Advantage of the Pilum over Bows and Arrows?

[Lucius Duccius Rufinus]

My view of issue is that pilum was more of "shock" weapon than "fire" weapon, to use those terms.

Since Romans usually charged to melee right after pila volley, it's use was lot more integrated to their heavy infantry combat tactics than bow & arrow.

While bow & arrow, or older times javelins used by velites etc. or stones used by slingers, could be used to weaken enemy, they were rarely decisive weapons. Even when enemy was weakened by missile fire, it usually required infantry or cavalry charge to break the enemy and aquire victory.

So, in my view, bow, sling & javelin were support weapons, but pilum was integral part of main infantry effort and thus lot more than just support weapon.

Agree with that fully, the user of archers and pila are two totally seperate weapons to fill a different purpose, pila IMO were used to break a charge or expose an enemy before a charge. also as mentioned pila had more penetrating power, with the weight of the javalin and design... and as also mentioned above its kind of hard to have the same protection from a scuta when your having to use both hands to fire your bow!! however i suppose a legionary could have used his bow in a similar fashion to the way medieval pavise crossbowmen would have fought, proping the shield on the ground and hiding behind it while reloading, or in this case preparing another arrow to fire... dont have any evidence of that, but i imagine in most case as people have stated if you were an archers in the roman army that was most likely your only job!