Explain to me what the tactical purpose in Ancient and Medieval days was of having a guy with a banner at the front of your army, where if he dies, that means you lose.
>>65190703>having a guy with a banner at the front of your army, where if he dies, that means you lose.Is this accurate? I always assumed in pitched battles if the standard falls some other guy picks it up to continue brandishing it, though if you're in a state where he's vulnerable that indicates you're in a tight spot.
>>65190713>Is this accurate?It's a misunderstanding. It's not like everybody gives up and stops fighting when that happens. However, in times before modern comms the "colors" (flag) of a unit was super important. It let commanders see where different units were located on the battlefield. It provided a point of reference for your unit to advance together. It could be a rallying point to fall back to, etc. Losing your colors was a big deal for two very practical reasons: it fucked up C&C, and it also meant that your guys were getting overrun pretty bad. On top of that there was a psychological angle to it. Capturing the enemy's colors was a clear sign you beat them, so everybody wanted to do it, and it was very embarrassing if your unit had its colors taken.
>>65190713This is correct. The standard barrier was typically co-located with their commanding officers. It served multiple functions of communication. If you’re a foot soldier caught up in a melee you can quickly identify and rally where you’re supposed to be not unlike Mel Gibson in the Patriot when he grabs the flag and turns back the retreat. It also allowed the high command overseeing the battle to see from the back where units were and what they were doing. As time progressed this advanced to having multiple flags relaying orders from a distance (The Last Samurai for example). This is where the signal corps originated from and why their insignia to this day is a pair of red and white flags.>From flag and torch forged in the civil war to signal satellites afar.>We give the army the voice to give command from battle field and global span>In combat we’re always in the fight to send the message day or night>To ever skillful ever watchful were the army signal corps
>A moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole,>It does not look likely to stir a man's Soul,>'Tis the deeds that were done 'neath the moth-eaten rag,>When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag.
Do you mean to us me and all good company present that you don't understand the concept of morale, symbology and cheerleading?
>>65190832Next he's going to be asking why armies had musicians
>>65190703>Explain to me what the tactical purpose in Ancient and Medieval days was of having a guy with a banner at the front of your armyBasically, the Banner was a mobile rallying point. You'd group up near your banner and overwhelm any smaller group by outnumbering them locally. If you ever got lost or disoriented you just had to find your banner and move towards it and you'd be with your buddies in short order. Think of it like a MASSIVE bonus to unit cohesion and morale. It also helped you coordinate with other units. >where if he dies, that means you lose.If the man with the banner falls then it's the job of whomever is closest to drop what their doing and pick the banner back up. If the banner fell it was because everyone who could pick it up was dead or dying and the rest of the unit would be picked off one by one. tl;dr the banner fell because you lost.
>>65190703my area of study is more 18th/19th century (and even then it's only amateur at best) but I presume that the fundamentals are reasonably similar, in that it's basically your IFF>each regiment/batallion thereof carries two big flags>one shows which country/army they're from, and the other shows which regiment/batallion thereof they are: for example, the American Civil War infantry in pic have one identifying them as the Union Army, and another identifying them as the 8th Ohio Infantry Regiment>the reason for this is simply that radios do not exist yet>if orders are to be given on the battlefield, then the commander must either give them in person, or send an aide-de-camp out on horseback to give the message on their behalffor example>a hypothetical army's commander observes that the Xth Regiment of Foot is having trouble, and sends an aide to the Yrd Regiment of Foot currently in reserve, with orders to reinforce their position>this aide can quickly identify the Yrd Foot from a distance by their flags, and head on over to transmit the order>the Yrd Foot's CO can likewise recognize the Xth Foot from a distance by their flags, so they can quickly identify exactly where it is they need to be goingwithout these flags:>the commander might recognize which army is which by their uniforms, but have no finer understanding of what's going on>his aides likewise have no idea which group of dudes is which, and certainly not which one they're supposed to be going to>when they eventually find the one they're supposed to be giving orders to, that group of dudes might not know exactly where they're supposed to be going eitherprotecting your flags was therefore extremely important: losing them would make it almost impossible to function on the field, and if you were to suffer a rout, it would be impossible to regroup and return to the battle for lack of any indication of where to be regrouping at
>>65191017Yeah, I know it is a little cheesy (less so than Gettysberg DESU) but in Glory & the real life Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment, William Carney won the Congressional Medal of Honor for being the standard bearer during the assault on Ft. Wagner after the original guard was killed. Never let it touch the ground either. >I do legit like Broderick's performance BECAUSE he is basically a coward and his arc is coming to terms with the fact that he is going to die, didn't understand when we saw it in 7th grade that volunteering for the assault was basically a suicide mission. Dying while leading your men over the parapet of a fortress is a pretty glorious way to die though.
