Who would win?

>Period sources disagree, and a breastplate does not make you immune to attacks to the limbs, throat, or face.
Period sources are talking about contemporary pikes, which have broader heads and considerably thicker shafts and can take much more abuse before snapping than the relatively thin and actually too long for their tensile strength sarissae. Again, just equating their equipment because they both use pikes and both have armor is dumb as fuck.

>No. We have European sources talking about pikes piercing their contemporary armor.
We have European sources talking about contemporary pikes piercing contemporary armor, not someone digging up a 1,500ish year old design and piercing contemporary armor with that. Equating the two is like saying that because modern AP rounds can penetrate a tank, and WW2 era 50mm guns can penetrate a tank, you can knock out an Abrams by getting a WW2 era 50mm gun and plinking away at it.

>odds are very good they'd be wearing munitions armor, which was NOT of good quality, and was likely to be iron rather than steel.
It was enormously better quality than what was floating around circa 300 AD. This is an example of munitions plate 68.media.tumblr.com/f2e4f2b499b0c7e5dbcb465efab1ed60/tumblr_inline_mw0536OFSd1rt0iua.jpg It is tough stuff. And I'd want a source on it being iron rather than steel. What little I have says otherwise web.mit.edu/21h.416/www/militarytechnology/armor.html

Heavy infantry are shit against cavalry except in pike and shot formations. Sure, they deny the charge to heavy cavalry, but there's not really anything stopping you from using your heavy cavalry like less effective light cavalry. Light cavalry will outflank your pike formation and either rip them apart, or, if you manage to form a square before you get assfucked, provide enough of a threat that you can never leave that square and you're limited to the movement speed of your soldiers marching sideways or backwards in while maintaining formation.

The source you posted literally doesn't cover munitions armor at all.

web.archive.org/web/20071113045322/http://www.royalarmouries.org/extsite/view.jsp?sectionId=3004

>Medieval armour is now one of the best-studied areas of medieval metalworking. The picture that has emerged shows trends in both the choice of materials and their working. For example, for the famous south German armourers, until the end of the 15th-century most armour was of unhardenable iron. However from around 1500 there is a transition to steel and this was carefully heat-treated to harden it. The Greenwich workshops founded by Henry VIII appear to have used materials from the same sources but seem to have been slower to fully harden their steel. However, cheaper munition armour was always of iron or sometimes an alloy of iron containing a small amount of phosphorus, which gave a marginal increase in hardness.
>always of iron

Munitions armor literally existed to be handed out to professional recruits. Yes, some people COULD go out and buy a steel breastplate, but the majority would not.

>circa 300 AD
This alone makes it clear you're not very familiar with the subject.

>actually too long for their tensile strength sarissae
Protip:
They're not one piece. It's two pieces with a bronze connector in the middle. Results in a stronger pike and is much easier to deal with on the march.

>Period sources are talking about contemporary pikes, which have broader heads
This is literally worse for defeating armor, user.

>sarissa were flimsy crap!

and yet the man managed to conquer the known world with them

perhaps it is you who is flimsy crap

The "low quality munitions armor" was literally pistol-proof.

fpbp

Pistol at the time were exceptionally weak, user. It's iron. It provides limited coverage and doesn't guarantee a victory.

Get over it and move on.

Also your source is talking about English armories from the time of Henry VIII. First, Henry VIII's military was known to be far behind in military technology and most or all of his pikemen were foreign mercenaries. Second, tercios weren't English. Third, OP's image is from the Battle of Rocroi, which happened about a hundred years after Henry VIII died.

And you're posting an armor that comes into existence when the tercio gets transitioned into a regular line unit.

You can literally find obvious examples of iron munitions armor all over the continent if you look.

>Pistol at the time were exceptionally weak, user.
Graz Armoryw wheellock pistol caliber: 12.3mm, muzzle velocity: 438 m/s, energy at muzzle 917J

Compare to Glock 9mm: 518J, 360 m/s

17th century armor > 300bc armor, get over it and move on.

Oh I'm sorry, show me a better pre-shot melee infantry formation to protect against cavalry on open ground

>Graz Armoryw wheellock pistol caliber: 12.3mm, muzzle velocity: 438 m/s,
Menawhile, proof armor was the domain of cavalrymen, not infantry, who were universally getting issued cheaper gear.

>17th century armor > 300bc armor, get over it and move on.
Literally nobody has argued otherwise, you butthurt faggot.

The armor is superior to what was available to a society which lacked steel.

