Celts in warfare - what did they use?

[Kralizec]

Or you could just download Europa Barbarorum and play that [/shameless advertising]

I think that at this point both the Gauls and the British tribes still made use of chariots, and most warriors would carry javelins (much like any "non civilised" people)

Not long after the date you mentioned the Sennones (a cisalpine Gallic tribe) completely rolled over both the Etruscans and Rome in 387, who both still used the phalanx. I find it hard to believe that a disorganised horde could have done this. But I have to admit that I hardly know anything about Celts.

[Watchman]

Remember, it was the old Greek hoplite shieldwall, not the Macedonian pike phalanx. Shieldwalls are rather easier to bust than pike blocks from the front, when it comes down to that.

Anyway, even among the Celts swords would have been fairly prestigious and expensive weapons so the ever-popular spear would have been very common - even among the big shots able to get swords.

However, by all accounts organization and battlefield C&C weren't exactly the Celt's strongest suits. Warriors followed their tribal superiors who followed their kings etc. etc. and the whole lot made up an army. As you might imagine they weren't exactly highly disciplined or drilled or anything like that. AFAIK their tactics tended to be on the average pretty simple - form into a passable imitation of a battleline facing the enemy, go through the quota opening moves (champions fighting duels, javelin-carrying skirmishers doing their stuff, and so on), whip yourself into suitably blood-curdling howling rage, and charge the enemy en masse. Throwing any javelins before impact was of course also the order of the day. The Romans apparently developed the pila-volley tactic specifically to help break up these mass charges and dissipate their momentum before contact. If the enemy didn't break or budge such horde tactics had the unfortunate side effects of crowding the engaged troops into a pretty tight mass against the enemy line, with all the opportunities for panic to spread that go with such throngs.

The Celtic cavalry were apparently a fair bit more sophisticated in their tactics, often heavily employing continuous hit-and-run strikes and similar feats of horsemanship.

[Kralizec]

Remember, it was the old Greek hoplite shieldwall, not the Macedonian pike phalanx.

Of course, at 387 BC even the Macedonians didn't yet use the sarrisa phalanx.

Shieldwalls are rather easier to bust than pike blocks from the front, when it comes down to that.

This is off topic, but anyway...
I seriously doubt pikemen would have an easier time, maybe if the pikemen would be perfectly lined up and deployed...but in a pitched battle that's mostly a luxury. The dual edged blade of specialisation- better, but more dependent on perfect conditions.

[Watchman]

Well, when it comes down to it, the pike blocks seem to have been fairly good at killing things at a safe four-five meters away. Given that a standard hoplite spear wouldn't have had too much of a reach advantage over its Celtic colleague you can perhaps see how the pikemen would have an easier time absorbing the warband charge... all the more so as whoever got past the first rank of sarissa tips still had some three or four yet to cross, amongst the no doubt rather claustrophobic mass of pike-shafts. If that doesn't sap the impetus of an infantry charge I don't know what will. The Romans found the prospect quite daunting, I know that much.

That said, I know the Successor Macedonians had some trouble from Celts wandering in from the north (probably the same guys who eventually got shipped over to Galatia). I don't know the details, but apparently they figured out some reasonably workable tactics for taking on phalanxes.

However, unless the Celts were springing an ambush you can be damn sure the phalangites would have quite enough time to form up. It's not like the Celts were immediately ready to engage hand-to-hand either (remember, they tended to have some serious drill and C-and-C issues), all the more so as the phalangites would no doubt be screened by the usual clouds of pesky skirmishers.

[Kraxis]

If we are to believe the rather late accounts of what happened Alalia river, the Romans simply faced too many Celts.

They spread out as far as possible but still their flank got turned. And then we all know what would happen. A hoplite wouldn't have much of a chance against an agile swordsman or even spearman in 1v1.

When the Celts invaded Macedonia and Greece it seems to have been much the same issue. Numbers made flanking 'easy'. For instance when Ptolomy Keraunos (Thunderbolt) went to face them off initially, he brought too few troops and they were easily dispatched after he had been killed in 1v1. A few blocks of pikes can't do much really.

Anyway, later when the Celts on the 3rd invasion tried to force Thermopylae, they couldn't, so it seems the phalanx held when it couldn't be flanked.

And yes some of those of the 3rd invasion settled in Galatia.

[ajaxfetish]

go through the quota opening moves (champions fighting duels, javelin-carrying skirmishers doing their stuff, and so on), whip yourself into suitably blood-curdling howling rage, and charge the enemy en masse.

My favorite part of the warm-up (for British Celts at least) is the part where you take off all your clothes and paint yourself blue. If I had a naked, half-blue man running toward me full tilt, screaming at the top of his lungs and waving a sword, I think I'd be a little intimidated.

