spatha or gladius?

[Tretii]

Machinor, Mcantu - thanks for explanation.

[Bucefalo]

This is a bit offtopic, but well still is related someway...
For those who are interested, there is a game called "Mount&Blade", that is a medieval RPG based on a fantasy world (there are mods for more historicity thought) and you usually fight from horseback, and on foot too. It is in second person view i think, or third...well you can actually change them as you like, even first person.

The thing is that the game has some little tricks concerning weapons who are very interesting to learn how some weapons worked, a few examples:

-There is a big difference between carrying a short and a long sword on horseback (refering to gladius and spatha), it is really difficult to hit anyone with a short range weapon.

-While on horseback, you can not shoot a bow to your right, only to the left, front and back. Physically it is impossible to hold the bow and aim to shoot at the right. After you realice this you will start to think that all the horsearchers of total war games are cheating you :P

-The kite shield is much more effective than the round shield when protecting agaisnt arrows. When you are fighting agaisnt some soldier with round shields, you can always shoot at their legs. The kite shield cover the entire body and it is much more difficult to hit.

Excuse me for the offtopic, just thought it would be interesting. It is a interesting game and it can teach you a few things

[Aulus Caecina Severus]

In my mind you are not offtopic Bucefalo because the thing you ve say it's very true (also if it's a game).
With spatha you can't bring a rectangular shield, you can only bring a oval shield and this second give you less protection to arrow or low attak.
I think the massive use of armour in Middle Ages was naturally conseguence of use of oval shields, then the long sword.
This shows that the majority of medieval troops had little discipline and little value.
For bring rectangular shield and gladius effectively must be well trained and know how to act in harmony with the companion you are next.
This is according to me the secret of strength of ancient legions than the post Constantine legions.

[machinor]

I think that the assumption, that medieval troops had little discipline and value on the battlefield is quite a wild generalization. First of all, the Middle Ages are quite a long time period in which there were quite some changes of equipment. Secondly feudal knights or men-at-arms were professional fighters much like ancient professional armies if not even more professional since they were trained from childhood on. Sure, they had a different battle doctrine than the rectangular-shield-Romans, but that does not mean that they are less capable. You're comparing two different kind of battlefield tactics that are more than 1000 years apart. It's not like people didn't invent new weapons and equipment in that time. Apart from that, there still existed shieldwall-formations in Medieval times.
Furthermore I think the contrary concept is accurate. The more and more heavy Medieval armour was not a consequence of the use of oval or non-rectangular shield-forms but the other way around: ancient soldiers tended to have large shields because they were not able to produce such high quality armour like in the Middle ages. As soon as almost full body plate armour was available the shield became obsolete and vanished more or less. After all it is quite handy in melee combat if you can afford to use both hands for fighting instead of only one.

[antisocialmunky]

Well, it depends on the period. The shield dropped out of favor when you had the proliferation of large plate and large pole weapons to defeat plate. After firearms appeared though, shields saw a small revival in sword and buckler men.

Stationary large pavise-style shields were used throughout the period.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

In my mind you are not offtopic Bucefalo because the thing you ve say it's very true (also if it's a game).
With spatha you can't bring a rectangular shield, you can only bring a oval shield and this second give you less protection to arrow or low attak.
I think the massive use of armour in Middle Ages was naturally conseguence of use of oval shields, then the long sword.
This shows that the majority of medieval troops had little discipline and little value.
For bring rectangular shield and gladius effectively must be well trained and know how to act in harmony with the companion you are next.
This is according to me the secret of strength of ancient legions than the post Constantine legions.

The Spatha was in use at the same time as the rectangular tower shield for about a century.

So I'm afraid none of that held up.

[Aper]

Aulus, you are FAAAAAAAAAAR too much simplicistic in your view of history, especially military history.
My god, I don't even know were to start... No offense here, but all you wrote in this thread is completely crap & obsolete & wrong.
Read carefully the replies (some very good infos here), study some NOT OUTDATED history books (academic, not history channel stuff, maybe your next university can be of help) and maybe try some practice with qualified medieval fencing master, before throwing s**t on the longsword and the knights, and posting odd theories with that bold attitude, thanks.
I know I have been quite rude, but it was necessary, trust me.

some links I hope you'll find useful

http://www.warfare.it/tattiche/costa...entiniano.html
http://www.warfare.it/tattiche/presu...edioevale.html
http://www.thearma.org/essays.htm
http://www.scherma-antica.org
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=70698

As I guess you are italian, if you want to understand better medieval warfare try the books of Aldo Settia, he is the greatest italian autorithy in middle ages military history IMHO.

