King Gustavus Adolphus was a great military innovator. He was the first European king to reform the military based on mercenaries to a professional national army.
While most army of time employed deep squares up to 50 ranks deep, Gustavus adopted infantry formations fighting in 5 or 6 ranks supported at some distance by a reserve of another such formation (usually musketeers covering pikemen and viceversa).
He gave new elan to cavalry charges. While the cavalry forces of the time used to trot toward the enemy, stop to open fire and then retreat, the king trained his forces to charge through the opportunely opened gaps of his infantry formations. Finally he was the first to set a standard weight for his artillery projectiles, making both production and supplies easier to menage. In addition to the usual complements of heavy cannon he introduced batteries of light guns as support for his -always outnumbered- infantry.
His forces could redeploy and reconfigure very rapidly, adapting to threats that would have shattered the almost immobile armies of the time.
Never defeated in life, even in death Gustavus achieved his final victory. Foretelling his own death in battle would come shortly, he gave his prime minister instruction on diplomatic and military issue to follow for years after his death. When death finally come for the brave king at Lutzen, lest his body would be taken by the enemy, the remnants of his army attacked the Habsburg with such force they won the field with one final struggle.
Polybian Res Publica Legions
Since the founding of Rome, the romans were masters of tactics and common sense applyed to war. Surrounded by more powerful enemies, their whole culture was war-centered, even more than the glorified spartans. Training under the Res Publica began at the age of 8, when kids were divided into units and tought the value of obedience to the last order given under any circumstance. The romans under the republic were eager to go into active military service as it was te only mean to enter the political lifeof the Republic: 10 campaign of service as infantry or 5 in a cavalry force were the minumun requirement but the longer a man server, the more esteem he gained and those who re-enlisted after their service end were considered true heroes and given command positions.
The pre-marian reform legion were divided in 4 bodies divided by age/experience and wealth/equipment: the lighter and younger troops (velites) formed the frontline while the heaviest veterans (triarii) were placed in the rear. The second and third line were formed respectively by hastati and principes, similarly armed with 2 javelins (pila), shortsword (gladius), and the roman signature shield.
Roman doctrine was to always being on the attack and giving ground to the enemy (unless directly ordered to do so) was punished with death and dishonor.
The Res Public was among the first ancient powers to introduce steel helmet to better protect its soldier against the powerful blows of the higher and stronger gauls.
To show how hell-bent on war the Res Publica was in comparison to the roman empire, just compare the crushing defeat the former suffered at Cannae (60.000 to 70.000 losses) with the deafeat at Teutoburg Forest of the latter (16.000 to 20.000 losses). While the empire gave up any expansion beyond the Rhine and the Danube, the Res Publica reacted by declaring they would fight to the last rather than negotiate peace with Hannibal of Carthage and proceeded at mustering additional armies.
Macedonian grand phalanx under Alexander the Great
The phalangial syntagma were the equivalent of the tank of ancient times. 256 men in 16 or even 32 ranks deep, equipped with a 5 meters long spear, called sarissa, and each occupying a front space of 0.45 meters, could exert a pressure able to break any enemy formation on open ground.
Knowing the strength of this arm, the great Alexander insisted on developing the other branches of his army: the cavalry and and the light troops. Macedonian hypaspists (which were considered "light" just because they wielded a shorter spear) and agrianians allies, former employed defensively on the flanks of the phalanx, were now thrown on the offensive with macedonian companion cavalry (hetairoi) and the allied thessalian cavalry. Once the enemy was pinned fighting those brave men, and thus lost all maneuverability, the phalanx would finally break the enemy, usually inflicting on the enemy casualities so heavy they were matched only by the romans and later by Napoleon.
But Alexander were not just about tactics, he was a master strategist always able to pinpoint the strongest and the weakest point of his adversaries and predispose an oblique attack order (a method of attack recently invented by the theban Epaminondas, who defeated much more numerically superior spartan armies on 3 different occasions) to capitalize on the advantages of his army.
A true hero himself, Alexander always led the most dangerous charges in person and received wounds on almost every battle he partecipated.
Swiss halberdiers
A revival of the macedonian phalanx, the Swiss reintroduced pike warfare to Europe, helping to put an end to the era of knights. Instead of a regular pike, the main weapon of choice of the hardy swiss was a 4 meter long halberd, able to behead a horse in a single swing but mainly used as a pike
Their first successes were limited to their own mountainous homeland and, feeling still insecure about facing a cavalry charge even on uneven ground, they emplyed at first ambushes and roling boulders and gained at first the fame of being a bunch of unhonorable cowards. When they finally went down their mountains they basically steamrolled every army in their way. In the end, internal division halted their armies advance and caused them to be recalled home.
