Last Stand of the 300 (Battle of Thermopylae 480BC)

[jhungary]

Coming to the fourth Battle on Last Stand, today's battle perhaps is the most famous of all European history, and is a talking point from Ancient time, Modern Time and contemporary time. It was featured in many Historical Program, Military studies and even film and movies. Today Battle was the last stand of Spartan 300.

Well known to a fact that this is where the Spartan 300 last stand, but the modern historical/theoretic aspect did not do justice to the other that stand and died on that Pass. The last stand of 300 is a matter of fact the last stand of 1500.

Background of the Battle

During the Battle of Marathon jus 10 years ago, the Persian suffered a huge defeat by the hand of Greece and was forced to retreat from Athens and ending the First Greece Invasion in 490 BC, the then king, Darius, of Persia wowed to return and would this time bring a decisive army to finish off the Greek. However, before he can realize the conquest of Greece; he died on the way to crush an Egyptian revolt to Persian rules. His son Xerxes I took the throne and crushed the Egyptian Revolt and continue to gather the momentum of the eventual Conquest of Greece.

So the Persian went to work, first by raising a gigantic "Million Men Army" in order to crush the Greek decisively, the Persian also bridged and fortified the crossing of Hellespont (Modern day Dardanelles ) which connect the Asian plane to European plane While the Persian raising and moving their Army in place, the Athenian also prepare for a eventual return of Persian, building a large navy that can block the strait of Eubora and thus blocking the advance of Persian Navy thru the strait.

A land contingent would then dispatched to block either pass at Vale of Tempe or Thermopylae, which the first one was suggested by Thessalian, the former was rejected on site when King Alexander of Macedon told the Athenian that the pass can be bypass. Hence the Athenian decided to hold the pass at Thermopylae, and set forward the wheel of the greatest battle of all European History.

Deposition of force

The Greek Force According to modern research, the estimation of Greek force is about 7,000-10,000; the estimation is following the original Spartan 300 and recruited along the way to battle. Base on the city the 300 traverse thru and the maximum number of troop those cities can afford.

The deposition is as follow

Peloponnesians - 3,000
Lacedaemonians - 1,000
Thespians - 700
Malians - 1,000
Thebans - 400
Phocians - 1000
Opuntian Locrians - 1,000

Persian Force While the ancient estimate of the force staged somewhere between 1 to 2.4 millions, the modern estimation, based on the logistic supporting ability and the general camp size would pin the estimation between 100,000-300,000 troop.

While there is a strong possibility that the whole invasion force would have exceed 500,000 - 800,000 for a decisive victory, however, estimation on troop that was left behind to guard places that Persian traverse suggested the number actually in the battle would be 70,000 - 150,000

Tactical Consideration

Tactical goal in the Greece size is to defend the pass as much as possible, had the Persian overrun the pass, the Athenian would be forced into a set piece battle with a superiority enemy on an open ground, which considered the number of Greece Army, the prospect is not good. At Thermopylae, the terrain was heavily favor the defender as the pass was enveloped one side by water (North Side) and the South side by a cliff. This would give the Spartan and Theban hoplite phalanx advantage on facing a frontal attack, as the position cannot be flanked.

The defence of the passage would have been co-ordinate with a Naval Effort at Cape Artemisia at the same time to effective cover the blockade. Had the land operation failed, which would render the naval blockade useless and vice versa. The Greek know the pass can be diverted and flanked thru a mountain pass which limited access mean only light infantry can fit thru.

On the other hand, the Persian have to get thru the pass to attack Athens, with an army that big, logistic would have been an issue. So every day on the road would be burning resource for the Persian, and the further the Persian go, the longer the supply line would extend, and the probability of it getting attack or raid would increase, and that would impede the Persian force's ability to march forward.

For the Persian, it's basically come down to either move forward or go back home, and if the Persian wanted to continue on the campaign, they have to pass thru the pass at Thermopylae

Beginning of Battle



While the Persian force arrived at the pass a few day before the battle begin, the Persian force was still trying to communicate with the Spartan to have them surrender, possibly this is to bring the rear of the Persian column up and they are either looking at a bloodless solution or when the time came to fight, the Persian can put all the force in use. While the Persian using the time for necessary war preparation, have entrenched themselves over the "Gate" of Thermopylae, the Greek Troop make use of the natural defence and the former defensive position to make good use of their troop deployment. When both sides ready, the battle would then begin.

