Wall Combat

[Drewski]

Can anyone explain to me, that when attacking walls, anything which has a spear 2nd weapon and a sword or axe primary, automatically uses the spear?

Yesterday, I was battling AS as MAK. I gave the 2 siege towers to my 2 units of Hypaspistai. Now they scaled the walls, and one unit took on a levy Phalanx, while the other took on some Archers and Skirmishers. Yet (and I watched very closely) they were all using spears, even though they have a .225 lethality sword as primary weapon. Hence they took FAR more casualties than necessary.

I've also noticed this happen with other units that have both spear and axe/sword...(and yes of course, I tried all kinds of "alt right clicking" etc.)

If I'm not going completely mad, and others find this to be true, can someone explain why?

[Maion Maroneios]

I'm afraid that can't be changed. It's a thing that happens automatically. I know it sucks, but that's how things are :sweatdrop:

Maion

[DaciaJC]

Would it be possible to somehow remove the spear completely? I suffer from the same situation when using my Dacian Agema Orditon.

Oh, and Drewski, try simply right-clicking (not alt right-clicking). For some reason, those type of units will switch to their swords (not all of them, though, and eventually some of them will resort back to the spear) when just right-clicking.

[Drewski]

Would it be possible to somehow remove the spear completely? I suffer from the same situation when using my Dacian Agema Orditon.

Oh, and Drewski, try simply right-clicking (not alt right-clicking). For some reason, those type of units will switch to their swords (not all of them, though, and eventually some of them will resort back to the spear) when just right-clicking.

Its pretty straightforward to remove the spear, but they'd miss it when fighting horses...

I thought I'd tried all manner of clicking combos...will have to try your idea next time and check the results..

[gamerdude873]

wouldn't it just be easier to mod the edu file (or whatever it is) to place the spear as primary? and in the case of the dacian spearmen or classical hoplitai, give them a backup sword? It would at least solve the headache...

btw, how would one go about adding another secondary weapon for a unit? Isn't there some sort of unit editor program out there?

[Maion Maroneios]

Apparently, doing that messes with the unit's model. Don't try it, it really messes up things.

Maion

[DaciaJC]

Indeed, I tried that myself. I'm glad I made a backup of all the relevant files. :sweatdrop:


Drewski: do units gain a bonus when fighting cavalry with a spear as opposed to a sword? Your sentence seems to convey that message.

[Watchman]

Yes. Doesn't everyone know that ? ~:confused:

Also gives the unit extra "pushing power" above and beyond its soldier mass attribute, which I'd imagine is useful in wall fights since it ought to increase the number of foes falling to their doom.

[DaciaJC]

There are plenty of things I have yet to learn about this game. I had thought that units classified as "spear" get the bonus, not just the spears themselves.

[Drewski]

Indeed, I tried that myself. I'm glad I made a backup of all the relevant files. :sweatdrop:


Drewski: do units gain a bonus when fighting cavalry with a spear as opposed to a sword? Your sentence seems to convey that message.

+8 to Defence, so they will theoretically take less casualties. BUT it depends upon the type of cavalry.

e.g. In the case of Hypis, once the cavalry have engaged, if you swop them to swords, they may actually kill the Cavalry faster because of the lethality, and hence take less casualties by using swords, that being if said Cavalry have low armor/defence...If the Cavalry are very heavily armoured, but have lowish melee attack, then using the spears (and having the Hypis on Defend mode) may result in lower casualties.

[Watchman]

Although, just for the record, I for one am quite unsure of the exact effects of the two spear attributes (other than that spear has some rather ridiculous side effects), as in systematic testing their performance didn't nearly match estimates...

[Aemilius Paulus]

+8 to Defence, so they will theoretically take less casualties. BUT it depends upon the type of cavalry.

e.g. In the case of Hypis, once the cavalry have engaged, if you swop them to swords, they may actually kill the Cavalry faster because of the lethality, and hence take less casualties by using swords, that being if said Cavalry have low armor/defence...If the Cavalry are very heavily armoured, but have lowish melee attack, then using the spears (and having the Hypis on Defend mode) may result in lower casualties.
Yeah, it does depend on many factors, as Drewski observantly noted. For instance, fighting as the Romani in the Mesopotamia, Pahlava and Hai territories, I found that my numerous contingents of Pedites Extraordianrii were the most effective troops versus those dreaded cataphracts. Their AP swords, even with low lethality, chopped those Hai cataphracts as if they were Pantadapoi. I am not even exaggerating. Those catas lasted no longer than Pantadapoi. That is because their defence is almost solely based on armour, with only 8 defence skill I believe, and no shield. They are also mounted units, and mounted units always die faster for some reason than equivalent foot units.


But anyway, my Triarii would take either 40-70% casualties gainsay those cataphracts or even lose. Pedites Extraordianrii usually lost less than ten (large unit scale) and no more than fifteen. ALWAYS use AP infantry against heavily armoured units. AP is the single most powerful bonus in RTW. However, using PEs against low armour units is a waste, especially given the low lethality of their kopis (.11 - lower than the worst spears)

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

AP is surely the most overpowered feature in RTW. I doubt that any curved sword design like that, or indeed anything short of a rhomphaia or certain axes would go through lamellar that easily. I would be eager to know if some accurate tests were done with this.

[A Very Super Market]

Engine stuff. Obviously unrealistic.

[Watchman]

Tip-heavy "cleaver" swords *are* pretty good at chopping stuff up, actually. For the sake of comparision the functionally nigh identical Medieval falchions were (like battleaxes) considered choppy enough to be good against nigh any armour short of solid steel plate...

Though I'll give you the RTW engine's solution of straight out halving the armour value is bit on the dramatic side.

[satalexton]

choppy

did u say choppy? :clown: WAAAGH!!!! DA ORKZ!!! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA

[Apázlinemjó]

Can anyone explain to me, that when attacking walls, anything which has a spear 2nd weapon and a sword or axe primary, automatically uses the spear?

Yesterday, I was battling AS as MAK. I gave the 2 siege towers to my 2 units of Hypaspistai. Now they scaled the walls, and one unit took on a levy Phalanx, while the other took on some Archers and Skirmishers. Yet (and I watched very closely) they were all using spears, even though they have a .225 lethality sword as primary weapon. Hence they took FAR more casualties than necessary.

I've also noticed this happen with other units that have both spear and axe/sword...(and yes of course, I tried all kinds of "alt right clicking" etc.)

If I'm not going completely mad, and others find this to be true, can someone explain why?


Same with the Sweboz bodyguards.

[Aemilius Paulus]

AP is surely the most overpowered feature in RTW.
Yep, I certainly am :beam:. Still deciding whether I should sig this...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

:clown:

[Aemilius Paulus]

:clown:
Well, I have decided that the quote is indeed worthy of a place in my signature. However, there is not enough place to stick anything else in my sig...


And I would hate for Churchill to go...



P.S. http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:Fx85NOS4Fx_cjM:http://nullpointer.debashish.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/no-spam.jpg

[DaciaJC]

Well, I have decided that the quote is indeed worthy of a place in my signature. However, there is not enough place to stick anything else in my sig...


And I would hate for Churchill to go...



P.S. http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:Fx85NOS4Fx_cjM:http://nullpointer.debashish.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/no-spam.jpg

Could you not stick it to the right of your "Balloon Count: 20"?

[Aemilius Paulus]

Could you not stick it to the right of your "Balloon Count: 20"?
Not if I wrap quote tags over it. That would make it at least two lines.

[Celtic_Punk]

don't place units on the wall if you have hoplites. Its a waste of time. Those Hypastai are much better use in the street, house to house across the street blocking the way. Nothing will get through.


well actually i'm not entirely sure about that. I'm used to putting Spartans there... and well your hypastai havent performed as well as I thought they should.

[Cute Wolf]

actually, hoplite type (without phalanx mod, or any mod that take their +4 attack value) is the most effective troops to be used on stone wall (not large), as my current KH campaign against Romani.... they could take down even pedites extraordinarii out of the city wall...
but most of them die falling...:embarassed: in large wall, they're not as effeective

[DaciaJC]

actually, hoplite type (without phalanx mod, or any mod that take their +4 attack value) is the most effective troops to be used on stone wall (not large), as my current KH campaign against Romani.... they could take down even pedites extraordinarii out of the city wall...
but most of them die falling...:embarassed: in large wall, they're not as effeective

Well, all "light-spear" designated units have that undeserved +4 attack, and so it would be better to pass judgment with the correct balances.

[Cute Wolf]

allready try that (-4 attack) mod, but the result is they only hold the enemy, and made them significantly weaker..... for countering phalanx (even the phalanx unit also get the -4, they have the reach advantage). And even epilektoi hoplitai suffer greatly against enemy cataphracts and hetairoi (they just merely hold them, not kill)

So I revert back to original EDU, maybe they had a larger attack value... but this was not overpowered in my point.... the light_spear have -4 defence against infantry... right? so they should have "+4 attack" for the sake of balance

[Watchman]

"Light_spear" has *some* kind of penalty against inf; not sure which, whatever the EDU Guide says. But it does seem to work out with the +4 attack. *shrug*

[Celtic_Punk]

Heed my advice! You'll lose less men if you go wall to wall in the streets. The more experienced and heavy your spear men are the better they shall hold. Massalian hoplites are pros at this, aswell as the spartans. Massalians may even be a bit better because of the quite lethal sword they have.

[Drewski]

"Light_spear" has *some* kind of penalty against inf; not sure which, whatever the EDU Guide says. But it does seem to work out with the +4 attack. *shrug*

No....it doesn't quite simply ~;) (as proved by examples above...Run of the mill Hoplitai defeating an elite unit of much better quality is just one example)

[Watchman]

Mind being more specific RE the example you're thinking of ?

[Drewski]

actually, hoplite type (without phalanx mod, or any mod that take their +4 attack value) is the most effective troops to be used on stone wall (not large), as my current KH campaign against Romani.... they could take down even pedites extraordinarii out of the city wall...
but most of them die falling...:embarassed: in large wall, they're not as effeective


Mind being more specific RE the example you're thinking of ?

The above one.

For personal experiences, I've recently just about completed a Mak campaign. I have all phalanx and spear at -4 of base EB 1.2 values, and also have modified the Phalanxes, so that now Elites have 3 shield, and the rest 2 shield- down from 5 shield (which get doubled in Phalanx mode)..

And the battles felt just about perfect. The Phalanxes took some casualties (as they should), but performed admirably overall. Honestly, given the base Eb 1.2 stats, there is only one word for Phalanx units- Insane.

[Watchman]

That sounds more like the effect of the hoplite-types' high soldier mass value combined with the "boost" that effect receives from the "light_spear" attribute though... (and just FYI, "spear" in comparision gives right crazy "push" boosts...) I'll have to look into that to see how it works out (maybe tomorrow when I'm not stone dead tired), although I can't say it sounds particularly unexpected, but IIRC the hops are wont to get their asses kicked as appropriate when faced with superior units on the open...

[Celtic_Punk]

No....it doesn't quite simply ~;) (as proved by examples above...Run of the mill Hoplitai defeating an elite unit of much better quality is just one example)

the only hoplites that can't do that are levy hoplites. Classical hoplites and better wreck havoc on even good phalangites.

[Drewski]

the only hoplites that can't do that are levy hoplites. Classical hoplites and better wreck havoc on even good phalangites.

Not if you take 4 attack away, then they are quite balanced.

[Watchman]

Didn't you have some funny notions about what constitutes as "balanced" for spearmen, though, or is my memory playing tricks on me...?

[Drewski]

Didn't you have some funny notions about what constitutes as "balanced" for spearmen, though, or is my memory playing tricks on me...?

No that was you.

[Watchman]

Uh-huh.

[DaciaJC]

Didn't you have some funny notions about what constitutes as "balanced" for spearmen, though, or is my memory playing tricks on me...?

Do you mean this (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=114926) thread? It isn't a funny notion but appears to be a simple mistake on the EB team's part. Easily fixable.

[Watchman]

Yes, that one exactly. And as should be obvious from the debate that went on there, the issue is anything but "simple" - even without going into the argument about the IRL use of spears in infantry fighting.

So meh.

[DaciaJC]

Yes, that one exactly. And as should be obvious from the debate that went on there, the issue is anything but "simple" - even without going into the argument about the IRL use of spears in infantry fighting.

So meh.

Looking purely at the numbers, which was the issue to begin with, the whole thing appeared to be, at least to me, rather straightforward. If you want it summed up in a few sentences...


back in earlier versions of EB, the spear attribute was used. this gave the -4 attack penalty you are talking about. all spear units at this time were given +4 to their attack score to cancel out that penalty. however, starting at EB 1.0 the spear attribute was changed to light_spear. this does not give -4 to attack. for whatever reason, the EB team decided to leave the +4 attack for spear units.

[Watchman]

And just how many times am I going to have to repeat that whatever the EDU Guide says, it just doesn't seem to work that way in practice ?

In testing units with "light_spear" both killed enemies and died themselves much slower than their peers with "spear", period. Deal with it.

[Cute Wolf]

Originally posted by Zett (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php?u=29505)
What about Hoplites? They have no Phalanx ability, removing their bonus would make them singnificant weaker. The engine can not represent their Hoplite fightingstyle, so they should get a +4 defence instead.


This was the problem of all the argument... remove the "+4 bonus" or keep them intact...

[Celtic_Punk]

And just how many times am I going to have to repeat that whatever the EDU Guide says, it just doesn't seem to work that way in practice ?

In testing units with "light_spear" both killed enemies and died themselves much slower than their peers with "spear", period. Deal with it.

in this case this means they make combat much less efficient. Fighting with a spear is just that. Swords make quick work of a human. Using a spear in close combat is anything but. So (in)advertantly (i love making up words) the EB team has made it more realistic.

[Watchman]

That't complete and utter bullshit.

[Alsatia]

That't complete and utter bull****.


SILENCE!!!! CENSOR YOURSELF!!!

I think this is not the time to talk filth.
(Sorry if I start sounding like those posh english ladies giving a lecture to children on how to behave)

[Watchman]

Walks like a duck, quaks like a duck... I calls it a duck.

[Alsatia]

?????

[Watchman]

If it's pure first-rate organic fertilizer, I'm going to call it such. kthx.

[Maion Maroneios]

OK, I didn't understand any of this I'm afraid :shrug:

Maion

[Watchman]

I expressed to CP that in my opinion he, to paraphrase the immortal words of Judas Priest, "talks a motherload of crock", and Alsatia had something against that.

Whatever, sod that. I ran the tests. Custom battle, me defending a standard stone wall as the Macs, with a slew of diverse "assault infantry" types they now have on their roster - Agrinians, Peltastai Makedonioi, Hypaspists, heck, even Golberi Curoas (those shortless Celtic merc swordsmen) for the record. AI attacks with a bunch of Hoplitai.
End result, a pretty wholesale massacre of Hoplitai. The Peltastai and Agrinians pretty summarily butchered theirs (losing about 25 out of 120 and 40 out of 160 men in the process, respectively), the Celts had a harder time at it (70 out of 200 men left), and oddly enough the Hypas seemed to have the hardest time at it even before one errant bunch of enemy Hops that was supposed to attack the wall elsewhere but came up this siege tower instead after theirs burned up halfway to the wall - and they fought the whole wall battle with their spears, as I could never convince the buggers to use their swords...

So yeah (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Laconic/SoYeah).

How about you whiners take your BS about the +4 spears being "overpowered" and smoke it in a pipe ? kthxbai.

[Drewski]

I expressed to CP that in my opinion he, to paraphrase the immortal words of Judas Priest, "talks a motherload of crock", and Alsatia had something against that.

Whatever, sod that. I ran the tests. Custom battle, me defending a standard stone wall as the Macs, with a slew of diverse "assault infantry" types they now have on their roster - Agrinians, Peltastai Makedonioi, Hypaspists, heck, even Golberi Curoas (those shortless Celtic merc swordsmen) for the record. AI attacks with a bunch of Hoplitai.
End result, a pretty wholesale massacre of Hoplitai. The Peltastai and Agrinians pretty summarily butchered theirs (losing about 25 out of 120 and 40 out of 160 men in the process, respectively), the Celts had a harder time at it (70 out of 200 men left), and oddly enough the Hypas seemed to have the hardest time at it even before one errant bunch of enemy Hops that was supposed to attack the wall elsewhere but came up this siege tower instead after theirs burned up halfway to the wall - and they fought the whole wall battle with their spears, as I could never convince the buggers to use their swords...

So yeah (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Laconic/SoYeah).

How about you whiners take your BS about the +4 spears being "overpowered" and smoke it in a pipe ? kthxbai.

And what precisely did you expect to happen, when you give the ai a bunch of Hoplitai to attack stone walls and yourself a (generally) bunch of LV4 4 and LVL 5 Mic troops to defend it?

Did you really expect the Hoplitai to summarily take the day? No offence, but its hardly the most scientific of tests. I've lost the best part of Elite units, against stuff like Pelasts and Archers, in some assault situations on walls. Walls are a little bit strange, plus they involve so many more factors than "regular" combat.

Now as much as we have disagreed Watchman, I'm all for finding out what the hardcoded elements of Spear and Light_Spear are. I admire all the testing you have done, its a pain in the ass (I know from doing it too). No-one has any absolute empirical evidence for ANY -4s, +4s or whatever. However I've been cajoling Aradan into explaining his exact testing methods (to produce the EDU guide) recently. He has explained them quite thoroughly, and they are very logical. They seem to (almost) prove his EDU guide information.

I'm genuinly interested to know your own test metholodgy, as I guarantee he is too, if they produce results counterintuitive to his....

I'm considering pestering CA, until they give in and tell me what those hidden bonuses are.....:laugh4:

[Watchman]

And what do you think the figgen Pedites Extraordinarii referred earlier are - garrison levies...? I'm guessing in terms of combat power they'd be about on par with the Agrinians.
Should also tell you a bit what REAL assault troops do on the walls againt the Hoplitai - a postulation that has been made in this thread being that the Hoplitai are supposedly *the* guys to use on walls...
Conversely the Golberi Curoas aren't exactly what I'd call high-end troops; they're the *weaker* of the two Celtic basic swordsman types, and they annihilated the Hoplitai pitted against them with a comfortable enough margin.

And no, can't say I was expecting much different. The only ones I wasn't certain about were the Curoas, as their resiliency is a little so-so so I wondered if the Hops would be able to plain grind them down.

As for my methodology, it basically consists of custom-battling the units involved against each other with minimal player interference and observing the results. Repeat ad nauseum until I figure I've figured out the underlying patterns present.
Ditto in this case. I just gave the AI the siege equipement, parked my units a bit out of the way so the Hops had enough room to get onto the walls (and to minimise the effects of the siege towers' archery) and then just pointed my guys at them and let the individual battles play out without further interference.
Good enough for determining the overall trends, I'd say.

[Drewski]

And what do you think the figgen Pedites Extraordinarii referred earlier are - garrison levies...? I'm guessing in terms of combat power they'd be about on par with the Agrinians.
Should also tell you a bit what REAL assault troops do on the walls againt the Hoplitai - a postulation that has been made in this thread being that the Hoplitai are supposedly *the* guys to use on walls...
Conversely the Golberi Curoas aren't exactly what I'd call high-end troops; they're the *weaker* of the two Celtic basic swordsman types, and they annihilated the Hoplitai pitted against them with a comfortable enough margin.

And no, can't say I was expecting much different. The only ones I wasn't certain about were the Curoas, as their resiliency is a little so-so so I wondered if the Hops would be able to plain grind them down.

