How do pikes/sarrissa/spears work?

(Apologies if this has been aready asked/accounted for in the game engine.)

This question is brought on by:
1. A recent tranche of reading goldwothy, holland etc
2. Not having played for an age and forgetting how this worked
3. Thinking about how the mechanics of these weapons working against shorter hand weapons? Why was it so successful for a while.

So the question/idea is, do pike/sarrissa/spear 'walls' work by reducing the effectiveness of the opponents weapon rather than being inherently leathal themselves? The thinking being whilst not a relatively effective weapon one on one, in a massed rank they make the opponents life difficult in just getting close to use their weapon. That is they reduce the effectiveness of the opponents weapon relative to themselves. This would only really apply whilst the longer weapons were ordered and not disordered.

Also, do pikes/spears get the charge bonus of the cavalry attacking from the front? That is if the cavalry unit receveid a +20 charge bonus, the defending ordered spear/lance unit would get the same equivalent bonus.
And to the same extent does a charging infantry's charge bonus get added to the defending spear/pike/sarrissa.

The thinking being the energy of the aggressors movement would work in both directions, good old newton!.

Since so-far there have been no replies, I'll have a stab at it, but keep in mind that I am neither a historian nor a reenactor.

The mechanics of hoplite-combat are actually up for debate. In "Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities" (which I have cited often, lately) Van Wees argues that hoplite formations were initially fluid and open, and only later turning into dense blocks. In other words: unlike pikes the hoplite spear is a viable weapon outside of formation-combat. A spearhead is certainly "inherently lethal": a short-sword with a far greater reach, if not quite as manoeuvrable. Yes, it can be batted aside, but if the spearman is any good that will be a lot more difficult than you think.

You are probably right about pikes, though.

As for the game mechanics: I recall reading that charging cavalry will have their charge values deflected upon themselves when frontally hitting spears/pikes. I can't find the post right now, though, but I am pretty sure it was for R:TW. There is no similar effect for infantry; nor am I sure there should be. Newton may be right, but it's a bit much to expect humans to impale themselves. (Horses probably won't either, but the game does a very poor job of simulating cavalry charges anyway.)

There is a further attack/defence penalty for "spear"-attribute units, but the effects are disputed and I don't know if these still apply to M2:TW.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HFox

(Apologies if this has been aready asked/accounted for in the game engine.)

This question is brought on by:
1. A recent tranche of reading goldwothy, holland etc
2. Not having played for an age and forgetting how this worked
3. Thinking about how the mechanics of these weapons working against shorter hand weapons? Why was it so successful for a while.

So the question/idea is, do pike/sarrissa/spear 'walls' work by reducing the effectiveness of the opponents weapon rather than being inherently leathal themselves? The thinking being whilst not a relatively effective weapon one on one, in a massed rank they make the opponents life difficult in just getting close to use their weapon. That is they reduce the effectiveness of the opponents weapon relative to themselves. This would only really apply whilst the longer weapons were ordered and not disordered.

---

I believe this would be somewhat true for the longer spears of the macedonian phalanx, which were basically useless outside of formation, but they were leathal in their own right, mainly through sheer number of spear points they could level at a enemy soldier. Remember too that the formation wasn't a static one, they would press the attack, imagine trying to a couple of dozen spear points in short succession.

The Hoplite phalanx on the other hand was more up close, the enemy would almost certainly reach within striking distance, so the lethality of the spear was of more importance.

Quote:

---

Also, do pikes/spears get the charge bonus of the cavalry attacking from the front? That is if the cavalry unit receveid a +20 charge bonus, the defending ordered spear/lance unit would get the same equivalent bonus.
And to the same extent does a charging infantry's charge bonus get added to the defending spear/pike/sarrissa.

The thinking being the energy of the aggressors movement would work in both directions, good old newton!.

---

Cannot answer that I'm afraid.

I don't know the precise answers to your questions, but I can tell you that spears most definitely SHOULD gain some bonus from the momentum the horses generate at a full charge.

