If I'm understanding correctly, Koon is broadly correct, even if the use of pila needs to be de-emphasized after the the first one or two attacks in any one particular area?

Not my yum, but the idea is 100% peak. Bring on the leather daddy cryptids!

The E definitely helps but, yeah, self image is super important to find and acknowledge.

Bigfoot is 100% a bear.

Ah, a true person of culture.

Weird to think now of how few people on the internet today witnessed this live.

Unfortunately it gets very technical with the analysis of Latin, and my Latin is far too basic to properly evaluate it whether Koon is right or not, but it does seem to validate a specifically Roman version of the "Pulse" method of combat.

Eventually, the charge would be sounded and the whole front line would attack as one, going straight to swords.

There's probably some nuance I'm missing, but it's an evolution of Sabin's "Roman Face of Battle" model.

From memory (it's been a couple of years), Koon's argument was repeated localised volley and charges, where only the first rank or two through their pila, there's a brief engagement at sword range, then there's a withdrawal and ranks are swapped or pila are sent forward.

For instance: www.bookandsword.com/2014/04/03/a...

Much of that battle could have come from The Iliad or Thuc. 4.126-127. We don't much much of Du Picq' experience outside of Crimea, but it's plausible he witnessed or spoke to witnesses of this kind of battle.

I am kind of curious about your view on Sam Koon's analysis of combat in Livy, which broadly seems to confirm Du Picq, but I do agree that Du Picq has some severe limitations.

That said, it has to be acknowledged that in some areas older styles of combat existed even into more modern times.

I do think he's mostly right, but there's a lot of nuance and difference between periods, cultures and specific battles.

Maybe the issue is less an over reliance on him, than an under acknowledgement of him as the basis for the Face of Battle school of though.

I've long wondered Du Picq developed his model of "Ancient" combat based on his all but undocumented experiences in Algeria and his limited but better documented experience of Crimea, working forwards and backwards from both.

Or maybe it was Peter Krentz? Either way, one or both of the leading "heretics" don't hold with their original idea of a side on angle for hoplites.

I don't recall where and would have to do some digging, but I have absolutely seen Van Wees accept that his side on positioning was wrong but argue that the 45 degree angle of Matthew Christopher or Bardunias still fits his conception of hoplite combat.

Chansons and romances are wonderful things in that regard. Moments of incredible realism combined with outlandish fantasy, and the line isn't always obvious when you're hundreds of years removed.

Leather armour, maybe, but I can't see any metal armour getting hot enough to be noticeably soft.

It's a lot of fun...if you're the third player and you don't accidentally poke the horde of rocket armed transport helicopters before you have a proper network of non-radar AA and an absurd number of supply trucks.

You haven't seen anything until 15-20 cheap rocket and ATGM armed helicopters wipe almost your entire starting force and then the swarm of 12 T-55AMVs backed by 8 BMP-3s, 16 cheap APCs and all their infantry target the second unlucky victim. All while SEAD kills all your radar AA.