Swordsmen and spears are way so different.

[Red Harvest]

I disagree. A spearman only needs room to the front of him to jab forwards with the spear. A swordsman needs room all around to swing and recover the sword properly. This is why spears are much more effective in groups. Now if you are talking about swinging a spear, its not really a spear, but a quarter staff.

Nope, any time you have something 6 ft long or more, you are going to have trouble wielding it with obstructions compared to something 2 or 3 feet long. Back to a wall, the spearman is in big trouble being limited to parrying, the swordsman can still thrust and cut. Remember, swords like the gladius are thrusting weapons too. If you are talking about a pike 9 feet or longer then just turning it in the woods becomes a big challenge. It's analagous to the trouble a long rifle has versus short barreled weapons in confined spaces/close quarters.

That was a weakness of phalanx formations, They were deadly straight ahead, but if disrupted by vegetation or terrain, they were not sufficiently flexible.

And regardless, once the swordsman gets past the spear tip he is on offense, while the spearman is on defense.

[m52nickerson]

Nope, any time you have something 6 ft long or more, you are going to have trouble wielding it with obstructions compared to something 2 or 3 feet long. Back to a wall, the spearman is in big trouble being limited to parrying, the swordsman can still thrust and cut. Remember, swords like the gladius are thrusting weapons too. If you are talking about a pike 9 feet or longer then just turning it in the woods becomes a big challenge. It's analagous to the trouble a long rifle has versus short barreled weapons in confined spaces/close quarters.

That was a weakness of phalanx formations, They were deadly straight ahead, but if disrupted by vegetation or terrain, they were not sufficiently flexible.

And regardless, once the swordsman gets past the spear tip he is on offense, while the spearman is on defense.

A gladius, like all short swords is primarily a thrusting weapon. They how ever however ineffective verses a spear formation. Even if the swordman armed with a short sword got past the first row of spear heads he sill had to get close enough to kill with that short sword. He ran into the problem of the second and third row of spear heads. That is why in Roman times and earlier the phalanx was so effective.
Later on with the development of larger swords, long swords, bastard sword, two handed swords. They were more effective. The swordman no longer had to get so close to kill. They could get inside the reach of the first spear row, and fend off the second with a shield while killing the first row of men. The larger slashing swords could also break spears.
So this left the spear useful for defending against calvary, but not against infantry.
Also remember this, as spear may be twice as long as a sword, but you don't hold a spear at its very end. You do a sword. So the spears over all length is not always used.

[Red Harvest]

A gladius, like all short swords is primarily a thrusting weapon. They how ever however ineffective verses a spear formation. Even if the swordman armed with a short sword got past the first row of spear heads he sill had to get close enough to kill with that short sword. He ran into the problem of the second and third row of spear heads. That is why in Roman times and earlier the phalanx was so effective.
Later on with the development of larger swords, long swords, bastard sword, two handed swords. They were more effective. The swordman no longer had to get so close to kill. They could get inside the reach of the first spear row, and fend off the second with a shield while killing the first row of men. The larger slashing swords could also break spears.
So this left the spear useful for defending against calvary, but not against infantry.

Huh? The gladius was superior *because* it was a short thrusting weapon, and was ideal for this close in work versus spears. Not that spears were easy to penetrate, that is what the armour and shield were for--to get inside to do the work. Once inside a shorter weapon was superior. A long sword won't compete with a 14+ ft sarissa.

The gladius grew shorter for a time, rather than longer, then eventually the legions transferred to the spatha, but by then they were no longer facing the Greek or Macedonian style phalanx. I've not studied this later time period, but I suppose it was more of using the traditional weapons of non-Roman populations who now composed the legions.

You are now getting more into the formation vs. single man debate and mixing elements. The phalanx lost in this, because of its inflexibility. It was superior head to head, as long as it could maintain cohesion. However, facing more heavily armoured enemies, it could no longer be relied upon to keep swordsmen at bay, and the cohesion could be lost more easily. (As you armour up both sides, the relative effectiveness of the phalanx falls.) Additionally, the pila served to break up the phalanx before melee started.

