phalangitai... too few spears?

[Karamazovmm]

[QUOTE=Arkhis;2374388]

They need offensive support to be most effective.

The point in here is that they were used for "charging" the enemy line and to hold (the terminology used by Foot is probably the best), and to charge in any military manual, count as an offensive movement, the attack of Parmenion an d Alexandros in the gaugamela batttle is a clear example.

Tanks are technically cavalry

Yes they are.

, they certainly don't hold a battleline

yes they do, the basic strategy developed for the tanks in the 1WW was that it would disrupt the enemy formations, mainly that of the trenches. In WW2 that role clearly suffered a transformation, it's pretty easy to see the changes made by the designers, tanks as a disruptive force were outlasted by the support role that they made to infantry, it's clear that you're not familiarized with modern day tactics as in that you pin the enemy than you outmaneuver and kill him, supressing fire is the basic point in those formations, and it was firstly realised by Hitler, than the frenchs, and finally for the americans (albeit perceived in WW2 it was only fully deployed in the pacific theatre (for the lack of a heavy tank for the japanese), further development only came in with the M1A1), the russians well that's for another day.
Of course the tactics couldn't be translated as an actual phalanx, that died in the middle ages, the tanks were used as the spearhead to pin the enemy and to the infantry maneuver and kill the enemy, actually those examples that you cited operation supercharge and the battle of kursk were extremes, as they relied heavily in the firepower of those tanks, and as such the britsh and the soviet tanks were, kindly putting, armored cars compared to the germans panzer IV and tiger, gently putting, if they couldn't outsmart and outmaneuver they were dead, most of their shots didn't penetrate the heavy armor, and as such the only options was to advance and send the infantry to flank, which we could consider being the main purpose of the phalanx, advance pin down, and let someone do the killing, this behaviour could be perceived in both battles (which are considered the two major tanks battle of the war, therefore extremes), and such if this behaviour could be perceived in those examples, imagine a more common type of battle, in which a panzer division utilized infantry and tanks combined. The tactics is as follow:
1 - pin/disrupt enemy formations
2 - send rapid deployment teams to flank
3 - let the tanks advance use the offensive abilities to pin down and defensive abilities to soak fire
4 - let infantry kill
BTW, if you see the westpoint or another military academy they clearly specify the phalanx as an inspirational for modern day fighting and tank deployment

Also, Swedish pike charges were done in an era where wearing armour had become almost obsolete (certainly for infantry), making a wall of pikes far more dangerous to the enemy, since they didn't have any protection. It's a bit pointless to liken their use in the age of gunpowder with their use in classical times, due to SEVERELY different equipment (and thus, tactics).

yes tactics change over time, but let's say that that Alexandros was fighting an army based with a lot of ranged troops, and let's say that the great weakness of the phalanx was that they could be outmaneuvered and hence be destroyed, if you have a prevalent army of ranged units that actually fought too much for the hollywood likening in close range, as in hand to hand combat the phalanx could and was still used to pin down and to let the others units do the killing, they could kill more because of the lack of armor? Sure why not? they could kill less? that's not impossible..

The point that I was trying to make is, the phalanx was a great formation and that it was more adaptable than we like to see it. Hammer and Anvil? sure! it's derivations were used throughout the time, yes it was. Was there any need to adapt those tactics to the new ways of killing, yes there was. The core of the tactics was maintained? we could say that.

PS: it's just my opinion, and yes it's my professional opinion