Stats on overhand spear vs underhand spear.

Today I picked up some used books on a lark. One was The Wars of the Ancient Greeks by Victor Davis Hanson. I figured there wouldn't be anything in there that I hadn't read before, but it was only a fraction of the list price so I figured I might as well. To my delightful surprise, in the back of the book are statistics on weapons: weight, impact area, etc. This is pretty nifty, but it certainly adds some evidence to the argument on spears wielded overhand and underhand.

For the same spear wielded by the same person, overhand is not only faster than underhand (55 ft per s vs 24), but also more powerful (70.8 foot-pounds of force compared to 13.5).

Those are some impressive differences in performance that speak for themselves.

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Originally Posted by abou

70.8 foot-pounds of force compared to 13.5

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Wow, that's quite a feat :yes:

Maion

Thats true. But imagine to hold a spear overhand all the time. Its impossible!!!
And turning it down and then lift it up in a hoplite like formation seems to be not easy either. What did the Greeks do about that? :book:

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Originally Posted by seienchin

Thats true. But imagine to hold a spear overhand all the time. Its impossible!!!
And turning it down and then lift it up in a hoplite like formation seems to be not easy either. What did the Greeks do about that? :book:

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It's very easy to use your shield and the one belonging to the guy next to you, in order to rest your spear upon and only do a back-and-foth movement when you get tired. Plus, hoplite battles were not very long, and the only thing they actually did was push one another while occasionally trying to hit some weak spot.

As for that second thing you said, I'm not completely sure I understand what you mean.

Maion

I don't try to understimate overhand nad english is not my first thonge, but There are two things/questions about that.
1. I always believed hoplite batles were actually long, "push one another while occasionally trying to hit some weak spot" as you said, no too much of fancy cavalry charges nor anything like that. Any way the explanation about the shield and shoulder is very logical to avoid exhaustion.
2. If you want hit a weak spot is as efective the underhand spear, I mean if it is weak you dont really need the extra power, just pierce through the spot. So extra power is no extra lethality maybe the extra speed could mean extra lethality. Just my two cents.

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Originally Posted by Fabio Scevola

1. I always believed hoplite batles were actually long, "push one another while occasionally trying to hit some weak spot" as you said, no too much of fancy cavalry charges nor anything like that. Any way the explanation about the shield and shoulder is very logical to avoid exhaustion.

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It is believed that the fighting times within hoplite battles were actually pretty short. The sides would face off, charge and get into a pushing match. If neither side showed signs of weakness the sides would disengage, wait a while then charge at it again. So in this way a 6 hour battle may only have had fighting for half the time at most.

Didn't know about that, really good information indeed. Would be very nice to see in game, but No way to represent that, I presume.

I think that if you alt+click(or shift? cannot remember exactly) behind your selected troops, you can make them move in reverse without turning their backs to the enemies which they are attacking. Even with this option I have found that infantry tend to suffer far too many casualties if you try to disengage them in any manner. Sadly even with all the modding that RTW has seen it really is impossible to represent some battle situations which were pretty commonplace in the classical world.

It's probably telling that at least one of the chroniclers writing about Marathon (don't quite remember who right now, but it was one of the big names) considered the fight between the Athenian and Persian infantry lines to go on an unusually long time, as infantry battles went...

Anyway, regarding the OP, I'm not particularly surprised. After all, when you consider the "biomechanics", in the overhand thrust the arm is effectively acting as a lever (ie. force multiplier) that rotates around the shoulder joint - and to boot gravity itself offers slight assistance when the weapon is being driven downwards.

Far as I know the "icepick" reverse-grip of knife-fighting techniques often gets used pretty similarly, and comparable two-handed sword techniques aren't particularly unusual in the Medieval and Early Modern Fechtbuchs and similar sources.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

Fechtbuchs

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Triple apology for maximum nitpick-factor, but then maybe it is of use to you:

nom. sing. Fechtbuch, nom. plur. Fechtbücher; dat. plur. (the case after literal translation of your post into german syntax) Fechtbüchern

Back on topic, gotta try the alt-click behind line move - but in forward movement it's just "strafing" the formation, meaning they end movement facing exactly the same direction and maintaining same formation in case of multiple units - and they don't "turn" the formation while moving, but the individual soldiers always turn in the direction they are walking. Useful when using psiloi against phalangitai in AI battles: have your own front line strafe to your "right". AI will strafe to their "left" - and thus expose the unshielded right side of the phalangitai while moving. Fire away. 50% casualties before first frontal contact. Depends on ammunition, of course.

Yeah, fair enough, although I *do* know that much German actually. It's just that they get referred to by the German term even in English sources, and it seemed natural enough to duly use the English plural... :sweatdrop:

A Finn suddenly emerging from idle-mode <3 Finns :-) WB