08-24-2016, 05:32 PM
(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?
