>>519331751
>>519331418
I was thinking about this incident today at work and how the #1 benefit of having battle unit formations back in ancient times was to prevent your army from experiencing a "crowd crush" moment like what happened at cannae. Romans dead while standing up, some romans trying to squeeze down under their comrades to escape the slaughter, some romans climbing over their friends in a panic to escape the front line, too squished together to swing their arms, practically impossible to fight back, 10s of thousands of them being systematically executed over the course of a few hours all pissing, shitting, and bleeding all over the place and on each other as Carthaginians take breaks to rest their arms then come back to keep poking holes into people to put them down as they sob, scream, and moan. It wasnt just a freak accident at cannae it has happened to several armies that were too large and too bunched up to properly maneuver. Being systematically executed in a crowd crush is one of the worst ways to die in a war.