============================== [Dark Spirit Lindybeige has invaded!] ==============================

THIS CHANNEL IS A GOLD MINE Thank you for all you have done.

You should really cut down on the uranium. Starting to glow there.

"...I would turn around, and I would knife YOU, Sunshine...." Oh good GOD I laughed my ass off.

I like the idea of Lloyd stood alone in his front room for those 35 seconds making strained noises while leaning against his imaginary self. Would be very funny to look in on. Then again, now I think about it, all of these videos are just him on his own so perhaps it's not too great a departure from the usual content...

I was not expecting you to show up and fight yourself

LOL I actually thought it was his twin at first!

It would be an interesting part of a film where the front lines are all dead, but the bodies are stuck standing up by all the people pushing in, so the protagonist is just squished against all these dead guys for days until one army decides to leave. Because if you're going to be historically inaccurate, you might as well follow it to its logical conclusion. In the sequel, the protagonist can defeat an army of female soldiers by stabbing them in the cleavage. With fire arrows.

Quite dangerous to be a demonstration assistant on this channel . . .

I've never liked the "push match" version of ancient warfare and this argument makes complete sense; it also explains why people clamored to be on the front row and how they often survived entire battles there (Leonidas or Epaminondas being two examples). Not just for the obvious reason of glory, but because they had the chance to make a lot of damage and test their prowess; they didn't think of themselves as merely crush spacers for a push match, but skilled fighters.

In the fantasy book ''Left Hand of God'' there's a battle between a heavily armoured army and an army of warrior monks wielding shields. The knights are so confident they'll win that they simply charge in, and are stopped by the shield wall. The monks then proceed to drag soldiers through the wall and kill them with hammers (or mallets, don't remember correctly), while the opposing army is forced forward by the pressure of the confident fools in the back, so nobody at the front can escape. Perhaps not very accurate, but an interesting scenario.

@maaderllin Yes, if everyone were pushing shield-shield, then the whole might rotate, but it would be unlikely to shift left or right. however, the shifting I think would then lead to rotation...

"You've got this very long thing in your hand" I know Lloyd, but can we talk about shieldwalls

THIS IS WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS, MORE THAN ONE OF THEM.

thank you lindybeige for making a playlist. it makes it easier to watch several videos in a sitting. lindybinge, if you will.

There were battles where the rear ranks pushed the front ranks. A famous example was Agincourt, and the result was a slaughter of the front ranks who got pushed.

"Long stick with spike on end" has been used in warfare since forever, and I seriously doubt that means they used them in such close quarters, no matter how short they were. The whole point is to get "him over there" before he gets you.

3:36 oh my god, he multiplied

yes, I do have this really long thing in my hand

I was wandering why the green screen ahahahah

Reenactors provide some clue as to how these fights may have gone. Yes, they will often have a clash where both sides slam into one another, but then they tend to back off. When I was doing Viking reenactment we fought a little more than arm's reach apart - too far for knives, but just right for swords and axes. Swordsmen would stab over the shields, axemen would hook shields to open up the enemy, while spearmen in the second rank would be close in trying to poke through gaps, distract people or going for the shins. This is possibly where the "shoving match" comes in. It's not so much about physically pushing as it is making the front rank back up. If the front rank starts pulling back, the second rank has to get out of their way, which means they aren't fighting. That might give you just enough breathing room to lop off a few heads, break a hole in the line, and all of a sudden you can turn a flank and wipe out a big chunk of the enemy shield wall! So, how does this tie in with armies being many ranks deep? Well, if you've got 3-4 ranks of soldiers, then odds are your next two ranks aren't going to be physically pushing the first two - they'll be slightly further back, ready to move up and plug holes. Or, in the case above, to form a second shield wall and force me to repeat the fight all over again. Only this time my shield wall might have enemy shield walls to either flank, forcing me to either give up the ground we've made, or be surrounded and destroyed in turn. And knowing the enemy has reserves might well change your initial tactics. If you know the moment you turn to surround a foe a fresh mob of enemies will run in and murder you, then you can't surround people - you have effectively been "pushed back", and must instead hack at the front rank of enemies until their reserves are depleted, or you can break through in so many places you won't get crushed in a counter-attack. This, finally, offers some light as to what may have allowed ancient battles to go on so long. If both of our shield walls have essentially 2-3 more shield walls close behind, then once the first wave gets tired they can just slowly pull back in good order and let the next lot have their turn. Thus, when the enemy starts pulling back to replenish, you do the same. Ultimately, victory wouldn't be won the moment a single block of infantry are broken; you need to break them, then have the men and stamina remaining to break several more blocks in quick succession - something that is probably not going to happen until either late in the day, or as was commonly the case, when your cavalry can ride around the back and wipe out the shield walls waiting in reserve, thus denying the front rank any means to safely retreat!

