Legion vs. Phalanx

[antisocialmunky]

Isn't quoting yourself some sort of narcisism?

[Banzai!]

What has always puzzled me is how to actually kill someone with a sarrisa pike? I can't see how you could deliver a thrust with any kind of force behind it. Can a pike even penetrate chainmail?

I always imagined the phalanx just using its depth to walk over an enemy formation, butt-spiking those unfortunates who have been pushed down. I think I know now why Polybius was so surprised after seeing the gladius in action - yes, real weapons do leave cuts.

[satalexton]

I'm sure the sheer brutality of 'push of pike' done by the swiss would be a good indicator of the lethality of the sarrisae...

[mountaingoat]

i would still like to know on what grounds Sid Meir believes a phalanx unit can defend and defeat a a group of ironclads.

[Parallel Pain]

The greatest advantage of pike is it's great reach, and the greatest advantage of a pike formation is to use that great reach to form an (almost) impenetrable wall of spear points. Then it doesn't really matter if you can't deliver as big a wound to the enemy when the enemy can't even attack you.

Then again in a pike-on-pike engagement where the pikes are of equal length there were casualties and there were instances of thinner ranks holding deeper ranks for a long time and even winning, so at the very least the pike can do damage and the formation did not purely rely on weight of the push.