Day 1 - The battle start with Persian fire missile by their missile troop at far. However, the heavy armour would render the archer useless against the Hoplite. With the first burst of Arrow fired. The Persian King order a frontal attack with 10,000 of his light infantry. The 10,000 light troops were moving in 3 waves, while the first waves got cut down almost immediately, the second and third wave does not fare any better. While the hoplites totally digest the Persian Formation, the Persian is then readying the second wave of attack, this time instead of sending normal light infantry, the King send in the Persian crack troop, the immortal. Still attacking head on, the immortal did not far any better then the Light Infantry before them. Now the pass is littered with Persian dead and wounded, the Persian see that they still can't gain any head way toward the Greek, Xerxes called it a day and went back to their camp. While at the pass, the Greek troop rotated out the wounded and killed and put their reserve into good use. Replacing the rank does not take longs for the Greek; the Greek only committed 50% (About 2000 of 4000 troop) at place. The casualty of that day is light for the Greek.

Day 2 - with both sides think the other side have exhausted many of their manpower, the Persian press on with the frontal attacks. The ferocity of the Greek Defence complicated the train of thought of Xerxes, making him believe he was up against a larger bulk of Greek Force. The Greek were at business as usual, standing side-by-side to each other and fending off incoming frontal assault. With the third attack failed. They had now again lost a great deal of their troop on frontal assault. The Persian once again retired to their camp and regroup. It was at this point, a man named Ephialtes camp forward to the Persian and offer a solution of the Greek Problem. He told Xerxes that there were a path runs parallel toward the rear of the Spartan. Now the Persian detached a column of Immortal to follow up the trail and flank the Spartan from the other side.

Day 3 - Upon seeing the immortal making their way up the path above Thermopylae, the Phocians guard jumped into action, however, with only 1000 of them guarding the path, and facing at least 20,000 immortal, the Phocians simply got brushed aside while the Persian push thru the pass above. Now, with the news break to Spartan King Leonidas that the Phocians did not hold the path above them. The King then send away most of the Greek troop and maintain his own garrison of 300 Spartan to guard the Path of Thermopylae. 400 Thebans and 700 thespians elected to remain behind, effectively forming a rear guard action to cover the retreat of Greek Allied troop. Moving forward to the entrance of the pass at Thermopylae, the Spartan move from the narrowest point of the path to the widest point of the path, the intention is simple; Kill as many Persian as they came over the path before they are all killed.

The Spartan king was killed early on the assault. Both side continued the fighting before every last Greek was killed, or surrendered. The Thebans surrendered to the Persian as the Immortal approach from the rear of the Greek Position while the Greek retreated further up the path, the battle is over when the last of the Greek was slaughtered by a pincer move of Persian and from the Persian Arrow.

What Went Wrong??

Well, nothing went wrong on the Greek part actually, the fight was doomed in the beginning. It would just serve as buying time for evacuate Athens. Many historians have argued that even the Greek was not betrayed by Ephialtes, the Persian would have found the path themselves. By then the only different would be how many Persian Infantry have to be killed before they eventually found the path to outflank the Greek.

The Greek start the battle with limited resource, both paths must be secure in order to safeguard the area of Thermopylae, however, with only 7,000 (maybe less) to spare, both path cannot be secure in the same time.

While this does not affect the overall outcome (In my opinion) there is one thing the Greek should actually do to try and win the battle for them. However, the focus would not be on the Pass of Thermopylae itself, nor if it lies in King Leonidas and his Spartan and Allied troop. But the fleet that's holding the Persian fleet at bay at Cape of Artemisium. In my humble opinion, if the Greek were in deed trying to win the battle, the best bet they can put in is not defending the Pass at Thermopylae in the first place, but rather things could have been better if the Greek Fleet break thru the Persian Fleet and sail up and engage the Logistic hub in Hellespont. An Army of the size of Persian require a lot of supply to roll in to make its march.

When you are talking about fighting a superior force, superior in number, you go after their supply line. If, by any chances, the Greek Fleet could break thru the Cape and move up to Hellespont and destroy their resupply line running from modern day Turkey and Greece. The Greece may have a chance to force the Persian to withdraw at least back to Hellespont and deal with the Greek Threat on their supply line. This works about 2,300 years later at WW1 when the Turks denial the British access to Dardanelles at the battle of Gallipoli.

By holding the Hellespont, the Greek could in effect chocked the Persian supply and either have the Persian Troop on the other side retreat to deal with it or starve to death. This could works as we know the Greek, although field not many soldier, they do field a lot of ship and it was a fact that the Greek Fleet would later defeated the Persian Fleet in 2 separate occasion (Battle of Salamis and Battle of Mycale) and turn the ties of the war and eventually forced a Persian Retreat again. So, in hind sight, this could be doable if the Greek were to proceed with the plan. Even with defeat in Thermopylae, if the Persian were defeated in Hellespont, the advancing Persian army would have either lose momentum or fighting the campaign under-supplied for the rest of the campaign, thus the chance of Greek invoking a decisive defeat to Persian would be higher.

