# Hoplites as Pikemen?



## Brian G Turner (Jun 14, 2015)

The Hoplite phalanx of Ancient Greece was famous for evolving into a massed body of extremely long spears.

But then it occurred to me - isn't this exactly what a phalanx of pikemen in the late mediaeval period also became?

Is this a case of the same military formation and strategy being re-invented later on in Europe?

Just thinking aloud. 

And here's a couple of interesting links on the subject I was reading earlier:
http://www.livius.org/pha-phd/phalanx/phalanx.html
http://sites.psu.edu/successoftheromans/roman-campaigns/the-battle-of-cynoscephalae-197-bc/


----------



## BAYLOR (Jun 14, 2015)

Wouldn't the Pikemen win given the reach of their weapon ?


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 14, 2015)

It's unwieldy for an attack. For Defence you can ground butt of spear.


Brian Turner said:


> same military formation and strategy being re-invented later


I think this happens often.
In all fields.


----------



## Venusian Broon (Jun 14, 2015)

mmmm... the picture above looks suspiciously more like an Alexandrian Phalanx with _sarissas _rather than your run of the mill Greek hoplites - technically the sarissa was considerably longer and hence more unwieldy, definitely requiring both hands, so shields were reduced to allow better grip.

However I quibble - to discuss your point.

I'm not sure if they developed 'as a re-invention'. Men standing in mass organised ranks with a cheap weapon like a long spear, shields and armour was probably one of the first things 'civilisation' invented. See for example the *Stele of Vultures *from c.2600-2350 BCE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stele_of_the_Vultures - where there is what we now probably call a 'phalanx' depicted. (Clear to me!)

Why were phalanx's big? Well firstly the Greeks tended to have a very rigid form of warfare and fighting. Very manly, wanting to be up close and emulating Achilles - thus throwing things or shooting arrows was frowned upon and horses? Well the main power centres of Greece were just not horse country. Thus they developed a peculiar and regimented form of battle where heavily armoured phalanxs would essentially jostle with each other until one side made a huge mistake or fled in panic (because someone said he saw a Spartan...)

The Greeks though did well - they beat off the Persians and then the Phalanx came in with Alexander as he swept aside Darius. Why?

Well I see it that Alexander (and well let's be honest, his Dad, Philip should take a lot of the credit) took all the military ideas that had been jostling about Greece for the hundred or so years before and perfected their _combined arms_ use.

He took the hoplite phalanx and upgraded it to a more penetrative sarissa - but they were the grunts of the army. Their job was usually to sit in the centre and pin down the main force of the enemy, using sarissa to defend against horse and keep any heavily armoured infantry at bay. However it is a very stiff formation to maintain.
His 'commandos' and elite foot soldiers were the light peltast and other forms (a Thracian speciality, so the Macedonian would have known all about them. Lightly armoured  they could quickly nip in and attack then melt back, or surprise by going ahead of the main army and, say, being able to cross rivers etc...Other ones were phalanx flank guards (I believe the _Silver shields _were a unit a bit like this.) They would sit on the right? Or whatever was the weak flank and generally massacre anyone unfriendly and butcher them with swords. Peltasts had been coming in for a long while - as even in the Pelopannise war the old Hoplite versus Hoplite only battle was getting old-fashioned. You just couldn't chase down a man in a loose tunic when wearing 15kg of metal and restrictive armour!
But his Elite, elite force were the Cavalry - possibly the whole idea of the heavily armed horseman came from central Iran (though I don't have the reference to dig out for you) but in Northern Greece I believe the nucleus of Alexander's Calvary were the Thessalonians but over time Alexander's Companion cavalry became even more famous (as you'd expect). He used the old 'hammer and anvil' tactics - phalanx the hammer, Companions/Thessalonians the hammer, dispose of the flanks then hit the enemy centre in the rear with heavy horse they panic, you wipe them out. Note though that they did all this _without the stirrup!_ Which is pretty amazing.
Thus the phalanx was just one part of a range of other arms which really go together IMO.

As you rightly point out, when you've got a more flexible army, like that of the re-organised Roman Army, phalanxes could be in a lot of trouble (A lot of Pro-Rome guys will not like it, but it looks like a lot of the early battles were really fought in the same Greek mindset of a massive Phalanx of men and even big spears. It took a bit of trial and error for them to come to the conclusion that stabbing with a sword is far more effective at killing the opposition than spears quickly - and so developed tactics to allow them to do that.)

Why did long spear phalanxes die out? I'd say that you needed an organised state that was willing to have a standing army, and more pertinently the expense of training and equipping such a body of men. The Roman empire split up, and changed to suit the hit and run tactics of the ever present horde of barbarians - so militias on the front line and cavalry to race from one emergency to the other? And anyway these guys were generally horse archers coming in - something that phalanxes would never be able to handle. Funds started to dry up (or were paid to the barbarians in bribes to stop them invading)

Why did they re-emerge in the medieval period? Different reasons I think. From about 1050 and next couple of hundred of years, heavy cavalry and the Elite Knight, thanks to the Normans, was the dominant force in Europe (Quality heavy infantry being thin on the ground.) So it was when nations like Scotland, faced with mass ranks of English knights or the Swiss surrounded by similarly attired Germans, Italians and French that they turned to the 'hoplite' or pikeman to neutralise these juggernauts. And it really worked. The Swiss became famous for it and even us poorly financed Scots managed a few victories using the pike versus knight. Of course the English then thought about it and then brought in the long-bowman and unhorsed the knight and made him stand in the centre ready for the final bit of viscous hand-to-hand.