As for my methodology, it basically consists of custom-battling the units involved against each other with minimal player interference and observing the results. Repeat ad nauseum until I figure I've figured out the underlying patterns present.
Ditto in this case. I just gave the AI the siege equipement, parked my units a bit out of the way so the Hops had enough room to get onto the walls (and to minimise the effects of the siege towers' archery) and then just pointed my guys at them and let the individual battles play out without further interference.
Good enough for determining the overall trends, I'd say.

I was just reporting what Cute Wolf said, and he meant The Hoplitai on Defence. (I'm sure I don't need to point out the differences between an offensive and defensive "wall" battle).

I assume you remove Fatigue and Morale effects for testing purposes? Allow no "charging" etc? Fatigue makes a big difference to combat, especially with general low lethality of EB units.

[Watchman]

Mind explaining to me what's the difference between defending and attacking units once both are on the wall and duking it out ? The last I saw it's pure meatgrinder at that stage...

Fatigue and morale tend to be either irrelevant anyway, eg. when observing the general combat behaviour differences between "spear" and "light_spear", especially as I used the same units for both, or *very* relevant such as when comparing the performance of specific units, so I usually leave them in. And for example in the wall-combat test the Peltastai, Curoas and Agrinians all wiped their respective Hoplitai opponents out so fast fatigue had no time to become an issue...
The Hypas *do* have better stamina than the Hops, but then again, they were the ones with most trouble anyway.

[athanaric]

And what do you think the figgen Pedites Extraordinarii referred earlier are - garrison levies...? I'm guessing in terms of combat power they'd be about on par with the Agrinians.
Should also tell you a bit what REAL assault troops do on the walls againt the Hoplitai - a postulation that has been made in this thread being that the Hoplitai are supposedly *the* guys to use on walls...
Conversely the Golberi Curoas aren't exactly what I'd call high-end troops; they're the *weaker* of the two Celtic basic swordsman types, and they annihilated the Hoplitai pitted against them with a comfortable enough margin.


Are you sure the Golberi Curoas/Bataroas are weaker than the Enoci Curoas/Botroas? Because their armour is much better (the "Southern Gallic Swordsmen" are unarmoured after all).


My experience is that Hoplitai, even the Epilektoi, aren't particularly good on walls*. Swordsmen and axemen are way better in this respect.


*The Thorakitai Hoplitai, Iphikratous Hoplitai and the Hoplitai Indohellenikoi are quite decent on walls because of their swords, however they are not a classical form of Hoplitai (as in: overhand spear+argive shield).

[Drewski]

Mind explaining to me what's the difference between defending and attacking units once both are on the wall and duking it out ? The last I saw it's pure meatgrinder at that stage...

Fatigue and morale tend to be either irrelevant anyway, eg. when observing the general combat behaviour differences between "spear" and "light_spear", especially as I used the same units for both, or *very* relevant such as when comparing the performance of specific units, so I usually leave them in. And for example in the wall-combat test the Peltastai, Curoas and Agrinians all wiped their respective Hoplitai opponents out so fast fatigue had no time to become an issue...
The Hypas *do* have better stamina than the Hops, but then again, they were the ones with most trouble anyway.

I understand why you leave morale/fatigue on when comparing the overall performance of a specific unit, fair enough. Note though, that if a unit has to heave a siege tower,then climb it (while under fire), then (even though you apparently gave the ai units some room to mount the walls unmolested) charge into battle, especially as the ai runs everywhere, it will be tired before combat even starts. While the wall defenders are set and waiting, fresh.

Just try an extreme version, where you have an army camped atop a steep hill, and the ai has to march across the whole map to get there. Even Elite Phalanx units are so exhausted/pissed off by the time they reach your lines and melee, they start dropping fast and then run away if another unit even breathes heavily on them..

[Watchman]

Are you sure the Golberi Curoas/Bataroas are weaker than the Enoci Curoas/Botroas? Because their armour is much better (the "Southern Gallic Swordsmen" are unarmoured after all).*checks names*
Bugger. Make that Enoci Curoas, the topless dudes in spiky 'dos - I always get the two names mixed up... :sweatdrop:


Note though, that if a unit has to heave a siege tower,then climb it (while under fire), then (even though you apparently gave the ai units some room to mount the walls unmolested) charge into battle, especially as the ai runs everywhere, it will be tired before combat even starts. While the wall defenders are set and waiting, fresh.Units don't run anywhere when pushing a siege tower, I'll remind you. And whatever fatigue they now may accumulate piling into the 'tower posthaste is I suspect largely negated during the waiting time when the top floor fills up.
Not that they'd gotten even close to "tired" by the time they were on the wall, and as mentioned most of the welcoming parties that arrived to evict them slaughtered the lot within not too many minutes.

By the time the last few surviving hoplites might have started getting meaningfully tired the point was entirely moot.

[Cute Wolf]

@ Drewski
Very well, If u try to put hoplitai on defence mode, they will start pushing these pedites extraordinarii fall on the street... even if they should attack, putting the defence mode on will made them into effective "bulldozer" that can tackle anything, save drapanai and other 2 handed infantry killers...

[JinandJuice]

I was under the impression that hoplites on defense mode won't push as hard as they would on non-defensive mode.
BTW, do phalanxes gain a defensive bonus (defensive skill/armor/shield) when they're on phalanx mode?

[Alsatia]

I dont know anything at all abotut phalanx bonuses except it keeps the enemy in place, butchering them in the process.

Any hoplite I put on the walls (with exception of levies and others) normally massacre the oncoming people, especially on ladders. Then you can get an easy heroic. :beam: Haven't tested them on the gauls and germanies yet.

[Celtic_Punk]

how is what I said bupkiss? a spear takes more energy for less killing power. It would also be slower. Therefore by definition its less efficient. energyxTimexkills=efficiency so if spear(ETK=Eff) < sword(ETK=Eff) then sword is more efficient and therefore i am right. Don't get your panties in a twist about my messed up math. because yer a honkey. :beam:

[Watchman]

https://img505.imageshack.us/img505/9269/stfunoob191f36.th.jpg (https://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stfunoob191f36.jpg)

[Maion Maroneios]

OK, someone doesn't like you barb... erhm Celtic Punk.

Maion

[Watchman]

I detest whiners. Especially clueless ones who think they're clever.

[Celtic_Punk]

wow... someone needs to chill out and hit the tied-stick for a minute.

[Watchman]

Shoo.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

In some aspects, a spear is only an effective close combat weapon if it is shorter. It is not especially effective against armour, and it can be easily evaded by a man. In combat vs. short swords, I would expect the swordsmen to mercilessly butcher the spearmen.

[Watchman]

And what do you imagine people carried those various sidearms - coincidentially enough, short swords and long daggers were popular among close-order spearmen for some reason - for; shaving...?
~:doh:
Also, spears are fairly good armour-piercers on the whole. Anything that works by concentrating its impact energy behind a single narrow point tends to be (and human bodies *really* detest having sharp objects poked into their innards, so...). This is the operative principle behind modern sub-caliber kinetic penetrator antitank shells for example, albeit taken to somewhat extreme lenghts there...

Oh, and... you know what was among the most popular and ubiquitous sidearms among Persian infantry ? The akinakes shortsword.
So yeah.

[Alsatia]

True. Even those long speared phalanxes always kept their own sword if a person got through the wall of spears. I have to agree that shorter spears are more effective since they are more maneuverable than the big ones. But still short sword kills. The Romans mercilessly killed their enemies (or got killed and torn to pieces) and built an empire using primarily a short sword. (They fell to negligent emperors, corruption, barbarians...... you know what happened).

[Watchman]

And a big heavy throwing-spear. *shrug* They're also pretty much the ONLY ONES EVER to use a sword as their heavy infantry's primary offensive weapon; just about everyone else mainly used spears, and incidentally tended to do well enough. The Romans switched to that pattern later on, too...
I would imagine there's reasons behind that curiously universal phenomenom.
As well as why war-spears as a rule tended to be *long*; about two meters seems to have been something of an universal minimum, and up to two and half common enough.

And all this among folks whose main-line infantry normally fought massed in close order against more or less similar opponents, ergo lots of shield-to-shield shoving...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Also, spears are fairly good armour-piercers on the whole. Anything that works by concentrating its impact energy behind a single narrow point tends to be (and human bodies *really* detest having sharp objects poked into their innards, so...). This is the operative principle behind modern sub-caliber kinetic penetrator antitank shells for example, albeit taken to somewhat extreme lenghts there...

Nope, that doesn't tell anything. The spear certainly has that kind of construction, but so do flight broadhead arrows, which can bounce off even a leather coat. Unless the spear is designed with a sharp, small tip instead of the common broad one, it's as effective as anything else not made to pierce armour.

And everybody knew about the shortswords, but thanks :clown:.

[Watchman]

Narrower spear-tips penetrate better than broader ones, true enough. But spear-tips are quite narrow enough where it counts, comparatively speaking, thrusts in general penetrate better than cuts, and deep penetrations of the body *kill* very well...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Narrower spear-tips penetrate better than broader ones, true enough. But spear-tips are quite narrow enough where it counts, comparatively speaking, thrusts in general penetrate better than cuts, and deep penetrations of the body *kill* very well...
Not quite, it's better to slash someone since the damage will be comparatively large, and if done right will be fatal. You can't chop someone's head off just by stabbing, one of the reasons why specialist cutting swords were favoured as long as the armour was thin and\or rare. Even the Gladius was an effective cutting blade.

And you also need the right thing to thrust anyway... Doing it with a blunt sharped sword will produce no better results. Broadheads are only good at inflicting big wounds, not piercing armour.

[Watchman]

Cutting is AFAIK generally more useful against the extremities, but against the torso thrusts tend to be more effective; less effort wasted cleaving through all the muscle and bone over the squishy innards you're aiming for, you know.

Anyway, thinking of all the spearheads I've seen over the years (and weekly in the museum I work part-time in), I can't think of too many specimen that weren't pretty much late-Medieval thrust-optimised armour-piercing swords in miniature... even the fairly broad ones most closely resemble the cut-and-thrust swords. Some Viking Age accounts refer to "hewing-spears" which were apparently the direct ancestors of some Medieval cut-and-thrust polearms, but eh...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Cutting is AFAIK generally more useful against the extremities, but against the torso thrusts tend to be more effective; less effort wasted cleaving through all the muscle and bone over the squishy innards you're aiming for, you know.

But the torso is *also* one of the best protected areas in the whole body, usually covered by armour and well within the reach of the smallest shields. Whereas closed helmets were not the norm, neither there was much armour coverage of the extremities until the High Middle Ages, at least in the West; at some point you're better off trying to hack a limb than going through the mail in the chest, and that also exposes you less.



Anyway, thinking of all the spearheads I've seen over the years (and weekly in the museum I work part-time in), I can't think of too many specimen that weren't pretty much late-Medieval thrust-optimised armour-piercing swords in miniature... even the fairly broad ones most closely resemble the cut-and-thrust swords. Some Viking Age accounts refer to "hewing-spears" which were apparently the direct ancestors of some Medieval cut-and-thrust polearms, but eh...

If I'm not mistaken then pretty much every sword before the XIV century was optimised for cut and the speed, with not so very sharp tips. Including most Viking blades; it was a rule of the battlefield that anyone who wore decent armour had more value being ransomed than killed, so I can see the point.

[Watchman]

*shrug* Shoving a spear up someone's nose is an effective enough solution. Also fairly popular. Not that deep stabs into the legs, especially the thighs, are much fun either - why do you think the hoplites wore greaves ?

Striking at the limbs presents some problems, though. Of the legs usually only one is withing reach, and the opponent is wont to try to either move it out of the way or block your strike with his weapon or shield. Of the arms one is wont to be holding a shield and more or less wholly behind it, largely eliminating it from the "hit list"; that largely leaves the weapon arm, which for its part has a tendency to spend much of its time *away* from you and only comes closer when the other guy tries to do something unpleasant to you...

One funny detail about cutting at the legs, though, is that this tended to be a curiously "all or nothing" affair; from what I've read of it (http://www.thearma.org/essays/LegWounds.htm), the accounts suggests that either the limb was shorn pretty much clean off (which tended to be fatal in rather short order) or the damage was superficial and the victim could continue fighting without overmuch difficulties.

If I'm not mistaken then pretty much every sword before the XIV century was optimised for cut and the speed, with not so very sharp tips. Including most Viking blades; it was a rule of the battlefield that anyone who wore decent armour had more value being ransomed than killed, so I can see the point.True enough; the overview of the Oakeshott typology you can find here (http://www.myarmoury.com/features.html) gives a fairly good rundown of the evolution. Though, axes work pretty well on mail as do spears, and were duly pretty popular for dealing with "tough guy" opponents whose continued survival you had no interest in...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

*shrug* Shoving a spear up someone's nose is an effective enough solution. Also fairly popular. Not that deep stabs into the legs, especially the thighs, are much fun either - why do you think the hoplites wore greaves ?

Slashing someone's limb off is a better choice than just puncturing it. It's 100% sure to insta disable anyone, and can be deadly if done by a trained swordsman with a big cutting combo. Limbs and legs also lacked protection, but especially limbs: as the fellow thrusts you, he exposes himself just neatly for a single accurate strike, while slashing the upper part of the body can be done in a much less exposed fashion, usually with the shield covering more of your own limbs and the torso depending on distance.

No wonder then that most elites dedicated to sword fighting around the world mastered slashing movements and slashing swords, most famous being the katana. A militiaman like a hoplite or a legionary might go away with just thrusting a spear (it's fairly easy to just duck behind the shield and keep stabbing), but a trained warrior will certainly know all the intricacies of his sword and his trade enough to be far more effective. In Europe "half-swording" and sharp sword tips were virtually unknown until the advent of plate.



Striking at the limbs presents some problems, though. Of the legs usually only one is withing reach, and the opponent is wont to try to either move it out of the way or block your strike with his weapon or shield. Of the arms one is wont to be holding a shield and more or less wholly behind it, largely eliminating it from the "hit list"; that largely leaves the weapon arm, which for its part has a tendency to spend much of its time *away* from you and only comes closer when the other guy tries to do something unpleasant to you...

Well, a person can duck behind his shield and deflect enemy blows forever. But he also needs to attack, and at any time thrusting a sword will expose far more of the arms than most slashing movements I can think of. The arms were also, fair enough, the least protected part of the body for most warriors, so it's fairly sure a swordsman can easily hack an arm off while his enemy is thrusting, and still evade the blow since it's easier to duck a thrusting thing than a slashing one.



One funny detail about cutting at the legs, though, is that this tended to be a curiously "all or nothing" affair; from what I've read of it, the accounts suggests that either the limb was shorn pretty much clean off (which tended to be fatal in rather short order) or the damage was superficial and the victim could continue fighting without overmuch difficulties.

To be fair most leg protection is only relevant if you're on horseback. Else it's just unlikely that something will hit you below a certain level, unless in a desperate move. A spear might have better chances at doing it, but there are so many other places I think this would be hardly considered at all, since it involves rather complicated techniques. At least with swords.


True enough; the overview of the Oakeshott typology you can find here gives a fairly good rundown of the evolution. Though, axes work pretty well on mail as do spears, and were duly pretty popular for dealing with "tough guy" opponents whose continued survival you had no interest in...

I think axes had a good way of going through the links, but it's also important to notice that mail wasn't that extremely vulnerable to stabbing. In the XIII and early XIV century I've read of triple layered hauberks being employed, and I suppose anything would be hard pressed to go through that even by stabbing.

[Watchman]

I'm rather skeptical of those claims of the thrust being particularly wont to expose the attacker, you know. The movement involved is after all linear, and inasmuch as the weapon arm is wont to become exposed to the enemy "tracking" it with your shield to cover the limb oughta been SOP - it certainly was with a lot of sword-cut techniques anyway, far as I know.

Also good luck cutting effectively at the weapon arm when the attack is a low thrust with a short blade from very close in (below and around the shield, for example) or just about anything done with a long spear from the overhand "reverse" grip... not exactly good angles of attack for an effective cut there, I daresay.

Conversely delivering a strong cut with a blade ought to expose your arm *at least* as badly, and likely far worse - and likely uncomfortable amounts of your body too, although shield helps there.


No wonder then that most elites dedicated to sword fighting around the world mastered slashing movements and slashing swords, most famous being the katana. A militiaman like a hoplite or a legionary might go away with just thrusting a spear (it's fairly easy to just duck behind the shield and keep stabbing), but a trained warrior will certainly know all the intricacies of his sword and his trade enough to be far more effective.Except of course the mid-late-Medieval and later Europeans with their penchance for thrusting blades of various forms - the specific reason being that the edge was pretty much useless against the armour they were wont to face, while the tip wasn't. (Rapiers, used for civilian combat, are a different story and need not concern us here.)
Oh, and didn't I mention something about spears and penetration ? There's very little difference between spears and thrusting swords in this regard...

And of course pretty much *every* warrior everywhere carried the sword as a sidearm; his primary weapon, if not a missile one, being nigh invariably something stuck atop a long pole. (Samurai battlefield roles, for example, basically came in two versions: archer or spearman/lancer.) The use of which, naturally, was studied as obsessively as that of the sword by the kinds of people who made their living by war. The main difference was really that the far more easily carried sword was the weapon he most likely had at his disposal if he suddenly had to fight outside the battlefield...

Spears and polearms are, after all, simple enough to use effectively to make "cheap and cheerful" main weapons for troops that cannot be trained too thoroughly, but versatile and plain effective enough that even elite warriors invariably swore by them and used them just as intensively.

In Europe "half-swording" and sharp sword tips were virtually unknown until the advent of plate.Half-swording, yes; it's a two-handed technique for a thrusting blade for use against armour in close quarters after all. (And, oh, spears again...) Sharp tips, though, much less so. They turn up even in Celtic longswords, a type of weapon not generally known for its emphasis on running folks through, and keep occasionally popping up throughout the interregnum before the High Middle Ages. Even when the blade geometry as a whole was optimised for the cut, one gets the impression many a warrior liked having the option of an effective thrust at his disposal...

[Watchman]

To be fair most leg protection is only relevant if you're on horseback. Else it's just unlikely that something will hit you below a certain level, unless in a desperate move.Anything but. As may be also gathered by studying the assorted incidents in the ARMA articles linked earlier, taking a swipe at the other guy's leg when the opportunity presented itself was quite popular in infantry fighting as well - *especially* if leg armour wasn't commonly worn in the context. Why hack at body armour when you can take the man out at the legs ? And given that most standard fighting postures "lead" with one leg, and are relatively low, it's not like it required that much extra effort either...

A spear might have better chances at doing it, but there are so many other places I think this would be hardly considered at all, since it involves rather complicated techniques. At least with swords.Spears are long. And pokey. Also usually wielded with grips that make "dropping" the tip low enough to transfix some part of the leg with a quick downwards stab easy enough.
Why do you think the hoplites wore greaves ?

In the XIII and early XIV century I've read of triple layered hauberks being employed, and I suppose anything would be hard pressed to go through that even by stabbing.Historians are actually pretty puzzled by those "double" and "triple" mail armours. Is it mail worn in layers, for example a byrnie over a hauberk ? Certainly doable and effective enough, if rather heavy. Or is it mail made of thicker, stronger wire ("double" or even "triple" the usual thickness, at least figuratively speaking), perhaps combined with a different weave (say, 6:1) ? And/or, in different times ?

But certainly such protecion wasn't easy to get through, particularly the layered kind. With nigh *any* weapon actually, though I'd take the occasional claim of "lance-proof" doubled hauberks with a grain of salt...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

I'm rather skeptical of those claims of the thrust being particularly wont to expose the attacker, you know. The movement involved is after all linear, and inasmuch as the weapon arm is wont to become exposed to the enemy "tracking" it with your shield to cover the limb oughta been SOP - it certainly was with a lot of sword-cut techniques anyway, far as I know.

