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Kurt Scholz
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 Posted: Tue 03 Apr, 2012 1:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | The most recent scholarship on the sarissa rejects the heavy, blade head as misidentified and employs what we know about fifteenth- and sixteenth-century pikes as a basis for understanding. The epistemological validity of this approach remains controversial.
As far as the linked posts go, I'm under the impression that Macedonian phalanxes rarely if ever matched the valor or ferocity of the Swiss. (By most accounts, no contemporary pikemen from other nations did either.) While Alexander relied on his cavalry, the Swiss won their fame almost strictly through the pike and halberd.
Also, "push" just means "thrust." I doubt pike blocks ever engaged in the bizarre manner Clausewitz describes. (Why in the world would pikemen choose to not employ their primary weapons?) And, as I've mentioned repeatedly, Florange's account of Novara shows pike combat could be exceedingly lethal. Pike thrusts hit as hard as or harder than other staff weapons; di Grassi went so far as invoke geometry to explain the pike's potency. Commanders didn't universally oppose the fencing method: some encouraged it. |
Thanks for the information on the new interpretation of the sarissa finds. It's my opinion that this weapon in its original design shared characteristics with the cornel wood spears introduced among cavalry due to Persian influence. The difference was that there was a construction to stick these spears together and have one spear have a normal head while the other had the sauroter that would on a normal Greek spear be employed when the head snapped off. The Macedonian cavalry in turn adopted their spear from Skythian heavy cavalry.
It seems clear that the Macedonians weren't the normal heavy infantry country with craftsmen and a wealthy middle class, so their infantry was lightly not so heavy, with the best armoured concentrated in the most exposed positions.
The shoving is not a bad idea in my opinion. This blog by a researcher on crowd mechanics highlights how important equipment to secure breathing is in order to maintain intense pressure in a crowd and rip the enemy crowd apart (as the basic of hoplite warfare, different from Hanson's model btw.)
http://hollow-lakedaimon.blogspot.de/2008/11/...model.html
The targeteers of the Macedonian phalanx and the cuirass equipped troops of the Renaissance could also have done that, especially if the terrain made it a bad idea to lower the pikes at the area of the clash.
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William P
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| Posted: Wed 04 Apr, 2012 3:13 am Post subject: |
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the macedonian saurotor is, in my opinion, a devestating iten, it looks, to me every bit as effective as a late medieval flanged mace, and placed on a pole maybe half the length of a pike, we have a deadly polearm that can crush and pierce with impunity
also, its noteworthy that the roman infantry had their pila which are fairly good at disrupting a formation by creating gaps in the ranks.
now i doubt this on its own would have been enough to cause a macedonian phalanx to crumble since, as weve heard a lot the romans usually won against them when the formation was disordered.
also, while they are small, the macedonian phalanx possessed shields for each man,
and a macedonian pike block, as i understand anyway, didnt contain those 'auxillery' troops a renaissance pike block did
namely, halberdiers, zweihander wielders, halberdiers, not to mention men with muskets and men armed with the arquebus,
i imagine this would make it a lot harder for any one type of infantry to get through. themusketeers wreck havoc, the pikes keep shorter ranged infantry, and cavalry off the musketeers and the halberd and either targeteer/ zweihander wielders who have those much shorter range weapons, can hypothetically help keep men from slicing up a formation from the inside,
since a pikes biggest weakness is that theres a longdistance between the head and the man holding it. and theres this dead zone where the pikeman can neither stab the man who got close, or use his own weapon.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Wed 04 Apr, 2012 11:52 am Post subject: |
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The battle of Pydna highlights several aspects, The Macedonians had additional shoulder shields before reaching their combat range in order to deny the Romans the ability to create heavy losses within pilum range. These strapped on shields had to be disposed off for handling the pikes during the push of pikes against the Romans. The Romans then fled and split into small units that had more mobility and thus speed in order to throw their pila from beyond sarissa range. Then they both got into rough terrain where the sarissa then used was of little utility and the Macedonians had to organize getting rid of the sarissas and fighting with large machairas. Here comes the organizational problem, The Macedonians had two large blocks, as was common for Hellenistic warfare, that must have been cumbersome to handle in comparison to the smaller Roman units, leaving the Romans enough time to send their elephants on a flanking attack and disrupt the formation of one block and then win against a Macedonian pike block without pikes, fighting as targeteers with large messers so to say while losing the same fight against the uninterrupted other Macedonian block. All Hellenistic kingdoms (and the Hellenized Carthage) were capable of losing all in one climatic battle, unlike the Romans who had the economic resources and manpower to keep on fighting after losses like Cannae. So no Macedonian monarchy had much chances to experience fighting against legions and hone their skills to counter them. The homeland Macedonians and Epirotes that had the chance several times despite their limited manpower and wealth and did remarkably well under these conditions.