Regards

[Aulus Caecina Severus]

Dear Aper, I read with great interest your documentation.
I have always interest to enrich my knowledge.

But what makes you think that my sources are outdated, and your sources are the truth?

I do not believe that anything I say is "cast gold"(as they say here in italy), I say to discuss and exchange information and opinions, freely and with respect.
I and anyone: we do not have the presumption to know everything, but we interact with others for answers, start provocations, laugh together.

Have you perhaps the presumption to be infallible?
I this case, I thank you for your information, but avoids trashing everything in advance that he disagrees with your ideas.
Here we discuss togheter! do not criticize others! we have respect for people!
This last thing that we do not learn from books, unfortunately for you.

all regards to your respectable person

[Aper]

But what makes you think that my sources are outdated, and your sources are the truth?
I do not believe that anything I say is "cast gold"(as they say here in italy), I say to discuss and exchange information and opinions, freely and with respect.
Have you perhaps the presumption to be infallible?
I this case, I thank you for your information, but avoids trashing everything in advance that he disagrees with your ideas.

I apologize for my manners, if I can't control myself maybe I should avoid posting.
Btw, I didn't posted "my ideas" as you say, I simply suggested you the opinions of well known experts, based on facts and research, that in most cases I checked myself in many years of hard studying (I'm getting a II level degree in Archeology and I have years of practice of medieval and renaissance real fencing, not for show, based on ancient treatises like that of Fiore de' Liberi, Filippo Vadi, Achille Marozzo, and many others).
My criticism comes from my studies, and more than suggesting you links and books to see by yourself what I mean, I cannot do, because an internet discussion like this always end like "my idea vs. your".
If you are interested, I'll post or send you by PM the material I wrote about: I'm italian too, so I can suggest you some books in our language, easier to read (like that of Settia).

Basically, I can say some time ago like you I enjoyed a lot of "black vs. white: what's the best?" or like we say in Italy "what's the gender of angels?" questions: I slowly understood that this is pure nonsense, reality is far more complex and interesting than some fanboysh simplicistic theories, and if you want a real answer you have to spend much time on actual evidences before cry "this is common sense!" around... About the sword, what make you think that 10-20 cm of difference in blades made spatha and gladius so dramatically different to decide the fate of a centuries old empire? Different weapon, different fencing, what make an army successful have little to do with the weapon of choice... The small increase in lenght of the longsword didn't prevent it to be used with great success in dense formations for a millennium, but here's the funny part, when you say "solduros, rycalawre, etc. have longsword, so the EB team is wrong giving them a close and dense formation." What? Only because your prejudices tells you that a longsword cannot, never, be used in tight formations, this should make the professionals historians of the EB team and the evidences spread from La Tene culture to late middle ages wrong??? This is what made me angry, nothing personal, but this is a most dangerous attitude in proper understanding of history.

gladius:




spatha:

Look at that images: you say someone told you the spatha was primarily a slashing weapon: well, judging from that long, narrow blade, I say it probaly was a better thruster than the gladius, more agile and with a better reach, while the gladius seems more like a butcher cleaver...

About the shields, AFAIK people in history made shield-walls with an infinite variety of protective tools, for an amateur it's hard to say the Thyreos (oval shield) was unsuitable for the task, considering that the EB team historians included in game some descriptions stating otherwise. And BTW it was not the only shield they used... and maybe the less suitable was really the scutum, its shape preventing legionaries overlapping them... the only prerequisite for a solid shieldwall.

About the late roman army being a bunch of smelling barbarians... ... ... ... I don't really know what to say, the practice of recruiting germanic mercenaries, probably increased over time due to the lack of manpower, but you should take in account that there was not a great difference between western and eastern regular roman army, the eastern one was plenty of germanic recruits too, but it remained for centuries the most refined and effective military force in europe and middle east, so...

An interesting article about gross generalizations regarding the actual way of fighting with a sword
http://www.thearma.org/essays/thrusting_vs_cutting.html

Cheers