As far as Alexander the Great and Afghanistan, he certainly conquered Sogdiana and Bactria. Neither quite matches the geography of present-day Afghanistan, but it's still impressive.

Personally, I would put it this way: Alexander the Great is the only person that the tribes in the area would admit to being conquered by. In fact it's even a point of pride for some of the tribes, who claim descent from him. E.g. this quote by a Kalash leader: '"Long, long ago, before the days of Islam, Sikander e Aazem came to India. The Two Horned one whom you British people call Alexander the Great. He conquered the world, and was a very great man, brave and dauntless and generous to his followers. When he left to go back to Greece, some of his men did not wish to go back with him but preferred to stay here. Their leader was a general called Shalakash (i.e.: Seleucus). With some of his officers and men, he came to these valleys and they settled here and took local women, and here they stayed. We, the Kalash, the Black Kafir of the Hindu Kush, are the descendants of their children. Still some of our words are the same as theirs, our music and our dances, too; we worship the same gods. This is why we believe the Greeks are our first ancestors."

Whether he did in fact conquer and defeat all the Afghan tribes, he certainly left a lasting impression of having shown up and kicked ass, and I think he did it more-or-less the way SHARK described in his tactical essay...

True, but Sogdiane and Baktria were in that semi-settled hinterland between the steppe and the Iranian plateau/India. No matter what happened there, the horselords could still roam at will to the north and do as they pleased.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1080687When you read the memoirs of German Generals from the world wars, or the American Generals from Vietnam, you'd think they'd won. Their tactics and strategy were, of course, brilliant.

And certainly if they admit they lost, well it was all someone else's fault.

You are correct. In WWII The OberCommando Der Werhmacht, The High Command of the Armed Forces (OKW) did an excellent job of providing victories for the German peoples time and time again. Outnumbered and ill-equipped and poorly supplied to fight an extended war, the Wehrmacht continued to achieve victories until 1944 when they finally lost air superiority in the East. The losses from December of 1942 on were directly Hitler's fault. When Zhukov attacked in Stalingrad in December of 1942 after the first frost, Hitler refused to allow the 6th Army to withdraw in good order, thus they were encircled and destroyed beginning the downfall. Hitlers personal council (Not the OKW) had been penetrated by at least two high level soviet agents so his planned attack on Kursk in the summer of 1943 was leaked to the Russians and they fully prepared to contain the typical blitzkrieg breakout. In the Winter of 1943 Hitler refused to allow Werhmacht and SS units in Russia to withdraw and give up territory when the Russians attacked, resulting in their destruction. Interestingly, General Von Manstein leading the 6th, 17th & 23rd Panzer Division which were LVI Panzer Corps in the Spring of 1943 after Stalingrad directly disobeyed Hitler, and he moved his armor wherever it suited him, he stopped the Russians dead in their tracks about fifty miles west of Stalingrad and destroyed all of their armor in a brilliant campaign that became known as Manstien's "backhand blow". Later that year he was the commander of an army that included SS units including the Waffen SS Panzer Corps composed of the Waffen SS Panzer Divisions Das Reich and Hohenstauffen and Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler under the command of SS-Gruppenführer Paul Hausser in the Autumn of 1943 and they also directly disobeyed Hitlers direct orders during the Battle of Kharkov and withdrew from Kharkov allowing the Russians to capture the city, they then counterattacked surrounding the city, and forcing the Russians there to surrender. Manstien was relieved of command for allowing this, and the SS Panzer Corp temporarily pulled out of the battle for disobeying Hitlers direct order which allowed the Russians to once again recapture Kharkov. Hitler personally then ordered the Panzer Corps to directly assault and retake the city a second time, which they successfully did, Stalingrad style in house-to-house fighting, instead of using their mobile advantage, however they managed to take 60% casualties in doing so, and were no longer effective as combat formations, and had to be withdrawn to be rebuilt. In the Spring of 1944 The Russians launched an attack along the entire Eastern Front with the specific intent to destroy Army Group Center and were successful, not because the Germans couldn't fight the Russians effectively, but because Hitler had issued a no retreat order, and refused to allow Wehrmacht and SS units to temporarily give up ground to gain advantages from their mobile superiority.