Unless I've completely misread history, it was the gladius that was part of the system that made the phalanx ineffective, not longer swords.

Also remember this, as spear may be twice as long as a sword, but you don't hold a spear at its very end. You do a sword. So the spears over all length is not always used.

Of course, that's what I was trying to tell you when you said that the spearmen only had to worry about the front. That is also why you have more trouble with spear in a confined area. Try carrying a 9 ft long shaft through the woods and make a few turns and maneuvers. Unless you are in a very open forest you are going to have some serious problems.

[m52nickerson]

A long sword won't compete with a 14+ ft sarissa.

If you are implying that one-on-one someone armed with a 14 ft spear, could beat someone with a long sword (all things being equal), you are dead wrong.

Yes the Gladius did help bring down the phalanx, reading my post again, I gave the wrong impression. Spear formation did continue thou. As armor was improved the Gladius slowly became less effective vs armored spear troops. Were larger swords started to come into there own.

[ajaxfetish]

IIRC during the Renaissance, and pretty much during the height of the importance of pike formation fighting, the bane of the pikemen were Spanish infantry armed with short swords and bucklers. With the bucklers they could deflect pike thrusts and work inside of the points, and then use their swords in close to tear apart the formation.

Ajax

[Papewaio]

Should be comparing systems of warfare not individuals.

Also figure in the cost of a system and number of troops available.

For instance the longbow while a deadly weapon took years to train, it was relatively cheap in cost to make.

While crossbows where easier to learn but more expensive on the whole to make.

Neither weapon though was deployed as individuals, they were part of a weapon system.

Knights while deadly by themselves or in groups are still only part of a greater weapon system and when that system is not deployed properly the hugely expensive knight in both training and equipment can die rather abruptly to a bunch of pointy sticks... either deployed from a longbow (Agincourt) or via schiltron (Stirling Bridge)... interesting point with the two battles... mud is the most effective anti-cav weapon system.

[Oaty]

I saw on the history channel a British guy was showing some tactics behind the wars between the Scots and English. They had replicas of the spears/pikes that the Scotts used without a sharp metal tip for safety reasons. This guy on a horse tried to get in contact range of the spearmen but the horse refused. Now of course this was only done at trotting speeds and would have been cruel practice for the both the horse and the reenactors to attempt it at full charge speed.

The rider could only regain directional control of the horse when it was at a direction perpindicular to the spears or greater but not always immediately. Now granted this horse was'nt trained for infantry warfare and there are many variables. One simple fact is horses are animals and sometimes all you have to do is scare 1 horse to scare 50 more.

Horses had to be trained for the gunpwder era from my knowledge. You tied a horse to a post and fired a gun until the horse was no longer skiddish. So probably the most effective part of training a horse was training fear and natural instinct out of it.

[Red Harvest]

If you are implying that one-on-one someone armed with a 14 ft spear, could beat someone with a long sword (all things being equal), you are dead wrong.

I am of course referring to its use in combat in a phalanx situation, hence "spears" versus saying "spear." As I've been saying repeatedly the advantage of the gladius is that it is better at the close in fighting vs. a phalanx. I suppose that this would also include comparison with a long sword. Getting closer is probably better for your health once you've penetrated the spear wall. (Weren't the spartans supposed to have used shorter swords for the same sort of reason? Or am I remembering that wrong?)

[Watchman]

Back when the Europeans reinvented the pike phalanx, apparently in an improved version as this one *didn't* die out before the invention of the bayonet, it turned out that skilled infantrymen with swords, shields, halberds and similarly short weapons (aat least in comparision to the over five-meter pike...) worked pretty well against it - *if* they were able to get past or around the pike-points. This was apparently made easier if the opposing pikemen were preoccupied with friendly pikemen and your own organic missile support had thinned the ranks a bit.

Naturally there would be similar "shock troops" among the opposing pikemen too, for the exact same purpose, and for resisiting such invasions into the formation. And most pikemen had backup weapons - whether that was enough, however, was a whole another thing, as the "shock troops" tended to be from the better trained and equipped end of the spectrum. Spanish sword-and-buckler men in particular proved capable of causing impressive carnage amongst the lightly armoured Swiss.

