Over or Under?

[Skullheadhq]

Its sad to see the forum devoid of lively debate about historical controversies.

The forum has been calm as of late. Back in the days there used to be a lot more traffic.

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah I came back and was surprised to see it so depopulated...

Does anyone have a good explanation of why Greek Hoplites dearmored themselves during the Peloponnese War? Of course the amount of armor a soldier would wear varied by state but it seems like this was a general trend during this period.

Some argue that the rise of lighter peltasts led to hoplites needing to be more maneuverable. However the Greeks, especially the Athenians and other members of the Delian League had a great deal of experience fighting missile heavy (relative to Greek armies) Persian armies in Asia Minor during the retaking of Ionia before the start of the first Peloponnesian war which didn't seem to cause them as many issues despite the fact that the Aspis was not very missile resistant. In fact the rise of skirmishers occurred during the 2nd Athenian Empire/Corinthian War/Theban Hegemony and this lead to the adoption of more armor and specialized troops to hunt down skirmishers.

One could also argue that the high body count and the need to fielded larger armies reduced the average amount of equipment that a hoplite could bring to battle but this doesn't explain the Spartans reported armored with only with a Pilos Helm, shield, and not even greaves. You'd think atleast the first couple ranks would have a decent amount of armor. On a side note, I guess this a argument against underhanded spear because you need to open the shield to stab which seems like a terrible idea if you don't have torso armor.

I guess another argument could be for the innovation of tactics during this period for large armies of hoplites. Interestingly the Greeks did not use much cavalry or even light troops but masses of hoplites so marching them around would be one of the easiest ways of increasing the effectiveness of the hoplite. The reduction in armor may have coincided with the need to move around to out flank enemy positions such as the Spartans at Leuktra getting caught in a marching formation when they were trying to outflank the Thebans. Another example of maneuver was when the Athenians surrounded the Thespians on the Theban left at Delium.

[Skullheadhq]

Perhaps because the war was fought on more fronts than any war which preceded it. The war was fought in Attica, the Pelopponese, Thrace, Ionia and Sicily. Moving troops around works better when they're lightly armored. And perhaps the advantage of being heavily armored was lost when your opponent had as much armor as yourself.

[antisocialmunky]

I'm not sure if that explanation makes sense for a few reasons:

1) It seems like a contradiction to say that if there is an advantage in armor that is lost when equally armored, does it in follow that giving up the armor advantage gives you an advantage?
2) If you reduce armor to move around, wouldn't that give defenders a huge advantage?
3) And while battles happened all over the place, usually there were only one or two battles (related) in a given theatre each year because war was expensive and the fighting season was restricted by planting and harvesting times (unless you were Sparta or you paid your troops like Athens did in the later 400's BCE)

Does anyone have some good books on the subject that specifically details the Peloponnessian War? I've already looked at the Osprey 480-323 BC Hoplite book, Storm of Spears and am currently reading Land Battles in 5th Century BC Greece: A History and Analysis of 173 Engagements to try and get a better picture of how battles were fought during this period.

[Ludens]

Does anyone have some good books on the subject that specifically details the Peloponnessian War? I've already looked at the Osprey 480-323 BC Hoplite book, Storm of Spears and am currently reading Land Battles in 5th Century BC Greece: A History and Analysis of 173 Engagements to try and get a better picture of how battles were fought during this period.

It's not specifically about the Peloponnesian War, but "Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities" by Hans van Wees is a very useful source.

[The Gypsy]

This post is quite interesting as I wanted to start one on a similar theme, due to having recently read 'Storm of Spears' by Christopher Matthew. I am not a historian by any means and this is my first proper history book I have read, but it was very convincing in its arguments.

The crux of his argument lies in the depiction of most Hoplite warfare, using spears above their head held in the middle. However this doesn't correspond to the point of balance of the Hoplite spear (being held further back due to the weight of the sauroter). He argues that this represents the missile fighting of an earlier era. he also cites evidence relating to testing with replicas and the like. I would it quite interesting, convincing and well worth a read.

Btw first post, so be gentle :)

[antisocialmunky]

There is a really funny thing I've discovered on his empirical testing. In 2001, the previous 'definitive' testing of hoplite spear strikes showed that the overarm grip was 5x the power of the underarm (http://www.romanarmytalk.com/19-gree...tart=15#287691, you need to login). Storm of Spear's study shows the exact opposite where underarm is much more powerful than overarm by a similar amount. The only thing they both confirm is that the human arm generates around 45N of force in the best case.

The possible difference? Christopher did his testing in Australia and the 2001 tests were performed in America. The deciding factor (besides Aussies being opposite) seems to boil down to common throws in predominant sports. American sports almost exclusively perform overarm throws while Australians do not. If you've seen the Mythbuster's 'throw like a girl episode', they discovered that the difference in throwing between men and women normalized by professional ball players turns out to be muscle memory.

So we come back to square one going back to artwork.

Also it is unclear whether or not they tested an elastic grip or static grip for overhand stabbing. The elastic one is much more powerful and accurate. It is the same motion you would use with a throwing spear except you don't fully let go of the projectile. Its not the first thing you think of when you try and stab with a static grip if you aren't familiar with it. People tend to grip the spear too hard and angle their attack downward which is inaccurate.