Wooden Pin Pilum: Is it Pointless?
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- Back looking at the Roman plum with the breakable peg. Apparently the great military reformer Marius cam up with the idea and this is described by Plutarch. The idea is simple - throw the javelin and part of the head breaks on impact rendering it useless.
Michael and I got it to work quite well, but not very well, so here I look at the original source and look at making some changes, but is the whole thing worth the effort?
Lets find out.
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Many thanks once again to Michael Allison of Team GB and you can follow him here / m.f.s.allison
Edited by Will Ellett
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Michael deserves a really cool pilum for all this work he's done.
Maybe he deserves his SPQR tattoo
Yes! One of the fancy ones with the ball-shaped weight below the head, that had decorative figures cast into it.
yes :D
The wooden pin could have been tried and discarded as a failed experiment but because it’s mention survived in a historical text we all act like it was standard practice.
@@MarvelDcImage There's an inherent trap within this topic too that is important to recognize, which is that the fact that it makes intuitive sense to laypeople and scholars would have artificially inflated the perceived validity of the whole thing, separate from what actually may have happened on the ground.
I wish Michael the best of luck during his studies and athletic competitions, until we see him again.
One more reason for looking forward to spring, is never bad.
Until then. At least Tod is still working on other great series.
Most interesting homework assignment ever yeah?
It'd be great if all his events were suddenly full of history nerds cheering him on :p
@@lancerd4934😅
@@lancerd4934All wearing Roman armour lol
it'd be nice to have a video addressing how easy pila would be to manufacture in bulk, and also the reparability of pila collected after a battle
I can only speak from the time of Marcus Aurelius onwards but the Romans had dedicated military gear manufacturing for the legions which produced in bulk.
What are you planning? Are we crusading again?
Oh we definately should, alright lads, you have just convinced me.
@@50043211 In the earlier Imperial era they were produced regionally I believe, with each legionary fortress more-or-less producing their own kit (the consumables anyway). During the Republic, I'm not sure. Obviously when it was a militia and citizens had to provide their own arms, then the answer is that everyone did it individually. But in the mid and late republic? My guess would be that the Consul / Praetor in charge of raising an army would put an order with _publicani_ (essentially, private contractors) to make what was needed before the army was raised and marched away from Rome.
@@QuantumHistorian You misunderstand how militias worked. Providing your own arms doesn't mean you come with whatever you can cobble together yourself. You still have the army blacksmiths, wood turners, cobblers, etc. making the kit. But when you present yourself for mustering, you have to buy your kit from them with your own money.
I used to worry about slings-shots being pointless too, until I remembered that they relied on blunt-force trauma instead. I’ll get my coat.
And now I'm imagining throwing a little spiked ball
Also imagine picking up the little lead ball and they've inscribed some insult on it too
@@onri_ that deals psychological damage
How do you say “Hi There” and “Dear John” in Latin?
Good, cuz I am getting the hose.
This is what makes experimental archaeology so valuable.
I can imagine some Centurions rolling their eyes as they read Plutarch, like modern military watching a cheesy war film!
The Marius note is another nail in the coffin in the myth that the iron was supposed to bend. If he was trying wooden pins then clearly the iron wasn't bending sufficiently.
Could be just cheaper and easier to replace wooden pegs rather than hammering bent Pila back into shape over and over.
There are so many dynamic in operation with a thrown pilum, I don't think its that simple a conclusion. Sometimes the iron shaft might bend, sometimes not. Maybe no even in the majority of impacts. But as Tods experiments have shown, sometimes the pin would break, sometimes not. But combine the two and you have a more than reasonable chance that a majority will be rendered useless after impact.
@@mnk9073 Replacement being cheaper than repair would be unusual. If the shaft bends easily, then bending it back straight over a field forge (or even just cold) is also easy.
@@mnk9073this was my takeaway from watching - that the breakaway pins mean less damage to the shaft so they can refurbish their weapons faster and be ready to fight again quicker.
@@QuantumHistorianit isn't apples to apples though. You can probably replace the pin with a handy branch of a nearby tree. And the pin replacement takes seconds. What if there are a series of battles?
I love this discussion. These are the sorts of historical references that keep coming back, and we keep talking about them - because they're interesting! Seeing some actual testing done is just great.
Anyway, we've waited since Plutarch. I see no problem with waiting until Spring. Thanks Tod!
I question the "throwing back" thing as well. When these things are thrown, the full contact is already about to start any second. There is absolutely no time to pick up, or pull out and throw back.
My thoughts, also.
These are hitting across the breadth and thickness of the enemy line.
It's not impossible or even improbable that some schmuck from the back can grab one and throw it back
Also, it's not like the entire line is in contact, the unit most likely has men at the back not in contact
There's one scholar who posited that there could have been extended missile throwing with men in the back handing their pila to the men at the front. If that happened then keeping the enemy from throwing back a dangerous armour piercing missile would make sense.
A lot of the talk about the pilum bending or snapping also almost seems to imply that the Pilum was some "secret" Roman weapon they had to keep out of the hands of their enemies. Like it was the radar of fighter jet or something.
Reality is ofc that the Pilum was (as far as we know) a 4th-5th century BCE Etruscan design that had spread across the western Med long before the Roman conquests. IIRC we have examples of Gallic pila all the way in Czechia from the time when the Romans were still fighting for hegemony in Latium.
My ancient history professor was adament that you dont listen to plutarch for military history, in his case in comparison to Arrian (whom you should listen to)
Nice analysis. Smart military commanders keep their kit simple.
As I am guessing others have said, it seems like a very niche modification for a solved problem. Having the wooden pin means that a soldier can't reliably use the pilum as a spear. I know that some periods of Roman soldiers would have carried 2, but that still limits one's defense against cavalry.
