Ancient Warfare Answers (237): Why was the Macedonian casualty rate so low?
Brendon asks why the Macedonian phalanx at the Battles of Issues and Gaugamela suffered such a low casualty rate from arrows fired by archers?
Murray gives us his opinion.
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Brendon asks why the Macedonian phalanx at the Battles of Issues and Gaugamela suffered such a low casualty rate from arrows fired by archers?
Murray gives us his opinion.
Ancient Warfare Answers (283): Why did the Macedonian phalanx struggle against the Greek mercenary hoplites at Issus?
Ancient Warfare Answers (242): How were enemy casualty figures calculated?
Ancient Warfare Answers (286): Low Casualty figures
Ancient Warfare Answers (273): The stagnation of the phalanx
Ancient Warfare Answers (364): Victories by missile-based armies
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1 comment
Something you said raised a question with me. I’m prepared to accept relatively low figures for Macedonian casualties (killed, maimed and seriously wounded), but how were enemy casualty figures calculated? Did someone go around counting all the dead Persian bodies (and making sure they weren’t double-counted), or did Macedonian soldiers get to estimate how many Persians they had killed? If the latter, vastly inflated numbers might well be the norm.