Mixing periods

Hi,

Playing around with Advanced Tactics, which is more like a general
purpose wargame engine than anything else I've come across in recent
times had me wondering again about mixed period warfare. Mixed periods
is what you often see in tabletop games where a Chinese army of 1000
BC fights Karolingian Franks or such using a ruleset that is general
enough for both armies.

Questions like : could 2500 English (ok, Welsh) longbowmen have
outfought 5000 Brown Bess equipped Napoleonic times infantry when put
against each other in a firefight on a battlefield ? (I say yes) And
could the quick moving phalanxes of Philips of Macedon overrun either
of them ? (tricky question)

I seem to remember a wargame where you could design armies and
scenarios for just about any period - rather generic - but how as it
called and did it allow you to set up fights between Gallic cavalry
against Napoleonic Cuirrassiers or any other silly stuff like that ?

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

<eddysterckx.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:089effa0-f158-4b6e-93c1-31452b3ac750@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> Playing around with Advanced Tactics, which is more like a general
> purpose wargame engine than anything else I've come across in recent
> times had me wondering again about mixed period warfare. Mixed periods
> is what you often see in tabletop games where a Chinese army of 1000
> BC fights Karolingian Franks or such using a ruleset that is general
> enough for both armies.

In the world of miniature gaming cross-period compatibility is required for
purely practical reasons - mostly because a gamer has already bought and
painted an army led by someone with the appelation of 'the great' or 'the
conquerer'. And then you're hard-pressed to find another gamer who's
willing to build and paint an appropriate enemy army - typically led by
someone called 'the fat', 'the bald' or 'the unready'. I'm a case in
point - I built my Macedonian army almost thirty years ago and in a flurry
of enthuasim (and club bulk discounts) also bought Greeks, Indians and
Persians. To date I've painted some of the Greeks and not one of the
Persians or Indians.

>
> Questions like : could 2500 English (ok, Welsh) longbowmen have
> outfought 5000 Brown Bess equipped Napoleonic times infantry when put
> against each other in a firefight on a battlefield ? (I say yes) And
> could the quick moving phalanxes of Philips of Macedon overrun either
> of them ? (tricky question)

Ben Franklin once suggested that the Revolutionary armies of the nacent US
military turn in their muskets for longbows. I've never been certain of
exactly how serious his suggestion actually was. And the phalanxes were
extremely vulnerable to missile fire - the Roman legionarries were able to
exploit the disorder in the phalangist's ranks caused by their thrown pilum
to great effect during Rome's wars with the Selucid empire. So I'd guess it
would be a matter of ground too - a pike phalanx had to be deployed on
carefully scouted and relatively flat land to have any chance of
effectiveness.

>
> I seem to remember a wargame where you could design armies and
> scenarios for just about any period - rather generic - but how as it
> called and did it allow you to set up fights between Gallic cavalry
> against Napoleonic Cuirrassiers or any other silly stuff like that ?

Pre-gunpowder tactics (and particularly cavalry tactics) were pretty similar
across the millenia. Especially as the training manuals of the day were
oftentimes based on the training manuals of the previous eras.
Missile-armed cavalry on small horses skirmished and harassed. Armored
cavalry with heavier horses and better weapons charged. It didn't really
make a lot of difference in terms of effect whether the charging cavalry
were Byzantine cataphracts or crusader knights or Napoleonic cuirassiers.

<shrug>

It wasn't until the time of the American Civil War that infantrymen could
see a line of cavalry approach and say "here come those damn fools with
their sabres."

--
MJB

Mr. Tin's Miniature Painting Workshop:
http://web.newsguy.com/Mrtinsworkshop/