That's precisely why spears are so deadly to a horseman, aside from their ability to pull a rider down from a slight distance. And although even proper warhorses would balk at the prospect of charging a line of bristling spear-points, they were specifically trained to charge a mass of men, and so you could sometime encounter tricks on the battlefield where spears would be concealed until the horsemen were irreversibly hurtling towards the ranks, at which point the men would take the spears up and form a row of bristling pikes/spears that could be devastating. It would serve to kill the horses, and the riders (if not crushed by their own horses) could then be quickly dispatched. I believe the Mel Gibson movie Braveheart actually has a scene where this exact scenario occurs. While that movie certainly won't be winning any awards for it's great loyalty to history, this particular tactic has indeed been used in warfare to great effect.

Stakes have also been used in warfare, and you will probably see this ability in EBII as it is included in M2TW, though I believe only for certain archer. They would be used to ward off cavalry charges, or as very hastily constructed fortifications. When a palisade would be too time consuming or impractical, a stake perimeter could be set up around a camp or other area, both to impale horses and to slow any infantry moving through them. And in the crush of pitched battle, infantrymen could even sometimes be impaled on these stakes, by accident usually.

The sarissa phalanx was so successful primarily because of their incredibly long reach, (more than two and three times the length of a man!) their highly cohesiveness in battle due to regular drill, and the ability to have three to five ranks able to fight the first rank of the enemy at once. Not only was it very difficult for enemies to get within reach of the pikemen, but it was also nearly impossible to survive for more than few moments with multiple people stabbing at you at once. You might dodge the first few thrusts, or block a few, but you're not going to be able to do much against five people at once, especially when you can't even reach them. The sarissa phalanx was like the hoplite phalanx in that it worked in concert, and pushed enemies backward, but unlike close-quarters hoplite push-warfare, the pikes also kept the enemies away from the men, and multiple ranks had the ability to fight from behind the front rank.

Hence why the sarissa dominated warfare for centuries after it's invention. Even the legions of Rome had a difficult time defeating them, and only with auxiliary support, and a much weaker array of successor states than they would have faced 200 years before. Had the Greeks been able to afford proper cavalry wings, and equipment more on par with that of the Romans, the outcome may have been different. The power of a tightly packed pike formation is evidenced by the fact that more than a thousand years later, the tercio formation dominated 16th century warfare. Not until repeating firearms and the disappearance of shock cavalry did the pike become irrelevant to warfare.

If this was such a successful and well-practised system, why did the Successors struggle against the Gallic invasions? Was Ptolemy Keraunos just that incompetent, or was there something special about the invaders?

@CashMunny

The sarrisa certainly successful, but I do not believe it was as successful as you described.
For one thing the ability of the sarrisa to "push" seems to be more limited for whatever reason. The combat stances perhaps (with both arms already holding the pike less force could be put on the guy in front of you with your shield, besides it'd unbalance him). Instead the formation relys on long range fencing (often while advancing, but not push-charging).
And the other side wouldn't be facing 5 spear points at the same time. Yes the guy would need to get through 5 spear points, but only about 2 of the 5 can actually stab at him. When he's outside the formation, he doesn't have to worry about the last few spearpoints, and when he's almost through, he doesn't have to worry about the first few. Of course the frontage covered by say two Roman legionaries would be taken by about three phalangists, but still. And at 16~20 feet how do you even stab something properly, you can't.
Which would mean the formation would be bloody difficult to break from the front, but far from impossible. And even the slightest disruption would tip the favour to the other side.

Also you forgot that in the pike-and-shot formation, there were very often men equipped with other melee weapons. And that the ratio of pike to shot kept decreasing and decreasing until the pike became irrelevant. And no this was not because of repeating firearm, which wouldn't become more useful than muzzle-loaders until the American Civil War (at least if we talk about mass-issued instead of isolated units) nor the disappearance of shock cavalry (come on Lancers, Cuirassier). I feel the need to differenciate between heavy-armored cavalry and shock cavalry here. The former is cavalry with heavy armor for protection. The latter is any cavalry that charge head-on to break the enemy formation. The former is almost always the latter, but the latter is often not the former. There were lots of very effective shock cavalry and cavalry charges in the Napoleonic Wars, and shock cavalry were still very effective as late as the Crimean War. Both are long after the pike became obsolete. What made the pike obsolete was the introduction of the bayonet. This proved that a dense formation with its men equiped with pointy sticks can beat back a cavalry charge. It didn't matter if the stick in question was 7 feet or 20 feet.
And it also meant that by the time the pike became obsolete circa 1700, the pike's potential as a melee weapon was not enough to balance the fighting power of the musket-bayonet combination. Considering the amount of logistics required by the musket for ammunition, and that only one in a couple hundred shots caused a casualty, the pike mustn't have been particularly leathal either (unless you were Charles XII).

