Editing Hoplite (section)

== Macedonian Weapons and Tactics==
However the masters of Phalanx warfare were the Macedonians under king Philip II and his son Alexander the Great. Under Philip the Macedonia Phalanx did away with the Hoplon and instead doubled the size of the spear to six meters, thus turning it into a pike, they also wore lighter armor for more speed. These longer spears allowed men in the ranks behind the front row to also bring their spears to bear, meaning that if an enemy got past the first spear, he still had four more spears to get past to even reach the man in the first row. The Macedonians were armed with a Kopis short sword if, somehow, the enemy got through the wall of pike heads to get to them. The differences were so great that the Macedonian pikemen were not called Hoplites, but "Sarissaphoroi", named after their weapon the Sarissa, but most modern accounts just call them pikemen since that's what they are.

Much more importantly than better gear, however, the Macedonian Phalanx was not used as the only formation on the field but as a part of a wider formation in an antique demonstration of combined-arms tactics. Under Macedonian tactics the heavy phalanx would lead the way and hold the enemy in place while heavy cavalry in wedge formation would swing into the flank(s), break the enemy formation and allow the Hypaspists (smaller formations of elite infantry who were armed like greek hoplites who were stationed to either side of the Phalanx to defend its flanks) to charge forward and break the enemy once and for all. The Hypaspists themselves were supported by lighter infantry and/or bowmen and slingers on their sides whose job was to keep the enemy from flanking the heavy hitters.

Additionally the Macedonians were fast. The Macedonian pike men marched in a loose formation, then came together only when the enemy was near, they wore lighter armor and this was coupled with a minimal baggage train. This meant that the Macedonians could cover ground much faster than other armies, and they could often make an enemy surrender simply by arriving to a battlefield days before they were expected. 

This combined forces tactical approach would later be perfected after being abandoned for over 1500 years by the Spanish who combined pikemen with early handguns, combining firepower to harass the enemy at range and scare away its outriders with the fearsome wall of pikes to keep the heavy hitters at bay. The Spaniards used their ''tercios'' to dominate European land warfare until cannons precise enough to reliably hit the infantry squares were fielded and compact formations became suicidal.