>>65190703>tactical purposeLead, follow or get the hell dead!
>>65190703banners served a role of making it easier for a commander to see which unit was where along with helping the units remain organized
>>65190703>Where if he dies, that means you lose.No.In addition to what others have already said itt, the standard was a very important tool for moral (often connected with religious importance) and could be used to spur the soldiers on. Most famously perhaps some ancient roman aquilifer threw their aquila into enemy fortifications or formations to motivate their soldiers to take those positions in order to get the aquila back. This happened in at least two occasions; once during the Gallic Wars and once during the Macedonian War.
>>65190703Fight in mass melee and you will get the point https://youtube.com/watch?v=lJshvMrrxJcIt's complete chaos from the ground point of view and solders lose reference fast.Banner is simple down to earth instrument of command. >see banner >band around banner>now you have group of fighters who can together kick ass of dispersed enemy fightersBasic rule of combat: get more friends with you and use this number superiority. But in melee it's extremely easy to lose orientation and disperse, so you aren't group together anymore.
>>65190767>Losing your colors was a big deal for two very practical reasons: it fucked up C&C, and it also meant that your guys were getting overrun pretty bad.
>>65191933>the fault was not mine sir, Major Lennox must answer
>>65192327
>>65191864And on the flip side, taking an enemy's standard was a major flex. It's basically proof that you beat an enemy unit so bad they couldn't regroup afterwards. Enemy banners were often kept as trophies, shown off to prove how baddass you were.
>>65192410forgot pic
>>65192413
It makes sense in the context of 90% of casualties and practically all decisive losses being the result of your soldiers getting confused and scared before routing.
>>65192410It was also a massive flex to be so sure of victory that you throw your standard into the enemy position. Like saying you have already won and the enemy doesn't matter.
>>65192754>reason for defeat:>soldiers got confused and scared Shid
>>65192756Well in the two confirmed cases it was an act of desperation. In the Gallic Wars the romans were storming a fortress and kept getting repulsed. The aquilifer Lucius Petrosidius then threw his aquila behind the ramparts to motivate his men. During the continued battle he died but the romans were ultimately victorious. The second case was during the Battle of Pydna where the romans were pushed back by the macedonian phalanx and failed at breaking them. During this push back one officer sized an aquila and threw it onto the phalanx - to little avail as the romans still were unable to create exploitable gaps. Only when the macedonians pushed the romans into a more broken terrain did their phalanx break up, which was exploited in turn by the romans.
>>65193005Really says something that the Romans didn't break despite being pushed back without an Eagle.
>>65192925>soldiers got confused and scaredmost of the time most soldiers in the middle of a crowd with little visibility of how the fight is going. so they're perpetually confused and how much fear they feel is based on vibes.
>>65192925>for most of history, the bulk of battle casualties weren't in actual fighting but in the losing side's attempt to retreat, cut down by enemy cavalry, with survivors being stuck in days of forced march to escape them with little time to rest or procure adequate supplies>in simple terms, being on the losing side of a battle is likely to result in death>if they're going to lose, then the longer any soldier waits to gtfo, the less likely they are to actually get away before the enemy can catch up and run them down>dudes inna battlefield are unlikely to have no way of what's going on beyond what they can personally see (if anything), so they're not going to be able to reliably tell if the battle's going in their favor or not, and might get spooked into thinking things are going worse than they actually are>soldiers fleeing might inspire others on their side to do likewise: do those guys know something we don't? nobody wants to be one of the last ones to make an escape after all, so if things aren't going well then they need to get out before it's too late
>>65193027kinda like this
>>65193103>soldiers fleeing might inspire others on their side to do likewise: do those guys know something we don't? nobody wants to be one of the last ones to make an escape after all, so if things aren't going well then they need to get out before it's too lateThere is a video about routs and how they happened. Much of it is scripted and to watch the ebb and flow of the rout. But one of the demonstrations the side that is acting as the winning side actually has a rout trigger because a guy forgot which side he was playing. Even though they were scripted to win, all it took was one dude turning and running to pull another five guys with him. >what does he know? Should I be running away right now?
