Spear and shield - overarm vs underarm

quick addition to the very interesting things said: the Spartan spear, as well as the Macedonian (sarisa) spear, had point-shaped counterweights at the rear end (called savrotiras), which weighted 3 times the front-end point. This way the spear could be grabbed from further to the rear (increasing reach), since the center of mass was moved backwards. I guess it was also easier to manipulate the spear, as it is with a sword with a counterweight at the pommel. Savrotiras could be pushed into the ground when the phalanx had to withstand a charge (eg cavalry) and finally, it could be used as a backup point, should the "business end" was broken off. Persian cavalry commander, Masistius was killed when a Greek soldier stabed him in the eye with the savrotiras of his spear

The problem with most people, even some historians, is that they dont remember this one simple fact in history - and this statement proves that spear phalanxes were fought in the OVERHAND position(even though for years i believed underhand would be best). -Macedon was known for creating their OWN version of the phalanx, called the Macedonian Phalanx(or pike phalanx). While everyone else used spears, Macedon switched to using an 18ft long Sarissa pike, to give them an edge over the other Greek hoplites and other phalanx using armies. -The IMPORTANT change with the Macedonian Phalanx was that the writings explain how they SWITCHED to an UNDERHAND grip(in order to use the pikes) for the Macedonian Phalanx... It would be impossible to overhand a heavy 18ft pike, which is why they made the switch. This suggests that it was previously an overhand grip(which would make the most sense in a close formation to allow for compacting with no disrupting of the individual behind). -Historically, this was a key innovation within the use of phalanxes, and Macedon decided to have a longer spear(which became a pike) and used an underhand grip because they found it to be more ergonomic when holding a longer spear without tension to the shoulder. -THERES ALSO some writing explaining that Macedon TRIED using an underhand grip with the SPEAR phalanx, where the men held their spears underhanded, and BELOW the bottom curve of the Aspis shield, and attacked the legs and feet of their opponents, killing them as they fell and clogged up their own phalanx. This was met with mix results, but was actually comfortable within the phalanx, but as its stated, was met with mixed results. Additionally, according to a descendant of the Spartans, the way they fought in the phalanx(using an overhand grip) was not to stab up and over and downward at the enemies head... but instead they rested the distal end of the shaft in the crevice of the overlapping shields(each shield protected half of the body of the man to the left) still held in the overhand grip and was used to precisely lunge/stab forward at a straight or lateral angle into the other phalanx. -Through doing this straight lunge motion, the protruding spikes at the proximal end of the spear head(or simply, the protruding angle) was used to grip the edge of the enemies Aspis and upon the pulling motion, opened up the opponents shield allowing for a visual angle to lunge again at the unprotected neck or soft parts of the Lino-thorax armor. -In addition to using the straight lunging motion, the men behind them were arranged in completely straight rows so that the tail of the spear did not disrupt anyone behind them. The men behind the front two rows would have their spears held diagonally, pointing forwards and upwards, and when they moved forward after the man in front dropped, they would simply slide their spear back into the crevice of their own and neighbor's shield. So in short, they were used overhand, but not to strike downward, but to strike straight after resting the shaft within the crevice of their own shield, and the man's to their right. This allowed them to maintain endurance of the shoulder.

An interesting historical aspect with pikes is that the Swiss grabbed their pikes at about the middle position near the balance point while the Landsknechte (their heirs in a way) grabbed them farther to the back end. The Swiss thus had a bit more of control over their long pointed sticks but lacked range which became a disadvantage.

Was agreeing with you until 5.00 when you said 'totally useless'.  The guy behind you is safe if he's not closer than he should be, and you are holding the spear near the back, and you can raise your elbow to get the spear over your shield and reach your foe's feet.

Here's a third reason: It kinda looks more threatening and painters would like that.

One good reason to use a spear overarm in a duel is that the back end becomes a weapon. A big disadvantage of spear and shield vs say sword and shield is that the spear can very easily be moved, and I usually find that if I fight underarm, my spear gets pushed and held to the side by my opponent's shield, and I can't really do anything at that point but drop it and draw a back up weapon. With overarm, if my opponent pushes my spear downwards or sideways I can then use that motion against them and spin my spear around, hitting them with the back end on the head or shoulders. Sorry if this is kind of hard to follow, trust me, it works brilliantly.

