From: Svechin@cs.com
Date: Sat 15 Apr 2000 - 08:41:26 EEST
Me:
Alex that shall be known as Alex:
> Palangio and others
> learnt fromt his and via the institution of war known as the Daysenarus
cult,
> they partly adopted a heavier phalanx, shoulder to shoulder, shield from
the
> shoulder staps and using a sarissa like pike.
>This is the distinction I was referring to as (perhaps too loosely)
>as 'Greek vs. Macedonian'. However, I'm not clear what you're
>saying about Dara Happa vs. Pelanda in such respects: are/were
>Pelandan phalanxes of what you call the 'lighter' formation, or of
>the heavier type?
Nope, the Pelandans would definately be heavier to begin with. Their
material advantage would have been made up slowly, so given time a DH and
Pelandan phalanx would have been similarly equipped, but initially, the
Pelandans were the heavy inf of the day. The DH phalanx would be medium
infantry in comparison.
>My money is on the Pelandans (or maybe the Darsenites, if you want to be
>_really_ picky...) were the 'inventors' of the sarissa and the associated
>tactics, which the above DH formations having 'borrowed' it, but I'm
>not saying how much money that actually is..
I would say that the Pelandans are still hoplites. The Sarissa is a great
weapon to a point (sorry) but is poor in small numbers. Its a kind of
critical mass weapon. Small tactical bodies do not do well with the Sarissa
or any large pike as they are too vulnerable to missile fire and flanking.
Where the pike formation wins in with the weight of its push against the
enemy opposing mass. The sarissa is therefore a development of the drive to
defeat the opposing mass of the enemy infantry BUT also has great cavalry
retarding powers too. Given that the Pelandans were top in hoplite warfare
and were only partly matched by the DHs until the dawn, it seems unlikely
that the next evolutionary step would have come from them. I wonder if Saird
was actually the source of the Sarissa. It has interesting Macedonia
parallels to the Greek (DH) city states.
Martin Laurie
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