Sword vs. Spear

[Nelson]

Why should sword armed troops get any bonus at all against spear armed troops? Granted, a sword might be a tad handier at arms length but getting past the spear point is hardly automatic.

And please, I'm open to any reasonable explanation EXCEPT the old worn out and overused rock, paper, scissors analogy which I reject as being over simplified and gamey.

[Watchman]

Well, most pike-carrying phalangites are pretty much crap with their backup sword attack, at least compared to any halfway decent "specialist" swordsmen... but I don't think that counts.

Anyway, I read somewhere spears were supposed to give a small bonus against cavalry and a small penalty against infantry.

[Ptah]

Alas, dead horsies tend to get in the way of the live ones (and the latter tend to get a little nervous by the screams of the former). Especially if you concentrate the assault too much - cavalry can't add "mass" to the charge by actual physical pushing anyway.

And any horse tries to back off when it actually hits the spear-points.

Dead horses also tend to fall down with spectacular thud, and sling around people with force powerful enough to push neckbones inside the skull. When a horse row intentionally charges a spear row with full force, virtually all of the people mounted or standing, can be considred "dead". The first row of both sides will die.

So, unless you have some really great braking system that can stop a 600kg object travelling at 38mph within 10 yards of distance, a trained warhorse ordered for a charge will not stop. That's a fact.

The problem with traditional anti-cavalry spear rows is that when people are packed close together to form a wall, once a foreign object enters inside the ranks the people in contact with that object cannot move around and wield weapons aggressively due to insufficient maneuvering space. So typically, if for some reason a suicidal cavalry force charges a spear wall, it will break inside the ranks like a nail hammered to a wood block (with humongous casulaties, ofcourse). Only when the position of the spear ranks shifts around and gains enough room to actively skewer the cavalrymen that successfully entered a spear row alive, will they be able to stop the cavalry.

This was possible in the ancient times where soldiers were highly motivated citizens, trained regularly, and had enough wealth to equip themselves with expensive pieces of armour and weaponery. The spear formations were in very deep ranks, and despite the initial drive, eventually spears will do away with cavalry. However, when such high quality of infantry seized to exist, heavy cavalry had no problems disrupting spear-armed infantry lines whatsoever.

Tactical avoidance of charging a spearwall with cavalry, is not a problem of will, it's a problem of efficiency and attrition. Generals refrained from ordering their cavalry to go become shish-kebab not because it was impossible, but because it was stupid.

[sapi]

lol an interesting viewpoint - i agree!

[dedmoroz]

In the real world, horsies can't (or won't) jump over spearpoints when charging the front of a phalanx...

Catafracts were used exactly for that: front charge against infantry.
they had full armor for both rider and the horse, the pike arround 4.5-5 meters long were tied with rope to the horse neck, so the rider needed only to point the pike in the right direction.
some history sources show that they were able to make terrible wounds to the infantry by charging this way, sometimes they were impailing 2 men at once within the initial charge.
it was a shock front charge cavalry and it happened in the real world m8

[anti_strunt]

Catafracts were used exactly for that: front charge against infantry.
they had full armor for both rider and the horse, the pike arround 4.5-5 meters long were tied with rope to the horse neck, so the rider needed only to point the pike in the right direction.
some history sources show that they were able to make terrible wounds to the infantry by charging this way, sometimes they were impailing 2 men at once within the initial charge.
it was a shock front charge cavalry and it happened in the real world m8

Dude, I was speaking about the hilarious way in which RTW cavalry charging the front of a phalanx would jump over all the spear points, breaking up formation of the pikemen and then slaughtering them. This particular feature was without a doubt introduced to save RTS kiddies the tedium of using some sort of tactics other than a head-on frontal charge, not to pay homage to some oddball military theory about horses willingly impaling themselves on pikes.

[Fridge]

There's a fix for the jumping horsies problem. Vercingetorix (I'm assuming not the original) has just disabled the animation routine of jumping horses, bye bye problem. The patch can be downloaded from this site...

[Ptah]

Dude, I was speaking about the hilarious way in which RTW cavalry charging the front of a phalanx would jump over all the spear points, breaking up formation of the pikemen and then slaughtering them. This particular feature was without a doubt introduced to save RTS kiddies the tedium of using some sort of tactics other than a head-on frontal charge, not to pay homage to some oddball military theory about horses willingly impaling themselves on pikes.

