Why do Swordsmen with Shield Slaugher Spearmen/Pikemen/Long Pole Arms

[Pisces Axxxxx]

I remembered reading "The Art of War In the Middle Ages" by Oman and he stated that while the Swiss Pikemen dominated the battlefield and destroyed anyone who fought them for half of the Middle Ages, near the end of Medieval Times and starting into the Renaissance era, the Swiss would no longer dominate.

 

While a large reason for this dealt with the fact foreign armies, would copy the Swiss Pikemen and create their own counterparts, like the Lankerskreight (nor sure if this is the right spelling) of the Germans, the real blow dealt with when the Spanish faced the Swiss on the battlefield using their shield-and-sword infantry. In this battle Oman describes the Swiss as hopeless when the Spanish swordsmen clashed in with Swiss Pikemen and utterly massacred them.

 

Other armies would copy the Spanish Swordsmen armed with Bucklers with their own equivalents and the Swiss would end up facing a large series of military disasters for much of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

 

Oman states there is a parallel with the slaughter of Swiss by Spanish Swordsmen with Bucklers to when the Romans fought the Macedonia a thousand years earlier. The Romans armed with their rectangular shields and gladius would take on the Macedonian Phalanx head on and slaughter them with absolute ease. In fact in the biggest battle of the Macedonian Wars, the Macedonians would lose and lose thousands of soldiers int he process while the Romans would lose less than a 100 soldiers!

 

Oman implies that the Spanish Swordsmen armed with Buckler was inspired when old Latin and Greek texts were rediscovered and European powers started using the newfound knowledge to their advantage in war (thus coming the implications that the Spanish probably copied the Romans when they came up with Swordsmen armed with Bucklers).

 

What is the Swordsmen with shield dominating Spearmen,Pikemen or similar troops using very long Polearms?

 

I'm even more interested with why the Romans dominated the Macedonian Phalanx considering the Macedonians had shields too!

Edited December 25, 2012 by Pisces Adonis

[DecimusCaesar]

I think terrain, morale, etc play their parts. The early Renaissance Spanish managed to beat the Swiss pike squares because they used a combination of arms. The Spanish tercios included arquebusiers armed with handguns, crossbowmen and swordsmen hidden within the ranks of their own pike blocks. That way they could pelt the Swiss with missiles while they advanced. When the two pike squares would meet, the Spanish could unleash their swordsmen to wreak havoc, while soldiers could crawl beneath the raised pikes on both sides to slash at feet or bellies of the Swiss with daggers.

 

As for Roman dominance of the Macedonians, the rough terrain at Pydna led to the break up of the Phalanx formations, and some Macedonians dropped their sarissas and switched to their secondary weapons - swords. Face to face with the superior swordsmen of the Roman Legions the Macedonians were beaten. Other aspects played their part in Roman victory over the Macedonians, from better morale, more experienced troops, better generalship, the attrition of Macedonian troops in battles with their neighbours, even luck.

[barca]

Oman, no doubt got his ideas from reading Machiavelli's Art of War, in which he recommends using a combination of pikemen as well as swordsmen for a complete infantry.

 

 

The late Macedonian phalanx used the sarissa which required 2 hands, therefore it was hard for them to carry a shield, so it is believed that their shields were therefore very small and offered much less protection than the Roman scutum. I don't think that Renaissance Pikemen carried shields at all, but they made up for it by wearing good plate armor (at least in the front ranks) and they also carried swords. As for swords, in my opinion there is no reason why the phalangites could not have carried a gladius as a secondary weapon to defend themselves once the cohesion of the phalanx was broken, so that they could at least put up some kind of a fight rather than subject themselves to wholesale slaughter.

 

It is also possible that the casualties described are exaggerated, i.e. the Romans losing a few hundred compared to the Macedonians losing almost their entire army.

 

What do you think of the old hoplite phalanx vs legion? Here the hoplites carried a one-handed spear along with a large heavy hoplon shield. How would these hoplites fare against the legionnaires under similar circumstances?