Could it be that a formation of, say, hoplites would use both methods depending on how close they were to the enemy? At 8 ft. range they jab at each-other underarm, then an order goes out and the shieldwall condenses and they go overarm for close range.

I think overarm technique also has some intimidation factor in it. Like animals make themselves bigger to look more intimidating and strong, perhaps it's the same with humans. Scaring the opponent is also widespread tactic used by African tribes.

A thing I noticed a while back (while trying this out, because I wasn't satisfied by Lloyd's spear "dogma") - while held up high (!), the overhand grip is much more convenient for attacking to the right side, while the underhand feels more comfortable on the left side. This stems from the biomechanics of the human arm, obviously. Considering a spearman using a shield would likely and often be fighting a line of other spearmen with shields, attacking left means mostly hitting a shield. Attacking right aims at the "unprotected" right side of your opponent's buddy. Anyway, as I IIRC commented on Lloyd's video - I don't why we shouldn't use both. Line or shieldwall battles surely weren't always perfectly measured by spear distance without any contact, sometimes you pushed in and got close. Then, or if you just wanted to change it up a bit, the overhand comes in handy.

Old videos of you are way better. Less rambling, strait to the point. Real shame it turned out as it did, this stuff is really amazing.

lindybiege and you have different opinions its interesting

The overhand grip with the back rised high may work nice in a formation. But it is a really shitty way to hold the spear if you want to test the stance indoors, thanks for the new mark on my ceiling. =)

Excellent argument for the over-head position. Makes perfect sense. The tight close quarters fighting of the age would have made under-arm all but completely useless. Thanks for this video. Kurtus

I believe that the overarm technique is more powerful as you can apply the torque of the twist of your upper body to the thrust. Many people assume that the thrust is just using arm strength, however a proper thrust uses your core muscles, your back, your shoulders and your arms as you twist and whip your body into the thrust.

Thank you, food for thought. Always like to have my preconceptions challenged.

Interesting thoughts, though personally I still think the underarm grip must have been used a fair bit. While it's true that holding it midway along the shaft underarm could hit your friends in the face, if you hold it right at the end (as you briefly demonstrated), not only do you not hit people in the face but you get a massive great reach, as you described. I noticed, after a cursory glance at some greek vases, that most of them seem to show only the front rank, which leads to my theory. The front ranks probably held their spears overarm, due to being fairly close to the enemy and thus wanting to be able to stab the guy in front of them. The guys behind them, however, held their spears underarm, though still stabbing over the shield and the shoulder of the guys in front, in order to maximise the amount of pointy in any given bit of front. After about three ranks of this, people hold their spears upwards, both to minimise accidental hitting and to provide some protection against missiles (I remember hearing this as a reason for holding pikes up, though I'll admit I don't know how it works. Or indeed if it does). The vase painters, however, only show the front ranks, because otherwise you'd have to turn the pots around to see where people's spears are coming from and the back ranks of each unit would touch. They do still show the spears pointing upwards though, as that's one of the defining characteristics of hoplite formations, and they're nice and close-packed because that way you can fit more bodies in without it looking too silly. With the African tribes who use overarm (particularly the Zulu), I know that they originally used javelins as their primary weapon, so it might come from that. There's also the fact that the Zulu look to me like they fought in a much less organised formation than hoplites (in order to maximise their speed), and thus complicated multi-rank systems won't really work, but you still don't want to hit anyone in the face. Then again, I might be wrong about all of this. The only way to really check is to get two formations of hoplites, one going overarm and one underarm and see who wins, and apparently there's laws about that sort of thing now.

I'm glad you made a video on this topic. There's also been some tests by some respected historians showing that the overarm spear thrust ends up generating considerably more powerful strikes as opposed to the underarm thrust. Thrusts that could effectively defeat the armour of the day.

Thanks for this. For the longest time I thought I just had weak wrists and I actually sprained my wrist because I was trying to hold the spear too far back while in the overhand podition. I didn't even think to choke up on it because of the drastic loss of range. When my wrist gets better I'll give it a try. Maybe you could do some demonstrations on how to best utilise overhand and maybe a short sparring demo?

I just discovered your videos and I find them fascinating. You convinced me that rapiers are fierce and awesome :)

Great vid! Completely agree!! Spears where also used to take away shields by throwing right at the shield and pulling their sword to charge they forced their Opponent to drop their shield because if the stopped right then to break it off of pull it out they would be dead.