How did the same tactic dominate, get defeated, get forgotten for 1000 years, then start dominating again?
How did the same tactic dominate, get defeated, get forgotten for 1000 years, then start dominating again?
How did the same tactic dominate, get defeated, get forgotten for 1000 years, then start dominating again?
convergent evolution I guess.
The Medieval era is fake.The papist's added in those years to make their attack's on European rural folk have more legitimacy.
There is a reason why even as late as the 10-11th century you'll hear bishop's complaining in their writing about how many pagans there were in the Italian countryside. when according the official chronology they should have been converted century's ago.
The dark ages were real, everybody was retarded from lead deficiency, so nothing major happened. Any implied social order may have been more illusionary than real.
>There is a reason why even as late as the 10-11th century you'll hear bishop's complaining in their writing about how many pagans there were in the Italian countryside. when according the official chronology they should have been converted century's ago.
I'd never considered this point.
you ever think he's just making it up
Considering it was the Middle Ages, they probably misused the word "pagan" to mean people who followed an unorthodox interpretation of the Christian creed.
The islamic world used to be full of a dozen obscure micro religions like yazidism or various christian sects. The modern word pagan is basically the medieval version of "country bumpkin" since those were the only kinds of people to hang on to the old faith. Its only with the advent of modernity before the french revoluion that paganism finally died in western europe. Similar to how christian or similar minorities in some islamic countries today have been expelled or killed off. The modern state with its mass literacy and absolute nature kills off these kinds of things.
tl;dr the dark age world lent itself to obscure practices in the middle of nowhere. Far away enough from the preying eyes of the authorities
>Its only with the advent of modernity before the french revoluion that paganism finally died in western europe
The Sami were one of the last.
This
It costs a fuck ton to raise a disciplined pike wall, to the point that it’s so costly that it only makes sense to train a standing army instead of oetting their valuable training to waste away farming.
Rome was the greatest in creating a cheap but effective army which was driven by honor and a drive towards civic duty found in Romes population. Allowing armies to be raised cheaply with the patricians fighting one another for the pleasure of footing the cost.
None of this duty and honor was found elsewhere in Europe, with Macedonian soldiers costing thrice as much in pay and requiring a land grant as seen in Egypt which was far costlier than the small grant given to Romans
>This
Are you samefagging anon lol.
You do realize that astronomical events that can be calculated fit in well with the Julian Calendar records of the church? There isn't a magical invented 500 extra years.
>It costs a fuck ton to raise a disciplined pike wall,
Ancient spears aren't Swiss pikes you fucking retard. Holy shit.
>spears
I said pikes you mongrel europoor. If you know so little on the topic, best to keep quiet
>I said pikes you mongrel europoor. If you know so little on the topic, best to keep quiet
HOLY SHIT YOU FUCKING RETARD. YOU ARE COMPARING ANCIENT SPEARS WITH LATER PIKES YOU FUCKING IMBECILE.
THEY AREN'T THE SAME THING.
>The famous phalanx with its much longer pikes
THE PHALANX NEVER USED PIKES YOU NIMROD. THOSE ARE CALLED SPEARS.
PIKES CAN STAB, HOOK AND CUT LIKE AN AXE.
SPEARS CAN ONLY STAB.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW...
autism, long spears are pikes
>autism, long spears are pikes
no they aren't.
>Nope, you are thinking halberds and other polearms
Halberds are a type of pike....
The differentiating features between long spears and pikes are the extra functions like hooks and side cutting blades.
You were already given the generic term for them, polearms. Halberds because they are heavier are in fact shorter than spears and likely to have a bad time against them
>Halberds because they are heavier are in fact shorter than spears
wrong...
The heads just shank to lesson the weight.
>Halberds because they are heavier are in fact shorter than spears and likely to have a bad time against them
Do you consider 4 meters shorter?
Just having a hook makes your pole-arm ten times more versatile.
The only advantage of a plain stabbing blade is mass manufacture.
Nope, you are thinking halberds and other polearms. Pikes in fact have small tips because of their extra length.
that is the most doggy dogshit bait ive seen all year dont engage with him
>that is the most doggy dogshit bait ive seen all year dont engage with him
Nope, I just remember seeing woodcuts of extremely long halberds and hooked blades.
Makes logical sense.
The sky* confuses the modern slop-person
They’d rather believe history is fake than the truth that it’s just gay
>as late as the 10-11th century you'll hear bishop's complaining in their writing about how many pagans there were in the Italian countryside
Can you? Examples please?
Catholics are still pagans so it checks out with our traditional timeline
Retards don’t understand popular religious phenomena
They don’t even understand what they’d feel like if they hadn’t eaten breakfast. What do you expect?
This is because all you homosexuals do is play paradox map painters
Rising population numbers made large scale formations possible again and during the renaissance the notion of a professionally trained infantryman arose again. As such those new infantry formations had both the density, to generate power and to take losses, and the discipline, to coordinate itself ans maneuver competently.
They didnt dominate in the early modern period, they were useful to stopping cavalry which made them necessary as they became a counter to the meta strategy of massed heavy cavalry.