My reenactment experience and historic documentation supports you on this. In our melees we generally end up with both lines squaring off at spear length and sniping with spears or doing pulse charges (small parts of the line advancing then immediately retreating) until the other line is weak then performing a shield charge to break the enemy line. If you go right in for a charge the enemy spears weaken your charge and even though you usually gain ground, you lose manpower.

I think your ideas are spot on, but I also just love this particular video because having the "assistant" was so damn funny. It didn't expect the guy on the left to "get killed" in the demo.

@zhonggao84 Green screen. Shot my spiel against the screen, then shot the background shot which had me in it as my assistant. I didn't time it at all. I just came on, pretended to push for a bit and then fell over. In the edit I used a freeze-frame most of the time for the background and just brought in my other self when needed, and extended the footage to fit by reversing some of the movement.

For the same weight of shield, a flat shield protects a wider arc. I suspect that the curve was for strength.

It is more difficult to get a large formation to run away, and a large formation can replace casualties for longer, and replace tired men at the front. It is also intimidating by its mere presence. If you can see three times as many men in front of you as are in your own unit, how would you feel?

@noobler9 "Lizard killer" and it was a sharply pointed thing. It was supposedly used for finishing off men on the ground that you walked over (N.B. if so, this only works if you are using a spear underarm), and it was a back-up point if the main head was lost.

Found your channel today, Lindybeige, and I've been watching your videos for hours and hours! Absolutely brilliant, thank you for posting.

This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them! Well 'now', ten years ago, whatever...

This is how battles of today should be fought, but with politicians in the front row.

Lindy. Thank you, I have never seen someone so excited to be on screen with themselves and honestly its probably made my day.

I love this channel!! Lloyd you are. one of the best narrators on KZfaq and your command on your audience is amazing!!

*Gets in time machine to observe hoplite battles, returns to 21st century Dr. Who style* Turns out it was mish-mash of underarm and overarm spear usage. :P

There is a lot of historical evidence that a too close formation is totaly lethal for an army. Just think of Hannibals greatesd victory. As he incircled the roman legions with his army, the lines of the ligenears became so tight that they coulnt move anymore and where just sloughtered of the spot.

Yes, shallow formations were used, but deeper ones have higher morale and stamina.

I find it glorious that youtube recommends me a video from 7 years ago. A Great Video at that!

Lloyd, you should make a commentary video over what the troops on the sides and rear of a phalanx did when faced with opposition. In Hellenistic Era depictions of pike phalanxes, even the men on the last row held a pike, what would they do if attacked from the side or behind? Abandon their phalanx, drop their pike and draw a sword? Hopefully you have some insight on this

Volunteer Lindy is my favourite Lindy

@PaulkyArcher They would sometimes stab low, yes, but that was when they had room to wield their shields. Here I am imagining that the shields of both sides are stuck up against each other.

@BloodfromtheAshes We don't know. I may be doing a video about this, but not very soon.

I recall having heard that the romans used their large shields and short gladius for something like the situation you describe, but to their advantage: By forming shield wall, moving in close, real close to the enemy, to immobilize and keep them from using their spears, for the reason yuo sdescribe here, then stabbing with their gladius. Is this feasible?

Is that what they meant with the pushing match thing? I'd never seen it illustrated, honestly. I always thought they meant pushing match as a sort of metaphor for each side trying to push away (aka by basically making them break formation since they don't want to be stabbed in the face with a spear) the other side with a wall of spears. And that that's why the huge macedonian spears were that good. Because you'd have an even larger amount of spears aimed at the enemy at once. And I'd always thought that that's why Hoplites were so formidable. Because any non-hoplite or heavily armoured individual without a tight formation would be like "fuck that, I'm not marching into that." But other hoplites would be wel armoured enough and be covered enough by the shield to make it harder for that to work.

The fact that Lloyd had a glowing aura in the video because of the lighting was foreshadowing how brilliant the channel was gonna be :D

@300warrior300 In fights between Greek city states hoplites often fought against other hoplites.

