Alternate history - What could tech 3 Gaul look like?

[adm]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

No, I do think that the terms 'light', 'medium', and 'heavy' should relate to armor and shields. ...

Originally Posted by DanHoward

This type of categorisation does not help organise tactics nor strategy. The convention was set up the way it is for commanders to better deploy their troops, not to satisfy our sensibilities.

Historically, Dan's description matches the miliatary's break down of Light/Medium/Heavy. The deciding factor is how they are used, not how they are equipped, GURPS Mass Combat descriptors generally match this.

How you choose to use it at your table is of course your business, but don't be surprised when others do not understand your reference points.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

No, I do think that the terms 'light', 'medium', and 'heavy' should relate to armor and shields. Light infantry should have an average DR 1-2 with small shields. Medium infantry should have an averge DR 3-4 with medium shields. Heavy infantry should have an average DR 5-6 with large shields.

Light infantry should have a one-handed weapon with an attack that deals a minimum of +0 damage. Medium infantry should have a one-handed weapon with an attack that deals a minimum of +1 damage. Heavy infantry should have a one-handed weapon with an attack that deals a minimum of +2 damage.

Alternatively, infantry can go with two-handed weapons. Light infantry should replace light shields with two-handed weapons with one attack that deals a minimum of +3 damage. Medium infantry should replace medium shields with two-handed weapons with one attack that deals a minimum of +4 damage. Heavy infantry should replace heavy shields with two-handed weapons with one attack that deals a minimum of +5 damage.

I was a light infantryman with DR 50 or whatever and a two-handed weapon (and a role in crew served weapon system too).

[Rasna]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The Celts were the most advanced workers of iron on the planet at the time. They invented mail armour and likely were the first to have drawn iron wire. We have extant La Tene swords - swords that are over two thousand years old - that can be bent almost double and flex back straight. A good book on this subject is Pleiner's The Celtic Sword. When the period sources do not corroborate observable facts then we are not interpreting the sources correctly. There is a lot of "primitive barbarian" bias pervading many Roman descriptions of the Celts and this needs to be taken into account.

I haven't said that all of Gaulish swords lacked an acute point and were prone to bend during a fight, I have said that some of them were. About 40% of foud La Tène swords are made of wrought iron, not steel. And some of them lack a properly acute point. Could they pierce a body with a thrust? Possible, of course, but their shape seems better for swinging than thrusting, and in fact Polybius wrote that Gauls swordsmen used relatively heavy cutting broadswords and usually favoured cutting hits.

https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/am...ene_swords.jpg
https://hedgefairy.files.wordpress.c...rter.jpg?w=656
http://productimages.goantiques.gemr...9_fullsize.jpg

So good and bad swords, thrusting and not-thrusting straight broadsword coexisted in Gaul, at least for several centuries.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The terms "heavy" and "light" have nothing to do with the equipment being used. They are related to the role being performed by the unit. A naked man with a spear is classed as "heavy infantry" if he is standing in a shield wall or phalanx formation. A knight covered head to toe in plate armour is classed as "light cavalry" if he is performing a scouting or skirmishing role.

Equipment is related to role. In a TL2-4 setting, you cannot have cavalry without suitable mounts, you cannot have any functional heavy infantry without armor and/or large shields, you cannot have heavy cavalry without proper weapons and protections. Simply because they lack proper equipment for their role. Cataphracts can frontally charge heavy infantry formations with some possibility to be successful, depending on (excluding morale, experience, discipline and tactical support from other troops): terrain, lenght of infantry and cavalry polearms and the depht of the formation. Gaulish horsemen not. They were more mobile than cataphracts (so they are better than them for outflanking, skirmishing and scouting) and they can charge frontally with effectiveness light infantry and light cavalry, but they were vulnerable to ranged units and highly disadvantaged in hand-to-hand combat with heavier units. At Carrhae 4,000 Gaulish horsemen were annihilated in a frontal confrontation by 1,000 Parthian cataphracts, whom suffered almost no losses. So I think there is a difference between medium and heavy cavalry. It's possible that light infantry or cavalry can act as heavy infantry/cavalry or vice-versa. Sometimes it works. But possibilities offered by training, terrain and equipment should be always taken into account.

[DanHoward]

Equipment is irrelevant. A naked man standing in shield wall is classed as heavy infantry. Wishing something different doesn't make it so.

[AlexanderHowl]

Heavy infantry is defined as heavily armored and armed (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_infantry) so a naked man behind a shield wall is just an unfortunate bystander, not heavy infantry. Equipment makes an individual heavy infantry, using the tactics of heavy infantry without the equipment is a good way to become a casualty.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Heavy infantry is defined as heavily armored and armed (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_infantry) so a naked man behind a shield wall is just an unfortunate bystander, not heavy infantry. Equipment makes an individual heavy infantry, using the tactics of heavy infantry without the equipment is a good way to become a casualty.

Those hoplites aren't even wearing pants.

[Rasna]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Equipment is irrelevant. A naked man standing in shield wall is classed as heavy infantry. Wishing something different doesn't make it so.

You need shields to form a shield wall. So equipment isn't irrelevant. Theoretically you can deploy unarmed and unarmoured men as heavy infantry asking them to hold the line against archers, slingers or cavalry, but even if they have high morale, they will break easily. A naked man in a shield wall is a light infantryman acting as heavy infantryman, and he can do this with some degree of success only because his shield or the shields of his companions.

[DanHoward]

You don't need shields for heavy infantry. Napoleon's troops were classed as heavy infantry when they formed a tight formation and they only had a musket and bayonet. When the same troops spread out and operated as skirmishers they were classed as light infantry.

[Rasna]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

You don't need shields for heavy infantry. Napoleon's troops were classed as heavy infantry when they formed a tight formation and all they had was a musket and bayonet.

That's because Napoleon's troop were TL5, so shields and most of TL4 body armor were obsolete due to the advancement of firearms.

[AlexanderHowl]

Of course, the meaning of the term heavy infantry varies with TL. I am just using what I consider an acceptable definition for TL 3 or TL 4. TL 2 heavy infantry would not be considered heavy infantry against TL 3 heavy infantry because of the lack of limb armor.