Ok spears are longer than swords obviously but why is there such a big difference? Spears can rout a cavalry but not swordsmen? Both of them have shields so that should block lances.
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Ok spears are longer than swords obviously but why is there such a big difference? Spears can rout a cavalry but not swordsmen? Both of them have shields so that should block lances.
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Because horses can't block spears, swordsmen with shields can.
or something like that :)
Abandon all hope.
Try to find EYG's topic "weapon length" or sth like that, there was a discussion why should spears always defeat cav
Spears are way longer than swords and therefore spearmen can easily reach a man on a horse. Imagine that you are a CMAA and you have a 5 kilos heavy sword. It isn't easy to lift it up 2 meters high (thats probably height of a man riding a horse). While if you have 3 meters long spear it's easier to attack a horseman. And the main advantage of horsemen is speed. Swordsmen don't have the time to lift their swords while spearmen just lift their spears and wait for the cavalry to charge at them.
"The point of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."
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The argument generally goes that swordsmen are a more "professional" class of soldiers than spearmen, and that spearmen do not excel at close-in melee combat. Any spear-equipped unit is largely trained to act in formation, particularly against cavalry. Swordsmen, on the other hand, are better at just charging into enemy infantry, and starting what is essentially a massive brawl--a disorganized mess for which spearmen aren't very well suited.
Last edited by Martok; 11-20-2005 at 19:41.
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5 kilos? I have a Bastard Sword (Larger then a Longsword, but can still be used one handed) and its only about 2.20 kilos.Originally Posted by miho
I just said that at the top of my head.Originally Posted by m52nickerson
"The point of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."
-General George S. Patton
If you're carrying a 5-kilo sword, you've gotta look something like Conan the Barbarian. Otherwise you'll get a hernia trying to swing it! From what I've heard swords tended to be lighter than most modern replicas and much lighter than popular opinion often assumes.
Ajax
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Claymores ranged from 5lb to 15 lb.
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Swords have more offense variations and mobility than spears though; with a spear you only can poke your enemy. Sword can slash, stab, etc. Sure the rider is up there but the horse is up for grab - not to mention cavalry spear tip are just like regular spear tip which can be 'circumsized' by the sword.
I guess in larger number it's hard for the swordmaster but in 1v1 a swordman can win.
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The whole reason spears are better vs Cavalry is they can stop the charge. Once the cav is stopped, well swords may be better.
IIRC getting close to a war horse isn't exactly safe either, they were trained to kick and bite the enemy.
Better then to have some distance.
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Advo-san's post in that topic:Originally Posted by Knight Templar
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...1&postcount=12
More monasterystuff than Main Hall.
Hence moved to the History-dojo.
Abandon all hope.
Spears have always been (until the gunpowder era, that is) the primary weapon of choice for many more people than sword. Reasons:
- Availability. A spear has only the tip (and the buttspike, if present) made of Iron or any other metal used. A sword is 100% metal and it is rather more refined work than a mere spearhead - any weaponsmith could manufacture a spearhead, but it took a better than average to produce high quality swords.
- Training. There is no such thing as "training a spearman". Although the best spearmen are those that are trained, at least somewhat, you can essentialy give a man a long, pointy stick and place him at a line - wether he holds that line, is another issue. Drilling is something a spearman needs, of course, to coordinate effectively with his companions. The use of sword, OTOH, is nothing easy: if you take a random mr. nobody and give him a pike, he has a good chance of fending off a cavalry charge, if he's got the nerve to stay in line. If you take a random mr. nobody and give him a sword, he most probably will kill or amputate himself before killing anyone else.
- Blocking a cavalry charge with a shield? Are you serious? Combine the weight of the horse, the effect of speed and momentum, the weight of the rider and what you get is a shattered shield, a shattered arm and most probably you on a stick (provided you are behind that shield). The effect of long, pointy sticks is that horses are not fond charging into a wall of these (the sticks) and if they do, they'll eventually do it at reduced speed and most probably get impaled to some of those sticks. If heavy shock cavalry charges on infantry without big, pointy sticks, they'll most probably just run them over. Even Claymores wouldn't do much of a difference. Until the 18th century (when better rifles and bayonettes appeared) the only way to face a cavalry charge on level ground was to have many long, pointy sticks.
