Neo-Human civerlisations and the way they fight

[Dangerious P. Cats]

I'm working on a setting set in a future where human civerlisation has collasped and humans are the slaves of intelligent apes. The setting kicks off when current day people who were chryogenically frozen by a commet rock and free a large number of humans. The humans then got on to found neo-human civerlisations, many based of romantised notions of human history. The rough stummbelling block I'm having is with a group inspired by the Military might or Rome and Sparta, I've hit a stump as to how they might organise their military. What I need to work out is what sort of war gear and tactics such a group would use on land and by sea. Defining their military is more important than their society since their soldiers are what the plays will encounter most.

[tanniynim]

I'm assuming guns don't exist in this setting? What about bows?

I'd set up a "perfect military culture" with a good cavalry, shield-based infantry (the Roman testudo), lifelong-trained archers (ala the English/Welsh), and fast, ramming boats with large boarding planks (Bring your infantry to the enemy.)

They'd probably have a concept of "The Warrior" like the Spartans did. You want a romanticized version? Watch 300. However, I'd expect that they would only make the non-warriors a lower class and function as the Roman plebs. People who don't pass The Warrior Test as young men are not officially citizens of the empire. Women are not officially citizens, but mothers and wives of Warriors are held in high regard.

Military organization **IS** the political organization. Senators or Mayors may lead small armies on scouting missions or battles. A leader-type with no official clout may lead a party to found a new town, becoming Mayor or Governor of the region in the process.

[Dangerious P. Cats]

The setting is Tech level 3 for humans, with random higher tech bits in some areas.

[tanniynim]

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

The setting is Tech level 3 for humans, with random higher tech bits in some areas.

What's the tech level for apes? They're probably going to come into contact with them and it will be important for their strategy and military styles if the ape tech level is much higher.

[David Johnston2]

That means while they may use Spartan child-rearing strategies, their military organisation is better modeled on that of the Romans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_tactics

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

The rough stummbelling block I'm having is with a group inspired by the Military might or Rome and Sparta, I've hit a stump as to how they might organise their military.

The Roman and Spartan models are very different, while both were at least initialy citizen armies they differ vastly in detail and outcomes. If you are in doubt about which way to go run with the Roman approach.

At the risk of leaving half the board baying for my blood, I have to say that the Spartan model strikes me as a very messy dead end. While it produced very fine soldiers Spartan social organisation produced far too few soldiers far too slowly.

The early Roman system (or similar Chinese and Germainic models) seems a much better foundation. Indevidual soldiers may not have been quite so capable but the system is likely to provide many more of them if only because it both facilitates the recruitment of more of the population and because with a few precautions it can be exported to captive territories.

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

What I need to work out is what sort of war gear and tactics such a group would use on land and by sea. Defining their military is more important than their society since their soldiers are what the plays will encounter most.

For a society like this, at lower TL's especialy, military requirements defign society (and vice versa). These models tended to assume an army drawn from small landholders serving in a fashion not at all alien to the soldiers of later conscript armies.

Taking bits from all of the systems mentioned (and a few others) I would suggest that your society would look something like this:

Land ownership would be spread as widely as practical in order to maximise the number of recruits with a period of compulsory military training (no so protracted or intense as the Spartan example) for all able bodied males from landed families. The actual army will probably be divided into two parts. A 'home army' consisting primarly of young men undergoing their initial training supported by a cadre of veterans and if nessecary additional troops levied on an ad-hoc basis. And a 'field army' probably consisting of a select levy of men who have completed their basic training, drawn on the basis of one man from every say three to five landed households for a period of several years if not longer.

As for equipment and tactics, go with what worked historcaly in these situations. On land concentrate upon massed infantry using a standardised load out, both the Roman pilum, sword, large shield combination and the mixed halberd/pike and crossbow of various mass armies including the Han Chinese and the Swiss have obvious and proven advantages if used properly.

At sea, do the same as on land. Use fast, manuverable vessles carying as many soldiers as possible. Either bombard the target with anti-personel projectiles to soften them up and then board or use sustained bombardment with light weapons (pilae, bows and smaler mangonels) to disable ships by attrition. If using the later tactic one aditional weapon that might be useful is the striking arm, a weighted and often hooked boom used by some Chinese warships of the middle ages. These are released onto the target hopefully pinning it at point blank range for your projectiles so that it can't either break away or close the range in order to board.

[gjc8]

Keep in mind that tactics, and even society, are highly dependent on TL. The Greek and Roman models where both pre-stirrups; the availability of stirrups (and other advances in saddle design, horse breeding, etc) at TL 3 makes cavalry much more effective. Cavalry, in turn, require a different model, as supporting a cavalryman and his horses is much more different than supporting an infantryman. Of course, if you want infantry, you could simply make horses unavailable (it is the future, afterall).

