Fighting When You've Lost a Limb

Hey all,

It's been a while.  I've been working out and doing my pell work, but no practices nor melees during the pandemic, so not much to blog about.  However, I recently read a few melee documents from various sources and one thing jumped out at me that I wanted to comment on.

I recently read a suggestion that said if you lose your sword arm to attempt to block shots for other fighters.

Okay.......where to begin?  This is kind of a complicated topic because it isn't so much about what the correct strategy is, but rather about a larger philosophy about what it means to be a melee fighter.

If you view fighters, in general.......no, strike that.  If you view fighters, even the ones who have taken the time to read large text documents and watch videos on how to fight in a melee as nothing more than fodder for commanders to push in a given direction while keeping them motivated enough to pass their morale check, then sure, tell them that they can still be useful fighters once they've lost an arm by blocking shots targeted at other fighters.  That will keep them in the front line a little bit longer, and then once they die they'll feel like they were useful in some manner.

It's my opinion, however, that if a fighter is taking the time to read a document about melee fighting, then they are actually looking for information that will help them graduate past the fodder stage (at least that's always been the intention of my blog posts).

With that said, if I have people in the back ranks with swords, the last thing I want is a weaponless fighter hogging a spot on the front line (exceptions, of course, given to fighters that are so good that they are more useful without a weapon than your typical non-wounded fighter is with a weapon).

So what should you do if you lose an arm?

- Get out of the way of someone who is more useful than you.  If you are in a spot where a killer can kill, then let the killer have your spot.

- You can stay in the back and stay alive.  Large units are intimidating.  The enemy doesn't need to know that you can't kill them.  Be another body on the field.  Who knows, you might be the last person alive at the end of the fight.  Or maybe you were just one person too many for the other team to decide to charge at the flag.

- Be a distraction.  If there is some space in an open field, make yourself bait.  Make people think about coming after you to attack instead of killing your archers or spears.

- Be an extra pair of eyes and a voice on the flanks or in the back.  Watch and make sure the enemy isn't getting into your backfield.  If they are, announce it to your troops and your commanders.  Worst case scenario, you get some useful experience learning how troops move and what constitutes a weakness.

- Be an obstacle or a body shield provided you aren't getting into an ally's way.  Don't try to "block a shot" aimed at your friend.  Slam into the person who is throwing the shot and knock them off balance.

- Lead a charge.  Most charges result in lots of chargers dying.  Volunteer to be in the front of this charge.  You may not be able to swing a weapon, but you can throw your body at the enemy, and if the enemy is going to respond by hacking apart all of the people deep in their ranks, better they attack you than an un-wounded friend.

- Sacrifice yourself by throwing your body at another fighter, making both of you fly over a straw bale and off the side of a bridge.

One of my most useful moments after losing an arm was in a fight in a corn maze.  We were getting picked apart by archers and spears.  I lost an arm as did my buddy.  We looked at each other and said, "are you ready?  Lets do this."  We both yelled, "Charge!!!" and the two of us were the first people into the fray.  He threw his body into two shieldmen and pushed them into the corn.  I cut off two spears and held one in the corn.  We both died, but our un-wounded fighters wiped out the rest of the enemy.

All of those options are better than "blocking shots aimed at a friend."  More often than not, you are just getting in their way.  Yes, there are times when this works, but those tend to be rare.

Hey, I get it, sometimes the best strategy is to just send a large mass of untrained troops at the enemy, and everyone needs to do their job.  But lets be honest and tell the adults that have signed up to fight with you that that is what they are doing to help our side win, while also giving them the tools to graduate toward more effective roles in the army.

My two cents, your milage may vary.  Can't wait to hit someone soon!!!





Bari of Anglesey is a tool who only craves attention, but he doesn't take himself too seriously and sometimes has something useful to say, so he's not so bad.

Estrella Bridge Battle - Integrating Different Weapon Types into a Static Line

Hi all,

I came across a video that I thought was the perfect illustration of what is commonly seen in static line battles.  I'm going under the assumption that it would be okay to use this video as it was made public on social media, and my apologies if I assumed incorrectly.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=300333730939038

Note:  sometimes parts of this video get fuzzy when I watch it, but usually the entire video is pretty clear.

What Can You Learn From a Video of a Battle You Didn't Witness?

Not a whole lot, actually. 

There are a lot of things that can happen in a battle that determine how the tactics play out.  Is the commander dead or alive?  What is the objective?  Are you there merely to serve as a distraction?  Are you taking it easy on the other side because they haven't won a battle yet?  Are you letting ineffective fighters on the front line because they need to have fun as well?  Is it hot?  Are you using a cohesive unit of well trained fighters, or is it the rabble that was left over from the attrition?  Etc.


Then Why Talk About the Video?

Even though we don't really know what is going on, we can still use the video to illustrate some hypotheticals.  Use it as a thought experiment for what you would do in similar situations and what kinds of decisions you would make.  You might even draw different conclusions than I would, and that's perfectly okay.  No one has all of the answers, but we can all work toward more informed decision making.


Initial Impressions

Let's begin with a screen shot.

So there are a few things I noticed, not just from this screenshot, but from the footage of the video. 

- People seem to care about winning the battle based on the yelling I hear and the intensity of the fighting

- It appears to be a single death battle based on the fact that the lines look like they are thinned out and the fact that calibration seems to be above average.  There are also a lot of people standing around on the perimeter who are not fighting, so I assume they have been killed.

- It appears to be late in the battle as the lines look thin, there are lots of dead people on the sides, and there seems to be a below average level of unit cohesion.


Weapons Mix

The front line of the unit on the left appears to have 7 spears, 2 shields, and one pole axe.  It looks like at this point in the battle that they have thinned out enough that they don't have much choice in what they are fighting with as the second rank looks fairly sparse.  If they wanted to, for example, set up a shield wall on the front line, I don't think they'd have enough shields to do so.

The unit on the right appears to have a couple more shields in the front line and maybe one or two fewer spears.  They also seem to have enough fighters in the second and third ranks to fight with whatever they'd like.

There does not appear to be any archery, throwing weapons, or artillery.


Do You Want More or Less Shields on the Front Line?

Answer:  That entirely depends....

So in a nutshell, all else being equal, the more spears you have on the front line, the better you are going to fight a static battle.  The more shields you have on the front line, the more prepared you will be at executing a charge and repelling a charge.  A line with more shields will also be better at a slow advance as a line with more spears needs to maintain a gap of 10-11 feet, so every step forward from the former results in a step back from the latter.

In this example, it actually looks like the unit on the right is more interested in taking ground than killing, so they have a few more shields in the mix and are pushing toward the end of the bridge.  If they can break through the end of the bridge, they can possibly wipe out this thin line with their higher numbers and get into the backfield of another bridge, giving their side a big advantage on that bridge.