Some differences between the phalanxes in the Early and Late Hellenistic Age seems to be the lack of the weaponized sauroter and the sarissa that can be disassembled into two weapons in the late times. The javelin option is done away with, but would likely have been ineffective as the War against Nabis showed because the Romans were equipped to handle even heavier javelins like their pila. The armour of the phalangites seems to become increasingly thick and expensive while the blocks of phalangites massively increase in size and depth, reducing approach speed in ordered formation. And last but not least, the sarissa gets much longer in the later times, further reducing the ability to advance at speed while it is capable to pierce the scutum according to the account on Pydna (perhaps the less thick parts of that shield). Our Greeks sources also have a bias to not mention light armed troops and focus on the heavy infantry, so the phalaxes were to a limited degree supported by light troops, but these, expect for a few Cretan specialists played little role because they were non-Greek/Macedonian and thus people that had to be kept subjugated without much military ability. Both the Persian and Egyptian phalanx seems to have been abortive experiments. In order to win the push of pikes and the cavalry duels in the rather unimaginative wars of the diadochii it seems to have been considered better to have as much Greeks as possible as heavy infantry and to leave light infantry roles to barbarians with communication and cooperation problems with the Greeks. Cavalry, including heavy cavalry, was used from Barbarians, but they were a limited group, a nobility that was easier to fraternize with in a kingdom than with lots of subjects considering themselves equal to a Greek or even Macedonian.
So a faster pike phalanx with shorter spears and less depth could in my opinion stand a chance if they had armour like the one employed at Pydna. But Livy in my opinion is quite right that Rome could field more resources, including leaders than any of their opponents. In my opinion this has to do with the political and social system. The Hellenistic kingdoms had a king and Carthage a small nobility and no plebs upstart generals (no matter how much Livy badmouthes them these guys also served in subordinate leadership roles and were thus a most important part of a leaders clout).
I stumbled across some claims that in the eastern part of the Roman Empire some legions facing the Parthians and Persians are claimed to have operated as phalanxes with the sarissa. It's my idea that in theory you could create a pike by fastening the ends of the two pila (or a spear and a pilum) carried together and this construction could resemble the item used by the phalanxes of the early Hellenistic Age. I don't know if this was the solution, but I liked the idea and I most certainly would have tried it on a makeshift bases if I was a member of the legions there (and the real legionaries were certainly much smarter than me at that) and have tried to convince my legate of the utility of everybody having such an item to modify the pila as required. Just my 2 cents.
That was my opinion with lost of words, mostly from what I derived from looking at written sources. So if anyone has some suggestions I'd be glad to hear their opinion.
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William P
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| Posted: Fri 06 Apr, 2012 2:15 am Post subject: |
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also to asdd a THIRD voic into the fray i think it would be approprate to also highlight the tactics and organisation of the byzantine pikemen and the general formations and structure of the byzantine infantry
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/...archy.html
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Elling Polden
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| Posted: Fri 06 Apr, 2012 6:42 am Post subject: |
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The romans also highlight another aspect of the colective agressive behaviour desired in the renaisance pike blocks.
The republioica roman legionary was equiped in the style of the Samnites, with large shield, javelins and sword. This was a mode of fighting adopted by the romans after their own phalangites where defeated by said samnites.
