Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

After forcing the enemy's cavalry away, the light infantry pressed forward again to harass the infantry line of the Gauls.

These centuries who had already used javelins temporarily retreated to the rear of the battle line. Each of them could carry four javelins, but there were whole carts of javelins on the supply carts behind them, and new ones would be replenished after use.

The straight-line distance between the two sides gradually shrank from a few hundred meters to hundreds of meters, and later the enemy had entered the range of the javelin.

The Roman legionnaires in the center of the formation began to throw javelins at the enemy. Because the enemy's positions were too dense and crowded, and most of them were not protected by armor and shields, the javelins thrown by the Roman infantry could even penetrate two or more people.

In a tense and uneasy environment, people actually react like many herbivores, and they all like to gather together for warmth and rely on collective strength to give themselves a sense of security. An army that has not been trained enough will stand too crowded to the point where they cannot swing their weapons normally, and this is the case with these people now.

Tia was sure that none of these people had ever been on the battlefield, otherwise they would not have made such a poor mistake and stupidly ran into the range of the legion infantry.

They did not need to aim, just throwing at the crowd would yield results. After four rounds of javelins were fired, the formation of the villagers in the front had been riddled with holes.

The legion infantry on the left and right wings did not shoot in order to guard against the enemy's cavalry, but the light infantry who had retreated to the wings of the army were still not idle, constantly shooting at the nearby Gaul militia.

After shooting javelins, the reserve team at the rear of the formation began to replenish. They were guarding the supply car with a sufficient amount of javelins. The terrain here was a small hill with some undulations. They could shoot down the approaching Gaul militia from the height of the hill.

The Gauls did not have many excellent archers or slingers, and were completely suppressed by the Romans in terms of long-range.

Many people know that the army in the cold weapon era had low morale and was prone to collapse. They often began to retreat after 10% or 20% of casualties. Their organization and training were indeed not as good as those of later armies, but the account was not completely calculated in that way.

Suppose the object of discussion was a fully staffed Roman legion, which had about 60 centuries. The casualty rate of 20% did not mean that each century suffered 20 casualties, but that the first dozen centuries that engaged in the battle were almost annihilated, and a long line of battle was directly penetrated by the enemy.

The formation was penetrated and destroyed. Except for those strong men and their elite troops, for ordinary armies and generals, this battle was indeed impossible to fight.

If the front formation collapsed, the long-range troops behind it would of course collapse as well. The nearby troops would certainly lose confidence when they saw their friendly troops being penetrated. Those with poor training would begin to collapse as well. One spread to ten, ten spread to a hundred, and the army collapsed across the board.

To put it in an entertaining way, this is called chain defeat and lead collapse. To put it more formally, this should be called a large-scale rout.

According to Tiya's estimation, the militia army should not have a strong fighting will. After four rounds of javelins were thrown, the enemy's formation had been broken up and destroyed. The subsequent rout should be a matter of course, but the fighting determination of these people was unexpected.

Although they could not quickly reorganize their formation in front of the enemy like the elite troops, these people still rushed up with an incomplete formation and came to the point of close combat with the Roman legion.

The following story is certainly not a battle of equal strength, but a simple massacre.

The Romans did have enemies that they could not deal with head-on, such as the hedgehog-like Macedonian phalanx infantry, but these militias were not among them. The inferior weapons and even farm tools in their hands could not break the Roman chain mail, ring armor and scale armor defenses at all, and hitting their large shields was also painless.

On the other hand, the Romans were professional soldiers, holding standardized killing weapons in their hands, and they could basically take away an enemy every time they attacked.

Use the big shield in your hand to block the enemy's stab or chop, then stab the dagger in your hand without delay from the cover of the big shield, hit the enemy's vital parts, then use the shield to push the enemy down, and pull out the dagger. Such similar actions are smooth and done in one go.

As the saying goes, don't challenge other people's jobs with hobbies. Killing is the job of these professional soldiers. The price of challenge failure is life.

The heavily armed legion infantry harvested the lives of their enemies like harvesting wheat. The Gallic front suffered huge casualties. The Gallic commander who was observing the battle in the rear also found that this situation was not right, so he ordered his main cavalry to detour to the enemy's flank, hoping to defeat the morale of these Romans by attacking from behind.

Tiya's cavalry had not taken action, waiting for this moment.

She raised the sword in her hand and said: "Stop them! Follow me!"

After that, she temporarily handed over the command of the main battlefield to her adjutant, and she led all the cavalry to face the Gaul cavalry head-on.

With the speed of the charge, the two sides soon collided with each other, and then there was a fierce and indistinguishable hand-to-hand combat.

The Gaulish cavalry were all elite warriors or nobles, and their combat effectiveness was relatively strong, while the Roman cavalry had always been a weakness. Originally, they should have hired Germanic cavalry to deal with these Gauls, but because of the hostile relationship with the Franks, the Germanic cavalry could not be hired for the time being, and they could only use the patchwork cavalry to make do.

Even though Tia's ability to boost morale is not bad, and her own combat effectiveness is also very strong, they are still at a disadvantage. However, Tia's goal is not to defeat the opponent head-on in the cavalry battle, as long as she can hold them back.

While the two sides were fighting hard, the Egyptian auxiliary army gradually surrounded the cavalry on both sides in the melee from the other side, and then they began to besiege the Gallic cavalry.

Instead of using long-range weapons, they took out their javelins as spears, approached the Gallic cavalry, and either threw the javelins at close range or directly poked them to destroy the opponent's horses, and then continued They swarmed up to deal with the fallen Gallic warrior.

The Gallic commander also discovered this problem and wanted to pull his cavalry out of the encirclement, but Tia clung to his back and refused to let go. His cavalry was stuck in place by the Roman cavalry and could not move.

The greatest role of cavalry in this era was not in impact but in mobility. Mounted cavalry had not yet become popular, and cavalry without mobility was not necessarily any better than infantry.

The Gallic commander was too impatient, because he saw that the infantry formation was about to be unable to hold up, so he rushed to attack the rear of the Roman infantry line, and started a hand-to-hand combat with the Roman cavalry too close to the infantry formation, and was then stuck by the Roman cavalry. , giving the infantry a chance to touch it.

This ruined the Gauls' only chance of victory in the entire battle.