I can remember teaching a bunch of high school boys a technique called "boxing out," which is a method of placing yourself between the opponent and the basket in order to grab a rebound. Who ever had the better position, often determined by technique, would get the rebound, regardless of size and strength. I remember teaching everyone the technique, and then I'd drill it in to them with a variety of drills. Then I'd run a scrimmage and everyone would forget to box out, so I'd go back to the drawing board, do more instruction, and then more drilling, and then back to the scrimmage.....again, no improvement.
Then the lightbulb went off. The problem wasn't that they didn't know HOW to box out, but that they didn't know WHEN to box out. I mean, I told them. And if I was to give them a quiz, they'd circle the right answer, but they would never think to do it in the moment.
Ultimately the problem was solved by blowing the whistle whenever they'd forget and then make them run a lap. The punishment didn't need to be something terrible, just something that would be annoying enough to reinforce good decisions.
Likewise, so much time is spent in the SCA on the how, yet very little on the when. I mean, I understand why. The when is simply when the commander says. But does the commander know when? Someone in the unit has to know. Right?
Execution of the Charge
I'll spend a little bit of time here, though its not the focus of the post. Here are some basic thoughts on how to charge:
- Stick tightly together
- Try to run at the same speed as the rest of your unit
- Charging on an oblique tends to give you an advantage
- Charge through the enemy to get the shields into the back field to clean up. Your poles will cleanup what you left behind you.
- If you call a charge, give yourself a beat to allow your unit to react, otherwise you will sprint ahead by yourself
- Column charges and pulse charges behave a little differently
When Should You Charge?
To a hammer everything looks like a nail. I've run into many commanders who seem to think that there is no situation that can't be solved with a charge. More often than not, the advantage of a charge is not that you will win the engagement, but rather that you will resolve the engagement more quickly (meaning if you are going to lose, you will lose quickly). More on that later, but first a list of when to charge and win not to.
You should charge if:
- You have the advantage (usually numbers and skill)
- You need to get to an objective and will take an acceptable amount of casualties or fewer
- A static fight is to your disadvantage (they have archers and spears, etc.)
- The enemy doesn't know how to repel the charge (depending on the circumstance)
- Seizing the initiative will give you an advantage
You should not charge if:
- You do NOT have the advantage (usually numbers and skill)
- A static fight is to your advantage (you have archers and spears, etc.)
- The enemy knows how to repel a charge (depending on the circumstance)
- Seizing the initiative will NOT give you an advantage
The list may seem straight forward, and it is, but I think sometimes people are blinded by a little idealism.
Charging a Bunch of Spears
To begin with, I want to show some very simple, obvious situations where the correct call is to make the charge. Later I'll cover some scenarios that didn't work out so well.
Below is funny video that is making the rounds. Now I don't know if there were any clever tactics to bringing all of those spears so far out in front of their support, but at the very least this video illustrates a simple example of a bunch of shields running down a bunch of spears. As there were no support weapons, and the spears had all turned to run away, there really was no value in slowing the charge up by sticking together, so they simply ran as fast as they could to get as many kills as possible (and a few laughs from the sidelines as well).
Charging When a They Have all the Archers
Some of my unit was recently in a 9 on 9 single death battle. We actually had 10 fighters, so I volunteered to sit out and said one thing as I left, "They have 3 archers. Don't stand there and get picked apart."
Normally our fighters like to spread out and force the fight either into a static spear battle, or to pick off people with 2 on 1 or 3 on 2 fights. We are also good at waiting and repelling charges. Especially with only 2 shields out of 9 fighters, this would be the inclination. Had they employed any of these tactics, the archers would have decimated them.
So, instead they formed a 2 man shield wall backed by 3 poles and went very aggressively at the left flank, which flushed the archers off to the right side where they got run down by the rest of our group. The battle was over very quickly.
Don't Charge if the Opponent Knows how to Repel It
Ok, there's a couple of things that need to be explained regarding this next video. Often the unit that takes the initiative on a charge will have the advantage much like you would if you and your friend had a pushing contest. If you jump and take the initiative and catch your opponent flatfooted, you well send him off balance. When a unit charges at a flatfooted unit, they tend to knock them backwards and finish off the battle fighting "downhill." The idea is that you will throw them a bit off balance, your shields can get through the front line and into the backfield to clean up the poles and spears, while your poles and spears follow up behind and cleanup their frontline.
However, this normally doesn't work if you a) charge into a unit that knows how to repel a charge or b) send smaller numbers into a unit with more numbers, especially if they also have equivalent levels of talent.
In many cases, charges are repelled simply by staying alive, absorbing the chargers, and trying to funnel them into kill pockets. This isn't something that is normally planned but rather done on a more instinctual (drawing from experience) back of the brain level as each fighter bumps the chargers into other fighters, breaking them apart, hand having the back field surround them and beat them down from all sides.
Before getting into the video below, I should qualify it by saying that this was last year's Allied Champs battle and the army on the left was very experienced in this fight (having fought it at Pennsic every year) while the army on the right consisting of the East and Mid, had only fought it twice before. Those armies worked very hard on the battle throughout the year and despite having some trouble early on, managed to pull out a victory in the end by a single point.