So, what are the advantages of such equipment, compared to the phalanx? Here is my thoughts on the subject:
First we need to look at the phalanx vs phalanx fight, as we are allready discussing in this thread. The phalanx is very powerfull when handled propperly, and devastating agains uncoordinated foes, such as the asian leavies.
When fighting each other, however, they are prone to all the problems described by the renaisance writers. Namely, that they end up standing at safe range and "fence" with their spears untill one side breaks.
I have seen an article stating that the greeks would estimate 10% casualties for a loosing phalanx, and 5% for the winner. Indicating that even a greek phalanxs would break at around 5% losses.
While low compared to renaisance numbers, this still constitutes more than half the front rank of a 5 man deep formation.
Phalanxes also tend to pack together, as this is the focus of their training. Thus, they loose their momentum and are easy to fix in place.
The roman legionary's equimpment, on the other hand, leaves him two options. He can aviod melee and throw his pila, or he can throw his pila, and dive head first into close combat. "Fencing" at spear length is not an option. A charging legionary cohort will go directly into the push.
Or aviod melee all together, and wrap around the narrow front of the phalanx, and hammer them with javelins.
This will push the phalangites together, and devastate their morale, as their front corners are turned. (this is probably what renaisance swordsmen would do to pike blocks as well.)
Unable to see constructive courses of action, the phalanx falters, and falls back.
In the manipular system, the lighter hastari would probably wrap around the foes to "fix" them, while the heavier Principes went inn to finish them.
"this [fight] looks curious, almost like a game. See, they are looking around them before they fall, to find a dry spot to fall on, or they are falling on their shields. Can you see blood on their cloths and weapons? No. This must be trickery."
-Reidar Sendeman, from King Sverre's Saga, 1201
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Fri 06 Apr, 2012 11:36 am Post subject: |
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| Elling Polden wrote: | The romans also highlight another aspect of the colective agressive behaviour desired in the renaisance pike blocks.
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I like these ideas, but possibly phalanx is not phalanx. They can have short pikes with integrated ranged combat fighters, mostly throwing more or less heavy stone missiles. These would be Early Hellenistic phalanxes or with possibly shield and spear and slingers the Punic African formations. the Punic formations usually didn't defeat the Roman legionaries in a frontal clash.while the Epirote troops were able to stand their ground against the Romans. In my opinion, there must be more to the Roman soldier and I guess it could be the shields they adopted that were even better than the Samnite shields. These very durable shields could be punctured by a very heavy sarissa (such as at Pydna), but such a weapon was not handy enough for fighting the Roman swordsmen with their shields in all kinds of terrain (especially with a short and very heavy spear/pike). If we take the Renaissance the targeteers fighting long and heavy pikes and halberds (often used for stabbing) did face an enemy with considerable armour puncturing capability, as has already been highlighted in this threat, but they were quite immune, with their shields at least, against shorter and lighter spears/pikes like the long Moorish spears or Moorish pikes they had already encountered during their fights for al Andalus.
I guess there can be a relation between the weight of a pike and the length with heavier pikes needing to be of longer length in order not to create a vulnerability due to a too short and too heavy stabbing weapon without the ability to slash due to the overall weight distribution. Increasing armour of enemies of pikemen would in this context require longer and heavier pikes or a focus on shorter and lighter pikes in order to exploit the remaining less well armoured bodyparts.
The boar spear as the example of a short and heavy fighting spear has lugs that greatly increase cabaility by allowing to push and pull in order to create situations that can be better exploited against vulnerabilities than a simple stabbing situation against armour and it is not counterbalanced so rather top heavy, but short with some striking capability in a swinging mode.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Fri 13 Apr, 2012 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | [As I mentioned, we can explain this through the targetier's inability to resist cavalry. The fact that no army incorporated targetiers in the numbers Machiavelli advocated doesn't mean they weren't - to use Sutcliffe's words - "mortal to pikemen." Many writers noted the utility of targetiers who operated alongside pikemen, which was what Machiavelli actually proposed anyway. We can perhaps ascribe some of this respect for the sword and target to the idealization of antiquity, but not all of it. |
I'm not going to deny the utility of targeteers operating as an adjunct to pikemen. However, Machiavelli is proposing something entirely the opposite of this--his ideal army is fundamentally a large block of swordsmen with a small screen of pikemen intended to protect it from cavalry. He's putting the cart before the horse.
