The Pushing Match

[moonburn]

a few people should get beaten with a bronze hoplon and experience the crushing power of a true push and then multiply it by 8

with the right balance/momentum a proper men doesn´t even need a spear he just crashes against the other dude gets him off his ballance and then tramples him

for a mental image the americans can even use their kind of football to imagine the power of the push when in practices their players can move 2 ton cars with a shoulder push by almost 2 feet (60 centimeters)

me personally when i was younger and fit i could bend matrisses all the way up to the midle and be projected almost 2 meters back by the backlash such was the strenght and power i could put into it (it was a litle game me and my friends played in gymnastic against the piled up matrisses wich where very flexible)

another game that i used to do when i was younger (6 to 11 years old give or take) was to separate into 2 groups and then each group would give hands (rougly separated by an arms lenght) and if you could break their link with just a "push" you would remove one of their members if not you where out and i remember that it could get very extreme in terms of power we had to stop playing it around 12 years old because a few people broke their wrists and bended a few harms since as we grew we could get greater momentum and we had more strenght

thats how i see the "push" working turn your side with the hoplon to the other guy and try to crush him by forçe and momentum

can you imagine a 80 kilos dude crushing another against a wall with his shoulder at full strenght ? broken ribs and massive internal damages spears are only necessary if the dude was somehow able to whitstand the crush and if he did you use the spear overhand inside your formation by around 10-15 minutes with the adrenalin pumping and then pull back rest for a while and then do it again

thats how i understand hoplite warfare the phallanx (as in with sarissas) warfare did indeed used underhand grip but with a sarissa thats the best you can do normal people with sarissa can´t do more then to have a stationary position and it takes a true veteran to use the sarissa in a true ofenssive way and not just as an anvil wich was infact it´s original design (great veterans could go a bit further and use it a bit like pike formations in the medieval time in an agressive way but the euipment gives itself more for anvil or stationary/defensive warfare then agressive warfare)

p.s: yes i rant alot :\

[Arjos]

If it was a "pushing match", why would Xenophon suggest that a hoplite phalanx 1 rank deep could win any battle?
I think that was all about cohesion and maintaning the formation, so in the end every man would have helped eachother killing the other's frontal opponent and so on...
To me it's obvious that the losing side gets "pushed" back, as people dying lay down and the winning side advances, with the less experienced men obviously giving ground...

[Randal]

I don't know Greek, and have no illusions of deciding this academic debate, let alone by trying to interpret Xenophon, but as shown by the secondary sources I quoted it is a debate and the conclusions are far from clear. I find the counter-arguments to "othismos" as pushing match much more convincing than the classical case, which to me seems to contradict evidence from all other eras and methods of warfare that we know, but again, don't argue with me, argue with Goldsworthy or Sabin.

As for "push of pike" in the early modern era, the term was used but I was under the distinct impression actual eyewitness reports actually said it was mostly a tentative fencing match at maximum range, like what Alrik describes his post.

[Arjos]

The only pushing element I can think there was, is when one side would try to exploit the death of some opponents in certain areas, and so "pushed" men there to distrupt the enemy's phalanx formation...

BTW about grips, underhand can't be the case with an aspis, especially undershield, due to its size, while overshield will expose so much the arm and shoulder with an angle that makes any shoulder guard useless...

[Geticus]

a few people should get beaten with a bronze hoplon and experience the crushing power of a true push and then multiply it by 8

with the right balance/momentum a proper men doesn´t even need a spear he just crashes against the other dude gets him off his ballance and then tramples him

thats how i see the "push" working turn your side with the hoplon to the other guy and try to crush him by forçe and momentum

can you imagine a 80 kilos dude crushing another against a wall with his shoulder at full strenght ? broken ribs and massive internal damages spears are only necessary if the dude was somehow able to whitstand the crush and if he did you use the spear overhand inside your formation by around 10-15 minutes with the adrenalin pumping and then pull back rest for a while and then do it again

thats how i understand hoplite warfare the phallanx (as in with sarissas) warfare did indeed used underhand grip but with a sarissa thats the best you can do normal people with sarissa can´t do more then to have a stationary position and it takes a true veteran to use the sarissa in a true ofenssive way and not just as an anvil wich was infact it´s original design (great veterans could go a bit further and use it a bit like pike formations in the medieval time in an agressive way but the euipment gives itself more for anvil or stationary/defensive warfare then agressive warfare)

