Everyone can think of scenes from movies where two armies are standing opposite each other in straight lines, before both charging in for combat.
How did this happen in real life? Would armies have intelligence on the movements of enemy armies, or would it be by luck?
Was this type of battle as common as the movies cause us to believe?
I had some trouble finding earlier threads on the topic, but here are some. Quite some time ago this was summarised by u/Lukimscod (here) and u/vonadler (here). More recently our Greek warfare expert u/Iphikrates has written about what sort of geographical knowledge generals would have in this thread, and the military historian Bret Devereaux has explained this issue in some detail on his blog, discussing what a general's experience would be of reports, knowledge of the terrain, and viewpoint during battle