Before I created my account on reddit, I saw two posts much earlier this year when I was lurking.
As both discussions state,indeed you always see the notion of "teamwork trumps all" in beginners book on history and history channel documents as well as internet discussions. I am wondering if individual skills matter in formations too? For example would how well a Roman raw recruit could stab his sword an important factor in formation? Like the poster in the two links state many statements such as "the side whose phalanx holds together longest will wins" makes it sound as though its pointless to learn how to aim at a target when throwing javelins at a mass of enemies. However even formation-heavy cultures like the Romans still emphasized training an individual to be both in his best physical shape and to individually stab at an enemy in single combat or aim at wooden target dummies to practise hitting darts on with individual marksmanship.
Is formation simply an automatic force multiplier like many TV shows or 5th grade history books imply? Since its always pointed out that the individual doesn't matter but the team does in pop history media such as games? Why even bother teaching a new Roman recruit in bootcamp the weak points of the human body or make an English yeoman practise his own bow skills by shooting targets as an individual if formations is the most important thing? I mean if you're going to shoot volleys I don't see why its important a javelineer be taught how to throw a spears at the farthest distance possible. If you're going to be protected by a phalanx, why teach Athenian militia how to use his spear to parry and defend against attacks?
Can anyone explain why Mongol light cavalry would be taught how to hold a spear properly for a single jousting style duel even though his role is to be a hit-run archer? Or why Romans had young boys just recruited into camp practise one-on-one dueling if the Roman formations are what win battles? Why bother with these specific training if the side that holds the Phalanx longest is the winner?
Here's the thing: We don't know. Why? Because we don't actually know what happened when two formations clashed. There are a few schools of thought here (that are generally applicable to all formation fighting from the ancient world to... well to rise of firepower really. Battles from contemporary sources are often describe from a strategic point of view, this formation routed that formation and so on, sometimes there's a little detail on how. They pushed, the enemy broke before contact, X flanked Y and so on but what isn't described in details is what happened in the bloody midst of things where two lines meet.
There are basically two schools of thought here, either they did stay in formation as is described. Let's call this the old school, or they didn't clash in deep formations but rather met, clashed, fought a while, withdrew, dressed the lines, clashed again and so on. Let's call this the pulse model or new model. IF it happened as generally described in the old model, that two phalanxes met, shields clashed and then a giant pushing match with spears involved ensued, then individual skill would have mattered little. Your life or death would largely depend on whether or not you are pushed onto a spear or trampled. There's no room to wield a spear when pushed against an enemy shield by a formation 20 ranks deep. Now, a lot of phalanxes had little or no training so it's not entirely inconsistent and what training did exist was often more about agility and stamina.
If it happened more in a meet-clash and clash again pattern it would have mattered more as each soldier could do more than just stay on his feet and be pushed into the enemy formation.
There is of course another possibility, that neither of these theories are correct.
So why do you emphasize individual skill? Conditioning. Doing something you've trained to do a million times is easier. If you're going to teach someone to stab another person to death, that's how you do it. Accustom the person to the equipment. Aka basic training. Go stab that strax figure 1000 times. Go over the same set of basic parry-cut-parry/cut-parry-cut exchanges with your sparing buddy 1000 times. Even if that never happens you're still getting used to cutting, thrusting and parrying. Want to give them a little help, teach them to aim for X. Even if they don't hit X it sometimes helps them overcome the mental block of thrusting something sharp into another person. You're focused on hitting X, not on killing that human. It really hasn't changed much. We are taught today to his center mass, realistically it doesn't matter where you hit someone with a modern rifle, the fight is pretty much over for them anyway.
Another aspect of this form of training is familiarity. What you're familiar with is less scary than the unfamiliar. If cutting and parrying is second nature to you, that's one less factor that'll freak you out in combat and on less factor that can make a formation break.
A third aspect is confidence. If you believe you are capable of handling single combat you're less likely to fear it. Having trained a lot instills confidence is people and this again serves to make us more willing to try it under real conditions.