[William P]

lafayyete your mention of not many blows between the gangs is interesting,

my book 'the wars of the ancient greeks notes that according to homer, not that many actual enagagements even mention direct hand to hand fighting, suggesting that mycenean/ bronze age warfare was very skirmish based.

and id imagine that these brawling youths in a way would function abit like skirmishers, theyre unprotected mostly and unarmoured men id imagine would do all they could to avoid direct combat.. so theis back and forth skirmishing seems logical.

interesting the same behavior also seems to occur in some strategy games as well i have a couple of anecdotes which also mirror your experiences.

on is between two group of skirmisher javelinmen, you advance and the enemy starts throwing, you retreat until you can shoot at HIM without your unit instinctively retreating (in the game, ranged units have the option of 'skirmish mode' i.e they will automatically try and maintain distance from the enemy but this is overridden if you make them attack with melee weapons)


same went for an interesting scenario when i sent a unit of mounted javelinmen to dispatch a unit of heavy infantry that had advanced into my territory, what happened was that since the heavys would cut my horsemen apart in melee who also needed to get pretty close to use their javelins to great effect i try and use turkish tactics of shooting at point blank almost. and the melee infantry couldnt hope to chase my horsemen, so what ensued was him getting close and charging, id retreat, then hed return to his previous position, id approach and try to cut him apart by falling upon his rear then breaking away and using javelins to attack point blank into his rear but often hed present his face before i could strike him and the cycle would repeat.

this 'see -sawing' it seems, tends to happen just as you described it, when theres one or more sides who dont wish to endure sustained hand to hand fighting.

another interesting scenario from history is archaic era hoplite clashes of usually about 100-500 a side, theyd clash and often slowly rotate trying to edge around the vulnerable side, and it seems that when one side broke, it wasnt common practice to pursue and exterminate..

[Mikko Kuusirati]

Well, a strong preference for skirmish warfare with arrows and javelins over hand-to-hand fighting could explain some of the near complete dominance of the huge body shields, slung across the back instead of carried on one arm, in the Late Helladic period.

[Kurt Scholz]

The post by Lafayette Curtis explains pretty well my seemingly incomprehensible train of thought:

The groups of "fighters" running to aid some of their own that were in need and afterwards returning to their separated groups is what I would call an intermediate between line combat and skirmishing. If you give these guys shields they line up in a "shieldwall" against missile threats and insults in a safe distance from each other. Some of them sally forth, get a bloody nose in close combat and their friends extract them, resulting in a short term defensive group on group action.
After a while, it's possible that one group feels strong enough to move forward and seem risk a complete line on line confrontation - an immense psychological threat. If both groups remain steadfast with their intentions, this might happen, if not the described pattern of each group taking their term chasing the other can ensure.

I see three routes this can take:
You can formalize the one on one fighting. Finding this idea in many different cultures speaks in my opinion volumes about it being one human answer to a general problem.
A second option in my opinion would be to turn the sally by groups of friends into something more aggressive that attacks a select group of enemies on the other side and as a group with concerted action has higher chances to capture or kill someone from the other side than the single combatants. Thus they do have an increased psychological impact on morale of both sides.
The third answer would be enforcers highlighted below that move the whole line of not so willing humans with them.
All these options entail a higher degree of psychological success against a not as well organised enemy. the downside is that you have to convince people of doing that - the dinner example is a nice illustration.

The "enforcers" are part of the leading animals in the herd of humans who seem to know what they are doing and are thus capable to push and pull the group into a psychologically effective mass confrontation. Such "enforcers" are people with confidence in successful application of violence and/or who feel obliged to have to do that.
Wealth and status of front rank men, retainers around nobles who distinguish themselves as war leaders and fighters, raised in that spirit from childhood, mercenaries who know their trade, youths eager to proof themselves and earn the right for marriage (Zulu) seem all kinds of incentives for these men to move forward. Against moving backwards you have the notorious Persian whips at , the triarii or your womenfolk observing and speaking their minds (Muslim conquest) or mutual control by killing the first guy to run and "betray" his comrades. Developing an effective system to enforce the determined group push forward could create a positive feedback by psychologically winning against less organised opponents, but will need maintenance of some social structures that are under constant attack by overuse of previously successful recipes of violence and enemy developments to counter with available means.


This image made me think about a what if you take such a curtain, give it a central spine with a stick and some cloth/leatherin a triangular shape?
This would create a shield with intermediate characteristics between the kite shaped shield and a round shield. Any clues whether this idea was around and whether this could mean that there was not a discontinuous jump, but a small modification that step by step led to a new shape and grip of shields?

[Alexis Bataille]

So can we say that centergrip is best for 1V1 and strapped grip best for formations ?