Quote:
Originally Posted by deadkenny
I'm not sure it was 'sturdy' enough to penetrate armour, or a shield, and do any damage - the idea was simply to 'stick into' the shield, such that it would be an encumberance and perhaps prompt the target to drop the shield. In any case the key point is that the pilum was far too short to be an effective 'pike' for use against cavalry. It was a throwing weapon. The Macedonian 'sarissa' for example was estimated to be as long as 22ft. The idea of a 'pike' weapon is that it is long enough for the pikes of the rearward ranks to reach forward past the front most rank. The pilum was so short that the second rank couldn't even reach far enough past the front rank to be effective. That, plus the lances of the 'knights' that they would be facing in this hypothetical scenario would outreach the front rank of Romans. If a Roman infantry force had been 'caught' in the open by a charge from such heavy cavalry, they would have been slaughtered and trying to use the pilum as pike would not have saved them.
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The pilum was effective vs cavalry, perhaps not as effective as Hoplite pikes or macadonian formations of the swiss but it was effective.
Also (albiet from wiki)
Vegetius, in his work De Re Militari, wrote:
As to the missile weapons of the infantry, they were javelins headed with a triangular sharp iron, eleven inches or a foot long, and were called piles. When once fixed in the shield it was impossible to draw them out, and when thrown with force and skill, they penetrated the cuirass without difficulty.[2]
And later in the same work:
They had likewise two other javelins, the largest of which was composed of a staff five feet and a half long and a triangular head of iron nine inches long. This was formerly called the pilum, but now it is known by the name of spiculum. The soldiers were particularly exercised in the use of this weapon, because when thrown with force and skill it often penetrated the shields of the foot and the cuirasses of the horse.[3]
what this amounts two is directly before the knights impact they will be showered by a swarm of javalins that will do very bad things to 12 century horse flesh and mail clad knights. The romans would also have sown caltrops in front of them. The front ranks will most likely go down cuasig following ranks to trample and probalby trip over them breaking the peak momentum of the charge. Also given the infantry's tendancy to place sheild to back and push the sheer weight of the charge would probalby break its lances and the knights would collide with the legionares who would own the knights in close combat. Heavy cav is a one shot weapon.