It was not invulnerable to attack by sarissae, nor does it have the coverage to stop a man form being brutally killed by a skilled opponent even if it cannot be penetrated. This should be blindingly obvious from the simple fact that the front lines of euroshit pike formations suffered horrendous casualties whenever they made contact.

It's hilarious that you think they're comparable in armour penetration, post this on /k/ they'll have a laugh

You have literally no idea what range that shot was taken from.

Shhhh. Let him dig this hole deeper, user.

>Menawhile, proof armor was the domain of cavalrymen, not infantry, who were universally getting issued cheaper gear.
Wrong. Roger Williams describing Spanish military in 1591:
"Before they giue an assault, they send sundrie Officers and Souldiers armed of Musket proofe and good iudgement to discouer the breaches"

They are. In the same test, both weapons penetrated 2mm of steel at 30m. The wheelock penetrated 121mm of pine while the glock penetrated 126mm. This is despite the wheellock being higher caliber.

:)

Weak.

I'm not sure if a sarissa head would, but 9x19 para would go right through a breastplate.

>2mm of steel

my dick could penetrate that

He also doesn't seem to realize that it's rather explicitly stated to be iron.

Meanwhile, we use 1/4" steel for pistol targets.

He's explicitly discussing siege assaults, and explicitly talking about scouts investigating to see where a locations fortifications have been breached, you absolute retard.

I'll let you take a guess how that might be different from field combat.

You wouldnt be able to reach the other side while balls deep. Your thick skull however...

They're not really parallel.

Phalangites are deployed in a long ass fucking line.

Meanwhile a Pike square is not a purely pike formations, as it contains musketeers and other kinds of troop types, making a single pike square like a separate infantry task force in itself, which can operated independently and flexibly when needed.

jimmy is over nine inches long

This is literally the most important part of the entire discussion.

>He also doesn't seem to realize that it's rather explicitly stated to be iron.
Iron tough enough to stop bullets. I'm not the same guy who said it wasn't iron.

>Meanwhile, we use 1/4" steel for pistol targets.
1/4" is 6.35mm, thicker than any breastplate.

>He's explicitly discussing siege assaults, and explicitly talking about scouts investigating to see where a locations fortifications have been breached, you absolute retard.
Well you could at least check the source. It's freely available. They also wore proof armor during the actual assault-
"they line their armed men that haue the first poynt with Musketiers armed of the proofe."

Williams says that all of their pikemen wore proof armor too.
"THeir Commissions for foote Bands are like vnto ours, some Ensigns 300. some 200. the most of an 150. Euery hundred hath forty armed men, of which there must be 30. pikes, the tenne others, are hal∣berds & targets of the proof; al their Gentlemen & van∣tagers are armed men, the most carry the pike, hauing plasterons of the proofe, I meane the fore part of the ar∣mour, the 60. others are shot."

...No, user, he's specifying "Gentlemen & van∣tagers", as a subset of the "armred men." Which, in context, seems to mean "armoured."

Unless you can find an actual definition of van∣tagers, the fact that he groups them with the gentlmen doesn't bode well for the idea that every pikeman was wearing proof armor.

This is unsurprising, because the man is refering ot musket proofing, not pistol, which would have been fucking expensive compared to pistol or entirely unproofed armor.

Evreything about that source suggests a subset of the men had proof armor, not all of them.

Nor does it matter, because, again, while useful, the armor could still conceivably be penetrated on the charge, and simply lacks the coverage to guarantee victory in push of pike. You can get around a breastplate by the simple method of stabbing the man wearing it in the gut.

>Iron tough enough to stop bullets
Thick enough.

I'd take it over bronze any day, but if it came down to push of pike, i'd rather be standing with the macedonians if they actually had a good general.

Early modern English isn't easy to read for everyone so I'll break down what he's saying for you.

"THeir Commissions for foote Bands are like vnto ours, some Ensigns 300. some 200. the most of an 150."
Spanish units are 150-300 men.

"Euery hundred hath forty armed men, of which there must be 30. pikes, the tenne others, are hal∣berds & targets of the proof;"
In every hundred men, forty are armored. 30 of those armored men are using pikes, ten are using a halberd or a sword and bulletproof shield.

"al their Gentlemen & van∣tagers are armed men"
All of the gentlemen and men in the front ranks are in the group wearing armor.

"the most carry the pike, hauing plasterons of the proofe, I meane the fore part of the ar∣mour, "
Most of the pikemen have proofed breastplates.

"the 60. others are shot"
The 60 guys who AREN'T wearing armor are the musketeers.

Thanks, I appreciate the patience. I couldn't find the word van∣tagers anywhere else and have not seen it before.

