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[split] Phalanx warfare: use of the spear
(08-24-2016, 04:51 PM)JaM Wrote: Bryan:

on your picture:



[Image: maxresdefault.jpg]

I'd say guy with the Spartan shield would be most vulnerable to side strike from enemy that faces guy with the  warthog or chicken shield..

Why, because he's a bit taller and has about 2 inches of extra exposed skin, it suddenly makes him an easier target? He's taller, that also means he has better reach...Uh oh, natural reach advantage means you might need to take you're spear back to the work shop and have the armorer add a longer shaft and heavier sauroter. You don't want to lose the War of the Reach Gap, where over the many centuries of hoplite warfare each side kept extending the shaft length of the dory to try to regain the advantage over the enemy! Oh wait, that never happened...

Besides as much, using an overhanded grip he will easily be able to parry any telegraphed underhanded thrust. There is no hiding where an underhanded thrust from the middle guard will be, its only going straight. So if you aim at his face or upper shoulders/neck with an underhanded grip, its going to go straight at it, on an upwards angle, and likely miss everything even if it wasn't blocked or parried.


JaM wrote: 
and why exactly it would have to be one or another? they could easily close in like this, and fight whatever gives them advantage if enemy got too close.. You should consider the possibility spear could be used in various role, and crouched lance is also one of the options..

You have presented two means of hoplite close combat. Spear fencing and charging with couched spears. You've discounted shield to shield, you've turned othismos into both sides pressing spears into each other's aspis' and pushing at each other. In every single possible version of your hoplite battle, spear length doesn't just have a small advantage, it is the primary advantage. So in that case, why didn't they go with longer and longer spears as time went on? The Peloponnesian War had quite a few hoplite battles between Greeks. Why not during the 20+ years did either Sparta or Athens simply add an extra cubit to the length of the shaft? Because then they'd automatically win every battle, because they had the reach advantage. But then their enemy would add two cubits to their spears. And so on, an arms race of lengthening shafts, all to gain advantage in reach. 

And yet none of that ever happened. 
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no because if you strike him sideways, he has no shield there, and you could even hit his armpit.. has nothing to do with his height. He is just much more vulnerable to flanking hits, and role of a guy with the Warthog shield, would be to keep his opponent busy, so he has no time to strike diagonaly against that guy.  you dont really need the most powerful strike for that.. just good reach and accuracy of hits.


and i really doubt he would be able to parry something he doesn't anticipate.


Quote:If reach was the main criteria for hoplite effectiveness, why didn't the Greeks go longer? Iphicrates' spear and the Macedonian cavalry's xyston were both one handed weapons much longer than the traditional dory. You'd think if hoplite battle came down to couched arm spear assaults and nothing more, then they would have figured out centuries earlier that the side with the slightly longer spear will always win. And yet, that's not at all how it happened.

and weren't Greek spears getting continually longer? the whole Macedonian Phalanx was made around the concept of longer reach..


And no, to me Othismos sounds more like a morale thing.. going forward into contact with enemy, not necessarily pushing him physically off the battlefield.. It is common thing in military history to use term "push the enemy" and not literally mean pushing, but having men to advance and "push forward"..  I think the combat psychology is one area that is greatly overlooked in all this, and instead such insignificant things like a speed of a thrust or few percentage stronger hit is being dissected to maximum, yet the base notion of human psyche to survive, is put to a side note... People are not suicidal, guys doing reenactment battles do take risks they would not take if they were in real battle.. same as guys playing paintball would not take in a gunfight. So yeah, having a long reach is something that helps dramatically with the morale of an average Joe, who has no intention to get killed... he would poke an enemy, but he would not be risking his like just to get a kill..

If you were in a war, would you risk your life the same way as you would do playing the game? i really doubt that, otherwise you would not be there.. and thats the base principle that is valid over the history. So maybe instead of looking for what gives best power, what is best from close range etc etc, it would be worth looking at which tactics gives you some standoff from enemy, yet you still are endangering them..
Jaroslav Jakubov
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(08-24-2016, 05:00 PM)JaM Wrote: no because if you strike him sideways, he has no shield there, and you could even hit his armpit.. has nothing to do with his height. He is just much more vulnerable to flanking hits, and role of a guy with the Warthog shield, would be to keep his opponent busy, so he has no time to strike diagonaly against that guy.  you dont really need the most powerful strike for that.. just good reach and accuracy of hits.

