Gothic Infantry: Warbands or Shieldwall?

[Triarius]

Hi all,
Perusing through different Goth army lists, the gothic infantry in some systems is rated as "warbands" - basically your hairy, scary barbarian shock infantry, while in others they are rated as "shield wall" type infantry: not very aggressive and more defensive type dudes.

I'm curious what y'alls opinion on this is, which do you think reflects the history better? Adrianople seems to dominate the conversation on how the Goths fight, in that battle the infantry was arrayed defensively in front of the wagon laager. However in other battles they seem to fight more aggressively.

Are the Goths your stereotypical "barbarian" aggressive warrior or are they more a levy of farmers doing their duty like the saxon fyrd?

[whiskey priest]

I've been playing Goths in Infamy! Infamy! and I've been using them as genetal barbarian types. I've used them as warband types, some with light armour to use as the Freemen and then better armoured Troops as nobles. I've based my games around the time before Adrianople but i'd imagine later on Goth tactics would have become more Roman in style. In fact I've considered giving the Goths the option to have units fighting in the Roman style. I suppose it depends when and where your games are set.

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I've been playing Goths in Infamy! Infamy! and I've been using them as genetal barbarian types.

I presume your Goths are naked then?   

I think Whiskey Priest has the right take on things.  The Barbarians became less barbarian as time went by.

[Triarius]

I've been playing Goths in Infamy! Infamy! and I've been using them as genetal barbarian types. I've used them as warband types, some with light armour to use as the Freemen and then better armoured Troops as nobles. I've based my games around the time before Adrianople but i'd imagine later on Goth tactics would have become more Roman in style. In fact I've considered giving the Goths the option to have units fighting in the Roman style. I suppose it depends when and where your games are set.

Good ideas, this makes a lot of sense actually! I've been following your goth project btw, great inspiration!

[bluewillow]

It depends upon the period more than anything, the foot being the poorer end of the gothic army had public weapons and training according to Procopius.

Early in the period they seemed to have fought in a loose but deep style formation with javelin and bow when they defeated Decius in marshy ground and are noted at Adrianople in a deep but loose formation in the 4th century.

They were also effective if trained like under Thiudimur, who had a training system borrowed from the romans supplying armour and arms, but less so under his son Theodoric at the end of his reign as the trading was reduced after the conquest of northern Italy. They did seem to have formed some sort of sheildwall in the 5th century as it is mentioned by Vegitius fighting the Huns and Bulgarians forming a "fence with thier sheilds and thrusting thier long spears outwards" but wether this was a tight grouping or a sheildwall it is unknown.

Quite a few good books on the subject, hope that sort of helps

Cheers
Matt

[guitarheroandy]

The problem is that, in reality, most peoples/armies of the period probably used a wall of overlapping shields at times as a defensive measure (Livy even records Gauls doing it in the 3rd century BC against Romans, so it's hardly a 'new' tactic in the late antiquity/early medieval period) but it's unlikely that Goths would have used that as a main tactic, even later on (6th century) when they seem (according to Procopius) to field inordinately large numbers of cavalry as their main string force. And it certainly wouldn't have been the traditional 8th-11th century Saxon-style shield wall - more of a close-knit defensive grouping.

What to do? I think I'd probably field Goth infantry certainly up to late 5th century AD as 'typical barbarians' especially if facing off against Patrician Roman armies. This is because most rules I've seen tend to make shield wall very specific thing that is designed to reflect a more static defensive warfare, which generally doesn't feel right for Goths (or even late Romans, despite stereotypical and possibly quite untrue views about the overall crapness of their infantry late in the Empire).

Visigoths I'd not allow many foot bows. Ostrogoths perhaps more, but the concept of Ostrogoth foot being largely bow-armed is perhaps more of a stereo-type than reality, as their ability to drive off Byzantine horse archers in Italy in the 6th century was notably lacking - bow-heavy foot armies wouldn't have had that problem unless their bows were unfeasibly crap.

If your rules/army lists allow it, you could always field a unit or two as 'Late Roman allied pedes' to simulate those veteran warriors who had perhaps served with Roman armies or who knew and could use similar tactics. Some of those alongside typical 'uncouth barbarians' plus a bunch of heavy cavalry can make an interesting army to game with and probably not a million miles away from the confused reality of warfare at the tail-end of the Western Roman Empire.

[Easy E]

I would say.... both? 

Therefore, you could make fun combinations in your army.

However, my knowledge of the period is tertiary at best. 

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Quite a few good books on the subject, hope that sort of helps

Cheers
Matt

OOhh.  Could you list a few of the better ones please? 

[trev]

Hi Triarius,

TLDR: The Goths and similar barbarians become Romanised but, while somewhat declining from the 4th century professionalism, maintain an open fighting style until c600.

For a more detailed take, rather than give you my cod version, I've selected some quotes from one of the very clever Guy Halsall's papers.  I much prefer his take on this, and that of Burns' "Barbarians within the gates of Rome", to the Peter Heather school, who rather gloss over what happens post Adrianople IMHO.  Although, it was a while ago I read much on this and I'm not up to date with the latest.

