How difficult is it to commit feigned retreats and then turn around to counterattack? Esp. in melee?

Griffith

Banned
Movies and games make the tactic of feigning a retreat only to turn around and then suddenly counterattack an enemy completely off-guard because they were so busy pursuing you seem so easy as 1-2-3.

However stuff I read state this is very difficult and only a unit of the highest calibre of Discipline can commit this tactic.

For example in Hastings the Normans are typically praised for using this tactic. But stuff I read state its an incredibly risky tactic that was terrifying for the Normans to perform and several times using this tactics, groups of Norman Knights were almost caught and could have been slaughtered.

Paul Cartledge in his book "The Spartans" states:

Paul Cartledge P.127-128 said:
The Spartans added to the Persian forces' discomfiture by deploying the sort of tactics that only the most highly trained and disciplined force would have been capable of even contemplating-a seriesof feigned retreats followed by a sudden about-turn and murderous onslaught on their over-confident pursuers.

So how difficult is it to do a simple hit-run strategy?Games and movies make it seem so simplistic!!!

I mean even hunters who are not trained for war can do this to animal, what makes it so hard to do this in war?
 
It is the single most difficult and complex military maneuver you could possibly hope to conduct. It requires absolutely precise timing and management combined with an incredible amount of training and discipline.
 
The big problem with a feigned retreat that if you are the only guy who stops retreating, you've got a problem. So it's tempting to keep going until someone else stops, and everyone does the same, and by the time you sort yourself out, you're miles away.

You've got the problem that when you turn your back to the enemy, they can hit you and you can't hit them, so you need to retreat faster than they advance, and that starts to spread a desire to keep going.

You've got the problem that the average Joe (or Marcus or Hiro or Vladimir) in the line isn't necessarily privy to the details of the plan, and just knows they're retreating, and he keeps going.

Battlefields are places that are quite difficult places to keep a cool head. It tends to be a bit noisy, and sometimes people get a bit excited, and lose track of what they're supposed to be doing. Essentially, a feigned retreat requires everyone to stay cool and not lose their heads (figuratively) or else they might lose their heads (literally).
 
It's exactly what the Mongolians did. And they did it amazingly well. A little too often, as enemies eventually realized what was going to happen.
 
It's exactly what the Mongolians did. And they did it amazingly well. A little too often, as enemies eventually realized what was going to happen.
Pulling off a feigned retreat without it turning into a real retreat is a lot easier when you have a horse and a bow compared to trying to break contact from melee without getting charged, while on foot. Combined with the Mongols discipline, it explains why they were so successful at it.
 
This really depends on the spacing. A feigned retreat does not have to be where the army is in close quarters with the enemy but can also occur when the army is a fair distance form the opponent and retreats only as a maneuver but to the opposing force it is seen as a retreat. This can be disastrous if you do not have the speed advantage against the enemy or lack cohesion in your force. Some troops who maneuver in this manner could become disgruntled and see the constant maneuvering as cowardly.

An example of feigned retreats with a wide distance was the various battles in the Zanj rebellion. Both Abbasid and Zanj armies utilized feigned retreats into the swamps or into the desert to pull enemy forces into locations of ambushes or simply a fortified and better area for battle. Zanj forces Sulayman ibn Jami and al-Jubba'i performed this on several Mamluk forces under the Abbasid including Musa ibn Bugha but most famously at al-Hawanit. There we see the Abbasids adopt Zanj tactics. After Taqin al-Bukhari was lured into an ambush via feigned retreats by Sulayman ibn Jami and al-Jubba'i and was defeated handily, he retreated and defended his camp. However as the Zanj began to encroach on his camp further, he strategically retreated leaving his goods in the camp, however within a few days the Abbasid forces assumed in a route, struck al-Hawanit again under Ju'lan al-Turki and Taqin al-Bukhari and this time decisively defeated al-Jubba'i forcing the return of Sulayman ibn Jami to the field to re-pursue the Abbasid forces instead of al-Jubba'i's incessant looting.