That´s a big downside of all the wooden peg hypothesis. For a marginal improvement (if any) of your capabilities as a javelin, you suddenly lose the capability of use the pilum as a short spear. I don´t believe that it´s a worthwhile trade off. May be in a very particular situation (fighting against an enemy with no or almost no mounted forces), but not as a norm.
Yes, and there is no archaeological evidence for a wooden pin, only finds with iron pins.
That's what I've always thought. It just takes away so much capability in the pila for what's likely very little practical effect.
Something I have to commend about some of your films is how you try getting actual guys who are good at the stuff you're trying to replicate. Having people like Joe, Michael and Matt lend their abilities to this type of experimental archeology is so cool. Almost like the real deal back in the day, a soldier may not be able to make his weapon and the craftsman behind it may not be as good at swinging it.
Especially so in this case. An average person throwing these may not have had any problems with them breaking during the throw, but a Roman legionnaire was far from average.
If the weapon is thrown when enemy is in mid charge then I doubt throwing it back is on the enemy's mind.
Gotta think long term. What if the battle goes on longer? If sides separate then clash again? Or reinforcements come in, or you actually lose? Arming the enemy is never a good idea.
In field battles the idea of "throwing the pilum back" is just generally a bit nonsensical; it probably happened (during sieges, for example) but it is not a light javelin for skirmishing actions; it's a heavy, short ranged throwing spear that most likely would be used to blunt an enemy charge just before engaging in melee; opportunities to throw Pila back would be a an oddity.
@@BobT36 if you lose the battle, you have armed the enemy either way; you think the enemy is going to leave the pila behind because an easily replacable part was broken?
@@BobT36There are so many questions about this subject to be sure
If the enemy line is charging you and you throw the wooden pin version isnt there a significant chance you break their charge or trip them up as the pilum shaft is now at foot level and could really trip or foul someones legs up? I feel like this is possibly why Marius would use this in the first place. Having a spear sticking out of your shield is cumbersome sure but its not likwly to make you fall down mid charge.
I left the last video thinking that no soldier would use a weapon that fails 10-30% of the time when their life is on the line. Thank you for discussing it further.
Glad to come back for you, but I am pretty sure it could be made reliable, just not sure of what the point would be
@@tods_workshop I would joke and guess ceremonial use? 😄 History is littered with good ideas and inventions that were never widely adopted. Perhaps there was a singular/limited event that led to its invention but the resource cost (constant repair of roughly handled weapons, post-battle repairs etc.) were not worth the cost for an empire-wide implementation.
@@tods_workshop There is another way to make it very reliable, I posted it as its own comment, but picture the metal head as a sliding bolt lock with a wooden pin stopping it sliding, but it being constrained from tilting until it reaches its ultimate slid state. The portion that protrudes when it pivots must be prevented from sticking out (no channel for it to do so) until a sufficient travel backwards happens (due to direct thrusting impact, and shattering of the pin). In this configuration it would be able to be loaded sideways as hard as the metal blocking the slit is able to support. It could be swung with immense force without loading the pin at all
It's an interesting idea and of course Tod being Tod it's well tested with a spot of engineering trial and error and Michael the spear chucker extraordinaire of course. The question that springs to mind is why would they have gone to the effort to do it? The normal pilum was a well proven weapon, it could be stacked, dropped, bunged in a pile in a cart where as the wooden pinned ones would be more vulnerable to the Roman equivalent of a squaddy can break anything syndrome.
To be fair, it wouldn't be hard to keep crates of replacements on hand, or for soldiers to whittle a new one if it broke.
Sounds like the wooden pin pilum was one of those bright ideas that someone suggested back in the day on ye olde Shark Tank, which looked great on paper but turned out to be impractical.
To us modern people this is great, we dont have to make a new Pilum everytime it hits something, but Rome was producing those in the thousands on basically production lines. I dont think they'd care if they bent or broke after hitting something, so long as it hit something.
Why would you have to make a new pilum everytime it hits something? If it bends, when you're recovering them after the battle, just straighten it. If you're really worried about work hardening, occasionally reheat it at the forge slightly. No need to remake the whole object!
@@QuantumHistorian I mean bending the tip is one thing, but with the point nailed straight into wood thats also likely to be a failure point where the wood snaps under the forces.
Its true for Roman soldiers it would be no trouble at all, they'd have weapon smiths with them on campaigns, I'm just saying its convinient for modern reenactment and recreational throwing to have a failure point like that.
You've also lost the ability to use your spear as a spear. I know I wouldn't want to sacrifice the ability to use the pilum as an anti cavalry pike in a pinch just for a neat trick when throwing. I think there is too much utility lost for marginal gain.
You could still stick the first one with the pointy end just fine at least with slightly tougher wooden pin, and once you have done that properly you probably end up having to drop the weapon shear pin or not - weapons tend to stick in armour, shields, and flesh. You don't have time to wrestle with getting it free you just take the one the man behind hands forward or draw your sword. So I don't think it makes much odds there, it would always be the in a pinch we are desperate thing to use any weapon designed to be thrown by not throwing it.
Didn't the Romans carry two throwing spears, a heavy and a light?
Maybe
Thanks for the shout out. Love this series!
Thanks for making the point. It was annoyingly obvious in hindsight but you were (I think) the only one to mention it and it would certainly solve the problem I encountered.
I will say that the more I think and learn about this, and think about even modern realities of life-and-death gear, the more I think this idea comes off as the thoughts of a technical nerd (I mean that with love lol) who doesn't use the gear themselves; or most importantly, doesn't use it in the conditions it would end up in in the field. It might be able to work wonderfully most of the time and be a fair bit better than your "standard", but if it's opening the door for outright failure through grounded realities such as weather, accidents, the rough treatment of tired, bad-tempered meat-heads; I can see many experienced men raising their eyebrows. It's pretty reasonable that they might have trialled it at least; but at the same time, how much does it really give you even if everything goes flawlessly? They are likely only going to throw a pilum back at you if they win the fight and take them to the next. It's kind of like preparing for a loss in a way.
