What is the point of 16 ranks in a pike phalanx?

[Mark G]

Can you private message me your email address.

Unless you prefer to get the back issues and help the society.

I'm struggling to think of any respectable historians who take that view.  Zhmodokov, who really is poor on this when you read him, and whose conclusion was simply that javelins were worth some consideration, not that they were a primary weapon.
No others.

[Erpingham]

I'm struggling to think of any respectable historians who take that view.  Zhmodokov, who really is poor on this when you read him, and whose conclusion was simply that javelins were worth some consideration, not that they were a primary weapon.
No others.

Apologies, I think we may have a confusion of terms here.  I don't recall saying anything about swords not being the primary weapon (that was WMWW, IIRC).  There are, as I recall, a wider range of options than havy skirmishing a la WMWW and massed "chuck & Charge".  Didn't Sabin argue against a mass charge but went for periods of less intense fighting and missile exchange interspersed with shorter periods of close action, still maintaining the sword as the weapon of decision?   I certainly rate Phil Sabin as reputable.

Anyway, as you rightly said, we shouldn't reopen this excepting only if it has any bearing on the effectiveness of the Hellenistic phalanx, which is where Patrick came in, I think.  It is true that the pike phalanx seems remarkably pilum proof.

[Mark G]

Sabin was arguing for a non continuous melee approach, which most of us agree with - and have done since Keegan

- the tenuous follow on assumption is that the breaks in between those melee attacks was taken up with javelin skirmishing,

which is a lot less supportable - for simple reasons like,
where do the javelins come from in numbers to be worth describing as skirmishing (as opposed to just a loose throw or two),
how are they carried,
what are they doing when in a proper sword play period of attack,
and my and Roy's contribution - why waste a weapon designed to penetrate and disable a shield thereby giving a huge advantage to a short swordsman, by throwing it at a range that it cannot have the momentum to penetrate and can scarcely be aimed accurately?

[Patrick Waterson]

If there is nothing more to decide on matters pertaining to a 16-deep phalanx, we can probably let this thread rest for now and if anyone wants to open a new discussion topic on, say, 'Pilum or Pila - One Javelin or Two?' please feel free.

If extending any such discussion to how, when and in what manner the pilum/pila happened to be used in combat during specific periods (Republic, Early/Middle Empire, Late Empire) I would suggest extracting as much evidence as possible from primary sources.

Non-continuous combat could be covered as part of the topic, as the question does seem to bear on the tactical use of the pilum and other missile weapons.  Failing that, please feel free to open a discussion thread on 'Combat - Continuous or Non-Continuous?' or some similar title.

[gridnash]

Sorry,
It's my fault for creating a digression about pila (or piles, whichever is correct). Suffice to say finally that I do agree with Patrick.

Do we all feel we can safely conclude that wargame rules which give pilum-throwing legionaries 'a substantial advantage against pikemen' in the first round of melee are incorrect?

Getting back to 16-rank phalanx, I would sum up what I think I have learned so far as follows.

We have discussed 3 possible models of sarissa combat: (i) the 'fencing' model, where the pike is used to jab at the enemy on an individual basis; (ii) the 17th century model of 'push of pike' with the pike being unweighted and deployed at shoulder level; (iii) the Macedonian model, in which the pike/sarissa is held at waist level but with a similar coordinated pushing movement.

Nobody seems to like model (i), especially not the contemporary expert on 17th century pikemanship, because it would have a tendency to mess up a formation and either cause injury to friendly troops or require more space between ranks, which would make 5 protruding rows of spear points impossible to achieve.

The 17th century model is known to have been used in the 17th century, so at least it works. Do we know that the Macedonians did not use this model? A significant advantage of it is that it does not require the counterweight which we estimated might add 10lbs to the weight of the sarissa. This is well worth not having to carry around the battlefield or even on campaign.

The Macedonian model needs to have a counterweighted sarissa, otherwise the weapon would be very difficult to wield. This would make it weigh probably around 22lbs. Men could be packed together fairly tightly, such as 18" per file and 36" per rank, but all the spear shafts would need to be lined up very neatly in the small gaps between the files. 5 spear points could extend in front of the first rank (though apart from their impressive appearance, it is not yet clear whether that would deliver any concrete tactical advantage).

This is what I think I have learned so far and it leads me to wonder next whether the 16 ranks would be useful in terms of pushing the whole phalanx forward, as someone has suggested. I have 2 main reasons for hesitation on this point.
(1) With the torso rotated about 45 degrees to the right and both hands controlling the sarissa, what would a phalangite push the man in front with and what part of his colleague would he push on?
(2) Assuming continuous pressure from behind propelling the whole formation forward, what would happen when a sarissa pierced an enemy shield and/or man? There is no question of withdrawing the sarissa, so what does its owner do? He cannot stop or the phalanx might be thrown into chaos, and/or he might be trampled underfoot. He cannot press on with a 150lb weight stuck to his weapon. Does he drop his sarissa and go and finish his enemy off with his sword? (One thing that phalangites would not want to do is walk over wounded blokes who might still have enough strength to stick a sword up them!)