Well, depending on the attack, you can or cannot expose your limbs all too well. Unless both sides are awfully close, and depending on blade sizes, I dare say that the weapon arm has to go quite a lot of distance to do so, and in an angle that is particularly favourable to a well made done slash from left or right, assuming he's going for the torso or the face. That could be practically a "straight line" of exposed flesh from the attacker to the defender, whereas making up-down vertical slashing or horizontal movements would put the arm in a much more protected position. Supposing the enemy's grip is on the right side, and yours on the left, you could effectively block a thrust with a shield (or duck it) while still performing a deadly cut, OR hack his limb with a cutting movement in a way that he, thrusting, would be simply not capable of performing, like immediately blocking the stab with a buckler, and immediately doing an attack on his exposed limb, hacking it off.

Of course, I think we delving too much into a subject which is the domain of few. I rather feel not very qualified because I'm at best an amateur sword fencer and reenactor. It's probably a "thousand ways" scenario, all of which are not necessarily wrong.



Also good luck cutting effectively at the weapon arm when the attack is a low thrust with a short blade from very close in (below and around the shield, for example) or just about anything done with a long spear from the overhand "reverse" grip... not exactly good angles of attack for an effective cut there, I daresay.

A low thrust can be effectively neutralized if you're skilled or if your shield is big enough, whereas a longspear, like any thrusting movement, can still be more easily dodged if attacked at one of the body extremities; another advantage is the fact that every wooden pole can be simply hacked off, depending on factors. Dodging in particular should not be underestimated: there are a thousand ways of avoiding it, simply because the effective "area of attack" is too small. You could jump under the pikes, dodge them and even set them aside easily with your hands, by grabbing them. Or this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-gfclxfnpo).


Except of course the mid-late-Medieval and later Europeans with their penchance for thrusting blades of various forms - the specific reason being that the edge was pretty much useless against the armour they were wont to face, while the tip wasn't. (Rapiers, used for civilian combat, are a different story and need not concern us here.)
Oh, and didn't I mention something about spears and penetration ? There's very little difference between spears and thrusting swords in this regard...

Again, not necessarily every thrusting movement is effective vs. armour. The spear was more of a weapon of necessity for what I know: cheap, relatively easy to use, and good in particular situations, like working in formation.

I can understand the use of half swording and other sharp things to pierce armour, but before armour became thicker and widespread on the battlefield all the evidence points towards the clear preference for cutting blades.



And of course pretty much *every* warrior everywhere carried the sword as a sidearm; his primary weapon, if not a missile one, being nigh invariably something stuck atop a long pole. (Samurai battlefield roles, for example, basically came in two versions: archer or spearman/lancer.) The use of which, naturally, was studied as obsessively as that of the sword by the kinds of people who made their living by war. The main difference was really that the far more easily carried sword was the weapon he most likely had at his disposal if he suddenly had to fight outside the battlefield...

Samurai and other Eastern armies carried a lot of poles that I can remind of. One was a specifically glaive-like pole which was lengthy and extremely cumbersome, being a specialized weapon for charging at enemy formations.

Samurai were specialized in a lot of weapons, to be true, although for individual combat (and not general in-formation ones) the katana ruled supreme, and it was a superb cutting blade as we all know...



Spears and polearms are, after all, simple enough to use effectively to make "cheap and cheerful" main weapons for troops that cannot be trained too thoroughly, but versatile and plain effective enough that even elite warriors invariably swore by them and used them just as intensively.

Agreed. Spears and most polearms have a far better value amidst a collective all than in individual combat, and thus their role on the field is perfectly understandable.



Half-swording, yes; it's a two-handed technique for a thrusting blade for use against armour in close quarters after all. (And, oh, spears again...) Sharp tips, though, much less so. They turn up even in Celtic longswords, a type of weapon not generally known for its emphasis on running folks through, and keep occasionally popping up throughout the interregnum before the High Middle Ages. Even when the blade geometry as a whole was optimised for the cut, one gets the impression many a warrior liked having the option of an effective thrust at his disposal...

In combat, it's best to leave every door open... Still most swords that I'm aware of have been since the Celtic Age specialized for slashing, and often light weight. That doesn't mean thrusting was effectively left out, since even with these round tips it was good to thrust at something. Again, provided it wears no armour.


Anything but. As may be also gathered by studying the assorted incidents in the ARMA articles linked earlier, taking a swipe at the other guy's leg when the opportunity presented itself was quite popular in infantry fighting as well - *especially* if leg armour wasn't commonly worn in the context. Why hack at body armour when you can take the man out at the legs ? And given that most standard fighting postures "lead" with one leg, and are relatively low, it's not like it required that much extra effort either...

I'm not to keen to believe this yet... It takes a lot of strain and complicated movements just to reach the legs, which are also thin and flexible targets. Slashing maybe good, but if the enemy warrior has minimum movement freedom dodging attacks from there might be too easy. Hoplites worked in very close formations, so that might be why they opted for greaves when many others in different situations didn't.


Historians are actually pretty puzzled by those "double" and "triple" mail armours. Is it mail worn in layers, for example a byrnie over a hauberk ? Certainly doable and effective enough, if rather heavy. Or is it mail made of thicker, stronger wire ("double" or even "triple" the usual thickness, at least figuratively speaking), perhaps combined with a different weave (say, 6:1) ? And/or, in different times ?

But certainly such protecion wasn't easy to get through, particularly the layered kind. With nigh *any* weapon actually, though I'd take the occasional claim of "lance-proof" doubled hauberks with a grain of salt...

Well there's at least one claim from the Crusades where someone (don't remember exactly whom) claimed to have lanced a Crusader Knight at full speed for no effect. Turns out he was pushed back and lost his helm and sword, but was intact; it's a bit dubious whether or not the hauberk was pierced, but it might count as a case. Not something you could hope for all the time, however.

As for double layered armour, I believe it was just another identical layer of mail or the likes. A hauberk is a flexible thing, so I'm not too much skeptical of one or two more hauberks being worn over the original. "Double-maille" in particular was especially recommended vs. arrows and mailed warriors have been consistently shown to defeat arrows from even the most powerful bows. Since an arrow and a spear (and other thrusting weapons) work in similar ways, I assume a well armoured mailed man-at-arms had nothing to fear from them either.

[Alsatia]

Wow, all this debate and i'm actually learning something...

With all means keep going..


Unfourtunately, I cannot add anything to the argument.:sweatdrop:

[Duguntz]

And what do you imagine people carried those various sidearms - coincidentially enough, short swords and long daggers were popular among close-order spearmen for some reason - for; shaving...?
~:doh:

Fighting with a long beard is awfully bothering... it's tickling all the time... Yes, it was for shaving...

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

[Celtic_Punk]

And a big heavy throwing-spear. *shrug* They're also pretty much the ONLY ONES EVER to use a sword as their heavy infantry's primary offensive weapon; just about everyone else mainly used spears, and incidentally tended to do well enough. The Romans switched to that pattern later on, too...
I would imagine there's reasons behind that curiously universal phenomenom.
As well as why war-spears as a rule tended to be *long*; about two meters seems to have been something of an universal minimum, and up to two and half common enough.

And all this among folks whose main-line infantry normally fought massed in close order against more or less similar opponents, ergo lots of shield-to-shield shoving...


first off. the Romans proved the effectiveness of the sword. And we all know the main Celtic weapon was the spear. But that was because it was good for levies. Proper soldiers the majority of the time would opt for the longsword. as would I. There is a reason for this. It's generally more useful, many more ways to poke holes in your opponent. worse if he said opponent has a spear.

[Ludens]

first off. the Romans proved the effectiveness of the sword. And we all know the main Celtic weapon was the spear. But that was because it was good for levies. Proper soldiers the majority of the time would opt for the longsword. as would I. There is a reason for this. It's generally more useful, many more ways to poke holes in your opponent. worse if he said opponent has a spear.

IIRC Japanese sources claim that, if skill is equal, a samurai with a spear will beat one with a sword. Duels between samurai were fought with spears, polearms, or even bows, but rarely with swords. I am sure Watchman can cite sources from other cultures, but the point bears repeating: the swords was almost always used a back-up weapon. The Romans were unique in using the sword as a primary weapon.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

IIRC Japanese sources claim that, if skill is equal, a samurai with a spear will beat one with a sword

That's quite a bit of a precipitated conclusion...


the swords was almost always used a back-up weapon. The Romans were unique in using the sword as a primary weapon.

Actually pretty much every elite used swords in combat, from the Celts up to the Renaissance. Spears were often left to militias and professional soldiers.

Edit - Here is an account of a sword duel: http://home.att.net/~hofhine/Samurai.html.

In duels they must have used pretty much whatever they had in hand, so it's also a bit precipitated to say that the katana was merely a side arm for all occasions.

[Celtic_Punk]

sword duels between samurai were over in seconds. usually one bout and one of the two would fall. rarely would you have a long epic and brutal duel between two samurai of equal skill. Also as for a spear killing a warrior armed with a sword of equal skill? that stinks to me. the shaft of the spear can be cut turning the weapon semi useless to an exposed body, totally useless against armour. A skilled warrior with a sword could demolish someone carrying a spear. the only real advantage a spear has is being able to throw it a short distance (its not a javelin remember) and its penetrating power. once that head is gone it becomes a burden. Or if you close in between the spearhead and the wielder's hands, he's buggered. there is a reason swords take the limelight when it comes to the elite of soldiers. They are more efficient. And this is reflected in the RTW engine on walls. axes, swords, ect. are much better one walls then spears. Spears are ineffiecent and must be used in a cohesive unit to be implemented properly. The MAIN reason they are fielded so widely is because; A) Pointed sticks were the first weapon (other than a rock turned clubbing stone, or something similar) B) spears are CHEAP and easy to learn how to use.(learning to use a sword exceptionally takes a lifetime of practise. and C) effective against cavalry

[Ludens]

Actually pretty much every elite used swords in combat, from the Celts up to the Renaissance. Spears were often left to militias and professional soldiers.

Edit - Here is an account of a sword duel: http://home.att.net/~hofhine/Samurai.html.

In duels they must have used pretty much whatever they had in hand, so it's also a bit precipitated to say that the katana was merely a side arm for all occasions.

OK, I was overpositive. But medieval elites would have generally used their swords as back-up because they mostly faced heavily-armoured opponents: their weapons of choice would have been axes, maces or polearms. Not sure about Celts, but didn't someone complain that EB's Celtic elites overemphasize the use of swords?


Also as for a spear killing a warrior armed with a sword of equal skill? that stinks to me. the shaft of the spear can be cut turning the weapon semi useless to an exposed body, totally useless against armour. A skilled warrior with a sword could demolish someone carrying a spear.

Cutting off a spearhead? That's pretty difficult if they guy on the other end is trying to kill you. You cannot strike at the correct angle if that thing is pointing at you? Never mind that a good spearman would constantly keep the moving, thus not allowing you to bat it away and get within his minimum range.

I am not commenting on the efficacy of spears on walls: I agree they are a liability in confined spaces. I just argue against the simplification of sword-beat-spears.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

But medieval elites would have generally used their swords as back-up because they mostly faced heavily-armoured opponents: their weapons of choice would have been axes, maces or polearms. Not sure about Celts, but didn't someone complain that EB's Celtic elites overemphasize the use of swords?

It depends on what kind of elite you speak. Before the advent of plate, pretty much most elites of the Middle Ages carried only slashing swords.

As for the overuse of swords by Celts, I think it's best to speak with the Celtic team, if they're still available.

[Watchman]

*shrug* Well, everyone had a spear or lance for the pokey stuff and axes were readily available if someone wanted something more choppy than a sword... though as already mentioned most cutting swords had serviceable thrusting tips too. Specifically cut-and-thrust duel-purpose designs became prevalent in the High Middle Ages, and by Late the cut-optimised blades were definitely in a minority (even the big infantry two-handers tended to be cut-and-thrust affairs).

Oh, and knights and other elite warriors on battlefield tended to have something atop a pole as their primary weapon; lance if mounted, spear (often the selfsame lance - before the solid breastplates and lance-rests the difference between an infantry longspear and a cavalry lance was rather academic) on foot, later a bewildering variety of two-handed polearms. Late-period plate-clad horsemen didn't usually bother even trying with their swords against each other, and instead bonked the other sod upside the head with a mace.
You know those famous late-Medieval "sword and buckler" infantry ? They and similar 'light' infantry (by tactics, not by equipement; their armour tended to be lighter than the typical line infantry's only at the legs, in the interests of mobility) also tended to carry spears and polearms as their initial primary weapons; good all-purpose battlefield tools, and *way* more useful against horsemen than swords. Being able to toss a spear in the other guy's face before closing in was also useful, as such troops often found themselves assaulting field fortifications.
Also, long spears were de rigueur for naval boarding parties until the end of the Age of Sail. And the pointmen of the fighting-complements of warships tended to be warrior aristocrats in topnotch war gear...

As for the samurai, ehhh... the early ones were either armoured horse-archers (the elite) or their lightly armed infantry support (the rank and file). Both carried a decent-sized sword as a sidearm, but the infantry's main weapons were assorted spears and polearms while the cavalry were archers first and foremost - and their semi-ritualised battlefield duels had a tendency to get finished in the ground with daggers... the sword was used more to smite enemy infantry in melee.
After the Mongol invasion attempts archery became more of the province of common infantry operating in massed brigades, and the mounted elite converted into lancers - the cataphracts of Antiquity would probably have found their four-meter lances rather familiar in general form and function... Combat on foot was unsurprisingly still carried out mostly with spears (which eventually stretched into true pikes, although the tactics used with those were a bit different from the Western Eurasian ones) and other polearms, above all the ever-popular naginata (which was apparently so often used to cut at the legs of a foeman it was directly responsible for the adoption of rather heavy shin and knee armour).

*shrug*

Go pretty much anywhere anytime, and you'll find pretty much every warrior's primary battlefield weapon is something sharp atop something long and wooden (or cane/bamboo, in some parts). It's just that good.

[Celtic_Punk]

celtic elites sometimes opted for the spear in duels or in open warfare. But swords were more popular among the elite. if your family had a sword, it was a sign of status with in your community.

[Cute Wolf]

At least we can tell that the "spear" unit still worth their "+4 attack" from all this argument...

:2thumbsup:

[Maion Maroneios]

Dude, I don't understand your sig :tongue:

Maion

[Watchman]

celtic elites sometimes opted for the spear in duels or in open warfare. But swords were more popular among the elite. if your family had a sword, it was a sign of status with in your community.No duh. Expensive and thus not every tosser's toy = status symbol, automatically. Doesn't mean they still wouldn't have carried a stout spear or few though.

It sometimes seems to me quite a few people here seem to regard the matter of personal armaments among bygone warriors as some kind of "one-or-the-other" deal, as if even infantry didn't regularly go into battle bearing a small arsenal...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Oh, and knights and other elite warriors on battlefield tended to have something atop a pole as their primary weapon; lance if mounted, spear (often the selfsame lance - before the solid breastplates and lance-rests the difference between an infantry longspear and a cavalry lance was rather academic) on foot, later a bewildering variety of two-handed polearms. Late-period plate-clad horsemen didn't usually bother even trying with their swords against each other, and instead bonked the other sod upside the head with a mace.

The lance was a charging weapon: pretty much every Knight until the appearance of plate used swords as a weapon of choice. Even then, I would hardly consider the Poleaxe a "spear" or anything resembling it, like a Spanish pike.


Also, long spears were de rigueur for naval boarding parties until the end of the Age of Sail. And the pointmen of the fighting-complements of warships tended to be warrior aristocrats in topnotch war gear...

:inquisitive:


You know those famous late-Medieval "sword and buckler" infantry ? They and similar 'light' infantry (by tactics, not by equipement; their armour tended to be lighter than the typical line infantry's only at the legs, in the interests of mobility) also tended to carry spears and polearms as their initial primary weapons; good all-purpose battlefield tools, and *way* more useful against horsemen than swords. Being able to toss a spear in the other guy's face before closing in was also useful, as such troops often found themselves assaulting field fortifications.

Doesn't matter: their primary weapon was their blade, or their axe, or anything else not as unwieldy and long.


Go pretty much anywhere anytime, and you'll find pretty much every warrior's primary battlefield weapon is something sharp atop something long and wooden (or cane/bamboo, in some parts). It's just that good.

Good for the charge, good to hold a line or formation, but once in close combat it is better to switch to your sidearm. One of the reasons why these were carried everywhere, too.


What exactly are you trying to prove, Watchman?


No duh. Expensive and thus not every tosser's toy = status symbol, automatically. Doesn't mean they still wouldn't have carried a stout spear or few though.

For something to be more than an expensive ornament, and thus not something a band of warriors would care to carry on anything more than just parades, it has to be an effective weapon.

[Watchman]

The lance was a charging weapon: pretty much every Knight until the appearance of plate used swords as a weapon of choice.A sword was pretty much the sidearm de rigueur for well-armed troops throughout the millenia, so that doesn't mean much. "Primary" weapon, though ? Not really. The cavalry's was the lance/spear, as their main job was the charge; dismounted, they tended to use more or less the same thing as a long spear. The sword was pulled out for the close melee once the staff-weapon broke or the enemy got too close for it to be useful anymore.

Even then, I would hardly consider the Poleaxe a "spear" or anything resembling it, like a Spanish pike.Spearhead at the top was all but universal in such weapons, and by and large the part that saw most use; it was also the one most often used to finish off armoured opponents, if period sources are to judge by...

:inquisitive:????
Don't tell me this was news or something ? Long spears were an ubiquitous marine weapon already in antiquity, and remained so until the mid-1800s or so - *despite* the prevalence of bayoneted muskets.
And you don't get much more close combat than boarding actions, that's for sure.

Doesn't matter: their primary weapon was their blade, or their axe, or anything else not as unwieldy and long.In close quarters and restricted terrain, yes. Otherwise, though ? Poelarms and spears FTW.

Parallel note: the armoured "head-risker" assault corps of the Ottoman Janissaries also carried polearms as their primary shock weapons, and swords and shields for backup. And among THEIR main duties was breach assaults in sieges...

Good for the charge, good to hold a line or formation, but once in close combat it is better to switch to your sidearm.No duh, Captain Obvious. Though your average fighting-spear remained useful until some *very* close-in ranges when held in the overhand "reversed" grip, and of course there was the acute difficulty for the foeman to get through those minimum two ranks of spears in the first place...

One of the reasons why these were carried everywhere, too.Sidearms, you mean ? Eh. Those were carried everywhere for the simple reason they were per definition easily portable, either by belt or baldric. Which obviously also meant you could carry them around in everyday civilian life without restricting your ability to use your hands for productive purposes. Which obviously doesn't mean just about everybody wouldn't have preferred to fetch his full war panoply for a fight had he had the time...

What exactly are you trying to prove, Watchman?That "pretty much every elite used swords in combat --- spears were often left to militias and professional soldiers" is a grossly tendentiously simplified statement, and just plain false in parts. As already mentioned the elite warriors (more often than not interchangeable with "professional soldiers") were on the whole just as keen spear- and polearm-users as, if not more than, the humbler warriors - all the more so as the latter category tended to cover the missile troops, who for obvious reasons tended to rely nigh entirely on sidearms for close combat...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

A sword was pretty much the sidearm de rigueur for well-armed troops throughout the millenia, so that doesn't mean much. "Primary" weapon, though ? Not really. The cavalry's was the lance/spear, as their main job was the charge; dismounted, they tended to use more or less the same thing as a long spear. The sword was pulled out for the close melee once the staff-weapon broke or the enemy got too close for it to be useful anymore.