No.

That particular feature is introduced to give more diversity in tactical situations , than the boring "Rock-Scissors-Paper" game we used to see in MTW. "Spearmen" aren't automatic cavalry busters. Being armed with spears or standing in a neat looking phalanx formation means nothing. Absolutely nothing. The weapon, or the formation has no meaning when taken out of the context on how those weapons and formations can be used to full efficiency.

The only heavy cavalry that has a regular chance in breaking up a medium-grade phalanx unit by a head-on charge are the cataphtacts. The cataphracts are an elite group of well trained, heavily armed cavalry that comes from the cream of the proud and stubborn aristocracy.

Line up a human-sized, human-weight dummy and crash its ranks with a 600kg horse-sized dummy at 40mph speed, and the "horse-dummy" will crash through 16 ranks of "human-dummies" before coming to a halt. This is assuming the "horse-dummy" isn't self propelled at all, like a real horse.(Ofcourse, it is also assuming the "human-dummies" don't fight back at all). At anyrate, it gives a limited, but interesting comparison on just how strong a horse will crash into something.

Compared to that, how thick do we line up our phalanxes in the game? Rarely more than 6 ranks deep. Also, the phalanxes have only about 2 to 1, or 3 to 1 numbers advantage over a cavalry unit. At "large" sized game a typical phalangite has 80 men, as opposed to 40 cavalry. Not to mention not all of the 80 engage the 40 cavalry at the same time. The thinner the phalanx stands and the higher quality a cavalry boasts, the better the chance of significant number of cavalry penetrating the ranks alive.

Line up the phalanxes deep and back it up with more units and no cavalry is going through that alive, because the attirtion rate is much too high for the horsemen. Everything depends on the condition and situation of the battle. Lining up a certain unit type any place, any style, and expecting it to be "great against cavalry" just because it says so in the unit description, is as stupid as stupid does.

There is no such thing as "rock-scissors-paper" in a real fight. The more numerous factors exist, the more complicated things become. Every military leader studies battles before him, and if things were as simple and clear cut with the cavalry and the spears you suggest, there won't be such thing as a "good general" and a "bad general" in the first place. Everybody in charge of the army reads history. (At least, in the ancient times).

Julius Caesar specifically mentions. "you can't win battles by following texts". In the battle of pharsalus he stopped Pompeius' 7,000 cavalry with brilliant use of his 1,000 cavalry and a handful of veteran soldiers. He woudln't have bothered to come up with such a brilliant plan, if he could just arm the soldiers with long spears and expect them to hold off all the cavalry, would he?

[Paul Peru]

how thick do we line up our phalanxes in the game?

3 ranks, possibly 2 and a half. That's because we don't get proper bonii for having them in deep formations. So we keep them shallow to avoid getting flanked. 2 ranks is all you need + a few guys to replenish them when the dying starts.

There is no such thing as "rock-scissors-paper" in a real fight.

There's such a thing as "rock-bigger rock", however. That's a fitting analogy as far as cav vs inf is concerned. The sharpness of pointy things is not as essential as the length thereof. As dedmoroz said, some cataphracts "developed" pointy things of amazing length. Not many cav units in RTW show signs of being that well endowed, though. The pikes of a well-formed phalanx should be quite a charge-deterrent for horse and rider alike, even if they do have a round shield as well as a cutting implement.

The cataphracts are an elite group of well trained, heavily armed cavalry that comes from the cream of the proud and stubborn aristocracy.

It's a shame aristocrats today are far less prone to stubbornly impale themselves on the spears of enemy soldiers, isn't it? Nowadays it's more like

You less privileged guys go get impaled, I'll be in the Caribbean or something

[Didz]

It has also been proven that the losses to the Light Brigade were grossly exaggerated and that in fact the vast majority survived mainly because the majority of the Russian guns were firing en-enfilade and the light brigades formation was moving too fast to be targetted effectively.

[Didz]

It's a shame aristocrats today are far less prone to stubbornly impale themselves on the spears of enemy soldiers, isn't it?

