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Gwaihir, please. First, why should the enemy be terrified by the commander? No, it was only the morale of your own troops that benefited from it. You seem to quite have misunderstood my last post. In William's case, he saw that the moment was come and cahrged. This was not meant that he was among the men that beat the Saxon army all the time. He had one single opportunity, as I described, and with his feresh household guard held in reserve, he charged and was followed by many otehr knights. Then, as said, he returned to his position at the foot of the hill. This is not meant as if he actually fought in the frontline, he is most likely to have stayed in the middle of the guard, togeteher with his confanonier who played and almost as important role as he himself in being his only sign of being alive that could be seen from afar. But you don't see the difference between this moment and Faramir's retreat was a long withdrawalover the fields. Kings did fight in battles, tehy had too, it was part of their duties. But don't imagine that they fought in the forefront. Richard the first, the slaughterer of civilians for the fun of it by the way, has been seen as a man fighting and leading from the front. It was not so, but his propagandists have done quite a job! There were probably occasions when he came into battle, but not on the terms of an ordinary soldier, I ssure you. On Harold, he is said to have been hurt badly but not slain by the arrow. No, he did not fight in the front line, he stood by his banner, the Fighting men, on the top of the hill, surrounded by his Huskarls who were the royal guard, compare to Greek Hetairoi. Faramir's decision was to fight as an ordinary soldier in the very foremost front, all the time. From there, he controlled the company closest to him, fi he was not engaged personally which he seems to haev been. He relinquished all control of teh battle to the company commanders which is good, but he did not have the overall control. His subordinates had no contat with eachother, if one company broke, the rest would either do the same or be outflanked, and there was nothing Faramir could have done about it.
Please, I don't see what your problem is, with me or with this?

Now, to the Spanish squares. Haev I ever said that they were ever a solely spanish tactic? No, in the proffesional terminology, both now and then, a Spanish square indicates a giant square with Pikes in the middle and a few lines of muskets on the outside. It was a generally used formation, not only by Spanish armies. Look at the battle of Breitenfeld. No Spaniards, noly Germans and Austrians, still Spanish squares. (They were beaten by the new strategy there, the multiple lines with small and manoeuverable troops, invented by Gustav II Adolf). Moreover, I ahve never said that ti was required to form the troops in squares, that would be silly. You do not seem to realize that it took time to organize troops, even without a battle raging. It is not like in a video game where you click the mouse and everybody nows their exact positions and gets to them virtually immediately. It would be a great obstacle even to make yourself heard by the whole formation. The valley was filled, and I presume that the eagles did not sweep down at the front line due to the increased danger. All they would have had to done was to stick their spears up, those without would have to suffer. Not all orcs were busy fighting.

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