Going back to the original topic of primary accounts of sword-and-target men cutting down pikemen, I've located the passages most commonly used to illustrate the targeteers' advantage against the pike: Guicciardini's and Giovio's accounts of thei nfantry fight at Ravenna. In both cases it's clear that the targeteers made their deadly impact by intervening in what was otherwise a pike vs. pike fight between Imperial troops and the Landsknechts in French employ, so this is no negation of Seminara at all; there's still no evidence that a primarily sword-and-target formation would be able to stand up against charging pikemen in the open.
We probably disagree less on this point than it seems at first, since at the very least we both concur that a relatively small sword-and-target detachment could be a useful addition to a pike formation. What I disagree with is the notion that sword-and-target men were somehow better at defeating enemy pike formations than the other supporting troop types, such as Swiss halberdiers (who were described as flanking the enemy's pike formation and tearing it apart in one of the early battles), or, indeed, later Shot/musketeers who joined the hand-to-hand fight with the sword. None of them were surefire antidotes against pikes and, more importantly, none of them could be expected to adequately handle enemy pikes on their own if there had been no distractions (usually in the form of friendly pikes engaging them frontally) or obstacles in the enemy's way.
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | TAs far as the linked posts go, I'm under the impression that Macedonian phalanxes rarely if ever matched the valor or ferocity of the Swiss. (By most accounts, no contemporary pikemen from other nations did either.) While Alexander relied on his cavalry, the Swiss won their fame almost strictly through the pike and halberd. |
The Macedonian phalanx might not have been so (over)confident in its own potency as the Swiss, but in the Classical world it was viewed as steamroller that would have been very, very difficult to defeat frontally. Moreover, in the wars of the Successors, the phalanx appears to have become more important in itself rather than as a mere component in an integrated combined-arms system, and on occasions the rulers of the Successor kingdoms resorted to some drastic measures in order to secure a numerical advantage in their phalanxes to give their army a better chance to win through the push of pikes. Even in the Western Mediterranean, the phalanx was rightly feared, especially after Pyrrhus steamrolled the Romans twice in a row.
| Quote: | | Also, "push" just means "thrust." I doubt pike blocks ever engaged in the bizarre manner Clausewitz describes. (Why in the world would pikemen choose to not employ their primary weapons?) |
The "push" described there is probably a reenactorism--it has been used in (modern) England for a rather long time now since, though pikes might not be especially deadly compared to other weapons, even the blunt version still has a great potential for causing less-than-lethal injuries in a high-speed clash between two reenactment formations, so the "push" is used instead as a way to replicate the crowd dynamics aspect without risking the wrath of insurance companies and all.
| Quote: | | And, as I've mentioned repeatedly, Florange's account of Novara shows pike combat could be exceedingly lethal. |
I really wouldn't generalise too far from that one account of one single battle, especially now that I remember how the French were caught by surprise at Novara and were barely able to array themselves for battle before the Swiss came sweeping down upon their unprepared force. This lays considerable doubt upon how typical their (or anyway, their Landsknechts') experience was compared to other frontal push-of-the-pike encounters.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Fri 13 Apr, 2012 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | | The battle of Pydna highlights several aspects, The Macedonians had additional shoulder shields before reaching their combat range in order to deny the Romans the ability to create heavy losses within pilum range. These strapped on shields had to be disposed off for handling the pikes during the push of pikes against the Romans. |
Er...that's bizarre. The pelta had been part of the standard kit for the Macedonian phalanx since Philip II's day (Alexander the Great's father) and the phalangites did just fine with their sarissai without having to drop or discard the shield. Besides, if we believe Polybios, the phalanx also has an additional defense against the pilum in the form of the forest of pikes sloped upwards by the rear ranks (beyond the fourth or the fifth), and while this probably did little to stop missiles it could conceivably have reduced their speed and lessened their effect upon the phalanx.