Look at the angle of the hoplites to the person taking the picture, they are 90 degrees to the shield faces. Based on your descriptions the hoplites will stop outside spear length distance from one another, so about 5-7 feet away, and then fence with one another. To actually get around the shield faces means attacking within 10 degrees or so from the front of the line, more sideways than diagonal. Unless you plan to get right up against the aspis of the ox shield guy you won't have any angle to go around the shield of Mr. Lambda, and that's implying you have the abilityt to deliver a blow from only a few feet away, a move you couldn't do with an underhanded Matthew grip because your spear point is 5 feet away, not 2 feet, which means to hit the exposed right of Mr. Lambda you've have to be standing in front of Guys With Two Chickens.
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no you wouldn't if both sides use spear for the longest reach, and would stay away from each other.. but you definitely would, if one side would use spears holding them in the middle giving up reach..

My view in all this is that casualties of such clashes would be quite small. Front rank is armored, yet some hits could be made as fatigue would kick in. you wound or kill few men in the front rank, (usually some nobles) and guys in the rear ranks who noticed this would start hesitate.. at some point they would just break and run away, at which point chase would start and the massacre.. for example in another Matthew book about Phalangites he claimed Pydna was a close call.. yet, Romans reported like 500 men dead or wounded, and Macedonian lost the army.. thing is, these casualties occurred during the time Romans were trying to get close, and once they did, and Macedonians ran, they just slaughtered them completely...
Jaroslav Jakubov
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(08-24-2016, 05:00 PM)JaM Wrote: and weren't Greek spears getting continually longer? the whole Macedonian Phalanx was made around the concept of longer reach..


And no, to me Othismos sounds more like a morale thing.. going forward into contact with enemy, not necessarily pushing him physically off the battlefield.. It is common thing in military history to use term "push the enemy" and not literally mean pushing, but having men to advance and "push forward"..  I think the combat psychology is one area that is greatly overlooked in all this, and instead such insignificant things like a speed of a thrust or few percentage stronger hit is being dissected to maximum, yet the base notion of human psyche to survive, is put to a side note... People are not suicidal, guys doing reenactment battles do take risks they would not take if they were in real battle.. same as guys playing paintball would not take in a gunfight. So yeah, having a long reach is something that helps dramatically with the morale of an average Joe, who has no intention to get killed... he would poke an enemy, but he would not be risking his like just to get a kill..

If you were in a war, would you risk your life the same way as you would do playing the game? i really doubt that, otherwise you would not be there.. and thats the base principle that is valid over the history. So maybe instead of looking for what gives best power, what is best from close range etc etc, it would be worth looking at which tactics gives you some standoff from enemy, yet you still are endangering them..

No, Greek spears weren't getting longer. Macedonian infantry was a complete reform of infantry, Phillip specifically changed them, basing them on examples from the Iliad, not just giving them slightly longer spears and slightly smaller shields. 

I've been in the military, in the infantry, and been in a war. So trust me when I tell you that if an enemy had such a major flaw that made him utterly useless in close distance like your model hoplite is, not a single soldier worth his salt wouldn't do everything in their ability to get close in, because then they win. You don't play the game the enemy wants you to play, you play to your own advantage. 

What I am trying to tell you, what others are too, that in a tight phalanx of near or overlapping shields, an overhand grip allows the hoplite to defend and attack from long range, medium range, and bad breath/shield on shield range, for both the front and second rankers. This is not possible with an underhanded grip, they cannot perform anything with their spears once the enemy passes the distance at which their spear points are at. After that point, upon getting within 5 feet of the JaM phalanx, they've hit the spear tips, and pass them by parrying them up with their own spears, and move forward to close killing distance.
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Phillip was never mentioned as an author of a Pike Phalanx.. Alexander is (not the Great one)