I didn't... know people actually thought of the phalanx pushing match as a LITERAL pushing match, whenever I had it explained to me as "a pushing match" I always thought of it in a metaphorical sense since they'd have their spears out front and the two sides would be presenting this "armored porcupine" formation to each other, and your side would be trying to push your porcupine into the opponent without getting impaled on their porcupine, thus the metaphorical "pushing" that I always envisioned, and also the reason most phalanx battles had extremely low casualties because tbh having an "armored porcupine" of spears shoved into your face and your guys start dropping would be goddamn terrifying

I think the confusion might come from a very different sort of shieldwall, of the sort employed by Norsemen and their ilk. Formations of men with shields pushing up against one another, but much more sensibly. Of course the point wasn't to push and crush eachother to death, but rather to both protect your fellows and get in close enough for your short weapons to do damage to your enemy. The idea that men would voluntarily crush their fellows to death in some sort of mad frontal press is one that would never be employed by any sane general.

Your channel is absolutely amazing, nothing makes me laugh as hard while it teaches me things.

@PaulkyArcher When someone is within arm's reach, the shorter the weapon the more lethal, as long is it is long enough to reach to an artery.

What is your opinion on Benard Cornwell way of describing a shieldwall battle? When I read The Saxon Chronicles, the battles seemed quite real, not the usual "several duels" battlefield so often depicted.

Crowds who shove cause someone to fall over, such as football crushes or religious festival tragedies. Nasty. And they can see well. Soldiers with helmets and shields can't see their feet very well at all. Result? Chaos. Nope, no shoving. Also, ritual and display. Not all battles were going to start off deadly, surely. There was show, name calling, challenges. Running away (me especially). People were scared and it all depended on politics and just how serious the argument was. And how popular the bosses were. Every battle would have been unique....terrain, causes, whatever. Watch hunter gatherers have a fight with spears in New Guinea in recent times (rare now,sure but it happens) it can get ugly fast or end in lols and beer. But there is always a lot of show and theatre first.

@SwatShinsengumi Only works if the enemy either doesn't get out of the way, or doesn't also have a shield, and a friend to hold him up.

@Spartiatai300 Yes, and as the Roman army got less professional and highly trained, it more and more used spears. Perhaps it took a lot of unit cohesion/morale/trust etc to get men to charge in reliably all at once.

People were actually killed doing formations like this in rugby, and that is why rugby has offside rules, Amercan football has the forward lateral pass, and both have rules against holding.

Listen to 3:45 to 4:22 with your eyes closed... Your welcome ;)

@OMGWTFBBQ357 Depth is an advantage in many ways. You can resupply the front with fresh troops more often, you are more intimidating, less likely to run away etc. Eight people pushing against a stationary fence is enough to kill through asphyxiation. That number pushing both ways would kill the front couple of ranks of both sides. I doubt that extra ranks add much pushing power after a while.

@OMGWTFBBQ357 The shape of it makes sense without this extra purpose. It makes it strong and balanced.

Dear Lindybeige, in what dimension did you film this? You look like a dead jedi ghost! :D

Are you in front of a greenscreen where the background is just some random institutional wall?

@PaulkyArcher Getting low is dangerous. It is easy to reach over a shield and go for a vital part...

Well round curved hoplite shield was called hoplon this means weapon in today modern Greek, as in ancient. We say panoply derived from hoplon meaning literally “with a lot of weapons on you”. So, the word keeping its original meaning even if used out of context. Regarding the pushing part, the idea is not to stand still pushing each other. It’s to break formation of the other side, same time along the pressing you see in vases and such drawing 2 first lines trying to spear from up to down and 2 next rows extending spears going for underhits. Now granted this style will work miracles against not very cohesive units, it was not easy to pull with phalanx against phalanx and we know against Roman legions even when winning they were suffering great losses in many cases

"getting 2 groups of men to form up, walk at each other, and almost certainly die." Well, that's a pretty good description of war, isn't it?

I broke three ribs in such a scrum at an event. They do it every bloody time. The people, that is, not my ribs. Luckily.

@Dalarna3 I would apply all that I say to Germanic shieldwalls as well. As to absorbing charges, I was making just the one point, and even that took me six minutes.

@kaindrg A Greek hoplite phalanx was a type of shieldwall.

How come LindyBeige is greenscreened on such a simple background?

YOU GOTS A TWIIN? :O ERR MAH GAD!

each time I watch a video of yours, I always take some sort of new idea with me. Keep up the good work.