Possibly as long as there was the ideal of the knight (and I don't think the glamour of knighthood has yet to abate) there would need to be someone with a long stick to keep him from running over and killing everyone. Until they invented guns of course...


EDIT - Brian I was persuing a book of mine while writing the above essay and it struck me as the sort of book you might like. It's called: _From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies _by Richard A. Gabriel and Karen S. Metz. I got it a while back and there was only the hardback, so I splashed out 50-60 quid on it (thankfully I had the job to support such an expensive reading habit at the time.) But it is excellent. They report on work they did on modern reconstructs to test, say how accurate an archer on the back of a chariot would have been...It's an interesting way they've organised their chapters:
1. Detailed portrait of the oldest armies (Sumerian and Egyptian)
2. Military innovations (so taking it up to Rome-ish)
3. Weapons and Lethality (the experiments they did on the weapons themselves and full of interesting info I feel for us trying to be real with such scenarios)
4. Death, wounds and Injury - looking at what faced the average solider (was it really as horrific as the early writers made out?)
5. Military medical care (and excellent chapter on an area that many historians seem to ignore)
And then they sum it up. 

It's a bit short for 60 quid, but actually jam packed with loads of information and insight.


----------



## Brian G Turner (Jun 14, 2015)

Venusian Broon said:


> the picture above looks suspiciously more like an Alexandrian Phalanx with _sarissas _rather than your run of the mill Greek hoplites



I knew I'd got the technical term wrong, but figured on posting in a hurry before I forgot to. 



Venusian Broon said:


> Brian I was persuing a book of mine while writing the above essay and it struck me as the sort of book you might like. It's called: _From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies _by Richard A. Gabriel and Karen S. Metz.



Cheers for the recommendation. I'm feeling a little broke to splash out £50 on a book, but I'll definitely watch out for a cheaper version. Sounds right up my street.


----------



## Venusian Broon (Jun 14, 2015)

Brian Turner said:


> Cheers for the recommendation. I'm feeling a little broke to splash out £50 on a book, but I'll definitely watch out for a cheaper version. Sounds right up my street.



Yeah I checked on Amazon - still only hard back and £55 now...

Looks like I've got an investment .

They've got a sampler of the introduction there, to let you see their style and whet your appetite. Gets pretty good reviews (5 stars...but only a few people!) But yes. 55 pounds will be required by you as extra to heat your house this summer I expect!


----------



## paranoid marvin (Jun 18, 2015)

Rock, paper scissors ; always been the technique used in warfare. Phalanx defeated by archers, archers defeated by cavalry, cavalry defeated by phalanx.

Transport it hundreds of years forward to the Napoleonic era where squares of bayonet-wielding infantry defeat cavalry, cannon defeats squares, cavalry defeats cannon.

There's always a foil for any weapon (with the possible exception of biological/chemical warfare)


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 18, 2015)

paranoid marvin said:


> with the possible exception of biological/chemical warfare


One reason that they agreed to ban that after WWI is that it's only effective some of the time and even then in a small area. Hence not much use on giant battlefield but moderately effective against a suburban enclave, primitive Marsh Arab village, chambers in a death camp etc. So the ban was a PR exercise.

Today tanks are a sitting duck to aircraft, aircraft vulnerable to anti-aircraft missiles, Command & control vulnerable to Cruise Missiles. Ships vulnerable to high speed power boats with torpedoes or missiles and to aircraft.
Tanks and personnel moving vulnerable to mines / IED.
Simple missiles are vulnerable to advanced missiles (but it's a horribly expensive defence).

"Starwars" and previous anti ICBM programs are deluded as the enemy simply only has to build more ICBMs, the 100% protection being impossible.  The most recent ground & aircraft based laser systems are actually pretty useless. Just coat the missile with whatever the reflector used to steer the laser beam uses. Or launch more missiles simultaneously. Destroying spy satellites is easy now for Chinese, Russians and USA. Ground (or ship) missiles or lasers.

Warships may become more usuful again with the now working hypersonic rail guns (prototypes only last three shots) which can destroy large targets just over the horizon. The hypersonic projectile is just the 21st C equivalent of a cannon ball. Damage is from the kinetic energy and it's too fast to "shoot down" with a missile and too inert to be damaged by a laser. To fast for current tracking system to react to. So the Super Dreadnought / Trebuchet is coming back!



paranoid marvin said:


> Rock, paper scissors


Excellent point.


----------



## Mirannan (Jun 26, 2015)

Ray - You have a very good point. A country that concentrates on one part of the military to the detriment of others usually suffers for it. Taking your example of tanks; sure, but it's been rather truly said that the best weapon against your aircraft is an enemy tank in the middle of your runway.


----------