Yep! I'd pay good money to see Tony BLair impale himself on a rusty spearpoint, preferrably blunt and smeared in dog-shit.

[King_Etzel]

Looks like another thread slipping off topic...

Anyway, if i had a real army, i wouldnt send suicide calvary to charge a bunch of spear points. I have this notion that infantry would work much better against spears. At least, better than in RTW. If i were an infantry facing a phalanx, i would want to use my sword to chop of the heads of their nice long pikes. Then i'll be fighting with a bunch of guys with long not so pointy anymore sticks instead. If they tried thrusting their spear/pike at me (which i imagine is rather difficult, given the length of those things), I'd want to bury their pike head in my shield and then hack it off. If all of my friends were doing the same, the spearmen would be effectively disarmed. But I suppose it isnt that easy and would get more complicated if they were walking forward. I dont really recall why the phalanx was so powerful during greek times (before alexander) but i do recall that those hoplite battles were a trial of brute strength and discipline in maintaining formation, and not many actually got themselves killed, but the losers tend to run away. And in those days, most of the Greek cities didnt have much in the way of calvary to chase the routers.

[LordKhaine]

One problem is that in real life... your phalanx guys would no doubt outnumber the heavy cavalry by a huge degree. There's no way you'd send your elite charging into pikes. Sure they'd break through the front line but the cost far outweights the gains. In RTW cavalry units are often about half the size, and cost about the same to maintain per man. If phalanxes were larger, and cavalry more expensive and harder to recruit, you'd be seeing far less people charging headlong into pikes.

Cavalry should be your elite shock troops, while in RTW it's perfectly affordable to have large amounts of cavalry in all the nations. Only a faction like Parthia should be able to field such amounts of cavalry without sucking their bank balance dry.

[Alphidius]

Ok I don't where this topic is heading to, but back to the title.

If I understand correctly, Roman Legions (Hestati etc.) use short swords known as Gladius so that the ranks may fight closely, supporting one another as opposed to axes, broad swords the Gauls, Germania used. So in terms of speed the short sword should get an advantage.

As for spears, they are best used at a range apart. They are anti-cavalry, negating Cavalry's first strike since they COULD strike from a distance.

I did pit one of my Roman Principles against Germania's Spearband. The result is unless their spears are raised up, or attacked from the flanks or back, there is no way my troops could even get close enough to inflict any damage. Which brings us back to sword vs spear topic. Conclusion spear is effective against distant, frontal attacks but non-existant in close-ranged, flanked ones.

[Somebody Else]

It's all to do with space really - a weapon needs some swinging distance to build up impetus - a spear will need a lot, a polearm also a lot, a longsword will need a fair bit and a short sword not so much at all. A dagger needs barely anything. The Romans favoured the gladius because it was short, and suited their compact formations. But try swinging a broadsword whilst shoulder to shoulder with a whole load of other people doing the same - not much is going to work very well.

Thinking about it, an ideal situation would have the front couple of ranks with short stabbing swords, and the next couple of ranks with spears, stabbing over the top.

[BDC]

There is no way in real life that you would get a horse to charge into a row of spear points. Horses just wouldn't do it.

[Spino]

There is no way in real life that you would get a horse to charge into a row of spear points. Horses just wouldn't do it.

Yes but there is alot you can do in the way of training and conditional reinforcement to make a horse to think that such an endeavor is not nearly as hazardous as it seems.

[Bey Osman]

Yes but there is alot you can do in the way of training and conditional reinforcement to make a horse to think that such an endeavor is not nearly as hazardous as it seems.

Yes but during the Napoleanic wars if even some of the best Cavalry in Europe couldn't break a Square formation because of the Bayoneted Muskets creating this heghe that unless they had a Lance they couldn't reach the Musket Men in this Formation because a Horse is too smart to charge into a wall of sharp spears or bayonets.

[Kraxis]

Yes but during the Napoleanic wars if even some of the best Cavalry in Europe couldn't break a Square formation because of the Bayoneted Muskets creating this heghe that unless they had a Lance they couldn't reach the Musket Men in this Formation because a Horse is too smart to charge into a wall of sharp spears or bayonets.

Don't forget that cavalries at this time were not all that great compared to other times. These were the guys that simply couldn't understand that anybody could ever have ridden without saddles or stirrups and thus must not have been good at charging (but there are quite a few examples or just such cavalries).

