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Originally Posted by Kuruharan
I disagree with this. Or at least I would question what your source for this is.(Ignoring for the moment what the Gondorian army was actually like because that opens up, say it with me now, "a whole other can o' worms" about what Gondor's military and defensive structure was actually like). The statement seems to me to ignore too much.
As an example of a potential example of other heavy infantry, and I realize that I am probably going to raise some eyebrows here by bucking a long held fantasy assumption, but I don't think that just because Wood Elves lived in the woods meant that they did not have heavy infantry. I point to the large numbers of elven spearmen at the Battle of Five Armies. I think they were at least "heavyish."
And, well, then...*cough* (how to say this without seeming like a homer) what about the dwarves? However, they don't seem to have fought on the plains too much.
*EDIT* I forgot the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.
Then there were the heavily armored axe-men-orcs that Saruman used...
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I based my claim on the UT whereby in notes 7 and 16 of
"The Disaster Of The Gladden Fields" Note 7 stated that the Númenóreans were large of stature and when they went to war, they (the infantry) were accustomed to be fully equiped in heavy armour and weapons.
Note 16 introduced two open-field infantry arrays. The first was the
Thangail which was a defensive formation used to recieve shock. The second was the
Dirnath which was a wedged formation used to deliver shock over a short distance. To maneuver large bodies of men on the battlefield in the heat of battle is difficult but the fact that these people were able to implied very high training in cohesive fighting. The first formation was used to great effect in the Gladden Fields before the Númenóreans were overwhelmed by superior enemy numbers and the lack of support.
If we go by
Rumil's definition in regards on the attire of heavy infantry as well as my earlier where I posted MG J.F.C Fuller's own definition of ancient heavy infantry, Gondor and its lost sister Kingdom of Arnor could thus be assumed to possess excellent heavy infantry.
Elves with long spears may be or may not be heavy infantry. In the first place we hardly knew what tactics they used and neither do we know if they were heavily armored (which also contributes to the dual shock effect). Where they able to withstand shock and did they deliver shock?
In ancient times when situations became desperate, anybody that could wield a weapon was pressed into service. Were simple craftsmen and farmers armered with hedgeforks, scythes and polearms considered heavy infantry? I do not think so.
The story of the last Alliance mentioned that Oropher and his contingent were nearly annihilated when they attacked too soon without support from the rest of the army. If we are to speculate that the armies of both Thrandruil and his father were of similar organisation, then they might imply a poor ability to withstand shock.
You might classify dwarves as heavy infantry if you must. But to say they were better than Gondorian heavy infantry is also guessing too much. I would say that given the constituent, height and reach of a standard Númenórean, Gondorian heavy infantry offers better flexibility on the battlefield. The same argument can also be applied to saruman's hybrid berserkers.