The unit on the left, by contrast, has little choice but to try to kill more fighters on the opposing side to try to nullify the numbers advantage. 

In battles like these, I used to be a huge advocate for having only spears on the front line.  A few things have happened in the last decade or so in the East and Atlantian kingdoms that has changed my mind.  One is that they have moved away from a front of mostly shields to more of a mix, which gives them a good balance of charging power while also fending off spears.  The other is that a lot of the bridge battles have moved toward timed control point battles rather than attrition battles, which takes some of the advantages away of a front line full of spears.  The reason being that a line full of spears may kill more, especially if adept in collapsing into a kill pocket when absorbing a charge, but they are not very good at holding or gaining ground.


Weaknesses in the Line

Another screen shot later in the battle:




At this point in the battle, it appears the left unit had realized that they were not strong enough to hold their position on the bridge, so they pulled back off the end of the bridge.  This is often what we call "capping the bridge."  Essentially that means to create an arc from one corner to the other on the end of the bridge, forcing the other side to fight in a kill pocket where the left unit can get more spears into the fight with better angles of attack. 

This is not the prettiest of kill pockets, again probably because it is a collection of whatever fighters were still alive near the end of this battle, but they do appear to have the most critical pieces covered.

The blue arrow at the top points to the most critical potential weakness in a capped bridge.  The smallest of gaps in that position can allow a line of right handed shields push through the gap and into the back field.  Placing a shieldman in this spot (like they have) shores up that critical corner.  A spear or a pole can also stand in that position, giving them a good angle to stab into the open side of a charging shield, but they must be backed up by a strong shieldman so that they don't get run over.

The blue arrow on the bottom of the picture shows the next most critical weakness.  In this case they have a spearman in that position, which can be dangerous if the right team wishes to punch through, but the left team has that spot solidly backed up by at least two shields.

The middle blue arrow shows the third most critical spot, which is a potential weakness in the middle of the line.  The key here is to make sure that after you've shored up both corners, that you don't leave the middle so thin and without shields and poles backing it up, that a group of shields can punch right through it and into the backfield.


Why Were There No Shield Charges?

From the perspective of the unit on the left, they didn't really have the shields to spare.  Keep in mind, a charge doesn't win the engagement, rather it resolves the engagement more quickly.  Sometimes the resolution is to the advantage of the unit that initiates the charge, but sometimes it isn't.  It is possible that the unit on the left could have quickly brought all of its shields to the front and mounted a charge.  It's even possible that due to the greater proportion of spears in the front rank of the unit on the right (once the left brings its shields up) that the left would have killed more fighters than they would have taken in casualties, but it is my belief that the casualties that they would have taken would have left them with too few fighters to hold the bridge, thereby leading to a fallen bridge more quickly.

From the perspective of the unit on the right, they may have been able to mount a charge and might even have been in a good position to do so.  There are a few factors that may have prevented it:

- No single coordinated unit to pull it off
- They are tired
- There is a risk that it won't work
- They look to be winning the bridge anyway, so why take a risk
- No one thought it was a good enough idea to take the initiative to call the charge knowing that they could be responsible for a failed charge and the loss of the bridge
- A lack of leadership (maybe the commanders were dead)


Final Thoughts

The whole goal of this post was not to give tactical answers to a situation on a bridge, but rather to understand why bridge battles often play out the way that they do.  I find that often times commanders and tacticians in the SCA view fighters like they view miniatures in a table top game.  By that I mean that they imagine that they can send a command down to the fighters, and that the fighters will all implement the command as intended. 

In reality, fighters are going to have natural tendencies that they'll follow, and as a commander one needs to understand what those tendencies are and how much those tendencies can be overcome.  Truth be told, a lot of what I wrote above only applied to a portion of the fighters in the video.  There were likely a number of fighters who did what they did purely because they wanted to fight and managed to work their way to the front line, regardless of whether or not taking a spot on that line was to the benefit of their side.

Black Lance Melee Practice - Some Thoughts...

We had a great melee practice in NJ this weekend hosted by Sir Klaus and his house, Carpathia.  We did a lot of drills on the day that helped build aggression and quick decision making on the field, which I'll list below, but I wanted to speak specifically to how the tactics played out in out 10v10 field battles and some of the benefits of the scattered fighters battles.

Drills/Scenarios on the Day

- Marching in a block and following basic commands
- 10v10 single death field battles
- 5v5 single death field battles with pairs of units joining into the fights at random times
- Hold the objective unlimited rez battle (warnings called at 30s and at 5s)
- Single death field battles with scattered fighters

Field Battles

We split up into our normal units and fought five 10v10 (plus or minus) single death field battles.  One side contained a more typical mix of fighters which was, I believe, fairly shield heavy, while our side contained four shields, four spears, and two poles.  We won all five battles pretty decisively.  (Note, I got my butt kicked a lot that day, but we did well in these battles).

I had asked all of the knights who watched the battles what they thought the deciding factors were, and their answers bogged down to simply our side had more experience and were more decisive in our movements.

So what does that mean?

Well, for starters, I would never want to go into a field battle of this size with only four shields.  In general, the smaller the battle and the more quickly it resolves, the more and more shields have an advantage.  The larger the battle and the longer it takes to resolve, the more and more spears have an advantage.  Spears also tend to have an advantage in static battles, where shields have the advantage in mobile battles.  Now this doesn't mean that you should ever have only shields in one situation and only spears in another, but that the mix of weapons will move in one direction or another.  So having said that, I think we won the battles despite having what would generally be considered an inferior weapons mix.

What did the spear team do?

Fan out, move quickly, and attack with ferocity.  A team full of shields in this context is a hammer looking for a nail to hit.  A unit full of spears isn't even a nail.  Its a grape, easily splattered by a hammer of just about any ability level.  So the spear team needs to move fast and lose, and use their feet to avoid getting run over by shields.  The battle can only be won if multiple fighters team up on smaller groups of fighters, get a quick kill, and then move on to the next fighter.

The best play that the shield team probably had would have been to pick a collection of fighters and commit to running right through them.  I believe they did this on the fifth battle, and it was their best showing.  Its certainly not the only way to win with shields, but given the experience levels of both sides, it would likely give them their best chance.

On an interesting note, 6 of us on the winning team were in very similar situations just a few years ago where we were on the losing team and lost in similar fashion.  The biggest piece, in my opinion, is less tactical and more about gaining good experience to be able to make decisions quickly on the field.

Scattered Fighters Battles

This was a drill that was put together by Sir Ryu of Ironskies.  These were fun, and I think an excellent way to train fighters to win battles like shown above.  We had two teams and were individually scattered around the field in a giant circle facing outward.  When lay on was called, we had to figure out how to join up with our teammates and win the battle.