They were always possible but cavalry didnt really dominate until the later middle ages when large scale armies could outfit large horse formations instead of a few knights.
??
No, pikes were not viable because infantry could easily rip them apart.
Swiss werent really mixed formations as much as they were a brigade of Halberdiers, Axemen, Swords, clubs, picks, with a small brigade of pikemen protecting them from cavalry.
Romans didnt use pikes because pikes are terrible. Macedon rolled everyone because people in West Asia wore little armor or armor of little quality and their own heavy cavalry could outflank the enemy formations who were trying to figure out how to navigate the phalanx.
Pikes were never dominant, they never worked without cavalry.
That was one battle against the Spanish in Northern Italy.
They couldnt hold their own against heavy infantry. The Swiss always had a bias toward melee infantry over pikemen in pike brigades, the Spanish had as many melee infantry as pikemen in the Tercio, all subsequent pike formations were mixed with gunners with a handful of melee specialists.
Good question.
Late medieval armies several times tried using pikes with mixed success before the swiss got it right. Either the blocks weren't sufficiently disciplined so cavalry could break in, or they were shot to pieces by longbows. Increased professionalism (permanent militia and mercenary duty for the swiss, permanent mercenary or regular employment for pike and shot pikes) dealt with the one problem, plate armor with the other. Notably, macedonian pikes likewise got flanked and broken up, not because of a lack of discipline but because they didn't use combined arms - swiss pikes always had halberds mixed in.
I think the roman army could have made pikes work. I think there's some sources claiming that they may even have raised such troops at some point, but didn't use them. Why that is - no idea. Early to high medieval armies couldn't make them work, they didn't have enough professionalism for the infantry. What little professional soldiers their societies and economies could support did rather fight as cavalry, and that was probably the correct choice.
The swiss pikemen were also notoriously aggressive in their advances and just maneuvered through missle fire, while taking the casualties.
It's not uncommon to find reports where heavy swiss casualties are documented - but they still rarely gave ground and held formation.
They figured out combined arms with archers and cavalry and that made pikes viable again
Spear formations like that of the Sumerians in sp.png were common throughout history.
The famous phalanx with its much longer pikes was a rarity in history and existed in a narrow niche, after the rise in Mediterranean trade allowed but before heavier infantry such as that of Rome's appeared. Very long spears and pikes continued to be used, for example in the medieval schiltron, real life is not like a video game where a unit is limited to one weapon, but they were often ad-hoc affairs brought on by necessity.
The renaissance pike reappeared for very different reasons, hardened steel plate armor allowed them to do away with a shield and hold a 2 handed pike, which was very effective against the preponderant cavalry of the time, of course, but also allowed them to hold their own against heavy infantry. Pike and shot formations gave them a further advantage and soon made up most infantry.
Your left pic is not the example you are thinking of probably. Sumerian spearmen not Alexander's phalanx. As for later europeans, deliberate imitation that maybe had to do with the rise of many city states in the high middle ages and definitely with the renaissance
Pike and shot are only superfically like old spearwalls and phalanxes. They don't actually operate the same at all other than the fact they use long sticks with pointy ends
>How did the same tactic dominate, get defeated, get forgotten for 1000 years, then start dominating again?
Explain how spears are pikes please.
Pikes are spears too long to wield with only one hand
>Pikes are spears too long to wield with only one hand
wrong.
>No, pikes were not viable because infantry could easily rip them apart.
What lol. Pikes are the ultimate infantry weapon against other infantry without firearms. That's why they kept increasing in length up to 7 meters in some cases.
People tend to get close together when in danger, prefer to be able to stab an enemy before it can stab back.
Unless you want to be a retard that wants to prove his bravery.
Everyone here is wrong.
Pikes were never dominating in the ancient world, except for a brief period of time until the Greek homobois met the Roman chud legion.
For the next thousand years there was no cavalry to speak of in Europe, so there was no need for pikes. In the central middle ages feudal cavalry begin to be a thing and pikes arose again and score some succeses (i.e the swiss) but it was mostly a defensive formation that heavily relied on the enemy's cavalry going YOLO against compact pike formations, or heavily trenched defensive positions with infantry and archers, like the english did in Crecy or Agincourt. The french were specialist in failure but unless you go full retard like the frogs, the cavalry remained dominant until the appearance of the Tercio system during the Italian wars, as it was a combined arms system capable both of the offense and the defense.
>Pikes were never dominating in the ancient world something OP didn't claim
>except for a brief period of time they were
>romans didn't have cavalry
>romans didn't have cavalry
They did and so did the greeks. But it was secondary in both cases, homosexual.
Pike formations require an army of professional infantrymen devoted to practicing pike tactics and formations.
This shit was viable back when hellenic polities were big and rich, wasn't viable during the middle ages when armies were mostly a handful of aristocrats pooling together their retinues and levies, but got viable again in the early modern period when kingdoms went back to fielding (or hiring in the swiss case) whole ass regiments built up for specific purpose instead of thrown together ad hoc.