Overhand spears or under?

[SirWarts]

Will some hoplites use there spears overhand? for example in EB I know some are over and some are under though im not sure why.

The recent Etruscan battle pics look awesome!!!

[SigniferOne]

At first, for now they'll be underhand while I resolve all other parts of the mod. Ultimately they will most definitely be overhand.

Glad you liked the Etruscan battle preview. Perhaps my favorite of their screenshots:

[SirWarts]

Cool sounds good to me. Thanks for the reply

[Comrade the Colonel]

nice

[Rorarii]

that picture could be used as a windows backdrop.

I always thought greek style phalanxs had the front row fighting underarm with spears held short while the second row fought overarm with spears held long, giving 2 ranks of fighting men facing the enemy. This was then extended in the pike phalanx to multiple ranks fighting.

R

[sirfiggin]

how does over-underhand use of thrusting spear affect combat? I'm curious because it seemed to be mostly hoplites that held it overarm, obviously because of their massive shields but were there any major benefits?

[k_raso]

What I remember (I searched for the source on this, but I couldn't find it) is that an overhanded thrust can exert several times more force than an underhand thrust. The muscles that intervene in the former (triceps, lattissimus dorsi, teres and in minor part the deltoids) can accumulate much more strenght in a straight or downwards thrust from an overhand grip, than a upwards or horizontal thrust from an underhanded grip.

[SirWarts]

Also when fighting for long periods of time you can rest your spear on top of your shield and still jab with it and not waste strength on just holding the spear.

I read a book on hoplite warfare a while ago and it was suggesting that they may have charged with there spears under hand and once in melee use it over hand.Reason for the under hand was to inflict shots to the groin area where there usually wasn't much protection. This is just what I read though. If interested I can post the name of the book and the author I dont have it with me on hand at the moment though

[DAVIDE]

is it so important how did they carry the weapon?

[Sargon_of_Akkad]

Also when fighting for long periods of time you can rest your spear on top of your shield and still jab with it and not waste strength on just holding the spear.

I read a book on hoplite warfare a while ago and it was suggesting that they may have charged with there spears under hand and once in melee use it over hand.Reason for the under hand was to inflict shots to the groin area where there usually wasn't much protection. This is just what I read though. If interested I can post the name of the book and the author I dont have it with me on hand at the moment though

Sounds like how the Romans used their gladuses(gladii? whatever...).

[Banzai!]

The TWC has seen this debate over and over again, but the fact is hoplites fought holding their spears underhand. However, overhand spears do look cooler as a noncombat pose.

[Hister]

The TWC has seen this debate over and over again, but the fact is hoplites fought holding their spears underhand. However, overhand spears do look cooler as a noncombat pose.

Can you please post a link to this fact? Let's use some logic here - if hoplites would be holding their spear underhand wouldn't this be a huge problem for soldiers standing behind the first raw since they would probably be hit with the rear of a spear in their stomachs...??? Especially the case when you stand in very tight formation such as the hoplites had.

On a side note here is very interesting site that discusses Roman legion formations in detail:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Orac...2/legions.html

[DAVIDE]

They used both second what they had to do. how you guys think they could defend themselves against cavalry, using overhand?

[Hister]

Yeah sure they used both according to situation but when they were in formation proper they had to use overhand.

[Sargon_of_Akkad]

Leave it as is. It's a very minor point, and I wouldn't want the devs wasting time they could be using to actually get the mod out. I'm sure a sub-mod could address it for any so anal that hoplites using underhand spears ruins their game experience.

[we4kf00l]

I for one would like to them them keeping their spears underarm, it seems much more ligical to me.
Why do you think that the stomache was the most protected part of a hoplite cuiras? Surely they were afraid of being hit their (underarm) rather theen being hit in the completely unprotected armpit (overarm)

But I could live with overarm as well. It is certainly not a gamebreaker for me

[Smeel]

With overhand downward stabbing motion they didn't have to hit each other at all
But yeah, hoplites using underarm grip isn't a gamebreaker for me either...

[SigniferOne]

I am hoping this will become a moot point, as one of the animation packs recently released features a pretty much complete overhand animations set, so we should be looking to include it whenever I'll be able to get back to modding.

[Kataki]

Yay :]

[SigniferOne]

Yes plans are to definitely have overhand animations in either this or subsequent beta version.