[General_Zhaoyun]

The shield wall formation of the Roman military is a common tactic used by the Roman Legion. Walls of shields are formed by soldiers standing in formation shoulder to shoulder, holding their shields so that they abut or overlap and each man benefits from the protection of his neighbour's shield as well as his own.

Is this kind of formation effective to counter against cavalry charges? Which battle in roman history was this formation tactic effective in winning the battle?

[tadamson]

General_Zhaoyun, on Jun 23 2006, 02:43 AM, said:

The shield wall formation of the Roman military is a common tactic used by the Roman Legion. Walls of shields are formed by soldiers standing in formation shoulder to shoulder, holding their shields so that they abut or overlap and each man benefits from the protection of his neighbour's shield as well as his own.

Is this kind of formation effective to counter against cavalry charges? Which battle in roman history was this formation tactic effective in winning the battle?

For most of their 1000+ years, Roman troops didn't normally form a "shieldwall", normal battle spacing was 3 feet or two cubits per man, the large shield covered your left side, the next mans shield covered your right side, a gap was left between to throw pila then fight with the sword. against cavalry they formed closer together, with locked shields, the front four ranks leaning together and holding their pila/lancea as grounded spears, rear ranks wer at normal separation throwing javelins overhead, archers behind them also firing overhead. Bolt shooters on carts (and uphill if possible) provided long range support fire (think sniper rifle or anti tank gun rather than machine gun type support).

There were hundreds of battles using these basic techniques (and many others) and there are hundreds of Roman Army sites on the web covering the details.

[Shanghai Expat]

Look at news footage of any major nation's police or army using riot shields and you will much the same tactic in use today There is little new in the world !

[DRleungjan]

The name for this Roman formation was the TESTVDO or 'tortoise' formation. Here's a link with the basics.

http://en.wikipedia....toise_formation

One thing about the Roman Military is that eventhough we pretty much have the grasp of what they are all about, we are still discovering the depths of their warfaring genius. Yes, they were among the world's elite during their heyday.



Regards,
DRleungjan

This post has been edited by DRleungjan: 29 June 2006 - 08:06 PM

[tadamson]

DRleungjan, on Jun 30 2006, 02:05 AM, said:

The name for this Roman formation was the TESTVDO or 'tortoise' formation. Here's a link with the basics.

http://en.wikipedia....toise_formation

One thing about the Roman Military is that eventhough we pretty much have the grasp of what they are all about, we are still discovering the depths of their warfaring genius. Yes, they were among the world's elite during their heyday.
Regards,
DRleungjan

The Wiki article rather operemphasises the use of tortoise formation, military manuals describe it as being used in assaulting fortifications rather than more generaly, and all illustrations are with the cylindrical shield that was only in common use for a couple of hundred years.
It's also clear that this was a small unit formation (for an 80 man centtuary).

[DRleungjan]

tadamson, on Jun 30 2006, 07:04 AM, said:

...military manuals describe it as being used in assaulting fortifications rather than more generaly, and all illustrations are with the cylindrical shield that was only in common use for a couple of hundred years.

It's also clear that this was a small unit formation (for an 80 man centtuary).

Point well taken....I just pointed to the Wiki article so that General Zhaoyun could get a rough idea and start from there. You can also figure that this formation would have worked well against charging barbarians, as the Romans (generally, not all the time) placed themselves in a QVINCVNX or 'checkerboard' formation to form small pockets within their line of defense.


DRleungjan

[ih8eurocentrix]

i dont think the ywould form testudo in the midst of feild battle only seige.+ i think that the gladiator movie inncorreclty portrays the quickness as to its formation

[DRleungjan]

ih8eurocentrix, on Jul 17 2006, 12:06 AM, said:

i dont think the ywould form testudo in the midst of feild battle only seige.+ i think that the gladiator movie inncorreclty portrays the quickness as to its formation

Yes, you are very correct about the TESTVDO. So I did a little bit of research and found other variations of Roman shield-wall formations. So I name them all.

