Mail replaced segmentata? Why?

[Caius Fabius]

Did fighting technique in the roman army ever move away from the tight formation?

In this formation I would think the scutum and Seg would offer best protection.

So is ther eany evidence to suggest, that as teh barbarians changed to a more powerful overhead swing to cause damge, that the tight formation fighting technique needed to adapt and change? (Personally I have no experience of such combat re enactment)

Did teh roman soldier have to learn a new fighting technique with the longer spartha..in this case would maille have been preferable, more ease of movement as opposed to teh tight formation stabbling advancing technique?

Food for thought?

Actually the 'tight formation' is only one theory of how the Romans fought. Ancient sources can be found which write that each Roman soldier had a frontal area of five feet to protect, which means that they were not all crowded together like we see in the Asterix movies and shieldwall type formations, unless they were in specific, temporary formations. Peter connolly said that Caeasr's writings showed that the helvetii used a shield wall formation which was destryoed by J. Caesar's troops through the use of pila and a more fluid fighting style. The destruction of the Successor phalanxs by the Republican style Roman manipular tactics also do not support the 'tight formation' theory. A recent book from our recommended reading list also goes into some detail about Roman fighting styles.Soldiers and Ghosts