The battle itself is a capture the flag with resurrection corals that open every three minutes. The basic strategy to is weed the other side down, normally with spears, and finish with a hard push toward the flag before the three minute coral release. What tends to win this battle is a combination of numbers (its a 100 on 100, but substitutions are allowed. More substitutes allow for more recovery), skill, and fitness (it is truly a test of endurance).
One last caveat, sometimes I catch flack for being overly critical of on the field leadership, so I think its only fair to point out that prior to the battle I thought that the East was going to employ a losing strategy by rotating substitutes in too often, and lowering the quality of fighters on the field. I freely admit that I was wrong in my assessment and that I think their strategy is ultimately what lead to their success on the field (that, and letting me fight on their side instead of against them...........hey, I'm only one guy, but I did get a lot of kills if I do say so myself!) =P
Anyway, what you see in the video is a 10 man charge early in the fight which initially pushes back the allies, but leads to the demise of many of the chargers without tallying up many kills. I contend that this thins out the charging side giving the side that repelled the charge a numbers advantage. If you watch the video, it takes about 25 seconds to recover the ground that was lost, and then the repellers keep sweeping forward toward the flag, eventually capturing it.
In a situation like this, I can only assume one must be thinking one of two things:
- "Their spears are in the front. We can charge those spears with our shields and kill them."
or
- "If we charge them, we'll catch them flatfooted and then we can kill them."
Both thoughts may be true against most units, except that this was a champions battle, with both sides consisting mostly of experienced (some incredibly experienced) melee fighters. These are spears who know how to quickly get out of the way, and shields and poles who know how to repel a charge. It shouldn't be surprising that charging 10 people into a pack of 20-30 champion level fighters shouldn't end well.
I saw many examples of this in the video. I've yet to really take the time to analyze the end of the battle, but I'm curious if the charges continued or if they eventually stopped.
Again, charging in these battles is not necessarily a bad idea. They just need to be done either when one side has a clear advantage and wants to finish off the fight before the 3 minute mark, or they need to make a quick 10-20 yard push toward the flag in order to capture it.
The Statistics
After writing the above section I decided to watch the entire video, again. I counted 7 "even strength" charges. By that I mean that there were two solid static lines near the middle of the field, and one side decided to mount a charge (6 times it was the East/Mid).
1 was successful
1 lead to no change in advantage
5 resulted in an immediate capture of 10-20 yards, followed by a much greater loss as the other side pressed back within 30-40 seconds
If You are Going to Lose Anyway, do it as Slowly as Possible
I fought in a 50 on 50 battle last year. Our left flank was defended by a small unit of relatively skilled (some highly skilled) fighters, who faced a larger unit also composed of relatively skilled (some highly skilled) fighters. If you put these two units on the battle field by themselves, the larger unit is going to win 20 out of 20 fights, guaranteed. It was an un-winnable matchup.
In the first battle, the larger unit marched across the field, mounted a charge, swarmed the smaller unit, and then marched into our backfield and cleaned us up.
That's an example of good application of a charge. If you are going to win, win quickly, get it over with, and then get the remainder of your unit into another fight immediately.
The following battle, the smaller unit made an adjustment by marching across the field quickly to meet the larger unit, and charged into them hard and fast!
The result? Can you guess?
They died, just like before, except much earlier in the battle and in a position that allowed the larger unit to get into their second engagement much more quickly.
Had this been against a unit of similar size and ability, and one that's not particularly skilled at repelling charges (like most unbelt champions teams.....great chargers, but not so much the repelling), this extra level of initiative might have been the key to winning the engagement. But because they were so outmatched, it only resulted in a quicker defeat.
Given the choice between the two scenarios, the better play (waiting for them to come) was the first scenario. Other options would have been to drag the fight even further away from the action, scatter before impact, get help from another unit, or trade flank responsibilities with another unit (ultimately the last choice was made in the next battle with much better results).
The point being, charging hard and fast was the worst of those decisions.
What if You Have Unlimited Resurrections?
I was criticized for having our unit standing and playing "ticky-tack" with our spears when we should have charged in a scenario where we have unlimited resurrections in a timed battle. While I tend to agree that I am too tentative with calling a charge, the following statement I don't agree with.
"If you have unlimited resurrections, don't waste your time with your spears. Charge. If you die you have resurrections, and ultimately you will win the battle more quickly."
I know first hand that this statement is not often true only because I have personally called charges under exactly those circumstance that have lead to zero kills (I had also once helped repel a charge where our unit took zero kills).
Think about it by taking an extreme example. Their side has 6 shields and 4 poles. Your side has 10 spears. How many kills will you get if you charge? None.
Okay, what if you have 9 spears and 1 shield? Probably still none. 8 spears and 2 shields? What about 6 spears and 4 shields, but all of your shields are small and inexperienced and the other side has formed a kill pocket?
The point here is that there are plenty of situations that you can end up in where a charge won't lead to a single kill. Sometimes you have to whittle the other side down with spears and archers.
And none of this takes into account the fatigue factor of multiple charges and walking to and from the resurrection point.
Take Aways
If there's anything to gain from this, its the following:
- Not every problem can be solved with a charge
- Identify what kind of situations can be solved with a charge and which ones can't
- Charge when a charge will be effective
- Don't charge when a charge will not be effective
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