We spend a fair amount of time trying to re-create the experience of fighting in this type of formation. Obviously, our big limitation is getting enough people to make it work, but we once took part in a multi-society re-enactment of the battle of Hastings with a pair of 1000 man shield walls battling it out toe-to-toe, well at least until the script called for us poor Saxons to start dying. This battle also left me with a lasting impression of the shock effect of heavy cavalry, there were about 35 mounted Norman knights involved and the noise made by them charging en-mass was quite something. Mind you i think history shows us that a dense formation of infantry can withstand cavalry more or less indefinitely, the Saxons only really suffered from the Norman cavalry when lured out of formation by a false retreat and towards the end of the day when the shield wall had broken up in to smaller groups.
Our experience with shield walls in a skirmish or small unit type battles is similar to that reported by Mike Dawson, its far to easy for some hotshot to run round the back. As regards :
>Windmasters has lots of shieldmen using classic heater shields, a
>few polearms, and almost no spears. They form a column about 6-8
>fighters wide and 6-8 deep, then charge straight in low and fast,
>pushing past the first rank of shields into the polearms and spears
>in the back. Atenveldt proved soft and squishy on the inside, year
>after year.
If each of the defenders is armed a spear and large shield this soft inside is avoided. Although we can't brace our spears to receive a charge (for obvious safety reasons) you can brace shields. The second and third ranks directly opposite the charge overlap shields and brace while the first rank stays looser so they can parry the incoming blows. When the charge connects the shield wall often buckles but doesn't (hopefully ?) break, even if a number of the front rank fall the attackers are confronted by more shields and spears. In fact what usually occurs is that the weight of the momentum of the charge results in the attackers being pushed up against the defenders so that neither can effectively wield weapons, while those spear men on either side of the part of the wall that received the charge can merrily stab away into the sides of the attackers.
I think that when envisaging the processes of ancient battles this idea of "weight of momentum" is important. If you have an 8 deep formation charging another 8 deep group who brace against the attack, the fight quickly becomes a shoving match, the crush of bodies prevents people wielding 7 foot long spears and 3 foot long swords from doing anything other than attempting to stab downwards over their opponents shields. Just the sort of thing conical helmets and mail hauberks were designed to protect against.
Ahdrian
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