was the Phalanx a meme?
>hurr durr I want to strike enemy first so I use hueg long stick to out-reach him at the cost of maneuverability so I need to have a decent amount of cavalry to prevent flanking by the enemy or else my force is kaput
why not use archers instead, idiots?
>kaput
Fucking Jew
You're overestimating the effectiveness of archers in ancient warfare. Although laminated and composite bows existed for the most part the armies which the phalanxes faced were equipped with relatively short range and low strength bows. Furthermore hoplites and phalangites tended to be quite heavily armored and so were able to quite easily shrug off much arrow fire. Lastly archers take a lot of logistical effort to keep their ammunition supply maintained and many armies of the day simply didn't have complex enough organization to ensure this.
Archery is very labor intensive for just a few attempted pricks against an enemy, they have to put enough energy in the arrow for it to travel the distance and they can only do so every 5 seconds or so, it is like heavy lifting almost, then there is a limited amount of ammunition and they can only keep it up for a few minutes before their fingers are worn out from the strain.
The phalanx not only increased their range, it allowed more pikes to come to bear on the enemy at once. Anyone facing the phalanx without one of their own had to take the flanks fast because their center would not last long. At both Issus and Gaugamela, Alexander's left flank suffered greatly against the Persians though held out long enough for the center and right to break the Persians.
this is why movies need to stop showing arrow fire mowing down armies like a 50 cal machine gun in WW1, battle of the bastards is the most recent example but its being going on for a while (lord of the rings, Troy, basically any medieval/ancient war movie) People think arrows are way more effective than they actually are and its entirely because pf these stupid movies.
Fucking idiots using WW1 as an inspiration for a medieval battle, what a horribly misguided inspiration. That pile of bodies shit is a reference to WW1. A 50 cal will do that, a bunch of archers will not.
I seem to remember that in the hollywood Alexander movie it was shown how the sarissas deflected the arrows while being pointed upwards and moved by their users.
Feel free to correct me.
The funny thing is, in the books, Tolkien specifically points out that the major reason the Silvan elves do more poorly in battle than their other elven kindreds is an over-reliance on archery, which works terribly against foes with any kind of armor. Both in the First Age and in the Last Alliance, they get their shit pushed in this way.
thats an exception to the rule, I could probably make a 6 hour montage of scenes showing fully-armored men dropping like flies to arrow fire. Hollywood loves to do that exact scene, the ol'
>zoom in on archers firing, then switch camera angles to all the soldiers getting hit and dropping like flies
Its like theyre getting mowed down by gunfire when in reality it should be a minor convenience, there isnt even enough force to actually knock you down, the worst that happens is you get hit and its now just an annoying injury you have to deal with, but you dont drop dead unless it goes straight through a vital area like your heart or neck. Guys got hit by dozens of arrows before going down, especially if they had armor.
during the rohirrim charge scene in return of the king, you see SEVERAL fully-armored knights dropping like flies to a SINGLE arrow. This one guy gets hit in the chest (which wouldnt do anything because he is wearing fucking armor) and he literally dies instantly and the horse just falls over. The next scene shows a horse getting hit by a SINGLE arrow and dying immediately.
Imagine if a horse actually dropped from a single arrow, theyd be virtually useless in warfare. Luckily a horse is half a ton of muscle and a single arrow to them is like getting stabbed with a toothpick to us. Maybe after dozens of arrows and like a minute of the horse running wildly around on pure adrenaline he might drop, but not immediately. Animals go through a shit ton of damage before they fall over and die, horses can tank arrows and keep running, its why knights didnt even bother armoring them because it wasnt worth the loss in speed.
>The funny thing is, IN THE BOOKS, it is different than it is in the MOVIE
Please go back to the third grade and brush up on your basic reading skills.
>its why knights didnt even bother armoring them
Retard Alert
fuck off I comprehended everything you said, I wasnt fucking arguing with you retard I was AGREEING with you.
Fucking hell people are always so goddamn defensive on this board. Just because I responded to you doesnt mean Im trying to argue with you ffs
You almost had a conversation but then you fucked it up by being yet another edgy fuck, later.
youre thinking of cataphracts, but I can already tell this thread is just turning into yet another nitpicking jerk-yourself-off session where people go off topic just to tell other people that theyre wrong about some irrelevant thing.
>jerk-yourself-off
The correct term is masturbate you idiot
thanks for proving my point
>I wasnt fucking arguing with you retard I was AGREEING with you
How the hell was that in agreement? It pointed out what would then be an irrelevant tangent concerning a scene in RoTK the movie and how unrealistic it is.
My house is painted green! See, I'm agreeing with you!
Welcome to Veeky Forums
In one way or another , most horses used in warfare had armour up until the use of gunpowder weapons.Whether it was a small breastplate, a woven cover for the ribs, under the saddle,or a small piece of metal along the nose.