I don't think it'd be worth it just through the way men seem to always end up treating their gear in the field. And I can just imagine cases like a cart being filled with these things ("primed") while on a march, and when they take them out to ready for a fight, half of the pins are broken and need doing again, or worse; half of them have been weakened so that they shear on being thrown. The "fix" for that would be to prime them right before they're thrown - but that's a big weakness in itself. Plus a spearhead just flopping about when it's unprimed is also a weakness in itself.
My thoughts exactly...This is not very practical thing to use in combat. Soldiers are hard on gear and the pins would be constantly breaking just from everyday activity when you're not even in combat.
@@johnjapuntich3306 A little test idea for Tod might be simply dropping the pin-pilum a few times (from different angles that might happen through normal daily-carrying) and seeing if the pins break, *or weaken* so that pins that otherwise would not break on a throw, now break. Imo that'd basically kill the pin idea
Tom - I agree with every word - thanks
Indeed. I think the good idea fairy has moved in with tod.
@@tods_workshop Always great to hear the man himself agreeing with me ;) I thought just after writing this: The next time you do a video on these pin-pila, it might be an idea to simply try dropping them in ways that would be likely in day-to-day use. You might end up with "tough" pins (like boxwood) either outright breaking when the pilum is dropped, or being weakened so that pins that would not normally break on a throw would now break. That'd be a nail in the coffin to the whole idea. Subtle stuff that could be missed by inventors or modern people, but would be a real problem in real use.
I love these videos where we learn things. The distance between pins, I knew that... but only if some said fulcrum. Now that I know the first pin is a fulcrum it makes sense.
I come back to this channel periodically so I can binge the new vids. This series with Michael has been fantastic.
If I were a soldier I would add a third steel pin, that is optional removable. Call it a spear pin. It will function as a spear, but if you want it to break on throwing you could remove it.
That still leaves two pins = structurally intact = no break
@@tods_workshop I think he's suggesting 3 pegs (maybe in 2 holes?), steel +steel and wood, with one of the steel being pulled like a grenade pin prior to throwing, leaving you with functional spear until you pull the pin
One thing that sticks out to me is advancing forward. If the pilum is in the shield bent towards the ground it would be pretty difficult to move forward. It would be tripping you and possibly the man to either side. Personally id prefer to have a weapon that isnt going to break on the way to battle
Pilums lodged in a shield will already drag along the ground when embedded in a shield
@@xXnoscopeheadshots I get that. But it would be a different type of awkward dragging the ground. Not saying it would be worse it's just something to consider.
Excellent content, as always. Just a few thoughts:
1. I really don't think anyone would want to use these if there is even a small risk of breaking before, or during, the first throw. A soldier has to be able to rely on his kit and a battlefield is no neat and well controlled area. The pilum might get caught on a branch, or on another legionaries weapon whilst running, etc. The return throw is hypothetical, the first one is, basically, guaranteed. If I was a centurion, with the responsibility of bringing the majority of my men victoriously back home to their families, loved ones, and… "women of negotiable affection", I don't think I would ever want to equip them with these. Even if they only broke, too soon, 5% of the time.
2. That said, let's assume that they were used. I'm not convinced of the whole not being able to throw back argument. Partly because most throws would, hopefully, impact amongst the enemy. We can see that Michael's aim is solid, at a bit of range they might not have been able to hit specific soldiers but surely most would hit something when throwing at a target the size of the broad side of a barn. And it seems that the vast majority of the ones that do hit wouldn't have been thrown back. Most would be stuck or too bent. Yes I know you could, in theory, throw back a bent one, but surely this would limit the potential damage, especially against, what the Romans would consider, their superior shields and armour. So it seems to me that only a very few pilums would be in a good shape to be thrown back anyway. And, besides, this does not appear to have been much of a concern, as far as I am aware, for other armies of antiquity or even the mediaeval ages.
3. Which all brings me to my final thought. Assuming, still, that these were used, I actually suspect it might in a way be for the opposite reason people seem to think. In the account it spoke of the pilum getting stuck and dragging on the ground. As Toby pointed out, it would do so anyway. But in what manner? If the pin breaks the pilum will naturally want to bend at the joint. If not then it will naturally bend along the metal shaft, causing metal fatigue. So after your inevitable and glorious victory you scrounge around the battlefield, pick up any pilums you may find, and head off to the next conflict. How many times would it have to bend before eventually breaking? 10 times? 40? 100? Eventually it will snap, and then it would be the devils work to forge it back together again. You could do it, but it wouldn't be fun. Worse still is the fact that with each throw the chance of it bending on impact and not causing the damage it otherwise would have is increasing. By having the pilum deliberately bend on a joint, instead of bending on the metal, I believe you could add to its overall "lifetime" by not an insignificant amount… At least I can see how some higher-up bastard would consider it an excellent way to save on resources. Incidentally, it seems unlikely that they would have phrased it in terms of "cost effective" or "saving resources". If nothing else, that sounds bad for morale. Better to say things like "they won't be able to throw them back", and "the pilum will drag on the ground more, further disrupting the barbarians"... Then, again, if I was a centurion I would probably see to it that we "accidentally" lost the pins, and then, with a bit of elbow grease, ensure that I, "by sheer good fortune", came upon a blacksmith with a convenient amount of metal rods. Can hardly blame a man for improvising. Even if the wooden pins would work, I doubt most of the officers on the ground would want their men to have to rely on a flimsy piece of wood.
I think three things would be interesting to find out. 1. Are there any reliable sources that indicate that soldiers or officers were actually concerned about the enemy throwing weapons back. Now not just looking at the Romans. 2. How often would a pilum, thrown not at a single target but rather at a body of men, be in a condition to be thrown back. 3. How many times could you throw a pilum(with metal pin) before metal fatigue would have a noticeable effect.
Anyway, that's enough of my idle speculation. Toby, please keep up your excellent work. Well performed practical research like this really brings us all a lot closer to the past than any purely theoretical work ever could.