I'll happily cede the point that the majority were wearing proofed armor, though we're off on a complete tangent at this point.

It's "vantager". The | represents the edge of a page in transcriptions.

Tercios had archebusiers and rodeleros. How is this even a question?

>rodeleros
Literally the worst choice against a pike formation of any sort.

Nor did they universally have them, the rodellero had a very short lifespan in history.

>Literally the worst choice against a pike formation of any sort.
They were extremelly efficient against other pike formations. The romans used a similar unit to cuck the shit out of greek phalanx.

>They were extremelly efficient against other pike formations.
No they weren't. They literally got removed from service because they weren't.

Their best performance was at ravenna, and that's simply because they were attacking men in fortifications-where it is impossible to use pikes at all.

In the field, they can't break an organized pike unit, and another pike unit that IS organized can slaughter one that isn't just as efficiently as rodelleros can.

Why do you think the Spanish dropped them as a troop type so fast?

Medieval weapon design was not necessarily superior or more advanced than Alexandrian weapon design...we're talking pikes, not a super complicated weapon.

Because they were pretty vulnerable to cavalry. They would crush a Greek Phalanx though

>Medieval weapon design was not necessarily superior or more advanced than Alexandrian weapon design.
Yes they were

this is a joke right

>Because they were pretty vulnerable to cavalry.
They were vulnerable to literally everything on the field that wasn't already in disarray.

>They would crush a Greek Phalanx though
There are, to date, ZERO recorded instances of a force of swordsmen assaulting and defeating a pike unit head on without advantageous terrain.

Literally none.

This desu.

>There are, to date, ZERO recorded instances of a force of swordsmen assaulting and defeating a pike unit head on without advantageous terrain.
They had shields.Roman legions at Cynoscephalae crushed Greeks phalanx formations with the same tactic.

Shields were literally immaterial to the result of Cynoscephalae, you absolute retard. They won that battle by sending elephants into pikes that never got properly formed.

Unfortunately for the spaniards, rotellas are not elephants.

>They won that battle by sending elephants
Elephants entered into the battle at the very end.The Roman legions were alredy winning the battle on the hill.Roman legions crushed Phalanx formation and made it obsolete using shields and short swords

Tercios came to prominance by beating landsknecht and swiss pike formations during the italian wars. So you are wrong

And the tercio got phased out because the pike slowly dissappeared from the battlefield. Not because they could not beat other pikes.

Tercios are not rodellros, you mongoloid.

The tercio gave the swordsmen it had javelins, and rapidly phased them out in favor of guns, because they were dead weight the majority of time, being absolutely useless outside of niche situations.

>meanwhile, at heraclea:
>7000 dead
>only killed 3000
Muh shields

Yeah im not talking about rodelleros im talking anout the combination of pikes and guns called a tercio. They got phased out in 1703 for musket regiments

"Pikes are just a defense against cavalry" is a meme. The phalanx is an OFFENSIVE formation for fighting IINFANTRY. Nothing could stop an advancing phalanx head on except another phalanx. It was a killer steamroller, not a wall. Its main weakness was lack of maneuverability, which actually made it vulnerable to cavalry, which could try to outflank and encircle it. Yes, it would stop cavalry charge head on, but that's not what cavalry were used for, because generally people aren't that stupid and eager to die.

>Roman's never faced a Greek phalanx before
>They learn from their lose and start using shields and short swords
>Shit on phalanx formation ever since

>terico

>le vikang shield wall is better than hellenic phalanxes of any era

>vikang shield wal
>kite shields
if you wanna shitpost do it fucking right mate

Romans fought like greeks for a long time you fuck

Neither contemporary Hoplites or Persian soldiers were particularly heavily armored what the fuck are you talking about

And Kevlar can be pierced by a knife. Bulletproof doesn't mean everything-proof.

You think Roman legions charged the pikes head on and won because of that?

They threw their pilum first, giving a shock effect not unlike the Swedish salvo tactics.

The Swedes were able to charge into pike formations head on and win.

Thats not how it happened at all you retarded. They were using shields and shortswords well before they faced greek pike phalanxes.

Roman manipular legion shits on light cavalry and holds its own against heavy cavalry.

If you're referring to the Swedes in the 30 years war, they had a greater proportion of pikes in their units than their enemies did.

you redeemed Veeky Forums with this post user.

/k/ would also get triggered if someone claimed that metallurgy from 300 bc could take on metallurgy from the 1600s.

>Tericos could beat some of the most experienced soldiers in human history
Do you even know anything about history or are you just bringin up memes?