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Actually most infantry have always had spears, even if they carried swords. The spear is about the most costeffective weapon there is for melee. And it has been proven time and again that a well trained spearman will generally beat a welltrained swordsman in a fight.
Just because the spear only has a smallish point doesn't meant that it hasn't got mroe uses than pure stabbing. Remember a spear can also act like a staff and bludgeon you into submission, and it can more easily trip the swordsman by getting between his legs. Result? Well the swordsman is on the ground and more or less at the mercy of the spearman, especailly if he fell on his face.
But inside a fiarly compact formation the long spear simply is not the best weapon. There the versatility and maneuverability ofthe sword makes it god. So if two formations of spearmen duked it out and one formation were really good, they would soon abandon their spears and get up close and personal with the newbies on the other side.
The sword itself is not superior, just different. Butthe cost of the sword meant that it was relatively rare and thus often in the hands of a welltrained warrior. He would of course beat the crap out of all those pretenders with spears. The cost of the spear would ensure that the vast mojority of spearmen were fairly crappy... So in general a matchup between a swordsman and a spearman would end up with the sword deeply embedded inside the spearman, or if he was bright the spearman running like hell.
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This is an interesting discussion (I'd much like to hear a definite answer).
When it comes to sword weights, have a look at http://www.thearma.org/essays/weights.htm.
According to ”Medieval Warfare” by H.W. Koch (Bison Books Ltd, 1978) the price of a sword was 7 cows, the price of a lance and shield together was 2 cows.Originally Posted by Kraxis
Illustrerad Vetenskap (a popular science magazine) the price of a sword was 126 gram silver, the price of a lance was 51 grams silver.
So I agree the price of swords probably meant swordsmen was generally from groups that trained more. In some early mediaeval intraction for youths I saw (can't find it again I'm afraid) I was advised that one doesn't forget to bring one's spear to battle because it is very useful.
Have a look at http://www.aemma.org/onlineResources...lver5_body.htm . This is written by an 16th century englishman, so it isn't strange that pike and bill are favoured, those were after all the main military weapons (aside from guns) of the english. Notice how he considers any polearm short of pikes superior to swords. Maybe this isn't true for earlier era sword-and-shield-warriors, who used shieldwalls, but I do feel the length of spears would be very useful.
(btw I've had some sparring (one on one) with spear (not 100% representable since it's head was too light) vs sword and shield, it is a lot easier if you're the one with the spear)
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Last edited by Narayanese; 11-21-2005 at 19:18.
Horses like that are considered "bad horses" back then. They were trained to be tame like Pikachu.IIRC getting close to a war horse isn't exactly safe either, they were trained to kick and bite the enemy.
I'm sure the frontline of the swordmen will get crushed but so do the front cavalry. The rest behind cavalry frontline will have to halt because of the dead horses in the front, unless they can jump which I doubt they could. That's when the rest of swordsmen move in for the kill to the non-charging horses, pull the men down from the horses and slice their throats.
I can see that spears are the best infantry to melt cavalry but all I'm saying is swordsmen aren't easy to roll over. If spearmen don't have chance to beat swordsmen then the mounted spearmen will only get a benefit of being mounted. It's just a slight difference.
If I were a mounted sergeant with shield or even a lancer, I still wouldn't wanna charge to a wall of fully trained huscarles or CMAA.
Nice links btw.
Last edited by Weebeast; 11-21-2005 at 19:34.
Actually, the second and probably third rank will also have to carry the hit as bodies are thrown back and I doubt that the first rank of the cavallery's horses will get killed.I'm sure the frontline of the swordmen will get crushed but so do the front cavalry.
The main problem for the infantry is psycology (spelling?). To see a long wall of steel, muslce and death coming at a high speed is likly to make a sight, and set anyone's bravery to the test.
By what I know of it the damn horses actually tended to pull short rather than smash into what to them appeared like a large, solid, immobile obstacle. The critters are very picky about footing, and can apparently reduce speed surprisingly rapidly.