A knight's job was not merely "charging". Knights carried loads of armour and equipment precisely because charging was only part of their job; I ask you to refer to the use of Dismounted Knights in the battle lines since pretty much the Crusades, and their weapon of choice was certainly NOT the lance, because it was too bulky, heavy and slow for being pretty much any serious close combat weapon. Neither it was for a mounted knight after the charge, who switched to their sidearms quickly.

Following these lines, I consider your statement that the lance was the "Knights primary" weapon flat out wrong. The Knight's, and pretty much every mounted elite, needed their swords and other sidearms for pretty much every combat situation EXCEPT for the charge, which is only one of such situations. The lance is therefore, for all purposes, a secondary weapon.

As for the use of lances as poles, we only have some specific situations where that was employed. Most of the time, the Knight did what it was actually trained to do and fight in close combat unit as a swordsman.


Spearhead at the top was all but universal in such weapons, and by and large the part that saw most use; it was also the one most often used to finish off armoured opponents, if period sources are to judge by...

Again Watchman, prove it. Please put your sources galore for all these bold statements about the spear being an uber weapon, because for my knowledge a spear is not any better against armour than any other weapon, including a pointy sword. The fact that it was widely used means it was useful for certain situations, like holding the enemy far away, charging the enemy or just for being cheap, and not because it was intrinsically more effective than the sword in every aspect. Of all the elites involved in close combat, my count goes that the majority employed swords as a primary weapon for shock, from the Celtic heavy infantryman to the later Knight. Even with plate, necessary it is to tell, techniques of half swording and bulky sharp two handed swords could do the job just fine, and were employed by Knights all over the place. Perhaps more than poleaxes, perhaps not, but certainly in an equally relevant fashion.


????
Don't tell me this was news or something ? Long spears were an ubiquitous marine weapon already in antiquity, and remained so until the mid-1800s or so - *despite* the prevalence of bayoneted muskets.
And you don't get much more close combat than boarding actions, that's for sure.

Majority of people aboard used sabres, falchions, rapiers and the like if we are to judge from Renaissance examples. The pike was, if ever employed, a niche weapon in comparison. You don't have that much room for them during combat, especially in a cramped ship.


In close quarters and restricted terrain, yes. Otherwise, though ? Poelarms and spears FTW.

Parallel note: the armoured "head-risker" assault corps of the Ottoman Janissaries also carried polearms as their primary shock weapons, and swords and shields for backup. And among THEIR main duties was breach assaults in sieges...

Watchman, a "shock weapon" is not necessarily a "primary" weapon. It might be useful for a specific role, but once it ends they switch to something else better, like maces, bows or anything of the like. In the Renaissance example, the Spanish and many other powers on the continent fielded shock swordsmen who were capable of simply cutting through pikes: the only reason they got discarded is that the musket did a better job at better distance for less training. Even then, every pikeman had to be by rule a skilled swordsman.


No duh, Captain Obvious. Though your average fighting-spear remained useful until some *very* close-in ranges when held in the overhand "reversed" grip, and of course there was the acute difficulty for the foeman to get through those minimum two ranks of spears in the first place...

1, the overhand reversed grip was by no means universally employed, and 2.at close ranges, my money is always on the guy who has the shortest, fastest weapon. Trying to spear down a guy with an 8 foot hoplite pole while he dodges you and simultaneously thrusts at you with a knife is suicidal, also one of the reasons why they switched to their sidearms at this situation.


As already mentioned the elite warriors (more often than not interchangeable with "professional soldiers") were on the whole just as keen spear- and polearm-users as, if not more than, the humbler warriors

The spear was a versatile weapon, and thus any warrior would readily learn how to man it. Doesn't change the fact that its main bearers were line troops, and that it was not nearly as indispensable for the warrior as you're trying to state.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Here is a good post over the Realistic Combat Module forums for M&B. The creator of the mod sums my thoughts neatly, and why pikes and spears were necessarily better suited for fighting in formation.

http://mbx.streetofeyes.com/index.php/topic,348.msg32867.html#msg32867


Long before Native borrowed the idea, I think I started that with OnR ... the Japanese yari was actually used as a glaive of sorts, more than a "spear" in the Western sense. (The M&B dev team are big fans of OnR ... that's been posted a few times.)

In a word, large, heavy weapons (pole-axes or whatever) are seldom effective unless you get lucky or have good support nearby. A short, fast weapon will allow most people to rush the heavy ... which is why modern muggers carry knives and crowbars, but seldom make an attack with a sledgehammer.

Unless you're just very good with one, European-type spears are not much of a weapon. Like fighting with a chain - for most people, a first-strike weapon only. Spears do offer longer reach, which is valuable if fighting from a tight group, but likely useless one-on-one. Realistically, almost anybody can pass the point of a single spear with few if any injuries. A man on a horse is not so lucky in that regard, as the horse will pretty much hold him exactly in the spear's engagement envelope ... but still, if he is wearing any armor at all, sticking him with that thing is not going to be easy.

Historical note - the point of the "pike push" (use of spears from a block) was to drive an enemy back, more than to kill them directly. Looking at the points of a dozen spears is psychologically disconcerting, to say the least, especially if you have a short weapon. It's not just one ... a dozen of those guys will get a shot at you before you can reach their lines. Also true of ranged weapons - knife against bow, crossbow, or gun at distance is an already decided outcome, but knife against gun inside a phone booth, and my money is on the knife every time.

Part of the RCM objective was to put realistic limitations on weapons. There should not be a lot of "better" weapons - every weapon should have a predictable function and a predictable weakness. Spears and heavy polearms give reach, but cost big in speed and versatility. Heavy polearms also add high damage to that, while the primary bonus of spears is that they are cheap to build. Either way, they're only effective under particular conditions.

[Watchman]

A knight's job was not merely "charging". Knights carried loads of armour and equipment precisely because charging was only part of their job; I ask you to refer to the use of Dismounted Knights in the battle lines since pretty much the Crusades, and their weapon of choice was certainly NOT the lance, because it was too bulky, heavy and slow for being pretty much any serious close combat weapon. Neither it was for a mounted knight after the charge, who switched to their sidearms quickly.Crécy, where dismounted English men-at-arms used their lances (with excess lenght summarily chopped off the shaft) quite promptly springs to mind. I'll remind you here that the very highly specialised late-Medieval "fluted" heavy lance, with its "hourglass" butt-end for interfacing with the armour's lance-rest, was a rather late developement; until then cavalry lances were simply long spears, with minor differences to optimise them for their task (ie. AFAIK the tip was usually rather small, narrow, and square-profiled).

Knights and men-at-arms deployed on foot were simply armoured elite infantry (and are known to have been occasionally dispersed into the ranks of common heavy infantry to "stiffen" their formations), and used all the same weapons. Spears included; fending off armoured lancers with a sword being obviously something of a losing proposition, and the extra killing reach and formation-combat ability provided by something long and pointy was certainly appreciated. (Heck, knightly combat training was all-round enough to include javelin-throwing...)

Following these lines, I consider your statement that the lance was the "Knights primary" weapon flat out wrong. The Knight's, and pretty much every mounted elite, needed their swords and other sidearms for pretty much every combat situation EXCEPT for the charge, which is only one of such situations. The lance is therefore, for all purposes, a secondary weapon.Hardly. The lance was what European heavy cavalry came to revolve around after the widespread adoption of the couched-alnce technique late in the 11th century, with tactics, formations, training and equipement increasingly optimised to maximise its effectiveness. After a succesful charge the lance usually became useless, true; partly as by that stage it was usually stuck in someone's innards and/or broken, partly as its great lenght (around four meters being typical) wasn't well suited for the conditions of the whirling melee that usually followed a succesful cavalry charge. Ergo normally the warrior would drop his lance (or what was left of it) and pull his sidearm, whatever that now was.
But that sidearm was not his *primary* weapon by any stretch of imagination, as it did not define and dominate his tactical function.

Also, cavalry elsewhere tended to use somewhat shorter pokey things which, unsurprisingly, were better suited for general-purpose use.

As for the use of lances as poles, we only have some specific situations where that was employed. Most of the time, the Knight did what it was actually trained to do and fight in close combat unit as a swordsman.Knights were trained to do a whole LOT of things you know, including throw javelins and shoot bows (this primarily employed in hunting and defending fortifications, though). Though rather specialised in their primary battlefield role they were pretty much the most thoroughly trained fighters in their context, and quite multipurpose if necessary.
And period close-combat infantry norms included long spears and later polearms. Both of which all knights were trained to, and cheerfully did when possible, use.

Methinks you're confusing the rather specific tactical situation where men-at-arms dismounted *during* a battle to assault rough terrain or similar, when they for fairly obvious reasons generally didn't bother to keep their lances as they tended to need hands free to climb and whatever, with the more common scenario where they purposefully dismounted before battle to fight as heavy infantry.

Again Watchman, prove it. Please put your sources galore for all these bold statements about the spear being an uber weapon, because for my knowledge a spear is not any better against armour than any other weapon, including a pointy sword.Erm, I'm not claiming the spear was an "uber" weapon; it's you guys claiming that the *sword* was. All I'm arguing here is that you're severely underestimating the usefulness and effectiveness of long pointy wooden things.
Secondly I'm very much not trying to claim spears were "better against armour than any other weapon", merely noting that it was just as effective as any other thrust-specialised weapon at penetrating armour. Which pretty much means it *was* more effective than most cutting weapons, tip-heavy "mass" weapons like axes nonwithstanding, but *those* things I've repeatedly noted to be effective against armour as well as the late-Medieval fully armed cavalry's tool of choice for dealing with each other's nigh-invulnerability.

No strawmen, please.

And if you want sources, go read up on Medieval an later warfare, as well as historical warfare in general. Also the Fechbuchs.

The fact that it was widely used means it was useful for certain situations, like holding the enemy far away, charging the enemy or just for being cheap, and not because it was intrinsically more effective than the sword in every aspect.Again, strawman. I never claimed it was "more effective than the sword in every aspect", which would be a ridiculous argument in any case. The two fulfilled different tactical roles; but there was more the spear could do that the sword couldn't, than vice versa - which is why spears were so universally carried by people who had perfectly good swords slung at their sides.

Of all the elites involved in close combat, my count goes that the majority employed swords as a primary weapon for shock, from the Celtic heavy infantryman to the later Knight. Even with plate, necessary it is to tell, techniques of half swording and bulky sharp two handed swords could do the job just fine, and were employed by Knights all over the place. Perhaps more than poleaxes, perhaps not, but certainly in an equally relevant fashion.The Celts had quite the high regard for spears though, and used them rather universally regardless of rank and status. Some may have *preferred* to rely on the sword alone for close combat, but as usual this was an issue of personal taste rather than a general practice.

Late-period knights on foot for their part mostly went with powerful polearms for all-around killing power, "all-in-one" designs like bills and halberds/pollaxes being particulary favoured for their versatility, and "hand and half" longswords, typically of thrust-oriented design, for sidearms. (And the ubiquitous dagger, of course, one of the more common actual causes of death among heavily armed warriors.) Worth noting that all the most universally popular weapons in this context were thrust-enabled, ie. included spear-like functionality, whether it was the top spike of the polearm or the thrusting point of a typical late-period longsword.

In general, historically troops armed with sword only for close combat have been rare and typically specialists, usually light infantry meant to operate in loose order in rough terrain or simply "heavy" skirmishers, or who needed two hands for some other weapon like a bow.

Line combatants very rarely if ever failed to use a whole lot of long pointy things in their ranks when fighting on foot.

Majority of people aboard used sabres, falchions, rapiers and the like if we are to judge from Renaissance examples.Rapiers aren't even military weapons, while falchion-like choppy swords were a more or less universal sidearm which often either replaced or accompanied more general-purpose sword designs. So eh.

And certainly what I've read of for example the fighting-complements of war galleys in Late Medieval and Early Modern times suggested a high degree of popularity for diverse "boarding pikes" ("half-pike" being IIRC the most popular single type) and two-handed polearms among the assault contignents - pretty much regardless of whether they were Europeans, Barbary Corsairs or Turkish naval Janissaries and sea-sipahi.

The pike was, if ever employed, a niche weapon in comparison. You don't have that much room for them during combat, especially in a cramped ship.So little you understand of boarding combat, clearly. Being able to wound and kill your foemen at a distance is an obviously useful capability already when trying to establish a "beachead" on the deck of the enemy ship, and remains further useful in the ensuing close combat; naturally if and when an opponent moves in close (or the shaft-weapon breaks) an individual warrior will switch to a sidearm better suited for cramped conditions, but before that the foeman in question first needs to actually get past the point of the long pokey thing...
Did you know ? In Antiquity the Greek epibaitai - marines - were just as fond of their 2.5m doru as hoplites on land, and there's a theory (http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson/Iphikrates1.html) that Iphikrates' "proto-phalanx" reforms were in part inspired by the very long spears he saw Egyptian marines use...

Watchman, a "shock weapon" is not necessarily a "primary" weapon. It might be useful for a specific role, but once it ends they switch to something else better, like maces, bows or anything of the like.BS. For close-combat troops their primary "shock" weapon was pretty much per definition also their primary weapon that dominated their deployement and tactics, until circumstances necessitated pulling out sidearms. The same considerations that apply to naval boarding actions also apply to fortress assaults and the like; bluntly put, the ability to hurt and kill the other guy at reach is very useful, nevermind now the necessity of having a powerful two-handed weapon to deal with the kind of armour the kinds of close-combat troops that usually handled breach defense were wont to sport...

Conversely bows tend to be kind of per definition the primary weapons of archers, so eh.

In the Renaissance example, the Spanish and many other powers on the continent fielded shock swordsmen who were capable of simply cutting through pikes: the only reason they got discarded is that the musket did a better job at better distance for less training. Even then, every pikeman had to be by rule a skilled swordsman.Leaving aside the usual discrepancy between what the regulations demanded and the troops in practice could, I'd remind you that the Spanish sword-and-buckler men and similar "light" infantry assault units tended to be *very* heavily armoured (three-quarter plate being common) just to get through the pike-walls and whatnot alive. Also they quite commonly also carried spears and polearms, already to diversify their tactical functionality and because those were standard and effective assault-unit armaments; the Doppelsoldners of pike units carried polearms and big two-handed swords for their assault role, the latter initially useful for plain chopping up pike-shafts (then people started adding reinforcing iron strips to the shafts, and the big two-handed swords soon found themselves relegated to bodyguard duty).

The effectiveness of such "close assault" infantry really came mostly from the pike's obvious uselessness against an opponent in your face, and the fact the average pikeman - lacking a shield and usually not all that well armoured - was obviously at a disadvantage in a close melee against an opponent armed with a shield and one-handed weapon, or a powerful two-hander.

We're not talking about pikes here though.


1, the overhand reversed grip was by no means universally employed,Bullshit. That's like saying diverse grips with swords and whatever weren't universally employed as appropriate. Different military traditions may have had different preferences as to which grip they normally employed and for which situations, but it's a flat out given *every* spearman everywhere knew both (they're pretty much a basic part of all-around competence with the weapon; nevermind now that the overhand is essentially identical to the grip used when *throwing* a spear, another universal skill...) and would switch as appropriate according to the situation.

...and 2.at close ranges, my money is always on the guy who has the shortest, fastest weapon. Trying to spear down a guy with an 8 foot hoplite pole while he dodges you and simultaneously thrusts at you with a knife is suicidal, also one of the reasons why they switched to their sidearms at this situation.Uh-huh. Persian archers trying to take on hoplites with their short blades beg to differ here. Also you're merrily ignoring the kind of obstacle a shield presents, the limitations imposed by the kind of close-order fighting spearmen by preference tended to operate in, and the contribution of the *other* spearmen most of whom will be only too happy to take an opportunistic stab at you. Especially the guy immediately behind the man you're trying to get all stabby with.

In fact, for all my reading of military history I can recall but one instance of short quick blades used succesfully on a mass-combat scale. That was in the 1500s or so, a group of knights IIRC repelling an Ottoman breach assault opting to use their daggers and grappling to deal with their enemies, presumably on account of particularly difficult and "close" ground being fought over. Wildly succesful there, but then these guys *were* in full plate.

The spear was a versatile weapon, and thus any warrior would readily learn how to man it. Doesn't change the fact that its main bearers were line troops, and that it was not nearly as indispensable for the warrior as you're trying to state.The historical record seems to have considered a near-indispensable mass-combat wepaon though... and its near universal popularity among all ranks of warriors somewhat begs to differ.

TL;DR - to reiterate the main point: a spear or something incorporating its capabilities (namely ability to poke holes in people at a distance) was something most warriors everywhere, regardless of status, considered an extremely useful part of his arsenal and more often than not elected to use as his primary initial weapon, only switching to his sidearms (whatever those now were) when forced by circumstances.

[Watchman]

Also that quote is full of crap. Period. Clearly whoever wrote it isn't aware that most polearm-users chiefly employed the spear-tip at the top *specifically* because a committed swing with the more choppy bits was wont to leave them open to retaliation if the other guy got out of the way in time... heck, most of the big two-hander swords were similarly chiefly employed for thrusting because that didn't take the main body of the weapon - the user's main parrying tool - "out of line".

And what I've read of dedicated re-enactors etc. accounts of the spear-and-shield combo even in individual combat hardly agrees with him. Also, "European spears" ? As if those were meaningfully different from anyone elses'...

That comparision with muggers is so stupid it's not even funny, nevermind now entirely ignoring the urban criminal's chief concern in his choice of weapons - easy portability and concealibility. This is why they use small handguns rather than long-arms, too... and why Finland has such low gun crime rates despite having almost as many guns per capita as the US; most of them are hunting long-arms, not the kinds of neat little handguns criminals mostly use.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Crécy, where dismounted English men-at-arms used their lances (with excess lenght summarily chopped off the shaft) quite promptly springs to mind. I'll remind you here that the very highly specialised late-Medieval "fluted" heavy lance, with its "hourglass" butt-end for interfacing with the armour's lance-rest, was a rather late developement; until then cavalry lances were simply long spears, with minor differences to optimise them for their task (ie. AFAIK the tip was usually rather small, narrow, and square-profiled).

No need to tell me what I already know!




Knights and men-at-arms deployed on foot were simply armoured elite infantry (and are known to have been occasionally dispersed into the ranks of common heavy infantry to "stiffen" their formations), and used all the same weapons. Spears included; fending off armoured lancers with a sword being obviously something of a losing proposition, and the extra killing reach and formation-combat ability provided by something long and pointy was certainly appreciated. (Heck, knightly combat training was all-round enough to include javelin-throwing...)


Name me a Knight that has ever used specifically a "Spear", Watchman. And:


No need to tell me what I already know!

So Knights were trained in a variety of things... of course! That's like saying the water is made of hidrogen, yet their specialization was, specifically, in close combat arms and charging.



Hardly. The lance was what European heavy cavalry came to revolve around after the widespread adoption of the couched-alnce technique late in the 11th century, with tactics, formations, training and equipement increasingly optimised to maximise its effectiveness. After a succesful charge the lance usually became useless, true; partly as by that stage it was usually stuck in someone's innards and/or broken, partly as its great lenght (around four meters being typical) wasn't well suited for the conditions of the whirling melee that usually followed a succesful cavalry charge. Ergo normally the warrior would drop his lance (or what was left of it) and pull his sidearm, whatever that now was.
But that sidearm was not his *primary* weapon by any stretch of imagination, as it did not define and dominate his tactical function.

I don't think you're grasping it right at all. A weapon is not "primary" unless the Knight employs it most of the time, in most situations; that place was for what you deem "sidearms", and which were indeed his primary weapons. Calling something "primary" if it is not used 99% of the time, is utter BS, unless you go by the Victorian notion that "everything ended" when the Knights charged.

