Roman Pillum as a spear

[Titus Maximius Thongus]

I'm not sure if i should be posting this here, as it's not really RS related.
But I have read many accounts of Roman Legionaries using their pila javelins as spears against cavalry and even infantry in some situations. However, with the soft iron neck of the spear that causes it to bend, wouldnt this make the pila useless as a weapon?


(The below is RS related)
One thing I noticed about RS as well, Romans dont seem to have any spearmen, even if the auxilla icon does show a man with a spear.


thx

[Oberbefehlshaber]

Your idea sounds kind of cool. Like how the Triarii switch between a sword and a spear, however if the RS team deos that it will probably make the Romans too over-powering.

[SonOfAlexander]

I KNOW! It annoys me so much when I see legionairies marching with pila drawn - if they run into anythinbg at close range they're dead meat! And look at Gladiator as one of many examples - why would they stick the pila through their shields? They're useless as spears, except of course as ones to throw.

[Scipio praeditus]

Against horses the pila weren't useless, they did use them against cavalry charges in a sort of shield wall with the pila poking out the front.

I suggested such a formation to the RS team a long time ago, they said there just aren't enough formation buttons to add another one, testudo and loose formation seem to have their preference.
I would gladly trade in loose formation for this option... they seem to think otherwise though.

[tone]

Hmmm, I don't think that was the answer. As far as I'm aware you can't choose to have a special formation instead of loose formation - the choice is testudo or shield wall with pila.....furthermore it'd require the legions involved to be limited to:

1) throw pila and use pila as spears
OR
2) use pila as spear primary (or secondary weapon) and gladius as the other...the only problem here is that they might fight against infantry with their pila/spears as well.

Like you say, it'd add some variety, but the limitations may not compensate.

[snuggans]

the anti-cavalry formation republican & imperial legions used would be a nice touch, but i believe the legionnaires in the game do not need more resistance to cavalry. enabling guard mode alone allows them to absorb cavalry charges. giving them the killing ability of a phalanx or a spear unit would be tipping the scales of balance even more.

[dragoon47]

IIRC, the Romans would march to battle with pilae drawn to counter frontal cavalry charges, and to throw their pilae when they enter the range required. Pilae was also drawn when a maniple was in the attention position.

Caesar had his men use their pilae as spears against enemy cavalry once during the civil war in a battle against Pompey, so that's probably one of the events where you heard that.

[Scipio praeditus]

Hmmm, I don't think that was the answer. As far as I'm aware you can't choose to have a special formation instead of loose formation

You are most likely correct, it has been a long time ago.
I seem to remember someone (not part of the RS team) mentioning the wish to exchange loose formation with the afore mentioned formation, which most likely caused me to err in this matter.

The answer was something along those lines though, at least it had the same end result.

[dragoon47]

Don't units make a shield wall instead of loose formation in SPQR...or is that an imitation of one?

[Alavaria]

Don't units make a shield wall instead of loose formation in SPQR...or is that an imitation of one?

Isn't that "shield wall" just a really tight formation?

[intel]

No, it gives mass and defence bonus as well, AFAIK.

[Titus Maximius Thongus]

but wouldnt the soft-iron neck of the pilla make it fairly useless as a spear? I mean, its sort of a 1 hit end of weapon kind of thing

[Oberbefehlshaber]

but wouldnt the soft-iron neck of the pilla make it fairly useless as a spear? I mean, its sort of a 1 hit end of weapon kind of thing

Yeah, like Tone said, I'm sure its not as soft as you think, I would like to know actually just how much they would bend.

[tone]

It might have been OK with a direct impact head on.....it was more the weight of the shaft and lead weight that caused the bending I should think

[cnaeus]

its true, and i think it would be impossible to implement that when the pilae are thrown that the formation is no longer possible.

[apple]

You could always make some tests.

[Titus Maximius Thongus]

when i used to play SPQR, i found that the shield wall formation greatly improved the survivability of troops like hastati, even when up against chosen swordsmen. one reason is party because each enemy will come draw the attention of 2-3 of your men when in shield wall, thus they come under attack from more sides and reducing the attacks on each of your men by .5 to .33. Im not sure if shield wall helped with arrow fire, because in theory you're making your men a smaller target to arrow fire.

[Raglan]

we did some tests on this in SPQR (i'm a SPQR faithful) and the shield wall is really a tighter formation, but it does seem to give a bonus in pushing (more in resisting a push rather than doing the pushing - ie the unit doesn't bend as easierly) it also seemed to have some moral bonus in that units would generally break slower. But agaist archers, it didn't seem to have as much of a negative as thought, although the casulties were generally higher.

But as i said the advantages were huge in combat (except against a phalanx, where they were just destroyed)

[mattfriend0]

in the books of ben kane and simon scarrow the romans used the pilia as a spear

[rory o'kane]

Never trust novels. they DID use them as spears on occasion (such as at Pharsalus), but as Tone has already said, there's no way to implement this satisfactorily.