| Quote: | | The Romans then fled and split into small units that had more mobility and thus speed in order to throw their pila from beyond sarissa range. Then they both got into rough terrain where the sarissa then used was of little utility and the Macedonians had to organize getting rid of the sarissas and fighting with large machairas. Here comes the organizational problem, The Macedonians had two large blocks, as was common for Hellenistic warfare, that must have been cumbersome to handle in comparison to the smaller Roman units, leaving the Romans enough time to send their elephants on a flanking attack and disrupt the formation of one block and then win against a Macedonian pike block without pikes, fighting as targeteers with large messers so to say while losing the same fight against the uninterrupted other Macedonian block. |
It appears that you're mixing up Kynoskephalai (where the Romans sent their elephants in and flanked the main Macedonian phalanx with ten cohorts) with Pydna (where the fighting was basically frontal, and the Romans got pushed back until the rough terrain broke up the Macedonian phalanx and gave the Roman some gaps to exploit). I don't recall any mention of the Romans sending their elephants in at Pydna (these beasts were largely held back as a deterrent to the Macedonian cavalry) or the Macedonians dropping their sarissai on an organised basis to fight en masse with the sword (the closest one gets is Livy, who mistook the Macedonian gesture of raising their pikes as a token of surrender for an event that happened before the surrender and allowed the Romans to move in).
| Quote: | | I stumbled across some claims that in the eastern part of the Roman Empire some legions facing the Parthians and Persians are claimed to have operated as phalanxes with the sarissa.. |
Not as such--but the Emperor Caracalla did institute some changes that can be read as a limited revival of Macedonian phalanx tactics in the East. Unfortunately we don't really have any primary sources stating unambiguously that these (possible) phalanxes were ever actually deployed in the field:
http://tabulaenovaeexercituum.pbworks.com/w/p...al%20Roman
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Jaroslav Kravcak
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| Posted: Sat 14 Apr, 2012 4:26 am Post subject: |
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Novara seems to play out about the same as battle of Morat, maybe not in details, but it seems in both cases Swiss had to overcome inicial resistence posed by artillery position with some defending troops, where they suffered considerable casualties and then it was basically a slaughter of unprepared enemy in their camp.
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William P
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| Posted: Sat 12 May, 2012 1:34 am Post subject: |
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recently i also found these images of the NVG group testing the drills attributed to the hoplatoi aka, byzantine pikemen,
http://nvg.org.au/gallery/Kontarion-project?page=1
http://nvg.org.au/gallery/Kontarion-project/K...rformances (drills)
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescrip..._46_1_2225 and this describes the deployment of the pikemen alongside the archers and slingers/ skirmishers
http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv10/Serge...yman/3.jpg this photo shows a cross section of the byzantine battle lines showing the hoplatoi in the rear 2 ranks, and in the front is an unusual trooper called the menalautoi aka menavlion bearers, these men supposedly held stoutly shafted spears (i think it was reccomended they use a WHOLE sapling as a spearshaft, minus branches.) with long iron blades (most assume these would be like lugged/ winged hewing spears like those of the vikings)
they were instructed to act like they are in the photo when helping resist cavalry. aka to plant the butt into the ground and point it upward. noting that the menavlion would hold fast even in instances when the kontarion (infantry pike) would be broken by a cavalry charge.
these menavllion bearers are seen as being alot like the daneaxe wielding troops at hastings, the hypaspists of macedonian pike systems AND, alot like the halberdiers and 2 handed swordsmen/ sword and buckler men of renaissance pike formations.
since they were a form of 'flying squad' that moved to wherever it was needed.
 Attachment: 34.02 KB
arrangement of ,*left to right* menavlatoi and 2 ranks of hoplatoi (pikemen)
also, note the fact that all 3 have shields while holding their weapons, which are all 2 handed polearms.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Sat 07 Jul, 2012 4:56 am Post subject: |
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| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: | | Kurt Scholz wrote: | | The battle of Pydna highlights several aspects, The Macedonians had additional shoulder shields before reaching their combat range in order to deny the Romans the ability to create heavy losses within pilum range. These strapped on shields had to be disposed off for handling the pikes during the push of pikes against the Romans. |
Er...that's bizarre. The pelta had been part of the standard kit for the Macedonian phalanx since Philip II's day (Alexander the Great's father) and the phalangites did just fine with their sarissai without having to drop or discard the shield. Besides, if we believe Polybios, the phalanx also has an additional defense against the pilum in the form of the forest of pikes sloped upwards by the rear ranks (beyond the fourth or the fifth), and while this probably did little to stop missiles it could conceivably have reduced their speed and lessened their effect upon the phalanx.
