Why did falcata style weapons disappear?

[dominique]

Yeah, Pontius Pilate, they do look a bit crude, but for their function, they were effective. Those weapons were initially designed for footmen of uncertain quality and training to use against mounted, plate-armored opponents.

(here I will use the term halberd to speak about all 6 foot kind of hast weapons)

They look crude, but the martial art associated with it isn't. An halberd is a fancy, close-quarter weapon used against armored infantry. See: http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/lejeudelahache.htm

Essentially, a halberd is an advanced battle axe with swiss knife functions.

Truth is, any weapon that uses piercing as its damage vector will probably stick when faced with plate armor, and crushing/bludgeoning weapons, unless one is trained in their use and has undergone physical conditioning, are often too slow to allow the type of troops that used these polearms to effectively strike a mounted knight with a solid enough blow to do damage. These polearms were brutally effective against mounted knights because of the various projections and hooks that allowed the user to pull a knight off his horse and strike with the blade facing any direction. The user did not have to worry about turning the blade to get a hit, or in the case of bludgeoning weapons, keep momentum going in order to do damage.

You mean the pike. The pike is an anti-cavalry weapon. There as much difference between the tactical use of a halberd and a pike than between a recoiless rifle and an assault rifle. It's not because they used a wooden pole for the pike and the halberd that the weapons are all used in the same way.

The halberd/bill-hook/bec-de-corbin/polaxe blade was not use to pierce through the plate, but through the visor or armpits when the guy in face was down. See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqiS...eature=related

Oh and by the way, the halberd fighting style was developped to beat sword-and-shield-style. A marian legionnary would have been slaughtered by a burgundian halberdier.

For those who are interested, this shows the basic fighting techniques of this crude weapon used by

footmen of uncertain quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTVC...x=0&playnext=1