On the Persian side, the lost for them is high, nearly 20,000 troop perished with the engagement. The lost mostly due to the operational lost resulting from underestimating the Greek. There are, however, should be noted that there aren't other way to bypass the Spartan, at least before they know there's one. With a big army like Persian, the Persian needs a constant moving. There are no much Persian can do actually. The one thing the Persian did right, under the circumstance is that they did not waste time on mopping up the path parallel to the pass at Thermopylae.

Instead they just brush it off. That would serve the Parisian two advantages. First they preserve their troop to carry out a double envelopment on the Spartan rear. Second, it would make good time before they allow bulk of the Greek Retreated.

Probably Xerxes was also concerned about the supply problem as he also aware a naval battle happening parallel to this battle. Had the Persian Fleet loses the Greek Fleet would have move up and threaten the Persian Supply line. In All, Persian lose could have been more had either Ephialtes did not come forward, or they have wasted time and manpower on the Phorcians. Which the first one brought to the Persian by sheer good luck, the second one is the right tactical decision to make.

Is the Last Stand necessary?

Leonidas knows the Phorcians cannot hold the pass above the Thermopylae; many argued the situation would have been different if the entire Greek troop either retreated or stayed and fight,. As Athenians is evacuating Athens anyway, either you stand your ground and buy more time, or you get the hell out and leave with the Evacuation and life and fight another day. Now, obviously the Greek can't all be gone, otherwise the Persian would have caught the Greek with their pants down had the entire Greek troop and leave the paths open.

If they all stayed, then they would all be killed. First of all it would have been a morale blow to the Greece and that man power (3000-4000) would be essential to guard the channel across Salamis and that is what deterred the Persian to cross, by the time they do, they had suffered a defeat from the superior and more organized Greek Army and Navy. So, by sacrificing themselves, the Spartan making good sure (Or at least put the Greek on a better footing) the Greece have a better chance. Doing either way would have been disastrous for Greek.

Well, that's my takes on Battle of Thermopylae, as usual discussion is welcome, and I would also appreciate any comment make to the battle or to how I interpret the battle, next week, the Last Stand series will conclude with the fifth and last battle, stay tuned.

One correction, i know i said this is the fourth (In fact i intented it to be the fourth) I just finish writing this last night and when i brought my USB Flash drive to work, i realise i did copied the wrong file (The third battle should be battle of Rouke's Drift) so if you read this article and you read it as fourth, well, just ignore it, i will get in Battle of Rouke Drift later as the fourth article and this one would be bumbed to Third

@WebMaster
@jaibi
@Slav Defence
@Alpha1
@AUSTERLITZ
@DaRk WaVe
@indiatester
@hinduguy
@Shinigami
@FaujHistorian

as usual, discussion is welcomed, and if you think i have got any info wrong (About how the army move and stuff like that) please do tell me, i did my best i can under the circumstance

 

[jaibi]

One of the most famous stands in world history. I would admit that I've read it solely from a historical perspective @jhungary and this is my first time reading it from a military one. I would discuss once I've read in detail your article. I've also a video of it somewhere, I'll try to post it here.

 

[indiatester]

Did the Greeks use archers? Since they had the higher ground, I guess that could have created lot of problems to the Persians.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

Absolutely brilliant maps,made it crystal clear.Among ur best.

As for numbers i agree it would be in the region 150,000 -200,000 combatants.And similar numbers of camp followers[ancient historians invariably bunched them together]

The main reasons persians had such a horrid time frontally against the greek phalanx was because of several factors.

1)At thermopylae famed persian cavalry has zero space to manuevre and is useless.This same cavalry will make life hell for spartans and greeks in next battle at platea almost winning it before again mass failure of persian infantry.

2)Persians are equipped with a leather cap and a wooden flat rectangular wicker shield and for the more elite units scale armour.Greeks are equipped with bronze helmet covering the face and head,bronze[bronze is actually stronger than iron,but not steel and also costlier] or linothorax cuirass,metal greves for the feet and most importantly a round metal shield.Also the spears of the greeks are slightly longer giving them better reach.This difference in equipment is reflection of their respective geographies.The light armour and flat shields of the persian army is meant for the open plains of asia with hotter climates.Here they would move close to the enemy and create a defensive shieldwall from behind which massed archesr can begin projectile bombardment in safety.Main striking element is cavalry.Greek warfare has little or no place for cavalry.Its based purely on face to face infantry slugfests -this is because 1)Horse are rare in greece except in thessaly and macedonia to the north which are not considered greece proper.2)Terrain is mountanous and unsuited for use of horsemen 3)Greece as a region is far poorer than persia.The small city states can't afford large cavalry armies.1 horseman cost maybe 3 times an infantry soldier to equip and maintain.Result is a development of infantry warfare that naturally promotes heavy armour for close protection.