Quote:This is not possible with an underhanded grip

Of course it is... (and so far, nobody actually shown me why its not possible, you just try to show that overarm is better  - If Matthew is semi-right about the thrust speed for his undearm thrust, then 8.3m/s combined with a 1.3kg dory gives you 44 joules of KE... thats not that bad...)..  and nobody say they would have to stick with that grip no matter what... you could easily move the spear even to overarm if you have to.. but i'm saying that actual need was for the longer reach, and actual real battle were not fought at such close proximity as many think.. mind you, just 30 years back, everybody thought Roman Infantry was fighting with swords, exchanged the lines for fresh men and only used the javelins at the charge.. then A. Zhmodikov wrote his work and now everybody is claiming the same... so i would be very careful drawing some quick conclusions without having the complete picture.

 and your example from a war, tell me, how exactly were Iraqi insurgents capable in close combat? I guess not so much, yet i really doubt anybody was there running around fighting them hand to hand just because they were not good at it...
Jaroslav Jakubov
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(08-24-2016, 05:22 PM)JaM Wrote: no you wouldn't if both sides use spear for the longest reach, and would stay away from each other.. but you definitely would, if one side would use spears holding them in the middle giving up reach..

My view in all this is that casualties of such clashes would be quite small. Front rank is armored, yet some hits could be made as fatigue would kick in. you wound or kill few men in the front rank, (usually some nobles) and guys in the rear ranks who noticed this would start hesitate.. at some point they would just break and run away, at which point chase would start and the massacre..  for example in another Matthew book about Phalangites he claimed Pydna was a close call.. yet, Romans reported like 500 men dead or wounded, and Macedonian lost the army.. thing is, these casualties occurred during the time Romans were trying to get close, and once they did, and Macedonians ran, they just slaughtered them completely...

500 dead at Pydna, but a whole lot more wounded. That they won the battle and kept the field is why the wounded numbers were turned into dead numbers. And those 500 dead weren't equally spread out along the whole army, they would have been among the front rankers of the foremost battle lines of the Roman/Socii infantry, meaning a large portion of the front rankers would have been wounded or killed. Warfare was dangerous as heck back then, just not for the soldiers who weren't involved in it. 

I already did the math in a previous post about hoplites but since you obviously didn't read it, I'll post it again. If 300 Spartans show up for battle, and they choose to fight in a phalanx 4 deep, with 75 files, and they suffer 5% casualties (in keeping with low overall casualty figures, as described by sources like From Sumer to Rome), it means that 1/4 of the promachoi are dead or wounded. Let's say they formed up 8 ranks deep, that's 38 files (one not fully manned), and that would mean HALF of the promachoi are dead or wounded. 5-10% casualties were the norm for victors. Let's say that 10% casualties, at 4 ranks deep, it means 1/4 of promachoi, and 1/4 of second rankers are casualties. If 8 ranks deep, 1/2 of promachoi and second rankers are dead or wounded. 

Does that sound safe?
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that sounds a bit strange, considering usually king, or general was in the front rank.. if entire rank is killed, i'd guess remaining would rather flee away than continue  (but of course, this is SpartaWink ..  btw, didnt Leonidas die during second day, or was it third? (dont remember)

i think that Thermopylae are not a good example as Persians were not fighting in a Hoplite phalanx..


and for Pydna, 500 was the high figure , seen also 200 mentioned by Polybios and Livy (if I remember it right)
Jaroslav Jakubov
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(08-24-2016, 05:29 PM)JaM Wrote: Phillip was never mentioned as an author of a Pike Phalanx.. Alexander is (not the Great one)

Diodorus Siculus 16.3.1 says you're wrong. 
"The Macedonians because of the disaster sustained in the battle and the magnitude of the dangers pressing upon them were in the greatest perplexity. Yet even so, with such fears and dangers threatening them, Philip was not panic-stricken by the magnitude of the expected perils, but, bringing together the Macedonians in a series of assemblies and exhorting them with eloquent speeches to be men, he built up their morale, and, having improved the organization of his forces and equipped the men suitably with weapons14 of war, he held constant manoeuvres of the men under arms and competitive drills. 2 Indeed he devised the compact order and the equipment of the phalanx, imitating the close order fighting with overlapping shields of the warriors at Troy"
source






"and your example from a war, tell me, how exactly were Iraqi insurgents capable in close combat? I guess not so much, yet i really doubt anybody was there running around fighting them hand to hand just because they were not good at it..."

