Realism and combat

[Bob Richter]

Slight divergence from the topic at hand, but Stu's mention of the Englishman with his Q-staff fighting off multiple opponents reminds me of the scene in... I think the 3rd book of the Wheel of Time, where Mat takes on Gawain and Galad quarterstaff to swords, and whips them both soundly, despite them being the two best students, and his own recent illness. Though I am not familiar with the western use of staves, I think it is a weapon which should not be undervalued.

Well IMO  the spear is the Queen of Weapons and the staff ,her older sister, a Princess. Both are highly underrated worhorses of the warriors trade.

Shoot only the short sword (as machete) club (and varient the tonfa) the knife and the two sisters (Queen Spear as the Bayonet) are still battlefield weapons

Swords, axes polearms and the others have faded from view and while the swords have t the glamour I would still choose a spear over any other hand weapon in an ancient battlefield.

The only vulnerability a spear has is to a deft fighter with a shield (if you are using it 2 handed)  a dopplehander (if you are in formation) or someone really fast.

A spearman better know knife wrestling,  :)

A machete is not a short-sword.

A bayonet is not a spear (It's a dagger on the end of a gun, a different animal entirely,) and it is universally considered both outdated and useless (as its sole purpose was to stop reloading riflemen from being overrun, a function that has not been needed in a century.) Its use is common only among armies that haven't had the brains to discontinue it.

A spear is vulnerable to anyone with the brains to catch and hold the shaft and/or attack the user's hand. It's just a matter of knowing how to fight the weapon.

But I must admit a certain fondness for the spear: unlike a sword, it can be thrown accurately and lethally at an opponent.

[Lance D. Allen]

Its use is common only among armies that haven't had the brains to discontinue it.

False.

The U.S. Army still issues bayonets, and conducts training in their use. The reason for this is simple.. Sometimes it gets a lot closer than what a rifle is used for, and at that range it is nice to have a weapon close at hand. Normally this is the rifle itself, for the infamous buttstroke (or a pistol for ye old pistol-whip) but a bayonet gives an added edge, no pun intended. While it is certainly not a spear, it is still a viable battlefield weapon, totally aside from it's use as a tool outside of combat situations.

[Jaif]

Bob, you go too far:

If the Sword were not a superior battlefield weapon, it would never have supplanted the spear (which it did.)

It did not, unless you're being pedantic and saying a pike, et al, is not a spear.  The spear has survived throughout history into the pike & shot era, hence the name, which brings us to:

A bayonet is not a spear (It's a dagger on the end of a gun, a different animal entirely,)

I'm sorry, but this is simply ignorant.  When the bayonet was developed, it allowed infantry armies to move from musket and pike to straight musket, because now the musketteers could also fill the role of a pikeman in emergancy.  Again, the entire point to the exercise was to give the musketteers an emergency spear.

If you want something to hang your hat on, it's this: cavalry were using swords until the end of battlefield cavalry (which sadly took too long because of stupid generals).  Of course, there were Polish Lancers hanging around as well, so you still had the remnants of the spear as well.

Combat is NOT rock-paper-scissors.

I'm going to assume you meant dueling, becuase military history is replete with rock-paper-scissors images.  I'll name two:

1) Pike, shot, cavalry.  Shot beat pike, cavalry beat shot, pike beat cavalry.  Think English Civil War.

2) Infantry, cavalry, artillery.  Infantry in line would defeat the gunners.  Cavalry would defeat Infantry in Line, forcing them to adopt square.  Artillery would shoot up squares pretty easily. Classic Napoleanic.

-Jeff

[Jake Norwood]

Actually modern bayonet techniques...and old ones...are much similar to many shorter pole-arm techniques, specifically the half-sword, which is thought to be the direct parent of bayonet techniques by many.

Jake

[Valamir]

But do keep these simple facts in mind:
If the Rapier were not a superior duelling sword, it would never have supplanted the others (which it did.)
If the Sword were not a superior battlefield weapon, it would never have supplanted the spear (which it did.)
Combat is NOT rock-paper-scissors.

