Jun 4, 2018 · A pilum hitting a shield or armor and not penetrating could cause the point to deform or a bend in the shank immediately after the point. Overall, the pilum was designed and optimized for penetrating flesh (man and beast) and shields, to a lesser extent armor.

Dec 3, 2020 · The conventional picture of the pilum is that every legionary carried two (one heavier and one lighter) and would be launched as a massed volley at the century/cohort level. There were designed to get stuck in shields and bend on impact so as to be hard to remove and throw back. This would break...

Mar 27, 2017 · Why didn't the Romans ever adopt any methods of throwing their pilum farther and/or more accurately than can be achieved with only arm-strength?

Feb 2, 2016 · If replace javelin with pilum, shield with scutum and sword with gladius - we would have a roman legionary. Then remember the battle of Pydna and you can imagine the result. But such combination would be - a big shield + pilum.

Dec 15, 2016 · The Roman pilum was never meant for long range, it was specifically meant to be a *heavy* javelin, thrown point-blank into an enemy formation to disrupt it immediately before a charge.

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It was said that pilum got lighter after the 1st century CE. Since the pilum was tossed away, and they weren''t used against plate steel arnmor, iron for its lower cost it seems to me would have been preferred over steel, as long as it could do the job. When did Roman armies stop using pilums anyways?

Jan 7, 2014 · The Roman ''pilum'' was a throwing spear, used to disable the enemy's shields by bending at the neck of the iron tip so that the spear could not be easily pulled out. The '''hasta'' was a thrusting spear used to knock horsemen off their horses in a cavalry charge.

Bending was a nice side effect but certainly did not always happen, especially because there was a LOT of variation in pilum heads. Some were short and thick. The shield-removing capability was also kind of a side effect, though it certainly happened sometimes. You could also be tripped up if a pilum stuck in your shield and the buttspike was then driven into the ground as you were …

Nov 1, 2013 · Appian. Although the phalanx didn't break to the Roman Pilum and arrow fire at Magnesia (until the were caught between their own elephants) they did retreat due to the effect of it and "suffered severly" and took many causualties. So missle fire doesn't destroy the Phalanx, it did distrupt it IMO. (like missle weapons are meant to do to formations)