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Disclaimer: So i'm writing a parody setting of DnD/ASOIF/LOTR so just accept that things might be a bit farcical

Background: we have a formation of heavily armoured dismounted knights with cleaver falchions holding a position in a very narrow mountain pass. This pass is maybe 20 metres wide at most. Their opponents are the stereotypical rawhide axe-wielding barbarians. The barbarians are charging down the pass and face first into the knights. No outflanking is possible. For the purposes of this story, i want the knights to be in a quasi-wedge formation ie, formation leader up front, and then behind him, will be three, and then behind those, five etc etc.

Problem: Now offensively, there are many precedents for infantry wedge formations used on the offence, ie, we have the Svinfylking and the Roman formation at Watling Street, but what i'm struggling to find, is an precedent where a infantry wedge formation is used DEFENSIVELY.

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  • $\begingroup$ As per the first post below. The problem is your asking everyone to come with reason why what was universally known as an offensive strategy would be used in a defensive role. Answer? It wouldn't! I say this because in general terms a parody is something that in involves a mocking 'imitation of something, using the same form as the original'. The problem? Your question involves 'mocking' something in a situation where it wouldn't be used at all! A parody in this case? would mock say a pike wall, or a shield wall. $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago
  • $\begingroup$ @Mon But don't you know that the best defense is more offense? $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago
  • $\begingroup$ @KafeeByte. Not in the situation as described it isn't. When you have the element of surprise or some other factor shifting the odds your way fine. But the only 'surprise' in this situation would be seeing someone being silly enough to do what the knights are doing. $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago
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    $\begingroup$ If it's parody then why do you need an excuse? Just have a character say this doesn't make sense as a defensive formation and then nobody pays any attention and they go ahead with it anyway. $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago

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Not useful for defence

Formations offer pros and cons in

  • offensive strength (allow to attack in a benefitial way)
  • defensive strength (offer few surface area to difficult defendable directions)
  • agility and movement

Lets have a closer look on the wedge formation:

  • Offense: The triangle provides an increased surface area compared to a square or circle which is beneficial to attack enemies on the front or on the open side.
    -> As long as they stand still, the enemy can decide from where to attack them. As long as the formation does not present their backs to the enemy this seems to be okay. Not too good but also not too bad.
  • Defense: The tiangle offers at least some protection, the preceding rows cover the following rows and every fallen position is immediately replaced by the following one - well, as long as they move. Also the corners of the triangle offer lot of surface area to be attacked. As long as they move there is mainly just the weak front corner, but if they stand still they have two additional weak corners when not protected by the mountain pass. A circle formation would be better as it has no distinct weak points. Well, it will quickly become a circle when the barbarians kill the outer corners first.
    -> The missing movement disables the benefits and increases the weak points, thus pretty bad.
  • Agility and Movement: You can easily charge forward without running into the person in front of you, especially for the outer edges and according to Wiki the formation makes it easy to see and follow your leader which should be at the front.
    -> Not at all helpful when they stand still and wait for the enemy.

A circle or curved formation would be better as they offer no distinct weak points and have less surface area to be attacked.
Depending on the mountain pass (are they surrounded by walls or are there cliffs to fall off), they may use the walls to reduce the surface area or position themselves to easily toss the barbarians over the cliff.

But a waiting wedge formation?
No, not unless there happens to be a triangle plateau with deep cliffs around it.
The wedge formation is good for movement, but as they have a positional benefit to stay in the mountain pass it makes no sense.

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  • $\begingroup$ +1, but only the apex is weak. They're in an unflankable narrow mountain pass - that presumably means more or less sheer cliff either up or down. Anyone trying to attack the back corners is either jammed against the wall or pushed over the edge. In fact, the most likely way I see this as plausible is if there's a drop on both sides. $\endgroup$ Commented yesterday
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By reading the Wikipedia page of the battle of Watling street it appears that the wedge formation was adopted by the Roman army initially as a defensive setup, in a situation similar to what you describe: large number of enemies attacking in a narrow corridor without possibilities of flanking.