>>65190703>a guy with a banner at the front of your armyDidn't happen.Or rather, it depends, and also on your definition of "front". A unit's banner would often be at the back or center of the formation. It can't do its job when it's at the front. Its role is to provide a rally point and tell the unit where it's supposed to be. When marching/advancing the standard will be at the front, because everybody is following the banner. But when the unit stops, the banner will move back.For the entire army's banner like you are implying, it's a completely different story. That banner is the general's banner. And often the general is at the front, because not only is he and his bodyguard the best cavalry unit around, the entire army is advancing, so the standard is right where it should be. Of course, it is not always true that the general is at the front. A defending army would have its general and standard away from the front. You often hear of an advancing unit bashing its way through an entire army to get to the opposing general, followed by successive defenseless standard bearers getting killed while desperately keeping the standard up.After all, any standard bearer actually at the very front would die very quickly, they were basically defenseless.
>>65193019that's because by that point the Romans had how to impose discipline down to a T after fuck ups earlier in the republicin both cases the legions involved where also fairly senior and had been in combat several times beforeon thing the Romans didn't appear to do was replenishing their legions all the time.so a couple of campaigning seasons in a legion would have shrunk but have been made up well seasoned menwhen new legions where razed or old ones reformed they would also try to include a seed of those seasoned veterans to take up NCO roles and possibly form part of the first cohort.that being said our ideas about how the Romans organized and ran their legion is far from perfect and relies on some times very opaque sources spread out over several centuries
>>65193264no, not even close. chaotic battles where the enemy wasn't directly in front of you are a hollywood thingeven if your formation made contact with the enemy everybody that wasn't in the first 3 rows would just be standing shoulder to shoulder staring at the back of the guy in front of them.
>>65193264It was really never like this, ever.Roman legionary tactics post greek style were based on celtic infantry tactics. It is extremely rare to find people fighting in a retarded way. Retarded generals yes, completely under supplied armies yes. But people like to live.
>>65192410I used to play a BF1942 mod where you were pirates. The loadouts included hats with your team color on it, so if you met an enemy wearing a hat with your team's colors you knew they were a killer.
>>65192410Its goes pretty hard. We should go back to using and capturing flags again.
>>65190703Is it summer already?
>>65190703It didn't matter, and "at the front" was a Roman thing. Everyone else protected that shit once the fighting actually started. Banners are just a "this is where you go and your group is going this way" thing. Also important for morske, because if you're a man at arms and the banners are falling, that means your lines are fucked and your best fighters are also likely down.
>>65193639Technically, we still do. It's just those standards are usually located in the FoB, and if that's being threatened, you are in some deep shit.
>>65191885Yep. I once took part on a 150v150 fight. I was in the third rank. Locals spoke French. Mine is shit and it's VERY hard to hear when moving fast in plate armor.I helped turn a flank. Our opposite flack got turned. I got in behind the guys turning OUR flank and started killing them. Friendlies didn't kill me, despite me coming from the wrong direction, because I was in brightly painted armor that's easily recognized. I killed anyone I caught in generic looking kit. Couldn't tell them apart and the lines were too intermixed to tell who was who based on position or movement.A banner, in real life, would've easily let me see where my line began and saved a few of our guys. It's the same with heraldry. Shit helps you orient, battlefields are too fluid to tell where you are otherwise.
>>65194378> I killed anyone I caught in generic looking kit. Couldn't tell them apart and the lines were too intermixed to tell who was who based on position or movement.Reminds me of a medieval battle that took place in my region. Both sides were primarily composed of knights and their retinues but one side also had a sizable contingent of rural peastants and city militia. At the opening of said battle the peasants and militia were driven off the field by the hostile cavalry but were allied by a priest, counterattacked and killed nearly everybody in their way, regardless of friend or foe, because they couldn't differantiate the coat of arms. The peasants and militia even managed to capture the enemy carroccio and the battle was decided in their favor.
>>65193280Do you have the video?
