls who made the trip with him and who were probably pretty much all mounted, were probably exhausted, at any rate, he paused several days in London, before setting out again, allowing William time to consolidate his position.

 

It was an impressive effort and if William had landed a week later, history might have been very different, but there is a limit to how fast you can go, and Harold's marches, while impressive, fall into the 20-30 miles a day range already outlined.

 

cheers, Mark

 

I understand most of the ones he lost on the way to Stamford Bridge he got back on the way to Hastings. But of course he lost a lot of people on the way to Hastings. Still he managed to defeat one of the best generals in northern Europe and then fight someone perhaps as good within a week or so and hold him off for 9 hours! Most battles in this period were over in less than half that time. And if the day had ended in stalemate he would have recieved more reinforcements and supplies while Willliam's men were isolated. He damn near won.

I agree though that he tried the trick once too often. He probably would have been better off fortifying a position on the road William HAD to take and waiting. This plus cutting down across the road would have given him time to get his forces up to full strength. Even a small wooden palisade across the march route would have been enough to give him a decided advantage.

[Markdoc]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

I agree though that he tried the trick once too often. He probably would have been better off fortifying a position on the road William HAD to take and waiting. This plus cutting down across the road would have given him time to get his forces up to full strength. Even a small wooden palisade across the march route would have been enough to give him a decided advantage.

 

Exactly. It's not a slam on Harold, who was obviously a very competent general. But as it ended up, his army was stretched out in bits and pieces the length of England - units kept turning up for muster days after Harold's death. Waiting would only have strengthened his position and made Willaim's more tenuous.

 

We don't know why he decided to push forward. Some historians have hypothesised that William was wasting the countryside to draw him out, but it's equally possible that Harold hoped to repeat his "turn up and catch 'em by surprise" trick, which had worked so well, just a week or so before.

 

cheers, Mark

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Just think...if William had never conquered England, the Brits would never have started spelling words all weird. All that "theatre" and "humour" crap is 100% French...

[Markdoc]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Just think...if William had never conquered England' date=' the Brits would never have started spelling words all weird. All that "theatre" and "humour" crap is 100% French...[/quote']

 

No, we would have gotten weird anglo-scandinavian words instead, like "ubegivenlighed"

 

Although what would have happened if William had been killed is interesting to speculate on: England would probably have stayed much poorer than it was, for longer - it was the French Connection that built up most of England's early trade. There would have been no hundred years war (in fact, the english connection to continental wars would have been weakened a lot), and it's possible that the strong scandinavian family links would have led England to get involved in the long and destructive wars between the three scandinavian countries instead - it's even possible that a Danish/English alliance might have taken control of Norway, leading to a medieval North Sea kingdom (for a while: it's hard to see it hanging together any better than the real triple aliance did).

 

It's also possible that without the central authority imposed by the Normans that, England would have gone the route of Germany - endless wars between petty princes, leaving France and Spain as the dominant European and eventually, probably world powers.

 

cheers, Mark

[SableWyvern]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Taken from The Roman War Machine, by John Peddie, in turn borrowing heavily from de Bello Gallico by Ceasar:

 

Times and distances based on six legions (30,000 men, plus cavalry and baggage), marching 10 miles at 3mph (baggage train moving slightly slower), with a total length of marching column of 22.5 miles.

 

[b]Time     Event                                    Remarks[/b]
H Hour   Recce Group Departs Camp I               -
+10min   Vanguard Departs Camp I                  Followed by Command Group and Main Body
+3h20m   Recce Group Arrives Camp II              -
+3h30m   Vanguard Arrives Camp II                 Followed by Command Group and Main Body
+3h30m   Camp Layout Commenced                    Tail of Main Body Departs Camp I
+3h30m   Head of Baggage Train Departs Camp I     -
+4h      Protective Screen Deployed               After Arrival of First Legion
+4h30m   Fortifications Commenced                 After Arrival of Second Legion
+6h30m   Tail of Main Body Arrives Camp II        -
+7h      Head of Baggage Train Arrives Camp II    -
+12h     Tail of Baggage Train Arrives Camp II    Column Complete at Camp II

[RPMiller]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

If your tech level is too low for a mindfield' date=' try caltrops. Better yet, install the mind field in the center of the road, then sew caltrops on the shoulders.[/quote']

The Japanese used flooded lands quite a bit to good effect. It forced the horses and armor laden soldiers to stick to the roads and levees making them vulnerable and diminishing the front they could attack with. While it didn't directly damage or kill anyone it put them at such a disadvantage that it served as an effective deterrent.

[RPMiller]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Yeah being mounted doesn't really give you a lot of extra distance in a day. The primary benefit is that you can carry more stuff. The horses may be faster but they are constrained by terrain that us primates can scramble over. This often prevents them from taking the most direct route.

I've always heard similar. In fact, from the research I've been doing on the Old West apparently the only real advantage to a horse is that it gets tired instead of you. In addition, there is the 'can carry more stuff' factor and can go faster for a longer period of time, but the trade off is the food and care of them. Interesting also is that the harder you push the horse the shorter the distance you can go if you care about keeping the horse. The Mormons that blazed the trails to Utah discovered this apparently.

[Badger]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Course another Old West advantage to a horse was the fact you had a chance to get away if Indians or bandits got after you.

[Sword-dancer]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Excellent point! After you mentioned it I think I remember seeing that somewhere before. But I cannot recall. It does make perfect sense' date=' given the climate and terrain.[/quote']

 

 

 

German empereors in italian campaigns also preferred often the winter.

I fear nothing except gods wrath and italys burning sky

[LordGhee]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

Rereading some mag (S&T's) and Ptolemy IV marched his 61000 infantry and 5000 Cav and 71 elephants 180 km in five days from Gaza to Raphia (modern Sabot in Syria? in order to gain surprise on Antidochus and his army.

 

that is 36 km in a day (22miles)!

[Guest Goradin]

Re: Soldiers marching.

 

12-15 Miles per day is a good pace for marching armies. Though I heard of forced marches where 30 miles a day were done but it was not the norm.

 

Both men and horses will break down if continously marched hard day after day.