As a viking reenactor, I can tell you how the skjaldborg works. The front line locks shields like scales on a fish, the polearms (Spears/dane axe) behind them. The goal is to open up a hole in their wall and strike. Axes and lugs on a boar spear are very good for that. Swords and seaxs are best used to exploit the gaps, and the reach of a sword really helps hit areas not immediately in front of you. The reach advantage isn't a big deal in duels, I've had no issues getting in to use my hand axe.

are you recruiting assistants from a cloning vat?

I always wonder how those Macedonians with those huge spears managed to stab a dude dead with those things. Obviously, it must have worked. They conquered half the world with it. I just don't quite get how. The Roman method I get. You get a short stabby sword and you stab the guy dead. Simple but those Macedonian things were like 16 feet long I think.

The Greeks did take note of who fought in the front rank. Possibly the success of the Thebans and Macedonians was due in part to their tactics' ability to make use of less skilled fighters.

I've been in the shield crush, the way we organised it was the front two ranks were shields, behind them were pikes, glaives, etc. who did all the killing. Two ranks of shields are easy to use spears over, (only about 1.5m thick). but they keep the two handers alive from arrows etc. until they get to killing range. When you're in the crush, your main job is to stay alive. You are pinned, so cannot swing a weapon with power, I used to use a weapon with a but-spike for the occasional target of opportunity, the blade was for parrying pikes trying to get over my shield. If you give your opponents space, they can do wedge charges, which break up the shieldwall, and then it's shooting fish in a battle for their pole-weapons. Also, it's a lot harder for their archers to separate friend from foe in the crush, as opposed to two separate lines.

Then again, many people didn't go into battle hoping to defeat the enemy: They hoped to stay alive, so logic would say you stay behind the shield as much as possible. Also you would think the goal of a battle on that time was to conquer land, which could then be used as a leverage when the negotiations for peace should happen. So trying to push the enemy seems logical... for an IT programmer and internet expert like me with zero knowledge in historical warfare.

I think the whole point of war is to kill the other dude. If the life expectancy of an enemy in the front rows isn't long, then mission accomplished right?

@kaindrg Yes.

I agree that most of the time the front line didn't want to get into the shield wall pushing matches. But we know it was fairly common because the Romans effectively decided to give up on the spear thing entirely and JUST do a short sword and the shield wall. They must have been fairly confident that shield wall scenarios were going to be the norm rather than the exception. The shield formation doesn't lend a lot of mobility to an individual troop. They get a little bit of side to side, but if they take too much they leave the guy beside them vulnerable. They basically can't back up because a back up would have to cascade backwards, they are blocked by the guy behind them. They most freely move forwards. If you're boxing with a guy two feet taller than you, there's a natural intuition that you don't want to stand right at the end of his punch range... Likewise, I think pretty quickly when people start getting stabbed, especially if your side seems like it's loosing, you want to move away from the most effective range of the pointy bits. You can't move back, but like the tall boxer, if you move forwards suddently his punches go over your head and not into your head. I'd echo that most front lines that found themselves in this situation probably immediately regretted it, but I'd guess that all but the most disciplined skirmishes generally ended up in that state, because it's just the natural path of least resistance. Knowing this, it's pretty clear why the Romans made the choice they did. If you have a bunch of guys in formation with shields they almost don't have any choice BUT to get into a shield wall pushing match.

300 wasn't even based on history. It was based on a graphic novel.

@Luciffrit The Macedonians were using very long pikes, which would have out-reached the hoplite spears no matter which way they were held.

@Spartiatai300 Homer tells of armies of men armed with large shields and spears, and these we see pictured on frescos from the bronze age.

@sakarauka1 Do you mean infantry boar's snout? Well, if the enemy quailed, as was the hope, then the men in the front would live. If the enemy held fast, then the few psychos at the point of the wedge would die, but the bulk of the men not. The whole formation does not consist of points. If you mean wedge like Alexandrian cavalry, then this was probably just for manoeuvre, and not for charging into formed units.

Lindy commentary is so good even 9 years back. This is so hilarious.

My understanding of the shield wall is to support the front rank in a similiar fashion to how a rugby player would support in a scrum. Also i know the romans had a system in place where the front ranked soldier would withdraw to the rear once he got tired and so on a so forth so that fresh troops would always be fighting (it makes sense if you've ever sparred in a martial art before) Great video man keep it up!