Anyway, AFAIK the infantrymen would tend to survive the impact of even heavy warhorse pretty well if they were in proper formation and "braced for impact". It's not like even a fully barded large warhorse is equivalent to a car or similar; the collision would of course push the front ranks back, but as they were being pushed into something relatively yielding (ie. the men behind them) by something relatively yielding (ie. a big animal) actual injuries would be fairly minor. Nasty bruises and some broken bones, naturally, but I for one consider those *far* lesser an evil than what happens if you fall down and get trod over by the big beast, or get hit by its rider's choice tool of personal destruction.
I sincerely doubt if the impact of a horse could actually shatter a shield, too. A solid hit from a decent mace or axe would reduce a shield to splinters in one go, but that's because the things concentrate the impact; a charging horse is, ultimately, no more "concentrated" than for example a football quarterback.
Which is of course why cavalrymen so long ago figured out it'd be a really nice thing if all that momentum could be concentrated behind somehting, like a long pointy stick... Works both ways, though. A horse or its rider that hits the tip of a properly "set" polearm (ie. braced on the ground, the tip usually at the level of the horse's chest) on a charge will be impacting with the same full momentum that goes behind a lance tip, and tends to get duly skewered. (Armour helps a bit as usual, though.)
Which is another reason why spears and other polearms were so popular; not only do they have enough reach to negate the height advantage of a cavalryman (or the reach advantage of another similar weapon), they could be used to turn one of the horse's greatest assets against itself.
However, even infantry without long and pointy things has time and again demonstrated it can check a heavy cavalry charge if it keeps it nerve and deploys in a suitable formation; that Roman legionaires with their javelins and short swords indeed could take on Persian cataphracts is a good example, although I understand in that particular case they tended to have a rather hard time at it...
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I would love to spare vs you with my bastard sword. It would be interesting to see what weapon has a faster recovery speed.Originally Posted by Narayanese
Where the sword comes into play is once you get inside that spear tip's effective range, primarily thrusting swords. The spear is a stand off weapon. Once the swordsman has closed, he has the advantage.
Modern day analogy: boxer versus a slugger. The slugger tends to be heavily muscled and dangerous at close range. A good boxer will tear a slugger to pieces from the outside. The match is one of the slugger trying to penetrate past the jab and deliver punishing blows, while the boxer works the jab to maintain a distance. This doesn't mean that the slugger is unskilled, but his reach tends to be shorter so he has to fight differently.
The swordsman will also have an advantage in woods, halls, etc. where the spear's length will make it more difficult to wield due to obstructions, and formation fighting for spearmen becomes quite difficult.
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I disagree. A spearman only needs room to the front of him to jab forwards with the spear. A swordsman needs room all around to swing and recover the sword properly. This is why spears are much more effective in groups. Now if you are talking about swinging a spear, its not really a spear, but a quarter staff.
Last edited by m52nickerson; 11-21-2005 at 23:52.
Cavalry can't throw themselves on swords like they can on spears...
Narayanese... I'm not certain what you mean by lance. If it is the cavalry weapon where it tapers into a small point, then it is logical that it is expensive. But a normal spear of a leafpoint (or similar) and a small buttspike would be something even a poor farmer would be able to obtain fairly easily. In fact it was common to see Danish farmers bring spear and shield onto the fields as protection from whatever.
The problem with spearless infantry is that they get struck first. Not only does the cavalryman know this, but more importantly the infantryman knows this. He will not like it at all... Imagine him thinking "If I say we will win, but I die. If I run I might live." Only the most hardcore infantry would stand their ground.
While Parthian cataphracts were good, they were also fairly primitive (bear with me). The shock cavalry training wasn't too advanced yet. Not to say that shock cavalry didn't exist, but they were used against other cavalry, so they could get behind the infantry. When facing infantry head on they would face the problem of the natural inhibition of the horse for running into seemingly solid objects, such as two high shield wall of scuta. The horse wouldn't know that it could actually run through it and would stop just like it would with a stone wall.
On the other hand Seleucid cataphracts did break through a dense, and quite good, formation of legionaries (mind you these were of Polybian setup, but perhaps some of the best of this type) at Magnesia. So it wasn't set that even good infantry could repel heavy cavalry. Part of the reason could be that the Polybian legion didn't have the special two-shield wall of the Marian legion, thus it didn't present a seemingly solid wall, but more one of humans.
