Thing is is that a shield wall is effective BUT not backed by spears or pikes. The advantage of leverage would go to the defenders, IE yank the spears out of their hands or go under and up, the front line negates the spears and the guys behind literally climb over them and start hacking away. The reason the Romans were so effective is they used the shield wall with the Gladius, they'd just start marching and stabbing, try to grab the sword and lose your hand, don't move and get shived. Alas the world of Westeros doesn't have a concept of the short sword, The Unsulllied would be 3X as dangerous if they had short swords and tactics. it's all Longswords and ******* Swords. Give me a Roman Legion, and in a straight up battle I'd **** any army in the 7 kingdoms.
A shield wall is every bit as effective backed up by pikes or spears as it is swords, shield wall were traditionally used in conjunction with spears and pikes because they give a longer reach than swords. With the notable exception of the Romans no military force before guns became the norm relied on swords as their primary weapon, they were always sidearms, secondary weapons to be used if the primary was lost or broken, even in the case of the Romans the gladii weren't broken out until everybody had thrown their 2 or 3 pila first, then and only then would they break out their gladii. Also, in the case of this particular battle, don't forget that the shield wall pretty much enclosed Jon's forces, they were surrounded by the shield wall on 3 sides with a corpse wall at their back and the shield wall increasingly shrinking the space around them. This meant that they would keep on losing space and would be pressed in more and more by the spears of the shield wall and even if they grabbed the spears of the first rank, the spears were long enough that second rank could stick anybody grabbing a spear or a neighbor could stab a grabber.
One other thing, a bit pedantic I'll admit but there's no difference between a longsword and a ******* sword, both refer to the same thing which is a sword with a lengthened hilt so it could be used with either one or two hands but still had a blade that was the same length or maybe just a bit longer than a typical one-handed sword. What you're probably thinking of as a long sword is called an arming sword, which is the classical knightly sword commonly seen in many movies set in the medieval period. This video talks a bit about what a longsword is and how it differs from a one-handed arming sword:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJrqK5xCpWI
So, I was thinking about this, and you both have good points.
The Roman legions were indeed effective with the gladius, although as Riceball points out, they usually threw several pila first. Even if the pila didn't kill the enemy, they were heavy enough to often penetrate armor or an enemy's shield, and even if they didn't kill the holder, the haft was heavy enough that it usually just fell down and bend the pointed metal portion so as to weigh down an enemy's shield. In other words, the pila were alternatingly good at killing and removing protective shields from enemies, thereby making them more vulnerable to the gladius.
HOWEVER
The Greeks and their phalanxes were plenty effective in the ancient world, and were basically a shield wall with really long spears. Although they too carried a short sword for backup, they primarily relied upon spears to kill enemies. Of course, they also used other types of troops rather than just phalanxes, like archers and light infantry (and maybe chariots?). My understanding is that the ancient world didn't really have "heavy cavalry" the way armies from the middle ages on did (as in armored knights and horses using lances or heavy swords.
We saw why you can't just grab an enemy's spear in the episode, too. One of the wildlings tried to, and got poked by the spear of the guy right next to the one he'd grabbed. Same story with going up and over or trying to get in under the spear.
To break a phalanx, you'd need to do one or more of the following:
- Soften them up with archers ahead of time. Of course, if they adopt a testudo formation, you're boned.
- Soften them up with ballista or catapults. Basically "artillery."
- Flank them with lighter, faster troops because the phalanx formation is really slow to move (makes sense if you're trying to wheel a man-sized shield and a spear that's anywhere from 10' and up.
- Us the pilum method I noted above to strip away the shields.
The way I see it, the real problem with the battle last night was that, while it was visually spectacular, it was tactically craptacular. Jon's army....made no sense and had no real composition to it. It had a mass of wildlings, whom I suppose could be considered light infantry. It had a small cavalry force, not really worth mentioning. It had a small archer force which eventually was thrown into battle as light infantry (which, again, makes not a ton of sense).
They opened the battle with a cavalry vs. cavalry charge, followed shortly thereafter with a light infantry charge. Again, makes zero sense. The cavalry smashed themselves against each other, and Ramsay had more of it, so could afford to lose it. That kills Jon's mobility, which would've been key later. The light infantry get taken out by Ramsay's archers, although, that too made no sense. Like, I could see a CARPET of corpses, but not a HILL of corpses. The only way the HILL makes sense is if the terrain is so narrow (e.g. a mountain pass) that you can't just step around the bodies. Or perhaps if the battle was being fought in some sort of bowl, where Jon's troops gave up the high ground, which, again, is bloody stupid. But it wasn't. It was just a big open field, with a pile of bodies as tall as a man. So that part was confusing to me. Then after all of that, Ramsay sends in his phalanx, except it's not quite a phalanx because it's too wide. But whatever. At this point, the precise formation doesn't matter a ton, because Jon's pissed away his forces on a pointless charge that would've gotten any professional soldier court martialed. He then gets encircled because, again, nobody can seem to figure out that they should walk AROUND the giant hill of bodies. And Ramsey apparently sent in an infantry force that climbed over the hill of bodies? To kill the dudes at the back?
WHY BOTHER?
Like, why not just wait on the other side? Do you have an idea how hard it would be to climb a hill of bodies? ******, you'd break an ankle trying easily. Especially dead bodies, slick with mud and blood and excrement and some dudes who aren't even fully dead. Once any exhausted stragglers get to the other side of the hill, THAT'S when you just kill 'em off.
So, again, visually stunning and spectacular...but when you start thinking about it....really kinda dumb. And about as realistic as having an elf slide down an elephant's trunk while shooting at orks with his bow and arrow.
As for the military technology and tactics....I think we're firmly into "FANTASYLAND" material. Most of the northerners seem to wear nothing but boiled leather and occasionally chainmail. I guess they use all their "castle forged" steel for arms themselves. And for that part of the world, arming swords and longer swords would be, you know, fine. Hell, the ironborn seem to only wear padded clothing most of the time, or at best, boiled leather. The farther south you go, the more you see the use of chain and plate mail in the armor, so, I would expect to see much more reliance on crushing weapons. Now, to be fair, this is an EXTREMELY common issue with depictions of medieval warfare. Everyone's using a bloody arming sword, which, unless you could reliable get to a joint (especially an armpit or groin) is pretty much useless. Even then, you'd still find some chain mail protecting the joint, so you'd need a piercing weapon, like a rondel. The rest of the time, you'd expect things like warhammers and maces and morning stars and flails. Or polearms like bill hooks so you could knock/pull a mounted knight off a saddle and kill him on the ground where he'd basically be a tortoise on his back. Otherwise, you'd just have two guys in full plate, whanging away at each other with swords, and not really doing much but getting the odd concussion and gradually going deaf from the impact of all those blows.
And the thing is, in this world where "cavalry" apparently means "Some dudes on horse with open-faced helms, light-ish armor, and a spear or arming sword,"
we've already seen that heavy cavalry should exist. How do we know this? Because of the tournament in season 1. What the hell do people think tournaments were, anyway? They were opportunities for the nobles to play at war, so as to keep their skills up. And they went up against each other in full plate, with lances, which is pretty much....your heavy cavalry. But do we see it? Nope. Never. Most likely due to budgetary issues.
Anyway, I still love the show, of course, but it's such a random hodgepodge of armor and arms and bad movie tactics and strategy that it's best to just not think about it.
