I have been watching a lot of ancient history shows on youtube about army tactics, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why a smaller army would every beat a larger army. To me, the larger army would square up against the opponents, and then simply flank the enemy, which would usually result in routing. How would an ancient era deal with the problem of getting flanked? Did it simply just all come down to terrain?
Edit: Thank you so much for your answers! I love learning about this kind of stuff, so this has been a lot of fun. Maybe I’m still confused about how an army would engage and disengage an army to remain mobile to avoid flanks, could anyone provide some insights into this?
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The benefits of numbers in battle become detriments in every part of war that wasn’t battle. Moving a large group of people is difficult today, and in the ancient world, the quality of roads and lack of motor vehicles made it that much worse. When the best method of carrying food is a horsecart, the math becomes unfavorable very quickly when you factor in the caloric intake of the horse. The upshot of this is that armies needed to be moving constantly and spread out thinly to forage enough food to survive (foraging generally meant stealing food from local farmers) and that gave enemy armies a chance to take them on in more manageable chunks.
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