Experiment Bringing Your Spears Up

EDIT:  (this post is considering skirmish situations, or any situation where a small group of fighters find themselves detached from a larger unit)

Spear is my best weapon and I've been fighting primarily with it since 1995 or so (started off with great sword).  One of the things I picked up early on, as well as my friends in Anglesey, Concusare, Galatia, KF, Head Clan, and the other melee groups in our region was that spears don't need to hide behind shields as is often taught in the SCA.

There has been this prevailing philosophy in the SCA that you want to bring all of your points to the enemy at the same time.  This would mean, for example, that your shield should be within 3 feet of the enemy, your poles 7 1/2 feet, and your spears 9 feet.  In theory, this combination of attackers should have three weapon ends on the opponent at the same time.  There's also a belief that shields offer the best defense and spears offer the worst defense, so shields should stand in front of the spears to keep the spears safe.

This philosophy is missing the forest through the trees.  The BEST defense is being out of range of your opponent while your best offense is to hit an enemy who can't hit you back.  For this reason, I like to have most engagements begin with the long weapons out in front and the short weapons waiting in quick reserve, waiting to see what the opponent is going to do and then attacking him when he is blinded or focussed on someone else.

What if the opponent charges your spear?  The spear has feet, does he not?  Your poles have feet, do they not?  Certainly your shieldmen have feet as well.  If a shield begins one full step behind his spear, in the time it takes one step, a spear can take a step backward while the shield takes a step forward, and the spear is now behind the shield.


Experiment

I didn't need to do this experiment because I already knew the answer from 20+ years of experience, but I did it anyway to help our new guys to understand.  We had a newish sword and shield on the left, a newish pole fighter on the right, myself in the middle with a spear, and we faced a young, athletic, well practiced shieldman with 4 years of experience.  The shield merely had to get into position to kill me to with the scenario.  I was only allowed to move at walking speed (this prevents me from just turning and running away and winning by cardio rather than by tactics).

We tried three different scenarios, each one doing 3-5 times.

1)  Spear behind the pole and shield

2)  Spear even with the pole and shield

3)  Spear in front of the pole and shield


Results:

1)  Opponent used our shield to pivot around to get into the back field

2)  Opponent used the same strategy as in 1, but with significantly less success (50%?)

3)  Opponent said after several tried that it wasn't even worth trying anymore because he was getting overwhelmed.  He repeatedly either got stabbed in the face, stabbed in the belly, or hit on teh left side of his head by the pole.


The big difference was that in the first scenario, the enemy could get close enough to our line before our weapons got into range that he could block both the pole and spear with his shield as he made a dash to pivot around our shieldman.  He would be blinded briefly, but could see the fee of our shieldman to make the turn.

In the 3rd scenario, he would have to begin his charge 6-7 feet further out.  This put him charging 14 feet away from our shieldman instead of 8 feet, which meant that he couldn't see the feet of our shield, and it gave our entire side time to react and maneuver so that he couldn't pivot around our shield and into the backfield.  At some point he would have to take a peek to see where we were, and he'd either look over his shield and take a shot to the head or face, or he'd look past the side of his shield and take a stab at the face or belly.

The gif below compares the two scenarios:

After doing several of these drills, our pole fighter, Rygus, had employed these very same tactics at the next couple of events with astounding success.  Attacking to the left side of the head of the enemy shieldmen before he can get within weapons range sets up the rest of our team for success.

Weapons match ups, bridges, a cool situational drill, and more!

Hi all,

I've been collecting ideas for a few months now and decided to just make this a big brain dump.  I think there's a lot of good stuff here.


Exploiting Range Advantages

I noticed that some of our newer fighters don't understand the value in exploiting a range advantage.  With 1-2 years experience, they have managed to figure out mostly how to key off of the veteran fighters, which is a good thing.  Being the least experienced people on the field generally means that they are going to lose most 1 on 1 engagements, so they have learned to let the veterans set up the situation, stay alive, and then come in and help when needed.