Lancing was merely part of the Knight's job. Else he would be called something different, like a "Lancer", but to overlook the miriad of other aspects in a Knight's training in favour of charging is a very gross thing.



Methinks you're confusing the rather specific tactical situation where men-at-arms dismounted *during* a battle to assault rough terrain or similar, when they for fairly obvious reasons generally didn't bother to keep their lances as they tended to need hands free to climb and whatever, with the more common scenario where they purposefully dismounted before battle to fight as heavy infantry.

Not contradicting me at all. Unless, of course, you are espousing the notion that the lance would be more useful in all situations.


Erm, I'm not claiming the spear was an "uber" weapon; it's you guys claiming that the *sword* was. All I'm arguing here is that you're severely underestimating the usefulness and effectiveness of long pointy wooden things.

No, I am not. You're attacking a straw argument here. Try again; never said "swords" were uber, never claim spears were "completely" ineffective in "all" situations.


No strawmen, please.

I'm the one asking for it!


but there was more the spear could do that the sword couldn't, than vice versa

This statement is false. If anything, the sword is better adapted for a greater variety of situations, beyond being more versatile despite greater relative expense.




Rapiers aren't even military weapons, while falchion-like choppy swords were a more or less universal sidearm which often either replaced or accompanied more general-purpose sword designs. So eh.

Falchions were a primary weapon for a lot of fellows and fighters across the times, especially on the Middle Ages. Many of them had nothing but them. Your statement that they were merely carried as a sidearm is completely false.



Late-period knights on foot for their part mostly went with powerful polearms for all-around killing power, "all-in-one" designs like bills and halberds/pollaxes being particulary favoured for their versatility, and "hand and half" longswords, typically of thrust-oriented design, for sidearms. (And the ubiquitous dagger, of course, one of the more common actual causes of death among heavily armed warriors.) Worth noting that all the most universally popular weapons in this context were thrust-enabled, ie. included spear-like functionality, whether it was the top spike of the polearm or the thrusting point of a typical late-period longsword.

The curious thing about this is how the spear "apparently" was abandoned on the later battlefields. I fail to grasp at how "thrusting" makes a weapon "spear-like", more than it would make it "sword-like" or "knife-like". That sounds like a completely fallacious analogy.



Line combatants very rarely if ever failed to use a whole lot of long pointy things in their ranks when fighting on foot.

And how many of these pointy things in a late Medieval battlefield were actual spears?


So little you understand of boarding combat, clearly. Being able to wound and kill your foemen at a distance is an obviously useful capability already when trying to establish a "beachead" on the deck of the enemy ship, and remains further useful in the ensuing close combat; naturally if and when an opponent moves in close (or the shaft-weapon breaks) an individual warrior will switch to a sidearm better suited for cramped conditions, but before that the foeman in question first needs to actually get past the point of the long pokey thing...
Did you know ? In Antiquity the Greek epibaitai - marines - were just as fond of their 2.5m doru as hoplites on land, and there's a theory that Iphikrates' "proto-phalanx" reforms were in part inspired by the very long spears he saw Egyptian marines use...


I don't think you're grasping it right at all. A weapon is not "primary" unless the Knight employs it most of the time, in most situations; that place was for what you deem "sidearms", and which were indeed his primary weapons. Calling something "primary" if it is not used 99% of the time, is utter BS, unless you go by the Victorian notion that "everything ended" when the Knights charged.

Good luck with your 12 feet pole against a band of agile, light, falchion armed guys in a cramped room.


BS. For close-combat troops their primary "shock" weapon was pretty much per definition also their primary weapon that dominated their deployement and tactics, until circumstances necessitated pulling out sidearms.

See above.


Leaving aside the usual discrepancy between what the regulations demanded and the troops in practice could, I'd remind you that the Spanish sword-and-buckler men and similar "light" infantry assault units tended to be *very* heavily armoured (three-quarter plate being common) just to get through the pike-walls and whatnot alive.

Stated in direct contradiction to your previous statement that "Spears, pikes and whatnot" are "more effective" vs armour. There were many ways used to get through a pike line in history, not limited to just cutting them off with their big blades, exactly as they were oriented to do; or merely bypassing them, like the Galatians were known for doing.


so they quite commonly also carried spears and polearms, already to diversify their tactical functionality and because those were standard and effective assault-unit armaments; the Doppelsoldners of pike units carried polearms and big two-handed swords for their assault role, the latter initially useful for plain chopping up pike-shafts (then people started adding reinforcing iron strips to the shafts, and the big two-handed swords soon found themselves relegated to bodyguard duty).

Again, please back it up with evidence. I've never seen neither read statements of "iron shafts" being added to pikes. The makeup of the pike remained essentially unchanged since the XV century, and don't tell me that the conscripts of the same century had that kind of extra protection. Specialized assault regiments such as the "rodeleros" were disbanded because muskets made it easier and cheaper, and it was always better to have pikemen perform two duties instead of one.



The effectiveness of such "close assault" infantry really came mostly from the pike's obvious uselessness against an opponent in your face, and the fact the average pikeman - lacking a shield and usually not all that well armoured - was obviously at a disadvantage in a close melee against an opponent armed with a shield and one-handed weapon, or a powerful two-hander.

Pikemen, especially frontline pikemen, were armoured to the teeth. Wrong again!


Bullshit. That's like saying diverse grips with swords and whatever weren't universally employed as appropriate. Different military traditions may have had different preferences as to which grip they normally employed and for which situations, but it's a flat out given *every* spearman everywhere knew both (they're pretty much a basic part of all-around competence with the weapon; nevermind now that the overhand is essentially identical to the grip used when *throwing* a spear, another universal skill...) and would switch as appropriate according to the situation.

Prove it. Show me depictions of overhand grips for thrusting amidst Celts, late Romans, High Medieval, Viking, Chinese, Japanese and whatnot soldiers. The overhand grip is not necessarily better than the underhand one, neither it is some easy learned or universally favoured art. That's like saying anyone could do x martial art, regardless if they like it and versed on it or not.


Uh-huh. Persian archers trying to take on hoplites with their short blades beg to differ here.

Stereotypes and generalist portraits too much? Majority of Persians also used spears!

Or you could explain me why the Romans defeated so many spearman reliant armies only with their puny short swords in frontal close combat?



In fact, for all my reading of military history I can recall but one instance of short quick blades used succesfully on a mass-combat scale.

That's called pretty much a lot of battles in history, including hoplite and spearman battles. Since they too relied greatly on their own swords. Don't even start me telling about Rome, or Iberia.


Wildly succesful there, but then these guys *were* in full plate.

I presume you already abandoned your statement that "spears and other polearms are more effective vs. armour", eh?


TL;DR - to reiterate the main point: a spear or something incorporating its capabilities (namely ability to poke holes in people at a distance) was something most warriors everywhere, regardless of status, considered an extremely useful part of his arsenal and more often than not elected to use as his primary initial weapon, only switching to his sidearms (whatever those now were) when forced by circumstances.

Or rather, instead of this apologist explanation, warriors used spears either for the adequate circumstances, as much as they used other so-called "sidearms" for others, unless they were in a situation where they were restricted to only one of them.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Also that quote is full of crap. Period. Clearly whoever wrote it isn't aware that most polearm-users chiefly employed the spear-tip at the top *specifically* because a committed swing with the more choppy bits was wont to leave them open to retaliation if the other guy got out of the way in time...

That was not stated anywhere, instead it was argued that the thrusting movement of the spear could be more easily dodged because of its smaller "area of attack", which is not the case of a swing. Since a spear, unless shorter than normal, is also a long weapon, it means that repeated dagger-like thrusting would be out of hand once the enemy reaches closer to you, contrarily with smaller arms. In sum, a one shot weapon, and that assuming there is close individual, instead of massed, combat.

Most swords were also good slashers, therefore making the whole blade a potential weapon, instead of the tip, and therefore allowing bigger options for maneuver and attacks. A knife or a dagger specialized for thrusting don't require much room, either.

EDIT - Also the poleaxe and other "polearm" references are clearly related to the relative bulk and unwieldiness of the weapons compared to smaller, lighter ones, instead of their reach.

No wonder then that every hoplite carried a shortsword for a sidearm: once formation breaks and the enemy is close, it's a far better option.



And what I've read of dedicated re-enactors etc. accounts of the spear-and-shield combo even in individual combat hardly agrees with him. Also, "European spears" ? As if those were meaningfully different from anyone elses'...

Assuming it's what we normally consider as a "spear", and which was employed by European armies for many centuries, then the definition is not entirely off the mark.


That comparision with muggers is so stupid it's not even funny, nevermind now entirely ignoring the urban criminal's chief concern in his choice of weapons - easy portability and concealibility.

Nope, it's a relevant analogy to a close combat situation in a modern urban environment, and still a good one. "Portability" is not the only factor in combat, more of a logistic and practical concern.

[Watchman]

We seem to be talking rather a lot past each other here. It does, however, not particularly impress me that you're unaware of the practice of reinforcing pike-shafts against sword cuts with strips of metal, as this was pretty much an *universal* practice in the later Early Modern period; there's a bunch in the museum I work part-time in, dating from the early 1600s (at which point the two-handed sword was no longer in use even) featuring them...

Your faulty notions regarding the reason knights were called such also doesn't inspire much confidence in your actual level of holistic military-historical knowledge. The English word "knight" comes from Anglo-Saxon "knicht" or thereabouts, meaning "servant" - as in "armed household retainer". In just about all other European languages the relevant word is derived from "horseman" or "rider" iinstead, eg. French "chevalier", German "Ritter", Spanish "caballero", Scandinavian "riddare/ryttare"... calling them "lancers" would for the most part be quite redundant, as for most of the timeframe the term is relevant in military context they were very much *specialist* lancer cavalry.

And regarding your assessement of long weapons in boarding actions, care to then explain the reliable presence of polearms and diverse "boarding pikes" in the inventories of warships all the way until the 1800s ? You may assert whatever the fig you want, but the history of naval warfare fails to agree with you.


Eh, whatever. I don't have the time and interest to engage in exchanges of WALLS OF TEXT with people who half the time don't even know what they're talking about and don't seem to even properly read what I write sometimes.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Watchman, I agree this debate is quite getting out of purpose. First off, it was not my intent to declare that the spear was an useless and inferior weapon, only that it was better for some circumstances (like amidst solid formations) and relatively inferior in others. So as the pike, as so as the poleaxe. Strangely, I don't know how the poleaxe became involved in this discussion, since it as much of an "axe" and "hammer" as it is a "spear" or a "pike". More properly would be to go back to the strict limits that were supposedly present in this discussion, which was about "spears vs. swords"; an old, yet intriguing topic.

Using one or other solution or weapon does not make you invincible. Yes, it is possible to win with any weapon, including a spear and a sword, because the skill of the man is what actually bears the greatest weight in the battle, beyond other important relative circumstances. And then again if we were to keep discussing about potential moves in a hypothetical "spear vs. sword" duel, I can guarantee this debate would have no end; each move carries a lot of potential factors and modifiers which can or not decide the fight all by themselves, and thus leads to a mathematical conundrum which few of us have the time and patience to even list. And of course, there's plain old luck.

About the Lance, and the boarding poles, what we have here is a particular weapon for a "niche" situation: the bulk of the fight is still in hand-to-hand with smaller arms. What the boarding lance serves is the role of a "ram", before it is inevitable discarded, since no one will want to hold that in a cramped space. That makes it important and relevant, but it does not mean it is any more "primary", whatever we define as such, or "more important and relevant" than the traditional "sidearms" of the seamen, which require less room to be used and are greatly lighter and faster.

About Knights, well, I am not convinced. They might have been superb lancers, but to restrict their role entirely to lancing is still wrong in my opinion; therefore the lance is not an almighty, "primary" weapon for them, yet one in many of their own arsenal. I'm sure a true fighter would rather shun these debates and use whatever is handy in the moment, because his goal is not to prove a point, but to win. He might use a pole to board a ship, but switch to his old and trusty blade when the thing gets a lot more personal...

In sum, each weapons has advantages, and disadvantages. A clearly obvious thing implicit at the start.

[Watchman]

As said the Medieval knights could do and did many things, being pretty much the most thoroughly trained fighter in his context. For the most part their main purpose was to serve as heavy armoured lancers - the mounted strike arm, essentially. But due to the nature of terrain and the warfare in it, for example German and Scandinavian knights operated quite a bit as essentially mounted elite infantry that took and held strategically vital traffic chokepoints in the densely forested lands they operated in; while for quite a while the ones in the Iberian peninsula were just as likely to fight as light javelin-armed skirmishers as heavy shock cavalry. Those dwelling along coasts often enough served as elite marines aboard ships, and of course where fortified cities and the like were common the local chivalry commonly enough acted as the "point men" of storming parties or alternatively led the efforts to repel such.
And every man jack of 'em could of course get off his horse and fight as heavy infantry readily enough - sometimes in mid-battle if they ran into a horse-proof obstacle.
*shrug*
It's just that the mounted lancer capability was their most *defining* role which couldn't readily enough be fulfilled by humbler troops.

[Celtic_Punk]

Your main weapon for the battle would be a sword. Your spear would be broken in the battle eventually.

[Geticus]

Interesting discussion. In classical primary histories the elite bodyguards of Hellenic kings and tyrants are generically referred to as "Doruphoroi" which signifies "spearbearers" from Greek doru (spear) and pherein (to bear). I know of not a single instance where they are referred to as swordbearers. I think this proves that elites soldiers and mercenaries definitely did use spears and in fact relied on spears as their primary weapon, since I do not recollect a single account that refers to bodyguards as "phasganophoroi" or anything that would signify "swordbearer".

Homer's Iliad was a martial culture authority of great importance throughout the classical world and uniquely so to Alexander the Great, whose prize possession was a copy of the Iliad annotated by Aristotle, and in the Iliad the spear (doru) and long spear (doru makron) is the weapon of elite heroes par excellence as heroes are commonly referred to as Aikhmeteis (point warriors, masters of the aikhme/acme of a weapon) signifying their lethal precision with the spear, and the epithet "eumelies" (good with the ash spear) is a generic epithet of heroes such as Priam, king of Troy. Akhilleus' definitive rampage of vengeance in Book 20 is mainly an account of him killing one man after another with spear casts and spearthrusts, although he later sets his spear aside for a while and rampages with his sword alone in the river, and when spearcasts fail he draws the sword for decisive combat as when he kills Hektor.

There are plenty of examples of elite warriors and soldiers using spears both in myth and conventionally accepted histories. The Roman imperial era was the dominion of swords but that did not stop Tacitus from praising the virtues of the Germanic spear which is described as gore spattered and victorious, (cruens victrixque framea IIRC). The last of the great western Roman generals was Aetius, who was the Roman general at the battle at Chalons in 451 where Attila the Hun received his only major defeat, the late imperial historian Renatus Frigeridus offered an extensive encomium of Aetius that described his martial virtues including "vigourous of limb, an expert horseman, an experienced archer, tireless with the spear (impiger contu), singularly apt for war, famous for the arts of peace" etc. but nowhere does he mention swordsmanship. Again, the Franks emerged as the dominant martial ethnoculture in west Europe after the fall of Rome and one of the great early Merovingian warrior kings was Childeric I, his famous signet ring depicts him holding a spear rather than a sword. There is also the famous edict of the second to last king of the Ostrogoths Totila, at the battle of Taginae he sought to put a definitive end to the twenty years war with the East Romans by supreme shock dominance and to that end he commanded his entire army to use no weapon other than the spear, interestingly when the Gothic heavy cavalry and the rest of the goths charged the East Roman center they were encircled and shot in the back by Narses' archers at both wings, Totila was eventually slain at the battle though he had gained several victories through 11 years of war with the Romans. I could draw up plenty of other examples from myth and history, Cuchulainn's gae bolg comes to mind, and Agathias gives a good description of Early Frankish warriors reliance on the barbed spear called the angon, how in England Vikings were called "Ashmen" due to the prevalence of ash spears, one of the skaldic kennings for war was simply "spearshower" due to the prevalence of that weapon in viking warfare, but suffice it to say I agree with Watchman that the importance of the spear, both thrust and hurled, is often underrated nowadays, and video games often do not do the spear justice, and as for EB I think elite infantry should have higher than a mere 0.13 lethality with spears, I hate watching Spartans struggling to put down a battation of Argyraspides on a clean flank attack due to their speciously low lethality with their spears.

[Geticus]

One other thing comes to mind, the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, who personally fought in the battle of Marathon, famously stated in one of his plays that the Dorian spear conquered at Plataia. So Aeschylus at any rate attributed the preservation of Greece and the defeat of Persia in the field to the excellence of Spartan elite soldiers with the spear.

[Cambyses]

Several people have commented on the fact that only the Romans used the short sword in such massive numbers with elite/heavy infantry. But its worth remembering that for most of the EB period even the Roman elite carried spears as their primary weapon. When Marius changed this, I do not believe he did so because the sword was a better weapon. It simply served his purpose to have more flexible "all purpose" troops, as well as the widely known economic and political factors.

The two weapons have very distinct tactical purposes. And I do not believe that even the Roman legionnaries would have won a head on battle against heavily armed, well trained and organised spear troops. They would however have more easily turned a flank and had fresher soldiers to fight with.

[The General]

Your main weapon for the battle would be a sword. Your spear would be broken in the battle eventually.

/facepalm

Just like archers' primary weapon was their sidearm, since they would run out of ammunition in the battle eventually?


Interesting discussion. In classical primary histories the elite bodyguards of Hellenic kings and tyrants are generically referred to as "Doruphoroi" which signifies "spearbearers" from Greek doru (spear) and pherein (to bear). I know of not a single instance where they are referred to as swordbearers. I think this proves that elites soldiers and mercenaries definitely did use spears and in fact relied on spears as their primary weapon, since I do not recollect a single account that refers to bodyguards as "phasganophoroi" or anything that would signify "swordbearer".

Homer's Iliad was a martial culture authority of great importance throughout the classical world and uniquely so to Alexander the Great, whose prize possession was a copy of the Iliad annotated by Aristotle, and in the Iliad the spear (doru) and long spear (doru makron) is the weapon of elite heroes par excellence as heroes are commonly referred to as Aikhmeteis (point warriors, masters of the aikhme/acme of a weapon) signifying their lethal precision with the spear, and the epithet "eumelies" (good with the ash spear) is a generic epithet of heroes such as Priam, king of Troy. Akhilleus' definitive rampage of vengeance in Book 20 is mainly an account of him killing one man after another with spear casts and spearthrusts, although he later sets his spear aside for a while and rampages with his sword alone in the river, and when spearcasts fail he draws the sword for decisive combat as when he kills Hektor.

There are plenty of examples of elite warriors and soldiers using spears both in myth and conventionally accepted histories. The Roman imperial era was the dominion of swords but that did not stop Tacitus from praising the virtues of the Germanic spear which is described as gore spattered and victorious, (cruens victrixque framea IIRC). The last of the great western Roman generals was Aetius, who was the Roman general at the battle at Chalons in 451 where Attila the Hun received his only major defeat, the late imperial historian Renatus Frigeridus offered an extensive encomium of Aetius that described his martial virtues including "vigourous of limb, an expert horseman, an experienced archer, tireless with the spear (impiger contu), singularly apt for war, famous for the arts of peace" etc. but nowhere does he mention swordsmanship. Again, the Franks emerged as the dominant martial ethnoculture in west Europe after the fall of Rome and one of the great early Merovingian warrior kings was Childeric I, his famous signet ring depicts him holding a spear rather than a sword. There is also the famous edict of the second to last king of the Ostrogoths Totila, at the battle of Taginae he sought to put a definitive end to the twenty years war with the East Romans by supreme shock dominance and to that end he commanded his entire army to use no weapon other than the spear, interestingly when the Gothic heavy cavalry and the rest of the goths charged the East Roman center they were encircled and shot in the back by Narses' archers at both wings, Totila was eventually slain at the battle though he had gained several victories through 11 years of war with the Romans. I could draw up plenty of other examples from myth and history, Cuchulainn's gae bolg comes to mind, and Agathias gives a good description of Early Frankish warriors reliance on the barbed spear called the angon, how in England Vikings were called "Ashmen" due to the prevalence of ash spears, one of the skaldic kennings for war was simply "spearshower" due to the prevalence of that weapon in viking warfare, but suffice it to say I agree with Watchman that the importance of the spear, both thrust and hurled, is often underrated nowadays, and video games often do not do the spear justice, and as for EB I think elite infantry should have higher than a mere 0.13 lethality with spears, I hate watching Spartans struggling to put down a battation of Argyraspides on a clean flank attack due to their speciously low lethality with their spears.