Finally on the mechanics of the hoplite warfare itself the decisive advantage of the greeks is in the round metal shield the aspis.
Hoplite warfare is essentially a pushing match,both sides keep pushing until one side collapses.The trick is u have to maintain formation while doing this.So while the depth of ur phalanx gives u more pushing power it also creates more problems in control.
The greeks had a decisive advantage in heavier equipment.Their metal armour gave far more weight to their push than the persian soldier.Second their spears were slightly larger and gave better reach.

When 2 spear lines collided created a huge amount of force from both sdies that passed through the combatants and needed to be released.Soldiers in the opposing lines are in a situation where they are being pushed from the back by their fellow men and from the front by the whole enemy line.Pressure exerted on him is thus immense.



Persian soldiers with 2 types of wicker shields.Flat large rectangular shape.Second smaller slightly curved rectangular but still flat shield.First one is clumsy ,difficult to move around and second one is smaller and doesn't cover whole body.Importantly both are wooden and flat.A greek bronze spear will simply go through this wooden shield.



Greek metal aspis.Rounded and curved.Its much more manueverable than the fist type of persian shield and gives better coverage than second type.



See greek soldier.The aspis covers him exactly from neck to thighs.Above neck he is protected by bronze helmet.From thighs with metal greaves.Excellent all round protection,a group of this soldiers can create a wall of advancing metal.All this heavy equipment also adds to the weight of a hoplite's push.

Back to the hoplite combat,with a spearman being pushed from front and back -there needs to be realease point.The domed round shield aspis creates a small pocket between his chest and the shield.Allows him to breathe and lessens pressure on his sternum.Pesrian flat shields have no such room.They are simply pressed into their shields and crushed from both sides.Unable to breathe many die where they stand just from the force of two pushes rather from enemy weapons.

After their continous defeats to hoplites in graeco persian wars persians recognized this flaw.Persian reformed spearmen -the kardaces.

Basically same old persian soldier with metal aspis.It was too late.By this time the age of the hoplite was over,greece and then persia fell to the macedonian phalanx of philip and alexander.

Now add to these advantages the spartans were the most disciplined,durable,strongest and fittest of all the active combatants.And they had moral high ground fighting for their homeland and excellent espirit de corps due to their military culture.Persians were to have a rough time in greece.

Did the Greeks use archers? Since they had the higher ground, I guess that could have created lot of problems to the Persians.

Greeks had few if any archers.Only athens had a contingent of archers,used in plataea.In plataea even proud spartans had to ask for help from athenian archers as they were ceaselessly being bombarded by persian horse archers and javelin horsemen with no way to retaliate.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

One thing about the article is 20,000 immortals.Immortals always numbered 10,000.It was immortals plus others for total 20,000 i think thats what was meant.
Secondly one more reason for spartan stand was that other retreating greek troops needed time to withdraw safely.If all retreated mobile persian cavalry would have chased and wiped them out while scattered and retreating after they had made through thermopylae.

 

[FaujHistorian]

........

(In my opinion) there is one thing the Greek should actually do to try and win the battle for them. However, the focus would not be on the Pass of Thermopylae itself, nor if it lies in King Leonidas and his Spartan and Allied troop. But the fleet that's holding the Persian fleet at bay at Cape of Artemisium. In my humble opinion, if the Greek were in deed trying to win the battle, the best bet they can put in is not defending the Pass at Thermopylae in the first place, but rather things could have been better if the Greek Fleet break thru the Persian Fleet and sail up and engage the Logistic hub in Hellespont. An Army of the size of Persian require a lot of supply to roll in to make its march.

When you are talking about fighting a superior force, superior in number, you go after their supply line.


By holding the Hellespont, the Greek could in effect chocked the Persian supply and either have the Persian Troop on the other side retreat to deal with it or starve to death. .
........

Awesome post,.

Many of the aspects of this battle are relatively well known, so the real contribution (in my humble opinion) is what you said about Hellespont and the logistic supply lines.

Simply Awesome.


This is the true essence of military history.

Not to get get bogged down in stories of gallantry but rather boring stuff like logistics, supply lines, and protecting your supply lines while disrupting the ones of opponent.


Thank you

 

[ExtraOdinary]

@AUSTERLITZ , for a moment put yourself in the shoes of Xerxes, how would you have planned this battle? I have always been curious as to why did the Persians go for frontal assault. Wer'nt catapults/ballistas available at that time? Could'nt they have just bombarded the greeks with big *** stones?

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

No persian army didn't have catapults.Catapults were introduced by syracuse later during the peloponnesian war.And archers were found ineffective in the narrow pass with greeks sheltering themselves behind their shields and heavy armour.Main problem was range of bow was 150 yards ,not too high and due to narrowness of pass only a handful archers could deploy in line,to put more arrows on a designated area in each succesive line they would have to come much closer as each line has a few men only.If they came too close they would be charged by a sally from the greeks.