The key to these battles was finding teammates quickly, finding advantages quickly, finding people to hit quickly, and getting out of bad situations quickly.  I really liked this drill and I think it teaches all of the right melee instincts that I think get lost in a lot of kingdom practices.

I do want to incorporate this into some of the practices that we run.  However, I think we accomplish a lot of the same goals with two other scenarios that we consistently run:

Limited rez broken field battles - this allows people to make the same kinds of decisions, but at a slower pace which allows some of the newer fighters to wrap their heads around the kinds of tactical decisions that they are making.

2v2 endless rez battle - We do these when we have 5-6 fighters.  We begin with a 2v2 and a person waiting at the rez point.  As soon as someone dies, they go to the rez point and form a new team of 2 and immediately enter the battle.  This continues continuously until people are too tired to fight.  It teaches you to work with another person, think quickly, and fight tired.

Anyway, that's all.  Looking forward to the next fight!

A Unique Victory Condition - 100 Minutes War

Last weekend I fought at the East Kingdom's Southern Region 100 Minutes War.  This war had a bit of a unique victory condition compared with most fights, combined with some terrain features that made this a very interesting battle, one which has caused me to reflect on it all week.

If you aren't familiar with the event, it's an annual fight in November that draws a pretty good crowd.  I'm sure there are some real numbers out there, but it feels like there are 60-100 fighters per side.  The day begins with an unbelt tourney that is used to pick the team captains who then pick the sides.  Once the sides are picked, an unlimited resurrection battle takes place over the next hour and forty minutes.

Victory Conditions

What makes this battle a little unique is that normally in this type of battle, there is a control point that determines the winning side.  Often times this will be a flag that is equidistant between the two resurrection points.  Though one side could adopt a clever strategy that could change the odds of victory, generally speaking the stronger side (the side with more fighters, better fighters, and/or more tactically sound fighters) will push the weaker side closer to their resurrection point, allowing them to control the flag.

What makes the 100 Minutes War a bit unique is that instead of holding a control point, deaths are counted.  The team with the most kills, wins.  What makes that especially interesting is that the nature of an unlimited resurrection battle is that the stronger side pushes the weaker side closer to their resurrection point such that an equilibrium in killing can be achieved (more or less).  This happens because the dead fighters from the weaker team end up having a shorter walk to and from the resurrection point.

To be honest, I'm not certain that a complete equilibrium would ever be achieved in terms of number of kills per side, but it does help strengthen the front line of the weaker team.

This Year's Terrain Features

This year offered some very interesting terrain.  The two times I fought before, we more or less fought in a big open field.  The tactics were pretty simple.  Bring lots of spears and archers, don't do anything stupid, and get lots of kills.

This year we fought in the woods which presented some interesting obstacles that could be utilized to gain an advantage.  A rough diagram of the fighting is shown below:



The roads, trails, and flat, open terrain are outlined with a building and a Porta John also shown in the upper left quadrant.  The fighting mainly took place in the lightly shaded areas with a significant woods skirmish in the middle of the diagram and a very sparse skirmish in the upper left.  It appeared that very little fighting took place anywhere else due mostly to terrain features and proximity to the resurrection points.

What Made this Unique?
Well, as I said earlier, normally the winning conditions in an unlimited resurrection require one to hold ground beyond the half way point.  In this scenario, victory was determined by counting the number of kills.  In other words, the fighting could have literally taken place anywhere between the two resurrection points.  In fact, drawing the fight closer to your own resurrection point would have given your side a pretty big advantage.  As it stood, a death where the fighting took place would remove someone from the fight for about 2 minutes, while a death near a resurrection point could remove them for as long as 4 minutes while your own fighters respawn immediately.

The Challenge

Why not just wait at your own resurrection point and make the other side come and fight you there?  I believe there are two main reasons.  The first being that people WANT to fight.  Yes, winning is nice, and we generally do our best to try and beat the other team within the parameters of the game, but very few people drove hours to the last melee they will see for months and months just to stand around holding a tactical position on the field.  The other reason is that it is doubtful that the opposing side would be willing to meet you at your resurrection point.  You end up in a standoff that has, as I've mentioned in previous blogs, historically lead to some of the worst fighting the SCA has ever seen (anyone remember the town battle at Pennsic in the 90s where neither side engaged for over an hour?).

So with that in mind, the challenge of every fighter on the field is to try to place him or herself in a position that gives them the best advantage possible that the other fighters are willing to accept.

The fighting near the buildings was certainly interesting.  You might notice that the shaded region is, on average, closer to the yellow rez point than it is to the blue.  This was a natural feature that made the blue team much more willing to press toward the yellow rez point while the yellow team would never push past the road.  In a nutshell, neither side wanted to fight on a trail (note, the teams swapped sides in the middle of the battle, so this feature was used by both teams).

The Instinct to Take Ground

If you have any experience fighting in melees at all, which the vast majority of the people there did, the instinct is to press when the other side retreats.  Often times the other side is retreating because they have been weakened, so the more you pursue them, the more kills you will get.  You are often pursuing them around a flank, placing yourself in a better position to roll it and finish off the main units in the center, or if anything, you are creating a buffer between your extended front line and the center objective that you are trying to defend.

The more experience one has, the more those instincts are ingrained.  I believe that those very instincts were often a disadvantage in this scenario.  Retreating units were actually moving back toward better defensive positions closer to their rez points and there really wasn't any advantage pursuing them.

I like to think of it like  Muhammad Ali's "Rope a Dope" tactic against George Foreman.  The two start in the middle of the ring.  Foreman says, "I want to hit you."  Ali says, "I don't want any part of that," and backs away onto the ropes.  Foreman says, "When you back away, it's time to attack!"  Ali says, "Ah ha!  I wanted to get you fighting me on the ropes the whole time!  Now I will win!"

The same applied here.  Two units meet on neutral terrain.  One starts to lose the engagement and backs away.  The winning unit thinks, "They are retreating.   We must press!  We'll push them past the banner, or we'll roll their flank, or we'll finish them off now that they are weak!"  Instead, the losing unit is just pulling back into a defensive position closer to their rez point, which is a great place for them to fight, and a terrible place for the other team to fight.

I really do think that the key to winning the battle last weekend was being able to exercise some patience and resist the urge to pursue retreating units.

Personal Thoughts on my Fighting

Ultimately I enjoyed the fighting as it was interesting and challenging.  I will admit that on the ride home I didn't feel so great about my performance.  Upon reflection, my performance was fine, though it was below my "expectations."

Again, under normal circumstances, there's not a whole lot to be done tactically.  I get to stand across from a bunch of fighters in a battle of skill.  If I'm across from a bunch of level 1 fighters, I might get 10 kills in a certain amount of time.  If they are level 2 fighters, I'll get 5.  If they are level 3, I'll get 2-3 kills.  Etc.

