Square

Square is a combat formation adopted by an infantry unit in close order in order to repel, primary, near mounted troops but can also be used against other infantry corps or monster bands when the situation allows it.

Defensive formation by essence, the square presents many advantages balanced by drastic drawback : Being considered as forming a "fortress" among the battlefield, with soldiers forming walls and leaders the dungeon of this improvided castle, an infantry square presents a tremendous defensive stance able to deter the formidable impact of cavalry charges ; but if the wall is breached, the commanding officers slain or, evenworst, the unit cannot fully form the wall before being reached by the incoming cavalry wave, the lifespan of the infantry unit drops drastically...

Because the square trades the mobility for the protection, it cannot evade without performing a reformation - costly in time and space, elements an infantry unit surrounded cannot easily spend - and when routed or broke, troopers became easy preys for pursuivers.

Moreover, because it increased widely the density of the unit, the infantry unit becames more susceptible to ranged weapons (from thaumaturgy to projectiles) and light armoured soldiers became very vulnerable to arrows and bolts ; the global answer to any infantry square is thus to rain down the formation from far in order to shatter its wall, break its moral and turns it susceptible to cavalry charge.

On the other side, infantry square reduces its unit deepth to present 4 "front" sides (adopting the form of an hollow square, with their thickness of walls linked to their wideness) ; while it helps grealty to face incoming threat from any sides, it drops the global impact resistance of the whole unit and consequently a pure offensive infantry formation (wedge, phalanx) can easily pierce and breach the wall of squares.

Finally, drilled troops and soldiers with great moral are the best to adopt this formation because they are the quickest to perform reformations and endure the contact from far and close without loosing unit cohesion ; while heavy troops are more dedicated to this role, light feet can too use this formation when they are out of reach of ranged threats or armoured with protections efficient against projectiles weapons. In the end, it is up to the commanding officers to estimate when he must use the square formation.

SECTION I : FORMATION
The infantry square belongs to defensive infantry tactical formations, among the shield wall or the testudo (and often combined together according the situation), and his the answer to mounted forces ; when only infantry is present on the battlefield or when shock cavalry is not present, infantry units are not inclined to use a square and will instead adopt more mobile formations (the trade of mobility to protection only happens when your own mobility is outranked by our opponent).

PARAGRAPH I : TACTICAL REVIEW
The key elements of this specific formations highlight, in fact, the performance of the infantry unit and - in the same way the differance between seasonned soldiers and raw levies is clearly present - drilled and poor trained troops will perform the formation by great differences and thus will get a sensible different result :


 * Time and space formation : An infantry square is basically an hollow square where troopers are ordered according their veterancy, their equipment and their rank (and the time they had to perform the reformation) :
 * The outer ranks are formed by the heavier soldiers (endowed with better body armours and shield) to reduces effectivity of ranged weapons and improves the moral of the wall (as armoured soldiers are more prone to endure physically and moraly arrows volleys) ;
 * The inner ranks welcomes lighter troopers, wielding ranged or staff weapons, dedicated to strike opponents from afar while leaving out of reach (save for missiles attack) ;
 * The corners of the formation are the most vulnerable part of the square and here are positionned the seasonned soldiers of the unit, with their NCO near ;
 * In the hollow center is located the commanding officers, the banners, the drummers and any other memnber of the unit general staff ; some experienced commanders keep in the hollow center a portion of the unit as "reserve", often light but seasonned soldiers, to  plug a breach in a wall when the situation happens.


 * Resistance : In theory, an infantry square made of brave soldiers is impervous to any cavalry unit and mounted troops are thus reluctant to charge a determined infantry square because, once the charing momentum lost and in the case of no breachs in the wall, cavalrymen are virtually useless and kept pinned here with the infantry unit they failed to break... But theory remains in books and nevers survives the dire touch of a real battlefield :
 * Squares were invented to prevent the charges instead of holding it, because it always end in a bloody mess for one side (routed infantry is quickly wiped out when the loose of expensive cavalry is basicaly expensive...) and many units of questionable quality adopts this formation (as they do with a shieldwall) to rise the moral, decreases the threat of near mounted unit and - here is the reason why many commanders use it - reduces the risk of fleeing of these soldiers (as moving will expose them to a more dangerous situation than remaining here) ;
 * Shock impact is related to the weapons AND the armours, multiplicated by the speend and the deepth of the unit ; shock cavalry will surely rout light foot when heavily armoured infantry will cut the horse in pieces. Light infantry favors mobility and harrasing impact when heavy infantry accounts on its armours and shock impact, so light troops must evade shock with heavy cavalry when heavy ones must reach shuch contact.
 * Heavy infantry is more expensive, trainted and "fortress-like" than its light and cheaper counterpart, so a square will help to increase their survivality. In the opposite, raw and poor levies will probably break quickly and drops down the balance of the front line...


 * Moral : When besieged, defenders are - in short - back against the wall without nothing other than their defending body to protect their most valuable possessions (family, home, money, even honor...) and the promise of a bloody death without any mercy in case of wall breaching ; surprisily, they turns bold and brave, holding the stone wall with the might of heroes and the stance of veterans (even peasants and burgesses...), because they have nothing to loose and nowhere to flee and the wall is the only place where they have a little chance to survive the meeting with angry horses... A square being a tiny man-made fortress on the battlefield, it shares the same situation :
 * The CO and NCO - being in the middle of the square - can survey and lead (inspirate or punish in fact) the ranks of the wall in a most efficient way than a standard formation ;
 * Colours in the middle, brothers in arms around, enemy in front, nothing to fear from the flanks or the rear... cools deeply the mind of the mere soldiers ;
 * When the unit face a dire situation, like being isolated or when the army begin to rout, forming a square can help to keep the moral high and the cohestion, especially when pursuing cavalry is near ; because the most important part of killed in action happens when an unit flees, preventing such unit to flee reduces the looses and can even help to stabilize a flank or induces a retreat instead of a rout, because in the opposite:
 * Unit in closer order with decent armour and good command can endure missiles and suffers only little effect because soldiers supporting each other decreased drastically the impact of arrows and bolts (like in a shieldwall) but once the order is broke, protection is scarced and the unit can be wiped in no time ;
 * The proximity with some terrain features (rivers, marshes, deserts, frozen lake or stream, sea...) can wipe dozens of troopers when the runaway sinks or starves in minutes, hours or days...
 * Fleeing troopers are very susceptible to cavalry assault and light troops pursuit, in one hand because they are easy target, on the other hand because they will inflict themselves important self-casualties when the wounded is crushed alive by the runaway and the brave pushed down by the fleeing wave...
 * Mobility