Fanatical Zealots vs Trained Soldiers, who wins?

I've been thinking about this for some amount of time, and I've decided to ask Veeky Forums for their opinion on this scenario.

> A horde of 2,000 fanatically devoted, cultist zealots armed with short spears, short-swords, and bucklers is going into battle with an army of 2,000 trained soldiers armed with short spears, short-swords, and bucklers in a wide-open plain. Assume that both sides are on-foot, and armored with layers of cloth.

> The fanatical zealots believe that their deity has commanded them to destroy the kingdom at all costs, and genuinely believe that there is no higher honor than to kill the enemies of their deity and die a glorious death in his name. The fanatical zealots have two months of training with their weapons, and a lifetime of intensive brainwashing.

> The trained soldiers are defending their kingdom because they've been drafted to defend the kingdom and will be receiving a hefty stipend upon retirement, otherwise, they have no motivation to fight. The trained soldiers have two years of training with their weapons, and have undertaken several campaigns, though not against the fanatical zealots.

> Both forces meet in a wide-open field at high noon, who wins?

Which is more important in a medieval battle, fanatical hatred of the enemy, or training with weapons?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Watling_Street
twitter.com/AnonBabble

Training. The zealots might win the battle if they allowed the trained soldiers to retreat once their morale broke, but as it became clear that the zelots would not rest until every soldier is killed, they would have to finish the fight to to the man.

Well, there are two main questions here in my opinion. Have the fanatical zealots faced open combat before? And the same for the soldiers. I would argue the more battle hardened side is going to win, because zealotry doesn't tend to hold very long in these situations.

Let's say both sides have experienced open combat before, but the zealots have roughly a third of the soldier's experience.

Of two equally sized and equally disciplined armies, the more ferocious will be the likely victor

Of two equally sized and ferocious armies, the more disciplined and coordinated of the two will be the likely winner

It's not a dichotomy

That being said in this situation the trained soldiers will be far less likely to route, while an essentially upsized angry mob will be very prone to routing. That's why disciplined soldiers were so valuable

You're missing one gigantic fulcrum that will determine a Victor. Command.

Training an armed force does two things. You covered the first; familiarity and experience with equipment and techniques. But actual soldiers are drilled in something larger. The chain of command.

A trained unit becomes like an extension of the commanders body. If the leader of 2000 men has sufficient tactical acumen the fanatics are doomed.

Tl/Dr there's answers already. Caesar's legions stomped the colons of dozens of fanatical ancestor worshipping tribes in gaul.

Fanatics lose. Almost every time

First of all it comes to leadership, if the trained soldiers have a competent commander he'll get them out of this open field and withdraw to an area he has a tactical advantage in. Since the zealots are just a wild mob they should be easy to goad into an advantageous position, either at the bottom of a hill or into a bottleneck where their numerical advantage and will to fight are negated by pure tactical know how. If the soldiers are defending a kingdom then why not just hide behind a fort or castle's walls? Does a band of zealots know siegecraft? Can they construct a camp that'll prevent the defenders from night time foraging or commando missions into their midst? The only way I see these fanatics winning is if the soldiers are forced into that kind of stupid open field battle where it comes down to their fighting ability versus the zealots endless drive.

NIGHTMARE MODE: The fanatics are part of a nomadic culture that trains husbandry with a horse from birth making even untrained soldiers still skilled riders.

I think the fanatics have the edge, simply because they won't route as easily.

Whoever breaks first loses, and the fanatics will break first. Blind zealotry may get you by passably in a firefight today, but medieval combat required you to look somebody in the eyes and take steps towards their bloody weapon.

The trained soldiers have every motivation to fight, because as trained veterans, they understand that whoever breaks gets slaughtered, and they don't want to die.

Well now that's interesting. Because the example I hinted at (rome) was woefully underdeveloped in terms of shock and mobility tactics. The echoes of which followed into Europe until the emergence of the hordes of the eastern steppes. (Would suggest reading up on this if you're into history because literally one dudes death halted the invasion of eastern Europe and arguably saved western civ.) It's the one advantage of fanaticism vs order; the adoption of new ideas. The nomadic tribes not only had a distinctly different culture from feudal Europe, clear down to how they excersised martial effort. But also a near cult of personality like reverence for strength and will in their leaders.

So theres your exception to the rule. Order and uniformity win out over zeal. Unless that zeal is tied to a vastly different system that exploits change and speed over the slower turning gears of an ordered and standard society

The Khans after Ghengis really are underrated.

