At the beginning of battle, the opposing armies would throw javelins or other missiles at one another to soften up the enemy lines. In the historic Icelandic tale, “Battle of Breiðabólstað,” Bjorn’s army actually threw rocks at the other, though the defending leader, Loft, ordered his men to simply keep the rocks that landed until the Bjornings ran out. After more battle, Loft’s army broke the enemy’s lines when Bjorn’s army turned and fled. Loft’s men then struck the Bjornings in the back with their own rocks. According to the famous poem, “The Battle of Maldon,” the Vikings softened up the defending Anglo-Saxon soldiers with a shower of spears (javelins) before rushing the disarrayed defenders with swords. If missiles did not break either side’s shieldwall, then either breaking maneuvers, such as the wedged “boar’s snout” formation, or flanking maneuvers would be used to surround or separate the opponents.
These basic types of battle tactics were used from ancient times through the advent of guns. They worked by taking advantage to keep men safe behind a shieldwall while enabling the soldiers to make good use of their spears. But they also answered Grossman’s requirements to overcome the reluctance to kill. The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings expected their leaders, noble earls, to fight in front with their men. In other words, the soldiers would have had a legitimate (noble), usually battle-hardened leader in close proximity ordering them to kill. Being part of the shieldwall offered physical and psychological safety, encouragement, and legitimacy. The maneuvers would have been conditioned by training, possibly since childhood. The use of missiles at first and long spears in closer quarters provided psychologically needed physical distance, and enemy’s behind their own shieldwall, not to mention wartime rhetoric, would have provided emotional distance. Once the enemy’s shieldwall was broken and the enemy in disarray, the conquering soldier would have had moral advantage (They’re weak!) and less fear of an even fight – instinct would take over like a dog chasing a sheep. Even if attempted kill rates were comparable to the lows Grossman reported for World War II, the Civil War, and other, more recent conflicts, they would have been about as good as possible giving human limitations.
For survival and conquest, the shieldwall was everything. Any given man’s most trusted fellow was his “right-hand man,” so called because he would be on one’s spear-holding right that would have been unprotected by his own shield. This is why the comitatus, or brotherhood of warriors, was so revered by the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings (among others). Good leadership and group camaraderie would prove what Ben Franklin said before the Continental Congress, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” It was not enough to train together for long hours. As Beowulf shows throughout, the good king or earl is generous with his men, not to buy them off, but to show them honor and build bonds of fealty. The men must be loyal to him and one another like a family, even, as Beowulf shows, to the point of sleeping in the same room. The comitatus lived as one.
