phalangitai... too few spears?

[The General]

remember what I described as the meaning of charge in the sentence? it doesn't contemplate the contact, it only contemplates the running, and sincerely a unit that was trained most probably by phillip, that is combat experienced, and most of all fought together for a long time? I can't see that they could really do that, you saw that picture, and you know that alexandros was pretty agressive in his batttles, and let's not forget that pyrros inovated, by interlacing the support into the phalanx.

It seems like we can't agree upon the term "charge". You seem to perceive it as a synonym for "engage" or "close upon enemy". In my opinion charge specifically refers to attacking enemy at a rapid pace, usually to break, penetrate or disturb the enemy formation (like Celts with their famous mass charge).

Like *cough* Wikipedia explains: "A charge is a maneuver in battle in which soldiers advance towards their enemy at their best speed to engage in close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic and decisive moment of most battles in history." Advancing at full speed and maintaining phalanx formation would seem rather hard, even on even ground, as sarissas were rather clumsy, even with training.

And yes the phalanx was a evolution of the hoplite concept, and their style of warfare is pretty much what led to this "evolution", they fought in a agressive/defensive manner, their shields would be the integral part of the attack and defense, how?

1- advance as a unit
2 - block the enemy with your shields
3 - attack behind your shields
4 - if it fails, use your shield to push ty enemy to create a gap
5 - if it fails, slash ty enemy
repeat until done

the innovation was that by adding a longer spear you could avoid many of the casualties resulted by the attack of the swords.

As far as I know, (traditional) hoplite mêlée was not decided by spears but the push factor (which is why Thebans crushed Spartan elite at Leuctra). The longer spears made it possible to field lighter, more mobile and nimbler units of Hoplites. Iphikrates started his reforms in the navy where longer spears were simply advantageous. I don't think swords were much of a factor behind his reforms, however, if you have sources, I'd be more than happy to educate myself.

As far as I know, Philip, inspired by Iphikrates and Epaminondas, reformed his army from an noble cavalry - peasant rabble (skirmishers and other light infantry) force into a force capable of defeating organized opponents in pitched battles. While he retained the noble cavalry element, he employed his infantry with sarissas, spears even longer than what Iphikrates (and his imitators) used to further compensate for his infantry soldiers' poor armament (Makedonian citizens were to a large degree farmers and could not pay for an expensive hoplite outfit; Philip had to pay for their armaments himself) - if his enemies couldn't reach his soldiers with their spears, the lack of (heavy/any) armour didn't matter (... if phalanxes were not flanked/disturbed at which point they'd get into mêlée...).

And tell me what other highly trained and cohesive (as in maintain formation) formation just doesn't perform at peak efficiency in uneven terrain?

There's a difference in my book between not performing at peak efficiency and losing enough cohesion to disturb and break the formation (what happened at Pydna).


Also thanks for JMRC for the update. It's a shame that AI phalanxes will turn from sometime nigh-impregnable formations (EBI) to ones that will break certainly, given some time... From one bad alternative to another (though perhaps not as bad as before).