The terrain features set up the scenario such that, as I said above, people only have to fight the fight that they want.  I could tell what level most fighters were in the battle, and I've been around long enough that most of them know what level I am.  As an example, the level 1 fighters would often avoid me until they got themselves into a position that gave them an advantage.  Etc.  Under normal circumstances, I can win a fight against a weaker opponent.  Under these circumstances, the weaker opponent could avoid the fight if they were smart enough to do so, and this weekend seemed to contain a larger contingent of smarter fighters, IMO.

So the fight was less about who had the better skill, and more about who was cockier about accepting the conditions of the fight, and who was more patient.  A friend of mine told me that he only died 8 times.  I estimated my deaths to be closer to 20.  He said that he was smart about picking his fights, while I was definitely putting myself in risky situations.

Levels of Risk/Aggression in Unlimited Resurrection Battles

On that last note, I've been wrestling with how aggressive one should be in an unlimited resurrection battle.  If a fighter is very aggressive, he might die 30 times.  If his kill ratio is 2:1, then that nets him 60 kills.  A less aggressive fighter might die 10 times.  As a result, he might be in the battle for an additional 40 minutes.  Will he also net 60 kills due to being in the fray longer?  Will he get fewer kills, but have more positive effect in holding a position by having more face time with the enemy (something that is of great importance if defending a banner)?

I don't think there's anyway to calculate this, and without any real video evidence, I don't think there's even a way to evaluate it.

Anyway, its just something I've been thinking about for a while.

Why Do We Do This?

I often joke that this is my priority level of any battle:

1 - Be safe
2 - Make sure everyone around me is having fun (including myself)
3 - Kick ass
4 - Look good in pictures
5 - Win the scenario

Though winning is ranked last in this list, it does have a large effect on 2 & 3.  I like winning, and people generally have more fun if everyone on the field is being relatively competitive.  And, of course, the relationship between kicking ass and winning should be obvious.

I'm bringing this up because of some self reflection on the last few points I made.  If I could do the fight all over again, would I have been more patient and less risky?  I don't think so.  I want to fight.  And truth be told, even if I'm dying more often, I think pushing people back into a kill pocket and forcing me to fight them on their terms counts as "kicking ass."  I didn't get hurt and didn't hurt anyone, and lots of fun was had.  So check, check, and check.

We didn't win, but it was one of the more competitive wars they've had, so I'll give that half a check.

Did I look cool?  You be the judge:



photo credit:  Steve JM (Luther)

Dissecting a Skirmish in a Melee at River War

Hello all,

This is just a quick analysis of one of the battles we fought this weekend.  I'm really just writing this post for the handful of friends that I have who were there.  There aren't really any cool gifs or videos in the one.

The scenario was a 10v11 single death field battle.  This was the third time through, and the best showing of the red team.  In the first two battles, red did a deny left, attack right, and the green team responded (blue tape, actually) by fanning out and getting cross kills.  Truth be told, the red team were at a disadvantage from the start being down a fighter, and having a coordinated unit as well as two very experienced melee knights on the opposing team.




In this third battle, Red opted to deny on their right while attacking left.  It appears that they set up a shield wall on their left flank.  In all three battles green decided to skirmish with Anglesey being mostly on the left flank, and the rest on the right.

At lay on, Red pressed to their left with their shield wall.  Their pole dropped back to support, and they flanked the wall with a spear on each end hoping to support the charging wall (I assume as I wasn't on their team to hear the plans).

Green responded by moving hard right.  Two shields moved to the outside planning to go right into the backfield while letting the shield wall come through.  One of the knights pressed forward and set himself up as bait for the wall.  The middle spears and pole hovered in support, while the left flank curled around the deniers creating a kill pocket.

Before the first swing is landed, Green is in the superior position, IMO.  For red to capitalize, they need to find unsupported fighters to run their shiled wall toward.  One of the beauties of experienced skirmish fighting is that it has a way of drawing opponents into disadvantageous positions while surrounding them.



At this point the green flankers went around the wall, driving the spear into the backfield.  It appears that the shieldwall wasn't certain where to charge.  One fighter went straight for the bait, and found himself surrounded by four fighters.  He did manage to get a kill before dying while also tying up a few fighters.  Unfortunately only one wingman followed, and he ended up being outnumbered and dying in a two on 1.  The third member of the wall decided to try to run down a lone spear, which is not a bad idea, but he would need to keep track of the rest of the battle while doing so.  The 4th shieldman split off to his left to try to catch a quick kill.



The two Green flankers end up getting two kills in the backfield.  One of them pulls the center spear off to chase him.  The center Green spear runs away from the charging Red shieldman, who then turns toward a second lone spear and chases him down.  Meanwhile the first green spear immediately returns to the fight to assist the spearman being run down.

Several people are killed in this series of fights, with green coming out slightly ahead.  The battle began with 11 Green on 10 Red.  At this point it is 9 on 6.




The Red spear kills the flanker and the Red shield kills the green spear but immediately dies to the spear following, making the sides 7 to 5.

Ultimately at this point Green has a really good outside position looking in, while Red finds itself with their backs turned to a lot of Green fighters.  Red earns two more kills while Green finishes off the remaining Red.


Final Thoughts

As I said in the beginning, the outcome in a lot of these fights comes down to numbers, experience, skill level, familiarity with your teammates, and certainly a bit of luck.  Having said all of that, the way Green executed the tactics in this battle is exactly how I prefer to see skirmish units fight.  I typically adhere to the FLANKS philosophy:

F - secure the flanks both with positioning and a strong weapons combination
L - Leg 'em and leave 'em (though in this case we did get a quick kill on a legged fighter.  Nevertheless, you should never be preoccupied with one for too long.
A - Assess who has the range advantage.  Units that are heavier with spears want to draw the enemy into kill pockets, while units that are heavier on shields want to press the attack and run the spears down.
N - Never fight a fair fight.  You should always be looking for advantages before pressing an attack.
K - Know who your killers are and who your supporters are in any given situation.  Everyone has a job to perform.
S - Spread out your talent. Don't get caught bunching all of your new fighters into one spot.  Also don't bunch up similar weapon types together that might create weaknesses in your lines (ie 4 spear in the middle of a line is a great target for the other side to charge).

Hope you enjoyed!

Bari's Bridge Battles

Bari's Bridge Battles

By Bari of Anglesey

Hey all, bridges.....love 'em or not, we've got to fight 'em.  This will be a bit of a brain dump, so lets get right to it.

