What is the best way to break a formation?

What is the best way to break a formation?

Use an all-cavalry force and burn all of the peasants homes and rape all of the women while the infantry are unable to catch up.

Eventually the refugees will swamp all of the static defenses.

Bonus points for using a compound bow to kill infantryman who can't reach you, and then using Chinese siege engineers to ruin the city walls.

In any given situation, usually large amounts of missiles, large missiles, or large amounts of large missiles. Make swiss cheese of em.

Parthian style horse archers around the flanks

or caltrops and ditches pre-dug (or lots of small field/picket walls) for when they advance.

This doesn't work against heavy infantry with plate armor

t. Leonidas

>Leonidas

you mean that guy who was killed in exactly that way?

Flanking.
Use of missiles.
Force the enemy onto uneven terrain (hilly or forested areas).

About ten of these might be able to

>hilly terrain
>fortified zig-zag trenches
>a shitton of archers/missile troops
>artillery
A mix of these would probably do the trick.

throw big rocks at em

t. that asshole that plays TW with a armies consisting of >50% ballistae

Cannon fire.

win the cavalry battle on the flanks

Nukes

That depends entirely on what resources you have at your disposal.

Fire, traps, cannons, cavalry. Lots of ways.

If you want to be flashy about it you can do it Cannae style. Draw out the center and tuck in the flanks with cavalry.

>Artillery armies
Gross and boring and gross

Throw a huge fucking boulder against it.

Encircled by infantry?

Entreched positions.
Massed artillery.
Guerilla warfare.

Cut off supply routes, then taunt them with food.

>mfw this is exactly how the US won the Western Front

Homosex to disrupt the cohesion of military units. It's why the Spartans lost.

>disrupt
Homosex turns a formation of men into one of steel.

Homosex armies are basically why thebes took control of Greece.

Sacred Band > Spartans

Napalm or any similar substance to it

The Sacred Band of Thebes was much gayer and kicked Sparta's ass

Is that a boner joke?
Did Thebes have a different view of homosexual relations, or did they also perceive one half of the couple necessarily less worthy than the other?

no, but the Sacred Band was specifically made up of pairs of male lovers

Why are people taking my post seriously?

I was poking fun at an issue from the 00s.

Yes, I know that. I'm asking whether they had a different view on homosexuality from the rest of Greece at the time. Unless your "no", was your reply to that. In which case, wouldn't half of the band be made of social pariahs?

if you didn't want people to respond why did you post at all?

I wanted to people to respond with jokes.

In this situation, if we are to consider the men in question to be well armoured and disciplined, the optimal strategy would be to avoid engagement in favour of securing food/resources and gaining the logistical advantage. That way, you may delay engagement until you can ensure a fight on your own terms, or better yet, opt out of a battle entirely.
If battle is unavoidable, then the proper course of action rests almost entirely on what equipment your army is provided.
>Missiles
If your troops are in anyway comparable to the enemy, then they'd be fairly limited in range and therefore at the mercy of their cavalry. Plus, training entire armies of men effective in killing men with ranged weapons is difficult, considering how they were never meant to be primary killers in a battlefield. And that's to say nothing about the enemy's skirmishing capabilities.
>Artillery
This will certainly kill a lot more men and disrupt their formation, but it would take time to set up and load. But to qualify, the killing power of pre-gunpowder artillery and even early cannons is vastly overstated. Any bombardment would have to receive a concentrated follow up by infantry or cavalry to take advantage of the enemy's confusion. Remember to defend artillery batteries from counter-attack. If they do counter-attack, formation would have broken rendering engagement more faovurable.

So, be genghis khan

There has to be another way.

Make them chase you

There is a reason that in between the stirrup and gunpowder, a huge amount of effort was put into cavalry.

If you don't have steppe people, try and get some longbows or crossbows.

They should be able to defeat even heavy plate.

Bombs.

I've heard this was done a lot in Western Europe too. That's basically what the Hundred Years War chevauchées and the Iberian cavalgadas were, small scale cavalry raids on civillians.

This works great until the infantry start to integrate archers who shoot back at you.

Cannon.

Without it, there's no universally effective tactic at all.

Cannae was a very, very high risk plan. Had ANY element of the roman force fought better, or been handled even slightly competently, they'd have cracked the center, split Hannibal force in two, and slaughtered them.

This nearly happened as-is, and DID happen to his brother in spain.

>try and get some longbows or crossbows.
>They should be able to defeat even heavy plate.
They don't. English archers at flodden were ineffective.

In fact, they weren't effective at killing armored infantry in the majority of battles.

LONGBOW ARROWS DO NOT DEFEAT PLATE ARMOR. THEY CANNOT PASS THROUGH PLATE ARMOR. THEY GO INTO THE GAPS OF THE ARMOR WHERE WEAKER ARMOR IS. THE ONLY TIME THEY ARE EFFECTIVE IS WITH MASSIVE NUMBERS AT CLOSE RANGE TO MAXIMIZE THE CHANCE OF HITTING A WEAK POINT.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE SPEND THE EQUIVALENT OF A REALLY REALLY NICE HOUSE FOR ARMOR THAT CANT STOP FUCKING ARROWS.
HOW IS THIS HARD TO UNDERSTAND?

TW Rome 2 strategy
Ballista followed by arrow volley
War dogs
Cavalry on the wings
Then charge at the last second
Most enemies have routed, the others killed by ballista and arrows, charging in a wedge will split the remaining force into 2 v shapes of enemies to be held on one side by infantry and the other by cavalry from the wings

That is my strategy for straight conventional battle

Fear.

Fast reloading weapons, incendiary, and explosives can be used to get rid of any crowds unable to guard against them as a collective

explosives, music and shouting

tanks

H A M M E R & A N V I L
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Make them arrogant, make them feel they're making an overwhelming victory, or make them scared. Basically have them running towards you in disarray, or running with their backs exposed while gasping and screaming.

Trees.

They were pederasts; it was cool to bottom as long as you were still a cute young soldier

The newest method is using trucks.

...

How are the infantry archers going to get to your cavalry.

They're never going to be where there's a concentration of force, or where you expect them to be.

more so from Ariel bombings

Chuck big ass rocks, then cavalry to get the ones that scatter, then move in the main force

Artillery and machine guns

By being dispersed among the infantry you intend to attack, as an organic part of the unit.

Combined arms formations are not a modern invention.

Byzantine infantry units could easily consists of a mix of heavy infantry with 40-60% archers in each FILE. This leaves no section of line not able to shoot back.

...

Killing the enemy until they can no longer bear fighting and rout.

That's how 99.99% of all armies attempted it anyways.

Not OP here

Waging a war of attrition barely plays out in anyones favor

War-elephants.

WITH FIRE

everyone loves a nice fire, unless its stuck to you

Hello, friend.