Swordsmen and spears are way so different.

[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.

[ajaxfetish]

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.

It's been mentioned that swords are most effective in close, tight combat. The most common swords would be short swords, which didn't need room all around to be swung and recovered as they were mostly for close-quarters thrusting. And of course they had the additional advantage of being much cheaper and easier to make than the longer varieties.

They would also be lightweight, so they could be thrust, retracted, and occasionally swung quickly and comparatively easily. So in close the sword would have the advantage.

Claymores ranged from 5lb to 15 lb.

While some swords may have been up to 15 pounds they would be exceptional, expensive, and unwieldly and would require two hands to use effectively. So 5 kilos (about 11 pounds, on the heavy side even for a claymore) would be possible but uncommon and not a weapon for the average man to use along with a shield.

Ajax

[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.

[The Wizard]

Indeed, Roman comanders were known and renowned for their love of personal combat, and their are many examples of Romans fighting -- for instance -- Celts and winning. So, yep, Celts could get their asses handed to them by the little Romans quite handily ;)

On another note -- I've seen the Topkapı Armory in Istanbul. Included there are several Zweihänder(n? s? bah! German...), the great 'alternative polearm' of the Landsknechts, most notably one gigantic specimen which was larger than I was (and I'm 1.85m). Now, of course there were a load of shamshirs, sabers and even a couple of Umayyad swords. I'd say in the time it took for one of those Landsknechts to even raise his sword to start swinging, he'd already have been stabbed by about six Turks with their diminutive sabers... or with their spears.

In the case of this Zweihänder, for the price it took to get the iron, temper it into steel, balance the blade, etc. etc. etc., you could have probably armed and trained a platoon or two in the use of a spear.

This was the same problem the Celts had. They shunned the use of a sword point -- at least, after a certain late date -- and therefore had to swing to even be able attack with their long swords. Romans with their shorter, less fancy, but far more cost-effective gladii could land a stab or two in a Celtic sternum before the aforementioned Celt had even tried to pass the Roman's scutum.

As such, I have seen it mentioned before here -- by Rosacrux iirc -- that the Romans' use of the gladius Hispaniensis can be considered similar to that of spears -- very small and more versatile ones.

It remains to be said, however, that in the case of the big brother of the spear -- the pike -- that formations of men using pikes relied on their staying power rather than their killing power.

[Bregil the Bowman]

I've seen the Topkapı Armory in Istanbul. Included there are several Zweihänder(n? s? bah! German...), the great 'alternative polearm' of the Landsknechts, most notably one gigantic specimen which was larger than I was (and I'm 1.85m)... I'd say in the time it took for one of those Landsknechts to even raise his sword to start swinging, he'd already have been stabbed by about six Turks with their diminutive sabers... or with their spears.

Wiz, the Zweihander is a more versatile weapon than it appears. One technique was to hold the weapon with one hand halfway down the blade, like a spear shaft, for greater control. It was an effective weapon, but, like the longbow, it required enormous strength and years of training to use properly, and it fell out of use when there was less need to bash through layers of plate armour.

On the general spears v swords issue, I think this is a question of fighting style as much as technology. Spearmen fight in a fairly defensive way, presenting a hedge of spears to ward off the enemy. Their comfort zone is being shoulder to shoulder with comrades, edging behind the shield of the next man in line. Swordsmen (ignoring for an instant the Roman legionary, who had no true medieval equivalent) would fight as individuals, trying to break up the enemy formation. Once they are joined in close combat, all the advantages lie with the swordsmen. Their fluid formation allows champions and hotheads to come to the fore while the less able, the wounded and the weary drop back. But the spearmen are stuck in position, and if any man drops out the formation breaks and a general rout threatens.

Against horses, the advantages are reversed. Anyone who has come up against a big horse in a pushing match (the police use them a lot for crowd control over here) knows the horse usually wins, no matter how big and tough you are. Horses, as everyone knows, do not like to charge through a solid mass of people, especially people with spears. But the swordsmen are not a solid mass - they are jostling for position, the brave ones trying to make space to wield their swords and the less brave trying to get behind the brave. The charging horses smash through their line.

Whereas the spearmen, feeling just as afraid of the charging horses, only crowd closer together. Some horses manage to break through the hedge of spearpoints, others are killed and their bodies break up the advance of the horses behind them. The charge falters. The horsemen poke feebly at the lines of infantry with their lances, but the spearmen (their feet planted firmly) drive them back.

Any infantry who can hold a line have a good chance of turning back horses - Guiscard's Norman-Apulian horsemen were held off by the Varangian Guards in one battle. But it takes a very brave band of foot soldiers not to give way before charging horses.