That said, one gets the impression that the spear was little short of the standard infantry arm in most places and cultures throughout the ages; how exactly it was deployed on the battlefield varied, but a close shieldwall/phalanx type of formation seems to have been rather common. That sort of formation has its drawbacks, particularly in lousy terrain, which is probably why it wasn't that uncommon to have supporting arms of "light infantry" fighting in a looser, more mobile formation with swords, axes, mace or similar more "individual" weapons (not that the spearmen didn't carry those too, spear-shafts having an annoying habit of snapping sooner or later in combat). As these looser-order troops couldn't rely as much on the formation and a mass of long pointy weapons, they would logically have needed to be more aggressive and skilled fighters to carry their weight in a battle.

The Romans were a bit odd in relying almost entirely on their short swords, although one has to remember the importance of the pila too and that they occasionally found it necessary to push the humble pilum into service as a short spear or issue decent close-combat spears to counter cavalry. However, to my knowledge the pilum-sword combo was adopted specifically to counter the Celts - the javelins distrupted the enemy before contact, and in the shield-to-shield clash that followed the nimble thrusting short sword was much better at killing the foe than the long Celtic cutting swords which obviously needed a fair bit more "elbow room" to use. The combination turned out to be enough of an all-terrain all-purpose weapons system not to require much modification for taking over most of the known world with...

That issue with the cramped nature of shieldwall clashes is incidentally probably another reason why short swords were so popular infantry sidearms - besides being more convenient to carry and cheaper than the long sort.

[Kraxis]

My dear... this thread is turning into a jumble of discussions. This and that... It is quite confusing.

Anyway, the gladius wasn't adopted because the Romans were in trouble, seeking a specific counter to an enemy. They just adopted it because it was a superior weapon. It was well balanced and of high quality while still fairly cheap. Prior to the capture of Carthago Nova, only individually imported swords or swords bought individually while in Hispania were in Roman service. After the capture the later Scipio Africanus began large scale production of it and issued it to his troops. The swords used prior to this would have been rather similar to the swords used by hoplites in general. That means they were of comparable size but less well balanced and of an unbalanced construction (leafshaped). Those swords would have been good in the close up combat we hear so much about later on, but the gladius (well they were all called gladius as it means 'sword' but you get my point) was just better.

So the 'love' for close up fighting was there prior to the gladius. So why was it there? Because it was the result of the Roman changes to their army. First we have the hoplite army, spears and the hoplite sword mentioned earlier. Then we have the first manipular army where the spear still retains it's importance with the Principes and Triarii, these of course carry swords as their ancestors did. In time it was learned that the Hastati were quite effective with their heavy javelins/pila and swords, so the Principes followed suit, exchanging their spear for heavy javelins/pila. The result was that the sword had 'just' survived the changes to the army where most other stuff had been tweaked and so on until it wasn't there any more. But the sword had proved good enough, and the Romans were practical people, they didn't change what wasn't broken.

Why the foot-spatha (it had some differences from the cavalry-spatha) was adopted later on is uncertain, but it was most certainly not because armour got better. In fact most enemies of Rome at this time were poorly armoured, which could be the reason for a longer sword. As known longswords are better at slashing than shortswords. Against unarmoured foes slashing is very effective as it causes big, deep wounds. Against armoured foes it is perhaps less effective (a good strong slash is not going to be stopped by armour of the time, but glancing blows and weak strikes would certainly be stopped), against such foes a strong jab with a shortsword is better as it concentrates all the force behind a much smaller point.
So it could actually be a decline in the availability of armour that caused the change, as well as some cultural changes, but given that discipline wasn't laxing it seems odd that the army would conform to the recruits' wishes.

A longsword wouldn't be terribly great if you got inside a phalanx. It's reach would be a problem given how the formation itself is rather dense. And since you opponents carry shortswords themselves you would suddenly feel what tre enemies of Rome felt, the enemy getting inside your reach. You would of course backpedal to get out again and suddenly the danger to the formation is gone with the expense of a single or two pikemen dropping their pikes. A shortsword wouldn't have this problem and would allow the swordsman to get inside and work his way around effectively.