1/8/2024 0 Comments Greek hoplite shield mu![]() This is seen in Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Germanic shield walls, where spears have their balance towards the middle because of the need for flexibility when the shield wall breaks down, whether it be due to penetration by an enemy wedge or simply charging to finish off an opponent. You won't be getting as much support from the second rank or even much from the people to your right and left, so having a more flexible spear is key. The balance is wrong for loose formation so you need a spear with a balance in the middle or at least closer to the middle or some proficiency with a secondary weapon, like a sword. The spear becomes slightly ridiculous to wield. There is no overlap or touching of shields and so in this loose formation you need a less restrictive shield.Ģ. The shield becomes unsuitable because you're doing a lot more one versus one fighting. If you loosen up the phalanx, a few things happen:ġ. The heavy armour keeps the front nigh on impenetrable to most infantry and the spears keep anyone at bay and allows the phalanx to advance. The point is to get as many spear points into a small amount of space in front of the phalanx. Secondly, a phalanx is designed for heavy infantry. That's assuming the hoplite even has a sword at all, since not every hoplite would carry one if they couldn't afford it. Man to man, a legionary will completely outclass a hoplite in terms of sword on sword combat and the legionary's more mobile shield is more than enough to give him that extra advantage to overcome the hoplite, with his clunky shield and little training. In an evolving world where combined arms was key, the Greek states stagnated and paid the price for it.įirst off, a hoplite isn't exactly trained with a short sword. The biggest failure of the Greek states in their wars against the Romans wasn't the formations and tactics themselves, but their short-sightedness and inability to incorporate good cavalry and other elements like flexible light and heavy infantry, as well as skirmishers. Hoplites after the 3rd century would start to use other, more flexible shields like the Scutum and Celtic shields, stressing the need for a more balanced and less specialised way of fighting. The design of the legionary shield allowed for some fairly good individual maneuvers on the battlefield, while the hoplite shield was restrictive anywhere outside of formation. The hoplite phalanx is fairly inflexible and so while it would have held out for a while from the front and maybe even come out on top, from the sides it was unable to put up an effective defence.įurthermore, Roman spacing was far more loose while hoplite spacing was fairly tight. Moreover, the flexibility of the Roman system allowed it to engage the hoplites from the flanks as well as the rear. The Romans were able to get past the spears, absorbing most hits from them, something light infantry like at Thermopylae weren't able to accomplish, and then get to work with the gladius, which would have had relatively trouble penetrating even the armoured linothorax of a hoplite. Heavy armour and close range weapons allowed Roman legionaries to get in exceptionally close, to the point where the massive one-handed spears the hoplites used became fairly ineffective (the dory is usually held from the rear, due to the balance of the spear being located there due to the weight of the sauroter and is less effective at close range compared to other spears). 2K A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia.846 A Total War Saga: Fall of the Samurai.
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