Quote Originally Posted by saka-rauka1 View Post
A spear concentrates is energy behind a single sharp point, thus being better suited to pierce armour than a sword. That said, you can't exactly put full power behind it if your enemy is right on front of your face. I think I should bring up poleaxes though. When full plate armour became prevalent, a means to get through that armour was needed, and poleaxes were one of the solutions. Spears obviously didn't quite cut it. So if you were thinking that the Greeks were after a very good armour piercing weapon; I would say that they could have found a better weapon for that purpose, one that would suit close quarters fighting. Lets not forget, that cataphracts in the east used maces for this purpose despite reach being an issue for someone on horseback.

I would also argue that if a spear isn't useful for keeping people at a distance, they wouldn't have been nearly as long as they were.
Hoplite spearheads were not designed to penetrate armour, they had a wide leaf shape which was perfect for cutting into flesh but would have been fairly useless against metal armour. They did have a buttspike that was designed to do that but it has been theorised that was more for finishing off enemies who had already fallen. For close quarters there was the Kopis, which was specially meant to pierce armour.

And yes you right, keeping people at a distance was exactly what the spear was invented for.