specifics in Spear fighting combat

[Kineas]

Hmmm.

Well, I have fifteen years of military service in some of the world's finest vacation areas--I've done both "garrison" military and ship military and on the ground wandering the jungle military. And about 50% of my reenactor friends are veterans. We drill once a month in the winter and a weekend a month in the summer. I (briefly) ran the US Navy drill team (away back in 1988).

So I'm not a complete tyro about drill. But I am very interested in yours. And all my years of reenacting other periods and being an officer in the Navy and doing drill doesn't equal anything compared to you folks who've already done some drill and learned things. Please don't confuse my willingness to question sources (the duty of every living historian, right?) with lack of respect.

As to groups in Greece--I'd just like to meet you gentlemen, and perhaps see your groups in action--perhaps receive some drill.

As to my own experiments, the first thing I'm going to try, if my friends and sometime enemies will tolerate me at Lansing Manor, is moving in open order (your order) with an 8 x 16 man block, and then going from open to close, and then charging. My experience of wheeling large blocks is one of the things that has made me so argumentative on this list, but then, I note that most attempts to wheel in period ended in disaster, like the Spartans at Corcyra.

Then, at the other end of the spectrum this fall I'm organizing a very small (could be just 5-6 of us) immersion/camping event in the Adirondacks. That';s why I have another thread about packs...

Thanks for the debate. I think I've sounded off too much for a new guy, and I'll lie in the weeds for a while!

If I get the guys at Lansing to do some marching, I'll post the results. Please send me any advice you have to offer about Greek marching and the open to close order drill you practice.

Giannis, I still owe you a diagram to explain my thoughts on the spartan marching. I think it is important because Xenophon mentions it in the Constitution of the Lacs, and then Asclepiodotus and Arrian call the very same drill the 'Spartan" method of forming from the rear to the front, and that satisfies my two source criterion for accuracy--in other words, I think it is something that the Spartans actually did. If so, it means that the Spartans kept a full file distance between men, as the counter marching files had to fit between the standing files.

"Or again, if the enemy appears in the rear while they are in this formation, each file counter-marches, in order that the best men may always be face to face with the enemy. [9] True, the leader is then on the left, but instead of thinking this a disadvantage, they regard it as a positive advantage at times." Xenophon Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 11.8 and following.



Asclepiodotus is a debatable source--he's contemporary with Seneca (AD 50 or thereabouts.) But the current fad in academia is to take Asclepiodotus as a re-write on Posidonius, who was Pompey's friend, and who had access to the Greek tactical manuals now lost. I'm with Arrian, that the whole manual is too full of useful stuff to be made up.

Anyway, hope this explains my point of view a little.