Did infantry lines fragment when advancing against enemy?

[Jim Webster]

So are we close to concluding that "Did infantry lines fragment when advancing against enemy?" can be answered as "Infantry lines had to make significant efforts not to fragment when advancing against enemy"?

I would agree with this. I would suggest that the default case was the line fragmenting. Discipline, training, NCOs prodding with their staffs, centurions hitting men with vine staffs, were all there to try and stop or at least delay this process

[RichT]

So are we close to concluding that "Did infantry lines fragment when advancing against enemy?" can be answered as "Infantry lines had to make significant efforts not to fragment when advancing against enemy"?

I hope so, since that was obviously the correct answer from the outset.

[Erpingham]

I am surprised that, having provoked the topic, Justin has not produced more examples and models.

[Justin Swanton]

I am surprised that, having provoked the topic, Justin has not produced more examples and models.

Well, no. It wasn't my thread to begin with, though I'm genuinely interested in knowing to what extent infantry line fragmentation is a thing. But I hardly have the erudition to give examples from distant Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages (and beyond). Thus far the thread has been an interesting learning process.

[Erpingham]

I am surprised that, having provoked the topic, Justin has not produced more examples and models.

Well, no. It wasn't my thread to begin with,

Your idea though

Actually it's an excellent thread topic: "Did infantry lines fragment when advancing against enemy?

Glad you are learning stuff.

[Erpingham]

To add a non-medieval example, I noticed this in the collection of sources posted in the battles topic under Issus

"[Alexander] continued to lead on in line, at marching pace at first, though he now had Darius' force in view, to avoid any part of the phalanx fluctuating in a more rapid advance and so breaking apart.  Arrian, Anabasis 2.10 (3)

Seems fairly clear that fast advance was the enemy of good order and a potential cause of breaking formation.