Were they tackling each other like football or something? Just feels like if you’ve got a 20 foot spear pointed forwards, there’s no point in having other people behind you pointing their sticks at the sky.
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With multiple lines of men, they guys behind them could brace those in front, and so on. Also it made for easy roation on the very front line to rest those troops that needed it!
If one phalanx falls this creates an opening. Say 2 phalanxes fall with 10 in between them, this now creates a pocket and thsoe 10 are surrounded and easily defeated.
Holding the line waa the most important stat in ancient warfare. Morale must be kept up and your line must be kept stable. If there is a breakthrough, people start to run. In ancient battles, during the retreat is when 90% of the victims fell, not during the actual battle. So preventing your side started to run was crucial.
There are actually quite a lot of the art of ancient combat we do not know. People who wrote about the battles did so from the generals point of view, not the captains or soldiers. Their knowledge were passed on orally and were lost over time.
But your comparison to football huddles are very apt for at least some periods in time. A spear can not do much against a phalanx charging you down trampling you to death. Even if you manage to hit well with the spear and take down one of them the others do not even need weapons to kill you. So the tactic evolved to having dense groups of people charging each other, often not even bothering with weapons other then for finishing those who fell. The people behind is to push the people in front towards the enemy, sometimes hard enough that the people in the front lines gets crushed to death standing up.
But even when technology and society did not make this the most optimal way of fighting you wanted the phalanxes quite deep. You want to have spares for when the front row falls to enemy fighting, get tired, etc. Quite likely the most efficient armies would rotate people on the front lines so they always had fresh troops in the front few rows.
Another effective technique is for the front lines to pull the enemy through them to be surrounded. Either they would part for charging enemies but blocking their friends from coming through or they would grab the enemy to pull them through. You can actually see this today with well trained riot police. A particularly brave protester who charges the police will find out that this is very easy and find themselves in the back of a police van.
With multiple lines of men, they guys behind them could brace those in front, and so on. Also it made for easy roation on the very front line to rest those troops that needed it!
If one phalanx falls this creates an opening. Say 2 phalanxes fall with 10 in between them, this now creates a pocket and thsoe 10 are surrounded and easily defeated.
Holding the line waa the most important stat in ancient warfare. Morale must be kept up and your line must be kept stable. If there is a breakthrough, people start to run. In ancient battles, during the retreat is when 90% of the victims fell, not during the actual battle. So preventing your side started to run was crucial.
There are actually quite a lot of the art of ancient combat we do not know. People who wrote about the battles did so from the generals point of view, not the captains or soldiers. Their knowledge were passed on orally and were lost over time.
But your comparison to football huddles are very apt for at least some periods in time. A spear can not do much against a phalanx charging you down trampling you to death. Even if you manage to hit well with the spear and take down one of them the others do not even need weapons to kill you. So the tactic evolved to having dense groups of people charging each other, often not even bothering with weapons other then for finishing those who fell. The people behind is to push the people in front towards the enemy, sometimes hard enough that the people in the front lines gets crushed to death standing up.
But even when technology and society did not make this the most optimal way of fighting you wanted the phalanxes quite deep. You want to have spares for when the front row falls to enemy fighting, get tired, etc. Quite likely the most efficient armies would rotate people on the front lines so they always had fresh troops in the front few rows.
Another effective technique is for the front lines to pull the enemy through them to be surrounded. Either they would part for charging enemies but blocking their friends from coming through or they would grab the enemy to pull them through. You can actually see this today with well trained riot police. A particularly brave protester who charges the police will find out that this is very easy and find themselves in the back of a police van.
The phalanx was a fearsome formation, but it had two weaknesses:
1. The long spears only pointed forward, so they couldn’t fight anything that was not in front of them.
2. They were interlocked with each other, meaning they couldn’t manoeuver freely, i.e. turn about.
That means you had to make sure that the enemy never, ever made it to their flanks (sides) or, god forbis, rear. And that’s the main reason for them being several ranks deep. If one hoplite fell, the one behind him could close the gap. If they couldn’t close the gap, enemy soldiers would suddenly be in between the formation, attacking the hoplites from the flanks or rear, thus defeating the entire formation at once.
