I have been wondering recently, as to why it seems as though pikes went out of style for a while after the conquest of Alexander, and where replaced by wide usage of sword infantry as used by the Romans and in the early medieval period. Just to go back to heavy pike usage during the late medieval period and renaissance. why wouldn't the Romans use pikes as the Macedonian's did? it seemed like it was effective enough for Alexander.
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My understanding of this is that Alexander used the Phalanx to great effectiveness, but if sufficiently outnumbered it lacked the flexibility needed. And once the enemy is standing right next to you, you'd prefer a shorter weapon than a long pike or sarissa. And then the reason they came back is style was heavy cavalry. A mounted charge is far less effective if charging into a group of pikes, because horses wont want to charge head on into that spiky thing, and if they do it tends to kill the horse. Still, it would be an interesting video topic.