I wont be holding my breath until spring thank you, i want to live.
Really appreciate the investagative approach you take to this. Highlighting doubts, uncertainties, even comments from previous videos!
Another Greek historian interested in Roman affairs, Polybius (in 15 - 12), describes the advance of the Roman legions like this: "When the phalanxes were close to each other, Romans fell upon their foes, raising their war-cry and clashing their shields with their spears as is their practice"
I think this has some implications for the idea that the Romans would deliberately weaken their spears.
A century before Marius though
@@QuantumHistorian Yes I included only the most obvious example. It can be found in Dio as well. Read Cowan's The Clashing of Weapons and Silent Advances in Roman Battles for comprehensive sources.
One thing you didn't mention or test is how much energy is lost from the pin breaking and losing much of the mass of the wooden shaft. I'd be interested in a second set of tests that focus on the comparative ability of the two types of pilum to penetrate armor after going through the shield.
@ElodieFiorella That's why I specified ability to penetrate armor *after* going through the shield. The initial impact on the shield will likely break the pin and the spacing between the shield and armor would provide time for the shaft and handle to go out of alignment especially when factoring in how the shield itself will pivot.
I agree with Elodie - a small dampening effect, but not enough to matter much
While changing the separation between the two pins might solve the problem, it might be ahistorical. Lots (by the standards of Roman military archaeology anyway) of pila heads have been found, so there's data about what the distance between the two pins actually was. M.C. Bishop's _The Pilum_ (Osprey, 2017) has compiled more-or-less all the available data I believe.
I agree that trying to stay close to the archaeological record would be more interesting. The metal tubing and pin distance might not be the best solutions, as mentioned elsewhere cutting a notch in the (thicker) pin and switching the roles of the two pins (iron/wood) might work just as well.
I'm a bit skeptical about the elongated hole too - is there any precedent for that ?
Jancello - for the wood to shear, the solid pin must allow for the movement required, so it has to be an elongated hole. No elongation = no movement, no movement = no shear. But of course we have no archaeological evidence so the whole thing may just be ancient BS
@@tods_workshop I think you are wrong there Tod, it isn't the only way it can work. Remember it isn't really one solid object even if you have just a fixed pivot, so the inertia of the relatively heavy high momentum shaft will make it want to rotate around the metal pin. Which it will try almost all the time as on impact it isn't travelling that perfectly straight and the tip will bite into something and stop much rapidly than the back.
The wooden pin may have to be rather thinner than yours in that situation but on hitting anything the tip sticks in the odds are reasonable it will still fold and shear once you find the right ballpark of stick diameter - As the tip is stuck in something and probably won't be able to match the desired rotation of the shaft as the whole thing didn't enter that target dead straight. Leading to a sharp impulse on the wooden pin, that despite it being rotational so only a smaller fraction of the energy with how straight the hit should be can be high enough the pin will be sheared by a more scissor like motion.
When compared to your designs more chisel like shearing action the more rotational breaking method may even be more reliable in practice, might not break on impact as often but will almost certainly not survive being pulled out of whatever it is stuck in. And as that metal pin is directly part of taking all directions of loads while throwing you don't need nearly as tough a wooden peg to survive the throw - even your expert thrower I'd doubt can accelerate it nearly as fast as it will decelerate on hitting something, and almost certainly doesn't put nearly as much rotational forces on the wooden peg as the impact tying to fold it does, as that would be really wasting their energy.
@@tods_workshop We do have some evidence for pilum tangs and pin holes. Not to harp on about it again, but on pp12-14 of Bishop's books we see about 20 different examples (and more later). Heavily corroded naturally, but the holes do look circular rather than elliptical. If the iron pin must be in an elliptical hole for the wooden one to break (and your argument sounds convincing), then this would be further evidence against widespread adoption of a wooden pin.
As an aside, next time you have Michael over, can you get him to try the throwing drill from page 46?
I can send you a pdf of the book if you don't have a copy.
As i commented in the last video about the Pilum with wood pegs, was that the pegs needed to be made with both pegs wooden. Or the enemies can just take a stick as a new peg and throw the Pilums back. If both pegs break it would take to long to "fix" the Pilum because the Pilum will end up in two pieces.
And the wood pegs need to be a really strong wood to stop breaking when thrown.
I don't think it's as easy as you think.
Remember, these are the last steps being taken before lines plunge into a proper battle. As a soldier on the receiving end of a pilum, I would have moments to resolve one stuck in my shield before having to deal with the head of a spear being thrust in my face, while not being able to slow down or break pace with the other soldiers in line with me.
Secondly, the secondary purpose of the pilum is to encumber the shield, either forcing the user to drop said shield because he can't march efficiently with it, or just prevent the user from being able to defend properly, due to the added weight.
Dropping the haft of the pilum on impact would mean that the shield isn't really encumbered anymore. it may have a small hole in it, but where having to pull a spear out of a shield would be a tedious task, especially in a formation, pulling out a dagger size chunk of metal is a LOT easier, and could probably be done without breaking stride.
@@Skyfighter64 I was thinking like someone who makes Pilums. And not as a battle tactician 😁
@Skyfighter64 But yes. In a real battle situation, there isn't much tome to act.
That would also probably help with the breaking by accident problems as well - as it stands you have one more delicate pin and the metal pin that doesn't take much load by design, but with two wooden pin both are sharing that load - they will still shear when they hit something rather easily as that is orders of magnitude more impulse than the throw, but now the throwing forces are distributed and as both pins are similarly compressible and elastic wood you probably don't get enough force concentration on a single one. That is however very clearly not what the reference suggests.
something to consider is the amount of iron that would be saved by using a single wooden peg... it could be used simply because they were lacking replacement pins/iron for battle and the wooden peg was the known goto when resources were running low.
People writing after the fact maybe coming up with reasons on why it was superior, when it was actually not by the people using it seen as a better way but a stop gap for supply issues.