Anyway, Prof Halsall says:

The next stage in the development was the introduction of the foederati after the battle of Adrianople. Traditionally, these have been thought to have been barbarian irregulars recruited from Goths settled as quasi-autonomous groups within the Empire, but a close examination of the data suggests that this was not the case and that what the foederati were were regular units of a new sort, recruited from barbarians, principally Goths. Within a generation, it is clear that these new élite formations were following the same pattern as the auxilia palatina a century earlier. Olympiodorus tells us that they were composed of people of all sorts. By the sixth century, in the eastern empire, Procopius informs us that a foederatus, while he had once been a barbarian in a treaty relationship with the Empire, was now simply a member of a regiment of foederati, and in Maurice’s Strategikon the foederati are simply élite regular cavalry.

Romans were already used to ‘barbarian armies’, and indeed to serving in them. The ethnic identity of the armies was only, in many ways, an extension of the earlier situation seen with the auxilia palatina regiments and with those of the Gothic foederati. Soldiers with their own legal codes, with their own non-Roman identities, with tax-exemption on their lands, with hereditary service: all this was familiar from the fourth century. The situation had simply been developed and extended. In the economic contraction of the fifth century, it may be that salary was drawn more in kind, and that a closer relationship between soldier and designated tax-payer developed. It may well be that the relationship envisaged by delegatio became more fixed and more hierarchical but on balance the armies that we can trace in the sources of the later fifth and sixth centuries, though quite unlike the regular armies of the fourth century, are nevertheless a clear development from them.

In terms of weaponry, the armies of this period similarly appear to represent developments of late Roman practice. The archaeological record seems, from Anglo-Saxon England south to the more Mediterranean regions, to give an impression of warfare based at least partly on mobility and fluidity. Such analysis as there is suggests a predominance of weapons suitable for throwing and/or shooting, such as franciscae, angones, javelins and so on, alongside shield-bosses that similarly suggest a mobile form of fighting. They are designed, it seems to catch and parry blades in a fencing style of fighting. These weapons are found alongside weaponry for close-in fighting but overall a tactical practice that was not dissimilar to that, as far as it can be established, of the late Roman army does not seem implausible, with volleys of missile weapons before hand-to-hand-fighting.

Intriguingly, a significant change in armament seems to have occurred at this time. The practice of burying weapons in graves provides, by early medieval standards, an enormous sample (many thousands of items) of contemporary weaponry, although unevenly distributed geographically and temporally. Between c.575 and c.625, several hitherto common items disappear from that record. In Francia especially, these include the francisca and the ango. In England, certain types of javelin also cease to be found. Simultaneously, a change in defensive weaponry occurs. In the seventh century, shields became larger, with longer and heavier bosses, perhaps more suited simply to shoving or punching an enemy. Contemporary with these changes, the sword becomes less frequent in the record while the one-edged dagger (scramasax) becomes longer, broader and weightier. Spearheads also became larger and heavier. It is risky to deduce a shift in tactics from a change in weaponry but the transformation of armament between c.575 and c.625 seems to point in one general direction: from a faster, more open, type of warfare with small, easily mobile shields and much use of specialised missile weapons towards combat centred on close-packed hand-to-hand fighting. The larger, heavier shields and spears seem adapted to this type of warfare and the broad, chopping, single-edged scramasax is more suited to it than the two-edged broadsword. Indeed the scramasax combines the best features of the sword and battle axe, the latter of which (like the throwing axe) disappears from the record until the Viking era.

Surviving evidence provides no real clues as to whether defensive armour became more common, as one might expect. Helmets and body-armour are proportionately more frequent in the seventh century than the sixth but we cannot deduce much from this. The burial of armour was geographically very restricted, and cannot reflect its actual frequency. It was probably more affected by ritual demands than the burial of other items. Furthermore, outside southern Germany most surviving examples come from entirely untypical burials (the ship burials at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia and at Vendel and Valsgärde in Sweden).

Relating developments in armament and the putative tactical change deduced from them to the transformation in the raising of armies is difficult. Some of the weaponry which dropped out of use – especially the francisca – apparently required specialist training to use effectively, whereas one might, superficially, wonder whether close-fighting ‘shield-wall’ tactics were more suitable to larger, comparatively less well-trained forces. However, as noted, seventh-century armies were perhaps no more select than sixth-century; the means of selection changed. Further, and this might be crucial, close-fighting techniques probably required more expensive protective equipment, notably helmets and body-armour, which could have restricted participation to those with the economic wherewithal to provide protection for themselves and their followers. This would tally with the growth of aristocratic power discussed above. It is also possible that the coherent employment of close-fighting techniques required the elements of a ‘shield-wall’ to have more frequent training as a body. This might be more feasible within an aristocratic retinue than in an irregularly assembled conglomeration of land-owners. However, this can only remain a suggestion and there are arguments that one might present in opposition to it.

Find the full text here:
https://600transformer.blogspot.com/2011/05/warfare-state-and-change-around-600.html