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That's a misunderstanding. The pelta is usually taken to be a small round shield not large enough to cover the whole body.
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/johnny_...ginal.aspx
There were likely also oblong shields in use and I'm not certain which solution was employed by whom over time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Macedonian_Army_Pezetairos.jpg
The narrative of Pydna is usually that the Macedonians had developed an additional armour device against Roman missiles. It was a kind of "plate armour" that similar to a bevor or a visor was used as missile protection during the advance for shock combat. The label shield more likely refers to the materials used, making it in design similar to a shield.
It probably was something like this guy is wearing on his shoulder http://watermarked.heritage-images.com/1197034.jpg
or it can reflect the contemporary Scythian costume of fixing a shield to the upper arm for protection while using both hands.
Some reconstructions of Scythians even give them shields like these http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons...armor.jpeg used in Siberia and North America. That's as yet an undiscussed possibility because the account is taken to mean one small sturdy shield strapped to the shoulder that was meant to provide better protection against the heavy Roman missiles. After closing within sarissa range the shield seems to have been an hindrance to optimal weapon use and had to be discarded as intended. The bad luck of the Macedonians, among other things, seems to have been that the Romans found out how they could create a new situation to use their deadly missile without the Macedonians having their useful additional armour in place.
Concerning the forest of pikes, it was a defence against javelins, but it was not perfect, as Pyrrhus already found out, so the defence was improved. Seleucid armour levels, who are the only phalanx that is not reported to have had a problem with the pilum and is mentioned with metal armour, were probably beyond the financial capabilities of Antigonids.
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William P
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| Posted: Sat 07 Jul, 2012 6:58 am Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | | Lafayette C Curtis wrote: | | Kurt Scholz wrote: | | The battle of Pydna highlights several aspects, The Macedonians had additional shoulder shields before reaching their combat range in order to deny the Romans the ability to create heavy losses within pilum range. These strapped on shields had to be disposed off for handling the pikes during the push of pikes against the Romans. |
Er...that's bizarre. The pelta had been part of the standard kit for the Macedonian phalanx since Philip II's day (Alexander the Great's father) and the phalangites did just fine with their sarissai without having to drop or discard the shield. Besides, if we believe Polybios, the phalanx also has an additional defense against the pilum in the form of the forest of pikes sloped upwards by the rear ranks (beyond the fourth or the fifth), and while this probably did little to stop missiles it could conceivably have reduced their speed and lessened their effect upon the phalanx.
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That's a misunderstanding. The pelta is usually taken to be a small round shield not large enough to cover the whole body.
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/johnny_...ginal.aspx
There were likely also oblong shields in use and I'm not certain which solution was employed by whom over time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Macedonian_Army_Pezetairos.jpg
The narrative of Pydna is usually that the Macedonians had developed an additional armour device against Roman missiles. It was a kind of "plate armour" that similar to a bevor or a visor was used as missile protection during the advance for shock combat. The label shield more likely refers to the materials used, making it in design similar to a shield.
It probably was something like this guy is wearing on his shoulder http://watermarked.heritage-images.com/1197034.jpg
or it can reflect the contemporary Scythian costume of fixing a shield to the upper arm for protection while using both hands.
Some reconstructions of Scythians even give them shields like these http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons...armor.jpeg used in Siberia and North America. That's as yet an undiscussed possibility because the account is taken to mean one small sturdy shield strapped to the shoulder that was meant to provide better protection against the heavy Roman missiles. After closing within sarissa range the shield seems to have been an hindrance to optimal weapon use and had to be discarded as intended. The bad luck of the Macedonians, among other things, seems to have been that the Romans found out how they could create a new situation to use their deadly missile without the Macedonians having their useful additional armour in place.
