"Axe" attribute for Legionnaires

I was thinking about all those gladius versus spartha threads and all the talk about how ineffective a gladius is against cavalry, and I thought: shouldn't short swords be counted as "axes"?

The "axe" attribute is basically the opposite of the "spear" attribute. It gives the unit a bonus against infantry and a penalty against cavalry.

This makes sense with weapons like the gladius. They were excellent as anti-infantry weapons but terrible as anti-cavalry defense. Giving this to legionnaires makes them much more vulnerable against cavalry, which would be realistic.

Speaking of gladii, have the EB people fixed the animation with the slashing gladius? I mean, no legionary would fight like that- they were stabbing machines.

yeah TURIN good idea, i'll try that. but actually is there a axe atribute cause i never saw one

Real legionnaires could use their pila like a thrusting spear to fight cavalry. In RTW they can`t do this and have to use the gladius. Giving them a penalty only because of the limits of the game would do no good job to represent their real capabilities.

Arrian describes roman anti cavalry tactics in his Array against the Alans.
http://members.tripod.com/~S_van_Dor...s/ektaxis.html

And i don`t think that legionnaires or heavy infantry in general should be more vulnerable against cavalry. It was almost impossible to break an intact heavy iinfantry formation just with cavalry, without weakening it with other troops before.

I doubt the pilum would have been especially effective, considering its purposeful design to have a weak neck, bending or breaking upon impact.

Well, they did apparently use them that way, so it might have worked.

Anyway, Roman legionaries weren't that vulnerable to cavalry. There are quite some example of legionaries taking on and trouncing Cataphracts in a head-on encounter. It's when the cavalry get's around the legion's flanks they're in deep trouble. (just like every other type of infantry.) So giving Romans a penalty verus cavalry does not seem all that appropriate to me.

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Originally Posted by meatwad

Speaking of gladii, have the EB people fixed the animation with the slashing gladius? I mean, no legionary would fight like that- they were stabbing machines.

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Originally Posted by Polybius, Histories, book 18, chapter 30

Now in the case of the Romans also each soldier with his arms occupies a space of three feet in breadth, but as in their mode of fighting each man must move separately, as he has to cover his person with his long shield, turning to meet each expected blow, and as he uses his sword both for cutting and thrusting it is obvious that a looser order is required . . .

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-Simetrical

"Originally Posted by Polybius, Histories, book 18, chapter 30
Now in the case of the Romans also each soldier with his arms occupies a space of three feet in breadth, but as in their mode of fighting each man must move separately, as he has to cover his person with his long shield, turning to meet each expected blow, and as he uses his sword both for cutting and thrusting it is obvious that a looser order is required . . ."

Oh. Well, thanks.

putting all the historical talk aside and going back to the original posters suggestion.

i'm not quite sure it is such a good idea to give the legionaries the "axe" attribute for their gladii.
the axe-attribute basically gives the unit an armour piercing ability. so it would most likely be unbalancing toward's heavy elite infantry.

AP is separate from the axe attribute, read the files dude...

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Originally Posted by Turin

AP is separate from the axe attribute, read the files dude...

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But it has similar functions, just like spear and anti-cavalry?

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Originally Posted by Turin

AP is separate from the axe attribute, read the files dude...

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Maybee YOU should read the files first !

And in case you don't find it here is the problem :

There is no "axe" attribute there is only an "axe" sound type.
So i would be really interested in your source of information about an "axe" attribute being the oppsite of "spear" ?

;Details of unit's primary weapon. If the unit has a missile weapon it must be the primary
;
; stat_pri From left to right
; attack factor
; attack bonus factor if charging
; missile type fired (no if not a missile weapon type)
; range of missile
; amount of missile ammunition per man
; Weapon type = melee, thrown, missile, or siege_missile
; Tech type = simple, other, blade, archery or siege
; Damage type = piercing, blunt, slashing or fire. (I don't think this is used anymore)
; Sound type when weapon hits = none, knife, mace, axe, sword, or spear
; Min delay between attacks (in 1/10th of a second)
;
; stat_pri_attr
; primary weapon attributes any or all of
; ap = armour piercing. Only counts half of target's armour
; bp = body piercing. Missile can pass through men and hit those behind
; spear = Used for long spears. Gives bonuses fighting cavalry, and penalties against infantry
; long_pike = Use very long pikes. Phalanx capable units only
; short_pike = Use shorter than normal spears. Phalanx capable units only
; prec = Missile weapon is only thrown just before charging into combat
; thrown = The missile type if thrown rather than fired
; launching = attack may throw target men into the air
; area = attack affects an area, not just one man

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Originally Posted by NeonGod

I doubt the pilum would have been especially effective, considering its purposeful design to have a weak neck, bending or breaking upon impact.

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This is true, but in use against cavalry you don't actually have to thrust with the spear - so long as you have a sufficient wall of spears presented to the enemy, no horse will charge it. The horse, after all, doesn't know that pilums are weak. Once the momentum is broken, you can close on the cavalry with your swords.

