RC-1136 说:
That's my impression as well. I have limited experience regarding group "fighting" but having trained a martial art (HEMA) before helped me a lot. Learn to walk before you can run. The principles of fighting stay the same.
There isn't much time for singling out an individual opponent to "work" with but as you said you watch for openings and opportunities a trained fighter is much more versed to recognise. It should tell us a lot that historical soldiers who were trained for formation combat trained single combat as well. We know of Roman legionaries being trained by ex-gladiators i. e.single combat experts.
The principle may remain the same, but the dynamics are totally different. In the premodern battelfield,
"formation is everything", as noted by countless military commanders ranging from the ancient Greeks and Romans, to Napoleon.
Finding an opening, advancing, attacking, or retreating, is not the soldier's job/responsibility. It's the officer's job. Soldiers do
what they are told. Doesn't matter if a soldier sees a ripe, gaping, open hole in the enemy ranks or not. A good soldier in military combat is a soldier that follows orders. The worst soldier is the one that breaks formation. There's a reason why armies trained in formations repeatedly, over and over and over again.
Besides, the larger the number of forces maintained as troops. the more difficult it was to train them. Certainly it cannot be expected every soldier in an army that numbers in tens of thousands, can be skilled or trained enough in fancy moves for combat. When it goes down to
six digit numbers of forces like the Chinese did in the Warring States period, you don't really expect any of them to be trained like a -- "gladiator."
It is why military combat maneuvers are kept simple and straight, easy to learn and memorize, and easy to practice in the field and become proficient at. Think of combat training with bayonet-fixed rifles. You don't teach the soldiers to twirl around, jump, roll, do fancy different stances with bayonets. At heart, it's essentially some 5~6 simple variations from what is essentially just two key moves -- "block" and "stab". If the commander worries a soldier may fail in doing that in battle, he doesn't teach the soldier to use more variety of techinques with the bayonet -- he drills the unit so they can support each other and prevent that from happening as a unit.
It's essentially the same with shields and spears. Spear, shield, and a sword as a side-arm. Stay in formation, the "pointy end of the spear goes into the bad guy", and hold the formation.
Simple, but powerful. No need to teach soldiers to use two weapons in each hand. Maybe the soldiers can have a chance to do that
AFTER the enemy breaks and starts routing, and everyone breaks formation to give chase. But certainly no military commander or general is going to allow soldiers to do that fancy **** before the fight is over.
It's inefficient, and basically not worth it.
In a sense, the favored method and equipment of military scale combat is a result of tens of thousands of years of trial and error humans went through, as they've experimented with a variety of things since the stone and bronze ages to find out which works, and which doesn't. Obviously, tight spear and shield formations of real "soldiers" in mass combat works. Individualized combat and fancy **** with "warriors" doesn't.
