Gang combat

[PMBardunias]

Sorry Paul,
I don't see how this can be used as an analogy... no shields, no spears, and none of the good order essential to the success of the phalanx described in the literature...

The point of the video is that there is "good order" all over the place. Men are keeping a personal distance that some authors have conjectured could not be done without precise discipline and training. Don't confuse a box-like appearance and precise placement in ranks with good or close order. These men obviously would be called a phalanx, and a close order one at that, were they fighting in panoply. The shields surely help with spacing, and the spears ultimately determine the stand-off distance between the two front lines, but the general formation of men requires neither of these and is based purely on interpersonal spacing. Remember that this is not a direct analogy to a late 5th century Spartan phalanx, but a view of what surely preceeded it centuries earlier. The "good order" we read of in Greek literature was a means of gaining greater control over a formation like the one seen here, thinning it for example, but not the only means of achieving it. Many modern authors will claim that what you see on those videos is impossible- close-ordered massing of men brought ot "battle" with no boundaries to force them together and neither drilled formation nor command structure.