It turned into an offensive formation when the attackers crashed against the defensive wall and lost their impetus, becoming a sitting duck.

So, it seems plausible that the wedge can be used as defensive formation in the right environment.

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  • $\begingroup$ Romans also used wedge formations against elephants. The animals were funneled between the wedges where the they were stopped in the depth of formation or lured into traps and surrounded. $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago
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The Leader leads. Even in Defense.

Make it culturally appropriate for someone to be on point, a coveted position for reasons of honor. Make it culturally inappropriate for those knights to admit, even in their own mind, that they are fighting a defensive battle. They're just advancing slowly against this mass of barbarians.

Assume that those knights have adapted to the wedge formation all the way to equipment, training, and troop selection. Left-handed knights with sword and shield on one side, right-handed knights with sword and shield on the other, one prized ambidexterous fighter with a two-handed sword or war hammer on point. Even if they wished to form a line, the shape of their armor and shields would be subtly wrong for that. Like the bayonet drill against a highland charge, only more so.

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The problem is that the wedge formation is offensive by design - its purpose is to break an enemy line, perhaps a shield wall, and get in behind the enemy and attack their flanks. However, here you're on the defensive, and your barbarians don't seem to have a solid defensive line, so this tactic doesn't apply.

But perhaps we can turn the logic around and use it the other way? Your knights have taken up a defensive position in a narrow mountain pass. The barbarians presumably outnumber them and also have the high ground (since they're charging down). So if the knights simply try to form a wall across the pass, the barbarians will charge down the mountain at them, try to crash through the line (probably using a wedge of their own), break the knights' formation, and then surround them and cut them down. But the knights realize that, because the passage is narrow, the barbarians can only come at them from the front, so if they form up at an angle, the barbarians can't hit their line head-on at speed. Further, as barbarians hitting the formation are forced to the left or right, they'll bump into other charging barbarians, further disrupt the charge and create confusion. So they put their biggest, strongest, best-equipped champion (not the commander) at the tip and line up in a wedge behind him.

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Maximizing Your Combat Frontage

A single wedge is not a great defensive formation against infantry. You'd need two side-by-side to properly get the canalization effect of hacking at your enemy from both sides and the front.

That being said... you could make it "believable" by saying your falchion-wielding heavy infantry need a greater interval (space between each fighter) to use their weapons effectively. Here is a link that talks about spacing with various weapons and tactics. If your knights traditionally fight with roman-esque 135cm-ish spacing and your barbarians traditionally fight in "traditional" shield wall of something like 90cm your knights, in a normal formation, would be about 15 guys wide to the barbarian's 22 guys. Anyone whose done HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) will tell you that 2v1 fights are over quickly and go BADLY for the 1. However in a wedge (assuming they have the 88ish knights to fill the formation) you'd have 22 knights in the front rank. Suddenly you've got an equal number of guys in the line and your superior armor will be quite telling. Granted that guy at the point of the wedge is going to need to be REAL good and REAL lucky... but that's what heroes are for right!?

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That's the shape of the terrain feature that the defenders have decided to fight behind.

(Presumably they're all stupid, just like their enemies, so nothing they do has to be smart. But justifying this for a similar interaction of smart protagonists is straightforward enough.)

Any group of infantry given enough time to prepare would build their own fortifications in a more sensible orientation unless the natural terrain feature was truly excellent. But presumably they have just barely beaten the enemy to the pass by a few hours, or a day or two at most. They found a wedge-shaped terrain feature that would provide a defensive advantage - or, more likely, two different terrain features that happened to intersect to make a wedge shape. So they reinforced that terrain feature instead of making their own from scratch.

With just 20m to cover you can invoke just about anything that a platoon of guys couldn't easily move in a few hours.

Gully, bramble, section of boggy ground, fence, hedgerow, brambles, region of slippery broken shale, stream, pond, fallen tree, cluster of low boulders, copse of scrubby trees, low escarpment, toppled ancient statue, etc, etc.

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