The Roman legions who carried the gladius were extremely effective because they combined the close order fighting of the spearman with the hand-to-hand versatility of the swordsman. In addition, they had a close range missile weapon designed to break up the front ranks of the enemy. But I'm not aware of any medieval army that fought with the same level of discipline or in the same manner. Later Roman soldiers adopted the Spatha, a barbarian long sword, and the style of fighting changed entirely, possibly because they were increasingly pitted against mounted troops. It has been said that the decline of the Roman legions was proportionate to the lengthening of their swords!

[The Wizard]

Wiz, the Zweihander is a more versatile weapon than it appears. One technique was to hold the weapon with one hand halfway down the blade, like a spear shaft, for greater control. It was an effective weapon, but, like the longbow, it required enormous strength and years of training to use properly, and it fell out of use when there was less need to bash through layers of plate armour.

I know this. I also know that it probably did not weigh upwards of some five to eight kilograms. I also know of the leather strip past the guard that was intended for this increase of control you speak of, essentially turning the Zweihänder into a staff weapon and therefore a polearm.

But still. Two handed as it was, it still required immense space to wield; an unlucky pose and an alert enemy and you had an arrow shaft or a kiliç blade in your side.

And then the cost-effectiveness of the weapon. So much steel, and so much balancing probably ranked the Zweihänder amongst the most expensive weapons of its day. How many men could have been trained to fight in formation with a pike, or with a compound bow, or with sword and shield at the cost and effort it took to first even make the sword, then learn to fight with it? And then the dangerous role these Doppelsoldners (sp?) were supposed to play! I'd rather have such an expensive unit of men in reserve than having them trying to assault a mass of pikes as a standard task...

No, the Katzbalger would seem a far more effective weapon, when cost-effectiveness is considered... or even without doing the latter.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Can't know this, but logic suggests that the two-hander swordsmen fought in teams -- like modern fighter pilots. If you have a weap that needs a few seconds of recovery, then you get yourself a "winger" to watch your defense while you get back into striking position.

The romans had a great weapon system, designed to work in unit combat. Zilch in their system was based on individual combat -- they let the professional entertainers do that stuff. Many of their opponents fought wonderfully as individuals but were neither equipped nor trained to fight as a team.

When they were -- Tsorim, Epirotes -- the romans had their share of troubles.

[Watchman]

The Zweihander actually had a very specific tactical niche to fill, although in skilled hands it worked just fine in other jobs too.

You chopped pikes with it.

That's it, really. The veterans with big swords were employed to hack the heads off enemy pikes before and during the actual "push of pike", and past that fill the assault and counter-assault duties with the halberdiers and other polearm-wielders (side note: apparently the Spanish "sword and buckler" men also tended to carry polearms). In response the pikes began to be fitted with reinforcing metal strips (langets) down the shafts, which apparently worked well enough that the big swords eventually left active service. I've read they were first relegated to bodyguard duties, being rather intimidating and in skilled hands quite effective against most any weapons you now could expect an important personage to be attacked with on the battlefield, and later to a purely ceremonial role.

As a side note, apparently the old Huscarles tended to fight a scombined-weapon teams where one man wielded the fearsome but somewhat clumsy "Danish" two-handed axe, and his companion with sword and shield defended him as necessary.

I've also read that the comparatively close order the short gladius allowed them meant the Romans tended to have roughly three soldiers per two enemy longswordsmen in the battleline. Nasty.

I recently took a look at a book discussing ancient warfare which in passing probably mentioned the primary difference between spear- and swordsmen. It made a lot of use of the concepts of "articulated" and "unarticulated" heavy infantry (ie. spearmen), the former being the sort with good enough drill etc. to maneuver offensively in formation and the latter, well, without. "Unarticulated" spearmen are really just a defensive wall of shields, spears and men; as a rule of thumb their job was to cover other troops charged with the task of actually wiping out the foe. Conversely their "articulated" colleagues were usually if not quite the primary then at least an important shock arm in their particular army. 'Course, even an unarticulated shieldwall of "static" spears can still crawl against another of its ilk to start a push of spears, but that tends to be something of a poor man's solution when nothing better is available.

The point can be illustrated with a few comparisions.

Back in the age of the war chariot the heavy infantry was pretty much just a support arm that offered the chariots, which did most of the actual fighting, a safe haven to operate from. If their chariots lost, those of their enemies' would usually rip them to shreds by the simple expedient of standing off and shooting them full of arrows (or javelins, or whatever) and then trampling the survivors once the ranks were thinned enough. Conversely, it is thought that what bought the age of the chariot to an end was a new type of aggressive heavy infantry that made wide use of metal body armour, javelins, long swords etc. - possibly barbarian mercenaries who'd figured out how to beat the chariots and spread the word back home.