What I've noticed they are now missing is understanding when they have a clear, safe advantage regardless of experience level.

Two examples stick out in my mind.  "Rygus, start throwing shots at him.  You have a 7 1/2 foot pole arm, he's fighting with a 6 footer.  Throw some shots.  Don't worry, he won't charge while I'm here.  Okay, you still aren't throwing shots.  You should have thrown 5 shots by now."  Rygus just would not attack.

The second was an interesting battle where they only allowed great weapons.  Spears were allowed only if you didn't bring a great weapon (made me wish I left my pole at home).  We were in a situation where we were facing nothing but poles and we had one spear and he wasn't throwing any shots.  After some cajoling, he finally threw a shot, and it hit a pole fighter in the arm.  "See?  The worst that can happen is that you actually hit someone."

As a veteran fighter, I generally won't throw spear shots unless I see something I think I have a good chance to hit.  However, there's usually enough targets that I think I can hit that the shots will come often enough.  Also, I know how to make things happen on a field even when not throwing anything.

Less experienced fighters, on the other hand, don't often have those tools.  They can either attack, or wait.  Waiting accomplishes nothing.  Attacking does a few things:

1)  It might kill someone
2)  It makes the enemy concerned that an attack is coming
3)  It might blind them for a second
4)  It might make them throw a defense which then tells you something about their defenses
5)  It might set up one of your veterans for an attack of opportunity


Containing His Majesty King Amos le Pios
We fought some 5 on 5 battles at War of the Wings.  In one of the battles we faced Mountains Keep, who brought a variety of fighters, however Amos was the only knight who chose to fight in this scenario.  Amos was certainly the most experienced and effective fighter on their team and was fighting with a Dane axe.  I believe the other 4 had shields.

We, on the other hand, had two shields, two spears, and one pole (me).  The field had a boundary on one side (our left) and was open on the other.

Our initial plan was to have our strongest shield (and probably our strongest fighter) on the open side, and our other shield on the inside (in this case the left).  The spears were in between, with the pole floating in the back.  Our set up was to initiate the attacks with the spears expecting them to charge at the spears, and then the other three of us would have to react.  We also thought that we might be able to keep Amos out of the fight because he wouldn't want to face 2 spears and a pole.

Amos, however, being very melee savvy, made an adjustment before the battle began and moved onto the open flank and took a shield with him.  At lay on, they both moved around our right flank.  Our right shield went out to meet him with our right spear staying beside him. 

I made a quick read on the situation and thought that I was better suited to fight Amos with my pole.  I didn't need to win, only to contain him, while freeing up our most dangerous fighter to go and kill the rest of his team.  I moved to the outside and told our team "I'll get Amos."

Why did I feel I was the better match for Amos?  Generally speaking, the shield should have the advantage on an axe in a 1 on 1.  However, the shield needs to close.  In this situation the shield would have to close on an axe and a shield, which puts him at a disadvantage.  Or, this might free up the shield to run down the spear.  More importantly, Amos is almost a duke and has far more experience fighting Dane axe vs shield than our shieldman does.  I, on the other hand, fight great weapon on great weapon all the time.

After making the switch, our shield ran off and attacked the others, Amos made a B line for our spear and I chased, placing him in the center of the fighting and a bad position.

Learning Other Weapons Forms

One might ask, "Why were you fighting with a pole instead of a spear?"  Of the five people on our team above, four of us are best with spear, but four spears and a shield is not a very good 5 man team weapons mix.  With that said, some people need to pick up other weapons to make it a better mix, and there's an art to figuring out whether its better to use the weapon that you are better fighting with, or the weapon form that is better for the occasion.

With this mix of people, Titus is the second best shield and the shield is a critical piece to anchor the left flank, so he took shield.  Out of what's left, I'm the best pole, so that's what I took.  Had we been in a larger melee, El Kabong might have taken a pole and I'd move to spear based entirely on the different dynamics of larger fights.

