Collections: Roman Infantry Tactics: Why the Pilum and not a Spear?
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This week’s post is intended to answer a question which came up in response to the last post looking at the most common type of Mediterranean spear, which to put it simply is: what is up with…

To resume :

  • is a heavy javelin : throw (twice), pick up later if able, high(ish?) chance to get damaged on impact
  • great at piercing & disabling shields
  • likely useless at melee, sword & shield would have been used for that after having thrown both of them
  • uses a lot of expensive iron (steel?)
  • @theRealBassistEnglish
    5•11 months ago

    Just on that last point:

    No not a lot of expensive steel. Only the head was made from high-ish hardness steel. The rest of the metal shaft was made from low-hardness carbon steels (very cheap, the same low-tier steel was used to mass-manufacture gladiuses) to allow the shafts to bend with relative ease to make them harder to remove from shields, rendering them useless.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      3•11 months ago

      I mean, between the 2 pila used by the first two front lines of their heavy infantry compared to the 7 javelins of their light infantry, maybe ? The author does insist on the expense.

      Also, this was to compare with RimWorld, where pila are made with wood, and wood only. (While IRL your typical spear would have less metal and more wood than a pilum ?)