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[split] Phalanx warfare: use of the spear
#31
lets do it differently..

in your nice red picture, how exactly are you picturing that man in third row would put his spear in overarm? (he has men behind him, and in front of him)... all pictographical evidence shows spearhead being  always up when held vertically, not down...

On the Matthew pictures - third is way too close together... really doubt they would get so close, instead they would be at the distance of the spears. there is no point taking almost 3m long spear, if you wanna fight 30cm away from enemy... (plus, entire notion of long weapons is to keep enemy at bay, not to get into a "fistfight", where dagger would be much more useful)

What is shown on the first picture, to me looks like a perfect way how to transfer the energy of entire formation into a spearpoint - you fix the spear with your grip, fix the sauroter against the shield of men behind, and then move like this against the enemy - you would not even need to thrust - just share momentum of the formation would do the work for you - weight of a man + his movement speed = much greater impact speed at the charge(locked shields together would also help i guess).  but of course, some spears would not even survive such impact, which is again, something quite commonly mentioned  (shattered spears upon impact) by Ancient historians btw..

now, back to overarm - main issue i see immediately, is the fact that spear point of balance is in the back, not in the middle or front, which is what you would want to have if you want to use a spear that way. Archeological findings of sautoters and spearheads which are in museum in Olympia, give us average weight for sauroter around 300-350g, and spearhead of 100-150g... so trying to hold it at 45 degree, you would constantly fight the much heavier rear half of your spear.

[Image: UO88Rl.jpg]

so even holding it in the middle would still put the point of balance in the rear part, so it would be pushing the rear part down...

Thrand in his videos always uses spear/heavy javelin with large spearhead, but very small butspike (if any) point of balance for that weapon is in the front.  I'm not saying his use is completely bad or something, on contrary, its very interesting and quite effective due to speed he can generate like this. but i would more imagine this use for those who used shorter throwing spears, and fought in a bit more open formation - really would not be surprised to see Roman Legionarii using their heavy pilum like this...


But, all things aside. I'm not interested in a blame game, or some flame wars whats better (had my share of such nonsense in the past).  I want to discuss facts, and theories and look from a practical point of view what would be possible and what would not.
Jaroslav Jakubov
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Messages In This Thread
RE: [split] Phalanx warfare: use of the spear - by JaM - 08-18-2016, 06:04 PM

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