@Mamba219: @Mamba219 said:
This question is harder to answer than you think. Technology makes an extraordinary difference - were Alexander's armies to go against a 19th century European army, they'd be completely wiped out. I assume you mean in terms of overall achievement in their day and age.
If, for sake of argument, Alexander's armies were to engage in battle with a European army of the Napoleonic era they wouldn't fare as badly as you'd think.
Statistically, armies which relied upon muskets as their primary weapon had an incredibly low percentage of inflicting casualties during the course of battle due to the highly unreliable nature of the weapon. Even two armies drawn up in formation at "point blank range" would inflict casualties by scoring hits at a rate of 10%, or less. Some armies fared even worse, such as both sides of the American Civil War which would inflict casualties at a rate of 6-7% of shots fired.
Artillery was a far more effective killer during this period. Poor medical technology ranked second as a "battlefield killer" during this era of warfare.
There's been some very interesting research on this topic.
Military doctrine of this era was to draw your army up in formation in front of another and then fire volleys until the opponent withdrew due to the enemy formation's morale breaking ... not because they had sustained devastating losses. Conversely, Alexander's forces would immediately engage the enemy in melee combat where they would have a significant advantage over a Napoleonic army in many ways. And while you might think "the Napoleonic army would be firing at Alexander's troops during their advance," this is actually not necessarily the case. Many generals of the period knew it was a waste of time to let their infantry fire volleys until the enemy formation was much closer. There are battlefield accounts of two armies less than fifty yards apart and having not fired a shot at each other yet while they patiently wait for both sides to get in formation. This is also due to the nature of how a formation advanced, the French army would advance in columns and then move horizontally across the face of the enemy formation so as to reduce their exposure to enemy fire until they were within a much more effective range. Incidentally, a very similar strategy of advance was used by Nelson for exactly the same reason.
Napoleonic armies would suffer huge casualties in any engagement, but would ultimately prevail due to the nature of musket armies: they require less training time than prior methods of army formation. Alexander could not endure sustained casualties, nor could any army until the invention of firearms.
For a real example on this hypothetical look into the Zulu war against the British. The British were able to win by attrition, not by military superiority given to them by technology. Believing otherwise is to believe in the hubris of a western-centric view of military history.
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