In the same war, al-Mu'tadid the eventual 16th caliph, at the battle of Fam al-Silh, the Abbasid army marched unto the Zanj who were marching toward Jarjraya. Instead of engaging them, the smaller Abbasid force turned tail and retreated. The Zanj, invigorated by this, pursued in extreme zeal; only to in their horror, see the entire Abbasid force turn and charge them on the road, with heavy cavalry and horse archers. The Zanj army was completely demolished and went into complete route. This campaign would then be characterized by continual feigned retreats. The downfall of them were then found when the Zanj attempted a feigned retreat under Sulayman ibn Jami against al-Mu'tadid, where his army attempted to draw the Abbasid into a positon where they could be outmaneuvered and swarmed by light Zanj infantry. However, the result was the Abbasid army standing still and countering Zanj arrow fire with superior fire; the Zanj troops who fled and turned to see no army followed them, became disheartened and saw that their plan failed. This led to a defeat at the battle of al-Rajayfa where the Zanj armies plan hinged on feigned retreat failed and were left without a backup to defeat the better equipped Abbasid force. Afterward the Zanj would go into a scorch earth tactic in and around Wasit attempting to avoid the Abbasid force.

So, as evident by the Zanj, a major weakness of the feigned retreat is when an army fails to react and also has missile superiority. It nullifies your plan and breaks the morale of the force and requires the general or commander to come up with a new plan and be able to distribute it across his large army. In most cases a failed feigned retreat leads to defeat or an actual retreat. So, it does have serious flaws.

Also, it should be noted that the greatest victories gained by feigned retreats occurred against very strong and often times veteran warriors and forces who nonetheless lacked discipline. This can be seen in the battles between Sabutai and the Russian states.
 
Feigned retreats work very well in cavalry versus cavalry actions, very poorly in infantry versus infantry actions, and not at all in cavalry versus infantry actions.

The reason they don't work in infantry combat is that the majority of casualties in such combats occur when one side or the other turn to run, and this happens even when the fleeing troops have thrown away their weapons in order to run faster. In a feigned retreat the infantry would have to retain their arms which would make them even more vulnerable to being hacked down from behind. Obviously you can have fighting retreats such as the Carthaginians used at Cannae, but that's a different matter.

Feigned retreats don't work for infantry-v-cavalry because to look realistic the cavalry have to flee in apparent panic, and even the most inexperienced infantryman is going to realise that he doesn't stand a chance of catching a galloping horse.

This is why I believe that claims of feigned retreats at Hastings were post hoc rationalisations of genuine retreats, given that the bulk of the Norman army was composed of rather poor-quality infantry, and was not entirely cavalry and archers as suggested by the Bayeux Tapestry.
 

longsword14

Banned
It's exactly what the Mongolians did. And they did it amazingly well. A little too often, as enemies eventually realized what was going to happen.
The Mongol habit of not committing the hammer until favourable conditions had been achieved comes from their ability to feign retreats on truly massive scales for medieval times.
You would imagine that a retreat lasting half a day is long, but sometimes they did it for days.
 

longsword14

Banned
A feigned retreat is possibly almost always in the case of horse-dominated armies.
The ability to feign a retreat required fairly good discipline and sufficient reserves to do local counter-attacks, otherwise a rout might occur. Any complicated maneuver requires a good balance between engaged troops and reserves, without the latter you could find that the enemy did not play as wished him to and it is impossible to change deployment mid combat.

You can see this is typical for maneuvering armies to to do.
 
I'll join the Greek chorus and say that it requires a particularily well disciplined army, and particularily skilled commander.
I'd disagree with @longsword14 tough, as it might not be as dominated by cavalry-based armies : you have exemples of infantry based feigned retreat in Antiquity and Middle-Ages. So while I agree that it's most easily done with cavalry (more or less light cavalry rather than heavy due to the pressure) than infantry, we could point to the exemple of Ganius and Cannicus making a feigned retreat with the roman infantry against Celto-Germans cavalry of Spartacus' armies.

You might wonder why, if it's that hard, why it's so prevalent in history : mention of feigned retreat tactics are present a bit everywhere in Antiquity and High Middle Ages.

Well, it might be as simple as that it's quite hard to make the difference between a feigned retreat tactic, an an actually genuined routed retreat that a skilled commander can use : it might be the case at Hastings where Normans and Bretons regularly broke off before the shildwall and counter-attack of Saxons may have led to a genuine retreat from the left flank, that William of Normandy (for having used feigned retreat or genuine retreat as to use the separation of ennemies' forces) could have pretty much spotted as a good opportunity.

So, while you certainly have a lot of actual feigned retreats, the question is open onto how much were "just" genuine retreats that a skilled general could use at his benefit.
 

longsword14

Banned
@LSCatilina
Feigned retreat, fighting retreat are terms often used in separate sense. It is hard to see a hotly contested engagement being stopped by one side without incurring high casualties. Cavalry does not stay in contact for long but charges group by group, so the pace of returning is a signal of sorts to the enemy whether one's side is beaten or not.
'Feigned' should be deceptive;it could be applied to infantry fighting back to spring another counter.
 
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