Spartans btw attempted to ban catapults,even when it was their syracusan allies who brought some as a 'secret weapon' to help them.On seeing its effect,however spartan king was demoralized rather than elated.

''By heracles,this is the end of the valour of men!''



Catapults were a terrifying weapon in ancient greece,and an army with a substantial number would simply be avoided.But required special hired engineers and were very costly.Philip of macedon suffered his only 2 defeats in greece to a phocian army using mass catapults.Mass catapults broke the phalanx.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

@AUSTERLITZ , for a moment put yourself in the shoes of Xerxes, how would you have planned this battle? I have always been curious as to why did the Persians go for frontal assault. Wer'nt catapults/ballistas available at that time? Could'nt they have just bombarded the greeks with big *** stones?

Onto what i would have done if i was xerxes.Depends entirely on what i know about greek style of warfare.Its all about intel.Xerxes reaction in this case was not too out of the ordinary,a handful of men barred the way of his massive force.And persian armies had always fought extremely well in the plains of the middle east and west asia,why should it be different here?Xerxes had never fought the greeks.And this is why he suffered such heavy losses, he didn't 'know the enemy' in sun tzu speak.Thus fought the battle on their terms.

One thing he should have done is sent his cavalry and light infantry to seek and alternate route rather than making little use of them.Also the greek withdrawal at artemisium made the greek position here untenable ,so he could have waited confident his numerically superior navy could beat the greeks..But then again that would be a blow to the prestige of the great king,as it meant he admitted persians couldn't force the pass.

 

[FaujHistorian]

Onto what i would have done if i was xerxes.Depends entirely on what i know about greek style of warfare.Its all about intel.Xerxes reaction in this case was not too out of the ordinary,a handful of men barred the way of his massive force.And persian armies had always fought extremely well in the plains of the middle east and west asia,why should it be different here?Xerxes had never fought the greeks.And this is why he suffered such heavy losses, he didn't 'know the enemy' in sun tzu speak.Thus fought the battle on their terms.

One thing he should have done is sent his cavalry and light infantry to seek and alternate route rather than making little use of them.Also the greek withdrawal at artemisium made the greek position here untenable ,so he could have waited confident his numerically superior navy could beat the greeks..But then again that would be a blow to the prestige of the great king,as it meant he admitted persians couldn't force the pass.

Well stated.

Mostly people think that fighting wars is the business of commanders and generals.

And this may be true in case of small battles on familiar terrian.

But military attack is an entirely different beast when it comes to big time wars, most likely on unfamiliar terrain where the opponent is new as well,

That's when you need commanders who have a decent number civilian staff including historians, anthropologists, experts in the traditions of the opponents, geography, chemistry, mathematics and physics, weather forecasters, sociologists.

In real world this is not possible for many reasons. And then commander loath the way many civilians dilly dally about getting the job done.

So time and again

Commanders (if they remain alive) suffer from lack of knowledge in many of the fields listed above.

And thus end up wasting may of their precious men needlessly

Look at the wars of recent past

Communist Russians took almost 6 years to learn from their mistakes in Afghanistan.

British generals in WW-1, and 2 remained stuck with out of date methods for years

and learned on the job, the hard way, after the loss of 1000s of their men, that many of the techniques they learned from school or previous wars were useless.


Same thing happened with Xerxes.

He too felt that he can bulldoze few spartans and move on.


However when few days past in the gridlock

he did find an alternative path

then ended up capturing Athens etc. and defeating greeks.


So in the end, one battle, and loss of soldiers (even pretty high number) didn't really stop him from achieving his main objective.


peace

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

Well stated.

Mostly people think that fighting wars is the business of commanders and generals.

And this may be true in case of small battles on familiar terrian.

But military attack is an entirely different beast when it comes to big time wars, most likely on unfamiliar terrain where the opponent is new as well,

That's when you need commanders who have a decent number civilian staff including historians, anthropologists, experts in the traditions of the opponents, geography, chemistry, mathematics and physics, weather forecasters, sociologists.

In real world this is not possible for many reasons. And then commander loath the way many civilians dilly dally about getting the job done.

So time and again

Commanders (if they remain alive) suffer from lack of knowledge in many of the fields listed above.

And thus end up wasting may of their precious men needlessly

Look at the wars of recent past

Communist Russians took almost 6 years to learn from their mistakes in Afghanistan.

British generals in WW-1, and 2 remained stuck with out of date methods for years

and learned on the job, the hard way, after the loss of 1000s of their men, that many of the techniques they learned from school or previous wars were useless.


Same thing happened with Xerxes.

He too felt that he can bulldoze few spartans and move on.