Even as late as the late Winter/ early Spring of 1945, The Germans were successfully able to mount offensives against the Russians on the Eastern Front. On 13 February 1945, after a long argument with Hitler, General Heinz Guderian persuaded Hitler to make general Walther Wenck chief of staff of Army Group Vistula (with the power to launch an attack) under Himmler.  Wenck's attack was initially successful, but Hitler requested him to attend daily Fuehrer briefings which forced him to make a daily round trip of 200 miles. On February 14, 1945, an extremely tired Wenck took the driving wheel from his driver Dorn who had collapsed from exhaustion. Wenck then fell asleep at the wheel himself and crashed his car off the road. Saved by Dorn, he ended up in the hospital with a fractured skull and five broken ribs. Meanwhile, the attack failed.

On 10 April 1945, Wenck was appointed commander of the German Twelfth Army located to the west of Berlin to guard against the advancing American and British forces. But, as the Western Front moved eastwards and the Eastern Front moved westwards, the German armies making up both fronts backed towards each other. As a result, the area of control of Wenck's army to his rear and east of the Elbe River had become a vast refugee camp for German civilians fleeing from approaching Soviet forces. Wenck took great pains to provide food and lodging for these refugees. At one stage, the Twelfth Army was estimated to be feeding more than a quarter of a million people every day.

Now, about the American Army in Vietnam. By 1968 we had 549,500 armed forces members in Vietnam, Air, Airmobile, Land, and Sea. The Tet Offensive began at the beginning of 1968, and was a last ditch offensive by the North Vietnamese against the South. The attacks began on January 31, 1968, the first day of the Lunar New Year, Vietnam's most important holiday. It took weeks for U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to retake all of the captured cities, including the former imperial capital of Hue. But they did. They recaptured every single Southern City and Village that the North Vietnamese attacked. Every single one.

Even though the offensive was a complete military failure for the North Vietnamese Communists and Vietcong (VC), and they suffered horrendous casualties, it was a political and psychological victory for them because it dramatically contradicted optimistic claims by the U.S. government that the war was all but over. There was another problem as well, and that was that U.S. Military Forces ground forces were never allowed to strike into North Vietnam. After Tet, The North Vietnamese were ready to surrender. However that entire experienced and combat proven Army that was active and successful in South Vietnam was never allowed to cross the 17th Parallel and invade North Vietnam. In addition, the South Vietnamese Army and the United States Army were not officially permitted to cross over into Cambodia and Laos to counterattack NVA and VC military operations that were ongoing without the explicit permission of either Cambodia or Laos. Laotian hill tribes that resisted the North Vietnamese and VC invasion. That is precisely what those operations were an invasion of an invasion Laos and Cambodia by the North Vietnames and VC in order to set up supply lines for South Vietnamese VC and operations. They killed anyone who opposed them. The Laotian Hill Tribes who resisted were aided by American Green Berets and Special Forces in covert operations, but were later abandoned by direct order from Richard Nixon.

Just to recap here, you can't actually win the war unless you allow your own people to attack, where and when they need to, ...just saying, and everyone in the U.S. military chain of command wanted to attack, but President Johnson, and then later President Nixon, wouldn't let them.

Perhaps this will answer the question
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Legion-versus-Phalanx-Struggle-Supremacy/dp/1472828429

The short answer appears to be that the Roman Legion had a better command structure and was more flexible in various terrain and the weapons kit was able to be adapted to battles at different scales from small unit skirmishes to clashes of armies.

Quote from: amacris;1080747Your points are not unreasonable. I gave the nod to the phalangists because the toughest battles that the Early Romans had were against pike-armed troops, and they lost many of them. On open ground in straight combat the legionaries tended to be overwhelmed by the phalanx. But it's true that the manipular formations were more maneuverable, and could break up and outflank the phalanx at times, as well as do better on rugged ground. So I think I give a slight but not decisive edge to phalangists with terrain or generalship allowing for a legionary win. But I could be wrong.