Concerning the forest of pikes, it was a defence against javelins, but it was not perfect, as Pyrrhus already found out, so the defence was improved. Seleucid armour levels, who are the only phalanx that is not reported to have had a problem with the pilum and is mentioned with metal armour, were probably beyond the financial capabilities of Antigonids. |
the photo i have of the byzantines in my last post above shows that you can hold a pike and a shield at the same time.
http://www.levantia.com.au/military/Fit_for_the_Task.pdf
secondly
weren't the macedonain phalangites always supposed to have a shield like that, a much smaller version of the aspis, suppored partly by a neckstrap bu oherwise strapped to the arm like an aspis with one hand taken off the pike probably about 2/3 to half the size of a regular aspis.
http://nvg.org.au/gallery/Kontarion-project this was an experiment done with byzantine pike drills. i think it seems to work well.
and wouldn a shoulder shield in theory be something you can grab and use in the hand like a buckler when going into melee combat with the sword or dagger
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Sat 07 Jul, 2012 9:11 am Post subject: |
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Dear William, it seems like we are talking about two different things.
I never claim or did claim that the phalangists dropped their main shield, their aspis. They dropped a kind of bevor that was called a "shield" because it was similar to a shield in construction. A bevor is NOT a shield nor a buckler. The link should answer the problem of misunderstanding. You don't need to construct the bevor out of metal, sometimes wood and leather are fine, especially for bevors that are intended to be dropped after the approach within striking distance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevor
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William P
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| Posted: Mon 09 Jul, 2012 1:52 am Post subject: |
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oh so were talking about a ACTUAL bevor not just an extra shield, the photo of the indian guy confused me alittle. made me hink you were saying he macedonians defended themslves agains missiles with that kind of thing
or is it.. im not sure anymore regarding what its supposed to look like.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Tue 10 Jul, 2012 12:14 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: | oh so were talking about a ACTUAL bevor not just an extra shield, the photo of the indian guy confused me alittle. made me hink you were saying he macedonians defended themslves agains missiles with that kind of thing
or is it.. im not sure anymore regarding what its supposed to look like. |
That's the interpretation of the source. It's a bevor in function, but not out of metal, but rather a cheap construction, using the same materials as for a shield. The classical authors lacked a word for this strange device and called it a kind of shield. The bevor idea is also known from the Plataean hoplites at Marathon, who had helmets without face protection and large stiff collars to protect neck and face.
The problem with this bevor is, that the sources call it a (special) shoulder shield for lack of better words. That's why I linked the Indian modern soldier. Based on these descriptions, it's possible that it not only protected the face, but some parts of the most exposed shoulder against the heavy Roman missiles. Still, it has nothing to do with the aspis these phalangites had for their normal combat and unlike the aspis it had to be discarded, because it was considered a hindrance when wielding the sarissa against Roman sword fighters. The exact construction of this item has not yet been figured out.
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William P
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| Posted: Tue 10 Jul, 2012 3:19 am Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | | William P wrote: | oh so were talking about a ACTUAL bevor not just an extra shield, the photo of the indian guy confused me alittle. made me hink you were saying he macedonians defended themslves agains missiles with that kind of thing
or is it.. im not sure anymore regarding what its supposed to look like. |
That's the interpretation of the source. It's a bevor in function, but not out of metal, but rather a cheap construction, using the same materials as for a shield. The classical authors lacked a word for this strange device and called it a kind of shield. The bevor idea is also known from the Plataean hoplites at Marathon, who had helmets without face protection and large stiff collars to protect neck and face.