So I would say the sarissa took center-stage among the Diadochi Wars, but it didn't "dominate" in the sense that it wasn't the battle-decider. Instead the battle-decider was anything (else) that could break the sarissa formation. If it was so overpowering, everyone would've adopted it (like the pike-shot was if I may point out). But that wasn't the case. So while the Macedonian phalanx probably had more holding power than any other formation of the time, something was simply "missing" from the phalanx that others had.

Above post is good an explanation and reasoning as I've read on these forums about this subject- nice job.

Its rare any tactic or weapon is so decisive or if it is remains that way more than a few engagements.

Great responses by our colleagues. Regarding the (I believe) last question about whether cavalry charges heed Newton's laws in that cavalry can suffer from a spear bonus due to their own charge, I don't know how or if Rome or Medieval 2: Total War implement this into their video game engines. I hope they do, and I want to say that they do in both games because in some cases I've intuited the existence of such a system, but I can't definitively answer that question. I would guess it would have to be a great bonus, more than enough to cause a few casualties. But I really don't know how one would quantify the effects of the momentum that comes from charging at a wall of spear points. I want to know, though, to make a system from it.

I think it is more difficult than it would seem on the outset to quantify that. The longer the spear the more difficult to hold it steady on a single target- braced into the ground a wall of spears seems to make it likely at least some would hit just by blind odds but I don't know if that is accurate. The impact on a tightly packed formation of even a couple horses could well jar men up and down the line causing spear points to drop. The best defense would have been to aim lower for the horses rather than trying to aim at the riders and if the points drop instead of impaling a horse chest it gashes a leg only. Any armor or harness on the horse might easily foul a spear point away from a direct hit as well. Also I doubt many charges were ever done into a formed formation at a gallop. Such an impact regardless of spears could damage the horses. The multiple spear points from back ranks also become less deadly if the charge by the cavalry comes at a slower rate, without being braced those spears have to hit a specific place and while a charge might not have come at a gallop, even a steady canter is likely to be faster than a man on foot in armor running could achieve. So the spear wielders actually have a tough job. Not that there still wouldn't be casualties on the cavalries side just from impacts and if a horse and rider must charge through 5 spears points the odds that one hits somewhere I'd guess are high. That its a killing hit though... that is harder to say. Plus once the first rank of the cavalry is past and into the densely packed infantry they can slash downward on men who might have alot of difficulty having the room to pull a secondary weapon up and defend themselves. Probably well trained infantry could immediately break into teams and work to pull riders off the mounts etc without even resorting to weapons right away but I wonder how many infantries in historical eras would react that way versus once the charge is into their formation the cohesion breaks down and mean adopt a defensive very man for him self attitude giving the surviving cavalry all the initiative.

Also what if the cavalry attacks in a wedge? The infantry would have to be well trained not to let their spear points veer a bit towards the tip of the wedge and thus present hugely less of a danger for the wings of the wedge which now instead of riding through spear tips aimed right at them are riding on spears at a slight angle which present some danger still but the momentum and mass of their horses hitting such spears at an angle might very well tear it from the spear wielders hands. The lead riders in a wedge would then bear the brunt of the attack but if they were the most well armored and best warriors comparatively few might fall and the rest of the cavalry formation is then breaking up the infantry.

This thread is easily one of the most interesting that I've read on these forums or over at TWCenter. Great information, and very well put.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

If this was such a successful and well-practised system, why did the Successors struggle against the Gallic invasions? Was Ptolemy Keraunos just that incompetent, or was there something special about the invaders?

---

I'd really like to know you guys' thoughts on this question. I've got no expertise on the time period, so I could only offer guesses, but I would suspect the Gallic successes were largely due to the Greeks being outmanned and overwhelmed by the concurrent Successor Wars, moreso than Gallic tactics or skill. But that's only a guess.

They are Gauls, everyone had problems with Gauls. Heck, they sacked Rome and ran amok in the Balkans for a while too.

Ptolemy Keraunos wasn't that good a general from what I understand, the Keraunos part of his name means "thunder" and was given to him becuase of his rather headstong nature. Amusingly the Celtic leader that defeated him was named Bolgios, which has a similar meaning.

