Wheeling the phalanx

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

A bit late,I suppose, to enter in this discussion...
A Greek phalanx would turn about face as following:The front ranker would turn and walk about face.then every hoplite following would also turn about face and would stand just behind the front ranker,so each one would have the same position in the phalanx as he had fefor.The only think that changes in the whole phalanx is that the right wing becomes left and the oposite.
Now,I don't know how a phalanx would turn and reform in 90 degrees,but I suppose that would be time consuming or even impossible for a not highly trained phalanx.When outflanked a phalanx would usually hope that it's right wing wins first.I'm not aware of any clasical phalanx winning a battle when outflanked by turning even a small unit.On the other hand Spartans managed to wheal considerable part of their formation to flank the enemy,was it in Nemea?That was different though as they din't have to think of an enemy charging against them and we don't know how long it took them.

Now Macedonian phalanxes were actually more flexible due to better organisation.As already stated,they would(like Spartans were supposed)turn by unit.If you form a unit of 256 men 16 deep,you have a square 16x16.In the Macedonian phalanx the "ouragos" would become front ranker and the front ranker ouragos.Now,possibly the ouragos was not so well equiped as front rankers,but anyway this would be a very special occasion to turn about face!In the same way the pikephalanx could turn 90 degrees without willing and would again form a aquare 16x16

As Stefanos said,turning about face was much easier than whealing for all phalanxes.I read somewhere that Alexander was experimenting with putting light troops even between every phalanx syntagma(256 men)

Khairete
Giannis