Are catholics invincible?

[Didz]

Swordsmen with armor/shields are able to easily deflect spearpoints and walk right up to the spearmen and defeat them close quarters. A spear is fairly useless against a decent swordsman.

Yes...but as Mike Loades pointed out, when dealing with the use of the Roman pilum in battle, the men were trained to use it against the exposed right hand side of the swordsmen attacking the man to his right. Thrusting it under the raised swordarm.

A similar tactic was employed against the Scots at Culloden as it negates the defence of the of the attackers shield. However, the Romans had the added advantage that their shield was able to provide some defence to an attack from the front whilst they made the thrust.

This tactic basically renders the shield worthless, but required trained and properly drill troops to employ.

Like you I've never noticed any advantage being given to swordsmen over spears in my battles and I think to do so would be inappropriate. The outcome should have more to do with relative training and combat discipline.

Spears versus Cavalry isn't screwed up, short spears will never be effective against a full heavy cavalry charge. Even if they were decent ones. Their spears aren't long enough, and they cannot provide a solid enough spearwall. The only way to defeat heavy lancers is with even longer and heavier lances being wielded from the ground, or with stakes. But there are only so many units with the proper anti-cavalry spears.

Thats simply not true. History proves that even men armed with a bayoneted muskets can stop a cavalry charge. In fact, the weapon is irrelevant, as it isn't the weapons that stop the charge, its the density of the obstical presented by a formed unit of infantry.

Tests conducted with the Household Cavalry prove that even a solid wall of hay bales will stop a mass of charging horsemen simply because horses are not stupid and will not run into an apparently solid object. This is particulary awkward for men armed with couched lances who need their chargers to keep moving forward in order to use their weapons.

There is also a wealth of anecdotal evidence confirmng that medieval knights and mounted men-at-arms were not able to charge headlong into steady bodies of dismounted men.

In reality, the only thing which made mounted men more effective in the medieval period was the tendency for troops armed with melee weapons to deployed in more dispersed formations which left gaps into which horses could push. But a densely packed unit of spearmen who stood their ground would have little to worry about from a mounted charge.