Additionally I've been working on left hand center grip shield over the last two years.  Had Titus not been there, I may have taken a shield to try to secure the left flank.  I'm not great with a shield, but I'm good enough to neutralize most average / slightly above average fighters.


Avoiding Fair Fights

Whether I'm fighting pole against King Amos, or shield against a decent shieldman, I have no intentions of fighting any of them 1 on 1.  The odds just aren't good enough for me to do so.  I focus more on holding the position, and trying to draw them into a 2 on 1 fight.  There's no need to put myself at risk. 

In most scenarios you need to identify if you are a killer, or a supporter.  A spear in a line facing a bunch of poles is a killer.  A great fighter against a bad fighter is a killer.  Two people against one are killers.  A shield running down a spear is a killer. 

A shield with 2 years of experience against another shield?  That's a supporter.

Having said that, the Bog was very successful at Battle on the Bay last month.  As observed by an East Kingdom friend who fought with us for the first time, "I don't think I ever saw you guys engage with someone unless you had a 3 on 1 advantage."  We are constantly looking for those kinds of advantages!


Bridge Battles

Bridge battles have become much more fluid over the years.  There was a time when we would just dominate bridges because the prevailing philosophy was to keep the spears behind the shield wall.  We'd bring all of ours to the front and literally decimate the other side.  Every now and then they'd mount a charge, and we'd just fall back behind our shields, let the carnage happen, and then come back out and pick them apart.

Now it seems that at least in the East and in Atlantian, most battles turn into meat grinders with a constant back and forth between the shields and spears.  Two walls will charge at each other resulting in deaths and fatigue.  Once things settle down a bit, bodies pile up, and people get tired from the push, a few spears start to trickle out to fight over the gap.  Once one side finds that they are at the range disadvantage, or they start losing ground, they will mount a charge. 

Its been a while since I've seen two full ranks of spears going at it for any length of time.

The most successful units are the ones who can get organized.  If the spears are fighting, get the shields out of the way.  No spears should be standing around in the second rank.  If a shield is not actively fighting in a press, he should be giving up his spot for a 3rd rank spear.  etc. 


3 on 1 Drill.  Spear to the Front Wins

I did a drill a while back that was a 3 on 1, with an experienced shield being in the 1 position.  On our side we had a veteran spear, and two relatively new fighters (a lefty shield on the left, and a pole on the right).

The single shield had only one goal;  get to the backfield and touch the spear (spear could move but not run).

We did 3 scenarios:

1)  Spear behind shield and pole
2)  Spear even with shield and pole
3)  Spear ahead of shield and pole

Most people tend to think that 1) would be the most successful and 3) the least successful, but the opposite was actually true (as I knew it would be).  The thought is that you want to bring all three fighters into the fight at the same time, and that a spear out front is unprotected.

What they don't realize is that in scenario 3, the spear forces the shield to commit a good 6 feet further than he does in scenario 1.  It also forces an angle of attack that is much easier to adjust to for the team of 3.  The spear doesn't get run down because he only needs to take a step or two back while the others take a step or two forward to meet the opponent. 

In scenario 1), the single shield made it around the flanks every time.  In scenario 3), the shield said that the scenario seemed unwinable no matter what he tried. 


2 on 2 Rez Battle with 360 Degree Friendly Engagement

Keeping the rez points close, we did this 2 on 2 fight, with one catch.  If anyone gets hit from behind, that person has to run a lap.  The point of the drill was to promote situational awareness while also trying to get people to think about getting behind the enemy.

Another great lesson was learned, however.  At one point my partner was killed.  As he began to jog back to the rez point, the enemy turned to face me.  They paused for a beat or two, and then watched me as I jogged behind my dead friend and met him at the rez point.

Never fight a 1 on 2 fight when you can easily make it a 2 on 2 fight.