Question about Phalangitai

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Polbius says three feet all around, so the pike goes to your right and you then have three feet clearence behind just to make sure you don't scewer the guy in back.

That doesn't preclude pushing with pike though, the difference would be that the push would be more from the threat of been scewer by five pikes, rather than by weight of men. Which effectively means five ranks are as effective as sixteen, though the latter allows you depth, angled pikes to protect against missiles and a less vulnerable flank.

[JeffBag]

Maybe the 16 ranks gave the option of pushing, in that they could raise the pikes to vertical, cramp in close, and push, just like the pikemen of the renaissance, who could resolve pike fights by a pike push rather than just stabbing.

[Watchman]

I don't think the later pikemen actually physically pushed their comrades. Or at least what I've read of them doesn't suggest anything of the sort. "Push of pike" AFAIK rather refers to the two pike blocks "pushing" against each other until one broke under the pressure.

Mind you, they also found out during the Thirty Years' War that "thin" pike formations were quite the equals of "deep" ones head on. There would doubtless have been a difference had the clashes been drawn out into attrition matches, but that wasn't how infantry battles were normally resolved by that time - and when they were the attrition was supplied by massed arquebuses and regimental artillery blasting at each other at uncomfortably short ranges. As might be imagined the senior officers hated that sort of developement as much as the rank and file, as it wasted a lot of trained men for very uncertain outcome...

[JeffBag]

Yes thats what I was talking about, the push of pike. As I mentioned, the pikes would have to be raised to near vertical by the entire unit before that could happen.

True about the Thirty Year's War, but pikes were no longer as decisive nor important in attack as they were in the Italian Wars; they were more for supporting the gunners than soloing the enemy formation.

[Watchman]

What I was trying to say is that the "push" in "push of pike" mainly involved pushing the long pointy things in the opposing pikemens' guts... One important job of shock troops like Doppelsoldners with their halberds and two-handed swords and the Spanish sword-and-buckler men was to create gaps in the enemy ranks which their own pikemen could slowly start widening, which would (hopefully) eventually lead to a loss of formation cohesion and therefore collapse. Mass combat is all about inducing the other guy to panic first after all, not slaying him where he stands. That's only a means to the end.