However when few days past in the gridlock

he did find an alternative path

then ended up capturing Athens etc. and defeating greeks.


So in the end, one battle, and loss of soldiers (even pretty high number) didn't really stop him from achieving his main objective.


peace

Actually xerxes failed to defeat the greeks.He burned athens that was already abandoned.All greek forces had withdrawn to the isthmus of corinth after thermopylae there building up a wall.

See the narrow bottleneck,With greeks on west side.Persian east.Greek land forces were led by sparta.Naval forces by Athens.Now after thermopylae where they were held up by a small contingent with heavy losses,persians understood they couldn't force passage through this narrow bottleneck against whole greek army.A stalemate ensued.To break the stalemate persians would have to bypass the land route and disembark a force to the rear of the greek position by sea using their naval transports.Of course greek navy would oppose such a move.If persia won the naval battle it would win greece,as then greek position on land would become hopeless.This set the stage for the decisive battle of salamis.The oracle had predicted greece's salvation would lie in a wooden wall and that either sparta would lose a king or the city itself would fall.Apparently both came true.

The battle of salamis in the gulf of salamis.Themistocles lured the larger persian navy into the narrow gulf where their larger ships were at a manueverability disadvantage and destroyed them.Xerxes was watching the action from a golden throne ashore.He got into a panic that greeks would destroy his bridges in the hellespont and cut him off.He left with half of his army after the battle for persia,leaving his general mardonius to hold what they conquered .However next yr whole persian army remaining in greece was defeated at the hard fought battle of plataea.

 

[jhungary]

One of the most famous stands in world history. I would admit that I've read it solely from a historical perspective @jhungary and this is my first time reading it from a military one. I would discuss once I've read in detail your article. I've also a video of it somewhere, I'll try to post it here.

thanks, looking foward to it

Did the Greeks use archers? Since they had the higher ground, I guess that could have created lot of problems to the Persians.

The spartan does not actually believe in either missile troop and ranged weapon. The spartan believe a true warrior would not resort to ranged weapon and would allow the enemy to strike first. As austerlitz pointed out, the only archer Greek ever employed is in the later battle of plataea.

Althought this is a greek war, but this particular battle are majoritily fought with Greek Allies. As most of the greek fighter were at Greece participating in the ancient Olympic.

Well, at least this is what i read

 

[jhungary]

Absolutely brilliant maps,made it crystal clear.Among ur best.

As for numbers i agree it would be in the region 150,000 -200,000 combatants.And similar numbers of camp followers[ancient historians invariably bunched them together]

The main reasons persians had such a horrid time frontally against the greek phalanx was because of several factors.

1)At thermopylae famed persian cavalry has zero space to manuevre and is useless.This same cavalry will make life hell for spartans and greeks in next battle at platea almost winning it before again mass failure of persian infantry.

2)Persians are equipped with a leather cap and a wooden flat rectangular wicker shield and for the more elite units scale armour.Greeks are equipped with bronze helmet covering the face and head,bronze[bronze is actually stronger than iron,but not steel and also costlier] or linothorax cuirass,metal greves for the feet and most importantly a round metal shield.Also the spears of the greeks are slightly longer giving them better reach.This difference in equipment is reflection of their respective geographies.The light armour and flat shields of the persian army is meant for the open plains of asia with hotter climates.Here they would move close to the enemy and create a defensive shieldwall from behind which massed archesr can begin projectile bombardment in safety.Main striking element is cavalry.Greek warfare has little or no place for cavalry.Its based purely on face to face infantry slugfests -this is because 1)Horse are rare in greece except in thessaly and macedonia to the north which are not considered greece proper.2)Terrain is mountanous and unsuited for use of horsemen 3)Greece as a region is far poorer than persia.The small city states can't afford large cavalry armies.1 horseman cost maybe 3 times an infantry soldier to equip and maintain.Result is a development of infantry warfare that naturally promotes heavy armour for close protection.

Finally on the mechanics of the hoplite warfare itself the decisive advantage of the greeks is in the round metal shield the aspis.
Hoplite warfare is essentially a pushing match,both sides keep pushing until one side collapses.The trick is u have to maintain formation while doing this.So while the depth of ur phalanx gives u more pushing power it also creates more problems in control.
The greeks had a decisive advantage in heavier equipment.Their metal armour gave far more weight to their push than the persian soldier.Second their spears were slightly larger and gave better reach.

When 2 spear lines collided created a huge amount of force from both sdies that passed through the combatants and needed to be released.Soldiers in the opposing lines are in a situation where they are being pushed from the back by their fellow men and from the front by the whole enemy line.Pressure exerted on him is thus immense.



Persian soldiers with 2 types of wicker shields.Flat large rectangular shape.Second smaller slightly curved rectangular but still flat shield.First one is clumsy ,difficult to move around and second one is smaller and doesn't cover whole body.Importantly both are wooden and flat.A greek bronze spear will simply go through this wooden shield.