The problem with this bevor is, that the sources call it a (special) shoulder shield for lack of better words. That's why I linked the Indian modern soldier. Based on these descriptions, it's possible that it not only protected the face, but some parts of the most exposed shoulder against the heavy Roman missiles. Still, it has nothing to do with the aspis these phalangites had for their normal combat and unlike the aspis it had to be discarded, because it was considered a hindrance when wielding the sarissa against Roman sword fighters. The exact construction of this item has not yet been figured out. |
that
sounds like those 'grandguard' armour extensions added to jousting armours http://www.flickr.com/photos/thoog/720649819/lightbox/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSY3Hb0Kupg&feature=relmfu in particular THIS grandguad shown here made for mmaximilian the 1s, apparenly made of WOOD pieces covered in leather,.. i think we have a winner.
i also cant help but feel that this shield thing could be like those used by jousters  especuially since they have a lance rest (read there, pike rest...
Attachment: 20.71 KB
grand guard from the wallace collection
http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalSearch&module=collection&fieldValue=[Obj_Rights_S|Armour%20for%20Jousts%20and%20Tournaments]
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Wed 11 Jul, 2012 5:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: |
The narrative of Pydna is usually that the Macedonians had developed an additional armour device against Roman missiles. It was a kind of "plate armour" that similar to a bevor or a visor was used as missile protection during the advance for shock combat. The label shield more likely refers to the materials used, making it in design similar to a shield.
(snip)
That's as yet an undiscussed possibility because the account is taken to mean one small sturdy shield strapped to the shoulder that was meant to provide better protection against the heavy Roman missiles. After closing within sarissa range the shield seems to have been an hindrance to optimal weapon use and had to be discarded as intended. |
Which account? I can't find it in Plutarch, Polybius, or Livy, and that's just about as far as our sources on Pydna go (barring Frontinus's anecdote, which is very dubious and doesn't mention the newfangled Macedonian bevors either).
| Kurt Scholz wrote: | That's a misunderstanding. The pelta is usually taken to be a small round shield not large enough to cover the whole body.
(snip)
Dear William, it seems like we are talking about two different things.
I never claim or did claim that the phalangists dropped their main shield, their aspis. |
The phalangites' shield was occasionally called aspis/aspides, but as far as I'm aware pelta/peltai was the more common term for them--precisely because it was smaller than the Argive aspis carried by earlier hoplites. In fact, the phalangites themselves are called "peltasts" on several occasions that left no doubts about their identity.
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William P
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| Posted: Wed 11 Jul, 2012 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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pesonally im liking the 'jousting shield' setup idea. i.e a shield attached to the
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Thu 12 Jul, 2012 2:40 am Post subject: |
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Like it or not, though, I still haven't found any support for the idea that the Macedonian troops at Pydna sported such an ad hoc grandguard/bevor setup, even after looking through more sources (including a few of the loonier secondhand interpretations).
On the other hand, permanent shoulder shields (not improvised contraptions meant to be dropped before the battle was joined) was mentioned as part of a pikeman's equipment in one of the Burgundian ordinances of the 1470s. I don't think there's much in the way of clear evidence of what these shields looked like (I've seen interpretations that made them look like jousting ecranches, including in the Feature article on Burgundian armies) or whether they ever saw any actual use (since the illustrations to the near-contemporary Swiss chronicles don't really seem to depict them much, if at all).
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Daniel Staberg
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| Posted: Thu 12 Jul, 2012 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: | Like it or not, though, I still haven't found any support for the idea that the Macedonian troops at Pydna sported such an ad hoc grandguard/bevor setup, even after looking through more sources (including a few of the loonier secondhand interpretations).
On the other hand, permanent shoulder shields (not improvised contraptions meant to be dropped before the battle was joined) was mentioned as part of a pikeman's equipment in one of the Burgundian ordinances of the 1470s. I don't think there's much in the way of clear evidence of what these shields looked like (I've seen interpretations that made them look like jousting ecranches, including in the Feature article on Burgundian armies) or whether they ever saw any actual use (since the illustrations to the near-contemporary Swiss chronicles don't really seem to depict them much, if at all). |
Those were not shoulder shields at all but rather classic bucklers whose nature has been misunderstood due to poor translations of the original French. IIRC there is a short discussion on that subject elsewhere in the forum.
"There is nothing more hazardous than to venture a battle. One can lose it
by a thousand unforseen circumstances, even when one has thorougly taken all
precautions that the most perfect military skill allows for."
-Fieldmarshal Lennart Torstensson.
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