Types of Bridge Battles

There are three main types of bridge battles that you will commonly see:

- Attrition
- Timed Control Point with Unlimited Lives (resurrection battles)
- Timed Control Point with Limited Lives

Attrition bridge battles are normally single life, but they can also come in the form of some limited number of resurrections until the fighter has to leave the fight.  These battles are won when every person on one of the two teams has been eliminated.  Taking ground and or controlling locations on bridges is of no value unless it leads to some sort of tactical advantage that results in killing more of their fighters than yours.  The ability to kill, either by hitting, stabbing, shooting, or throwing fighters off the bridge are key.

Timed control point bridge battles with unlimited lives is an entirely different type of battle.  Battles are won when one side "controls" bridges at certain time markers during the fight.  This is often done by either being past a mid point line on the bridge, or by raising a flag.  In these battles, killing other fighters is of no value unless it leads to gaining ground.  The ability to push, shove, or intimidate fighters is the key to these fights.  Sometimes killing can be of value if it removes key fighters from the other team like leaders, big aggressive fighters, or someone who is in the act of pushing your line back.  Killing can also disrupt the morale of the other side, causing them to back away from the fight, but ultimately spearing the enemy only to have fighters in the following ranks step up to replace them is of little value.

Once you add limited lives (usually one) to the timed control point bridge battles, you bring in another potential avenue to victory.  While taking and holding ground is important, a battle can be won if every fighter on one side of a bridge is killed, regardless of where the line of engagement is provided that the time limit has not expired.

Generally speaking, skill level and total numbers of fighters are critical for attrition battles while big, aggressive shieldmen and poles are more important for timed control point battles with unlimited lives provided that there are enough ranks of fighters to allow the big guys to recover between presses.  Also, archery and ballistae are of greater value in attrition battles.

Tactics

Important note:  Not everything listed is necessarily a good tactic, so beware of skimming without reading.  I'm listing common tactics and then commenting on their effectiveness.

Before I get into the details, since everyone loves a good picture, here's a summary of most of the concepts I'll be discussing:



Organization Wins Bridge Battles

There are many battle scenarios that can be won with skill, athleticism, and experience fighting together as a unit.  There are enough variables that can change so quickly that the possible outcomes are infinite.  To me this means that the ability to read a fight and improvise can overcome any sort of plan or organization that the opponent has put together.

Bridge battles seem to be an exception to this rule because the tight parameters tend to eliminate much of the unpredictable nature that is prevalent in the other scenarios.  Coming up with a good plan and getting the fighters to work together will go a long way toward obtaining victory in the bridge battle scenario.  This doesn't mean that you should over plan and completely micromanage the battle, only that you should understand some basic fundamentals and get the right pieces in place to capitalize.  Something as simple as, "Okay, they've got a lot of spears, so we can't stand around and let them pick us apart," might be all that is needed for your side to know what to do.  Newer fighters or mixed units may need more direction.

Capping the Bridge

This is a tactic where you move off the back end of your bridge and form a kill pocket such that if the other side charges, they will be surrounded by your fighters.  This gives you both a numbers advantage on the battle front as well as good killing angles.  This is typically used if the other side is showing that they are stronger than your army and a tactical advantage is needed.  If it's a control point battle, this is typically done as a last resort in order to keep the other side from spilling into your backfield and getting behind your fighters on another bridge.  You give up the point on that bridge only because you have no choice, and hope that the other bridges will fare better.  I personally think it's a bad idea to implement this as a strategy, but rather as a "cut our losses" tactic.

If the battle is an attrition battle, or a control point battle that you think you can win by attrition, it can be effective to lull the other side into fighting in your kill pocket.  Be aware that there is a risk that they can punch through a weakened edge of the pocket, surround your fighters, and move into the backfield of another bridge.

Sometimes armies will intentionally sacrifice a bridge by capping it, hoping that they can pull more resources onto that bridge from the other side than your side is expending to cap it.  This is generally a bad idea in an unlimited life control point battle.  You essentially give up a victory point while gaining nothing.

The Gentleman's Agreement:  I have been in battles where both sides decide to cap the end of the bridge, hoping to lull the other side into fighting in their kill pocket.  Once both sides have shown this hand, the only means of victory is being stubborn enough to bore the other other side long enough to make them throw the fight and come across the bridge to fight you.  This leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth as they would much rather be fighting than to stand there watching a battle of egos.  If both sides decide to cap the bridge, just do everyone a favor and agree to meet in the middle.

Note:  when forming the cap, you absolutely need to secure the edges of the cap.  This is a tactic that is often lost on many SCA fighters as the most common tactic they are taught is a shield wall, which gains its effectiveness from bunching tightly together.  While this may be an effective tactic, given the circumstances, in a field battle, this can leave very weak edges when capping a bridge.

Below is a picture of a cap (left side) that failed to secure the the right side of the bridge (note the gap between the edge of the bridge and the fighters).  The result was the fighters spilling out through the gap and into the backfield.

All Spears in the Front

This is a tactic that gained popularity in northern Atlantia and the southern region of the East Kingdom in the early 2000s.  The earliest adopters that I am personally aware of date back to the mid 90s when face thrusting with fiber glass spears were first allowed at Pennnic, and they were the Calontir Army as well as the bog celts.



I can't comment on what motivated Calontir to adopt this tactic, but at the time they were a well organized, disciplined army, and they followed the tactics passed down through their command chain.  We celts, on the other hand, had a lot of experience fighting skirmish style in the Markland organization which had been allowing face shots for years.

All spears in the front was very effective at the time as the opening up of the face as a target made spearing in a static battle very effective.  We ultimately got away with it because the standard tactic at the time was to put the spears in the second rank.  If their spears are in the second rank, and our spears are in the first rank, then we can attack their shields at will while staying out of range of their spears.  If we choose to engage their spears, we have more mobility in addition to allowing ourselves to choose which fights we want to fight and when.



I've found this to be a less effective tactic anymore.  The reason why we were able to pull this off in the past is because the enemy was generally slow to adjust.  Because no one was teaching this as a correct way to fight, they had assumed that their tactics of spears behind shields would win the engagement.  Eventually they'd figure out that they'd need to mount a charge, but the charges were slow to organize and were usually telegraphed.

Now days the weakness is much more quickly identified and the charges come much more quickly and less telegraphed.  This tactic should only be used if it is clear that the opponent won't mount a quick counter charge (these opponents still exist).  The photo above is an example as BOTH sides brought only spears to the front line, so neither was concerned with receiving a charge.  This is an example of each side hoping to throw a bigger sheet of paper than the other (see Rock, Paper, Scissors below).