p.s: yes i rant alot :\

Yeah that's basically it. Some are saying that there is no evidence for shieldpressure being used in war in other eras- martial cultures. This is incorrect, in the Germanic world it was a standard tactic to use blunt pressure including massed press of shields to take down unbreakable warriors after the weaker warriors were killed off, this was called "bearing him down with shields". IIRC this was the way the English took down the famous viking Ragnar Lothbrok in the Lothbrok Saga. Closer to home, the Romans used their shieldbosses as blunt striking weapons as well. The famous 4th century general Manlius Torquatus Imperiosus, whose name was synonymous with Roman military discipline, gained the cognomen of Torquatus when he killed a Celtic champion in single combat in front of the Roman and Celtic armies, the account that we receive in Livy relate that Torquatus shieldbashed the Celtic champion, knocking him off balance, and then gutted him with the sword. Gaius Marius the great military reformed is also recorded as drilling his legionaries in using shieldbashes during the Cimbri-Teutonic War. The Hellenes just fought in a unified shieldwall and took that principle of shieldpressure to the limit, making a massed blunt impetus to the point that farmers who had greater raw strength but lacked the precision of arms that comes with professional practice, still could have impact on the battlefield throught the application of simple brute strength.

[Randal]

Of course people used their shields to shove and push and bash.

What's being questioned is the theory that in a Hoplite phalanx 8, 16 or 50 ranks of warriors pushed their shields against the back of the guy in front of them to create vastly greater frontal pressure.

I don't doubt for a moment that hoplites, germans and just about anybody else with a big, solid shield used it as an offensive as well as a defensive weapon.

[bobbin]

I think a good argument for hoplites pushing en mass is the Battle of Leuctra, Epaminondas's tactic of concentrating his 50 deep phalanx on the Spartan right would not have made any sense if he hadn't intended to use it to overpower the Spartans with brute force.

[Arjos]

I don't know, think the deep Theban left wing had to tire the Spartans, don't forget the cavarly was put there too...
Was summer it was hot, the Thebans could have even afforded to lose lots of men on the left, but collapsing the Spartan right meant victory, so in the end was the 300-400 hippeis against the Thebans in way...

[bobbin]

I don't know, think the deep Theban left wing had to tire the Spartans, don't forget the cavarly was put there too...
Was summer it was hot, the Thebans could have even afforded to lose lots of men on the left, but collapsing the Spartan right meant victory, so in the end was the 300-400 hippeis against the Thebans in way...

I find that unlikely, the Thebans were heavily outnumbered in infantry (~4000), it would have been madness to adopt such "cannon fodder" tactics when facing an enemy with superior numbers and training.

The whole crux of the victory rested upon the fact that the Theban left was able to defeat the Spartan right before the weaker centre and right gave way against the more numerous and better trained Spartan soldiers opposing them.

This is why Epaminondas used the echelon formation in the first place, to keep the weaker parts of his army away from the Spartans for as long as possible. If the clash on the Spartan right had been a prolonged slogging match to grind the Spartans down, the Theban left and centre would have given way before a victory could have been achieved.

They needed a quick victory.

[Geticus]

I find that unlikely, the Thebans were heavily outnumbered in infantry (~4000), it would have been madness to adopt such "cannon fodder" tactics when facing an enemy with superior numbers and training.

The whole crux of the victory rested upon the fact that the Theban left was able to defeat the Spartan right before the weaker centre and right gave way against the more numerous and better trained Spartan soldiers opposing them.

This is why Epaminondas used the echelon formation in the first place, to keep the weaker parts of his army away from the Spartans for as long as possible. If the clash on the Spartan right had been a prolonged slogging match to grind the Spartans down, the Theban left and centre would have given way before a victory could have been achieved.

They needed a quick victory.

One might also consider Polyainos' anecdote about Epaminondas calling out to his men during the battle to give him "one more step" and they would thereby gain the victory.
Hen bema charisasthe moi, kai ten niken hexomen. (2.3)
Give me one more step, and we will attain victory.
To me it seems clear evidence that classical historians accepted othismos/shield pressure as potentially decisive in battle

[antisocialmunky]

It was somewhat Pyrrhic as all the commanders died in the fighting.

[Arjos]

They needed a quick victory.

That's all right, my point was that Epaminondas most likely knew how depleted was the Spartiatai (due to all the recent events), and his goal was to eliminate the remaining...
Then everything went so smoothly that victory was achieved with such low casualties, but most likely the first Theban ranks got "chewed" and a mass rout didn't take place because the left wing was so deep. Giving time to the cavalry to manouver and the rest of the Thebans to engage...

[Lazy O]

Stupid Argument. Wield a spear underhand, youre only going to hit the shield. And with geticus' post, I dont think it matters if you have x centimetres less grip.