I also recall reading about the Celts rolling under the spears of the phalanx so they could get in close, where they would have the upper hand, I don't know if it was used in this specific case though.

I wonder whether there was an extent to which soldiers fighting under the Macedonian system had softened somewhat since the days of Alexander? After all there were a lot of mercenaries and a lot of avoidance of serious battles, defection and mutiny. Could they simply have been less well-prepared for a real fight where your opponent doesn't surrender (or accept surrender) when things look tight?

Not at all, the preceding period before the Celtic invasion was one of the bloodiest in the entire history of the Successors. Lysimachos' empire had just been crushed and there would have still been old veterans kicking about from Antigonos' wars too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Diadochi

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bobbin

Ptolemy Keraunos wasn't that good a general from what I understand, the Keraunos part of his name means "thunder" and was given to him becuase of his rather headstong nature. Amusingly the Celtic leader that defeated him was named Bolgios, which has a similar meaning.

I also recall reading about the Celts rolling under the spears of the phalanx so they could get in close, where they would have the upper hand, I don't know if it was used in this specific case though.

---

From what I've read, Ptolemy Keraunos hastily raised a relatively undersized and undertrained force in his arrogance. Macedon had not really faced any threats from "barbarians" since Phillip or Alexander and he underestimated the power of the Gauls. Don't know if there are any accounts of the battle but he did march north to meet the Gauls. It wouldn't surprise me if the terrain was ill suited to the phalanx as well.

Celts rolling under sarrissas? Thats pretty ninja.:creep:

can someone verify this? I find that very interesting and also... very practical. I think of all the people to 'outsmart' the phalanx it would be the Celts.

I've never been in a damn Phalanx before but something like that happening would destroy cohesion, i'd think. From what i understand the cohesion and discipline of the phalanx is just as important as their spears, which is why Citizen Soldier Hellenes with their great civic pride would often perform quite well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

They are Gauls, everyone had problems with Gauls. Heck, they sacked Rome and ran amok in the Balkans for a while too.

---

When reading Caesar's Commentaries, I feel so sorry to see those once mighty people become weaklings in the eyes of Germans while still barbarians to Romans.:no: Same feeling as I read in Gibbon's work that Greeks were sneered as effeminate by the invading barbaroi.

to be fair, didn't all non Hellenes think of the Greek's as effeminate? Roman's took liberally from Greek culture while simultaneously deriding it, correct?

Not all non-Hellenes (i.e. barbaroi) looked at the Greeks as effeminate. The Romans don't speak for all.

herm by that time the eastern you came from the more effeminate you where ... i mean men wearing dreasses instead of trousers taking baths with other men and using olive oil over their skins and then scraping it with some wierd utensils ... the delicate fruits the watered wine the silks and silly girly robs, going for a 1 on 1 honorable batle with armour (if they where still man enough not to hide behinde walls that is) and ofc the worst of all :\ using perfumes ... a man to be a man has to smell like a man smelling nice is something girls use to get their men not something men should use unleass ofc they´re also after a man wich ofc isn´t so manly ....

if you´re living in the british isles even at that time even the accent from a gaul is less manly then a true british warrior if you´re in the iberian peninsula and see the carthies with their dreasses and all vain showing their jewells and rich cloths like litle girls then there´s over excessive big shields thats a girlish thing and then the short swords ... a true man uses a overly large sword matters not if it´s too heavy of too big to be effective it´s a sign of a true man

your grammar and the meaning of your words truly do reflect that of a barbarian :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brave Brave Sir Robin

From what I've read, Ptolemy Keraunos hastily raised a relatively undersized and undertrained force in his arrogance. Macedon had not really faced any threats from "barbarians" since Phillip or Alexander and he underestimated the power of the Gauls. Don't know if there are any accounts of the battle but he did march north to meet the Gauls. It wouldn't surprise me if the terrain was ill suited to the phalanx as well.

---

While I can believe the first part (about Keraunos' arrogance and lack of preparation), Thracian incursions were a regular occurrence.

They hadn't been since Alexanders campaigns against them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Populus Romanus

Celts rolling under sarrissas? Thats pretty ninja.:creep:

---

I wonder if you could pole vault onto a wall with a sarissa.