Wielding a sarissa overarm

[RichT]

There seems to be an echo in here, which is nice, if redundant.

I am not suggesting that there are no forms of non-lethal practice. I am just picking on Polybius.

You leave poor Polybius alone!

I suspect the problem is with the lethality figures. Beating up on a few Thracian tribesmen would probably be fairly non-lethal for the phalangite. Plus in societies with endemic violence, everybody living to a ripe old age wasn't expected.

It's an interesting question though. Other periods had high rates of service and high lethality (any prolonged war in the gunpowder era must have had very high lethality - yet they happened).

[Dangun]

I suspect the problem is with the lethality figures. Beating up on a few Thracian tribesmen would probably be fairly non-lethal for the phalangite.

Two things then to consider. If its not potentially lethal, is it good practice?
And if we want to say yes, than we have to rely on an enemy generously lining up to be scythed down regularly.

It's an interesting question though. Other periods had high rates of service and high lethality (any prolonged war in the gunpowder era must have had very high lethality - yet they happened). 

Absolutely! But only over relatively short periods of time.
Last century Japan got in a lot of practice, but 4% of the population died. Obviously there are all sorts of things wrong with that analogy, but its just for the purposes of illustrating you can't through 4% of your population away every 5 years.

[RichT]

Well at Issus the phalanx lost 120 men out of 9000 (1.3%) and was thought to have had a particularly bad day. A phalanx that didn't run away was a pretty safe place to be. I suspect that practice in getting killed wasn't particularly valuable, practice at killing was a bit more useful, and practice at marching, camping, drill, obeying orders, not being frightened by battlefield noise, handling the sarissa, route marching, building camps etc etc was most useful of all. Punitive expeditions against Thracians wouldn't have required the Thracians to stand still and be skewered to still be useful from a training point of view. I agree that major win or lose pitched battles every year would not be sustainable.

[Patrick Waterson]

If you mean keep up their skills/become crack troops by actually participating in lethal combat, then I don't think this can be true.

Skill is more a matter of training and orientation than participating in lethal combat, as Richard has mentioned.  In any event (as Richard has also pointed out), classical period phalanx combat does not appear to have been particularly lethal, at least for the winner.

You can't have a lot of practice without also a lot of death.

I would suggest that practice is what you do before you go into battle.  Battle puts practice into - erm - practice, as it were.

Troops who experience several battles, a few sieges/assaults and (although this was probably rare for phalangites) occasional smaller actions develop better coordination and cohesion, not to mention confidence.  This turns them into veterans, who are usually very effective in battle.  But trained recruits who have never seen a weapon lifted in anger can still be quite effective because of their training - the Egyptian phalanx at Raphia, for example.

Might I suggest that the topic has shifted from off-topic sarissa discussion to off-topic conversation?  However, I think it is a really interesting topic, so perhaps we can shift it to a topic of its own?

As soon as I know what the topic is actually going to be, yes.

[Erpingham]

As soon as I know what the topic is actually going to be, yes.

It would appear to be about the value of training and experience, particularly in a Greek/Hellenistic context.  Though this last may just be because it hasn't got on to Romans yet

[Dangun]

As soon as I know what the topic is actually going to be, yes.

I don't think the efficacy of training or experience is doubted.
I think the more interesting question is: How much combat experience did the average soldier have? I am positing the answer: very little.

In any event (as Richard has also pointed out), classical period phalanx combat does not appear to have been particularly lethal, at least for the winner.

This essential seeks to avoid the maths, by saying there is an inexhaustible supply of foreigners willing to die to give me experience.
Take a really simple case, two adjacent Greek city states who don't like each other. Pick your lethality numbers, maybe 3% for the victor and 10% for the loser? There is no way that a population could sustain annual practice, its too lethal. So I think that most of an army, most of the time, had no combat experience. But then periodically you have an unlucky age cohort who accumulate a lot of experience and probably have their demography and economy wrecked for a generation because of it.

There might be some excellent direct evidence that suggests otherwise?

[Patrick Waterson]

As we are settling into the question of training vis a vis combat effectiveness (among other considerations), we shall continue in this thread.

[Erpingham]

Returning briefly to the topic of sariisa making, I have found a description of Swiss 16th century pike making.  As suspected (by most of us, anyway), no lathes were involved.  The stave was roughly shaped with woodworking tools then (this is the bit none of us expected) passed through a metal die to ensure it was even.  Presumably, Hellenistic craftsmen were used to wire-drawing dies but I wouldn't know whether they could manage to scale this up.

[Justin Swanton]

Returning briefly to the topic of sariisa making, I have found a description of Swiss 16th century pike making.  As suspected (by most of us, anyway), no lathes were involved.  The stave was roughly shaped with woodworking tools then (this is the bit none of us expected) passed through a metal die to ensure it was even.  Presumably, Hellenistic craftsmen were used to wire-drawing dies but I wouldn't know whether they could manage to scale this up.

Interesting. Any links?

[Erpingham]

Returning briefly to the topic of sariisa making, I have found a description of Swiss 16th century pike making.  As suspected (by most of us, anyway), no lathes were involved.  The stave was roughly shaped with woodworking tools then (this is the bit none of us expected) passed through a metal die to ensure it was even.  Presumably, Hellenistic craftsmen were used to wire-drawing dies but I wouldn't know whether they could manage to scale this up.

Interesting. Any links?

I read it in a book.  But I was searching for parallel material.  Here though is an illustration



The original description is in Johannes Stumpf Swiss Chronicle 1586 edition, Book 9.

[Justin Swanton]

They must have had some comparable method. The spears from the Alexander Mosaic look pretty precise, with some subtle tapering.