Note:  Don't bunch up too many spears on the front line, they just get in each other's way.  In my opinion, you can effectively fit about one spearman every 2.5 feet.  So if you have, for example, a 9 foot wide bridge, that'll fit three spearmen comfortably, with the potential for a fourth depending on the size of the spearmen, how they match up lefty to righty, how they work together, etc.  It's not uncommon for 5-7 spearmen to try to cram into such a space rendering themselves completely ineffective.


Shield Wall in the Front

This is often done with a front rank of tightly packed shields and a second rank of spears.  This can be a good defensive position if you are trying to hold a position like a bridge beyond the capture point, the space in front of a flag, or maybe a gate.  A well trained unit with big shields can do very well in this situation.  Lesser trained units using tourney shields can easily get picked apart by spearmen (see the diagram above).  These are most effective when they are backed up by archers in the second rank.  I don't think I've ever seen this done with an entire unit, but I have seen sections of shield walls set up with a single tall archer right behind them and it has always been very effective.  This kind of tactic requires a group of shields who understand what their job is, and a tall archer who isn't afraid to fight within a spear's shot (archers like this tend to be rare).



Mix of Shields and Spears

What seems to be the most effective tactic these days, at least in attrition battles, is some sort of mix of shields and spears on the front rank.  For every spear you add (up to the max allowance without crowding) you increase the static line killing power, but you also decrease the ability to quickly charge or to repel a quickly initiated charge.  Spears are also easy targets for archery.  Ultimately you'll have to decide how to balance out your shields and spears based entirely on the circumstances;  how good are your spears?  How good are their spears?  How likely are they to charge?  How quickly do you need to initiate a charge?  How many spears do you have on your front line compared to their front line?  Are there any dead bodies in the way?  Do they have archers, how close are they, and how effective are they?  Etc.

One thing to note, though it will vary from fighter to fighter, good spears don't like shieldmen crowding up on them.  I will often have shieldmen with whom I don't know try to "protect me" from opposing spears.  What they end up doing is sticking their shield right in front of my thrusting hand which prevents me from being able to throw a shot.  Also, any spear that they defend me from is a spear that I can't attack because the shield gets in the way of both of us.



Note:  In general I like to see the shields a little bit behind the spears.  I don't see any value in standing inside the opponent's spear range when the shieldmen can stand just outside of range.  The job of  shielman in this instance is to be ready to charge, or be ready to repel a charge.  They don't need to stand in range in order to do that.  Take a step back, relax, and wait for opportunities.  The exception to this rule is if the other side is pressing and causing your line to retreat during a timed control point battle.

Bullnose

I have never personally used this tactic and have only ever actually seen it employed once, but that one time it was very effective.  What a bullnose is is essentially a shield wall in the middle with spears on either side.  The one time I saw it, the unit was very effective at holding a position on the bridge.  It was actually quite frustrating to fight against.



Again, in order to effectively utilize the bullnose, the unit must be well trained to work together and, ideally, have big shields that don't expose a lot of gaps.  (Note:  The unit in the picture above does not have great shields for forming a shield wall.  I can easily see three very exposed legs in the front rank, though it is possible that they are are fast enough to move their shields before getting hit).

My only real thought on the bullnose is that the sides leave themselves open for charges.  I'm assuming that if a unit was to charge into one of the gaps, they'd easily get shoved off of the bridge.  I'd be careful, however, using this near your own end of the bridge.




Rock, Paper, Scissors

There are two ways to beat rock.  You can throw paper, or you can throw a bigger rock.  When referring to rock, paper, scissors in this context, what it means is that whatever tactic the other side uses should dictate whether you use the same tactic, but better, or a counter tactic.  In this case the tactics usually come down to dueling with spears, or charging with shields.

Since I fight in a spear heavy unit, my general approach is to always have more spears than the other side on the front line, until they answer with "too many spears," at which point we pull all of our spears off the front line and charge.  A similar tactic might be used if, for example, you don't even have enough spears to fill a front line and they do.  Or maybe all of their spears are better than all of yours.  Whatever the case may be, at any given moment you have to decide, "Can we beat their spears with our spears, or should we charge?"  Or put another way, if we charge, how much ground will we gain (if that leads to a victory condition), will we kill more of them than we lose, or will our loses be worth the ground we gain?  Also, charges are tiring.  Standing ground and spearing may be the better option.


The Flow of a Bridge Battle

There will almost always be spearing on the front line of a bridge battle, with at least some shield charges.  Even if one unit decided that they will only use shields, and always charge, there are two major factors that limit the effectiveness of that strategy:

1 - Chargers get tired
2 - Dead people stop charges

The typical flow is that the two armies will charge toward the middle of the bridge at lay on (unless one side decides to cap their end of the bridge and wait for the other to commit).  At engagement, the units will either decide to both charge into each other, one will charge and the other will repel, or they will both set up a static front and use some degree of spearing on the front line.  Normally at some point in the battle, one of the sides will mount a charge forcing the other to clear out their spears and counter.

Regardless of who is more effective in the scrum of the charge, dead people lying on the ground combined with fatigued fighters will always stop the charges.  At this point, the spears work their way back up to the front rank.

One of the keys in this situation is to recognize when the opposing shields are no longer a threat, and your shields are no longer effective (like if there is a pile of dead people between the two ides) and to bring the spears back up into the front rank.  If there is a dead body in front of you, there is no reason for a shieldman to stand behind him.  Let a spear or a pole have that spot so that they can kill from across the dead bodies.





Organization - Spear Channels

One of the problems I see with a lot of units is crowding the middle of the 2nd and 3rd ranks with a bunch of spears.  A lot of times spears will bunch up in the middle of a bridge because they don't want to miss their chance to fight on the front line.  This leaves the unit very poorly prepared against charges.



Spears are mostly ineffective unless they are on the front ranks, so it makes sense to keep them out of the way until needed, and then feed them into the front.  When a charge happens, spears have some effectiveness in the 3rd rank.  One might say, "I get kills all the time in the 2nd rank."  Maybe, but probably not as many as a well rested pole fighter would.

One technique that works well is to have a channel of spears on either side of the bridge to feed into the front line as necessary.  This keeps them from bunching up in the middle and gives them a queue so they don't end up cramming up to the front hoping to get their chance to fight.




Note:  If the other side has archers that can shoot over the sides of the bridge, the spear columns will need to be moved inward.  I've heard of one unit using a single column down the middle instead of the sides.


Picket Fence

I borrowed this phrase from an old North Shield fighting manual.  Basically it describes the concept of bringing the spears out in front of the shields by letting them slide between when needed, and vice versa when the shields need to come to the front rank.




This is not something that needs any command structure or fancy timed maneuvers.  It simply means that if the spears need to be up front, let them up front.  If they need to bail, don't push them into the enemy, but rather let them slide back into the 2nd and 3rd ranks.


