I remember reading in The Western Way of War by Hanson stating that part of the reason why Arrows were ineffective against the Greek Phalanx and later Macedonian Pikemen was that in addition to the shield Wall and Bronze Armor, the long spears hoplites and Macedonian phalangites typically held vertically before the clash protected him from arrows or at least dulled it before it actually hits him.

I am curious how does long Pole-Arm Weapons protect its wielder from Arrows?

Also I am curious-The Scots used the Schiltron, a long formation in which they were wielded long pole arms (pikes) and part of the formation included men behind wielding their pikes vertically. In this case however I read the Schiltron was vulnerable to archery barrages and that it was arrows that broke through William Wallace's formation at Falkirk.

In this case why didn't the long pole arms held vertically protect Wallace's pikemen as opposed to the Greek Hoplites?

Does holding spears vertically provide protection against arrow barrages?

Hanson's claims is inconsistent.

The Yari Ashigaru and Yari Samurais and to a much leser extent Roman legionnaires were known to suffer casualties despite being in spear walls.

However Macedonians historical texts describes the same thing about the long Sarissas protecting the Macedonian Phalanx from arrows and the Swiss Pikeman despite lacking shields in their formations also suffered minimal casualties from arrows in their squares.

I am curious why this inconsistencies in account?

This is something I've been wondering about.

Obviously spearmen, pikemen, and other pole arms were designed to fight cavalry and also they were cheaper weapons to equip and they were easier to train with. So it makes sense for militia.

With that said I am wondering about spear and other pole arm weapons used by professional armies that are armed to te teeth and train everyday such as mercenaries and Spartans- why you'd need an entire unit of troops armed with pole weapons (as in not only is the front row and perhaps the second row armed with spear or pike but every man behind the first three rows also have spears or pikes)?

I mean not only is the primary purpose of pole arms is because its a great weapon for men drafted at the last minute with no training, but the main reason why professional armies USE SPEARS AND PIKES is to counter cavalry.

But considering cavalry charges often break apart and fail at the first row of pike-armed troops this brings another point........

I read that once you start going up the foodchain and fight other professional and hardened armies, pole arms were quite vulnerable weapons against shorter arms. In particular the sources say that sword and shield men often not only counter but easily defeat entire units of pike and spearmen but also the Landskricht had shock troops armed with heavy two handed swords designed to cut off the sharp tips of spears and pikes to render them uselesss. The Japanese also employed a similar tactic with their NoDachi swords (less cutting off the pole apart and more parry in and kill an individual ashigari or Yari samurai).

Also because they generally are lighter armoured (especially militia and cheaper mercenaries), your rune of the mill spearmen and pikemen were more exposed to arrows, stones, and other range attacks unless they were armed with shields or had ridiculously long pole arms that were in the 10-20 ish feet tall range (because some sources state very long pikes have been known to intercept and stop arrows).

Hell you don't even need troops designed to counter spearmen to beat them- you can even get lightly armed soldiers such as random militia armed with heavy clubs and so long as a few units they don't rout and stand their ground, you can send other units who are not directly engaging to flank the spearmen (where they are vulnerable), rush in before they realize the flanking, and kill them before they grip their spear underhand or overhead.

In some cases because of terrain (such as a forest) they may not even be able to properly grip their pike because the spacing is too small, they might not even enter the area that is the field of battle (such as buildings in a city), because of how too large and unwieldy their pike and spears are.

So that makes me wonder........ WHY ARM THE ENTIRE UNIT with spears since spears have a lot of weaknesses and in the first place professional armies only even arm themselves with spears in the firstplace because of cavalry?

I know some soldiers such as the Spartans and Macedonians had mastered using pole arms so well that the second man in row can easily do an overhead attack over the first row of spearmen to aid in killing the enemy (as the Spartans frequently did) and int he case of the Macedonians, the front wars had ways of utilizing several rows at once ( man in front crouches while the man behind holds spears in a straight row and the third row angle it upwards when awaiting a charging enemy).

But this still goes against logic why you need to arm an entire division with nothing but pikes since there are so many weaknesses.

I mean can you have a first row with spears followed by a row of sword and shield troops followed by a row of halberd?

Or can't you have the first few men as pikemen with some archers concentrated in the middle of the formation?

I mean considering pikemen often clashed against each other, I'm surprised no one exploited the weakness of pole arms by having a a row of swordsmen armed with shield within to be used specifically against other units of spearmen by charging in first and creating a gap or softening the enemy pikemen's assault and than allowing the pikemen of his unit to quickly go in front and exploit the gap the swordsmen created.

Or (since they are so vulnerable at the flanks) why did no commander of a spear unit thought of letting the first few rows of pikemen clash against the enemy's ikes while sending some of the men at the backmost rows of the units to move out of formation and attacking the enemy pikemen (who are too busy fighting against the front row pikes) at his flanks?

Or even have some of the spearmen in the second row drop their spear and pull out daggers or sords to exploid the pike's weaknesses.

So I'm wondering why unit needed to compose of entirely pole arms (especially very large units that are in the hundreds, if not thousands)?

I saw one Total War gamer claim the reason for the setup of whole pole arm unit was to prevent cavalry from jumping. He explained the men behind would hold their pikes upward so that if a cavalry man decides to attempt to break the gap by sacrificing himself by jumping his horse behind the first row, the pikes or spears being held vertically will impale the cavalry men and his horse and thus prevent a gap being created.

How legit is that reasoning?

I mean since professional armies and mercenaries already have the training in swords, etc that militia typically lack and are armoured fully as opposed to your run-of-the-mill militia, why do they need units of pikes? I mean the only reason they still retained spears despite being well trained in superior weapons is because of cavalry.

