Really Old Warfare
Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World, Simon Anglim, et. al.
is the first of the series that includes Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World which I reviewed before. This work isn't as good as the Medieval volume, which appears to have benefitted from working out some of the bugs from this one. I can still recommend the Medieval volume, despite some flaws. This one is weaker, and I can't really recommend it. If you need the information, and have no other resource, though, this might work for you.
As with the other works in the series, the title is completely misleading. There is essentially nothing about fighting techniques in here. It's all strategy and tactics. The "Ancient World" consists of Europe, Egypt and the Near East only. No China, no Eurasian Steppe, and India only when Alexander is there. No Americas, no sub-Saharan Africa.
This volume has far more repetition than the other, as well. For instance, we get two complete treatments of Actium, one under Command and Control, and the other under Naval Warfare.
There are the same 2-page spreads on particular battles, but they are more problematical. Each contains a small regional map, so one should be able to see where the battle happened. The X marking the spot is often wildly inaccurate, with Actium far out to sea, and the Carrhae article seems to have mistakenly used a map for Issus instead. The format is a text description of the battle above the regional map, and then a painting/map of the battlefield, with units represented, and arrows and numbered step-by-step descriptions to give the reader an understanding of what happened on the ground. Alas, there are two problems in this volume. The step-by-step text is heavily echoed by the text on the left, and both are extracted from the page text describing the battle. The result is that the reader gets pretty much word-for-word repetition three times. I also found the battlefield pictures confusing, even for battles I know well. The "moment" chosen for the depiction is often poorly chosen, and the arrows are not well connected to the numbered stages, so that the eye doesn't quickly connect the text to a unit to a movement. I did not have this problem in the Medieval volume, so they must have worked on this aspect.
I found it curious that we know the multiple authors of the text, but not who wrote which chapters.
There are also some brilliant bits. The Mounted Warfare section contains some nice work on camel and elephant warfare, and has a brilliant paragraph on how unnatural battle is for horses, and how their training must overcome it. (They are evolved to flee from danger, and to act in herds. For battle they must go toward danger, and act individually. And so on.) Pompey's anti-pirate campaign is well-treated, too. The discussion of artillery is compact, and slightly over-generalized, but essentially correct and well-organized. Artillery's impact on siege warfare is logically presented.
Largely because of the repetitions, this volume seemed thin on material, for its length.
CBsIP: (reeking piles of student manuscripts)
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