For years, the United States of America has dominated the skies with SAC's nuclear-armed bombers and fighters since the nuclear annihilation of Germany in WW2 in the event known as The Big One. Now suddenly transported to a New World during the earl...
Centurion Tagaris walked down the trail in the third row of the two-abrest column of his 40-men kentarchia. While much of the trail near outside and within the edges of the Inner Gim Forest was wide enough to accommodate two wagons abreast, or six people side by side, the testimony from travellers and the scouts confirmed that the forest trail had narrowed down to one wagon width near the stream at the middle of the forest.
For a Lourian army on the march, it was absolutely critical to avoid stops due to traffic jams, as that tired out the people waiting for the jam to clear up and resulted in a late arrival to the destination camp. For an army marching under time constraints, a late arrival meant less time to rest, which could compound fatigue if there were further delays and reduce the effectiveness of the soldiers. In addition, the people already ahead of such jams would inadvertently split away from the rest of the army as they continued marching, isolating units from one another and endangering the column to an enemy who could attain superior concentrations of troops against sections of the column.
Thus, the column could only be as wide as the narrowest point of the route minus some space on the sides so that horseriding messengers and officers could quickly travel along the column and maintain communication. Each section was spaced out, with a strict gap in between so that any minor delays wouldn't cause a kentarchia directly behind to march into a kentarchia that briefly pauses.
Nevertheless, a narrow column still had disadvantages. It reduced the natural concentration of sections, and it effectively reduced the marching speed of the army per day. The tail of the army would leave the initial camp later, and thus reach their destination later. As any sensible army not wishing to get lost or suffer accidents would want to only march in daylight and rest behind fortifications, the distances between initial and destination camps would have to be reduced.
With the number of people in the tagma, a merchant caravan's journey of one day through the forest would become at least two as the minimum defensive level of the forts and outposts that had to be erected along the way would take at least four hours by themselves. Further improvements would have to be built by the units following the tagma.
Since they were in enemy territory, Tagaris was fully kitted out in his combat gear along with the rest of his men. The necessity of keeping his hands ready to use his weapons at a moment's notice meant that his personal baggage was loaded onto a wagon trailing behind two other kentarchiai along with the rest of the baggage of four kentarchiai and some artificer-managed artillery. Each marching bandon was split into five sections of four kentarchiai, baggage, four kentarchiai, baggage, etc.so that the non-combatants driving the baggage trains would not have to run far to seek protection in the advent of an attack on them.
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Figure 10.1 Lourian Concentric Helmet.
Tagaris's kentarchia was second in the first infantry bandon in the column. A scouting bandon consisting of light infantry and scout cavalry was screening for them. He hoped the lightly armoured men making their way through the trees off the road were widely dispersed enough to encounter any enemies in ambush and not simply move past them. The scout cavalry themselves stuck to the trail, as the trees would hinder their movement and rob them of their advantage of being fast. The cavalry maintained sight and hearing of the light infantry, ready to ride back to the infantry bandon should danger emerge.