I was expanding upon your point by referencing another example of the movies getting it wrong. Your original point was verging on totally off topic, and I brought it back to the topic and you bitched because you got offended that I dare expand on your infallible anecdote. My "irrelevant tangent" was my way of bringing you back to the topic, but instead you saw that as an opportunity to intellectually jerk your e penis, because this board is filled with pseuds trying to find "gotcha" moments to feed their egos instead of just discussing the topic.
Most bows we're pretty weak. It's not until true warbows and a strong culture of archery do they show promise. An English warbow didn't fire arrows any faster, but it allowed heavier arrows to be used giving a shocking impact. Most Greeks if they used the bow, were used to the weaker hunting bow.
no
what you would describe as "armor" is hardly what you would think. Its technically armor, but when people think "horse armor" they think cataphract, and knights specifically armored them less than a cataphract so they could move faster.
My point, which again goes back to how you people just love to nitpick whenever you fucking can even when its irrelevant, is that the majority of a knight's horse is unarmored. They might have a little thing on the chest, a sort of armored mask, maybe a light layer of chainmail over the heart or whatever, but its a perfectly apt statement to make that horses were for the most part uncovered unless they were cataphracts, and relied on their hides alone which was often enough when youre dealing with a very large mammal.
>what you would describe as "armor" is hardly what you would think. Its technically armor
Well, it is fucking armor. Also, a horse is very vulnerable at his ribs, that's why most of the riders had to protect them with cloth, boiled leather chainmail.
>cataphracts
They were an one trick pony, and you couldn't use them extensively during the battle. From what I've read, they used to charge them 2-3 times and they were spent.
Oh come on, the irony of the guy being that blind to his own hypocrisy is great.
Ok, how did it expand on the point of the movies being poor adaptations of their source material? I'll wait.
>Topic police
>Topic police being wrong as usual, since the OP's topic was whether or not archers were effective vis a vis heavy infantry formations, and the citation of one form of popular culture isn't really any different from citation to another form of popular culture.
>because this board is filled with pseuds trying to find "gotcha" moments to feed their egos instead of just discussing the topic.
Spend a lot of time looking in mirrors, huh?
>speaking german being a jew
u was mein kumpel
Oh boy, greentexting reply chains, fucking love Veeky Forums
>Well, it is fucking armor.
ok? I could have worded my statement better, but my actual argument still stands because there are various parts of a knights horse that aren't armored, and therefore exposed to arrow fire, and they STILL wont drop in one arrow, even if they hit the ribs their adrenaline kicks in and they keep running, horses have a "run the fuck away" instinct and they don't just give up immediately.
>Oh come on, the irony of the guy being that blind to his own hypocrisy is great.
This is a convoluted way to say "no u." Nothing supports this statement so it requires no response.
>Ok, how did it expand on the point of the movies being poor adaptations of their source material?
This is the part where you're actually just a fucking retard. This isn't the topic you mong, this is YOUR OWN LITTLE TANGENT YOU WENT OFF ON. And you're literally mad I didn't follow you down your rabbit hole. You wanna talk hypocrisy, wow.
My point was that movies depict archers as being too powerful. You make an IRRELEVANT ancetdote about books, and I'm a nice guy so I don't say anything and try to work it into the conversation, but then you ruin everything with your severe autism.
>OP's topic was whether or not archers were effective vis a vis heavy infantry formations
Wrong again, the topic is asking whether or not the phalanx was effective, and he proposes an ignorant alternative that my post attempts to refute.
> the citation of one form of popular culture isn't really any different from citation to another form of popular culture.
It is if its actually fucking irrelevant because LIKE YOU SAID the books got it right so there is NO REASON TO BRING THEM UP. You can't get around the fact that bringing up the books is pure anecdotal bullshit and you're just mad I didn't fucking fawn over your extensive literary knowledge, fuck off.
and then you finish off with another unsupported "no u."
>even if they hit the ribs their adrenaline kicks in and they keep running
You do realise that if a spear , an arrow or a sword slips through the ribs, the horse is fucked in minutes?Imagine having to run with a load consisting of 30% of your weight and getting stabbed in the lungs.Also, It seems that you've never seen a horse in your entire life. A decent hit with a stick to his legs will put him down faster than a bullet, especially if you hit him in the knee.
>the horse is fucked in minutes?
as opposed to falling and dying instantly, as shown in the scene I was referencing.
You think a war horse is gonna fall over from a stick to the legs? You've obviously never been around war horses, which are bred differently than the farm variant. Neither have I, since they don't really exist anymore.
Horses are prey animals with a "run" instinct, running is what they do. Running injured is part of the job description, horses are tough animals
You're being intentionally obtuse.
Because archers were essentially worthless.
>most
No