Ajax

[Kagemusha]

I think that the main element in Celtish warfare was the charge and ambush.If we look at the later "Celtic" nations and how they fought the charge was everything.Like the Scottish the charge gave them victory or defeat.Whether it was successfull or broken.I think ive read somewhere that celtic swordsmen tryed to roll under the pikes when facing macedonians.Once they succeeded in that the phalangites were helpless.But if i remember right the Macedonians adapted in to that tactics very fast.If i would make a little generalisation.I think that the key on the succes in war for mediterranian people were co-operation and dicipline,when for the Northern people it was the fierce death abhoring charging to the enemy and the greater power of the single warrior.

[KrooK]

Generally phalanx is much better on flat areas - in noth macedonia there is hardly any flat area :)
We can't forget that greek phalanx wasn't so bad comparing with macedonian one. Macedonian phalanxmen didn't have shields and good armour (comparing with Greeks). So when Romans came and started throwing pilums, it generally worked :). Anyway I think javelins are best option on every phalanx - they force opponents to attack ;)

[Kagemusha]

Generally phalanx is much better on flat areas - in noth macedonia there is hardly any flat area :)
We can't forget that greek phalanx wasn't so bad comparing with macedonian one. Macedonian phalanxmen didn't have shields and good armour (comparing with Greeks). So when Romans came and started throwing pilums, it generally worked :). Anyway I think javelins are best option on every phalanx - they force opponents to attack ;)

I agree Krook. I think one of the real edges in roman warfare was that they really understood the use of different missile weapons.With their continues edge on "firepower", they were able to change the tactic of their enemies even so that they forced their enemies to attack their infantry or be grinded down with pilas arrows,ballista arrows and catapult ammunition.So basicly they could turn the offensive battle as defensive.
But i think that turned also as weakness against them when facing more mobile eastern forces(Pathia), and when they had to go to terrain where were no roads and large forested areas hampered them(Germania).

[Kraxis]

I disagree...

Apparently all the way back to Fabius Pictor the Epirote phalanx (macedonain style) at the three battles with Pyrrhus, the pilum is reported to have had no apparent effect. And even later, there is no mention of its effect while or prior to the phalanx pushed the Romans back.
And it wasn't as if it's effect was neglected normally.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

I think that the main element in Celtish warfare was the charge and ambush.If we look at the later "Celtic" nations and how they fought the charge was everything.Like the Scottish the charge gave them victory or defeat.Whether it was successfull or broken.

Indeed, this makes me think of Gustavus Adolphus and his mighty longboats. Oh, wait no.

Anyway, joking aside, I must disagree with your argument. For example, the schiltron wasn't the best formation for charging in.

[Watchman]

Well, I was always under the impression the "barking mad charge" was always more of a Highlander thing, and the guys with proto-pikes (who were pretty good at seeing off attacking cavalry, but eventually got turned into pincusions) were Lowlanders... Probably a geography thing, too. What I know of the Scottish highlands doesn't suggest they were exactly prime pike territory.

Anyway, I don't think we're talking about the Middle Ages here.

By what I've read of it, and it seems to make sense, is that the Celtic lack of "staying power" in prolonged melees was a simple result of entirely insufficient military discipline and drill. Or, in other words, if the enemy line didn't budge, the barbarian horde would compress against it into a thick, chaotic, claustrophobic mass where the guys at the front could not be replaced by fresh men if they got tired or wounded until they died, and conditions were in general prime breeding ground for panic for large groups of men who quite simply had not been trained to hold their nerve in such situations. Or much trained at all in anything beyond personal combat for that matter, in most cases.

Not that the highly drilled "civilized" troops tended to do or hold too well in such circumstances either. Which is why they tried to avoid losing formation integrity and cohesion like the Plague. Well, the Celts and most other barbarians tended to not have too much of "formation" to begin with...

It's kind of that they tended to wage war more with enthusiasm and gusto than logic and training. While that equation did have its good points (remember, well into the musket-and-bayonet period the English valued the "Highland charge" of the Scots for shock action), it does seem to have been rather... cost-ineffective in the end. Just look at the approximate head counts of both sides from battles for example the Romans won against the Celts... if the civilized soldiers could maintain formation and pretty much just hold on, one gets the impression they tended to be able to simply outlast the barbarian warriors whose nerve would tend to give first in prolonged attrition matches. Enthusiasm, after all, tends to start wavering if no visible progress is made and the body count just keeps going up; and if enthusiasm is the prime motivator of the warrior, there's a problem right there...

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

Anyway, I don't think we're talking about the Middle Ages here.

Well, Kagemusha was arguing that the Iron Age Celts were all about the charge because the Scots were later all about the charge.

Now then, Scotland does not exist as Scotland until the mid 9th century and the Scots do not become famous for their charge until the early modern period.

I was just disagreeing with that statement.

I also disagree with your highlands = charge and lowlands = pikes being geographically based. The lowlands have plenty of hilly terrain (such as the southern uplands) that saw much of the fighting in the wars of independence. Like I wrote above, the "highland charge" was very much an early modern thing, especially associated with the Jacobites. The Jacobites main support was not just from the highlands but from the still heavily Episcopalian and Catholic northern lowlands (who made up a significant proportion of Jacobite troops). These lowlanders dressed and fought in the same manner as the highlanders .