Friendly fire (don\'t use your dory underhanded in a phalanx)

[PMBardunias]

Stephanos, have you read Chris Mathew's 2009 paper "WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE: WHAT WAS THE OTHISMOS OF HOPLITE COMBAT?"? email me if you want it. He attempts to make the case that hoplites regularly used what we have sometimes called the "high underhand" grip- either under the arm like a couched lance or parallel to the outer forearm- over the top of the shields. You'll see this in 300, Hollywood loves it. I disagree with this, and I found this image while putting together a review of the paper for my blog. He obviously started out from well within the paradigm of hard charging hoplites crashing together. In that context, what he describes could be superior, for such hoplites may well impale themselves en mass on couched dorys. Where his tactic falls short is that his grip is far inferior to the overhand grip if the enemy simply pulls up and enters doratismos.

The high underhand strike is very weak, moreso than low underhand, and allows for a remarkably restricted range of targets compared to an overhand strike.

He does claim to have a forthcoming analysis of impact angles of weapons on helmets that I am interested in seeing. of course it is a mistake to think that the angle of impact is radically different between a high underhand and an overhand strike. Many of these strikes are probably from after one side broke anyway, when underhand strikes come into their own.