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Originally Posted by Spongly

This is true, but in use against cavalry you don't actually have to thrust with the spear - so long as you have a sufficient wall of spears presented to the enemy, no horse will charge it. The horse, after all, doesn't know that pilums are weak. Once the momentum is broken, you can close on the cavalry with your swords.

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True, but I present that a sword is a less effective weapon than a spear when fighting cavalry, even when the horseman is at a standstill. Better to kill the soldier or horse from a distance.

I guess the pilum would have been marginally effective...for the first stab. It's better than no spear at all.

It's just as good as a regular spear for a wall of spears. I saw a photo of a spear-wall formation by some reenactors—the first rank crouched, pila forward between shields, butt planted in the ground, the second rank standing with pilum poised to throw. No horse would charge that without lots of training that nobody bothered to give them. Horses were expensive, anyway, not the sort of thing you'd want to throw away like that. Of course, lancers could charge in relative safety if their lances were longer than the pila, as many doubtless were.

-Simetrical

Did you mean this photo?
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/8651/re...alry9tk.th.jpg

I think the formation is influenced or based on the one described in "Arrian's Array against the Alans". Also they don`t have enough men to show the correct deep.

The pilum was designed to bend after impact, so they had to hit anything with sufficient power. A bent pilum that stacks in a horse or a rider is not a wasted one. Also i doubt that it bents after every stab, especially if unarmoured parts of your enemy are hit. There is much more kinetic energy stored in a thrown pilum.

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Originally Posted by cunctator

The pilum was designed to bend after impact, so they had to hit anything with sufficient power. A bent pilum that stacks in a horse or a rider is not a wasted one. Also i doubt that it bents after every stab, especially if unarmoured parts of your enemy are hit. There is much more kinetic energy stored in a thrown pilum.

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Not if a soldier was receiving a charge with the pilum.

I agree as far as the "spear wall" is concerned, but I don't think they would have been especially effective if the cavalry were really gutsy or stupid enough to charge them anyway.

I think Roman infantry from the 3rd century onwards used the hasta anyway. That seems to have been when horses were getting more important, although it might have nothing to do with it.

Oddly enough however, the pilum will only bend if the wooden dowel attaching the shaft to the head shatters (or something of that nature, I'm not sure). If the dowel is made of metal, then the pilum becomes nearly impossible to bend.

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Originally Posted by DemonArchangel

Oddly enough however, the pilum will only bend if the wooden dowel attaching the shaft to the head shatters (or something of that nature, I'm not sure). If the dowel is made of metal, then the pilum becomes nearly impossible to bend.

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There were two varieties, I believe. The earlier one just had a large portion of the shaft made of softish iron. Basically, when it hit it would bend, making it useless until someone straightened it out again (a simple task). A later version had a normal javelin head with two pins holding it into the shaft, one wooden and one metal. When that kind hit, the wooden pin would snap, causing the javelin head to fall askew and making the weapon similarly useless until it could be repaired by the simple addition of a spare wooden pin. The later variation was introduced due to the difficulty/expense of making a long piece of iron soft enough to bend correctly but hard enough to do plenty of damage.

This is all from memory, though, so I'm quite possibly wrong on parts of it.

-Simetrical

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Originally Posted by NeonGod

I agree as far as the "spear wall" is concerned, but I don't think they would have been especially effective if the cavalry were really gutsy or stupid enough to charge them anyway.

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I agree with that they should not be as effective as infantry armed with a regular spear in this situation, but they could defend themselfs far better against cavalry as troops only armed with the gladius as the initial poster suggests.

I know only two main variants of the pilum. (see link http://www.larp.com/legioxx/pilum.html)
I never heard of the second one simetrical describes. It would be very interesting for me to hear more about it. I know that the roman army used many different types of javelins like the lancea or the Iaculum. So was this still called pilum?

The wood pin pilum was invented by Gaius Marius.

Oh, thanks. So it is just the standard tanged pilum with one of the rivets replaced with a wooden one. This version was no longer in use after the end of the republic. I had another kind of weapon in mind.

In addition, were there not complaints that they often did not bend as they were supposed to?

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Originally Posted by NeonGod

I doubt the pilum would have been especially effective, considering its purposeful design to have a weak neck, bending or breaking upon impact.

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It didn't matter it the neck was soft or not. A stick would do to scare the horse. I was surprised to read this first in a book about infantry tactics in 18th century, especially since I knew that pikes were the "cure" for heavy cavalry's charges. Then I've read something similar about the napoleonic wars. I think it was in Clausewitz's manual for the Prussian crown prince (not in his more famous work "About War"). Then I found out that knights were charging mostly...other knights. Knights were charging infantry head-on only after the cohesion of the enemy units was severely disrupted. The main purpose of such a charge was not to break the infantry ranks by means of the shock. Contrary to what we have seen in the movies or in the TW games series, the purpose of such a charge was to destroy whatever morale was left in the battered infantry, making them to break ranks and run away at the sight of the steel wave comming towards them.