In the medieval period the cavalry slowly climbed the ladder, until they were the top dogs and the knights entered the field. Naturally these were keen to find ways to defeat infantry, though they still preferred to beat the other side's cavalry first.
It was 'discovered' (as if people didn't know this before) that horses are blind until about 1-2 meters directly ahead of its face. This is part of the horse's inhibition against running into stuff. Try yourself to run into stuff if it vanishes right before you hit it, it is not pleasant. But a system was developed to counter this, where the horse was ridden against human figures in fairly dense formation and when close enough to be 'hidden' they were dropped or similarly removed. After extensive training the horse would be comfortable with it's owner's directions, even against infantry.
Knight could, and would, attack infantry head on. Sometimes they won, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes the infantry stood and lost (such as the Bouvines), sometimes they stood and won (Bannockburn and Courtrai), and often the infantry broke and ran prior to impact.
If the infantry stood it would still not be good to be in the front lines even if you are not struck directly. The impact of the horse itself would at least knock you to the ground, and if you were unlucky it would knock you out (air blasted from lungs or heavy hit to the head). Surviveable? Yes, but then comes the next few horses, and these horses are not nice skittish ones, they don't mind stepping on you. Ouch... But even if the charge is broken you are in a world of pain as the horses around you get killed and fall to the ground, or get wounded and thrash around in pain stepping on whoever happens to be lying on the ground. An given you are most likely not equipped with superior armour you will get rather badly injured if not killed outright.
Suddenly even a successful stand against knights looks bleak for those in the first line, and those on the second fares pretty much the same.
Ducking down behind the shield will not be enough...
So I think it is fair to say it is understandable that infantry would run more often than not.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Interesting oppinion... Given that the Spanish horseschool is a direct descendant of a warhorse school I find this claim a bit on the wrong side. The piruette (sp?) and the jumping kick were both deviced for cases where the horse was surrounded. I find it hard to believe that the medieval horseschools which were supplying 'better' horses than those of the 1600s (not counting the Husaria of Poland), would be inferior in training. The horseschools of the 1600s were themselves children of the medieval schools.Originally Posted by Weebeast
For instance the royal stables in Denmark (a specific) one was famed for it's outstanding warhorses (often used for gifts to royalty and other worthy of notice) for centuries spanning from around 1200 to 1750 or so. Non-stop mind you... So unless this stables was the best in the world (which I doubt) I think it is safe bet to say that the development in training of warhorses was rather limited when it came to dealing with surrounded cases.
I also wonder why the medieval souces tend to talk about 'those nasty warhorses' which only the owner and the page/squire could approach safely... Hardly a docile Pikachu.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Nope, any time you have something 6 ft long or more, you are going to have trouble wielding it with obstructions compared to something 2 or 3 feet long. Back to a wall, the spearman is in big trouble being limited to parrying, the swordsman can still thrust and cut. Remember, swords like the gladius are thrusting weapons too. If you are talking about a pike 9 feet or longer then just turning it in the woods becomes a big challenge. It's analagous to the trouble a long rifle has versus short barreled weapons in confined spaces/close quarters.Originally Posted by m52nickerson
That was a weakness of phalanx formations, They were deadly straight ahead, but if disrupted by vegetation or terrain, they were not sufficiently flexible.
And regardless, once the swordsman gets past the spear tip he is on offense, while the spearman is on defense.
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Yes, I was thinking of the same. Those trained horses are very impressive when they are kicking like that.Originally Posted by Kraxis
Rome Total War, it's not a game, it's a do-it-yourself project.
If you want the modern equivalent, the spear is the rifle and the sword is the bayonet.
You can have a far more dense formation of spearmen then swinging swords. The Romans understood this very well and made sure their swords where in effect spears without a haft... short and made for stabbing... they could be swung but they also were useful stabbing... hence allowing the Romans to use each others shields for protection.
Swords in medieval times were very good for killing unarmoured foes. They weren't so great at getting through armour... a small sharp point or a heavy mass are much better at that.
OT Pikachu is anything bar docile... he is fairly unique in that he uses claw attacks.
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