Seems to me that the same factors enabling a sarissa phalanx win would enable a hoplite phalanx win; so if Romans lost more vs sarissa it was likely due to other factors like terrain and generalship.  Eg if the Seleucids had sarissa phalanx and eg Pyrrhus of Epirus had hoplite phalanx (I can't recall if this was actually the case) and the Seleucids won more, then likely they had better generalship or better soldiers.

My guess would be sarissa beats hoplite but Legionary equally beats both, in the right circumstances.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1080763Just to recap here, you can't actually win the war unless you allow your own people to attack, where and when they need to, ...just saying, and everyone in the U.S. military chain of command wanted to attack, but President Johnson, and then later President Nixon, wouldn't let them.

Yeah, they thought if they invaded North Vietnam then China would enter the war, as in Korea. AFAIK, they were probably right.

Quote from: Kiero;1080741Weren't the Assyrians charioteers, like the original Persians? Granted that's a small number of their elites, not their entire force.

Sure - but the core of their military was their infantry.

I mean - the Romans had some cavalry (especially later) but they were always secondary to their infantry.

Quote from: S'mon;1080779Yeah, they thought if they invaded North Vietnam then China would enter the war, as in Korea. AFAIK, they were probably right.

For one thing - they thought that China hadn't already entered the war. They had - just covertly.

Not just supplies - China actually sent troops into Vietnam to fight.

Though - it's possible that The Soviet Union might have come in too had N. Vietnam been attacked.

Quote from: S'mon;1080779Yeah, they thought if they invaded North Vietnam then China would enter the war, as in Korea. AFAIK, they were probably right.

Mmmm yeah. Not. That would be the same China that was fighting the Russians at the time on their Northern Border. Ummm also, Russia invaded Afghanistan just five years after the Vietnam war ended, and then got bogged down in an eleven year war, that ended in 1987. Two years later The Soviet Union went bankrupt from the cost of that war, and ended up collapsing.

China on the other hand, unlike Vietnam, had Nukes by 1964 so any war with them would become a hazardous affair. I heard that rumor as well, That the Chinese threatened to declare war if the US invaded North Vietnam, however I doubt it because China did not have good relations with Vietnam. The Chinese Communist Party provided, arms, military training and essential supplies to help the Communist North defeat Capitalist South Vietnam and its ally, the United States, between 1954 and 1975. During 1964 to 1969, the PRC reportedly sent over 300,000 troops, mostly in anti-aircraft divisions to combat in Vietnam, so there was already Chinese troops in North Vietnam, that we were fighting. They were most certainly shooting down US aircraft that was attacking and bombing North Vietnam, and they were getting hit by US airstrikes directed at the North Vietnamese.

In January 1974 even before the end of the war in South Vietnam, a clash between Chinese and South Vietnamese forces resulted in China taking complete control of the Paracel islands. After its absorption of South Vietnam in 1975, North Vietnam took over the South Vietnamese-controlled portions of the Spratly Islands. The unified Vietnam then canceled its earlier renunciation of its claim to the Paracels, while both China and Vietnam claimed control over all the Spratlys, with both controlling portions of the island group.

n the wake of the Vietnam War, the Cambodian–Vietnamese War caused tensions with China, which had allied itself with the Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia). This, and Vietnam's close ties to the Soviet Union, made China consider it a threat to its regional sphere of influence. Tensions were furthermore heightened in the 1970s by the Vietnamese government's oppression of the Hoa minority, which consists of Vietnamese of Chinese ethnicity. By 1978, China ended its aid to Vietnam, which had signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union, establishing extensive commercial and military ties.

On February 17, 1979, the Chinese People's Liberation Army crossed the Vietnamese border, beginning their withdrawal on March 5 after a two week campaign that extended almost another two weeks for a twenty-seven day campaign which devastated northern Vietnam and briefly threatened the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. Both sides suffered relatively heavy losses with tens of thousands thousands of casualties, the Chinese losing about 60,000 troops as well as up to 70,000 militia and the North Vietnamese losing an estimated 63,000 including almost 30,000 dead. Subsequent peace talks broke down in December 1979, and both China and Vietnam began a major build-up of forces along the border. Vietnam fortified its border towns and districts and stationed as many as 600,000 troops; China stationed approximately 400,000 troops on its side of the border. Sporadic fighting on the border occurred throughout the 1980s, and China threatened to launch another attack to force Vietnam's exit from Cambodia.