The most outstanding feat of courage of the swiss was their defense of the Holy See on 6th May 1527, when an army of 34.000 landsknechts and spaniards and italian mercenaries decided to sack Rome after Emperor Charles V denied they pay. Only a 5000 strong militia defended Rome and was overwhelmed after a heavy fighting (almost 10.000 losses on the attacker side). When seemegly all was lost and the life of the Pope himself was at stake, the Papal Swiss Guard stood foward and deployed 147 guards on St. Peter Square to face the charge of 20.000 men. They were to bought time for Pope Clement VII and his last 42 men to barricade into Castel Sant'Angelo, where they were then besieged for a month and a day.
Samurai from the mongol invasions
Samurai were ruthless warriors, completely focused on military training and honor. Personal honor was in fact so important to overshadow greater strategies, tactics and even diplomacy. But this drawbacks were at the time more than compensated by their determination to fight until the bitter end rather than face defeat.
When the mongols finally come for Nihon (Japan), they first tought their conquest would have been easy thanks to the superior numbers of their korean and chinese allies (1 to 2.15) but, altought the samurai defending the shores were all but slaughtered, the steady influx of samurai reinforcements eager to gain their share of fame finally forced the mongols to a halt until a thyphon, destroyed almost one third of the mongol fleet. See their enemy distress, the japanese pressed on until the ultimate victory.
Years later, the great Khan declared a second invasion of Nihon, sending 3400 ships with 140.000 men. This time the japanese emperor was prepared and had almost 40.000 men defending the coastal fortresses of his kingdom and an even more substantial force of 60.000 men was ready to be deployed after the mongol landing place had been determined. The mongol resorted to brutal terror tactics, tying japanese women naked to their ships and war machines and driving them forward as human shields in sieges and battles. But how can you terrorize an enemy used to lit his own houses and even the farming populace on fire to have some light sources on a night battle? This second invasion ended before the arrival of samurai reinforcement: after inflicting horrible losses on their enemy, including most of their officers, the samurai saw their victory secured when the great Kamikaze typhon sinked 80% of the mongolian fleet.
Mongol and Tartars under Genghis Khan
In just about 60 years (1219-1279), the mongol expansion started by the great Genghis Khan stretched over almost all of Eurasia.
Along their famous heavy lamellar armor, the mongols introduced many devastating tools of war, like their short composite bows with poisoned, fire or explosive arrows, bow-launched arrows with small rocket engines attached, cannons, mortars and even sling-thrown naphtha grenades with ceramic shells.
Almost 100% of their combat troops were mounted, divided between horse archers (the bulk of their armies) and heavy shock lancers whose horses were coated with the same lamellar armor as their riders. Their whole army was able to live off the land and mare's milk and were able to cover around 150km in a single day (a feat equalled only later by the 7th Panzer Division on World War Two!) and they were so succesful in their winter raids against Russia that soon winter became their favorite time for going into war!
As mentioned above, the mongol made ample use of the "Kharash", or terror tactics, and were trained to fight and rally without needing officers to do so, having great leeway so long as the larger objectives were served. As a result, discipline were somewhat lax and capital punishment were only given in case of blatant disobedience or flight but in return the mongols adored their leaders like religious authorities.
Wehrmacht
No matter their war crimes and brutality toward civilians, one has to admit the german army of WWII fought gallantly through the whole war. Plus, their uniforms were on point.
As the war opened, the germans had a ridiculously low number of medium and heavy tanks (only 7 divisions) and 36 of the 98 total divisions of their army had no training whatsoever. But they had an extremely well trained and equipped air force, the luftwaffe, and some of the most gifted strategists of the time: Heinz Guderian, Walther Nehing, Albert Kesselring, Erwing Rommel and many more capable officers who fathered the Blitzkrieg. Thanks to the insight of heinz Guderian, the first to grasp the potential of a deep strike conducted by armored, motorized, mechanized and air forces, the Wehrmacht overwhelmed the vastly superior French Army (94 out of 117 french divisions were deployed to stop 48 german divisions, the french had almost the double of the german tanks and guns but half the aircrafts) and forced the british to leave the continent.
After that, the germans were constantly outnumbered on all fronts, always low on supplies and often operating in areas with hostile populace. But even with these and the even more severe limitation imposed by Hitler, totally alien to the concept of strategic retreat, they kept fighting even when defeat was all but inevitable and morale was never a problem until the end of year 1944.
The german paratroopers were one of the most indomitable bodies in action during the war, often acting as ground infantry to defend key points and last lines of defense. They were known to fight to the last.
Note that i'm not condoning any war crime committed on WW2, my grandfather was captain on a supply ship and was taken prisoner by the germans in the aftermeth of Cephalonia. He luckily was not executed thanks to his rank but was deported in a small concentration camp somewhere in Poland and then deported in Belarus by the russians. The only thing he would tell me about this whole experience was that: "The russians were humans, not like the germans, even if they did not let us write letters to home. When I returned I found a whole new generation of the family named after me by their parent thinking I was dead". My grandpa is now 94.
Please forgive any syntax and grammar error as english is not my mother toungue and I've self-tought it myself in order to be able to study the evolution of the art of war. If anyone has any good suggestion for learning more on the Mongol and Tartars, please let me know, my limited knowledge on them is unforgivable given how much badass they were.
