When psiloi in rear rank can be destroyed - posted by Vince Cholewa, 25 March 2023

There was excellent discussion on Thursday about when psiloi are in the front rank and are destroyed, then a second rank of psiloi, or any other foot, is never destroyed. Today I want to post a couple of examples where psiloi in a rear rank are destroyed. One is straight forward but the other caught me by surprise. My understanding is in the caption for each pic. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2319078978251681/

This is the straight forward one. If the warband beat the blades then the psiloi are destroyed because (p.40, destroyed elements):

The front rank is not psiloi;
they are within the zone of death behind the front rank; and the first bullet point says if the front rank was destroyed by warband, then foot in the zone of death are destroyed, too.

This bullet point has no requirement for elements to be immediately behind the one destroyed. That is, all foot in the zone of death are destroyed if the front rank was destroyed by warband. 

Andrew Bennetts

Note that the fact that the 3rd rank is Psiloi is important here. A 3rd rank of non Psiloi foot would not be destroyed. P40 ".....[elements] with their nearest such part (or if Psiloi no further) than the initially destroyed element's base depth". This is something I was missing. Non psiloi foot are only destroyed in this situation if they are less than one base depth from the initially destroyed element. Psiloi must be MORE than a base depth back and are destroyed if they are EXACTLY one base depth back.

Thank you Lawrence Greaves for pointing out why all three foot elements are destroyed if the blades in the front lose (page 40, destroyed elements). The second blade is destroyed because of the fifth bullet point and the psiloi is destroyed because of the third bullet point.

The second rank is easy: front rank is not psiloi; the second rank is within the zone of death behind the front rank; fifth bullet point applies, an enemy element is in contact with the entire flank.

But why is the psiloi destroyed? Because of careful reading of the third bullet point:

In this case, the light horse front edge is in contact with all of the second blade’s flank, so this blade is destroyed (bullet point five).

The front rank is not psiloi; the psiloi are in the zone of death of the front rank; and they are psiloi immediately behind a friendly element that was destroyed while in edge contact with an enemy’s front edge.

Importantly, bullet point three does not require it to be the friendly element’s front edge that was contacted by enemy nor does it require the friendly element to be the front rank.

So, all three elements of foot would be destroyed is the knights win.