1. Fulcum (foulkon) = anti cavalry spiked barrier http://www.fectio.or...cheonlitus8.jpg

2. Testudo= tortoise

3. Cuneus = wedge

4. Aciem = single battle line (would be the one that would best describe the above pics)


DRleungjan

[ih8eurocentrix]

http://www.roman-emp...el-cavalry.html

Yes ,with round sheilds the testudo formation would look alot like the Fulcum.Like in the movie King Arthur(saxons).

Square sheild was more disciplined than the picture ,in formaton it would look like a box
But we have information that shield walls were used by barbarian tribes such as the saxons and franks.

Also the Han dynasty used Sheild walls in its war with Xiongnu.

Also Steppe peoples adopted the rectangle Sui (aof>?) Sheild which has been shown in Ukraine.

Konxinga troops also used sheild walls

[Non-Han Nan Ban]

Although the turtle formation and roman tactics were impressive (especially when considering the number of legionairres and other soldiers involved in battle), how would they fare against a cavalry charge of a Late Middle Age/Early Renaissance army of heavy cavalry/mounted knights with plate armor, not the scale and flap armor of the Romans?

Other impressive tactics that are Byzantine (which I consider simply an extension of the Roman tradition until the formal dates of the Middle Ages) are outlined in the old Byzantine war manual of the Strategikon, written sometime around the late reign of Emperor Maurice (c. 600 AD), and was the first military manual to describe the use of combined arms before the World Wars of the 20th century. Read into it, really impressive stuff and field tactics. With the spread of the stirrup from the East (derived from China and the northern steppe Turkish nomads), the cavalry tactics in this were greatly enhanced. My favorite is where a line of archers on horseback line up behind a wall of cavalry lancers, firing arrows without accuracy or precision, but simply as fast as possible and as high into the air as possible to efficiently distract the enemy lines ahead, and then suddenly, the front line of heavy cavalry with lances charges forth and acts as shock troops at the enemy's front lines.

Eric

[DRleungjan]

This is what Robert Vermaat of Vortigern Studies has to say about the subject:

Quote

Actually, both 'testudo' and 'fulcum' are words that are used for more than one formation. The totally closed formations used in siege warfare, but also the 'shield wall' with the first 3 (or 4) lines closing shields, are referred to as testudo. same with the fulcum, with the exception though that I never heard of the fulcum as referring to the 'tortoise on the move'.

Here's the link to the convo:

http://www.romanarmy...opic.php?t=9739


DRleungjan

[Alexander39]

In general whit ekstremly few exeptions, horses WILL NOT charge into an seemingly immovable wall, especially one whit lots of pointy bits sticking out, the most important rule for the infantry here is and always has been disipline since a broken front is a lost battle in all to many incidences, it is not so much the quality of the infantrys equipment incl armour and weapons as the abillity to stand their ground and take the charge.

It is saying much that the ONLY sedentary civillisations that had success against nomads in all their forms ALL had a hard core disiplined infantry core as a basis for much of their armies. the Han crossbows would had meant absolutely nothing IF they didnt had the protection and help form fellow infantry whit shields and spears that could be expectet to take both the losses and charges when they came from among others the Xiong-Nu, all the while the crossbows decimatet the attackers until the Han cavalry could take the field and the battle, likewise the Roman legionare, he had one massively thing going against him, it simply took too long in many instances to train and harden him to what the great Consuls of the Roman empire would have found akseptable level, but once trained they literaly had no equals on the ground in any contemporay civilization of the time.
One of the greatest strenghts, if not the greatest tactical strenght the Roman army had were that their leaders virtually ALWAYS could count on their individual cohorts and centuries to react by themself to unforseen circumstances, and rarely panic if things were going against them on the individual basis, the Romans always had a set manuvers they virtually by instinkt turned too even duing the heat of battle to try to turn a disadvantous situation against their foe.
This of course insure rather greater tactical and strategic freedom for the leaders of Roman armies than most of their contemporaries, since they could always count on a fairly high level of minimum expectation for the varius units to behave in fairly predictable manner.
We are unlikely to know all the varius formations the Romans used, incl does they made up vs enemies whit unusual (For the time) ways of combat and equipment, IE The Dacians as one eksample. What we do know were that the Roman legions were almost unbeatable in a straight up fight as long as two important thigs were on their side. 1) Their enemy were a known entity. 2) Most of their legions were not consisting of 1'st year green recruits/mercenaries, a situation that the later Roman empire were in all to often.

