Considering during the Rennaissance Western Europe began to gain more and more access to classical works, and this was the time that pike armies began to dominate the battlefield, did any commander ever use ancient works on Alexander the Great and his Macedonian phalanx to try and gain some insight on how to use said armies effectively?
Besides the obvious differences of cultural style and types of material used.
I think the closest thing I've seen to a real-life phalanx would be the one Oliver Stone's Alexander but even that didn't recreate 5 ranks of spears protruding from the front (it appears to be 3). Instead, the actors used shorter ones:
"We slightly cheated on the length of the sarissas. A 18-foot-long pike is very difficult to manage, so we shortened the length down to 14 feet."
http://www.alexander-the-great.co.uk/military_historys_greatest_conqueror.htm
Anyone know of a recreation with 5 ranks of spears protruding? My guess is 18-21 ft spears. I would love to examine especially how much visibility and personal fighting corridor width the last few presenting rows have.
Obviously the step after would be to do giant, Diadochi-style block vs block or Roman manipules vs block melees.
It seems that at least for battles such as thermopelae a long pike troop would be just the perfect unit to use, yet it would be centuries following thermopelea till the long pike phalanx would be developed.Why?
I don't mean mass produce this unit, but you already have slingers archers javalin throwers various cavalry... etc it seems one extra unit isn't a big deal at least it seems persia ought to have some of these for taking passes.
Also why did the persians not make good heavy infantry all the historians I've heard of cite the Persian loss to Greece as the lack of heavy infantry.
I noticed some people saying if it ain't broke don't fix it. I mean the defeat at marathon, platea as well as huge casualties at thermopelae and indecisiveness as cunaxa indicate that the system was at least obselete. I mean all of Greece including Macedon is like 5% of the Persian empire both resources and population and during Xerxes invasion only southern Greece opposed Persia and Spartas population was mostly Helot slaves that depending on the source could be armed but were unlikely to be tremendously effective.Later Sparta would even liberate some of the Greek cities in Asia which is like wtf
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Normal
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Blood Lusted, T-Rex has human intelligence
Edit: Yea, this is kind of a stomp for the phalanx, I was just interested because elephants were used to breakup phalanx lines in ancient combat, but someone brought up the point that even cavemen with basic tools hunted mammoths to extinction, so a T. rex wouldnโt be much harder
I would like to know if the flexible Maniple Roman Legion could be used with the Hoplite Phalanx or the Macedonian Phalanx to create a flexible hybrid formation. I have read the Xenophon's Anabasis and he states we organises the soldiers in columns instead of lines was this similar to the mainiple system ?
I would also like to know any and all recommendation for books for further reading.
Thanks in advance
Say you had an elephant/chariot charge. As far as I'm aware these would often be dealt with by opening the ranks somewhat to remove the momentum of the charge and trap the enemy.
However, this would lead to a considerable gap in the formation, which if I understand correctly was the core strength of the phalanx and absolutely vital to its effectiveness.
If such charges were quickly followed by some sort of (heavy) infantry, wouldn't this completely negate the advantages from the phalanx?
Thank you.
The Macedonian phalanx developed by Philip II. had a longer Speer, the Sarissa ( about 4m to 6 m long) and a smaller not-handheld shield as the Sarissa required both hands to be used.
With this phalanx Philip (and Alexander) won multiple victories against classical Greek phalanxs. With this phalanx Alexander the great managed to conquer the great Achamenid/ Persian Empire. So it must have been clear to everyone at the time that the Macedonian style phalanx was more effective than the classical Greek phalanx.
So I wondered if the Macedonian style phalanx was also used by the Greeks in Magna Greacia, like for example by Agathocles of Syracuse, Phyrros of Epirus (I'm pretty sure he used it because he fought with the Antigonits at the battle of Ipsus (301 Bc)) and thecities of magna greacia (like croton, taurentum etc.) ? Was it also used in other regions of the Greek world like the Krim or the Greek colonies west of magna greacia?
Say you had an elephant/chariot charge. As far as I'm aware these would often be dealt with by opening the ranks somewhat to remove the momentum of the charge and trap the enemy.
However, this would lead to a considerable gap in the formation, which if I understand correctly was the core strength of the phalanx and absolutely vital to its effectiveness.
If such charges were quickly followed by some sort of (heavy) infantry, wouldn't this completely negate the advantages from the phalanx?
Thank you.
