What a professional heavy infantry battle looks like, if you look through history, there are many documents that have recorded it.
As we have been mentioning, various equipment can only complement each other and adapt to different situations without any absolute advantages. Large spears that need to be used in conjunction with a shield holder are very effective against charging cavalry. Like a hedgehog, the cavalry standing on the spot with its own huge energy of accelerating the charge will die without a burial place, but this kind of The equipment can deal with infantry, but it is much inferior in flexibility and many other aspects.
They are inconvenient to move, lack protection on the flanks when attacking, and once surrounded, they can only wait for reinforcements. These characteristics make them extremely error-tolerant. Once the commander's own capabilities are insufficient, it is easy for the entire army to be defeated. Overturned. These characteristics, combined with the large amount of manpower and material resources it required, meant that although this was a fairly reliable infantry square tactic, it was rarely used by West Coasters.
Professional infantry was non-existent on the West Coast because cavalry was a more efficient option for the scale of war they were fighting. But Rigar is not the only area in the world on the west coast. On the other side of the Tambur Mountains, there is a huge empire that has been learning from the battles with the Lamanite countries a long time ago. Although the heavy infantry phalanx is not as famous as their dragoons, they have always been the truly terrifying main force in the army.
And the answers they gave to large-scale legion battles between infantry and infantry were standard and exemplary.
It's frightening.
This was an unexpected encounter.
Because the number of the army is too large, including the various personnel recruited in the Dordogne, the total number of Northern troops under Edward has reached 150,000. Even Henry and Leschi had to devote themselves to command. The whole army advanced. The vast majority of the soldiers were armed inexperienced militiamen, and some of the noble officers under Edward were left to maintain order in the Dordogne. They were obviously powerless in the face of the army that grew again.
Maintaining the march is already a considerable problem, and there is nothing wrong with being slow to react in this case-not to mention that the opponent has already prepared an ambush.
In fact, it is unfair to say that the Northern Army was defenseless. The overly bloated non-professional army made the officers unable to do anything, so they chose a team of better-disciplined mercenaries and veterans as the vanguard to avoid the complete collapse of the entire team when encountering the enemy. But the successive victories and the cheers of the people made these relatively professional soldiers feel a little elated - so when they were attacked by an unknown army that was far more disciplined and equipped, had better combat capabilities, and was extremely powerful, all of them were attacked. Everyone looked confused and confused.
The first wave of weapons that hit was the greatest individual invention of the Laman Legion, the soft iron throwing gun.
The front of the short square wooden gun body is a slender tip made of soft iron. It has unparalleled piercing ability. The penetrating power far exceeds the weight of the arrow and can easily penetrate the round wood common on the West Coast. Even the strongest metal shield cap part of the shield will bend downward due to the heavier tail shock after the throwing impact. The extra weight on the shield and the spear tip that directly penetrates the shield and damages the arm of the person holding the shield are also successful. The shield wall on the outside of the earth order immediately became fragmented.
Before the soldiers could realize where they were, the second wave of spears attacked again.
"Left wing! Reorganize the formation! Reorganize the formation!"
The shortcomings of the Stone-style buckler's insufficient defensive area in large-scale legion battles were infinitely magnified by the hands of lower-level mercenaries and militiamen who were inexperienced in group combat. They were completely unable to react. The forwards were already in the first wave of attacks. The middle was shattered, while the people behind were still standing there blankly trying to see what happened. The battlefield was changing so fast that there was no room for stupidity. The hesitant people were directly knocked to the ground by heavy spears. Hundreds of them were fired in the first round. And the second round was thousands.
Viscount Robinson, who commanded the forward, shouted loudly for his sergeants, knights and reliable veterans to maintain order on the collapsed left wing.
"There!" The breeze blew through the plain weeds ahead, and a reflection appeared. A sharp-eyed longbowman shouted loudly, and then the remaining people who finally reacted just raised their shields, and the third wave of The attack came again.
"Boom-boom-bang!!"
It was the forward on the right wing that collapsed this time, but being prepared somewhat reduced some casualties. The soldiers began to retreat under the command. Although the officers had never fought with this weapon, they had learned it after all. Those with some knowledge will understand that this kind of spear throwing has a shorter range and worse sustained firepower than a bow and arrow.