Greek metal aspis.Rounded and curved.Its much more manueverable than the fist type of persian shield and gives better coverage than second type.



See greek soldier.The aspis covers him exactly from neck to thighs.Above neck he is protected by bronze helmet.From thighs with metal greaves.Excellent all round protection,a group of this soldiers can create a wall of advancing metal.All this heavy equipment also adds to the weight of a hoplite's push.

Back to the hoplite combat,with a spearman being pushed from front and back -there needs to be realease point.The domed round shield aspis creates a small pocket between his chest and the shield.Allows him to breathe and lessens pressure on his sternum.Pesrian flat shields have no such room.They are simply pressed into their shields and crushed from both sides.Unable to breathe many die where they stand just from the force of two pushes rather from enemy weapons.

After their continous defeats to hoplites in graeco persian wars persians recognized this flaw.Persian reformed spearmen -the kardaces.

Basically same old persian soldier with metal aspis.It was too late.By this time the age of the hoplite was over,greece and then persia fell to the macedonian phalanx of philip and alexander.

Now add to these advantages the spartans were the most disciplined,durable,strongest and fittest of all the active combatants.And they had moral high ground fighting for their homeland and excellent espirit de corps due to their military culture.Persians were to have a rough time in greece.



Greeks had few if any archers.Only athens had a contingent of archers,used in plataea.In plataea even proud spartans had to ask for help from athenian archers as they were ceaselessly being bombarded by persian horse archers and javelin horsemen with no way to retaliate.

The pass is extremely favor the Spartan way of fighting, as the only weakless of the spartan hoplite formation is to swing by the flank. Which in this case, one of them is protected by the strait and the other is protected by the cliff.

The heavily armored spartan troop would fare extremely better than the lightly armed and lightly armored Persian Levies and Light infantry as the Persian would focus on mobility and quick march. immortal fare a little bit better but was eventually outclassed by the solid "Shield and long spear" formation offered by the hoplite. Most immortal would not even get close to the first line of hoplite before being cut down by the long spear or pike that were being used by the Spartan

As long as the Hoplite maintain the formation, which they actually don't need to go anywhere, there are nothing they cannot defend.

One thing about the article is 20,000 immortals.Immortals always numbered 10,000.It was immortals plus others for total 20,000 i think thats what was meant.
Secondly one more reason for spartan stand was that other retreating greek troops needed time to withdraw safely.If all retreated mobile persian cavalry would have chased and wiped them out while scattered and retreating after they had made through thermopylae.

I don't know about this, this is what my source read, maybe it did mean 10000 light infantry and 10000 immortal from behind, it was quite late that day i wrote this piece, it may as well be a typo. Not sure.....

@AUSTERLITZ , for a moment put yourself in the shoes of Xerxes, how would you have planned this battle? I have always been curious as to why did the Persians go for frontal assault. Wer'nt catapults/ballistas available at that time? Could'nt they have just bombarded the greeks with big *** stones?

The catapults would have blog down the speed of persian invasion and since the sheer size of the invasion force determined a long and lengthy supply line. The speed for the persian invasion would be the key to success on the invasion of greece. For the persian, they can either move forward or backward, every hours and days the delay mean the more supply they are to throw in the system.

With the blocking force in thermopylae, there are only one way they can go, either fight, or go back. Either gaining ground or become a liability.

 

[jhungary]

Awesome post,.

Many of the aspects of this battle are relatively well known, so the real contribution (in my humble opinion) is what you said about Hellespont and the logistic supply lines.

Simply Awesome.


This is the true essence of military history.

Not to get get bogged down in stories of gallantry but rather boring stuff like logistics, supply lines, and protecting your supply lines while disrupting the ones of opponent.


Thank you

Actually that was the easy part......

In restrospect, we all knew what was going on to that battle nearly 3000 years ago, and we know the deposition of everything as well as the result of the later battle. I mean, it's just a mere rational thinking.

By looking at the loophole and determine what they should do should not be hard now. But if i were back in 480 BC and fight the Battle myself, i would probably fight the same way the Greek did. Or even worse. Under that given circumstance, with the information known to the Greece and the ability to predict the future engagement (Aside from the Oracle prediction....) I would say under the condition of Fog of war, Leonidas did what he can, with the reseource they have and to the maximum perferrable outcome of the battle and the subsequence war.

I personally don't think i can do any better than Leonidas if i have to do over knowing what he knows.

Onto what i would have done if i was xerxes.Depends entirely on what i know about greek style of warfare.Its all about intel.Xerxes reaction in this case was not too out of the ordinary,a handful of men barred the way of his massive force.And persian armies had always fought extremely well in the plains of the middle east and west asia,why should it be different here?Xerxes had never fought the greeks.And this is why he suffered such heavy losses, he didn't 'know the enemy' in sun tzu speak.Thus fought the battle on their terms.