>Both forces meet in a wide-open field at high noon, who wins?
Trained soldiers obviously. In different circumstances, terrain and weather zealots might overwhelm soldiers and force them to retreat

>The fanatics are part of a nomadic culture that trains husbandry with a horse from birth making even untrained soldiers still skilled riders.
Mongols relied heavily on harsh discipline in battle.

Fanatical. Simply because that cause lives on more. Training matters, but zealotry wins out because it doesn't care and spreads.

Take Islam at the battle of the ditch or whatever it was called. A bunch of Meccans get tired of Mohammad's shit and decide to send a horde of people after him to end it. Mohammad makes a shitload of holes all over so nobody can attack his camp and the Meccans go "fuck this shit" and leave. Causing a major PR issue as people hear about it and suddenly a few zealots who dug holes seem a lot more powerful and gain more zealous converts.

A well trained force can win a battle, but an ideology will usually win the war. Unless you do some Sun Tzu stuff and have soldiers who are fighting for a greater cause and who seek to spread this cause as well rather than "beat army, go home".

And there are tons of other examples like this, as an addendum where a smaller but more dedicated force won. Greeks beating the Persians being another big one. Or the American revolution taking on Britain. A large force does not mean shit unless you have better strategy or a better ideal. You can have an army of perfect war robots and they won't mean shit if one dude can hack them or give them a virus. Strategy > size of the force. Zealotry > paid trained force. In general anyway.

>A large force does not mean shit unless you have better strategy
Battle of Marathon is hardly example of better strategy winning. Greeks had to break the norms of phalanx warfare (they didn't want to do that) and accidentally won by doing that.

Think again.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Watling_Street

Zealots lose. Big time. Hell, they lose so hard, even 2000 years later they are still crying about it.

>muh holy clay

It depends entirely on the commanders.

In terms of pure rage it generates, this falls slightly below "the West Roman Empire fell" and slightly above "Napoleon lost".

Byzantine wise, what angers me the most is Maurice (Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus).

He was Emperor from 582 to 602. However before he became Emperor he was a general of the eastern armies fighting the Sassanids, he smacked them so hard that Roman expanded further east for the first time in centuries and stopped the Romans paying tribute to the Persians for peace. He did this by getting involved in a Persian succession war and installing the rightful heir to the Persian throne.

He was rewarded with the hand of the reigning Emperors daughter in marriage (They had nine kids, proof enough that their marriage was happy), this Emperor was also without sons so he became Emperor when the ruling one died.

Because of his friendship and peace in the east he was able to focus on the Balkans which was being raided and settled by migrating Slavs and Avars for decades. He was the actually the first Emperor to march across the Danube in 200 years. He also managed to delegate Italy and Africa to men loyal to him, allowing them to govern military and civil matters near-independently. This was especially effective in Italy.

This is where things get sad. Naturally all these military campaign are expensive. He tried to solve this by cutting soldiers wages and increasing taxes. His popularity quickly declined because of this. He had an army, stationed across the Danube, it was cheaper to keep them there over winter than to march them home and back again next Spring. He ordered them to stay.

The men proclaimed a guy named Phocas as their leader, this new army demanded he abdicate to either his son, Phocas himself or another general. He fled the city with his family, Phocas was declared Emperor in Constantinople, Phocas sent men who captured Maurice and his family. He was killed late 602, legend says Phocas made him watch his six sons be executed before he was beheaded himself. His wife and three daughters were sent to live in a monastery. His brother and sister also died in 602. Sadly his daughters all died in 605, probably murdered to secure the throne.

His death reignited the war with the Persians, reinvigorated the Empire enemies in the Balkans and Italy and plunged the Empire in to a series of civil wars.

The worst part were the "Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628" It was this series of conflicts that crippled both empires and ensured Muslim dominance of the entire region.

Morale is important but please keep in mind that discipline is also a key factor.

So those zealots, while trained with weapons and basic infantry tactics, are a bit fresh.
They've never been in the thick of battle, with the pushes, the screams, the confusion...
They won't root but they might just loose focus and be too enthousiastic and agressive.

Meanwhile, the veterans are used to this and know that, if they are to survive, they better stick to the plan.

As a commander, I would have experience over zeal every time.
Sure, your men might not go for the suicidal-level of loyalty and discipline found in video games.
But they'll give you good reasons why they won't go along with that plan.
And if your plan is "good enough", they'll obey and stick to it rather than going looking for glory.

Experienced soldiers beat fresh ones every day of the week.