So no, I don't think the Chinese would have declared war on the US since their goals were the same as the US goal, to get the North Vietnamese out of Laos and Cambodia, and if the US would have done it for them, The Chinese probably would have sent a delegation to Cambodia and Laos, actually, they did and fighting between the Vietnamese and Chinese continued until 1989 when Vietname withdrew all of its troops from Cambodia.

Hanoi's post-incursion depiction of the border war was that Beijing had sustained a military setback if not an outright defeat. Most observers doubted that China would risk another war with Vietnam in the near future. Gerald Segal, in his 1985 book Defending China, concluded that China's 1979 war against Vietnam was a complete failure: "China failed to force a Vietnamese withdrawal from [Cambodia], failed to end border clashes, failed to cast doubt on the strength of the Soviet power, failed to dispel the image of China as a paper tiger, and failed to draw the United States into an anti-Soviet coalition."

I know China doesn't like Vietnam. They like the USA on their border a lot less.

While the Vietnam War was a massive failure for the USA, splitting China and the USSR was a huge success, and geopolitically much more significant. That was only really possible once the Vietnam War was ending.

US geopolitical understanding of SE Asia was very weak. For a long time they perceived a unified Communist bloc, and failed to understand that Communism & Nationalism went hand in hand. So a strong unified Communist Vietnam, far from spreading Communism through SE Asia, actually acted as a check on Communist China.

Greetings!

I always thought it was kind of wierd how the Seleucid Empire seemed so wealthy and powerful; they were clearly poised to potentially become a very powerful challenger to the rise of Rome in the west. The Seleucids had the Phalanx, they had horse archers, they had armoured war elephants; and they had siege machines, and large populations, with large and powerful armies. They had vast, and enormous wealth.

And yet, the Seleucid armies performance against the Romans during a number of years of warfare, was distinctly...*underwhelming* in my view. The Seleucids didn't last very long against the growing might of Rome.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1080891Greetings!

I always thought it was kind of wierd how the Seleucid Empire seemed so wealthy and powerful; they were clearly poised to potentially become a very powerful challenger to the rise of Rome in the west. The Seleucids had the Phalanx, they had horse archers, they had armoured war elephants; and they had siege machines, and large populations, with large and powerful armies. They had vast, and enormous wealth.

And yet, the Seleucid armies performance against the Romans during a number of years of warfare, was distinctly...*underwhelming* in my view. The Seleucids didn't last very long against the growing might of Rome.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Maybe they were playing Roman Total War and the eastern two thirds of their empire was off the world map.

(I always liked playing the Seleucids, they could be built up to be totally unstoppable with war elephants & heavy cavalry, but it sucked that they were so geographically nerfed in the game. As an NPC faction they'd always get wiped out early on, before Rome reached them.)

Quote from: S'mon;1080895Maybe they were playing Roman Total War and the eastern two thirds of their empire was off the world map.

(I always liked playing the Seleucids, they could be built up to be totally unstoppable with war elephants & heavy cavalry, but it sucked that they were so geographically nerfed in the game. As an NPC faction they'd always get wiped out early on, before Rome reached them.)

Greetings!

LOL! Oh my God! LOL. I love Rome Total War! I did the same thing, too, my friend! I always liked the Seleucids. They had such interesting military forces, you know? I've created a kingdom in my World of Thandor that is a lot like the Seleucid Empire.

You know, I have always been interested in the ancient history. That's a big reason why I got my history degrees in Ancient and Medieval History. I think that game-wise, for historical flavour, religious flavour, modern advancements, but also lots of wilderness and barbarism, and yet, also *massive* armies and crazy sieges, I have always really liked the period of say, 500 BC to 300 AD; and then extending of course to about 1300 AD. But that period there, from Phillip of Macedon, Alexander, to Seleucid, the Successor Kingdoms, the early Roman Republic, just wow, you know? I suppose that's why I soon got somewhat tired of many of the assumptions that people and books used with D and D, always being poor muddy peasants with tiny little forces.