Boar snout: It was a wedge formation of shields whose whole purpose was to break up an enemy shield line by running into the enemy shield wall and hope to punch through, breaking the wall. Yes, the head of the snout and his mates were most likely dead, but they were also 'heroes' as they probably won the battle for their side (or so they hoped). This is the only example I can think of where you'd get a 'crush' happen.

@ForeverNoobie Most men given the options of certain imminent death and probable delayed death will pick the latter.

the part where he introduces his "assistant" was more than enough a reason for me to hit like

A great article! It made me think of a few things:1:To see shield wall techniques in action, have a look at riot police dispersing a crowd.2: Ancient battles probably didn't last very long for exactly the reasons Lindy brings up.3: Discipline and training could alleviate the crushing problem. If your soldiers know how to march in step, back and forth, left and right; they might be less prone to shoving their colleagues to their demise.4: The front of a shield wall was a dangerous place to be. There is a reason the Romans didn't put many valuable veterans in the Hastati!5: I agree with the overall argument made here, if the shield wall battle was just a shoving match, both sides would have merely tallied up the numbers and yielded the field to the larger force without all that bloodletting and risk.

The thing to remember about the shieldwall is it requires training and discipline. Training to get into formation correctly (especially since you will not always assume the same position each time, or face in the same direction as the direction of march, training to be able to move in this formation and replace those who fall out) and discipline to not break and run during combat. You see examples of longer spears, which are great for the forward march, bulldozer effect. This means those longer spears can outdistance the shorter ones of the enemy, thus overwhelming the enemy formation into either losing their nerve and running, or killing enough troops and disorganizing them to the point where the phalanx marches on through. In cases where the spears are relatively the same length, and if the soldiers have a variety of weapons (axes, swords, maces), you would likely see two lines form of shields facing each other, spear shafts extending across as fighters tried to take out faces and shins. Conceivably, the Spartans, being so well trained and discipline, and religious fanatics, would have their formation drive forward and even go shield-to-shield in a pushing match. This would overwhelm a lesser disciplined and trained foe.

@PaulkyArcher When you are that close, you are not attacking from the front with the dagger. You reach over his shield, so ducking doesn't help.

Maybe, what we are missing is the big picture. A phalanx would obviously need to be flexible, if formations are so tight that the frontline cannot be replaced, you might as well place army in rows and lines, 2 man deep. But the ones at front and supporting spears at 2nd will need water, medical help, some injured will need to be replaced without creating gaps in the line. So would the formation be a loose one? But if that happens, a suicidal enemy front row, could easily put their shields over their faces and run and bash at the gaps and they might get through, thus ruining the phalanx. A shoulder to shoulder formation would, however, create a big problem if someone dies, and soldiers wouldn't be able to replace broken spears, replace dead or injured, turn their bottom spear heads if the other is broken etc, as the line would be too rigid to do that. I, personally, think that gaps in line or lack of it could be a deliberate thing the leaders of each row could order their soldiers to do.

lindybeige I very much blame KZfaq's new layout for missing your latest uploads, I did however punish myself for it. Thank you so much for keeping your account alive and coming back with more and more informative stuff!

John Lazenby was my tutor at the University of Newcastle. He was my lecturer for Hannibal's War and the Spartans.

The editing here is genius level. Brilliant.

@OMGWTFBBQ357 It's a balance between these opposing forces. The trick is to pick the best balance in the context of what the enemy is doing.

@ImEternalWanderer Yes, which is why they removed all the barriers at the front of sports stadia.

I absolutely love how he got the volunteer part down.

@DistendedPerinium generally, light troops try to harass heavy ones with missiles, melting away if charged. Mighty Spartan hoplites were defeated this way.

@OMGWTFBBQ357 We have no reason to believe that they used the Roman manipular swap, but individual men can filter to the front and replace fallen, and individuals can pull back into the formation to rest, and there does not need to be a general retreat to make this happen. At the battle of Delium, a formation eight men deep held off a Theban phalanx 24 men deep for ages, which suggests that there was not a pushing match going on.

@Fablezzz To give the impression that I and my assistant are in my lounge. We are actually on the 007 soundstage at Pinewood.

Top 10 most ambitious crossovers Also loved how excited lindybeige2.0 seemed at the thought of being included in the video

@dejawolf If you outnumbered the opposition by a lot, then yes, although in that case there probably won't be a fight, because if the outnumbering side has good cohesion, aggression, and morale, then the outnumbered side will probably not stick around to get killed, but run instead.