Lost Battles
by Philip Sabin
2mentions
2recommended by
2HN commenters
2014–2018first – last mentioned
100% recommend
"The great battles of Alexander, Hannibal and Caesar arouse endless interest, but our understanding of them is marred by the weakness of the surviving source material from so long ago." "Lost Battles employs simple simulation techniques to make traditional battle diagrams 'come to life'. Readers will actually be able to refight engagements for themselves, gaining greater insights into whether proposed tactics and deployments make military sense, and experimenting with alternative possibilities such as the presence or absence of the Persian cavalry at Marathon." "This book is the culmination of
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It's almost entirely unrelated, but if anyone's interested I would like to plug my current favorite history book: Phillip Sabin's Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World. It uses a simple tactical (board) wargame system to explore ancient battles including several from the rise of the Roman Republic and Empire.
on “Maps of the Roman Empire” ↗For those interested in models comparing armies across time and space (at least in the ancient world), this book is worth a look ... https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Battles-Reconstructing-Clashes-A... The author developed and then iterated a simple simulation (structured like war game rules) for modeling ancient battles. Its been a while since I read the book but IIRC his…
on “Napoleon Was the Best General Ever” ↗