A horse has very bad eyesight to the front, chances are that it won't see the spearpoints (they are after all rather small), what it will see is the mass of men. "That is not nice," it thinks, "I can't run through such a dense mass." So it will stop. But it can be trained to believe that the rider knows better than it does, horses are not the brightest animals on our planet. So training it to run into such dense groups is not impossible, it would demand time and effort, but if you continually sent it at similar masses of dummies and open a lane for the horse in front where it can't see, it will believe the rider knows what he is doing. It will get used to accepting that a dense mass of men only looks dense, but are very run-throughable. It doesn't know it will die horribly.
The Hussaria of Poland could and did break pikeformations head on by the use of longer lances. Somehow they managed to break the lances on some poor pikeman and still leave the charge alive... How I don't know, but apparently horses could and would charge at pikes if the right people trained and led them.

Why didn't it happen more, in the middle ages for instance?
Well, cavalry as mentioned were very very expensive, and often if they were to have a chance against pikes they would be even more expensive, and worst yet they were also nobles. Nobles who considered their own life rather important, not something to throw away.
In the Middle Ages the knights were even more hampered. Why should a knight risk his precious life killing a few pikemen which were very far below his standing, when other noble knights roamed the field or some archers looked very juicy at one side. No the knights simply wouldn't do it even if they could (which they quite possibly could).

So in all, technically cavalry could have ridden down pikemen, but realistically they couldn't.

The problem with the jumping horses is rather bad, other horses than Cataphracts can beat phalanxes, they just can't beat top-pikes, but more normal hoplites and levy pikemen can be broken by lesser cavalry. And don't forget Companions, they too can dish out damage in the extreme.
It is too easy to rupture phalanxes head on with cavalry... It shouldn't be worth the attempt, cavalry should be used as they were, for flanking mainly.

I believe the jumping horses were added as eyecandy more than anything. I don't think it was added to make it easier to manage cavalry.

[Hellboy909]

3 ranks, possibly 2 and a half. That's because we don't get proper bonii for having them in deep formations.

Heh-heh. You said "bonii". Heh.

[Simetrical]

Should've at least been "boni." If you're going to use pretentious non-English plurals, at least use them correctly.

-Simetrical

[Ptah]

3 ranks, possibly 2 and a half. That's because we don't get proper bonii for having them in deep formations. So we keep them shallow to avoid getting flanked. 2 ranks is all you need + a few guys to replenish them when the dying starts.

You don't need a separate bonus in RTW. The game has internal mechanics which handle the physical force of charge, unlike flat-2D STW/MTW where physics had to be calculated through numbers provided by theoretical bonuses. In RTW, if the formation is deep, it already has the desired effect needed.

It's a shame aristocrats today are far less prone to stubbornly impale themselves on the spears of enemy soldiers, isn't it? Nowadays it's more like

It's quite no wonder. Noble aristocracy of the old earned their supremacy over the lesser people through duties to bear arms and fight against the enemy if war should happen. A noble who would not fight, who cannot protect the people, had no right to rule. The modern-day equivalent would be the Congressmen, Senators, and rest of the D.C. tophats bearing arms and being the first ones to charge into Iraq.

Wouldn't that be a sight for my sore eyes!

[Red Harvest]

You don't need a separate bonus in RTW. The game has internal mechanics which handle the physical force of charge, unlike flat-2D STW/MTW where physics had to be calculated through numbers provided by theoretical bonuses. In RTW, if the formation is deep, it already has the desired effect needed.

Not a bad theory but it does not appear to be entirely accurate based on many of the tests that have been done. Animations are central, so if you have a jumping cav as part of the animation it sometimes leaps over the pike formation. There is a mod to remove the jumping cav animation. While the 3D animations and hit zones are used as part of the determination of a hit, they are only part of the equation. There are mount effect bonuses, charge bonuses, terrain bonus/penalties, elevation effects, and various morale bonuses/penalties (most of the morale effects being undocumented at the moment.) So having some artificial physics clearly does not eliminate the need for morale and other effects to be considered. Otherwise, charge bonuses would not be necessary, they would come about naturally from the momentum and normal attack/defense calcs. Rank bonuses were there for more reasons than just 2D vs. 3D effects.

