The Helvetti spear phallanx, how realistic is it? Were there spears longer than the a

[Destraex]

The Helvetti spear phallanx, how realistic is it? Were there spears longer than the average Gaulish spear?
The EB barbarian Mori Gaesum has very long phalanx spears, I am just not sure whether these existed in real life Gaul.

http://www.allempires.com/article/in...aesar_Helvetii

"The enemy, who had been following the Romans, halted their advance and formed a phalanx with ranks and files close and deep. They held swords or spear in one hand and their joined their shields to overlap and form a phalanx, then they advanced towards the Roman lines on the hilltop. 16"

"When the Helvetii were about ninety feet away the legionaries, in the front ranks, hurled their javelin from a commanding position, into the mass of the charging enemy. This strategy broke the enemies phalanx. Standing behind their shields the Romans drew their swords and charged. 18a Caesar had ordered his armorers to make the javelin tips out of a soft metal so they would bend after piercing the enemies shields, forcing the enemy to drop their shields when they were unable to pull out the spear head. According to Caesar, when more than one of the overlapping shields were pierced it forced the enemy to drop their shields and fight unprotected. Eventually after sustaining a lot of casualties the barbarians drew back to a hill about one mile away. The javelin (pilum) embodied what is called the Marian principle of buckling which upon impact caused the javelin to bend and become imbedded in the enemy's shields. The idea was to make it difficult to remove when it struck their overlapping Gallic shields, often pinning them together with a single pilum."

[John I Tzimisces]

The Phalanx in Caesar's time was not the Phalanx you are thinking of. It was closer to a spear battle line than the Iphikrates phalanx depicted in RTW.

[PSYCHO V]

The Helvetti spear phallanx, how realistic is it? Were there spears longer than the average Gaulish spear?
The EB barbarian Mori Gaesum has very long phalanx spears, I am just not sure whether these existed in real life Gaul.

The Helvetii..whilst often referred to as Gauls..were not actually situated in Gaul.

Contrary to eXc|Imperator's comments, the phalanx was employed by both Gauls and Germans..albeit not to the same level of efficiency that the Greeco-Macedonians managed to attain... and rarely by the Gauls themselves.

To answer your question, the phalanx tactic employed by the Helvetii was what most would recognise as a regular under-hand phalanx. Unfortunately, due to hard coding we could not depict it exactly how we would have liked..ie the spears would actually be significantly shorter but still 2-3 feet longer than the standard spear. CA’s spear lengths were pre-determined.

We did managed to redo the animations for the overhand phalanx employed by the Arverni..in what is more closely associated with the spear battle line / shield wall that eXc|Imperator was referring to. So we may get around to re-doing the Helvetii styled phalanx animations as well when we get a chance.


my2bob

[John I Tzimisces]

Odd. I thought the phalanx as it was during the period the successor states still had power was dead by the time the Helvetii were of any significance or prominance. So it is more like the vanilla RTW phalanx that makes everyone cringe when used for makedonian pikemen?

[PSYCHO V]

Odd. I thought the phalanx as it was during the period the successor states still had power was dead by the time the Helvetii were of any significance or prominance. So it is more like the vanilla RTW phalanx that makes everyone cringe when used for makedonian pikemen?

Yup ... but a few things

..the Helvetii were a significant force as early as the mid 3rd C BC ... very much during the period of Successor states.

..due to the difference in weapons and equipment, they generally (I say generally because there are significant examples that stick out) managed better over broken ground than the more heavily encumbered classicals.

..they didn't just rely on this one tactic and used other more conventional "gallic" forces to support and assist, thus giving them greater tactical flexibility over other tribes / indigenous nations; in effect, providing what Alexander termed the "shield and sword". In fact, we dont know, but they may have actually learnt this from Alexander himself.

The Helvetii were defeated by Caesar because their over-confidence led them to attack up hill, over broken ground, against an untried enemy. Before the "shield" could pin Caesar's line, it was disordered and forced to retreat back down the hill. The support troops followed.

[Poelium committere]

If a historian want to know, how long a Helvetii spear was, he has two choices regarding this circumstances.
On the one hand, he can do exvacations, but only the edge of the spear had survived time, so he has to look for other "fontes" (lat.)(do not know what this means in english...maybe source?). What does he do? He´s reading De Bello Gallico.
Gallia est omnia divisia in partes tres ...

proelium committere.

[Ano2]

I don't understand why the Iphikrate's phalanx is being used at all considering the only sources on the matter are extremely unrelaible. It is far more likely the Greeks, and all who drew influence, used the classical overhand phalanx all the way until te change into the Pike Phalanx. EB seems to support Iphikrate's a lot despite the lack of solid evidence. At best I think his phlanax ould have only been used by the Athenian marines, although some of his equiptment may hve been used by the majority of hoplites.

[PSYCHO V]

I don't understand why the Iphikrate's phalanx is being used at all considering the only sources on the matter are extremely unrelaible. It is far more likely the Greeks, and all who drew influence, used the classical overhand phalanx all the way until te change into the Pike Phalanx. EB seems to support Iphikrate's a lot despite the lack of solid evidence.

:original: ..... Hmm, no offence but "unrelaible..lack of solid evidence" ? Material evidence and subsequent literary work from Noves, Brioude, Le Puy-en-Velay, etc etc would quickly dispel those dismissive remarks.

I know there has been a strong Greeco-Macedonian fan base within the TW community for some years now that has convinced itself (and many others) that only Greeks could / would employ the tactic called the "phalanx" (Iphikrate or other). But I'm afraid scientific discovery doesn't always follow preconceived idyllic scripts.

EB has it's research right on this count.

my2bob