How difficult is it to commit a feigned retreat and then turn around t

[Pisces Axxxxx]

Movies and games make the tactic of feigning a retreat only to turn around and then suddenly counterattack an enemy completely off-guard because they were so busy pursuing you seem so easy as 1-2-3.

 

However stuff I read state this is very difficult and only a unit of the highest calibre of Discipline can commit this tactic.

For example in Hastings the Normans are typically praised for using this tactic. But stuff I read state its an incredibly risky tactic that was terrifying for the Normans to perform and several times using this tactics, groups of Norman Knights were almost caught and could have been slaughtered.

 

Paul Cartledge in his book "The Spartans" states:
P.127-128
"The Spartans added to the Persian forces' discomfiture by deploying the sort of tactics that only the most highly trained and disciplined force would have been capable of even contemplating-a seriesof feigned retreats followed by a sudden about-turn and murderous onslaught on their over-confident pursuers".

 

So how difficult is it to do a simple hit-run strategy?Games and movies make it seem so simplistic!!!

 

I mean even hunters who are not trained for war can do this to animal, what makes it so hard to do this in war?

[GhostOfClayton]

I can only think of it in terms of the kind of shield wall the Romans were using to great effect during the early Principate.  If the shield wall was in the process of being used to great effect, why put that advantage in jeopardy by trying to pull off a risky manoeuvre?  The time to pull off a risky manoeuvre like that is if things aren't going well.  In order to be effective, this must be planned for and drilled for.  The only time I can see it being planned for is if the result of the battle is in some doubt.

 

So, in the chaos of fighting a (probably losing) battle, some kind of signal must be given, either visual or audible.  I think it's accepted that this sort of thing happened, hence the gaps around the ears on a Roman infantry helmet.  On the signal, all must turn almost as one and run away at a sufficiently quick pace not to get your arse swiped by a barbarian slashing sword akin to a spartha, but sufficiently slowly for phase 3 to be effective.

 

Phase 3 is initialted by another signal, and involves the dead straigjht line of retreating squaddies to stop and turn as one, and get the shield wall back in place.  Sounds massively tricky, but if anyone could have pulled it off, it would have been a legionary cohort.

 

Another reason why this sort of manoeuvre may be useful, (if it could be reliably executed) involves sloping ground.  Lets say the cohort starts from the top of a good slope and fights facing downhill.  With the shield-shoving action, gravity, and line of men behind holding onto their belts, there is likely to be a gradual downward motion - and while that is the case, the Romans hold the advantage.  However, the trouble with downward slopes is that, sooner or later, they tend to start going upward again, and the advantage is lost.  If the cohort could suddenly and unexpectedly dash back to the top of the hill, they have the advantage once again.  QED . . . but they're also quite out of breath. . . . but so are their adversaries.

 

But yes, it sounds like a very awkward trick to pull off succesfully.

[caldrail]

The reason it's difficult is that in the ancient world there is no real time communication sophisticated enough to coordinate such action. On the one hand, as many people as possible need to understand what they need to do before hand, on the other, the more people you tell, the more likely the enemy will get to  know. In my limited experience of film making making sure everyone understands what's required isn't easy at all, as many will interpret what you say in a different way, or respond differently under pressure, and in any case, a plan always assumes the enemy will do something you expect.

[GhostOfClayton]

Apparently William the Bastard [may have] done this twice at the Battle of Hastings with a huge degree of success. The first was an accident, but having seen it isolate and slaughter a manageable number of English, he tried it a second time. The result was a new ruling class in England that are still here to this day.

[Onasander]

There is no more real-time communication advantage in the ancient world than the modern when it comes to feign retreats...... if the retreat is too orderly, its a failure in terms of being a deceptive strategem, its supposed to be chaotic, bewildering, and impulsive from the subjective standpoint of the enemy observer to get them to fatally commit.

 

Obviously, with all the real time advantages armies such as the US army, British, Chinese, or Russian armies, pulling off most variations of feigned retreat is unbelievable, given the doctrinal emphasis of overlapping dependency of individual units to support one another, combined arms from multiple branches of the military, including a variety of air and naval power, reliance on defensive armor, and very secure methods of resupply and the magic if all else fails special forces will link up with you if you hunker down long enough....... we for the most part are stuck playing Orthodox. Only a exceptionally retarded opponent would believe any of the above mentioned armies would route (As the Indians foolishly believed the Chinese turning back and returning to the border a few months back, bloodless battle but Indian effectively lost.)

 

 

The duality between orthodox and unorthodox strategies in the ancient world was established best in The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, and then by a few select later theorists, though there are usually parallels for each composite strategy listed (check out Ralph Sawyers translation of 100 Unorthodox Strategies) in Roman and Greek works.

 

Its tried all the time to get large militaries to chase defeated units all the time, outside of the larger problem of theater wide attrition via a million papercuts, these techniques really suck..... Vietnam lost a few million compared to a few thousand allied forces being killed in over a decade, and it only worked in pure coincidence with weak cultural and backwards academic culture..... each war since the US has increasingly evolved and grown to understand this phenomena, during the Iraq war it was much weaker and more schitzophrenic and ultimately lost aim, confusing electing a socialist ideologue as effectively endinaending a war and usering a domestic and international utopia. It failed/ Is failing miserably. So we can see feigned retreats are still possible on the political/foreign policy level.

 

It was much easier to do it in ancient times, by cues, cryptic flag waving or trumpets, or set up in advance. Keep your lead units looking disorderly, messed up formations, flags negatively out of proportion, and act shocked as hell when the enemy shows up, and then run like hell. You can have ambushes set up, or signals when to about face and resume a more competent and devastating formation for the stroke-counter stroke- counter counter stroke. The morphology of the Orthodox-Unorthodox duality is potentially limitless, restricted only by the deposition and relative conditions and understandings of the ground.

 

The Trojan Horse was both a feigned retreat as well as a unorthodox strategy. Nothing Real Time Strategy connected to superior technology about that. Thats the quintessential essence of the matter, in a nutshell.