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Phalanx warfare: Closing of the ranks
#58
Thats pretty good.  Two points to change: on point 4, the zipper effect probably happens because you are holding an 8 foot spear and the guy opposite you has a knife-sized sword.  You can't fight him unless you go to the sword.  The guy beside you now is holdibg an 8' spear with your swordsman foe to his front, so he must go to sword.  This would collapse the whole line to sword fighting if carried out laterally.  Also, it is not clear exactly how the first swordsman closed in, we only know that they did from descriptions of shield on shield combat.  In a phalanx he may have dragged those men beside him into close range because they do not want to break the line.

Point 6: I am note sure how "concious" they were of othismos as we use the term.  The may never have trained for it directly- like Pressfield's tree humping.  That honestly would not help all that much anyway.  They may have just known from experience that deeper phalanxes win and that pushing had something to do with it.  Or of course they may have known all about it, I can't say.

As to your last points, the rightward drift happens initially on the charge and was probably more about the line closing up towards the right than the whole line drifting right.  If you try to walk straight with your aspis in front of you, you will veer right because your body is twisted, but having been in an advancing phalanx, I had to physically nudge the men on my left away from me and we all converged.

I you overlap right shield over left, there is a natural bias towards the right moving forward that could alone account for the wheeling, but when fighting close your immediate foe is actually a bit towards yoir right- his head is to your right for example.  Tis may also be part of it.
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RE: Phalanx warfare: Closing of the ranks - by Paul Bardunias - 09-16-2016, 05:39 PM

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