And here, to contrast, is an excellent post - plentiful in examples and a pleasure to read.

[Vilkku92]

Summary of the results of this discussion so far:

-Spears have generally been more popular than swords
-Swords have mainly been the sidearms of warriors
-Only the romans have used swords as the main weapons of their armies, and still used lots of spears
-Spear has longer reach than sword, is better(?) at punching through armour and is better for fighting in formation or against horsemen
-Sword is better in confined spaces, and those using it as their primary weapon have generaly had good armour
-Units with multiple close combat weapons in EB will always use weapon least suited for the situation and don't understand the superiority of sword in wall combat :beam:

These were listed in in the order of importance. Apparently, the original guestion wasn't that important.

[Watchman]

Interesting discussion. In classical primary histories the elite bodyguards of Hellenic kings and tyrants are generically referred to as "Doruphoroi" which signifies "spearbearers" from Greek doru (spear) and pherein (to bear). I know of not a single instance where they are referred to as swordbearers. I think this proves that elites soldiers and mercenaries definitely did use spears and in fact relied on spears as their primary weapon, since I do not recollect a single account that refers to bodyguards as "phasganophoroi" or anything that would signify "swordbearer".

Homer's Iliad was a martial culture authority of great importance throughout the classical world and uniquely so to Alexander the Great, whose prize possession was a copy of the Iliad annotated by Aristotle, and in the Iliad the spear (doru) and long spear (doru makron) is the weapon of elite heroes par excellence as heroes are commonly referred to as Aikhmeteis (point warriors, masters of the aikhme/acme of a weapon) signifying their lethal precision with the spear, and the epithet "eumelies" (good with the ash spear) is a generic epithet of heroes such as Priam, king of Troy. Akhilleus' definitive rampage of vengeance in Book 20 is mainly an account of him killing one man after another with spear casts and spearthrusts, although he later sets his spear aside for a while and rampages with his sword alone in the river, and when spearcasts fail he draws the sword for decisive combat as when he kills Hektor.
---On a similar note, IIRC what I've read of the standard royal boasts of the Achaemenid kings, what they reliably brag about is their skill as riders, archers and spearmen - NOT swordfighters. And this certainly isn't because swords weren't used; the akinakes shortsword/large dagger was pretty much the symbol of Persian warriors (and IIRC the Medes were actually forbidden to carry it or something), and there were several millenia-old lineages of swords in general use in the region - both the ancient sickle-sword type that in all likelihood lay at the root of the kopis/machaira falchions the Greeks also adopted with relish, and the Late Bronze Age and Assyrian straight swords...

...and as for EB I think elite infantry should have higher than a mere 0.13 lethality with spears, I hate watching Spartans struggling to put down a battation of Argyraspides on a clean flank attack due to their speciously low lethality with their spears.I would argue the lethality is just fine and certainly shouldn't depend on the skill level of the unit using the weapon. To rather crudely round some corners, a weapon's "terminal effects" don't really change all THAT much in more skilled hands; it's just that better fighters are better at getting around the opponent's defenses and scoring telling hits in the first place, if you see what I mean. In EB the spears' lethality is the same as with decent mid-sized swords, 0.13, both of which arguably take their targets out primarily with succesful penetrating thrusts into the body and secondarily via incapaciating limb and head injuries. Conversely for example longswords and axes/maces have much higher lethality values on account of their sheer dismemberement capabilities - they're much more likely to cripple or even sever an extremity, thus disabling the foe, than the somewhat more "pokey" shorter swords with less leverage, nevermind now pure thrusting weapons like spears that on the whole aren't very effective against the extremities. OTOH the shorter blades and spears give a bonus to the unit's base attack value, representing their greater agility etc., and spears of course have their anti-cavalry factors, and longswords cost like the dickies...
(As for why the kopis/machaira/falcata "choppers", of noted cleaving and dismembering ability, only have 0.11 lethality... um ? :sweatdrop: Game balance to counteract the AP ability without axe-like penalties to attack value I guess...)

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

-Only the romans have used swords as the main weapons of their armies, and still used lots of spears

No.


-Spear has longer reach than sword, is better(?) at punching through armour

No evidence of this either.

[Maion Maroneios]

No evidence of this either.
It's Physics. Generally, force exerted on an object, according to Netwon's 2nd general law, is F=dp/dt, were dp/dt is the instant momentum during the moment of impact (momentum is given by the equation p=mu, were m the mass and u the velocity of an object).

Generally, a good striking blow is a function of several variables. This includes the velocity given (how fast you thrust) to the weapon (spear or sword), as well as the area of the tip of the weapon (given that we are talking about thrusting). The sharper the point and the faster you thrust, the more force you exert upon your enemy and thus, the more damage you cause.

Having said this, we can theoretically predict which weapon would cause more damage when thrusting. A sword would generally be used with the underarm stabbing method, while a spear can be used both underarm as well as overarm. Now it is proven through a series of experiments (I remember there was a thread about this), that a force exerted upon an object with a spear held overarm is considerably greater than when thrusting underarm. That is basically because the cyclic motion of your arm works as a lever, which is a force multiplier. Basically the force of gravity works in favour of you, instead of against when thrusting underarm.

Apart from the actual force that one can exert with the weapon, I believe it is true that spearheads are sharper than the tips of swords, which are generally broader and thicker to withstand the force exerted back at you (Newton's 3rd law) when stricking. Basically th reason why a spear is prone to break; the longer and thinner (than the sword's main blade) body of a spear causes it do break much easier. This is also due to the material of which spears tended to be made, which is exclusively of wood. And, of course, I'm not talking about the spearhead and butt-spike (which were made of some kind of metal).

But what does "punching through armour" mean? Scientifically at least? It is the equivalent of exerting enough force to an object (in this case the armour of your opponent) as to break it. And was does "breaking" armour mean? It means applying enough force (and thus giving enough energy) so that the various molecules that make up the armour break free of each other and cause a "hole" in the armour. The reason why certain types of armour (technique of creation, not actual material) were better or worse than others (better bonds between molecules), as well as the fact that certain materials are better than others in general (steel over bronze, for example).

According to the above arguments, and assuming that my rationale was scientifically correct and has no "holes", I believe we can (at least theoretically) say that what Vilkku said is correct. In other words, a spear is indeed better at punching armour than a sword.

Maion

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

What do you mean by "molecules"? If we take e.g. a good suit of riveted mail, a piercing thrust might have a great number of variables to overcome if to succeed or not, mainly depending on its thickness.

You must also remind that many period swords were made specifically sharper to defeat armour by thrusting. Late Medieval Talhoffers are a good example. They were often held in a two handed grip (allowing more force into the impact) and thrusted into a weak spot of the plate, covered only by (thinner) mail, for a successful penetration. I don't know exactly the physics of it but a sword was made very flexible, and would sort of bend on impact temporarily; this would prevent a situation where excessive rigidity would break the blade, much like what happened with spears\lances because of the inherent rigidity of the wood employed. The pommel would allow to overcome the inertia more easily and therefore allow more force to be directed into impact. In sum, every sword had those little things and factors which made it better and more powerful, and which are also relevant in your formula.

The postulate that a spear is "sharper" than a sword is really relative and open to discussion. Most spears definitely have very broad heads, like most period arrows are lighter broadheaded ones instead of bodkins, which were thinner; this means that thrusting them was by all means no different than thrusting a non-optimized sword; the reason why broader heads were employed was due to them inflicting far larger wounds at thrusting, and thus being more likely to knock a man out of the fight than with a smaller tip.

Here is a picture of the Talhoffer (notice the extremely sharp tip, made for half-swording):

http://www.myarmoury.com/images/reviews/alb_talh_a_s.jpg

Another efficient way to defeat armour was with the kopis\falcata "axe-like" blade, used specifically for chopping. They and the later falchion had reportedly better capabilities of going through most armour, except for solid plate. By that time using bludgeoning weapons like hammers was at best the preferred solution other than half swording, since the extreme difficulties of piercing through the armor (it is not very wise to stab plate) precluded most other types of weapons. By then the spear had been replaced by pikes, or by polearms with better cutting capabilities (such as halberds).

Back at the armour, I've read about and seen tests where period accurate replicas of armour from the High Middle Ages, with more or less loyal metalworking (low carbon iron), were put against period weapons. The main result was that the maille, which would not be much different than what was used in the Ancient Age, defeated all bar the most solid, strong and direct spear thrusts, and I was informed that a sword with similar sharpness would probably obtain the same results (but since there was none available, the test wasn't conducted); while the mail with trauma breastplates was impervious to everything bar full speed lances. It is interesting to notice that even a padded vest alone (aketon) was able to defeat sword cuts and some spear thrusts.

The conclusion of such, and other, analysis is that while a pointy thing might be theoretically able to defeat even heavy armour, in a combat situation all armour would be flexible enough to allow its wearer to move freely and dodge impacts, and that very strong impacts would be rare since the men doing it would tire too quickly. Most impacts would be only "partial", therefore, it is safe to believe most armour suits would be impervious in most combat situations, including at resisting thrusts; contrary to popular belief, mail is as good at protecting against them as it is against chopping movements.

As for the relative physics and such factors when handling weapons, it must be reminded that there are spears, and there are spears. Some spears are sharper than others, but otherwise depending on how it is used, most spears are probably no better at thrusting than similar swords. Have in mind that an "overhand" grip with a sword is possible, as well as many other grips and techniques in the relatively intricate art of sword fencing.

[Watchman]

There's a REASON axes and maces, as well as the falcata/kopis "cleavers", rank AP you know. Namely the way they combine lots of leverage with relatively narrow and focused striking area. IIRC Medieval warriors reckoned the falcion (functionally little different from the concave blades of Antiquity AFAIK) was good against all armour up to around coat-of-plates, and axes against anything short of solid plate; the heavier stuff needed heavy-duty "mass" weapons like maces, or recourse to powerful two-handed polearms... or good thrusting swords, employed two-handed.
Which, save for consisting mostly of metal rather than metal atop wood and being on the average rather shorter, differ preciously little from spears in their "terminal performance".
After all, as far as the target is concerned it makes preciously little difference what exactly the sharp narrow tip being rammed into it tops; all that's relevant to it is the equation of impact force focused on very small surface area.

Conversely, sword cuts land on a comparatively LARGE area; this is good for destroying lots of tissue, causing massive bleeding and whatnot, but rather less so for getting through more solid obstacles. There being a reason why dedicated armour-defeating designs focused on the thrust, up to and inclusing the logical conclusion of the estoc types which at most had rather vestigial and nominal cutting edges - and more commonly, none at all...
Sufficiently HEAVY cutting blades could still be effective against even relatively heavy armour on account of pure leverage, such as the High Medieval "mail-killer" designs, working more on sheer focused blunt trauma transitted through, but around the closest thing to *those* beasts you get around the EB timeframe are the (slightly controversial) two-handers carried by some of the Celtic elites and the Thraco-Dacian falx and rhompaia...

Incidentally, I've read of interesting tests done in controlled conditions against reproduction mail (of varying quality of manufacture). A conclusion reached was that strong spear-thrusts *do* get through (this happens through the process of the tip entering an individual ring and "bursting" it; the part that nigh always gives is the rivet), but if proper thick padding is worn underneath, normally only superficial injuries are inflicted. (Adding more power behind the thrust naturally leads to deeper penetrations; there's a fair few ways to do that even with one-handed grips, starting with the "icepick" overhand one which effectively uses the arm as a lever rotating around the shoulder...) Conversely all mail is at its best against slashing sword cuts, which are not only essentially trying to cut through a fairly large area of iron mesh but also tend to glance right off if the angle of impact isn't VERY acute... and period blades were on the average actually rather light; your typical Celtic longsword was actually slightly lighter than the typical gladius hispanicus.

So yeah.

Also, you DO know what principle modern antitank "kinetic penetrator" shells work on, right ? Ayup - absurd amounts of force focused on as small area as possible. The high-end ones kill cutting-edge MBTs even through their massive front armour at like kilometer or two out... melee-weapon thrusts and heavy throwing-spears like the pilum and soliferrum work on the exact same basic physics, albeit obviously with rather more modest amount of energy.

EDIT:
As for the relative physics and such factors when handling weapons, it must be reminded that there are spears, and there are spears. Some spears are sharper than others, but otherwise depending on how it is used, most spears are probably no better at thrusting than similar swords. Have in mind that an "overhand" grip with a sword is possible, as well as many other grips and techniques in the relatively intricate art of sword fencing.Actually, tip sharpness is relatively irrelevant. It's actually better for the tip to be more on the slightly blunt than the needle-sharp side, as such is less prone to snapping... much more important is the overall taper and rigidity of the thrusting blade; and it doesn't take too much looking over historical spearhead finds to discover they pretty much since early Bronze Age have tended to include varying numbers of the features later characteristic of thrust-optimised sword blades - "flattened diamond" cross-sections, central ribs, very acute taper for much or all of the blade lenght (recall, spearheads widen mostly in the interests of easier extraction from the wound; wider wound channel is merely a bonus benefit, the more important thing being the *depth* of penetration - and most types I can think of on the fly are quite narrow and tapered for enough of their lenght to deliver deep penetrations indeed...) or just plain narrow blades, etc. Some patterns I've seen are perhaps best described as very narrow iron triangles some 30cm long, of the "diamond" cross-section...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Actually, tip sharpness is relatively irrelevant. It's actually better for the tip to be more on the slightly blunt than the needle-sharp side, as such is less prone to snapping... much more important is the overall taper and rigidity of the thrusting blade; and it doesn't take too much looking over historical spearhead finds to discover they pretty much since early Bronze Age have tended to include varying numbers of the features later characteristic of thrust-optimised sword blades - "flattened diamond" cross-sections, central ribs, very acute taper for much or all of the blade lenght (recall, spearheads widen mostly in the interests of easier extraction from the wound; wider wound channel is merely a bonus benefit, the more important thing being the *depth* of penetration - and most types I can think of on the fly are quite narrow and tapered for enough of their lenght to deliver deep penetrations indeed...) or just plain narrow blades, etc. Some patterns I've seen are perhaps best described as very narrow iron triangles some 30cm long, of the "diamond" cross-section...

Yes, indeed, there are varied armor piercing sword designs. That doesn't mean the well proven and extremely pointy Talhoffer and similars isn't as good in the job as them :smash:.

[Watchman]

Well, yeah. It's basically design principles well-proven over the millenia in spearheads, adapted to and reproduced in a larger scale in an entire longsword blade.
Actually such thrust-oriented longswords would probably actually be somewhat *superior* to most spears against top-rate (ie. full plate) armour, as they're easier to manage at very close quarters (a major point of "half-swording" being very precise point control in point-blank-range thrusts) and being entirely made of high-quality steel they can withstand some very hard use. Though, it's not like there weren't spears in use with very long metal shanks, similarly well suited for poking at very well-protected targets; IIRC at least one was specifically popular for knightly duels due to that.

This is, however, somewhat irrelevant to our topic, as such swords were near two millenia away from use in Antiquity... ~;)

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Ha ha true, but I think the Gladius had a similar thrusting use, although not having near as much quality metal.

[Watchman]

Eh, the ones down in Iberia proper were usually of *extremely* good metallurgical quality, painstakingly made out of some of the best raw iron around. Though I imagine the Iberians also employed that for their higher-spearheads and whatever too...
The Roman versions AFAIK rather... varied. Their quality control didn't always quite work - "made by the lowest bidder" as it were.

It's somewhat less relevant in relatively short blades, such as short swords and spearheads, than long ones; or at least, topnotch metallurgy isn't CRITICAL in those, unlike longer blades...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

I meant the Roman ones. And yes, I agree that a shorter blade doesn't require as much quality.

[Celtic_Punk]

at the end of the day, spear < sword. I'm willing to take on anyone with a sword anyday to defend this statement.

[Watchman]

:dizzy2:
Thank you for your contribution and deep insight.

[Drewski]

at the end of the day, spear < sword. I'm willing to take on anyone with a sword anyday to defend this statement.

:2thumbsup: Best comment I've heard for a while....

I reckon we can close this thread now, Celtic_Punk has decided the issue with threats of extreme violence :laugh4: :duel:

[Celtic_Punk]

threat? that was purely defencive.

[Maion Maroneios]

What do you mean by "molecules"? If we take e.g. a good suit of riveted mail, a piercing thrust might have a great number of variables to overcome if to succeed or not, mainly depending on its thickness.
By molecules I mean the particles that make up the armour. For example, an iron armour would be composed of a large quantity of Fe (iron) atoms, carbon-based molecules and many other types of various particles that make up the armour in general. If an armour breaks or not, has to do with (exclusively) giving enough energy for the particles to break apart. The amount of energy varies greatly with different particle composition (thickness etc).


You must also remind that many period swords were made specifically sharper to defeat armour by thrusting. Late Medieval Talhoffers are a good example. They were often held in a two handed grip (allowing more force into the impact) and thrusted into a weak spot of the plate, covered only by (thinner) mail, for a successful penetration. I don't know exactly the physics of it but a sword was made very flexible, and would sort of bend on impact temporarily; this would prevent a situation where excessive rigidity would break the blade, much like what happened with spears\lances because of the inherent rigidity of the wood employed. The pommel would allow to overcome the inertia more easily and therefore allow more force to be directed into impact. In sum, every sword had those little things and factors which made it better and more powerful, and which are also relevant in your formula.
Indeed, that is very true. Actually, I believe that during the timeframe of EB the spear would be a better weapon in general. Cheap to make, easy to replace and very effective when used by a professional. But I believe a good quality longsword would win over a spear any day. Probably the reason why the majority of knights fought with longswords. Maybe I'm mistaken here, but I'm pretty sure spears were outdated during that time (Medieval Period).


The postulate that a spear is "sharper" than a sword is really relative and open to discussion. Most spears definitely have very broad heads, like most period arrows are lighter broadheaded ones instead of bodkins, which were thinner; this means that thrusting them was by all means no different than thrusting a non-optimized sword; the reason why broader heads were employed was due to them inflicting far larger wounds at thrusting, and thus being more likely to knock a man out of the fight than with a smaller tip.
Yes, I agree with you completely. I was actually taking a gladius-type sword as an example for the spear vs sword theorization I developed. As I said above, I believe good quality swords are better than spears.


Here is a picture of the Talhoffer (notice the extremely sharp tip, made for half-swording):

http://www.myarmoury.com/images/reviews/alb_talh_a_s.jpg
That is interesting, nice picture there :yes:


Another efficient way to defeat armour was with the kopis\falcata "axe-like" blade, used specifically for chopping. They and the later falchion had reportedly better capabilities of going through most armour, except for solid plate. By that time using bludgeoning weapons like hammers was at best the preferred solution other than half swording, since the extreme difficulties of piercing through the armor (it is not very wise to stab plate) precluded most other types of weapons. By then the spear had been replaced by pikes, or by polearms with better cutting capabilities (such as halberds).
Indeed, they relied much on blaunt trauma instead of piercing armour (which as you said was quite difficult as armour-making techniques further developed).