Holding the Victory Condition

Often times people forget that they need to have at least one person on a bridge to earn the point.  They'll kill everyone on the bridge, and then run over to the next bridge to start killing them, which is the right thing to do, but they'll forget to leave someone on the empty bridge to capture the point.

Always know what the conditions are, and make sure that someone is on top of earning the point.


Initiating Charges

There's no one correct way to initiate a charge, but the success or failure of a charge largely depends on how well the charge is executed.  "Okay everyone, we are going to charge on the count of three!" is often met with a prepared counter, sometimes even initiated when you say "Two!"

Keep in mind, if you call a charge, and only half of your guys go, they will be fighting at a 2:1 numbers disadvantage, so its usually important that the entire front commits to the charge (exceptions listed later on).  Some units will have a system where they are ready to respond whenever they see a fighter initiate a charge on his own.  Sometimes it will be as simple as a look and a nod to each other.  Code words can often be used so that you can communicate to your side that you are charging, but the other side doesn't necessarily know.  All of these methods require that a unit who trains together is present on front line on the bridge.

But what if that's not the case?  What if its a mix of fighters who don't train together?  I've found the following techniques to work pretty well:

-Announce, "We are going to charge.  Ready?  Charge!"  Say this phrase without any breaks in between.  It takes about 4 seconds to say, which gives your side enough time to to understand what's going on, while the other side doesn't have enough time to coordinate an effective counter.  If you are on the front line and will charge with the unit, you must wait a beat after you say the word "charge" so that you end up charging with the group.  A common mistake is for the announcer to charge when they say "charge," which actually places them two steps ahead of their unit.

-What also works is to say to just a few people in front of you, "Okay guys, we need to jump them.  Get ready.  Okay, go now!"  This will normally get a critical mass of people moving which inspired the rest of your unit to respond.

-Light pressure with a pole arm or spear on the backs of the front line helps encourage the charge.  Don't shove them, as that is dangerous.  You never know when someone has decided for personal safety reasons that they will be avoiding charges all day.  If they don't want to charge, its not your job to push them into harms way.

-Whatever method you use, yelling, "Go!  Go!  Go!  Go!  Go!" after the charge is initiated is instrumental in making sure your side follows through on the charge.

Caveats:  Charges don't always have to be performed by the entire front rank.  Sometimes there are opportunities that one or two fighters can see were they jump a line by themselves to exploit an opportunity.  Maybe they see a gap that they can shoot through to get into the back field, or they spot an archer that they can get an easy kill on, or maybe they will sacrifice themselves to push a commander off of the bridge.

Also, keep in mind what you are trying to accomplish with your charges.  If it is an attrition battle, you have the better spears, and they have the better shields, it is probably not in your best interest to initiate any charges.

Column Charge

A column charge is when you form two columns of fighters and rush them in, typically on a diagonal, typically to the right so that your shields can protect you, and typically into a weak point on the other side.  These can be an effective way to break through an opening, or to go after an objective.  Stacking the column with lots of fighters (maybe 3-4 ranks deep) makes it difficult to repel.  Keeping the number of columns to two allows the columns to move quickly.  Any wider than that tends to cause the columns to get in the way of each other and can be disrupted by knocking people around or by killing a couple of fighters in the columns.

Clearing the Beachhead

Once a fighter breaks through a gap on the end of the bridge, it is critical that as many fighters as possible push through that gap and attempt to surround the enemy for a quick victory.  Usually this happens because you've already whittled the enemy down, so the point would be to break out of the kill pocket and create a pocket of your own to finish the job.  This would be useful if the other side has archers, a bunch of spears in the backfield, there is a time limit, or there are more bridges that you can assist with.

I caution doing this if breaking through places you in a bad position in their backfield by possibly getting surrounded by reserve units.




Pulse Charge

Normally a charge will have an entire unit press forward, hard and fast, until either they can't anymore, or until they've reached some kind of objective, or perhaps a commander has called for the charge to end.  A pulse charge, on the other hand, is a brief charge lasting on the order 2-4 seconds.

I've found pulse charges to be more difficult to pull off for a couple of reasons.  The phrase "fire and forget" is often used to describe a fighter who charges forward and then completely loses track of the rest of his fighters.  He'll either push until he dies, or until there's a break in the action that allows him to regroup.  This requires less skill than being able to charge while keeping in mind what the rest of the unit is doing.  Since pulse charges are less common, the default reaction for a fighter is to do a full charge.  So if they hear a command, "Lets do a pulse charge," they may not understand the "pulse" part of that phrase.  The last issue is that a pulse charge requires the fighters to press forward and then back off.  If the ranks behind them don't back off as well, then the front rank gets squished into a situation that they can't back out of.

Unfortunately pulse charges are something that really need to be done within units that have practiced the tactic.  One of the local knights explained to me that his system is to form up shields on the front rank with poles on the second.  The poles call the charge, and the charge lasts long enough for the shields to get in three swings while the poles on swing twice before stepping out.  In order to execute this, everyone involved needs to understand the system, so I would be very hesitant to call a pulse charge with a mixed group of fighters who haven't practice it together.


Know Your Job - Don't Take Up Valuable Space on the Front Line

Very few shieldmen are actually effective fighters in the first rank during a static battle.  Every now and then I've seen a shieldman that is impossible to kill on the front line who does a great job of drawing the attention of other fighters.  Or I've seen shieldmen who are effective at leaping forward and getting sniper kills with their sword.

The number of shieldmen that I've seen who are effective in this manner I can count on one hand.  I've seen far more who *think* that's what they are doing, but in reality they are just plugging up a useful spot on the front line that a spear could be using.

Having said that, as noted above, shields DO normally belong on the front line, but they are there to initiate or repel charges when needed.  They need to be cognizant that they aren't taking up useful space.

Another problem I see are spearmen resting on the front line.  If they are on the front line, then they either need to be killing, actively working for a kill, or helping another spearman get a kill.  Neutralizing a better spearman across from them can also be effective.  What is not effective is standing on the front line, taking up space, and not doing anything while they have well rested spearmen in the ranks behind them.  They should be fighting until tired, or until dead, and then giving up their spots for a well rested spearmen behind them.

Cleaning Up

At some point during most attrition bridge battles, one side will have lost so many fighters that the other side has a clear advantage such that they should be able to win the battle in short order by "cleaning up" the remaining fighters.  In order to do this, the side with the advantage must be able to identify, first, that the advantage exists and second, what kind of advantage it is.  If you wish to clean up with a charge, it isn't simply enough to have more fighters than the other side.  As a rule of thumb you need to make sure that you actually have more shieldmen than the other side does.  Charging 8 remaining shields with 4 shieldmen and 8 spears is likely to end in failure (believe me, I've called this charge before).  In this scenario, there is still an opportunity to clean up, but it must be done by bringing all of your spears to the front and fighting aggressively until the other side has been whittled down enough that you have a clear shield advantage.  At that point, you call the charge and finish the job.

