Recently my cousin and I were having a speculative and conjectural discussion about the nature of battles, specifically the temporal aspect. I brought up that I had read an article a while ago that suggested the notion that while infantry was "engaged" in combat, that is to say, that two lines of battle had met and remained at close quarters. A relatively small amount of time was spent actually getting to grips with and attempting to kill the enemy, compared to the length of time that the troops would be seen to be "engaged" with each other.

More specifically what was suggested was that two sides would advance and upon contact, there would be a short period of intense combat wherein the majority of the men in the front lines would be engaged with their opponents within the stinking distance. Following this, there would necessarily be a break in the combat, where the majority of time spent by men at the front, would be out of the striking distance. The reasoning being that; a) physically, a human, cant endure the physical exertion of close combat for more than maybe 10-20 mins, b) Psychologically a human mind does not support the ability to be in mortal danger for extended periods of time, but can, with the help of certain reflexes and adrenaline, engage in shorts spurts of violence and risk-taking behavior and c) after the initial period of combat the space between to formations would be littered with some corpses and immobilised wounded. To support the first two points that article invoked the mechanics and psychology of combat sports such as boxing and MMA; bouts lasting in the order of minutes wherein the actual violence comes in a flurry of blows rather than an extended slugfest.

The article suggested that the side which may have come of worse in the initial engagement may give ground and appear to be pushed back but would do so whist facing the opposition and without breaking ranks. After this extended period of non-combat, the sides would reengage and another comparatively short period of violence would ensue. This would give the appearance of continual engagement to an observer who would go on to write primary source material about a particular battle.

I thought that the above was a reasonable argument and logically bore out, I play a sport with moderate physical contact to a reasonably high level (by no means an elite athlete) and so can really appreciate the argument that it is impossible that men at the front of infantry lines spent hours engaged in an activity which required exertion on the level of a rugby scrum.

My cousin was very quick to denounce this stance, particularly the mention of Psychology in the article was something which he turned his nose up at, he is a final year Classics student. He argues that the sources and archeology don't bear this out. He suggested that I and the article were overlooking that in reality, it takes a very long time to kill a skilled opponent who is armed and armored and is doing everything they can to avoid being killed. The above point I conceded was probably true but I pointed out that this didn't necessitate that two formations of troops were continually grinding into one another. He then said that there are sources that report similar drills undergone in training by both Spartan youths and Roman soldiers, where two formations would be arrayed against one another equipped with shields and would come together and push against each other for extended periods, In an attempt to cultivate the ability to physically engage with the enemy for a prolonged time.

I don't have any academic qualifications regarding history and so couldn't really refute these points but did counter that the Romans also spent hours hacking at wooden posts and marching around drill squares, neither of which bear much resemblance to the reality of combat with an opposing formation, and were probably practiced to build stamina and muscle memory in the same way that training drills in modern sports and in the military don't always resemble the sport (footwork drills) or a battlefield scenario (log carry run).

I attempted to argue my point more and we sort of got lost in the semantics of it "we'll it really depends on how you define a battle" ect... and I had to concede as he sort of pulled rank on me with his academic background though he couldn't direct me to any sources off the top of his head.

I am wondering if there are any historians or history buffs out there who can point me in the direction of source material that supports either of our positions.

TLDR: Article suggests that actual fighting took up very little time in battle. I agree, Classicist cousin disagrees but cant present much good evidence for the contrary. I refuse to believe soldiers could spend periods of hours engaged in hand-to-hand fighting.