[Patrick Waterson]

The 17th century model is known to have been used in the 17th century, so at least it works. Do we know that the Macedonians did not use this model? A significant advantage of it is that it does not require the counterweight which we estimated might add 10lbs to the weight of the sarissa. This is well worth not having to carry around the battlefield or even on campaign.

The simple answer is that we do not know for certain.  Personally I consider it unlikely that a long tradition of sticking bronze bits on the end of weapon shafts would suddenly come to an end for no good reason, especially as a counterweighted weapon is so much easier to handle.  Having tried this with sword and bow (not my own, I hasten to add), I am happy that the additional ounceage or poundage is well worth having.

The Macedonian model needs to have a counterweighted sarissa, otherwise the weapon would be very difficult to wield. This would make it weigh probably around 22lbs. Men could be packed together fairly tightly, such as 18" per file and 36" per rank, but all the spear shafts would need to be lined up very neatly in the small gaps between the files. 5 spear points could extend in front of the first rank (though apart from their impressive appearance, it is not yet clear whether that would deliver any concrete tactical advantage).

This is what I think I have learned so far and it leads me to wonder next whether the 16 ranks would be useful in terms of pushing the whole phalanx forward, as someone has suggested. I have 2 main reasons for hesitation on this point.
(1) With the torso rotated about 45 degrees to the right and both hands controlling the sarissa, what would a phalangite push the man in front with and what part of his colleague would he push on?

Here we enter mild speculation country, but the easy answer would seem to be that torso presses left arm, left arm presses shield and shield presses the partially-rotated armoured back of the man in front.  This incidentally helps to avoid anyone getting into breathing difficulties through compression because a ribcage at 45 degrees is much harder to squash than a ribcage being squeezed directly fore and aft.

(2) Assuming continuous pressure from behind propelling the whole formation forward, what would happen when a sarissa pierced an enemy shield and/or man? There is no question of withdrawing the sarissa, so what does its owner do? He cannot stop or the phalanx might be thrown into chaos, and/or he might be trampled underfoot. He cannot press on with a 150lb weight stuck to his weapon. Does he drop his sarissa and go and finish his enemy off with his sword? (One thing that phalangites would not want to do is walk over wounded blokes who might still have enough strength to stick a sword up them!)

Having thought about this previously, if rather depends whether the sarissas are effectively locked in position or have a bit of forward and backward play.  If the latter, then the second row of pikes could ease the corpses off the first row of pikes.  If not, then the front-rank pikemen are carrying 'passengers' who are probably still alive and hence on their feet - if they stagger back with the pike, they keep the load off it; if they impale themselves further along the pikeshaft (which is much harder if it is tapered) then the second row of pike points can give them a thrust.  The load of the finally-expiring target would thus be carried by four, or even six, men rather than one or two.

However our sources do not have any references to men spitted on pikes being pushed along or carried like an impaled victim by the advancing pikemen.  This makes me think that a combination of (possibly) tapered pikeshafts and the natural reluctance of the average human to impale himself further resulted in the pikes being effectively self-clearing; casualties may have tended to drop themselves off by pushing themselves off the pikes.

Or the pikes may simply have broken, leaving the point and a bit of shaft in the casualty.

The Alexander Mosaic raises a similar question about victims of the xyston: Alexander has just skewered a Persian bodyguard, who is using one hand to try and keep the weapon from penetrating further.  What happens next?  Does Alex continue his thrust, and does the victim's grasping hand prevent further penetration, resulting in the victim sliding leftwards (away from Alex) off his horse and then, if Alex pulls the xyston back a bit, does the now-doomed Persian obligingly slide off the end?

Front-rank pikemen, whose shield arms were not constrained by pushing someone else's back, would in theory have had a couple of feet of play with which to advance and retract their pikes.  This might have been sufficient in the normal course of events to dump casualties off the tip of the weapon, especially if the victims assisted by convulsively clutching the pikeshaft when wounded and trying to extricate themselves.

And where Plutarch (Life of Crassus 27.2) refers to Parthian lances running through two men at a time, one is left wondering how they got rid of the casualties.  To get one opponent stuck on your lance is unfortunate, to collect two looks like carelessness ...

It's my fault for creating a digression about pila (or piles, whichever is correct).

It has to be the one or the other, really. 

[andrew881runner]

.