Unlikely the Romans were lacking iron, they mass produced the stuff in huge quantities. Iron nails (basically the same thing as a pin) were dirt cheap compared to the period just before and just after the Romans. Not to mention that 1 iron pin that works for ever is going to be cheaper than having a new wooden pin every single throw.
@@QuantumHistorian Think you are missing the point.
How much iron the roman empire had is not relevant.
We are talking local supply, further 5-10% of iron is lost when forged as scale.
Its quite easy to see a local fort running short on iron after a few battles and repairs to weapons simply through loss through forging.
Also we cant assume the blacksmiths had the time to make pins for Pilums or if they were busy fixing swords and other things and reducing the amount of pins needed to be made by half by using wood could have a significant effect on how fast they could return to 100% battle effectiveness carving wooden pins is something any soldier could do.
@@givemeanameman1 It's easier to make 1 iron pin once, than a wooden pin per throw. And why would they suddenly have to make tons of metal pins all at once? Now I agree that it's entirely possible that, once, somebody jammed some wood in their pila to fix a broken metal pin. But that's so far from what Plutarch is saying, that neither can be said to corroborate the other. In other words, it's pure speculation.
@@QuantumHistorian Stop telling people they are wrong when you have nothing to actually add and even the least amount of thought possible on your end would negate your own post.
Romans had forts
Forts got attacked
If the Romans didn't win and were still besieged then the Fort couldn't recover thrown pilums.
Just one example.
Another is they got sent lots of Pilum heads but the pins were not sent, either because they were expected to be made on site, or they got lost either through war or logistics mistakes.
We have EVIDENCE they apparently DID use a wooden pin to the point its mentioned not as a single "instant" implied, but on mass.
We have experimental evidence that the reasons given on why they used wooden pins does not add up, but using them can work.
Speculation is without facts.
We have facts, which means its a hypothesis.
Of course I don't claim my theory is correct, I was offering it as a possible explanation.
You have consistently attempted to find why its "wrong" in a method that is not only not constructive but which even on your end with minimal mental effort you could discard your own argument.
It sounds like a solution searching for a problem to me. I thought it was to keep the enemy from throwing it back, but the soft metal shaft would accomplish the same thing without introducing another failure point.
Cant wait for Michael to return! Just seeing him throwing that thing is a blast.
Michael was a really fun addition!
What hit him at 6:32? Whatever it was, good job at ignoring it Tod.
seems like a brown leaf
I zoomed in and watched it frame by frame. I think it's a leaf based on the shape and way it moves. When it hits Todd, he is locking the pilum back into place at the same time making a loud clunk noise. So it seemed like the object smacked him with some force. But since he didn't flinch or react, I suspect it was just a leaf.
Thanks for pointing this out, I missed it all together when I first watched the film.
How lovely to hear well researched living history. I have made a few of these weapons myself, they are lethal, would knock the impetus out of any enemy charge. I think the wood pin may have been more trouble than it was worth. Soldiers of all times in history wanted a weapon they could rely on. Respect to Michael for his hard work.
I love the constant experimentation that goes on in this channel.
Great content as always Tod thank you for the update on this!
I love everything about this: thoughtful commentary, insight that I did not expect, respect for those that came before, those that commented recently, and for Michael the thrower, and a nice twist at the end I did not see coming (that of doubling the length between fasteners), plus enthusiasm and humility throughout. Easily one of my fave channels - and I’m in no way even remotely involved in any of this!!! Top marks for Tod.
Michael is now likely the world's finest and foremost pilum expert. That is a laudable title aside from any awards he deservedly gains in his sports career. It's always fascinating and educational to see the videos you two produce.
I have known of the Marian modification to the plum since I first read about them around 30 years ago. For this reason I have followed these two videos with a great deal of interest and I look forward to the results once Michael is able to help you with the testing again.
plums are sweet
Tod. Thanks. Keep nerding out...its so gratifying.
One test for the future I think would be interesting. Is to create a 160lb compound longbow (if that's even possible) and use it against plate, and mail armour. Always wondered if adding in some modern tech to crossbows, bows, bolts, and arrows would have better results against 15th, and 16th-century plate armour.
With sights on both the bow and crossbow, you can also pick where you want to hit and hit it, giving you data accurately
i love channels that have subtitles :D. they dont forgett about the deaf, the bad hearing and the ones, that maybe understand the language but needs a help to read for the full understanding (last part is me xD)
Two things this could help in battle: Enemy charges, pin breaks and the shaft digs into ground, halting movement. Or when you are charging, the pila won't be sticking against you.
Still quite sceptical to this being that useful. There's some logistical stuff too, how to keep them intact in the heat of battle, before you get to throw it even, if it snaps easily. Many would have had a limp stick in their hands.
how embarrassing
I would have thought another good reason to have these break on impact is so your own troops don’t have to advance through a lot of these sticking in the ground with the rear point towards them should they miss or fall short.
That's a solid idea, but I don't think it holds up. If you advance through your old pila, you'll have already pushed back the enemy by 15+ meters. The ground will be riddled with injured and dying men that would make quick traversal near impossible anyways.
Also, if that's an issue, it's a bigger one for the enemy. Roman soldiers would march forwards and with shields to protect them. The enemy in that scenario would stumble backwards while being pushed to the defense, much more likely to be injured by the pila
Add a thin strip of wood attached to the head and extending back along the shaft to the grip. The thrower holds the shaft and the thin strip clamped together by their grip. This takes all stress off the pin during throwing, and allows for an even lighter pin that is more likely to break on impact.
The best thing about this design is that you can reload spears without using a blacksmith.
Since you don't have to bend iron, after metal bend but only replace wood split out.
This is something everyone can do quickly and does not require training or a lot of time after battle.
One thing you can test before Michael comes back is whither the bendable pilum can penetrate just as much as the normal pilum. I imagine some of the energy will be lost when the pin breaks and the handle rotates. Probably not a lot of difference, but would still be interesting to see.
