Talk:Military tactics of Alexander the Great

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Military history: Biography / Technology / Balkan / European / Middle East / Classical

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Things wrong with the article.

There seem to be many things wrong with the article. The tactical illustrations just do not represent the reality of Macedonian tactics, The Macedonians usually manoeuvred to disrupt the enemy before contact, often a flank (the left) would be refused, to tempt the enemy to comply and disrupt their cohesion. The phalanx would engage to pin the enemy frontally, the lighter cavalry and peltasts would engage the enemy cavalry and light troops and finally the Companion cavalry would charge at a weak spot in the enemy's front. Once in the enemy ranks, the Companions would 'explode laterally', rolling up the enemy infantry. The illustration showing the Macedonians completely surrounding the enemy is wrong, that is what Hannibal did at Carrhae. The closest the Alexander ever did to that was at Granicus, where he surrounded the Greek mercenaries, but this was only after the rest of the Persian army had fled and he had an absolute superiority of numbers on the battlefield. Surrounding an army is good way to make the enemy fight cohesively to the death, and ensure heavy casualties on your own side. It is much better to allow an enemy to run and cut them down as they are running. In the Battle of Gaugamela the Macedonian army was formed up in a box formation, so that it could not be outflanked by the much larger Persian formation. The front of the box was made up of the Phalanx, Hypaspists, the Companions and Thessalians, the sides by the rest of the cavalry and most of the light infantry in echelon towards the rear, the back of the box was made up of the Greek allied and mercenary hoplites. The illustrations are therefore not very accurate. Urselius (talk) 13:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are a series of much more accurate diagrams of the unit dispositions during the course of the Battle of Gaugamela available on Wikimedia. The first of which is this:

Urselius (talk) 08:57, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Other things: 'knight' is not accepted English usage for Macedonian Companion cavalrymen. The base of the sarissa was the sauroter, it was not just a spike it was a large, flanged structure principally to act as a counterweight, not merely a spike. There is no evidence of the butt of sarissas being stuck in the ground, that was a Renaissance pike tactic against cavalry. In English usage a sarissa is called a pike, never a lance, a lance is always a cavalry weapon. The armour of the Macedonian phalangite is not entirely clear and was not reduced solely for speed of movement, no one holding a pike in a dense formation is going to be moving very fast. The smaller 'Telamon' shield was introduced because the hoplite Argive shield was too wide and too dished to allow a double handed grip on a spear, which the heavy sarissa required. The phalangites wore helmets and greaves, and certainly in Alexander's day wore the kotthybos which was a form of non-metallic armour of uncertain form. The pezhetairoi, despite their name meaning 'Foot Companions', were not 'royal guards'. The royal guards were the Agema of the Cavalry Companions and the Agema of the hypaspists.