[Justin Swanton]

The Alexander Mosaic raises a similar question about victims of the xyston: Alexander has just skewered a Persian bodyguard, who is using one hand to try and keep the weapon from penetrating further.  What happens next?  Does Alex continue his thrust, and does the victim's grasping hand prevent further penetration, resulting in the victim sliding leftwards (away from Alex) off his horse and then, if Alex pulls the xyston back a bit, does the now-doomed Persian obligingly slide off the end?

If the stomach muscles are penetrated by any hard, sharp object they go into spasm, the body's attempt to create an ad hoc shield against further penetration. My guess is that neither the Persian nor Alexander would be able to easily remove the pike shaft - it would have to be yanked out by force. A pike penetrating the rib cage is of course another matter, but even then the intercostal muscles would probably require it to be pulled out rather than just let it slide off.

[andrew881runner]

The leaf shape of the blade could help in not penetrating to much while thrusting.

[Patrick Waterson]

And if the spearhead penetrated all the way through, as in the Mosaic, the sharpened rear portion of the leaf shape would help to extract the spearhead by cutting through any tightened musculature as the weapon was withdrawn.

Blood would also be a good lubricant, I believe.

[Justin Swanton]

I knew someone who had had a long knife pushed through her stomach such that the point stuck out her back. The knife would not budge and had to be surgically removed by cutting away at the muscle around it.

(shouldn't we start R rating this thread?  )

[Patrick Waterson]

As we are unlikely to be able to rely upon practical experimentation, I can only speculate that a weapon end attached to a pikeshaft might behave differently from an inserted knife, 80% of which will be inside the wound, whereas with the pike it would be the other way around.   19th-20th century bayonets and swords were designed with so-called 'blood channels' which were actually intended to allow air to enter and so prevent the blade being held in by tissue adhesion and suction.   These worked up to a point.  Infantrymen generally found that a good kick would free a bayonet; users of close-combat knives would twist them to aid extraction.

Most weapons of the classical period seem to have a ridge rather than a channel from the end to the tip of the blade, and apart from its reinforcing qualities (preventing the weapon from bending) it may also have helped to avoid the weapon becoming stuck in the opponent.  This is of course speculative.

What does seem to stand out is that we lack references to impaled personnel being hard to disengage from pikes.  One is left to conclude that it was possible for the pikeman to withdraw his weapon or otherwise jettison the casualty, although exactly how remains unclear.  The tactical significance is that a pike formation could keep progressing indefinitely without being halted by an accumulation of enemy casualties and presumably without losing a lot of pikes broken in the process.

[Mark G]

They may have operated on a slash rather than stab sort of objective, faces and necks being the mist likely targetable area

[andrew881runner]

Maybe they were trained not to stab deeply but only make many fast small thrusts so to incapacitate enemies without  the need to extract a deeply inserted spearhead. We should not forget that one of the phalanx was made to impress enemies so they would have retreated soon because they would have had the idea of not being able to stand against it. IN this sense a wall of pikes continuously advancing and thrusting fast (so not very hard and deep) in an infinite movement, would have scared more than pikes hitting hard and stabbing deep then going back to immobile condition. I even suppose that if the guy was entirely covered by the shields they were trained to put spearhead beyond the shield trying to slash rather than stab, which was impossible in many cases. I even watched a video time ago which demonstrated how spearman where trained to hit Hoplon in 2 peculiar points (lower right or upper left in front of face) so to make either the shield rotate leaving chest uncovered or the shield hitting the face so to incapacitate the guy anyway. This was demonstrated by the holes found on ho plons always in these 2 points. We should remember that a shield is not immobile but if hit hard tends to move so leaving gaps opened which can be used by other pikes to hit.
Anyway I think that it was not easy to stab or wound an hop lite in full armor even for trained pike men with longer reach than hop lites since all vital areas were more or less covered in bronze.

[Patrick Waterson]

I agree that most pikes would not be making holes in opponents but rather pushing them back; we see this at Cynoscephalae and Pydna.  It is only when the Romans try to exert counterpressure that they are impaled, which seems to act as a deterrent to others attempting to do so.

Greek hoplites would have tended to exert counterpressure (their fighting style depended on it) and so we would expect them to suffer more casualties in frontal combat against a phalanx.  However after Chaeronea, the Granicus and the sieges of Miletus and Halicarnassus they seem to have learned not to do this, because at Issus we see them fighting from behind a riverbank and in some sectors a palisade, suggesting they were content to let the phalanx come on rather than trying to attack and press against it.   The result at Issus seems to have been a stalemate which was resolved by Alexander's flank attack following Darius' departure.

Opponents who were prepared to be pushed back could survive against pikes, at least up to the point where being pushed back turned into being routed.