That argument of the pin breaking accidentally, leaving you without the weapon when you need it is a valid point for this being unreliable to use on the battlefield. Although it's still useful in a fortification when the defenders were in a safe position and didn't want the attackers to throw the pilums back.
in a fort you use arrows because you're not a heavy infantry formation charging the enemy
I'm genuinely excited for the next Pilum episode!
I like seeing, that you never stop evaluating the usefulnes of your own interpretations of sources and your own inventions.
The fact that (seeminglt) noone ever mentioned the "you cannot throw the pilum back now" in historical sources is a strong indicator, that it was not a problem in the first place.
Keep up the good work 👍👍👍
Another possible quick and dirty fix is to try to hold the spear with the peg up-down rather than horizontal. That way, there will be little force trying to shear the pin during the throw.
In this video you mentioned that it wouldn’t have been a “ thing “ that the pilum would bend after it hit a shield in order to stop the enemy throwing it back at you because just having a 6’ javelin hanging out of your shield made that very difficult anyway. But not every pilum thrown would hit a shield, possibly a large proportion could just end up on the ground or in someone. Also if the pilum didn’t bend on impact then the enemy had a choice (a) throw it back at you or (b) use it as a stabbing weapon against you. Another thing is that with the wooden pin it would be important that when the wooden pin breaks that the shaft would still be attached to the head of the spear as if it sheered completely then the head of the spear could be used as a stabbing weapon. Another situation that could possibly occur on the battlefield : the enemy picks up an intact and straight pilum and decides to use it in close quarter combat as a stabbing weapon , would a sideways strike against the metal shaft with a gladius then bend or break the pins in the pilum rendering it useless. ? Perhaps you could make a video on this ? Thank you for your reasearch which helps us understand our history.
adjusting the distance between the holes is such an obvious but subtle solution!
I wish all good luck for Michael‘s academic year. Definitly worth the waiting.
Another point that was raised in the comments, but not mentioned here, is that the pilum was also occasionally used as a melee spear in hand-to-hand combat. Caesar and Arrian both wrote about this. It's hard to see how a wooden pin would be functional in this case. It's possible that there was a heavy version and a light version of the pila, and only the former was used in melee and only the latter had a wooden pin?
I think the argument that the slight benefit was worth the general logistical hassle, and that this was a permanent redesign of the weapon by Marius rather than a one off experiment, still needs to be made. Frankly, if the pilum did have a wooden pin for the 2 centuries between Marius and Plutarch, it's weird that Plutarch felt the need to describe and explain it: his audience would have been utterly familiar with it! It's a common annoyance of modern historians that the ancient sources don't mention things we really want to know because it was just an obvious part of day-to-day life for them lol.
I agree that the wooden peg offers some benefits, but it massively reduces other aspects like using it as a conventional spear which on occasion seems to be done
Always the problem with historical sources, we can't know if this was the one historical nutter who wants to make sure you venerate the right inventor of the now day to day tech, the mad diarist that often records the most trivial stuff in detail, somebody who saw/heard something unusual enough to document it or a story teller making stuff up. And as relatively little documentation survives it is nearly impossible to know for sure without archaeological evidence and experiments like Tods.
Though I have seen more than a few mentions of Roman legions carrying different weight throwing weapons, from enough different (but never as far as I recall a primary) sources I'd suggest at least at some point in the lifespan of that Empire in some area it was done. But when the Empire lasts for a long time, is peopled by a rather diverse cultural groupings it seems, and covers huge areas it is probably fair to say anything remotely in range of their technology would be tried at least once...
I think the orientation of the pivot is crucial for a successful launch. Think of the hinge as a sandwich: if the thrower throws the pilum with the sandwich vertical, the pivot could break as it’s thrown. But if the sandwich was horizontal, the pivot would be as strong as possible to resist breaking the pivot. That would mean that the soldier had to always look at the orientation of his pilum. Or, the shaft would need to be shaped in a way that was instinctive as to the orientation. Like an oval shaft.
Could you make a video of Schola Gladiatoria wielding a shield with a regular pilum stuck in and trying to fight, then a shield with the wooden pin pilum?
Props to the guy who figured it out thats a simple but elegant solution
agreed
I'd love to see you try some more variants of this with so different ways of doing this, like not making the ovoid pin hole but just replacing the rear pin with wood?
To prevent the break when throwing you could turn the pilum 90° in your hand. The pin will be vertical and will not suffer the same stress. But it may also be the acceleration that breaks the pin (and not the slight rotation) since the wood handle is pushing the metal head forward, the metal head is pushing back on the pins. So if there is some loose fitting with the metal pin, the wooden pin will bear some stress.
Would it need to be a tube? Or could they have just put a metal strip across inside, below the pin, to act as a cutting edge. Just thinking it might have been simpler for the Romans to do, instead of a tube. Love all your videos! This series has been excellent!
Yeah, punching a hole in a plate is 1000x easier than hand forging a tube.
If they constructed it in similar fashion to Tods a small part of that outer metal reinforcement sheet could just be bent into the wood, stamp a tab free and bend it over before you even attach it to the shaft. A little more work than your suggestion probably, but not too much more and rather more reliable as that metal strip can't be forgotten (on purpose to save time and make more money or by accident) and render the feature less reliable or just fall out.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 your solution is far better than mine! Well done.
@@gregmuon quite right!
@@craigrussell7542 Thanks, though I doubt I would have thought to do anything different to Tod if you hadn't probed that concept. And now I've thought on it I agree with you - I highly doubt the folks of history would want to drill that deep through a solid bar or roll a sheet to make the tube.
Rather too easy to get stuck in modern mindset when at worse the stock material that is almost exactly what you want as a finished part is trivially ordered, 'cheap' and delivered.
