So it's always about having a strong right flank because, well, everyone was holding a spear in the right arm. But did they ever pull a baseball move and put southpaws on the left flank?And did this dynamic change into the pike and shot or line warfare era?
>>65155580Wouldnt you want the shields to be faced outwards of the formation for more protection? So lefties on the right and normal folk on the left
>>65155656Ideally you're the one turning the flank, not defending from it. I forget the name of the greek battle, maybe with the fey of Thebes, but it resembled a giant pinwheel when they just megastakk'd the right side and the left of both kept relenting.
my gut tells me that it doesn't actually matter that much, and that it may be a case of ancient fuddlore becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy
>>65155580Short answer, no. You'd end up with a weakpoint where the lefties and righties met and the enemy could exploit this to wreck the entire formation. Lefties usually fought Like righties but were unusually good with their shields.
>>65155580Battle formations that werent strict on spacing and psotion usually stretched out to both sides to try to outflank, the issue with doing that is that eventually your line spaghettis away so much it became weak frontally, so the loose ends weren't THAT loose. You have other type of troops in charge of those flanks, skirmishers, light assault infantry, etc, who would have their own loose mini battles around, in front and beside the main battle.
Back then Spartans knew what to do with the wrong handeds and chucked them off of cliffs.
>>65155683>I forget the name of the greek battleAll of them. Damn near all greek battles were pinwheel affairs.
>>65155967Which is how Thebes recked them by their cunning plan of stacking their best spearmen on their *left* side, completely surprising the Spartans who had no way to compensate.
>>65155580No, because there weren't 'lefties' in that era of warfare. You were trained to be right handed with your sword and trained to be left handed with your shield. Shield walls don't work if you have an 80/20 ratio of R/L like there is today.
>>6515629350 deep is what Sparta wasn't ready for. Alexander was though.