One thing he should have done is sent his cavalry and light infantry to seek and alternate route rather than making little use of them.Also the greek withdrawal at artemisium made the greek position here untenable ,so he could have waited confident his numerically superior navy could beat the greeks..But then again that would be a blow to the prestige of the great king,as it meant he admitted persians couldn't force the pass.

Well, as i said in my OP, even if Ephialtes did not betray the greek, Xerxes would have eventually found a way to outflank the spartan and this is most likely the case for it as many would agree.

After the fail assault on Day 1 and Day 2, the persian would have call off any general attack and start probing the line in and around the area. The act of Ephialtes is a stroke of good luck that save the Persian hundred or even thousand of men to prode the line while applying pressure on the Spartan.

And i think Xerxes was actually worried about their navy at Artemisium, that would be the last defence before the Greek can threaten the Persian Supply line. A decisive battle should be fought there, crush the Greek and take the threat of Supply line out of the equation. Well, at lease this is what i will do if i am Xerxes.

I mean everyone, the persian and the spartan know defending the pass at THermopylae is a lost clause. So if i were to move first, i will make good sure i won't be trapped in 2 place at once. But then this is just me, and i don't fight with the chip on Xerxes shoulder....

 

[jhungary]

Actually xerxes failed to defeat the greeks.He burned athens that was already abandoned.All greek forces had withdrawn to the isthmus of corinth after thermopylae there building up a wall.

See the narrow bottleneck,With greeks on west side.Persian east.Greek land forces were led by sparta.Naval forces by Athens.Now after thermopylae where they were held up by a small contingent with heavy losses,persians understood they couldn't force passage through this narrow bottleneck against whole greek army.A stalemate ensued.To break the stalemate persians would have to bypass the land route and disembark a force to the rear of the greek position by sea using their naval transports.Of course greek navy would oppose such a move.If persia won the naval battle it would win greece,as then greek position on land would become hopeless.This set the stage for the decisive battle of salamis.The oracle had predicted greece's salvation would lie in a wooden wall and that either sparta would lose a king or the city itself would fall.Apparently both came true.

The battle of salamis in the gulf of salamis.Themistocles lured the larger persian navy into the narrow gulf where their larger ships were at a manueverability disadvantage and destroyed them.Xerxes was watching the action from a golden throne ashore.He got into a panic that greeks would destroy his bridges in the hellespont and cut him off.He left with half of his army after the battle for persia,leaving his general mardonius to hold what they conquered .However next yr whole persian army remaining in greece was defeated at the hard fought battle of plataea.

Actually xerxes failed to defeat the greeks.He burned athens that was already abandoned.All greek forces had withdrawn to the isthmus of corinth after thermopylae there building up a wall.

See the narrow bottleneck,With greeks on west side.Persian east.Greek land forces were led by sparta.Naval forces by Athens.Now after thermopylae where they were held up by a small contingent with heavy losses,persians understood they couldn't force passage through this narrow bottleneck against whole greek army.A stalemate ensued.To break the stalemate persians would have to bypass the land route and disembark a force to the rear of the greek position by sea using their naval transports.Of course greek navy would oppose such a move.If persia won the naval battle it would win greece,as then greek position on land would become hopeless.This set the stage for the decisive battle of salamis.The oracle had predicted greece's salvation would lie in a wooden wall and that either sparta would lose a king or the city itself would fall.Apparently both came true.

The battle of salamis in the gulf of salamis.Themistocles lured the larger persian navy into the narrow gulf where their larger ships were at a manueverability disadvantage and destroyed them.Xerxes was watching the action from a golden throne ashore.He got into a panic that greeks would destroy his bridges in the hellespont and cut him off.He left with half of his army after the battle for persia,leaving his general mardonius to hold what they conquered .However next yr whole persian army remaining in greece was defeated at the hard fought battle of plataea.

I personally see this is similiar to why North Korea lose momentum and failed at Pusan Perimeter. The Persian had covered a lot of ground without actually consolidate their gain. The Greece on the other hand, was pushed in a corner, and was fighting a delay action after another delay action. SO in the end, when they have bought enough time and resource and they wait for a bottleneck for a counter strike. and that would general broke the back bone of an invasion enemy.

While you absort your enemy attack using your stragetic depth and while you counter punch when the time is ready, happened over and over again in the history of battle. This war, along with what the Russian did in Stalingrad and what the American did in Korea is a prime example that what would happen when you cover your ground faster than yo ucan resupply it.

Mind you, Xerxes lost bulk of his troop due to stavation on the way back to hellespont.