There were a lot of blood-stained and broken shields and many corpses left on the ground. At this moment, they felt how powerless and overwhelming the coalition militiamen they encountered in the Battle of Dordogne were when facing them. Faced with such precision and consistency, the vanguard directly lost more than half of the lower-level mercenaries. Henry and the others in the rear heard the commotion and began to rush forward, while the remaining vanguard melee fighters, under the command of Viscount Robinson, finally showed their proper professional demeanor and no longer fluttered, but formed a careful formation.
"Shield wall! Shield wall!" Viscount Robinson shouted with a strong voice as he rode his horse back and forth. The pioneers in front also shouted loudly with him in order to boost their morale. They discovered the location of the enemy's long archers. They couldn't give up, they distanced themselves, drew their bows and set arrows - and it was at this time that everyone saw what was happening in the vast grassland half a person high in front of them. A scene that can be described.
A legion of hundreds of people stood up neatly and picked up the huge tower shield. In an instant, they lined up together to guard all directions above, in front and on the left and right sides, and then rushed towards their own side. The arrows shot from the densely packed longbows had no effect on this heavy infantry phalanx with extremely amazing defensive power. The arrows landed on top and then only stayed on the surface of the shield, unlike soft iron spears. It was too heavy to be able to do anything even if it put a higher burden on the opponent's arm - but what was more fatal than this was the inexperienced forward commander Viscount Robinson's misjudgment of the situation.
In terms of personal ability alone, Viscount Robinson is not bad.
As one of the first northern nobles to fight alongside Edward against the Sivaliers, his personal abilities and response to critical situations are quite outstanding, which is why he served as the commander of the decoy force before. And this time it was because of the appointment as vanguard commander.
However, excellent personal abilities and good psychological quality cannot conceal the fact of lack of experience. Facing legion combat, the Avenella man is still just a student. He has no way to effectively judge the enemy's position - the attack of the soft iron spear. The first wave contained several hundred pieces, while the other two waves far exceeded this level. Although the open space in front is vast, if thousands of people are hiding, it will still be too easy to be exposed, and it will also cause a lot of trouble in arranging operations. In addition, the other two waves of attacks actually hit the left and right wings respectively, so there are more enemies. It should be ambush diagonally ahead rather than in front.
It was only in the chaos that they discovered the enemy's heavy infantry phalanx rushing towards them. The previous continuous attacks forced them to retreat into a more rigorous and less mobile defense mode. Now they saw the enemy infantry again. The number of the attacking forwards was far inferior to that of our own side even after the battle damage. The first reaction of the inexperienced Viscount Robinson was naturally to prepare his subordinates to prepare for the attack.
This decision harmed them all.
If he had been more experienced and judged from the position of the soft iron spear that the enemy had two other troops and that the position was slanted instead of behind the forward of hundreds of people, he would have understood that the enemy was determined to let This frontal team attracts his attention and takes the opportunity to approach the flanking attack. The decision based on this will of course be to retreat temporarily and join the main formation with more people behind him rather than to attack.
But there are no what-ifs on the battlefield.
The melee fighters who had just gathered to prepare for a head-on attack were caught off guard by the larger number of heavy infantry who suddenly roared out from both sides. The longbowmen quickly reacted and drew their bows and arrows, but there were only a handful of enemy infantry. They were hit on the neck or face and fell to the ground. The defensive force composed of the huge square shield, half armor and helmet could almost ignore their weak arrows, and the enemy troops attacking from both sides had already separated from the forwards. The number of melee fighters is quite large and the total number is extremely terrifying.
"Bang——!" Like two sledgehammers clashing together, the thousands of mercenaries and militia formations that formed the shield wall were completely defeated in a very short period of time. They fell into melee mode and faced the enemy who still had order. The enemy army had no power to counterattack, and these heavy infantrymen decisively attacked from both sides, cutting the originally square melee hand array into a straight line and completely destroying it like chopping melons and vegetables. After that, without even hesitation, they dispersed again and formed several legions of hundreds of people and continued to rush towards the archers.
"Back off! Back off!" Viscount Robinson shouted loudly, and just behind them, another nobleman who led another 20,000 militiamen armed with spears noticed the movement and led the army to arrive in time. When he came up, he was full of confidence when he passed by Viscount Robinson and the remaining archers, because the enemy's heavy infantry totaled only 10,000 people. Compared with the army here, he was full of confidence. There are still more than 37,000 remaining archers on the battlefield. Judging from the number of people alone, it is obvious that the opponent is trying to kill a stone with an egg——
But sometimes, the advantage in numbers just seems like an advantage.
