Quote Originally Posted by jirisys View Post
Ok, so now you're criticizing the whole aspect of warfare? Spears were carried because it was defensive, the sword because it was for when things really got messy. Would you like to argue that every single soldier that carried a spear would make it useless?

Battles were not fought like the TW series shows it. It was thousands of men, spanning miles, most of the time with several more depth than just 8; just going at it, inches from one another. There was really no space or great room to use a spear your way. even phalanxes were not as effective against armoured soldiers; there wer hundreds of men who went into hand to hand with the phalanx. The spear is used as a piercing weapon, you try to insert the pointy thing inside someone; very useful for defense. Swords were used to cut and butcher as much as you could to make your enemy die; great for the offensive.
Doesn't seem like there was any way to use a spear in the conditions described here. A spear's principle advantage is reach, which you don't have anymore; add to that the fact that they apparently broke often, and it seems that carrying one instead of a sword would just be ridiculous.

The spear isn't simply a defensive weapon; what robs it of much of its offensive force is the need to stay in a tight formation. In a one-on-one fight a spear is an extremely versatile weapon. When you don't have room to use it in the myriad ways it can be wielded, then it becomes something less.
A spear is much worse when its used in a 1v1 situation.