[BeeJay]

Quote

Is this kind of formation effective to counter against cavalry charges? Which battle in roman history was this formation tactic effective in winning the battle?

The pic shows western Late Romans, when they had started to adopt an army that fought more like their adversaries: long oval shields, spears, long sword and lots of ranged weapons. More cavalry as well, and those would be used to counter the enemy's.

Shieldwalls were a defensive measure, very compact and not much mobile. I think shock cavalry (the ones that closefor melee) would have a hard time penetrating it successfully, especially considering the wal would be multiple ranks deep and dicharge a cloud of missiles prior to contact (and keep doing it during melee).

Most shieldwalls could fairly quickly be formed and dissolved into a more mobile formation. Those would be less resistant to cavalry charges, but bunchin up can be done quickly and no one in their right mind would charge into the gaps thus formed between individual units. That is, if gaps would appear, as back ranks could also be used to make the front compact.

Infantry would have much more than just closely packed shields to combat cavalry of course, inlcuding caltrops they could through out to their front, etc.

Though normal horses would not voluntarily charge into spiked walls, they would if wounded at the last moments of charge or when trained specially to do so. European warhorses from at least the Middle Ages to at least somewhere into the 17th C would be trained to charge home, kick on command, bite, etc. They were big and heavy too, much worse than warhorses of the Roman era.

Most shock cavalry in Roman days charged very compactly at the trot, so their force was not so much from impact as from momentum. Medieval knights normally charged faster, but that meant looser formations, thus allowed defenders to be less compact as well. Compare for example the 16th C. shieldless pike units that would stand to receive a charge.

All of this means that a classical Roman unit (with their big, squared shields etc) would be well equiped to counter a cavalry charge and still have plenty of time to reform to a shieldwall.

BJ

[Intranetusa]

I've posted twice on this topic but now I'm sure...why is someone deleting my posts?
Give me a reason at least.

[BeeJay]

Quote

Hence, it was not just the shields that gave the Roman line it's edge, but sheer discipline and superior tactics of being able to rest it's own soldiers even during the heat of battle.

True. Though exchanging ranks while in a melee would have been very difficult, if not impossible. However, it was common for short pauzes to happen during the fighting. This allowed such swaps, and also some re-organization among the enemy (like bending straigth their swords, etc). But in most of the 'barbaric' armies the Romans fought, fighting in the front rank was about status, so they would not rotate.

What could effectively be used to keep pressure on the enemy was deploying in their chequerboard formation and then have the second line charge, then the first drops back and charges after a while. Especially against spear wielding shieldwalls this could be effective (because they would want to keep their line intact, so not follow up the line falling back).

Such infantry melees usually where long lasting push and shove affairs (that alone made if very difficult to exchange ranks while fighting), without too many casualties. But eventually one side would tire more than the other, then some would lose heart and leave, then more, and then the whole line would collapse and flee.
The real casualties were made in the pursuit that followed. And against the Britons the orders were to butcher as many as possible, to stop the revolt from becoming completely uncontrollable. The Romans there were helped by all the non-combatants that came to watch the spectacle. So I suspect most of the casualties were women, children and elderly, but the Roman commander wouldn't mention that in his report of course.
Btw, that battle was a bit un-Roman, as they charged in a line of wedges, to puncture the opposing line as quickly as possible because they knew that time was not on their side (they would have been surrounded).

BJ