I've seen some odd things that I suspect are related to "momentum" calcs. For example, in testing some elephant mods I found heavy cav were stopping reduced size elephant unit charges cold. I suspect that the relative momentum values were the cause. The elephants should easily cause a hole through the skittish horses as the equines veer to avoid the widely spaced beasts, but the physics/animations don't "know" that. (I'm not saying the elephants wouldn't take casualties, etc, just that they should make the cavalry formation "porous.") I need to test my theory some more for confirmation as to the exact nature.

Another area that show problems when a pure game physics approach is used is unit stacking. Often you can get many more weapons massed vs. and enemy by stacking units. This should have a very negative impact, but instead it appears to be rather positive. STW/MTW seemed to have handled this situation better than RTW.

[Proletariat]

And please, I'm open to any reasonable explanation EXCEPT the old worn out and overused rock, paper, scissors analogy which I reject as being over simplified and gamey.

I await your own computer game's release. It will be very 'realistic' and fun, I'm sure. Have at it.

[Nelson]

I await your own computer game's release. It will be very 'realistic' and fun, I'm sure. Have at it.

Ho ho! Now we should we restrict discussion to developers only, heh?

I asked a simple question, chief.

Why should sword armed troops get any bonus at all against spear armed troops?

Do you have a sensible explanation? Can you contribute anything at all here?

Have at it.

[Paul Peru]

Heh-heh. You said "bonii". Heh.

That's right, Hellboy! My little joke. You'll humour a dying man.

Should've at least been "boni." If you're going to use pretentious non-English plurals, at least use them correctly.
-Simetrical

Actually I just forgot to add the smilii.

Pretensious, moi?

Hey! It's my post number 100!!

[Red Harvest]

Nelson,

If you say, "hey they are both 7 attack and 7 defense, they should kill at the same rate" it still won't work out right if one can be wielded twice as rapidly, or one has twice the reach, or one of the two is tremendously effective vs. cavalry, etc. There is also a match up factor, where does each weapons strike fall in the opponent's "hit box?" If one has a weapon strike that will land in the box 25% of the time while the other will land 50% of the time I expect a considerable change in kill rate.

Some of this can be accounted for in the 3d animations, some cannot, particularly morale effects. Pikes vs. swords and spears is interesting because of the reach effect. And animations could lead to some interesting effects such as if I have a 4 frame animation for one unit's attack, and 5 for another, then the hits are probably going to score differently. And what if there are some jumping animations thrown in? There might be no hits vs. the jumper, and the jumper might end up on a flank/rear.

The "gamey" rock-paper-scissors looks attactive compared to what we have at the moment. Right now it's more like rock-rock-scissors. Some counters are not countering properly. Afterall, specific weapons are meant as counters to various unit types. In MTW there were *degrees* of effectiveness of one unit type vs. another. It wasn't all rock paper scissors. A general chasing arbalesters with halbardiers deserved what he got (shot to pieces.) Same for cav charging spears frontally. Same for heavy armoured units in the desert. Same for cavalry attacking camels. Simple archers shooting at armour had little effect unless on high ground, just as expected.

[Red Harvest]

I tested changing the elephant mass vs. heavy cav. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like I expected. I moved the forest elephant mass from 10 all the way up to 50 without breaking through legionary cav in a frontal charge. This looks like more of a formation density problem at the moment. The legionary cav formation is tight so the elephant charge stops when it hits the wall of cav. Based on historical info I would expect the cav formation to break down from an elephant charge, but this does not seem to be modeled as such. I'm surprised that the elephant mass doesn't result in them punching through.

I did find a way to deal with the power of heavy cav. vs. elephants though. I changed the cav unit's "mount effect" to the negative sum of its primary melee and charge bonus. A fixed value for all cav makes little sense, because the real issue is the horse. High end troops should still have major trouble with their mount not letting them near the pachyderm. Even with the adjustment, heavy cav still hang in there too long vs. elephants, so the morale effect is very subdued--probably another flat value that works well vs. light cav, poorly against heavy cav.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

yeah baby, contentious thread!

Time i ploughed in with my swinging sword of rightousness and my trusty spear thrust of truth. Or not.