While I largely agree with your overall point, your analysis fails to take into account a very important item...Social Importance...which has had as much (and occassionally more) impact on armarment than actual battle field effectiveness (and still does today in the form of political appropriations).

The sword did not replace the spear as a battle field weapon.  In fact, if you view the Pike as an evolution of the spear, the converse happened.  What made the sword special was that it was made entirely out of metal.  Axes and spears are primarily wood...initially with a stone head, later metal.  But the sword...the sword is 100% metal (with non metal accessories).  Note here I'm talking European swords, since in other areas of the world there are sword like instruments made out of wood or even obsidian.

That's the key.  Metal is expensive.  Only the powerful could afford making an entire weapon out of metal, and so the sword became as much a status symbol as an implement of war.  A huge part of the widespread use of the sword has as much to do with its role as status symbol as its role as effective weapon.  This was conciously reinforced.  Throughout most of the middle ages swords could be wielded only by nobility.  By the late middle ages and the development of very heavy armor, the sword was still supreme as a status symbol, but in combat, knights would often choose baser weapons as being more effective can openers.

The evolution of the rapier was also heavily influenced by social pressure, and in the case of the evolution of the small sword, primarily influenced by social pressure.

Its not just that the rapier was a better weapon for duelling than the sword (you have George Silver et.al. argueing vehemently the opposite), but that the rapier was far more fashionable.  Italy was the source of sophistication and her styles were quickly adopted by fashion concious France and Spain.  What hope could crude barbaric England have to resist the spread of Renaissance Pop Culture.

In my estimation the replacement of the Cut and Thrust style by the Rapier was due to both the effectiveness of the Rapier as a dueling weapon AND the social pressures of fashion in equal measure.

[Jake Norwood]

I am, more or less, in complete agreement with Ralph, here.

Jake

[Ace]

A machete is not a short-sword. .

What would you call it then, a light falchion or a longknife? As I see it a machete is a slashing only short sword. Of course that could be just semantics at work....

A bayonet is not a spear A spear is vulnerable to anyone with the brains to catch and hold the shaft and/or attack the user's hand. It's just a matter of knowing how to fight the weapon

All wapons are vulnerable if you know how to fight them!

As to hand attacks on a spearman, its not that easy to get to the hands on a long spear, its like attacking a swordsmans arms only harder. The key to spear fighting is range control, at least in my limited experience..
Grappling the spear, It can be done but spears are really fast and a good spearman can skewer a clumsy grabbers hand.
If a grab is sucessfull, hey that what long knives are for :)

Spears aren't great against heavy armor, OTOH they are cheap and effective

But I must admit a certain fondness for the spear: unlike a sword, it can be thrown accurately and lethally at an opponent  

Only if I have several short ones. Long Spears can be thrown but not that well. The Riddle shows that perfectly.  

Anyway spear is a class of weapon including Javelins, Short, Medium and Long Spears, Zulu Assegai, Pike, Bayonets, all kinds of Lances and maybe Spetums as well.

Its one of man kinds oldest battle field weapons, most used, most effective. It just isn't glamerous at all.

[Bob Richter]

The sword did not replace the spear as a battle field weapon.  In fact, if you view the Pike as an evolution of the spear, the converse happened.  What made the sword special was that it was made entirely out of metal.  Axes and spears are primarily wood...initially with a stone head, later metal.  But the sword...the sword is 100% metal (with non metal accessories).  Note here I'm talking European swords, since in other areas of the world there are sword like instruments made out of wood or even obsidian.

I don't disagree with your points on social importance. (It should be noted, however, that England was SO stubborn, they never TRULY adopted the Rapier until quite late. English Rapiers still had much of the sword in them.) One thing to look at is the weapons an army uses at the end of a war, rather than the beginning. :)

But I do not view the Pike as a spear. The Pike was a short-lived (comparitively) specialty weapon whose primary importance lay in the death of Heavy Cavalry. The Pike itself died not long thereafter with pistol-carrying Light Cavalry (Hussars) against which it was ineffective.

