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The armies of Sumer could have thousands of soldiers; some city states could field armies five thousand or six thousand men strong. [1] In ancient Sumerian militaries, the king was the supreme commander of the army. However, smaller units were commanded by lower ranking officers. [6] Generals were valued in the ancient Akkadian military.
The Mesopotamian Civilization had an adept grasp of tactics. In fact, they are the first confirmed users of the shield wall tactic later made famous as the classical Greek phalanx and the Roman "testudo formation". It is unknown who first developed this tactic, but it is thought to have been developed somewhere between 2500 B.C.E and 2000 B.C.E
A close order formation is a military tactical formation in which soldiers are close together and regularly arranged for the tactical concentration of force. It was used by heavy infantry in ancient warfare , as the basis for shield wall and phalanx tactics, to multiply their effective weight of arms by their weight of numbers.
The army could number tens of thousands of soldiers, so the smaller battalions consisting of 250 men, led by an officer, may have been the key of command. The tactics involved a massive strike by archery followed by infantry and/or chariotry attacking the broken enemy lines.
The almost constant wars among the Sumerian city-states for 2000 years helped to develop the military technology and techniques of Sumer to a high level. [116] The first war recorded in any detail was between Lagash and Umma in c. 2450 BC on a stele called the Stele of the Vultures .
Theater strategy – Concepts and courses of action directed toward securing the objectives of national and multinational policies and strategies through the synchronized and integrated employment of military forces and other instruments of national power; Total war – Conflict in which belligerents engage with all available resources [3]
The Atlas of Military History argues that Lagash's victory over Umma is a more accurate historical record of early Mesopotamian combat than the Uruk or Kish, though it is less well-known. [29] Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia asserted that King Mesilim's original treaty seems to favour Lagash over Umma.
A Sumerian relief of Ur-Nanshe, king of Lagash circa 2500 BCE. This dynasty is dated to the 26th century BC, about the same time as Elam is also mentioned clearly. [22] According to the Sumerian king list, Elam, Sumer's neighbor to the east, held the kingship in Sumer for a brief period, based in the city of Awan.