Due to the sudden incident, this nobleman who was also a viscount did not realize that the opponent had just used pincer tactics to kill a group of vanguard melee infantry whose number was not much less than their own, a total of seven or eight thousand people, and those people were compared to him. The novice militiamen he led were more experienced lower-level mercenaries and veterans, so when he led the seemingly larger militia team into a head-on collision, the understanding of who was the egg and who was the stone was not clear. It turned upside down in an instant.
The first wave of attacks was successful. Spears were much more lethal than bows and arrows. However, when the militiamen realized that their spears had only penetrated the shield wall and had not done any harm to these armored soldiers. When someone was injured, everything turned into a one-sided killing.
Due to the large-scale marching needs of such a number of people, the road they chose to take was extremely wide. Although there were forests on both sides, it was actually not a big problem to deploy thousands of people in the front - this was considered before Reasonable, but after encountering the enemy's professional heavy infantry, it became a fatal flaw.
The extremely flexible tower shield heavy infantry phalanx can be assembled into a team of thousands or just a few dozen people. The defensive power can also cover the front, rear, left and right. They are naturally separated, and all actions are as smooth as clouds and water. Faced head-on with a push, the Avenella people couldn't win. The militiamen fell into each other's rhythm and were cut into dozens of small groups in an instant, and then fell to the ground like chopping melons and vegetables.
These people are true war machines, die-hard elites trained by the Otolo Empire in years of war. They are not invincible warriors without casualties, but as the entire army advances, if anyone falls down, others will not even look at him and continue to move forward. These people are precise and efficient, and they have not completed the battle since they entered the combat state. The goal was never to give up - the militiamen collapsed. They were already undisciplined and worse equipped than their opponents. Under the attack of the one-handed swords of the Otolo people, they fell to the ground in rows like harvested wheat. When this When an efficient warplane from the other side of the Tambur Mountains quickly killed more than 30% of the militiamen, they could not have any other outcome except a rout.
"...The whole army retreats!" "Sir?!" "Retreat! Those are Otolo's heavy infantry, a presence that even Luoan soldiers in their heyday had to consider!" Henry and others rushed up on horseback. When the army in front was defeated, they decisively made such a move, but the earth-shattering sound that followed immediately changed the color of both the sage and Edward.
"Cavalry-soldiers-coming-attack!!"
Heart-rending shouts echoed over the vast fields in the middle of the Nella Forest.
Under the impact of the assembled heavy infantry dispatched by Ashbourne II and the two archdukes, the forward longbowmen, as well as Viscount Robinson and more than 20,000 militiamen who had not had time to evacuate, suffered heavy casualties in an instant.
May 25th.
Fifty-five days after Edward led the army on the expedition, they encountered the Nela Forest Corridor. More than one-third of the 150,000-strong army was damaged by the impact. The rest quickly evacuated to the nearby forest, leaving a large amount of supplies and baggage behind. .
The opponent is just an army of ten thousand people.
There are only 10,000 Otolo elite heavy infantry, acting like real professional soldiers.
Taught them what the gap is.
For a team composed of amateur soldiers who had won one victory after another, the morale hit by this tragic defeat was terrible. And Rao is our sage. When facing such a powerful enemy, he can only sigh and say that the emperor of Otolo is really willing to give up.
An unrecognized secret force, the selected members are the most elite heavy infantry regiments of Otolo.
The Avenella people are obviously still not as good as the Empire in this regard. They are not at the same level in terms of morale, equipment, and training. After fighting several victories and going through about a year of training, the militiamen still cannot compare with the real profession. Compared with the army, the gap is extremely huge, but the reason why they lost so miserably was fundamentally due to their strategic mistakes.
"It's impossible to win a professional war with the Otolo people's way, so let's switch to Avenella's way." After the army dispersed its organization, abandoned its baggage and supplies and fled, its morale seemed quite bleak, but Henry faced the others The words they said meant that they still had a chance to give it a try.
With a huge army formation, marching neatly and fighting head-on, this newly formed northern army was able to defeat a dozen militiamen who were also from Avenella. It met the Otolo heavy armor, which is considered an elite among professional armies. The infantry, even if there are ten times the number of infantry, will definitely not come back.
To win, they can only break into pieces and take advantage of their numerical advantage - or in the words of the sage.
"Fight a people's war."