In turn, the longbow, and to a lesser extent the crossbow, and then later the many iterations of gunpowder weapons, change warfare again.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Frost

The Roman and Spartan models are very different, while both were at least initialy citizen armies they differ vastly in detail and outcomes. If you are in doubt about which way to go run with the Roman approach.

At the risk of leaving half the board baying for my blood, I have to say that the Spartan model strikes me as a very messy dead end. While it produced very fine soldiers Spartan social organisation produced far too few soldiers far too slowly.

I agree 100%. Sparta is not a model for a sustainable society (military or otherwise). It was a pathological culture whose military success was very dependent on time and place. Ultimately, history has spoken for the Spartan model.

As for equipment and tactics, go with what worked historcaly in these situations. On land concentrate upon massed infantry using a standardised load out, both the Roman pilum, sword, large shield combination and the mixed halberd/pike and crossbow of various mass armies including the Han Chinese and the Swiss have obvious and proven advantages if used properly.

An important consideration is unit structure -- multiply subdivided units, with a deeper pyramid of officer and NCOs than typical competitors was a hallmark of Roman organization. Unit-identity improves cohesion and up to a point more officers/NCOs improves overall force initiative. In a military-focused society this method also builds in an important quotient of social mobility. Smaller 'rungs' are easier to climb and so a greater sense of progess is felt among those who are ambitious.

[nik1979]

Originally Posted by gjc8

Keep in mind that tactics, and even society, are highly dependent on TL. The Greek and Roman models where both pre-stirrups; the availability of stirrups (and other advances in saddle design, horse breeding, etc) at TL 3 makes cavalry much more effective. Cavalry, in turn, require a different model, as supporting a cavalryman and his horses is much more different than supporting an infantryman. Of course, if you want infantry, you could simply make horses unavailable (it is the future, afterall).

In turn, the longbow, and to a lesser extent the crossbow, and then later the many iterations of gunpowder weapons, change warfare again.

I beg to disagree about the stirrups. TL1-2 is quite adequate to support effective cavalry it is the level of population that affects Tech development and necessity. Economic basics: agriculture TL affects population because it affects the amount of land a given economic unit (a family) can make productive. Quite simply more population = more market = more demand = more specialists = more technology. the greatest impact TL1-4 has is in Economic Scale but that is a theoretical and detailed approach best left to backdrop.

Starting with Low-Tech Demographics and Warfare 101, first define What

• kind of battles you want in your setting.
• How can a small number of PCs affect the tide of battle?
• How much detail and realism you want?
• How much strategical decision making (Macro) vs tactical decision making (Mirco) you want?
• how complex or simply do your players want?
• What is the scale of power or influence over the course of events do the Players want? In general what does your players expect?

These are IMO the paramters you should consider first because it is the one that will limit your options immediately as you continue to gain more knowledge of what you will want to execute.

IMO arguing theoreticals is moot if the opportunities of reading to learn warfare basics doesn't fit in the priorities. Might as well take the "movie" or media you want to emulate and go straight for Player effect. Going into the "realism" or the feel of Authenticity is best done with the reading demands that comes with forming educated opinion. (We have wikipedia and pdf versions of so many great books available, it is TL8 after all better take full advantage of the ability to take from the closest most professional source- and btw professors of their various fields are in my experience kind enough to point you to their syllabus materials and choice reading if you email them; some schools have their sylabus available online as well)

[Frost]

Originally Posted by gjc8

The Greek and Roman models where both pre-stirrups; the availability of stirrups (and other advances in saddle design, horse breeding, etc) at TL 3 makes cavalry much more effective. Cavalry, in turn, require a different model, as supporting a cavalryman and his horses is much more different than supporting an infantryman.

The adoption of cavalry driven tactics across much of the late Roman and post Roman worlds was as much if not a great deal more of a social and political choice than a military one. As the organisation needed to raise massed professional or semi-professional infantry forces broke down administrators adapted to the situation by rasing smaler more mobile forces principly of heavy cavalry.

Had the empire retained the ability to raise infantry forces on the scale it had formaly it probably would have done. As history shows well organised and well led heavy infantry could and did defeat TL 3 cavalry quite handily.

The advent of large forces of bowmen that you refer to elswhere in your post and in fact the contemporary practice of feilding knights dismounted dosen't represent a novel tactical system so much as a small scale revival of this older tradition driven by a revival in centeralised government. Technology plays a surprisingly small part in the actual structure of armies in this period.