Everybody was shieldwall fighting ....?

[Erpingham]

Also I guess that if Germans formed shieldwalls in dire circumstances means that it was viewed as mainly defensive.

If the Romans had lot of pila left, putting a few volleys into a shiedlwall would surely create gaps to exploit purely for the fact that many shields would be made unuseable?

This reminds me of another battle (with the Gauls I think) where pila are noted as pinning shields together, which implies a close, overlapped shield formation.  I can't recall the details but I'm sure Patrick can   Be interesting to see if the barbarians were on the attack or defensive at the time.

[aligern]

Its Bibracte which is covered in the Battles section of the Forum here.
Go look;-))


Roy

[Erpingham]

Caesar's Gallic War book 1, Chpt 24-5

The Helvetii having followed
with all their wagons, collected their baggage into one place: they
themselves, after having repulsed our cavalry and formed a phalanx,
advanced up to our front line in very close order.  25  Caesar, having removed out of sight first his own horse, then those of all, that he might make the danger of a11 equal, and do away with
the hope of flight, after encouraging his men, joined battle. His
soldiers hurling their javelins from the higher ground, easily broke
the enemy's phalanx. That being dispersed, they made a charge on them
with drawn swords. It was a great hindrance to the Gauls in fighting,
that, when several of their bucklers had been by one stroke of the
(Roman) javelins pierced through and pinned fast together, as the
point of the iron had bent itself, they could neither pluck it out,
nor, with their left hand entangled, fight with sufficient ease;

So, essentially, the Celts are attacking in a very close order phalanx - so close it appears that the shields overlap.

[Patrick Waterson]

Exactly - this is the one case so far that is the exception to the rule of barbarian shieldwalls being static - this one is definitely recorded as moving.  For the Helvetii's shields to overlap they would probably have to be advancing with an 18" per man frontal spacing - like the Macedonian phalanx - or in any event something rather less than the usual 3 feet per man.

[Imperial Dave]

If they are in dense formation with shields overlapping then then the advance will be slow and not a feral charge. Its unbelievably difficult to hold a shieldwall and charge over anything other than a few steps

[Patrick Waterson]

This is the impression one gets from Caesar's account.  He calls it a 'phalanx' rather than a testudo, which may be a clue to very close spacing, but it was a phalanx without pikes, so there was nothing to get in the way of the pila, which accordingly made a mess of the shieldwall.  The Helvetii advance was evidently sufficiently slow and deliberate for the Romans to be able to aim and hurl their pila, perhaps two volleys, and then close sword in hand.

[Imperial Dave]

ouch.....

Turkey shoot springs to mind

[aligern]

Yes, which is one reason that I doubt that the best Celts fought in the front rank. I think that is something we wargamers thought up!

Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

One suspects that the Helvetii shieldwall could shrug off ordinary javelins such as those in general Gallic use, but that the penetrative capability of the Roman pila came as an unpleasant surprise.  The shields did at least prevent the men behind them from becoming pincushions, but the front ranks of warriors were effectively shieldless in the ensuing melee.

Caesar also comments that the Helvetii conducted their entire retreat backwards, with nobody showing his back to the Romans.  This may have been the effect of their very close formation as much as their courage.  That said, their very distant future relatives did much the same thing when faced with defeat at Marignano in AD 1515 ...

[Duncan Head]

One suspects that the Helvetii shieldwall could shrug off ordinary javelins such as those in general Gallic use, but that the penetrative capability of the Roman pila came as an unpleasant surprise.

It shouldn't have been a surprise, really, because the Helvetii were not strangers to Roman methods of warfare; the Tigurini, one of the four pagi of the Helvetii, had crushed the Roman consular army of Lucius Cassius a generation before, as Caesar (BG I.12) reports.

[Patrick Waterson]

Very true; one wonders if the circumstances were different, or whether the Helvetii had used the same slow, solid, close-packed approach with success.  If the latter, did their success come from Cassius' troops not getting the best out of their pila, or did the Helvetii deliberately retreat leading Cassius past an ambush that smacked into his right flank?

[Erpingham]

So, we can say that locked shield formations, including those with an overhead component , were practiced in the first century BC.  If we were to look at descriptions of barbarians in later literature, do we see any change in this (e.g. a period of looser formations which then return to the closer order forms, perhaps when confronted with an increasing cavalry threat) or is there continuity?

[Patrick Waterson]

Gauls seem to have abandoned shieldwalls while fighting Caesar, and thereafter they had little opportunity to fight anyone else until AD 69, but Tacitus prefers speeches to tactics and his account of the Gallic Revolt (involving several German tribes who arrived to help out) is sketchy in its descriptions of engagements, though one gets the impression that the Germans, Batavii and Gallic rebels rely on swift attack and prepared defences (ditches and breastworks of stone in one case) and not on shieldwalls.

If anyone is familiar with Rome's wars against the Dacians in the 1st-2nd centuries AD it would be as well to know if the Dacians ever used shieldwalls, and if so what for (battle or siege).  My own impression of their tactics is that they relied on terrain and ambush to catch the Romans off-balance and get close with the falxes.

Alemanni and similar during the 2nd-3rd century AD should also be worth a look.

[Imperial Dave]

Shieldwalls are largely defensive and if they werent working against the encroaching Romans, maybe newer (more drastic) fighting styles and equipment were required?