The ancient Greek hoplites were by necessity "articulated" - the city-states didn't really have anything else to pit against each other anyway (before the Peloponnesian War or so), so the heavies by necessity had to be capable of effective offensive action. Their Persian counterparts, who apparently weren't armed much differently, were conversely something of a static defensive anchor for the archers, skirmishers and cavalry who were the main killing arms of their army.

Most Medieval spearmen were essentially a shieldwall that anchored the heavy cavalry.

The lowland Scots were on the right track in employing pikes against English cavalry; however, they weren't able to develop sufficient drill to maneuver, and when the English changed tactics they ended up shot to bits by hte longbow. Conversely, the Swiss employed their pikes aggressively almost from the start - by some accounts being able to maintain unit cohesion when delivering a charge at near run. And as we all know those guys took on all comers for several centuries...

"Swordsmen" (who might as well have been toting axes, clubs or broken bottles for the purposes of the discussion, and tended to have spears as their first choice of weapon anyway if only due to economics) pretty much never had these issues. Even the shortest sword still needs more elbow room to deploy effectively than a spear in a tightly packed phalanx does, so "swordsmen" never really needed to develop an extensive degree of drill to be able to move without breaking cohesion - it being obviously rather easier to move around in a reasonably coordinated fashion in a relatively loose order than in a tight block where a great deal of synchronization is required to avoid something as banal as different step lenghts throwing the whole thing into disarray. Plus "swordsmen" had a decided need to move aggressively; they fought by getting close to the enemy and hacking him apart, and could ill afford to stanb and wait for the foe to come at them - if nothing else, taking a charge standing would have been yielding all the shock power of the charge to the enemy regardless of his gear (heavy shock cavalry were, obviously, just about their worst nemesis). Moreover, whenever swordsmen existed in the same army with more dedicated spearmen spearmen (articulated or not), they were usually the assault specialists; they were the guys whose main job was to go after the enemy, regardless of if the spearmen were able to join in. And particularly in rough terrain, where close-order troops (who tended to be uncomfortable in looser formations) for obvious reasons had difficulties; incidentally somewhat similar difference would later exist between "line" and "light" infantry in "musket, fife, bayonet and drum" armies.

[The Wizard]

I have read that the pezhetairoi of Philip and Alexander were rather articulated themselves, exploiting holes in the battle line made by the hetairoi (their flanks being protected by the hypaspistai) as an active task. Only later, when the Diadochi lost their cavalry arm, were they forced to slug it out in meat grinder matches. Is there any truth to this?

[Watchman]

By what I know of it pike phalanxes tend to be "meat grinder" sort of combatants by default; it's probably just that so long as they could be supported by strong cavalry who served as the "hammer" it wasn't normally necessary for them to decide the battle through a drawn-out attrition match. Of course, if both sides have mostly pikemen and little heavy cavalry, you're not going to get much else than decision through "push of pike"... Really the same thing if about all you have available is shieldwall infantry, or for that matter in any other case where you're forced to rely on just one type of offense. Two chariot-based armies are likely going to decide the matter through a chariot clash, two horse-archer hosts through a shooting match, two heavy-infantry armies through a stand-up melee clash...

Parity in weapon systems tends to lead to attrition matches.

[Kraxis]

I have read that the pezhetairoi of Philip and Alexander were rather articulated themselves, exploiting holes in the battle line made by the hetairoi (their flanks being protected by the hypaspistai) as an active task. Only later, when the Diadochi lost their cavalry arm, were they forced to slug it out in meat grinder matches. Is there any truth to this?

Directly exploiting gaps I'm not too sure about, but the early phalangites were indeed more mobile and more flexible, but they also carried a smaller pike and were sort of just out of 'light infantry school', given that the Macedonian army had until then compromised of light infantry and the Companions (and a few settler hoplites). It was natural for them to be more independant.

Later when the Diadochi met, it was determined that the infantry with the longest pikes usually would wipe the field with those with lesser pikes. Makes sense really. So first the pikes lengthened until they became too unwieldly, it wasn't that much more but it was enough. Then when the pikes had reached their ultimate length heavy armour was considered good (better armoured means more stayingpower). This of course was expensive and the training suffered... But that didn't matter much as they would meet another line head on usually. The secondary weapon also suffered, as why keep it when the cahnce to use it was too damn slim? Save the money and get more phalangites.

The result was that by the end of it the Macedonian phalanx was ultimate head on, even pila had little effect on it, but it had become too inflexible and too dependant on meeting the enemy head on. The Macedonian phalanx had become a counter to itself...

[Watchman]

Overspecialization tends to do that. The Medieval armoured lancer turned into a bit of a tactical dead-end that way too, AFAIK.