Was using spears defensively to kill effectively required little train

[Pisces Axxxxx]

I notice many movies portray spears as being a very easy weapon to use. You just hold the spear and wait for the enemy to stupidly run into it.

The best example is the Stirling Battle Scene in which William Wallace's soldiers awaited for the English Heavy Cavalry to charge at the Scots. At the last minute, the Scots suddenly pulled out their large wooden stakes on the ground and angled it at the English Horses and they were slaughtered as they charged into it. So many other movies with troops using spears as their primary weapon portrays using spears in a similar fashion. You hold it and form whole wall of spears and just wait for your enemies to stupidly run into it and die.

Even after the initial charge, using the spear to kill is portrayed simply as pushing it to the next guy in front of you, wait for that guy to be impaled and fall, then hit the next guy in line with it and repeat. 300 shows this perfectly in which for every Persian killed, the Spartan simply pulls the spear back and waits for the next Persian in role to appear and they suddenly push the spear into the next guy and kill him and keep repeating until an entire Persian unit was decimated.

So its portrayed as so long as you don't lose your balance and remaining holding it pointed at your enemy on the defensive, you simply stay where you are and let your enemy charge you and the killing commences.

Even martial art movies portrays spears int he same manner. Often the master martial artist awaits for his gang of enemies to run at him and suddenly he starts killing hordes of men with simple pushes of the spear as the come nearby with a fancy trick from staff fighting thrown in every 3rd or fourth bad guy.

However I remember a martial arts documentary in which some guys were in Japan trying to learn how to use Yari. The weapon was heavier than many martial arts movie portrays them as. In addition the martial artist teaching them showed them just how clumsy using the weapon was if you are untrained as he made them hit some stationary objects.

The martial artist even made the guests spar with him and he showed them just how goddamn easy it was to deflect and parry thrusts from a spear and he showed them just how vulnerable they were once a single thrust was parried. He also showed that spears were very easy to disarmed if you weren't train.

So I am wondering after seeing this documentary. Movies show spears as being such simple weapons anyone can use them as I stated in my description above. But the Martial Artist int he documentary really makes me wonder how hard it is to simply just stand there and wait for your enemies to charge into your spear and also how simplistic it was to push your spear into new men repeatedly.

Was using a spear much harder than movies portray and require a lot of training like the martial arts documentary I saw show?

[caldrail]

A spear is a convenient weapon to ake and distribute to poorly trained fighters, and when used en masse, can at least up to a point compensate for that lack of training. However, like any weapon, those that know what they're doing generally do better.

[Onasander]

You gotta look.at how tightly compact anti-calvary spear formations are and counter this with how fast, compact, and near impossible to stop a calvary charge is. Imagine being in the calvary..... third or forth back in the middle of a charge, thinking surely the troops ahead are about to break and flee, and all you will see is their backs as you hunt them down for the next hour..... and you hear "Oh shit"! Spoken in your dialect, and guys ahead on horses rearing up aaon hind legs, comming down on your buddies skulls and sholders, while you and the guys around you are still moving forward full momentum.... then you ride over a guy in your uniform, and see this spear thrust up, hitting you in the pelvis..... your saber dropping.... someone ramming you down from behind..... and the blue sky twisting from up, to sodeways and then down, an you see horses hooves above you, a guy on the ground above you where the sky used to be,.... dressed like you but dead, cold grass and mud below covering you, bloody mud..... and more and more screams and crying and yelling and people calling each other an idiot. You try to stand, but can't..... and see arrows taking guys down in the face. Your unit being pulled off their horses, too entangled to escape. Horses being lead away, as kill squads work their way towards you, killing as they creep.

 

For king and country, and all that good stuff.

 

 

Yeah,.obviously, against other infantry, you will want to learn your spacing, for parry and counter parring, moving in for a knife or sword kill, keeping a sachel of rocks onhand for when closing in, when to hold, when to retreat, how to switch out with another if your exhausted or injured.

 

Calvary in the ancient world wasnt very good against a determined and purpose driven infantry.... the kind of infantry who know in advance cav is comming and to expect it. If your put on berry picking detail, trying to find enough food for your line..... your useless against calvary.... spear on you or not, even if there is a guard on overwatch supposedly protecting you. When a army isnt formed up for battle, its always doing stuff like that in small.detachments. Calvary is best used then, and for recon and flanking in battle.

 

The reason this was forgotten was the medieval knighthoode was equestrian, and infantry forces were of a temporary nature for the most part.... because they didnt know how to fund and maintain such units longterm. A knight could fund himself and his own training.

 

You begin seeing longbow units from long cultured training as a national passtime, and communal pike units pop up to fill this essential gap. Even before this, knight lead battles expected silly ratios of infantry to calvary 10 to 1 in cases Ive read..... who mostly did nothing in these battles other than hope to survive and reap the rewards after their knights drove off the opposing infantry.

 

Im not a big fan on mediaeval infantry obviously.