Ad Astra - Scipio and Hannibal - Vol. 10 Ch. 61 - Hasdrubal's Ploy

[MangaDex]

 

[Rosen_Ritter]

If he sacrificed 16k men to cross the Alps, how many does he have left? There's no way he'll sacrifice a massive chunk of his army just to group up with his brother. What's the point if you're not bringing in more manpower?

 

[leonpotosi]

Thanks for translating this!

 

[Markgraf]

@Rosen_Ritter According to the sources, Hasdrubal managed to escape the fight with his war elephants, his main baggage train, and some Carthaginian troops. As stated in this and last chapter, the bulk of the Carthaginian forces caught by Scipio's surprise maneuvering were his light troops and Iberian tribal mercenaries. The army Hasdrubal eventually led into Italy consisted primarily of Gallic mercenaries hired after he crossed the Pyrenees.

 

[9g9]

@Rosen_Ritter Don't forget that Hannibal managed to replenish his loses after crossing the alps using the Gauls of northern Italy so Hasbrubal could be thinking about doing the same.

 

[Starbuck]

@Rosen_Ritter

As Markgraf said, the Carthaginians used a lot of mercenaries in their armies thanks to the wealth from their trade in the whole mediterranean sea and silver mines in Spain.
While Romans saw auxilliaries (recruits from allied cities) as unreliable (and too weak or too strong depending which ones, like gauls/germans/samnites vs etruscans/sicilian greeks), and they made only a fraction of their troops, it was the opposite for the Carthaginians, who preferred to pay/bribe/convince others to fight for them.

 

[Radilas]

Thanks for the translation Hox!

 

[laiseran]

You have to love an excellent series with an excellent translation

 

[rrolo1]

That's a ... very liberal interpretation of the commander's intentions on both sides :/ Well, you have to add some drama to the thing, I guess ...

 

[Doomroar]

So is Hasdrubal planning to replenish his army once he crosses the Alps? because he just lost a lot of infantry, the Numidian cavalry, and on top of that has to cross the Alps which is not mean feat, how many new soldiers can he really recruit in time to refresh Hannibal's army?

Oh and to top it all off Nero is waiting for him, oh man these on coming battles are going to be awesome.

Thanks Hox!

 

[HughMann]

The Battle of Ilipa creeps ever closer.

 

[Remixman87]

Hasdrubal: I planned for your plan

Scipio: I planned that you would plan for my plan

Hannibal: I PLANNED FOR ALL YOUR PLANS!!!

 

[lomentree]

Thanks for the chapter Hox

 

[strider_01]

Almost at Ilipa, whooo boy.

 

[smartz118]

Scipio playing 4D chess over here.

 

[Njin]

@rrolo1 What do you mean? I'm curious.

 

[ScipioAfricanus]

I'm awesome

 

[HughMann]

@ScipioAfricanus

You're awesome

 

[rrolo1]

@Njin

It is nothing awesome, but if you actually read the descriptions of the time, it seems to me that the author ...well ... enhaced the foresight of everyone involved in this chapter. From what I understand, Scipio was not planning to push Hasdrubal to Italy, he just wanted to defeat him before he could join to the other Cartaghinian armies still in Spain ( that all combined were far stronger than the force Scipio had in hand and theoretically could revert all of his gains to zero if led by someone competent ) .

Hasdrubal, OTOH, for all the signs, did not wanted to to flee to Italy ASAP, but the fact that the battle was not going in his favour made him do the snap decision to save himself and some of his force and try to join his brother in Italy ... his judgement was that, if he was fully defeated, the other two Cartaghinian armies would not be able to beat Scipio anyway, so Spain was lost and he would be more useful in Italy anyway.

And on Hannibal ... well, he will make his ( IMHO ) biggest mistake of his campaign soon [/spoilers for a war that ended more than two millenia ago], so it is not like he had full foresight as well