Back at the armour, I've read about and seen tests where period accurate replicas of armour from the High Middle Ages, with more or less loyal metalworking (low carbon iron), were put against period weapons. The main result was that the maille, which would not be much different than what was used in the Ancient Age, defeated all bar the most solid, strong and direct spear thrusts, and I was informed that a sword with similar sharpness would probably obtain the same results (but since there was none available, the test wasn't conducted); while the mail with trauma breastplates was impervious to everything bar full speed lances. It is interesting to notice that even a padded vest alone (aketon) was able to defeat sword cuts and some spear thrusts.
That is a very interesting piece of information there.


The conclusion of such, and other, analysis is that while a pointy thing might be theoretically able to defeat even heavy armour, in a combat situation all armour would be flexible enough to allow its wearer to move freely and dodge impacts, and that very strong impacts would be rare since the men doing it would tire too quickly. Most impacts would be only "partial", therefore, it is safe to believe most armour suits would be impervious in most combat situations, including at resisting thrusts; contrary to popular belief, mail is as good at protecting against them as it is against chopping movements.
I agree. What I mainly wanted to accomplish with my previous post, was to present some scientific facts. By developing a certain rationale, my aim was to get to a vauge conclusion based on something, instead of simply rejecting or supporting an idea based nothing (or simply personal preference).


As for the relative physics and such factors when handling weapons, it must be reminded that there are spears, and there are spears. Some spears are sharper than others, but otherwise depending on how it is used, most spears are probably no better at thrusting than similar swords. Have in mind that an "overhand" grip with a sword is possible, as well as many other grips and techniques in the relatively intricate art of sword fencing.
Indeed, the overarm grip can be used with a sword. Not that anyone would use it in close combat, note that. A spear is equally difficult to use overarm (less accurate aim and your thrusting arm tires faster), but protected behind a sizable shield several overarm spearthrusts are (IMO) more effective than a stabbing sword. Especially a short one. And yes, I'm talking about the EB period, not later ages.

Maion

[Macilrille]

Not following the thread, but from the debate here I would recommend Alan Williams' "The Knight and The Blast Furnace".

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Actually Maion the Gladius, especially the ones held by iberians, was a sword primary intended for thrusting. So much about the Talhoffer and the spear actually apply here, with the differential that being short, it didn't risk breaking, bending or getting useless with the metallurgy of the time. So yes, giving it was pointy, and all, I would believe the only differential between gladii and spears lies in other areas, like reach, and also depends more on the metallurgical quality of both.


Not following the thread, but from the debate here I would recommend Alan Williams' "The Knight and The Blast Furnace".

A formidable, but extremely expensive book.

[Macilrille]

And so heavy one would believe it to include samples ;-)

I got it from the Uni library here.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Lucky fella. I can only access it (very) partially on Google Books.

[Watchman]

Probably the reason why the majority of knights fought with longswords. Maybe I'm mistaken here, but I'm pretty sure spears were outdated during that time (Medieval Period).You're VERY mistaken here. Not only did "old skool" spears stay in use well after the general adoption of the pike (though the pike replaced them as the close-order infantry standby), but they were commonly enough used by high-ranking warriors fighting dismounted as well - up to the point of some having very expensive, and somewhat gimmicky, *folding* versions of diverse spear-types popular in the period custom-made for themselves...
Because you just couldn't flaunt your wealth enough on the battlefield. :2thumbsup:

Oh, and knights and high-ranking nobles would occasionally fight as pikemen too... the Scottish ones were at one point pretty fond of that, though they sometimes apparently Did It Wrong too.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Actually Knights used a lance, which is different from a "spear" properly. And in Western Europe I cannot devise any use for spears after 1400 except for very rare occasions, like in isolated places or amidst ragtag militia. The pike did a far better job than it anyway.

[Watchman]

Good job missing the qualifier "fighting dismounted" there... :dizzy2: I think it should be obvious by now I'm very much not going to confuse a cavalry lance and an infantry spear, thankyouverymuch, even though for a good while the two were structurally virtually identical in most respects.

Also I do recall seeing 1400s engravings and whatnots of late-period knights carrying javelins. And that was, I think, from Italy. So eh. And spears remained ubiquitous as naval weapons (as assorted "boarding pikes", usually of "half-pike" lenght - ie. long spears), as well as being used by lighter infantry and cavalry units more interested in manageable lenght and weight than pure frontal combat power. And dismounted high-class warriors, if they felt like using one - those guys had a VERY "bring your own junk" approach to battle, and were only too happy to demonstrate any personal quirks of taste...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Good job missing the qualifier "fighting dismounted" there... I think it should be obvious by now I'm very much not going to confuse a cavalry lance and an infantry spear, thankyouverymuch, even though for a good while the two were structurally virtually identical in most respects.

Yes, they used their lances dismounted, and no, depending on the lance, it can be very different from just a spear.


Also I do recall seeing 1400s engravings and whatnots of late-period knights carrying javelins. And that was, I think, from Italy.

I'm sure you're talking Stradioti here, since it was quite off the norm anywhere else for Knights to carry that.

[Watchman]

Yes, they used their lances dismounted, and no, depending on the lance, it can be very different from just a spear.Not the early ones. You could tell one of those from an infantry spear chiefly by its great lenght - up to four meters was common - and from some point I'm not entirely sure of onwards, by the tip as a rule being small, narrow and square- or triangle-profiled (though this was hardly unheard of in spears either).

It's only with the advent of the lance-rest and the heavy "fluted" lance with its "hourglass" butt that the two develop more than superficial structural differences.

I'm sure you're talking Stradioti here, since it was quite off the norm anywhere else for Knights to carry that.Stradioti didn't wear decorated full plate. Or get their damn titles rattled off under said engraving.

Stop making demeaning assumptions about my intelligence and reading comprehension of sources, please.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Not the early ones. You could tell one of those from an infantry spear chiefly by its great lenght - up to four meters was common - and from some point I'm not entirely sure of onwards, by the tip as a rule being small, narrow and square- or triangle-profiled (though this was hardly unheard of in spears either).

It's only with the advent of the lance-rest and the heavy "fluted" lance with its "hourglass" butt that the two develop more than superficial structural differences.

Yep, that's why the distinction. The old lances were used up to c.1350, if I'm not mistaken...? They were eventually dropped with the advent of plate, methinks.


Stradioti didn't wear decorated full plate. Or get their damn titles rattled off under said engraving.

Stop making demeaning assumptions about my intelligence and reading comprehension of sources, please.

I don't know, these engravings can be seriously blurred and intricate sometimes. Maybe an artistic error :clown:?

[Watchman]

Yep, that's why the distinction. The old lances were used up to c.1350, if I'm not mistaken...? They were eventually dropped with the advent of plate, methinks.That's what I said. And in Western Europe the heavy lance itself dropped out of use towards the end of the 16th century, meaning that for most of its history "lance" meant the lighter spear-like thing (which remained in use among lighter cavalry alongside, and ultimately long outlived the heavy "fluted" type...).

I don't know, these engravings can be seriously blurred and intricate sometimes. Maybe an artistic error :clown:?We're talking like "equestrian portrait" here, dude. And even at a rather low detail level I daresay I would be able to tell a 1.5m javelin from a 4m "fluted" heavy-cavalry lance, thankyouverymuch...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

That's what I said. And in Western Europe the heavy lance itself dropped out of use towards the end of the 16th century, meaning that for most of its history "lance" meant the lighter spear-like thing (which remained in use among lighter cavalry alongside, and ultimately long outlived the heavy "fluted" type...).

Ultimately, the fact that both resemble themselves does not make a lance a "spear", in the same way a pike is not a "spear".

[Watchman]

Cut some shaft off either, and what you're left with is A Spear for pretty much any intent and purpose worth counting. Both of which people did too when they wanted a more manageable staff-weapon. Also worth noting that historians sometimes use "lance" as a catchall term for any kind of spear designed specifically for close-combat use...

But I'm pedantic enough about my terminology that if I say "dismounted knights often fought with spears" I DO indeed mean spears, rather than cavalry lances doing infantry duty.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Cut some shaft off either, and what you're left with is A Spear for pretty much any intent and purpose worth counting.


Cut the blade off a sword, and you have a mace :clown:. Doesn't make the sword a blunt weapon though.


But I'm pedantic enough about my terminology that if I say "dismounted knights often fought with spears" I DO indeed mean spears, rather than cavalry lances doing infantry duty.

Examples being?

[Watchman]

Cut the blade off a sword, and you have a mace :clown:. Doesn't make the sword a blunt weapon though. Cut the blade off a sword, and you don't have much of a weapon at all... though you can still pummel someone with the pommel or throw it in someone's face I guess. Cut some shaft off a pole-weapon, and you end up with... a shorter pole-weapon!!!! Amazing!!!

And the shorter relevant kinds tend to be called "spears". Doesn't matter much if they begun their lives as pikes (which are differentiated mostly by... the lenght of their shaft!!!); it's not like people were very puritanical about what heads they mounted on what lenghts of shafts anyway. (One record case probably being the Swedish peasants who used old swords for their pike-tips...)

Examples being?*sigh* Be that way. I'll go scour my military-history books for specific references. Don't hold your breath though, it's late here and I've a full work day tomorrow.

Though "naval battles" is a given already.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Cut the blade off a sword, and you don't have much of a weapon at all... though you can still pummel someone with the pommel or throw it in someone's face I guess. Cut some shaft off a pole-weapon, and you end up with... a shorter pole-weapon!!!! Amazing!!!

Without a tip, of course :clown:.

And you still have a club, eh. The pommel is still a deadly weapon in the right hands.


And the shorter relevant kinds tend to be called "spears". Doesn't matter much if they begun their lives as pikes (which are differentiated mostly by... the lenght of their shaft!!!); it's not like people were very puritanical about what heads they mounted on what lenghts of shafts anyway. (One record case probably being the Swedish peasants who used old swords for their pike-tips...)

I use to be very pedantic in my definitions too, and pike equals not spear :smash:.


*sigh* Be that way. I'll go scour my military-history books for specific references. Don't hold your breath though, it's late here and I've a full work day tomorrow.

Though "naval battles" is a given already.

Good luck.

[Watchman]

I use to be very pedantic in my definitions too, and pike equals not spear :smash:.The difference between the two is solely in shaft lenght though...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Ah, well, you could also state that the difference between the spear and the sword is merely a matter of shaft/pommel and blade size :clown:.

[Watchman]

Well you *could* - but it'd be complete and utter nonsense.

[Vilkku92]

I've always tought that pike is just a long spear, like assault rifle is just a battle rifle with lighter ammunition.

[mountaingoat]

without reading the entire thread i am going to say poleaxe ftw!


http://www.chicagoswordplayguild.com/c/media/armsAndArmor/azza1.jpg

at the end of the day though it comes down to the people using the weapons , and their preference , i can see the arguments from both sides ...

[Geticus]

I would argue the lethality is just fine and certainly shouldn't depend on the skill level of the unit using the weapon. To rather crudely round some corners, a weapon's "terminal effects" don't really change all THAT much in more skilled hands; it's just that better fighters are better at getting around the opponent's defenses and scoring telling hits in the first place, if you see what I mean. In EB the spears' lethality is the same as with decent mid-sized swords, 0.13, both of which arguably take their targets out primarily with succesful penetrating thrusts into the body and secondarily via incapaciating limb and head injuries. Conversely for example longswords and axes/maces have much higher lethality values on account of their sheer dismemberement capabilities - they're much more likely to cripple or even sever an extremity, thus disabling the foe, than the somewhat more "pokey" shorter swords with less leverage, nevermind now pure thrusting weapons like spears that on the whole aren't very effective against the extremities. OTOH the shorter blades and spears give a bonus to the unit's base attack value, representing their greater agility etc., and spears of course have their anti-cavalry factors, and longswords cost like the dickies...
(As for why the kopis/machaira/falcata "choppers", of noted cleaving and dismembering ability, only have 0.11 lethality... um ? :sweatdrop: Game balance to counteract the AP ability without axe-like penalties to attack value I guess...)

Point taken, I suppose I was thinking about total offensive impact of EB Spartans compared to Celtic longswordsman (Bataroas/Botroas) which I have used a great deal, having played Celtic factions very extensively. I tend to think, just from a historical standpoint, that a cohort of Spartans should have greater destructive output than a cohort of standard Gallic longswordsmen, but playing KH I was convinced that on a clean flank attack the Spartans killed slower than the Celts. The extra chevron from the fortress temple of Teutatis might be part of that, as well as sheer numbers of troops 200 being far greater than 120, but at any rate I found myself longing for the steady reliable crushing power of my good old northern gallic swordsmen, I never worried about kill speed against elite phalanxes playing Gauls, but then again there must be reasons why Gauls were romping around the balkans 40 years after the death of Alexander.

[Maion Maroneios]

You're VERY mistaken here. Not only did "old skool" spears stay in use well after the general adoption of the pike (though the pike replaced them as the close-order infantry standby), but they were commonly enough used by high-ranking warriors fighting dismounted as well - up to the point of some having very expensive, and somewhat gimmicky, *folding* versions of diverse spear-types popular in the period custom-made for themselves...
Because you just couldn't flaunt your wealth enough on the battlefield. :2thumbsup:

Oh, and knights and high-ranking nobles would occasionally fight as pikemen too... the Scottish ones were at one point pretty fond of that, though they sometimes apparently Did It Wrong too.
Really? I did say I was probably wronh there. Good to know, I'm not very informed abou the Medieval Age so thanks for the info :thumbsup:

Maion

[Aper]

Just get rid of that useless secondary spears and everything will be fine.
Sword/spear units are badasses enough to slaughter any cavalry with their swords (dudes, we are speaking of 0.225 lethality! + heavy armors).
If you give them a little "shield-wall" unit radius tweak bonus, they'll be nigh-unstoppable, specifically on walls: I lost half an army of bataroas against a single tweaked unit of solduros on walls!

@Cristopher Burgoyne
The medieval 2H sword pic you posted prove that sword became more rigid as the thrusting technique spread: look at the cross-section of the blade, a diamond shape like that can't be very flexible, and this is consistent with the enphasis on stabbing, because a more rigid sword simply thrust better.
Anyway, what do you men saying the wood is "inherently rigid"? it seems a nonsense to me...

[Aper]

(As for why the kopis/machaira/falcata "choppers", of noted cleaving and dismembering ability, only have 0.11 lethality... um ? :sweatdrop: Game balance to counteract the AP ability without axe-like penalties to attack value I guess...)
I feel the kopis-like swords are quite misrepresented in EB: in reference to functional morphology or efficiency against maile and shield, it must be kept in mind that most kopis/falcata were not heavy bladed, but rather light and thin. So in terms of blunt force injury and shield splitting the axe and other percussive weapons might be much more efficient.

And BTW, why should the Luso have chosen an "AP, low lethality" weapon in an area of the world were heavy armors were not exactly common?

Interesting thread: http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=2729&highlight=kopis

EDIT: sorry for the double post

[Phalanx300]

Indeed, that is very true. Actually, I believe that during the timeframe of EB the spear would be a better weapon in general. Cheap to make, easy to replace and very effective when used by a professional. But I believe a good quality longsword would win over a spear any day. Probably the reason why the majority of knights fought with longswords. Maybe I'm mistaken here, but I'm pretty sure spears were outdated during that time (Medieval Period).


I read information on zwaardvechten.nl, its a Dutch site, its about this sword fighting school which has read old medieval fighting manuscripts and are teaching Medieval combat, probably going to join it in the future.

However I read that a spear was superior, a longsword expert had to proove himself in one on one combat with a spear expert to proove his worth, as a spear needs a smaller survace to make a deadly kill.

Really interesting site, they also have alot on youtube, just search AMEK, Academie voor Middeleeuwse Europese Krijgskunsten.

Many people sadly don't know that European Martial Arts do exist, they usually think its an eastern thing. :sweatdrop:

[Watchman]

Interesting thread: http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=2729&highlight=kopisA lot of those guys are talking right out of their arses, I know that much. It takes until page 4 for someone to actually remember that the Greeks pretty much wholesale picked the machaira/kopis style of sword from the Persians... and nobody apparently recognises a Thraco-Dacian "sica".
How very impressive.
Nevermind that everyone fails with the wood-and-stone "imitation sword" - apparently nobody's actually read Oakeshott's Archaeology of Weapons, which not only mentions the damn thing but posits a perfectly credible theory to explain that weird thing. (I last read the damn book like a decade ago, may have misplaced it somewhere in the meantime, and *still* remember that one...)

Also, the weight of a weapon isn't all that important regarding its "terminal effects", AFAIK; the key thing is how the weight is distributed and how the damn thing is designed to transfer its energy to the target.
Or, put this way, a rapier typically weighs about the same as your typical Medieval "knightly" sword... but it hardly needs to be observed that the cutting characteristics of the two are completely different.

On a similar vein, for the same total weight swords and axes have *very* different effects, particularly in regards to armour...

And far as I know the forward-curvers are very definitely from the "choppy" end of sword designs, irrespective of their overall weight. The design very definitely concentrates its energy at a fairly narrow part of the blade, and moreover the curve would rather appear to "trap" the target if you see what I mean.
And what's the whole definition of armour-piercing ? Focusing the impact energy.


And BTW, why should the Luso have chosen an "AP, low lethality" weapon in an area of the world were heavy armors were not exactly common?Why are so many Chinese martial arts so big on heavy "cleaver" swords, such as the short "butterfly swords" and several varieties of the dao, quite in spite of being mostly concerned with fighting wholly unarmoured opponents ? Or the Nepalese and their kukris ? Because "mucho choppy" blades do a real number on flesh and, indeed AFAIK, are noted for their propensity for flat out amputating bits off people. That for their weight they're also quite good for dealing with all kinds of obstacles more stubborn than fragile flesh, such as wood or armour, is just a bonus.

But, obviously, the buggers needed to be modeled in some sensible fashion that didn't make them super-weapons - after all, if they'd been good for *everything* everyone'd have used the damn things and they'd never have gone out of use like they historically did.

[Celtic_Punk]

I always did wonder why they used the Northern Broadsword... It's clunkiness seems so out of place in China. I thought It might have been a very slight Celtic influence when I heard about the mummified Celt in China. (plus they've found old Celtic goods showing trade between the two very different worlds.

[Watchman]

I always did wonder why they used the Northern Broadsword... It's clunkiness seems so out of place in China....the what ? :inquisitive:

[Aper]

A lot of those guys are talking right out of their arses, I know that much. It takes until page 4 for someone to actually remember that the Greeks pretty much wholesale picked the machaira/kopis style of sword from the Persians... and nobody apparently recognises a Thraco-Dacian "sica".
How very impressive.
Can you please stop treating people like shit? It seems to be your usual attitude in the latest discussions you got involved

But, obviously, the buggers needed to be modeled in some sensible fashion that didn't make them super-weapons - after all, if they'd been good for *everything* everyone'd have used the damn things and they'd never have gone out of use like they historically did.I didn't need an explanation of the obvious about the effectivness of chopping swords vs unarmored opponents, thanks anyway. I was questioning the choices of the EB developers about the attributes of the kopis-style swords in game, but you are right saying the overpowered AP attribute have to be balanced in some way

About the design and use of the machaira, thanks again for enlightening me about the fact a rapier and a longsword are different, but my question was: a design intended to cleave the meat of an opponent is so much effective vs armors too? I have some doubts about this, the simple fact the force is concentrated toward the point doesn't make a kopis automatically work well like an axe against protections IMO. As the loading screen of Calawre says, the longsword could be very effective vs armors and shields, and the gladius hispanicus too was quite famed for its performance against protections... IMHO no sword should get the AP, it's simply too much unbalancing, as pointed out by the ridicolously low lethality of the kopis in game, that makes it quite underpowered vs unarmored or lightly armored foes in comparison to the longsword

And what exactly make you think the kopis-machaira came from persia? To me it seems simply the universal design of meat cleavers, and hardly anyone can say it came from anywhere in particular

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Anyway, what do you men saying the wood is "inherently rigid"? it seems a nonsense to me...

