[cdot2]

The conjecture is that people will not willingly throw themselves on a line of spears and so the phalanxes would stop short of actually hitting each other. I don't think larpers would be able to test that well. I'm not sure how you would test that unethically

[spywaregorilla]

I feel like a great deal of melee warfare involved group A smashing itself upon group B. Phalanxes, as I understand it, were effective because they were particularly good at this part. So given that we already had lots of other varieties of troops throwing themselves at the spears, why do we doubt that other phalanxes would specifically be unwilling to do the same?

[boomboomsubban]

The idea is that a phalanx trained under the assumption that their formation was nearly invincible as long as they were experienced enough and worked together well. Both the members of the phalanxes and the generals would be hesitant to risk that by sending them against another phalanx where they lose all their inherent advantage and would need to fight in a different way.