Wielding a sarissa overarm

[Justin Swanton]

Having done ECW reeenactment in the past I'm doubtful sarrissas could be easily used in that style, the left arm holding the weight is held around the chin/collar bone area while the right arm is acting as a counter and held along the top of the pike with the right hand covering the butt of the pike giving a reasonable amount of control.
The sarrissa has a whacking big sarauter at its butt which would be a real hazard to the guy behind and would be a big problem as it would limit what the pikeman could do with the business end as a result.

Pikes are also very tiring to hold in this position for any great length of time, they were only brought to the charge for actual fighting, so, (if I use the terms I know) to move towards the enemy at the 'advance' (pikes held vertical) or port (pikes held at an angle forward), the subsequent move to adopt the charge (pikes levelled in preparation to fight) would also have that sarauter arcing backwards and upwards past the ranks behind, the opportunity for chaos is enormous, especially at the suggested close order, I'd suggest that most sarrissas would entangle with the ranks behind before presenting an intimidating danger to the rear ranks.

I know the two styles may not be equivelent and while my opinion doesn't rule out a high fighting pose in the phalanx there are a few very practical reasons that it would just be more of a disordering factor than a benefit.

Having looked at contemporary illustrations of Renaissance and post-Renaissance pikemen, I honestly can't see the difference between how their left arm holds the pike and how the right arm could hold it with any more muscle strain. The sauroter would not pose a problem to the men behind as in the rest position it projects between the heads of the following rank and doesn't reach the rank behind that. When used to strike I envisage the pikeman raising his pike with his right hand, aiming it with his left, and lunging it forwards up to three feet - he does not pull it back first.  This makes the sauroter even less of a threat since it is now above the heads of the rear rankers.

Landsknechts held pikes in the levelled position for extended periods of foyning, or sparring, with the enemy line. I seriously doubt that trained and physically hardened men would have a problem holding and using a pike in this fashion. They certainly did it well enough in Europe to dominate the battlefield for two centuries.

Macedonian pikemen would also advance towards the enemy with pikes held vertical, and would only level them once they had adopted the close formation near the enemy. The actual pike fighting probably didn't last all that long.