A sword blade is flexible and bends temporarily on impact, if you have ever seen a live sword in action. The wood doesn't do that, so that means it's far more prone to getting shattered or break due to its rigidity, much like glass.

Besides, I'm still waiting for Watchman's evidence that Knights used spears in a large scale engagement. With so many better weapons like Poleaxes, Halberds or Longswords, it is questionable why would they choose a spear at all. There's a reason it went out of fashion on the battlefield after a period, clearly.

[Aper]

A sword blade is flexible and bends temporarily on impact, if you have ever seen a live sword in action. The wood doesn't do that, so that means it's far more prone to getting shattered or break due to its rigidity, much like glass.I have indeed seen swords in action, after years of training in western martial arts. And I can say swords that on impact bend more than a little are crap swords. The capability to absorb impact doesn't mean a great, evident bending, I hope you know.
And... are... you... comparing... the behaviour of wood to... GLASS???? WTF??? Have you ever seen a piece of wood, or trained with a staff/spear?? Sorry man, but anyone who know woods a little can confirm this is plain BS.


Besides, I'm still waiting for Watchman's evidence that Knights used spears in a large scale engagement. With so many better weapons like Poleaxes, Halberds or Longswords, it is questionable why would they choose a spear at all. There's a reason it went out of fashion on the battlefield after a period, clearly.Spear (on feet) was indeed one of the most important knightly weapons. Sometimes they favoured it more than poleaxes, at least in duels. For what it can mean to our current discussion, even Sengoku ("civil war" era) samurai considered the spear their primary weapon on the battlefield. As you already pointed out, often knights were intermixed with common soldiers on the battleline and probably they used the same weapon of their comrades, likely a spear. No one prevented them to switch to the longsword when it was necessary. About what weapon is the better anyway, really none can give a final answer... they simply had different techniques, the tactical situation and the attitudes of the individual warrior can make a great difference: spear is the better long range thruster of the weapons you citated, and this can be more than enough to achieve a decisive superiority in a fight.

[Watchman]

Can you please stop treating people like shit? It seems to be your usual attitude in the latest discussions you got involvedThat's because I find persistent people who have no idea what they're talking about (yet go about making statements with certainty) to be very tedious and annoying.

I didn't need an explanation of the obvious about the effectivness of chopping swords vs unarmored opponents, thanks anyway. I was questioning the choices of the EB developers about the attributes of the kopis-style swords in game, but you are right saying the overpowered AP attribute have to be balanced in some way

About the design and use of the machaira, thanks again for enlightening me about the fact a rapier and a longsword are different, but my question was: a design intended to cleave the meat of an opponent is so much effective vs armors too? I have some doubts about this, the simple fact the force is concentrated toward the point doesn't make a kopis automatically work well like an axe against protections IMO."Cleaver" type blades, designed for chopping and shearing cuts, are more or less per definition designed to focus their impact power at the tip. And focused impact energy is pretty much the end-all be-all of anti-armour effectiveness - even if the protection itself isn't structurally breached, focused blunt trauma may still well get through to make the distinction somewhat academic - deep internal bleeding, mauled flesh and broken bones don't differ overmuch from a honest-to-God open wound, no ?

As the loading screen of Calawre says, the longsword could be very effective vs armors and shields, and the gladius hispanicus too was quite famed for its performance against protections...TBH far as I know that loading screen is talking poppycock there. AFAIK Celtic longswords aren't terribly large or heavy by for example Medieval standards; typically barely a kilogram in weight or so, and usually topping out at around 80cm lenght or so. Compared to some Medieval designs, especially the big "mail-killers", they're positively whippy and puny. (For the sake of comparision, the few weights I've seen given for falcata/kopis type swords suggest the average weight was about the same as that of the Celtic longswords...)
This is indeed a sword design philosophy that AFAIK lasted uninterrupted until the beginning of the Middle Ages proper (around 1000s AD); where such swords were popular, most of the opposition was nominally armoured at best and even the elites had only too many uncovered bits to slash at (notably the limbs) - a relatively light, quick sword served well in the circumstances.
The increasing proliferation of armour during the Middle Ages duly directly led to designs better suited to dealing with armour, whether through "brute-force" increased cutting power or, later increasingly, the thrust (something that, as often enough repeated, the spear also did well, but obviously spears are problematic as sidearms...).

The thrust is also what short blades like the glaadius rely on to defeat armour.

IMHO no sword should get the AP, it's simply too much unbalancing, as pointed out by the ridicolously low lethality of the kopis in game, that makes it quite underpowered vs unarmored or lightly armored foes in comparison to the longsword*shrug* And the longsword eventually DID replace both the recurve chopper and the short sword as the military sword par excellence. It's really just that at the time their availability was limited, on account of technical difficulties and high cost.

And what exactly make you think the kopis-machaira came from persia? To me it seems simply the universal design of meat cleavers, and hardly anyone can say it came from anywhere in particularWell there would be the legacy of the ancient sickle-sword, once ubiquitous in the Near East, for one. (The Central European tradition the Greeks came from was much more into straight double-edged "leaf-shaped" swords of medium size; the xiphos was AFAIK pretty much a direct continuation of a widely popular Late Bronze Age form - random specimen of which have been found even in Scandinavia.) For another, by what I've read of it the kopis/machaira type swords only start appearing in Greek sources around the time the Persians - avid users of the type - reach western Asia Minor...

[Aper]

That's because I find persistent people who have no idea what they're talking about (yet go about making statements with certainty) to be very tedious and annoying.
This certainly don't give you the right to be an a**hole.
It's sad you can't control your manners because your posts are almost always informative and pleasant to read.
Sorry for the OT, back on topic now

BTW can you provide me some sources to deepen my knowledge of ancient and medieval melee weapons types? Something like that you said about the evolution of longswords from celts to middle-ages...

[Watchman]

With so many better weapons like Poleaxes, Halberds or Longswords, it is questionable why would they choose a spear at all. There's a reason it went out of fashion on the battlefield after a period, clearly.The spear, in some form, *never* went out of use - what do you think the bayonet for all intents and purposes is ? And the pike is nothing more than a scaled-up spear.

As for the weapons listed, please do note that the lot only developed towards the latter part of the High Middle Ages (mid-late 1300s and thereabout) - I'm assuming that by "longsword" you mean the hand-and-half or two-handed late type here.
And the whole lot very noticeably has a pointy bit (AKA spearhead) on top, which from what I've read was the part that saw the most use - on a similar vein, the point was the offensive bit of choice in the late-period longswords...

Stabby is good, no two ways about it. AFAIK it was at one point popular to stick a small spearhead atop one-handed battleaxes too, since versatility is always good. (Them books tend to show this kind of weapon specifically in the hands of knights...) The later pollaxe/halberd is arguably a scaled-up descendant of that pattern...

[Watchman]

BTW can you provide me some sources to deepen my knowledge of ancient and medieval melee weapons types? Something like that you said about the evolution of longswords from celts to middle-ages...One that I can link out of hand is the myArmoury.com site - in particular, the Features (http://www.myarmoury.com/features.html) and Reviews (http://www.myarmoury.com/reviews.html) sections. The latter helpfully usually discusses the historical background of the item in question.
'Course, most of the stuff there is Medieval or later, but there's a review of at least two repro La Tene blades and one Migration Period example, plus several Viking and other late Migration Period examples and several of the "Roman" gladius.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

And... are... you... comparing... the behaviour of wood to... GLASS???? WTF??? Have you ever seen a piece of wood, or trained with a staff/spear?? Sorry man, but anyone who know woods a little can confirm this is plain BS.

Actually it's plain physics blimey. The reason the sword is flexible is because the metal will be less likely to be distorted permanently or break during action, which was a very important thing to consider in the heat of battle. What happens is that the wood, being rigid, will be more prone to break with stronger impacts.

This is really a very basic thing you know? Broken lances, spears et all. I used glass merely as a rough comparison, because being rigid, it is also prone to breaking more easily.


Spear (on feet) was indeed one of the most important knightly weapons. Sometimes they favoured it more than poleaxes, at least in duels. For what it can mean to our current discussion, even Sengoku ("civil war" era) samurai considered the spear their primary weapon on the battlefield. As you already pointed out, often knights were intermixed with common soldiers on the battleline and probably they used the same weapon of their comrades, likely a spear. No one prevented them to switch to the longsword when it was necessary. About what weapon is the better anyway, really none can give a final answer... they simply had different techniques, the tactical situation and the attitudes of the individual warrior can make a great difference: spear is the better long range thruster of the weapons you citated, and this can be more than enough to achieve a decisive superiority in a fight.


Watchman's SNIP

A pointy thing does not a spear make. A polearm does not a spear make, although all spears are per definition "polearms". Back to the Poleaxe... it was as much as an "Axe", "Hammer" as it was "Pike". We're arguing semantics here: instead of talking down these differences as being "spears", I would like to see a "spear" per excellence, as it was seemingly proposed here. By this I mean something similar to the dori in EB terms, not some random pole.

[Watchman]

You definitions are *much* too strict. A pollaxe or halberd is, for all intents and purposes, a spear mated with a two-handed axe; a two-in-one combo. If you don't need one hand free for a shield or somesuch, carrying one of those is pretty obviously more sensible than either of the "parent" weapons which don't have quite the same all-around functionality. (But as noted, these "all in one" designs were a relatively late developement, at least in Europe.)

Doesn't change the fact that the top spike, functionally in no way different from a simple spear, was pretty much the single most used part of those weapons; the sharp butt-spike was quite commonly used to stab with too. "Hooking" a shield, weapon or limb aside, the axe, hammer and pick bits were mainly employed as "finishers" on foes first more or less first disabled with less spectacular and risky attacks with the spear-tip - not that that one didn't commonly enough get used to put paid to even heavily armoured opponents...


As for breakage, eh. Wood and glass are in NO way compatible; indeed, it is iron (or rather high-carbon steel) that is far more similar. Crystalline molecular structure and whatnot, something you most certainly don't get in wood. Steel of high carbon content OTOH is *very* similar to glass; very hard, but brittle - many items made out of it may well break from nothing more than being carelessly dropped onto hard floor, and indeed high-carbon steel even "rings" much like glass when struck...

Wooden shafts snapped because there simply is only so much lateral stress a wooden pole of a given thickness can survive before something gives. And not only were weapon shafts pretty much by default tapered towards the tip for reasons of balance and weight distribution, but also the material (type of wood) was normally *not* the toughest kind available - that would've usually been much too heavy. Rather the type with the best weight-strength ratio was preferred.

Note, incidentally, that one rarely if ever hears of wooden axe and mace shafts breaking unless actively damaged by enemy weapons...

As far as swords go, yes, cutting swords do flex laterally. Pretty much a necessity for dealing with the stress of the impact with the target, and also for its part assists in effective cut (as the blade "rebounds" into the target at the end of its movement arc). Here (http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/GTA/motions_and_impacts3.htm) is IIRC a pretty good study on the subject (reading the whole article is highly recommended). There's a number of other "recommended reading" articles on the site, such as this one (http://www.thearma.org/essays/howacutworks.htm).

Thrusting swords, OTOH (and by extension, all primarily thrusting weapons), want to be rigid, so that the impact energy is applied to the target in as linear a fashion as possible. The structural requirements of which are why swords optimal for the cut suck for the thrust, and vice versa.

[Aper]

This is really a very basic thing you know? Broken lances, spears et all. I used glass merely as a rough comparison, because being rigid, it is also prone to breaking more easily.
The problem is exactly that woods, and especially woods used for polearms, were not rigid or prone to break easily at all. Different woods have very different characteristics, and the best of them are quite amazing in their performances in combat. OTOH, an ill-manufactered metal alloy can be much more fragile, as Watchman already said.

"Cleaver" type blades, designed for chopping and shearing cuts, are more or less per definition designed to focus their impact power at the tip. And focused impact energy is pretty much the end-all be-all of anti-armour effectiveness - even if the protection itself isn't structurally breached, focused blunt trauma may still well get through to make the distinction somewhat academic - deep internal bleeding, mauled flesh and broken bones don't differ overmuch from a honest-to-God open wound, no ?
AFAIK Celtic longswords aren't terribly large or heavy by for example Medieval standards; typically barely a kilogram in weight or so, and usually topping out at around 80cm lenght or so. Compared to some Medieval designs, especially the big "mail-killers", they're positively whippy and puny. (For the sake of comparision, the few weights I've seen given for falcata/kopis type swords suggest the average weight was about the same as that of the Celtic longswords... And the longsword eventually DID replace both the recurve chopper and the short sword as the military sword par excellence. It's really just that at the time their availability was limited, on account of technical difficulties and high cost.As you said, sword designed to cut flesh (celtic longsword and falcata) are relatively light and flexibile, when weapons good at mauling armors (medieval longsword and axes) are relatively rigid and heavy. This difference made me doubt the effectiveness of the kopis-style in causing bashing damage through protections, in comparison to other swords: obviously the kopis could damage tissues under armor, but how much more than other swords? After all, leaf-shaped weapons like xiphos and mainz gladius are basically 2-edged kopis no? So they should have an effect on the body of the enemy quite similar, but in game they have completely different mechanics, that seems strange to me. This made me think maybe it was better to ged rid of the AP and raising the lethality of the falcata and similars; if, as you said, lethality represent the cleaving & maiming power of a weapon, they should have a very high value, maybe even higher than longswords; but the only way to balance this change should be to remove the armor piercing attribute, that IMHO should be not so wrong, for the reasons I explained: but more than anything, I just think AP is an unbalancing attribute that should be limited as much as possible... look at the lances for example: many EBers (me too) report that even with a delay of 160 to 200, AP lances are deadly in melee: sure, they have a very high lethality, but it's primarily AP that give them a good chance to hit, despite their low attack.

However, AFAIK (but I'm confident you'll agree) single edged cleaving sword never went out of fashion, and with the single possible exception of the late roman army the longsword was in middle-ages too a rare and expensive weapon; common folks usually carried blades that often was more big knives than swords, like the Messer of the Talhoffer, again AFAIK. So IMO is quite uncorrect to say that longsword "replaced" the recurve chopper: they remained weapons for different social "targets", as they were in ancient times.

About the origin of the greek kopis, I was more inclined to think it was simply an adaptation of everyday all purpouse, "working" blades, like the modern machete, or butcher's knives for example, adopted in the army for its simple and brutal effectiveness.

As far as swords go, yes, cutting swords do flex laterallySure, but the question is: how much bending you and Cristopher are speaking about? It's an important point to clear because people have often silly beliefs about this.

A pointy thing does not a spear make. A polearm does not a spear make, although all spears are per definition "polearms". Back to the Poleaxe... it was as much as an "Axe", "Hammer" as it was "Pike". We're arguing semantics here: instead of talking down these differences as being "spears", I would like to see a "spear" per excellence, as it was seemingly proposed here. By this I mean something similar to the dori in EB terms, not some random pole.
I was exactly meaning something like the greek Dory (or japanese yari) when I wrote the "spear" word.
Your skepticism don't change the fact the simple "pole + short metal point" weapon type was one of the most popular throughout history in all the world and among all social classes. The favourite? maybe not, but indeed one of the most utilized.

EDIT
@ kekailoa: I'm sure you will be welcome! :laugh4: EB is much better than school regarding ancient military history, no doubt about this

[kekailoa]

Geez, there are a lot of smart people on this board.

Sorry for the OT, but I think I'll ask questions here when I have questions in college rather than search the internet and library.

[A Very Super Market]

Well, EB is a historical mod, requiring historians, and they don't really stray from the EB forums.

[Maion Maroneios]

I'm sorry guys, but seeing all those debates I feel like we're derailing a bit. We're still talking about EB's time period, why is there a constant mentioning of Medieval weaponry? The latter was much superior to most of what would be made during the 3rd Century BC, so I don't believe the analogy is very sound.

If you ask me, you should really compare a shortsword (like a xiphos or gladius) with a dory of you want to debate about the superiority of a spear over a sword. That's because, AFAIK, the vast majority of armed men during EB's time used shortswords or spears. Longswords, again AFAIK, were difficult to produce and belonged only to certain (Celtic) nobles. If we stick to the timeframe and the two aforementioned weapons, I dare to say that a skillfull spearfighter would win over a skillfull swordfighter any day. Again, note this is my oppinion.

Maion

[Aper]

I'm sorry guys, but seeing all those debates I feel like we're derailing a bit.True.

If we stick to the timeframe and the two aforementioned weapons, I dare to say that a skillfull spearfighter would win over a skillfull swordfighter any day. Again, note this is my opinion.Probable, but it is really not a matter of "who is the strongest??" (that is childish), but about actual understanding the properties, the strenghts, the weaknesses, the techniques, the history and so on of the various weapons. Probably too much debate and not enough evidences, I guess

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

If we stick to the timeframe and the two aforementioned weapons, I dare to say that a skillfull spearfighter would win over a skillfull swordfighter any day. Again, note this is my oppinion.

If that's true then why so many Celtic and Hellenic elites carried longswords instead of spears? And why did every hoplite carry a sidearm? You presume too much.

[Aper]

We are wasting time discussing nonsense like "who would win" in so vague terms. Almost like discussing about the gender of angels.
And I can't understand why people don't grab the concept "any weapon have his own strenght and weaknesses, that a skilled warrior can exploit to win the day" or "warriors carried multiple weapons because no weapon is inherently better than the others".
Common sense sometimes helps.

[Maion Maroneios]

If that's true then why so many Celtic and Hellenic elites carried longswords instead of spears? And why did every hoplite carry a sidearm? You presume too much.
I said, it's my oppinion. See my post about spear vs sword with some Physics invlolved. You'll understand what I mean. Plus, a good longsword as I said numerous times before, would beat an ordinary spear any day. Read what I'm writing first. We're not talking about exceptions, or at least we shouldn't.

Maion

[Watchman]

If that's true then why so many Celtic and Hellenic elites carried longswords instead of spears?Most carried *both*, you know...
And why did every hoplite carry a sidearm? You presume too much.Due to the oft enough already mentioned problems spears have at close quarters, and so as to not be left with just their bare hands to keep them warm if and when the shaft broke ?

Jeez. Don't make us repeat junk that's been discussed a billion times already.


We're still talking about EB's time period, why is there a constant mentioning of Medieval weaponry? The latter was much superior to most of what would be made during the 3rd Century BC, so I don't believe the analogy is very sound.Actually, other than a fair bit of refinement in the manufacturing process there was very little functional change in sword designs between the early La Tene Celts and about 11th century AD...

And, moreover and much more relevantly, the two behave very much the same tactically.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

We are wasting time discussing nonsense like "who would win" in so vague terms. Almost like discussing about the gender of angels.
And I can't understand why people don't grab the concept "any weapon have his own strenght and weaknesses, that a skilled warrior can exploit to win the day" or "warriors carried multiple weapons because no weapon is inherently better than the others".
Common sense sometimes helps.
I know it. I am just being defiant :laugh4:, since the sword is my favourite weapon, closely followed by the Knightly lance.

[Maion Maroneios]

Well, personal favour over a certain weapon doesn't mean it's better you know. That's actually a bit childish, no offense intented. I, for example, am a spear fan but aknowledge the superiority of a wall crafted longsword.

Maion