A nice (not necessarily scientific) test spears vs swords.
Conclusion, spears were pretty darn good, but one and two handed. Especially when you did not have a shield.
And about 1 handed spears specifically
Those videos were fun hehe. I like when they do the different teams. Or the part where they debate whether its worth grouping up with shields with only 3 dudes. Guess one of the things to hold in mind is that even a good shield can be dropped if you need to lol, but seems like worth having around.
When they start playing with the legionary shields too, reminded me of a demo I once saw when I was in Classics. The lecture was discussing how the spanish gladius was used in tight formation with that shield specifically, and the money move for the Roman meatgrinder was actually the upstroke, with the primary goal of severing the opponent's femoral artery between the legs, secondary goal of nailing the auxiliary artery between the arms, then into the rapid stab to torso failing those, but basically going low to high in an upwards motion with the sword rather than the standard Hollywood overhand swing. That was presented as like an innovation in use of the sword in groups I guess, more than anything particular to that specific sword's design, though its obviously pretty famous for the era. But more just in the mechanics of how the whole thing operated as system, built on rotating the people up front constantly and quickly, in concert with that big shield and pila too. Always thought that was kind of cool, definitely tweaked with my idea of that world conquering sword. Or like that somebody had the grim sense to design the whole machine around making the other dudes' army bleed out as quickly as possible that way. Just crazy
As for the spear + shield combo, if you have a sidearm like a sword too, then either could be dropped or flung in favor of the other depending on what's coming at you. Clearly from the videos, those guys all seemed to have way better control using the spear two handed which makes sense. But if you had to plan what to bring along not knowing what you're facing, seems like having a shield to go along with your spear to go along with your sword might be smart lol