Etzel, the reason you and your mates couldn't make pointy things less pointy is that they would most likely have some armouring back from the point to stop just this. Also, if you're charging into combat, i doubt you have time to accurately hack off the spear point in front of you as you stumble onto it. Also, there's probably another two pointy things behind the first one. And yes, they probably are thrusting them into your chest.

Jumping animations - yes, a bit silly - i can cope with them for light cav maybe, but not for cataphracts. Yes, I think Cataphracts probably could punch a hole through most infrantry, even spear formations - although i'd think they'd still bear some bruising casualties - even just from riders being unhorsed from the force of contact with a spear (even if it didn't penetrate their armour). I've noticed that Desert cavalry units ALWAYS penetrate my Seleucid phalanxes - and usually after the charge has stopped - they kinda just push through the formation, then turn around and murder them from behind - ridiculous, although quite useful if you work for Egypt!

Back to the topic - no, swordsmen should not have any bonuses vs spearmen - a group of swordsmen charging a disciplined phalanx from the front should get murdered - especially in the initial contact of the charge, after that, gaps may well appear in the phalanx spearpoint formation that can be exploited, as pikes get embedded in shields/bodies etc...

The advantage of sword-armed troops on the battlefield should be more related to their vastly increased manouverability, (speed of movement and turning) - allowing them to exploit gaps and flanks more quickly, and increased kill rates when they get close and personal (as opposed to the slow grinding of phalanxes). I always thought that the paper(swords)-rock (spears) part of MTW (specifically) was a bit silly and egged on by peoples' love affair with swords and with images of broad-sword wielding conan's smiting all before them (I smite thee with my F'ing big broad sword!)

PS:- re: roman cohorts (specifically) against phalanxes - a frontal assault by a cohort on a phalanx would, i would have thought, be aided by a pila shower immediately prior to the charge, as this would disrupt the formation to an extent. Maybe this is not modelled at present in RTW. Not sure if this would be enough to allow them to punch into the formation though..

[Nelson]

I think we get too wrapped around the axle about weapons. Weapons are cool and I like to study them as much as any other wargamer. But they are incidental to the fight compared to leadership, training and morale.

My issue is with the whole “counter unit” concept based on weapons. Spears can sometimes have an advantage vs cav for good reason IMO. The fact that spear armed units can have a bonus vs cav should not compel every unit type to have a special bonus of it’s own against something else just so all units get a bonus. The question should not be “Well, if spears get a bonus vs cavalry, what bonus do swords get?”. (I don’t suggest that this is what you advocate, Red )

Not every unit needs to be a specific counter to something else. Any unit can succeed against any other if the tactical situation allows. Creating that situation should not be so simple as hitting scissors with rocks and covering stones with paper to achieve an edge. Caesar and Hannibal never had it so easy. As I see it, if swords had it all over spears then why didn’t the Romans completely mop the floor with Pyrrhus?

Pyrrhus killed a lot of gladius armed Romans with spears. Not once but three times. Where’s the basis for a sword vs spear bonus I ask, beyond the “They gotta have SOME kinda bonus for the RPS paradigm” rationale? The debate over melee advantage based upon weapons is not answered by history in this regard. Maniples were more maneuverable than rigid phalanxes. Bingo on the movement point, Kyodai. Anybody hitting a phalanx flank will hurt it badly, whatever they fight with. Hitting the phalanx in its’ front was bad news, whatever weapon you held. Only rarely do weapons afford an advantage to one side or the other. Some combination of leadership, tactics, numbers or morale won the day. Oh, and let's not forget dumb luck.

Each unit type is different for sure. But this is based on how it fights, not who it fights. Missile units strike from a distance. That’s their advantage. Cavalry is fast and hard hitting and that’s its’ advantage. Two handed weapons get an anti armor plus. Swords are an all around kind of unit, decent at offense and defense and probably better at fighting on walls than others and not so slow as a phalanx. So sword armed troops have plenty going for them already. I don’t think they need a bonus vs spears.

I expect that the animations are not considered in the combat math. Are they indeed? I should add that I have removed the cavalry leaping from my game. Phalanxes are much tougher on cav now.

And yes, there are several issues with elephants.