One thing that hasn't been considered so far: Your target is moving towards you, probably at a rather fast pace. If it hits a Linothorax and "only" penetrates an inch, the pin breaks, the shaft swings to the ground and gets stuck, the momentum of the 70 kg target meets the stuck shaft and he essentially runs himself through despite his armour. Turning a minor injury into a lethal one, raising the efficiency of your pila.
But this would happen without the pin breaking. The pilum isn't going to stay horizontally sticking out of your chest, gravity will make the back fall towards the ground.
Tod and the community here are brilliant
12:07
😝I would die if I held my breath that long Tod!
Good film and analysis! Always looking forward to new finds
Don't know if it has been mentioned, but - the thickness of the peg would obviously make an impact. Thick enough to withstand the force of the throw, thin enough to break on impact.
I think Plutarch may very well be correct on the purpose of this mechanism. A pilum that doesn't break will always pull the shield directly downwards. However if you throw the breakable pilum into a shield with the axis of motion being about parallel with the ground, the shaft will want to fall sideways instead, which would make it much harder to hold onto the shield properly.
There'd be centurions carrying pouches full of metal pins if these had been introduced.
even if the guys at the top said "use the unreliable wooden bits" youd just have soldiers with some nails in their belt swapping out the wood pin before they threw
Tod: Michael throws like a god.
You could say he throws like Jupiter.
That would do!
My only reply to the question is that while the intact Pilum also impedes the shield if stuck in it (arguable moreso than just the head being stuck) it is far easier to remove. It's got a great big handle, which while making it more awkward, also provides means and leverage to pull it out. Just the head being stuck in means a relatively thin metal bit that you cannot easily grip. So it might not be that it did something the original Pilum did not do, it might be that it was more able to continue to inconvenience the enemy (with the addition of not being able to be thrown back). That said, you raise really good points about the over all utility of the concept. I mean what makes this different from the war darts and the throwing arrows we see through other eras? We know those worked, why would one use a Pilum? Because it can double as a melee weapon if you have to close. And a breakaway head diminishes that capacity.
I agree with you that it is unlikely to have been deployed. The fact that it is mentionned in one written source, however, may indicate that the idea was experimented with. Which is interesting in its own right. We rarely get the full story of experimentation on technology from the historical/archaeological record.
As I have said, try offsetting the rear peg hole from the centre line and use a larger wooden peg. This should achieve the same result .
Pretty sure we know from archaeology that the pin holes in pila were both on axis and not offset. While your solution might very well work, it wouldn't be historical AFAIK.
I agree with Quantum that is goes away from what we know to be normal, but also I don't see how this changes anything - can you explain?
Your dedication to investigating history and accuracy is amazing and admirable!!!
While it's a very interesting idea I find every aspect of it to be inconvenient for actual military use.
Surely pila would get bumped here and there when marching or setting up camp, which would lead to them breaking outside of combat. Sure they can carry extra pins or carve them on the spot, but what if the wood is swollen? What if the broken bit is hard to extract?... sounds like a pain for little benefit.
As far as I know, the historical debate isn't settled as to whether the Romans also used the pilum as a spear for hand to hand combat, in which case them breaking would be very undesirable.
So yeah, I believe this detail is likely invented by Plutarch (who had no military experience) as flavour text. Great video as usual!
Another approach might be to use the method used by 19th century whalers. They had similar problems throwing a harpoon. The illustrations show them throwing with the hand gripping the back of the shaft. That would keep the driving forces in a narrow line to the head and reduce the risk of prematurely dislodging the head.
It is surprising how warm and cosy a weapons' channel can be.
I am cuddly and sometimes even cute and fuzzy
A more serious note on physics: the pin breaking during the throw may not be due to rotation. Linear acceleration of the pilum will cause it to break as well, because remember, the force driving the steel head forward is all going through that pin.
There is a solution but it's annoying. You want forward acceleration to put pressure on the metal pin, and rearward acceleration to put pressure on the wood. You make both holes slightly oval, then put the metal pin at the rear of the hole and the wood pin at the front. Then, when accelerating forward, the pressure is on the metal pin. When it hits and accelerates in the other direction, the pressure is on the wooden pin.
It would be so funny to me if the whole thing was just a PR stunt. They tried to save a bit of metal by using only one (or no) metal nails and wooden pins instead, and Plutarch just tried to sell it as a good idea
It would be interesting to see the dimensions of existing pilum and see how those heads match up to the one you made.
This is what experimental archaeology is all about, & that is why I really like this channel.
As Tod's said, Plutarch wrote almost 200 years after Marius ' death and liked him very much. I would say that even if the modification was invented and adopted by Marius himself it wouldn't been in use for long, since Ceaser wrote in the De Bello Gallico (30-ish years after Marius death) that the iron part was the one bending:
"His soldiers hurling their javelins from the higher ground, easily broke the enemy's phalanx. That being dispersed, they made a charge on them with drawn swords. It was a great hinderance to the Gauls in fighting, that, when several of their bucklers had been by one stroke of the (Roman) javelins pierced through and pinned fast together, as the point of the iron had bent itself, they could neither pluck it out, nor, with their left hand entangled, fight with sufficient ease; so that many, after having long tossed their arm about, chose rather to cast away the buckler from their hand, and to fight with their person unprotected." (De Bello Gallico, 1 25).
Mandatory sorry for my bad english, it's not my first language
I read somewhere that the strait rod part behind the flare of the tip would bend on impact. This of course would have a similar effect as the design showen here, but might make entry into the shield quite a lot more difficult.
Sadly I forgot where I read that and therefore have no source.
I (and many others) suspect that is just an artefact of the main reason for the construction in that it penetrates really deeply and the side effect is that it can, but not always/often bend. So people think it was deliberate, but probably it just happened as a side effect.
Could a wooden peg not be about breaking on impact, but just an economical measure to make a pilum cheaper?
After all, large-scale warfare in the times of Marius created a huge demand, so even a small cost optimization would've been significant. And sometimes these pegs broke.