Also, even though one row of long spears is intimitading, facing five, or twelve rows of them is just suicidal. You feel that you have no chance breaking through, so why risk it? Thus avoiding battle without catastrophic losses.
The phalanx was a fearsome formation, but it had two weaknesses:
1. The long spears only pointed forward, so they couldn’t fight anything that was not in front of them.
2. They were interlocked with each other, meaning they couldn’t manoeuver freely, i.e. turn about.
That means you had to make sure that the enemy never, ever made it to their flanks (sides) or, god forbis, rear. And that’s the main reason for them being several ranks deep. If one hoplite fell, the one behind him could close the gap. If they couldn’t close the gap, enemy soldiers would suddenly be in between the formation, attacking the hoplites from the flanks or rear, thus defeating the entire formation at once.
Also, even though one row of long spears is intimitading, facing five, or twelve rows of them is just suicidal. You feel that you have no chance breaking through, so why risk it? Thus avoiding battle without catastrophic losses.
The extra ranks do three things. One the 2nd-4th or 5th rank have their points down between or over the 1st and other ranks making it a hedge of points. The sources claim that “ran at each other” which would break any formation if done at anything greater than a trot or quick time. The phalanx crash into each other if morale holds, spears striking at any target that has opened in the movement. if the 1st rank misses the others may hit, if the man in front falls the 2nd is ready step into the gap. If enough a hit in one place the third rank or fourth rank would need to step up.
Then they came to the push with the rear ranks adding mass, the front rank would have lost.dropped the spear and using daggers in the press, stronger ones in the ranks might be able to strike over the ranks. Until one side would give way and run. The winning side would chase them down killing the slower, the extra, less exhausted troops from the rear ranks would be faster.
The other important thing is that the fighters were not professional warriors and it is easier to keep a block together than a longer line. The other is that in a mass you feel safer and have better morale. In a 3 or 4 rank line someone in the front rank finds it easier to flee and weakens that part of the line. From my personal reenactment experience (dark ages ) from being in a wedge against a shield wall, the men front would find it almost impossible to flee. You step forward to avoid falling and you are lifted along with the pressure from behind.
And lastly if you a have greater mass at the point of impact you can smash through a thinner formation, but you don’t want to be to deep as then you’d be outflanked. The ten deep formation was the “standard” but there have been accounts with 40 deep phalanx as a fist to smash through.
The extra ranks do three things. One the 2nd-4th or 5th rank have their points down between or over the 1st and other ranks making it a hedge of points. The sources claim that “ran at each other” which would break any formation if done at anything greater than a trot or quick time. The phalanx crash into each other if morale holds, spears striking at any target that has opened in the movement. if the 1st rank misses the others may hit, if the man in front falls the 2nd is ready step into the gap. If enough a hit in one place the third rank or fourth rank would need to step up.
Then they came to the push with the rear ranks adding mass, the front rank would have lost.dropped the spear and using daggers in the press, stronger ones in the ranks might be able to strike over the ranks. Until one side would give way and run. The winning side would chase them down killing the slower, the extra, less exhausted troops from the rear ranks would be faster.
The other important thing is that the fighters were not professional warriors and it is easier to keep a block together than a longer line. The other is that in a mass you feel safer and have better morale. In a 3 or 4 rank line someone in the front rank finds it easier to flee and weakens that part of the line. From my personal reenactment experience (dark ages ) from being in a wedge against a shield wall, the men front would find it almost impossible to flee. You step forward to avoid falling and you are lifted along with the pressure from behind.
And lastly if you a have greater mass at the point of impact you can smash through a thinner formation, but you don’t want to be to deep as then you’d be outflanked. The ten deep formation was the “standard” but there have been accounts with 40 deep phalanx as a fist to smash through.
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