What was Hoplite warfare?
Hoplites (HOP-lytes) (Ancient Greek: ὁπλίτης) were citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states who were primarily armed with spears and shields. Hoplite soldiers used the phalanx formation to be effective in war with fewer soldiers.
What is the concept of maneuver warfare?
Maneuver warfare refers to an overall concept or “style” of warfare. It has an opposite, the firepower-attrition style. Firepower is a servant of maneuver, used to create openings in enemy defenses and, when necessary, to annihilate the remnants of his forces after their cohesion has been shattered.
Why was the Hoplite phalanx so effective?
One of the primary reasons for its success on the battlefield was the Phalanx formation. When engaging in battle, the phalanx would form a tight defence and advance towards the enemy. The defence would be held tight by the hoplite shields and greaves which formed a barrier on all sides of the unit.
What part of the body did the Greaves protect?
Description. The primary purpose of greaves is to protect the tibia from attack. The tibia is a bone very close to the skin, and is therefore extremely vulnerable to just about any kind of attack.
What made the hoplites so effective?
One strength of the hoplite warrior was the incredible physical strength these warriors must have had to wield their arms and weaponry. This immense weight allowed hoplite soldiers to easily overpower light armored infantry, and allowed them to combat other similarly armed heavy infantry men.
Who created maneuver warfare?
Today’s Marines are a generation removed from people like Col John Boyd, USAF(Ret), and Col Michael D. Wyly, who initiated the maneuver warfare movement in the late 1970s in response to America’s defeat in Vietnam.
How did hoplites fight?
How did hoplites fight? Hoplites usually fought in a battle formation called the phalanx. A phalanx was made up of ranks and files. A rank was a row of hoplites, their shields held in their left hands and overlapping slightly.
Did the Romans use phalanx?
The Romans had originally employed the phalanx themselves but gradually evolved more flexible tactics. The result was the three-line Roman legion of the middle period of the Roman Republic, the Manipular System. Romans used a phalanx for their third military line, the triarii.
What defeated the phalanx?
At the Battle of Cynocephalae in 197 BCE, the Romans defeated the Greek phalanx easily because the Greeks had failed to guard the flanks of their phalanx and, further, the Greek commanders could not turn the mass of men who comprised the phalanxes quickly enough to counter the strategies of the Roman army and, after …
What was the weight of the hoplites armor?
Some hoplites also carried a javelin, a light throwing spear. What was the weight of the hoplite’s armor? In total, such armor was very heavy, weighing up to 34 kg, which certainly made it very difficult for the hoplite to maneuver during the fight.
What did the hoplites do in the Persian Wars?
Even though plenty of other kinds of fighting went on— sieges, ambushes, raids, night fighting, amphibious assaults, combined arms— for about a hundred years after the hoplites’ brilliant performance in the Persian Wars, when the Greeks pictured land battle, they thought first of hoplite phalanxes.
How are hoplites and phalanxes used in warfare?
Phalanxes were subdivided into smaller tactical units which, to a certain extent, could act independently to counter developing situations, and this too shows that phalanxes were not always supposed to be tightly cohesive. Hoplites often charged over the last stretch of the advance, and that would open up the formation even more.
What was the advantage of the hoplite spear?
This weapon was incredibly advantageous to Hoplite warfare, due to the fact that it could be used to attack ones opponent while still out of reach and while nestled behind the security of the shield. The spear gave the Hoplite the ability to attack warriors, equipped with shorter weapons, with impunity.