Since cavalry typically are stopped easily by the first row of pikemen in a direct charge, couldn't mercenaries simply have a unit in the aforementioned manner above (spearmen in front, swordsmen and/or everything else behind)? I mean this setup makes more sense than entire units since spearmen already have proven to be very weak against sword and shield and two handed sword troops!

I've heard that he wasn't actually democratically elected, that it was all back-room dealings. So I have to assume most people weren't crazy about him. I know even less about Mussolini, Stalin, etc.

Super interested to know how/if people resisted these leaders right when then first came to power!

Thanks!

Mao Zedong was known to make great vast changes in China. However was there anything he kept from old China after 1948?

I know he was responsible for the Great Leap Forward and all that... but can someone summarize his achievements and failures? Thank you so much, you're doing God's work here.

Tombstone, Hell on Wheels and so on always have a Chinese run opium den.

I have also seen writings that liberals in Hitler's Germany criticized him similarly to how current politicians are compare to past dictators. At the time that Hitler rose to power, did liberals in Germany compare him to other, earlier, dictators or governments? If so, who was he compared to?

Edit 1. Removed contemporary reference per mod request

This question is totally inspired by "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail"

This is a question I am genuinely curious about. Granted, the French thought it would be an easy victory, but a frontal charge seems to demonstrate a profligacy of their heavy knights' lives - and since so many lords and nobles were in the charge, their own lives - that is impossible for me to comprehend. I read that even trained warhorses would sometimes refuse to charge straight into the enemy (Peter W. Wilson: Europe's Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War).

What would the French expect to do from this charge anyway? Did they seriously think the entire English army would disintegrate from it? Realistically, given the clumsiness and lack of mobility of the heavy knights once their charge is faltered, wouldn't it you want to save your heavy knights only for a particularly strategic charge to maximize their effect and minimize losses?

Homosexuality would have been as common then as it was now, but I'm having difficulty finding reputable sources that discuss is outside of anti-sodomy laws. Were their patterns in how the affairs were carried out? Do we have evidence of any homosexual relationships between a master and his/her slaves? Were scandals or rumors of homosexuality at all common or well-recorded? How about at sea, where we know homosexual relations were especially common?

Did anyone keep a private journal or an series of letters that explicitly depicted what was clearly a homosexual relationship?

Doesn't necessarily have to be a colonial timeframe. Soon after 1776 and into the 1800s is fine too.

Also, how technical was the training prior to gunpowder? I mean, was the learning curve years or more like, here's your sword, swing hard and often until you are dismembered ?

For those not familiar with Frontier it is a six episode series on Netflix that shows fur traders in the 18th century, focusing on the Hudson Bay area. The show follows several factions, including Scots, Native Aboriginals, the Hudson Bay Company, the French, and "Americans". The characters seem to have no qualms about killing one another over trading rights and land. some examples from the show include kidnapping a native chief's grandson to use as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations and killing English soldiers in order to steal their supplies.

My overall question is this: How violent was the fur trade in the 18th century? Did competitors resort really resort to violence and killing? If so, did colonial or European governments try to intervene? What about the natives?

A couple other questions:

• Did the Hudson Bay Company (or other large companies) really employ private military forces? Or would the English armed forces come to their assistance?
• Would people in what is now Canada in the early to mid 18th century even have a sense of who an "American" was prior to the Revolutionary War?

Hello, I am new to this subreddit. I got directed here through my searches on how to learn history and I would love some help on the subject mentioned above. As it states: I want to learn History by myself. Mainly Asian History (Japan, China, Korea and Asia in general) and the World Wars, and I would like some help on how to start. I'm lost and I don't really know how or where to start my research, which books to read first, which subjects to look up and the order I should follow. I am in the 11th grade but I'm not taking a history course if that's of any relevance.

Thanks in advance and sorry for bothering :D

I have been watching Band of Brothers, and The Pacific recently. I have noticed that when the soldiers and Marines get hit, one of the the first things that the medic/corpsman does is sprinkle this white powder over his wound. This is also shown in Saving Private Ryan, when medic Irwin Wade gets fatally wounded. I was wondering what exactly this stuff is, and what purpose did it serve?

Other medical questions about the war, why were morphine syrettes so vital in keeping the wounded alive? How large were their needles, as you never seem to really get a good look at them in these films. How did they work as well? Also, plasma, what did it consist of, and how was it brought to medics in large enough quantities? How does it work in helping with blood loss?

Yet another unrelated question still regarding WWII. Why did soldiers often wear netting on their helmets? Was this for camouflage purposes?

Thanks a bunch, I am just quite curious about the necessities that helped keep these brave men alive.

Instead of Communist China that is.

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I know it has to do with electrons jumping from an object to your body or vice versa, but how did people explain this phenomenon before they knew of these subatomic particles?

Nicholas’ II (of Russia) full title included “Heir to the Throne of Norway”. How come? Was it recognized by anyone in Norway? The rest of his title seems legit.

JQA became President on March 4, 1825, and John Adams died on July 4, 1826. John Adams was often accused of advocating for monarchy, saying that "hereditary monarchy or aristocracy [are the] only institutions that can possibly preserve the laws and liberties of the people." Another time he was accused of trying to become King and was "grooming John Quincy as heir to the throne". Given these accusations, when his son did in fact become President, how did he react to this?

In addition to the title question, I saw on OED that Sirius the dog star led to the growth of the dog constellation around it, rather than Sirius being named for the constellation it was a part of. Is that true?