[split] Phalanx warfare: use of the spear

[Paul Bardunias]

1. in video below Lindybeige doesnt agree:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOc9C-aPr4

2. that would have to be measured first. From what i remember, every times somebody did that, results were flawed, like for example only measuring the trajectory for throwing, not for thrusting.

7. guys behind are behind their own shields, so sauroter is not endangering them at all, plus, farthest it would go is precisely where their shield is. Which would actually allow transferring the movement energy of the entire formation into the speartip, but crouching the spear, fixing it against the shield of guy behind me and hitting the enemy like that in the charge.. momentum would give far more energy in such charge than any kind of a thrust. (charging medieval knight principle)

1. Ha, I got about a minute in before I ran into trouble believing him because my dory is 9 feet long and rear weighted to be the equivalent in reach to a 12 foot spear!  He is proven wrong from the get go.

The best way to think of it is this.  A spear couched underarm is like a gun in a sponson, while a spear overarm is like a gun in a turret. Far more targets.  It is often missed that these spears are long.  This means more space between the opposing lines, which in turn means less need to angle down to hit thighs and calves.

2 This is bull.  You are getting this from Mathew's book where he just decided that any test done by Gabriel and Metz that blew his pet theory out of the water was really a thrown spear.  See the attached image of real tests of strikes.  The left side is penetration tests by De Groote in a recent paper.  The right side is a table from a paper by Connolly from...wait for it...2001. If you are a man of honor ask yourself why that was not cited.  Are you getting a feel for why some are upset?

Your last point is again something that sounds nice until you actually try it.  Knights add the momentum of a charging horse!  A man moving at walking speed adds nothing compared to a strike.  I won't even go into how unlikely fixing a sauroter in your aspis is, but I do wonder what the heck you think a phalanx looked like.  In order for the second rank to use their spears underhand, they had to have their arms and shoulders right behind the sauroter of the man in front.  If the shield was in line with the sauroter, their spear would be in the back of the man ahead!