My head was always filled with Alexander the Great sacking Persepolis and Babylon, taking away tons and tons of gold and silver, and ungodly wealth. Vast cities, huge armies, all kinds of crazy religions and cuts going on. Lots of wars and barbarian hordes. Pirates, slaves, rebellins. All kinds of wierd things going on in early Greek city states, especially along the Ionian Coast. The Thracian Kingdoms. The fun and wonder is endless you know?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon;1080778Seems to me that the same factors enabling a sarissa phalanx win would enable a hoplite phalanx win; so if Romans lost more vs sarissa it was likely due to other factors like terrain and generalship.  Eg if the Seleucids had sarissa phalanx and eg Pyrrhus of Epirus had hoplite phalanx (I can't recall if this was actually the case) and the Seleucids won more, then likely they had better generalship or better soldiers.

My guess would be sarissa beats hoplite but Legionary equally beats both, in the right circumstances.

Pyrrhus had Macedonian-style pike phalanxes, but only a small core of them compared to the much larger armies of the Seleukids. The Romans beat him by attrition; he only had the one army, they could replenish their losses entirely and had effectively limitless reserves.

Quote from: SHARK;1080891Greetings!

I always thought it was kind of wierd how the Seleucid Empire seemed so wealthy and powerful; they were clearly poised to potentially become a very powerful challenger to the rise of Rome in the west. The Seleucids had the Phalanx, they had horse archers, they had armoured war elephants; and they had siege machines, and large populations, with large and powerful armies. They had vast, and enormous wealth.

And yet, the Seleucid armies performance against the Romans during a number of years of warfare, was distinctly...*underwhelming* in my view. The Seleucids didn't last very long against the growing might of Rome.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

The Seleukids were perennially divided internally, with pretenders and usurpers for their throne (dynastic intrigues were rife) and breakaway satraps deciding they could do better by themselves. That's how Baktria came into being, formerly Seleukid satraps taking advantage of the king's distraction elsewhere. The way things were set up, it was impossible for a Seleukid king to keep an eye on both the rich Anatolian west and the Upper Satrapies in the east. The only times they managed to control both was when the king had a trusted subordinate (like Antiochos I and his son Antiochos II, who ruled west and east, respectively).

Also worth noting the Seleukids warred constantly with the Ptolemaioi, and the armies of both suffered a steady decline over the decades after Alexander as their particular forms of conflict became habituated. Pikes got longer, armour heavier, formations deeper and less flexible. Many phalangites no longer bothered carrying a sidearm, because they were never called upon to use it. A beaten phalanx surrendered, knowing the victor would immediately re-employ them, not wanting to waste trained pikemen.

As above, Seleukid horse archers were co-opted steppe riders, hired out to stop them raiding the borderlands. Not the most reliable of troops.

Quote from: SHARK;1080898You know, I have always been interested in the ancient history. That's a big reason why I got my history degrees in Ancient and Medieval History. I think that game-wise, for historical flavour, religious flavour, modern advancements, but also lots of wilderness and barbarism, and yet, also *massive* armies and crazy sieges, I have always really liked the period of say, 500 BC to 300 AD; and then extending of course to about 1300 AD. But that period there, from Phillip of Macedon, Alexander, to Seleucid, the Successor Kingdoms, the early Roman Republic, just wow, you know? I suppose that's why I soon got somewhat tired of many of the assumptions that people and books used with D and D, always being poor muddy peasants with tiny little forces.

My head was always filled with Alexander the Great sacking Persepolis and Babylon, taking away tons and tons of gold and silver, and ungodly wealth. Vast cities, huge armies, all kinds of crazy religions and cuts going on. Lots of wars and barbarian hordes. Pirates, slaves, rebellins. All kinds of wierd things going on in early Greek city states, especially along the Ionian Coast. The Thracian Kingdoms. The fun and wonder is endless you know?

