swiss pikemen vs roman legion

One, the Swiss pikeman did not deploy as the traditional Greek phalanx did.
Two, the Roman legion did not fight in phalanx formation, but in maniples, in the triplex acies. (Only in the very early stages were phalanxes used).
Three, the Roman Testudo was a later (late republic) construct used by the Roman legions, as a means of repelling missile attacks. It was not a melee fighting formation - so you can't really compare it to a swiss pikeman unit.

Am I misinterpreting you? If so, can you elaborate a tad...

OK. Who wins the war, or who wins a battle.
A battle is entirely dependent on the commander and circumstance (initial positions, army morale, landscape.etc).
For the purpose of comparison though, I believe the Roman legions would prevail against the style of warfare of the Swiss pikeman. Note though, swiss pikeman were not necessarily Swiss Guards. Pikeman were usually equipped with pikes -funnily enough-, while the Swiss guards could wield anything from a halberd, axe, voulgier to a pike. Also fought in different formations.

Regardless, my vote goes to the Romans.

Note: Would you like me to change "Roman Testudo" to "Roman Legions" in the poll?

Thanks,
- Knights -

...I think the Papal defences would seriously mash up the Romans, despite their victory. But despite this, gunpowder doesn't matter because unless the pope has huge divsions of musketeers (anyway, matchlock muskets aren't that reliable), he can't hold of an entire maniple charge.

Mustering on the field of battle the Swiss army settles in to camp for the night, warily eying the Romans across the plateau. Ignoring the obvious historical paradoxes, the Swiss decide that it's best not to ignore so many angry looking Italians with large knives. As the sun sets they take to the daily ritual of setting all theit clocks to the might war-clock mounted atop the mighty chronowagen. The battle will be faught at dawn, so they set their alarms for the predicted sunrise and prepare to sleep.

10 minutes before sunrise the Swiss are jolted awake to the sounds of the screaming wounded and the jarring sound of steel scraping bone. The accursed Romans had forgotten to set their clocks! The bastards were early! Promptly the Swiss assemble and democratically decide the best course of action is to flee screaming.

Meanwhile the Romans enjoy the gore spectacle of the circus of an army they were fighting as the swiss are quickly turned the way of their cheese.


Edited by Zaitsev - 22-Sep-2007 at 09:55

in the main and there will be those with bigger brains who will shoot me down for saying it, but the main point where the romans usually came unstuck were against enemies on horse back in particular but not soley in the case of the parthians,

The whole reason why such pikemen came into creation in the first place was because of gunpowder, which effectively negated armour and traditional methods of war. The assumption for the pikemen would be that there would be at least one piece of artillery on their side, and they would be expecting the enemy to have the same dress because of this. If there was no artillery or small-arms, then there is no reason why the Romans couldn't simply crush their way through.

Yea the Roman Short sword would weave its way throught the Spear wall and would slaughter the Swiss.