And Plutarch then retroactively attributed "extra cleverness" to the design. After all, he couldn't just say that Marius was cheap, so it had to be about combat effectiveness =)
That is a good point. The last century of the Republic needed to recruit masses of new recruits for the cheap, and archeologists have uncovered evidence of a decline in the quality of equipment because they had to be mass produced cheaply. Late Republican helmets and armor were less consistent in quality and had less decorations. Gladius swords also seem to have gotten shorter.
So one slight experiment worth testing could be to change the orientation of the oblong or slotted hole by 90 degrees, this eliminates the force on the wood pin at launch with the possibility of shearing or cutting the wood pin at impact.
Also, the weapon of any soldier should be versatile, used not just for throwing, which is the main point of this design. If one were to use it for thrusting or parry it would surely fail.
I wouldn't want a breakable pilum because it also acts as a good backup spear if the soldier encounters cavalry or needs extra reach. In those cases, I would want to have at least 1 pilum that won't break when used. Wasn't the idea that the iron tip would bend, also helping it stay in the shield and to keep it from being turned back on the original user? Maybe you covered that in another video.
The other videos and works by MC Bishop shows that the bending pila is a myth. The pila is sturdy and doesn't bend easily, and can neutralize shields without bending.
Great stuff. Plus the shear pin would reduce a soldier's ability to use it as a hand spear (not it's main purpose, but certainly better than nothing if that's all a soldier had).
Pila are pretty decent spears, and it would be the only weapon the Romans could really rely upon when faced with enemy cavalry; wooden pegs would be really bad as it pretty much means you can't defend against cavalry; not only that, the mere idea of the pilum beign thrown back at you is a bit unrealistic; these wapons would likely be thrown during the enemy charge to break the enemy's cohesion and then countercharge; (or when attacking, just throwing and charging the enemy before they can recover) if the enemy has the time to dislodge the pilum and throw it back something has gone horribly wrong already.
Thank you for the further explanation.
I always heard that the metal head being thin allowed to it twist with the impact and thus creating a dead weight added to the shield; and also the imposibility to throw it back.
Thank you for diving deeper into this! And i have found that just as most internet interaction about experimental archaeology and history have some of the best communities and I've often read something in one of your videos that has begun the journey to learning something and it's a good willed and thoughtful and curious community - its refreshing and rather nice 😅
Thank you
If instead of a round pin you use rectangular pegs, rotated so that the widest side faces in the same direction as the point, then to break with a linear force will be far easier than with a rotational force. Like imagine a lollypop stick, it's FAR easier to break in one direction than the other. Also, it could held in the hand at a specific angle while throwing so that the rotational forces don't align with the plane of rotation of the spike.
The kind of did this as a work-around in the last video as well. The problem is, if the weapon requires such a precise throwing position it is less effective in battle where you don't always have the luxury of making sure your grip and angle are perfect. As Tod says, if the weapon isn't nearly 100% reliable it simply won't be used.
A pilum has been on my Amazon wish list for years.
We also have to recognize this was apparently not used later on in roman history. By the time of Cesar legionaries used the pilum as melee weapons against roman cavalry which makes the breakable pilum kinda useless
Greetings!
While watching the last video, I had a question: isn’t the armour-piercing power of such a projectile and, consequently, the damage and effectiveness inflicted on the target reduced due to the breakage of the pin? Part of the projectile’s energy is wasted in this case.
And, couldn't this also be said about arrows? In "Armour Versur Arrow", the arrows often broke on the armour, and, as a result, could not transfer all the energy.
Also, crossbow bolts seem to be much more durable than bow arrows. This can also be the reason why crossbows have the better armour-piercing ability (and one of their advantages).
I had this thought as well, looked to see if it was already addressed.
The mass and so momentum of just that spear tip is so great it doesn't much matter when targeting a soft and squashy human (or the armour we can carry) if you don't get all the energy from the haft transferred as well. All the wooden shaft has to do is make it easy to throw and fly reasonably well - you could consider it a discarding sabot for the spear tip if you like. As the previous tests with the very fragile often breaking in the throw version showed it still punches holes in shields and armour fine. You are however correct that in general not breaking would be more effective at transferring the energy of the projectile, it would just be overkill in this case most of the time.
Yes the break would dampen it a bot, but I agree with papyrus, not enough to count
I had always read that the metal bent when it hit making the pila unusable. Two things - Soften the metal to make that happen. Notch the metal to give it a fracture point to allow it to snap.
I (and many others) suspect that is just an artefact of the main reason for the construction in that it penetrates really deeply and the side effect is that it can, but not always/often bend
Another aspect to the question of whether it was ever done relates to utility of the weapon. A standard pilum could do double duty as a stabbing spear; and I would suggest probably frequently did. In a melee soldiers would use what was at hand. Especially if it gave them some stand-off distance. The shear pin design would render it a single purpose, single use weapon (until it could be reclaimed and re-pinned)
Great video and great work by those two commenters. Is there any archaeological evidence for pila with extended hole spacing?
There's something else that occurs to me: Plutarch may have missed the obvious! The breaking pin means that pila that miss their targets also break and cannot be thrown back. Remember that troops fought in ranks and someone in the rear ranks may have been able to pick up an unbroken pilum and throw it back.
Looking forward to the next test!!
A slight theoretical improvement to the Pilum as a throwing weapon, a massive detriment to it's practical use, I can se why this idea never caught on; the Pilum is much more than just a Javelin, it is also your spear; I don't think any soldier wants a spear that's made to break easily; besides, the Pilum is going to be thrown from at most something like 25m away; you would not have time to dislodge a pilum and throw it back before lines clash under normal circumstances. (which would also explain why "not being thrown back" isn't mentioned as an advantage to the wooden peg Pilum)
Throwing is not the only time the pin could break. Just carrying the pilum around you risk bumping into things that risk rendering it unusable.