Hannibal vs. Alexander

A Battle between Hannibal and Alexander. Who wins?

  • Hannibal

    Votes: 13 38.2%
  • Alexander

    Votes: 21 61.8%
  • Draw

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    34

Anaxagoras

Banned
Who wins in a battle between Hannibal and Alexander the Great? Assume each commands an army of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, on a more or less open plain.
 
Of course, there is the odd point that Hannibal considered Alexander to be a better general than himself, or so he explained while serving as an advisor to the Greeks after the second Punic war.
 
Of course, there is the odd point that Hannibal considered Alexander to be a better general than himself, or so he explained while serving as an advisor to the Greeks after the second Punic war.

That would make a very good argument for Alexander then.
 
Who wins in a battle between Hannibal and Alexander the Great? Assume each commands an army of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, on a more or less open plain.
On a 'more of less open plain'? Yup, Alexander for me... Hannibal's notable victories tended to occur when he could draw the romans into enclosed spaces and then encircle them... when he faced them under other circumstances thing tended to go rather badly for him.

Then of cause you've got the quality of the troops as well... Heteroi heavy cavalry, thessalian medium-ish cavalry and sarissaphoni and thracian light cav would *probably* trump Hannibal's numidians. In the infantry department phalangites and hyspaspists hardened by decades of war under Philip and then Alexander's campaigns would -in an open field- utterly thrash Hannibal's mixture of iberian, Carthaginian (v. limited) and random mercenary heavy infantry and celtic warbands.
 

Keenir

Banned
Who wins in a battle between Hannibal and Alexander the Great? Assume each commands an army of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, on a more or less open plain.

on an open plain? what, you really think Hannibal would be so unimaginative?

open plain, Alexander. anywhere else, Hannibal
 
I know that this means basically nothing, but there was an interesting show on the Military Channel (the name of which I cannot now recall) about a year ago in which 2 modern retired generals played a table top wargame, one as Alexander and one as Hannibal. Alexander was given the forces he had at the Battle of Issus, and Hannibal those he had at Cannae. Each general tried to use the type of tactics which the actual general tended to use in OTL.

Hannibal won.

My own personal opinion is that Hannibal was a better general than Alexander. My reading of the campaigns of Alexander reveals, at least to me, a general who uses a set of well-tested tactics, and does it very well, but does not show a lot of innovation. Hannibal was all about innovation and flexibility.

IF Hannibal were foolish enough to fight Alexander's type of battle, essentially a big set piece in good terrain for the Macedonian phalanxes and heavy cavalry, Alexander will win. But I just find it difficult to imagine Hannibal allowing a battle to occur at a time or place where Alexander could bring his own strengths to bear. Hannibal is going to lure the phalanx into rough terrain, where his own more lightly armed and mobile troops are going to excel. Or he will catch the Macedonians on the march and slaughter them before they have the opportunity to form up for battle.

What he won't do is fight as Alexander wants him to fight.
 
Alexander was certainly innovative when he needed to be. Examples include the siege of Tyre, his tactics against elephants and his defeat of the horse tribes in the open Indo-Iranian Plain and along the Oxus. Not to mention his troops were very adept at fighting in hilly and mountainous terrain as witnessed by his campaign against the mountain tribes north of Macedonia, in Afghanistan and the capture of the Rock.

Alexander’s troops were equipped better and were more disciplined than Hannibal’s mercenaries and Celts. After each battle against Rome Hannibal had to strip the corpses to fit out his own soldiers. Alexander completely re-equipped his army after the Indian campaign and yet before this they were victorious on the Indus. This shows they were adequately outfitted.

What sort of army would Alexander have? After the defeat of Persia he was in the process of creating a New Model Army consisting of archers mixed in with the phalanx in a way that did not compromise the heavy pike tactics and yet provided devastating missile power. The experiment was stopped because his Successors lacked his prestige and could not afford to antagonize the veterans who were opposed to integrating Persians into the phalanx. This sort of infantry formation theoretically would destroy the opposition since it would, like the Roman Legions armed with the pila, play havoc with the enemy formation then pin it down with the heavy infantry while the heavy cavalry delivered the killer blow.

The quality of Alexander’s light and medium cavalry (even without the addition of eastern units) was far superior to anything Hannibal could muster. The heavy cavalry was able to attack infantry! Nothing like this existed in the west. If there were elephants, Alexander’s Indian ones would be far superior to the small North African variety available to Hannibal.

Both Hannibal and Alexander had the utter devotion of their troops and both were lucky generals. Both had been wounded because they showed a little too much willingness to be in the thick of things but then again they could not afford not to be. Alexander was certainly able to make allies of his ex-enemies in a way that Hannibal did not.

All things considered, I think Alexander would win hands down.
 
I've always considered Alexander to be a Grand Strategic genius, whilst Hannibal was a tactical Genius.

Thus in a merely tactical battle; Hannibal, in a campaign Alexander.
 
I vote for Alexander... He had way much better infantry and he was superb cavalry commander...
I think the OP meant who wins between them in a fair fight, both of them having equal forces, in numbers and quality. If Alexander had his Macedonian army, then ofcourse there would be no contest since a large part of the army which he invaded Persia was composed of veteran, proffessional, superbly equipped and trained troops. Hannibal's army left a lot to be desired (in fact it's composition changed constantly throughout the campaign).
 
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