"Talk to me about the pilum volley" Topic

So another lot of noob questions from me, I'm afraid, mulling over an era I've always been interested in, but never gamed.

OK, pilum volleys. Your Roman miles was equipped with one or more spears with a tapering, square-section neck. This design ensured that when he chucked his spear(s) at the enemy, they either penetrated, or got stuck in, the enemy shields, enabling no end of follow-up mischief with the old gladius.

Some years ago I came across a site (which has gone), in which a bloke with access to CADCAM software had used it to model these sorts of engagements. He found that chucking the spears had a markedly disruptive effect on the receiving unit's cohesion, whether or not a pilum hit anybody. If it did not, it hit the ground instead, and bent slightly upwards. A few hundred of these formed a thicket of angled points within the enemy's lines, onto which they would be forced back (hopefully) when the soldiers, Caesar having made a speech, made such an impetuous charge that the barbarians fled (as the old texts have it). Before the barbarians fled, the effect of the onrush would be that many would be inconveniently stabbed by the upward-angled butt-points as they fell back.

Two questions surfaced from looking at the matter this way. One was that it wasn't clear how your advancing legionary managed all this with only one pair of hands. He presumably has his shield in one, both of his spears in the other. While moving forward he must have had to stop, switch one pilum out of his throwing hand, throw the other, then throw the reserved pilum, then close. The ranks behind him would have to stop and wait while he and the other front-rank men did all this, then do the same themselves. This would make the advance to contact a piecemeal business, which the enemy could presumably easily mess with by countercharging.

The other issue was that if you had a formation with space enough between ranks for a running man to swing his arm back then hurl a pilum – twice – then the formation cannot have been many ranks deep given that they must have been separated widely enough to allow this. Otherwise, if there were say 8 ranks who all had room to throw, then the rearmost ranks would have been so far back they surely couldn't have thrown their pila far enough. They would risk these pila landing among their own front ranks.

What is the consensus view on how this actually played out? Could it have been the case that only the first couple of ranks had a pilum? – in the same way that only the front rank of Napoleonic lancer regiments had lances? Or would each rank have thrown its pila then closed, while the rank behind moved up close enough to throw their own pila over the front ranks' heads and then closed in their turn? You would then get successive waves of shock and a rain of spears, but as noted, the risk of a countercharge, unless perhaps the disruptive effect of the spear thicket made this less effective.

I also wonder about pilum volleys on the defensive. Assuming this happened, you could presumably have the front two ranks ten feet ahead of the others. As the barbarians close, the men of rank 2 take a half-step to one side and both ranks throw their pila, the rank 2 guys throwing between the intervals of the rank ahead. They then draw their swords and wait, or perhaps take a step forward, while ranks 3 and 4 step up and repeat the throw. In this way, the line thickens just at the point of impact and the rain of spears continues.

Does that sound plausible? Has anyone studied or written about this stuff?

I`ve been interested in this recently too.
Seems as though on the attack, the Romans were opened up to throw their Pila and then advanced to meet an enemy. If on the defensive they were able to close up (their distance, not interval) again to receive the charge of warbands.

Good questions. As to the second (spacing, etc) I don't know if there's step-by-step training written about in any ancient sources (most accept that people knew the specifics or weren't interested – in either case, why write about it?). I'm sure somewhere that someone has put together theories or models of how it would have worked. I'll revisit this thread to see if anything definitive comes up.

As to the first question, I'd always assumed and thought I'd read that they threw the pila together as a unit, not by rank, as a massed volley sort of action.

Many years ago, a Russian chap wrote an article on this. I had at the time, a word copy, but unfortunately have been unable to find it for years..

It was very informative, but unhappily I cannot remember any of the details…

not very helpful, I know…

There's a common misconception that the Pilum was designed with a soft iron shaft that would bend.That isn't the case. True, the iron shaft could, and did bend, but the real secret of the pilum was how the iron section was fastened to the wooden haft.

The base of the iron shaft was fitted into a slot in the wooden haft,and held in place with, usually, two dowels. The lower one was an iron dowel, hammer/friction welded into the iron base. Above this, the second dowel (or pin, as it were) was of a light wood. This was sufficiently strong to hold the iron shaft in place, but when the pilum was thrown and impacted it's target, the wooden dowel broke,and the entire iron shaft was free to rotate out and away from the wooden haft. Thus, there was no possible way for the enemy to pick it up and throw it back at you, unless it was to sling it out sideways.

I apologize for being late to this discussion. While I had always imagined the pila being thrown by the entire unit in one volley, just as Mars Ultor says, your idea of the coordinated throw by pairs of ranks is fascinating. Polybius says the Romans (2nd c BC) formed up with 6feet frontage per man, much less dense than the Successor phangites they faced. If a century of 60 Romans formed up in 10 files and 6 ranks, covering a frontage of 60 feet, the file spacing might have permitted a pilum drill where the two rear ranks trot forward, throw pila, and take position ahead of the first rank. This drill then followed by the middle two ranks, and finally by the original two front ranks, would leave the century in its original configuration, but having advanced a distance equivalent to the depth of the formation for each toss of the pila; or twice that advance to throw two pila. The Legionaries would have to move ranks in a disciplined pace to keep their formation in good order as the continually reform ranks to the front, but the drill might well have an intimidating appearance to the enemy. When the legion was in defense, making a disciplined forward movement a few 10s of paces before the final clash with the charging enemy infantry might affect the morale of both sides. This is speculation, of course..