Yeah, I agree. I did Classical History at school, and I loved the Greek city states and Greek-Persian wars. Sadly we stopped with the Spartan victory over Athens (404 BC AIR), missing out on the equally interesting 4th century BC and Roman Republic vs the Greeks, and took up with the late Roman Republic 1st century BC.

My Wilderlands setting Ghinarian Hills is based loosely on Achaean Greece, and the Wilderlands big city states of Viridistan & the CSIO resemble Persia & Rome.

Primeval Thule also has an ancient-world tone, with the Atlantean remnants like Katagia resembling a Greco-Roman culture (elements of both - lots of gladiators & philosophers in togas) and the Kalayans are closest to Anatolia & vaguely Turkic/Near Eastern. The Daray are generic Proto-Indo-European barbarians, closest to ancient Celts, while the Nimothans are distinctly Scandinavian. The black Lomari revere Nergal as Lord of Conquest and are probably closest to the Assyrians. One thing I love about the Thule setting is that many high level PCs have a baked-in ability to summon substantial armies:

Army or Horde: When you raise a mighty army,
you can summon a number of warriors equal to (your
character level + your Cha modifier) × 400; the exact
type of follower is determined by your narrative. The
army includes sub-leaders, mounts, warbeasts, or special
units as appropriate.
It requires at least 1 month to gather your army or
horde, and you must be in the homeland of the warriors
you are assembling. The army remains together
through a full military campaign or effort—for example,
a march against an enemy city and the ensuing assault
or siege—and may remain in the field for months
or longer if the war continues. You can summon an
army or horde no more than once per three years,
unless the GM decides otherwise.
Summoning an army or horde is usually a
world-building event, not a specific adventure (although
an army or horde may cause adventures to
happen). The GM decides how your army or horde
afects the world.

So eg a 12th level PC with CHA +3 can summon an army of 15 x 400 = 6000 - and with several PCs working together that could easily become a combined army of 18,000 or 24,000! It's quite a lot different from the traditional Gygaxian approach of calculating each soldier's pay & equipment costs vs PC ream income, I think it makes a lot of sense though. The GM can always apply bonuses or penalties to the Level + CHA number to take account of circumstances, rare & expensive troop types etc.

Quote from: S'mon;1080888I know China doesn't like Vietnam. They like the USA on their border a lot less.

While the Vietnam War was a massive failure for the USA, splitting China and the USSR was a huge success, and geopolitically much more significant. That was only really possible once the Vietnam War was ending.

US geopolitical understanding of SE Asia was very weak. For a long time they perceived a unified Communist bloc, and failed to understand that Communism & Nationalism went hand in hand. So a strong unified Communist Vietnam, far from spreading Communism through SE Asia, actually acted as a check on Communist China.

We didn't live to see that day. One of the things that Gerald Segal got wrong in his book was that America was not part of an anti-soviet coalition. They very much were, and had been from 1945 on. The early Anti-soviet coalition, of course, was founded by the United States and NATO, right up until the time the leftists and socialists within France hijacked the French government from Charles DeGaul, and France pulled out of NATO. Coincidentally, this occurred less than a decade after the French were kicked out of Vietnam because of the "la sale guerre" and that was where many French companies had lost a lot of resources they had previously been exploiting in Vietnam.

For the Chinese to have the anti-soviet U.S. on their border would be a boon for them, just as the U.S. in Korea was a boon for South Korea, but they never cared to find that out. When the U.S. was on the border of China in 1952, they did attack, and sent well over a hundred divisions, more than a million troops, into North Korea. Not only did they fail to defeat the South Koreans, the United States, and their allies, but the lost, by their own account, 450,000 troops in that attempt to seize the entire of the Korean peninsula.  

Geopolitically, it is good for both the U.S. and China to be on friendly relations, especially in regards to the soviet union. The trade agreements and civil alliance first forged by Richard Nixon (one of the things he got right) in 1974 with the Chinese began a new era where China began trading with the West, and led them to become the economic powerhouse that they are today.

Shanghai 1990


Shanghai 2019


This was only possible with free trade, not with Russia, but with the West.