The pikes were also mainly used against infantry, like the phalanx. The role of the pike against cavalry was mainly psychological: the horse has a mind of its own and won't charge against something looking so dangerous. Besides, even barded horses won't chage into a wall of pikes/spears/sticks ;-) because the normal horse is not that smart to understand the role of the armour it is wearing.

Now, back to the topic of this thread, I think it is not possible to change the parameters in export_descr_unit.text in any meaningful way in order to have 2 types of defence (not 2 types of attack - this was already done by the mount_effect): one against infantry and one against cavalry.

well, i think that the pilum would have bene effective against ( non-cataphract) cav.
indeed the shaft would bend , but only when (much) force is aplied. but the tip of the spear is so thin. that it will not get much resistance when entering the horses body. so the pilum would (i gues/hope) bend After it entered the body.

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Originally Posted by Dromikaites

The pikes were also mainly used against infantry, like the phalanx. The role of the pike against cavalry was mainly psychological: the horse has a mind of its own and won't charge against something looking so dangerous. Besides, even barded horses won't chage into a wall of pikes/spears/sticks ;-) because the normal horse is not that smart to understand the role of the armour it is wearing.

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A properly trained warhorse would probably have a little more composure and would be able to be forced into charging a stick. Indeed, the pilum is effective enough for creating the "spear wall"; I've admitted that much. My point is that anyone with enough gusto to pull off a charge against the pila would find it paid off better than expected.

I was guestimating before, but this is just plain old guessing adn assuming

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Originally Posted by jerby

I was guestimating before, but this is just plain old guessing adn assuming

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Assumptions based on facts. Maybe we should have a test?

well, sorry for not elaborating. but i thoughyt the "anyone gutsy enough to charge a pilum-wall will find it paying off" was a wild guess.
was there a test? or shoudl I bring teh horse and wil you fix up a pila-wall :D ^^

btw, thnx for not taking my post offensively. i dont speek english well enough to give emotion to my words. and sometimes i might offend people were i didn't want to

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Originally Posted by jerby

well, sorry for not elaborating. but i thoughyt the "anyone gutsy enough to charge a pilum-wall will find it paying off" was a wild guess.
was there a test? or shoudl I bring teh horse and wil you fix up a pila-wall :D ^^

btw, thnx for not taking my post offensively. i dont speek english well enough to give emotion to my words. and sometimes i might offend people were i didn't want to

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Möchtest du deutsch sprechen? Peut-être en francais?

I apologise that I don't speak Dutch; it's my fault as much as yours.

I guess the only to really find out to have a simulation of some kind.

Quote from Arrians array against the alans:
http://members.tripod.com/~S_van_Dor...s/ektaxis.html

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And the front four ranks of the formation must be of spearmen, whose spearpoints end in thin iron shanks. And the foremost of them should hold them at the ready, in order that when the enemies near them, they can thrust the ironpoints of the spears at the breast of the horses in particular. Those standing in second, third an fourth rank of the formation must hold their spears ready for thrusting if possible, wounding the horses and killing the horsemen and put the rider out of action with the spear stuck in their heavy body armour and the iron point bent because of the softness.

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I think this means that pilum equipped legionaires were capable to succesfully stop a heavy cavalry charge, even if the lines clash into eachother.

*The Pilums

There are 3 main types used by the roman army. A socketed one (light) and 2 variations of the same design. One with the soft head (difficult to produce soft iron that can repeatedly be repaired) and the other with a wodden peg that broke the javelin hit something and made the weapon useless (supposedely invented by Marius).

*Pointy Sticks

I'ts not just the "pointy sticks" that work as a deterrant for cavalry. Infantry in close ranks is effectively a wall that *most* cavalry will shy away in the final moments of the charge. The main force of the cavalry was the ability to hit the flanks and rear of the enemy line or cause it to break ranks and allow it to exploit the gaps. Dromikaites is absolutely right.

The epitome of the heavy shock cavalry, the central-European fully armoured knight in a gigantic horse was an impressive sight indeed, but ultimately defeatable by a determined and disciplined army.

The best source we have about serious cavalry warfare (and how it actually fared) is when it was declining in importance (XVII and XVIII wars). Infantry squares in the Napoleonic wars were all but impervious to cavalry, and all they had was a stick with a pointy thing glued to the barrel. Cavalry would charge the squares and forced to switch to carbines and circle almost harmelessly around the individual squares, if the infantry held firm.

People tend to forget the real strength of roman arms, being adaptative!

Against Pompeys superior numbers in cavalry, Caeser ordered that his right flank be equiped with siege spears. They fought as a sort of phalanx for a while.

Also, horses generaly won't charge a compact mass of men, be they armed with spears, which in their minds won't probably mean a thing, or swords. What they're afraid of is obstacles. It takes a good rider and a well trained horse to jump "simple" obstacles in sports events, let alone a mass of screaming humans!

Witness for instance the campaigns of Lucullus Vs the Armenians, when 2 legions worth of troops (though very good and veteran ones) took out a large force or armenian cataphracts, because the armenians simply cahrged straight in.

@ neongod

ok, thnx