09-29-2012, 04:03 PM
Quote:I’m curious about something in the evolution of warfare. Please correct my sweeping generalization of centuries of military history if I’ve made any glaring errors.
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It's certainly not that - it, if anything, is simply a concentration on a term.
I think it's fair to say that 'we' now tend to use the word 'phalanx' along with the word 'pike' - and thus automatically then delineate down to an Alexandrian and Successor style unit. However, both the Greeks used the term earlier for Hoplite units and even Roman writers later when talking about the legions. In short, 'phalanx' is probably better defined as a 'multi-rank formation of regular soldiers trained to move and fight as a cohesive formed body'. It is a result of using the available arms and armour and sufficient training to get soldiers to move and work together as a team that produces a result.
The Greeks started it and their well-trained and equipped, but normally small, armies used them effectively. Philip and Alexander developed it, made the spars longer into pikes and the formations deeper and could use them just the same way as Napolean did later with his conscript columns - to step forward en masse and grind down the opposition, whilst remembering to support their flanks and then use heavier cavalry to devastating effect.
The Romans, if you then consider them more as heavy, close order, peltasts used their weapons (which could perhaps be considered more flexible in nature than just a pike against a range of enemies) in conjunction with the manipular tactic to disrupt and break up pike phalanx formations. Once they're are beaten, we just then hear less about those tactics - as Rome then tended to face more 'barbaric' enemies.
Tactics, formations, unit organisation and current arms and armour, along with the nature of your enemy all develop and change together and cannot be considered in isolation.
