AWA398 - Turning to Face an Outflank
Ancient Warfare Podcast
The History Network
4.3 • 645 Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John asks whether there are historical examples of a formation being outflanked where the troops on the threatened flank turn to engage the attacker, while the main line remains engaged to the front, effectively fighting on two faces at once while maintaining cohesion.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers with me Murray, |
| 0:09.9 | your weekly fix of 10 minutes, around about 10 minutes of ancient warfare related ranting and |
| 0:17.3 | musing where I attempt to answer a question from a reader, listener or viewer. |
| 0:23.0 | You can ask a question. |
| 0:24.5 | You can, of course, comment on a previous podcast or video. |
| 0:28.5 | You can send me a postcard. |
| 0:30.2 | You can send me an email. |
| 0:32.0 | AWA at Carvansarai Publishers.com. |
| 0:35.9 | Even Murray at Carvansaripublishers.com will get to me. I think there's even |
| 0:39.2 | another email address. Lots of ways to catch me. You can, of course, support us on Patreon, |
| 0:43.7 | one of three different levels, Legionary Optio and Centurion. Now, today's question is from John |
| 0:51.8 | Smith, JJ, 2.D. Now, I don't know where the... |
| 0:55.3 | I've discovered that young people have these weird ways |
| 0:57.6 | that when you see things like that, |
| 0:59.0 | there's actually two ways of saying it. |
| 1:00.3 | I don't know. |
| 1:01.0 | I'm not going to involve possibly something to do with yards. |
| 1:04.2 | Anyway, John Smith, he asks, |
| 1:05.7 | are there any examples of a formation being flanked |
| 1:09.1 | and the troops in the flank turning to engage the |
| 1:12.6 | attacker while the forward lines remain engaged to their front, i.e. two sides of a rectangle |
| 1:18.1 | facing out and engaged in combat simultaneously while maintaining cohesion. Okay, wow, wow. |
... |
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