They sucked for the most part. Which is why whenever we had the chance we got nice and close with them and killed them. Often they used the maximum standoff range of GPMGs and RPGs to keep the majority of US forces outside of our squad organic maximum weapon systems. The point was that both sides new what their enemy were good at and what they weren't, and both sides tried to exploit that. Yours and Matthew's hoplite model has a major flaw in it that is easy to exploit in a way that hoplites are known to have done, get close. 

(08-24-2016, 05:37 PM)JaM Wrote: that sounds a bit strange, considering usually king, or general was in the front rank.. if entire rank is killed, i'd guess remaining would rather flee away than continue  (but of course, this is SpartaWink ..  btw, didnt Leonidas die during second day, or was it third? (dont remember)

i think that Thermopylae are not a good example as Persians were not fighting in a Hoplite phalanx..


and for Pydna, 500 was the high figure , seen also 200 mentioned by Polybios and Livy (if I remember it right)

Spartan kings died in battle all the time. besides which, the math is telling you its right. 5% of 300 is 15 total casualties, 10% is 30 casualties. There are 75 hoplites in the front rank, they would be the ones wounded, either them or the second ranks. Out of 150 men in the front and second rank, 15 total casualties means ten percent of the first two ranks are dead and wounded, or 20% of each individual rank, and with 30 total casualties means 20 percent dead or wounded, or 40% of each individual rank. Individually, promachoi would suffer more grevious casualties by far, so they'd have heavier numbers. Ranks 3-4 would barely suffer at all, besides from missile weapons or during the rout (but these numbers are assuming the side described wins).
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"btw, on that vase, isnt that grip a bit unnatural for such position? i tried it and it kinda feels quite awkward."

When we get to the point where you are telling a 5th century hoplite that he is holding his dory wrong, we probably have reached the natural end to the thread.
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hmm, ok ,then what are these Hoplites trying to say?




[Image: hb_1989.281.69.jpg]




or more serious one - any chance you can find one where sauroter is clearly visible and is used overarm?



[Image: 2two.png]

Technically speaking taking vase painting too seriously, and assuming the Hoplite fighting style off it, is like assessing modern infantry tactics from a Rambo movie.. (lindybeige said that i think)
Jaroslav Jakubov
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Evidently the potter believed the underhanded grip was best used for couched charges from the back of dolphins.
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or were strong believers in Red Bull giving you wings..

[Image: DSC_1961.jpg]
Jaroslav Jakubov
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(08-24-2016, 06:23 PM)JaM Wrote: hmm, ok ,then what are these Hoplites trying to say?


Technically speaking taking vase painting too seriously, and assuming the Hoplite fighting style off it, is like assessing modern infantry tactics from a Rambo movie.. (lindybeige said that i think)

See that is the kind of argument that ruins this discussion.  You argue with an ancient painter that he has drawn a hoplite holding his spear wrong, and when called on it bring up a straw-man arguement that other images show underhand.  I am a big believer in the underhand grip- it is irrational to deny obvious imagery.  What I and others have said is that they did not use it in formation.  Find an vase image of formed hoplites using underhand.  All images I know of show overhand.  This is why Mathew had to try to dismiss them as being thrown. 

I only wish we had the equivalent of a Rambo movie.  If we knew nothing about 20thc war and had First Blood.  We would know exactly how the M16 was fired, aimed loaded, select fire, capacity, and could get the cyclic rate from the audio.  Same for the M60.
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yes, it was a low blow, and maybe i could counter differently, but i didnt. I could just post the usual thing, like for example facts that ancient or any historical pictures cannot be taken too seriously, as they are not portraying reality but idealized situations, while Ancient painters have no issue painting human anatomy in very weird and unrealistic manner.. you can find all kind of strange stuff, like Hoplite holding his spear overarm, yet his spear is going not in front, but behind his head on the side where he would have a shield.. or for example Medieval painters that painted knights fighting each other with swords and cutting clean into their helmets which is pretty much impossible to do (you can bend it, but you wont cut into it.)

So that could be written, yes, but i posted that picture instead, because i remembered an similar argument ended with that exact picture..
Jaroslav Jakubov
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