A good habit to get into is to take a beat or two to do a quick count of shields on both sides.

Knowing the Organizational Needs of your Fighters

One of the frustrations I've historically had with the SCA is the command structure.  It might just be a few bad apples, but there are some people who get into places of power who then assume that every person within earshot needs to be micromanaged.  A mercenary unit or peerless household is not likely to want to take orders from a random person they've never met, especially if it conflicts with a plan that they had already worked out with the commanders.

Having said that, there are many fighters who do need to be micromanaged because they are new, don't practice very often, and probably never had any experience on a sports team, marching band, etc. so fighting on a bridge may be a little overwhelming for them.  I've actually received personal criticism by some of our less experienced fighters that they weren't given enough guidance.

As a free company, one of the things that has helped me in recent years is developing a good rapport and level of communication with the local kingdom commanders so that we can best understand how each other works.  They tell us what their needs are and what they'd like us to do, we tell them how we think that we can accommodate, and a level of trust and confidence is developed among all parties.

Again, there's a difference between the needs of a well trained shield heavy unit, or an improvisational skirmish unit, or an untrained kingdom unit that is a collection of fighters from a handful of baronies, or more importantly, a section of a bridge that is a collection of all of the above.


Always Have Leaders and a Plan

This doesn't mean that a command structure needs to run deep or that it needs to be formalized.  Sometimes its as simple as, "Well, Joe usually has some good ideas and we just kind of listen to him."  But as you can see if you've read this far, there are plenty of ways to run a bridge battle, and at least some level of communication should occur before the battle begins to figure out what everyone is going to try to accomplish.  Some groups have enough experience fighting together that they may not need to communicate, though I find it best to at least have a short, simple conversation to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Example:  At the Highland River Melees bridge battle this year we had an interesting scenario where we had an attrition battle with two ballistae aimed at one of the armies.  Because of the ballistae, it was critical that the army opposite the ballistae pressed the attack.  We were on that side for the first battle.  We had two options:  charge, or bring a lot of spear power to the front.  What we ended up doing, instead, was we had a defensive shield wall plugging up most of the bridge with a single spearman fighting on one end.  The result was a high amount of attrition due to the ballista fire until we were whittled down far enough that our opponent "cleaned up" by charging our weakened unit.  The communication breakdown was essentially the result of two groups of fighters not feeling confident telling the other what to do.






Stepped Marches
This is a simple tactic that can get an entire unit to slowly gain ground.  One person takes command, lets everyone know what is about to happen, and yells "step."  When the unit hears "step," everyone takes one step forward, together.  This is done until the unit has traveled as far as the commander wants them to.

This is a great way to try to capture an objective.  It has little value in an attrition battle.


Unlimited Resurrection Battles

These are great battles if all you are interested in is fighting.  If you want to actually win the scenario, on the other hand, they can be frustrating.  The key thing to remember in these scenarios is that killing people is almost completely worthless if it does not result in moving your line forward toward the objective.

One thing that makes these fights particularly tricky is that people are less likely to cooperate because the lives are unlimited.  In a single death battle, fighters realize that its only a matter time before they get their one shot to fight on the front line.  In an unlimited resurrection fight, the amount of fighting is unlimited and those who butt past everyone to continuously get to the front get to do the most fighting.

In these fights, ground is typically taken in two fashions.  The less common fashion is for spears to pick apart the other side causing the remaining ranks to retreat due to a lack of morale.  Its not very common for this to happen, but its a good idea to capitalize on it when it does.  The more common method is to coordinate your charges and send big, heavy shieldmen into the fray and attempt to shove the other team back.

Keep in mind that the dynamic of these battles can change depending on the width of the bridges, the number of fighters, the quality of units, the length of the battle, and the heat.  Long, hot battles, for example, will result in less over all aggression.

So What Should YOU do in a Bridge Battle?

Well, obviously it depends on so many factors listed above, but equally as important, it depends on exactly what type of fighter you are.

Veterans of any Weapons Form
Its your primary job to figure out who is going to be in charge, who's plan you're going to follow, and that everyone else understands what is going on.  You can't expect a bunch of newer fighters to take that kind of initiative, so it falls on your shoulders.  If you've read this far into this post, you are probably interested enough in bridge battle tactics to make yourself a bit of an expert if you aren't already.  Take it upon yourself to figure out what is going on and then communicate that to everyone else.  If it is decided that you should be in charge, then come up with a plan and make sure everyone knows what it is.  Even if the plan is, "Lets wait and see what they do," you should still follow some basic fundamentals in getting your guys organized (ie get those spears out of the center/middle ranks).

New/Average Shieldmen

Your job will almost always be to charge and repel charges.  Occasionally it will be to defensively hold the front line in a shield wall.  When you are on the front, stay out of the way of the spears.  Stay a step out of spear range if you can.  Keep that sword in front of your face, but also beware of leg and body shots.  If the spears are working, step back and take a breath, but be ready to repel a charge when it comes, and be ready to charge when a commander calls one.  If the spears are working, take a step back and rest.  Most importantly, if you don't know what is going on, ask someone.

New/Average Polearm Fighters

Your job is to be in the rank behind the front most shield rank.  Your job is to back up the shields during charges and when repelling charges.  You should never be in the first rank while you still have spears alive on your side.  Occasionally you might see a really effective pole arm fighter fighting up there, but it is a rare occurrence.

New/Average Spears

Try not to plug up the middle of the bridge unless you are in the front rank.  When they call for spears to come up, make sure you get close enough to the front to fight.  Standing behind your shields out of range isn't going to do your side any good, and you are taking up a good spot on the front line that an effective spearman could be using.  If you aren't good enough to do that, well this is how you get good.  Listen to the commanders and move up or pull back when they call for it.  If you get tired, step out and ask someone to take your spot.

If you get good enough and confident enough to start recognizing good positions to fight on the front line, be aware that when you ask for shields to let you up, they can't see you or know which spot you want.  Stick your spear between two shieldmen and lightly tap them with your spear shaft and say, "spear coming up.  Can I you give me room?"  95% of the time, they will allow you through.

Final Thoughts

I certainly don't presume to be an expert on everything.  I've learned a lot about tactics through writing this blog as it has helped me focus on exactly what is going on tactically during the fight.  Three years ago I wrote a post on fighting bridge battles, and I think it included only one or two concepts listed above.

Always, if you think I'm wrong on something, please feel free to point it out.  Some of the most fundamental changes in the way I look at fighting have been the result of exactly that.  Other times it was a matter of poor explaining or my part.  And sometimes I will just see something differently than the reader.

Also, feel free to share this with your friends.