I was glad to see the shields moving forward as a unit and overlapping their edges.

"The Romans, when they attacked the Macedonian phalanx, were unable to force a passage, and Salvius, the commander of the Pelignians, snatched the standard of his company and hurled it in among the enemy. Then the Pelignians, since among the Italians it is an unnatural and flagrant thing to abandon a standard, rushed on towards the place where it was, and dreadful losses were inflicted and suffered on both sides. For the Romans tried to thrust aside the long spears of their enemies with their swords, or to crowd them back with their shields, or to seize and put them by with their very hands; while the Macedonians, holding them firmly advanced with both hands, and piercing those who fell upon them, armour and all, since neither shield nor breastplate could resist the force of the Macedonian long spear, hurled headlong back the Pelignians and Marrucinians, who, with no consideration but with animal fury rushed upon the strokes that met them, and a certain death. When the first line had thus been cut to pieces, those arrayed behind them were beaten back; and though there was no flight, still they retired towards the mountain called Olocrus, so that even Aemilius, as Poseidonius tells us, when he saw it, rent his garments. For this part of his army was retreating, and the rest of the Romans were turning aside from the phalanx, which gave them no access to it, but confronted them as it were with a dense barricade of long spears, and was everywhere unassailable. " Life of Aemilius Paulus, 20

One observation: when they braced with their pikes against the floor indoors the pikes obviously slid. I think it looked like a good idea to try outdoors, on the grass, to perhaps prevent the shield wall from pushing forward.

Another idea might have been to simply fight in a corridor if you wanted to take flanking out of the picture.

I think it would be cool to see this tested with deeper ranks of pikes, 3-5 ranks and longer pikes if possible. I think that's the scary setup. But you need lots of volunteers.

Time for poking!

Great video. Roman soldiers even with their large shields still struggled to fight Macedonian phalangite pike formations during "frontal" confrontations. The Romans had to fall back and/or lure the pike formations over rough terrain to break their cohesion, and then used this opportunity to attack the less cohesive and more vunerable pike formations in their gaps and flanks.

Also shows how important having pila or plumbata to be thrown at the last moments or some other way to break cohesion before contact would be beneficial if not necessary for the scutum users

Is that Drachinifel on the right ???😊😊😊

Hey Matt, I'm an MP in the US army national guard, and I have a fair amount of training using riot shields (which are fairly scutum shaped) in formation to deal with crowd control. It's obviously not a historic source to work with, but watching your shieldmen working together, I can't help but see ways they could approve with some training. If you would be interested in trying some modern shield techniques to this test, I would be happy to get in touch with you somehow to discuss some techniques.

Very neat.  While the scutum does seem to offer a lot of protection against pikes, I think it's also important to note that sources don't describe the strength of the Romans as being able to crash or push straight through pike blocks but rather the ability of maniples to outmaneuver pike blocks, particularly on rough terrain.  This demonstration helps with imagining how they may have been able to capitalize and close in on weak points in the phalanx.

Here's an idea for experiment, when lacking enough people for this kind of experiment. If say you only have 6 pikes and 2 shields, see what happens when you make both formations with equal width, but set the pikes in 3 rows deep. See if you can make the rear rows engage in a coordinated manner, and how would shield formations adapt to deal with it.

Now for Alex to talk about how pikes were used in naval boarding actions.

missing about 12 feet from those broomhandles for them to be macedonian pikes.

This makes me realize how brilliant the Roman helmet was specifically in combination with the scutum. That brim would give good face protection in any case, but I always wondered why it's not right above the face. but now I realize that tucked in close to the shield, any threats can be avoided by ducking down with the brow of the helm against the back of the shield and the brim hooked over the upper rim of the shield. Then ther's practically no way to to stab the face, the shield helps absorb mace-blows, and that wide tail plugs the rest of the hole in the top of the shield. And it's too long to stab under it. Brilliant.

i think your group of pikemen is a good analog for what a lord might get when he calls the villagers to arms. skilled enough, but the quality is in the quantity xD Fun video, i always love when history is tryed or tested

I see how cross bars, billhooks and halberds come in to move shields aside for someone else to get a clear target

Having done a bit of English Civil War reenactment I’d like to see what advantage it would give either side to sing in unison ,or to have musicians.  Simply coordinating your steps together gives you a lot more pushing power.  If you train to have different soldiers using different tactics on different beats it might complicate the job of the opposition quite a bit

Brilliant experiment.

In my experience with 9ft spears, a line of spears with a relatively small amount of training (maybe 10 hours with a spear in hand) will bully any unit in front of them who doesn't also have spears or missiles. The reach advantage is so great that combat turns from "I need to focus on the three guys in front of me and fight safe" to "I can attack any of these seven guys at my leisure." The leverage advantage lets you beat aside any weapon that isn't a pole-arm while also being able to re-direct to any available target mid-strike. Meanwhile the swordsman across from you needs to watch out for the seven spears they can't reach, wait for the one across from them to miss a shot, advance, survive spears from multiple angles simultaneously, continue advancing, and now they're finally in range of 1-3 enemies who hopefully didn't draw sidearms. If they do everything perfectly, they might drop a couple spearmen before they get impaled. If they do it alongside other swordsmen, and do it perfectly, they might even break through the line. If they make a single mistake in that entire process they die and the now unoccupied spearman is free to attack anyone in range again.

sca has been playing with this for a long time.

I would love to see this experiments upscaled to the point where we can start to have the feel of proper ranks: especially on the shield side we need to see a proper testudo with a second rank of scuta available to cover the high line!