If you want to view a bayoneted rifle as a spear (or a very short pike) that's your lookout, but it's really not (for one, it's far too short.) I am not kidding that there is a growing consensus among modern military theorists regarding the uselessness of the weapon.

The Army may issue bayonets to its troops, but the Marine Corps issues swords to its. Neither is used with any frequency in battle.

And, to answer an earlier point, yes: a Machete has more in common with a Falchion than a shortsword. For the first, it's really too long to be considered a SHORTsword (it's got nearly a foot on the Gladius,) For the second, it's a dull, simple blade entirely devoted to hacking. But it differs from either in that it is more a tool than a weapon. In this, it is most closely related to the hatchet, which it greatly resembles in function. :)

[Valamir]

But I do not view the Pike as a spear. The Pike was a short-lived (comparitively) specialty weapon whose primary importance lay in the death of Heavy Cavalry. The Pike itself died not long thereafter with pistol-carrying Light Cavalry (Hussars) against which it was ineffective.

Well, I had not intended to turn this into a treatise on weapon evolution, but the Pike as a weapon has a much longer history than you imply.  The long spear as the central weapon of an army dates back to the Phalanx, and its primary use was not against Cavalry (who were not a dominant combat arm at the time) but against other long spear wielding infantry.

The Pike did not so much die because it could no longer do the job as implied by your notes on it being ineffective.  Rather it died because its job was no longer necessary.  The purpose of the Pike was two fold.
1) Early firearms took colossally long times to load and frequently misfired.  The Pike was their to discourage enemies from attacking musket troops while they were reloading.
2) The early firearm was a fairly laborious item to make.  Often times it wasn't economically possible to equip all soldiers with one.  This can be seen in the Three Musketeers.  What is often missed in the tales of swashbuckling derring-do is that the Musketeers were literally firearm wielding soldiers, at a time where it was fairly rare and expensive (and thus prestigious) to be a firearm wielding soldier.

As the quality of firearms was increased and their manufacture became more easily reproduceable all soldiers could be equipped with firearms.  The increased rate and volume of fire of these firearms would serve as their own protection.  Pike were no longer needed to keep the enemy at bay, the musketmens own rate of fire (combined with tactics like Fire by Platoon) could do that.

You are correct that the bayonet is not a successor to the Pike.  The bayonet is essentially a knife with a really long handle.  Its function was to give mass troops a close quarter weapon that didn't require them dropping their primary weapon in order to use.  You don't want soldiers dropping their guns into the mud in order to draw swords only to find they are now several 100 yards away from their weapons.  In this it serves none of the function of the pike.  The bayonet was not the anti cavalry weapon that the pike was.  Massed artillery and huge volumes of fire were the weapons that ended cavalries role as the primary shock arm and returned them to their ancient role of scout, raider, and auxilliary support.

[Lance D. Allen]

I am not kidding that there is a growing consensus among modern military theorists regarding the uselessness of the weapon.

Modern military theorists be damned. I know several grunts (Infantrymen, for those not familiar with mil-speak) with combat experience who wouldn't give up their bayonets if you ordered it. In theory it might not be much of a weapon, because most combats are either long or short range firefights.. But those few who've had the occasion to actually *use* their bayonets are still alive because of them, and probably wouldn't be if they hadn't had one.

[Jaif]

But I do not view the Pike as a spear. The Pike was a short-lived (comparitively) specialty weapon whose primary importance lay in the death of Heavy Cavalry. The Pike itself died not long thereafter with pistol-carrying Light Cavalry (Hussars) against which it was ineffective.

The Macedonian Phalanx used the pike as the anvil for the army (the companion cavalry was the hammer).  When I say "pike" here, I'm not referring to the long spear, I mean a 12-14 foot polearm with a point (don't remember the exact length).

Pikes, as opposed to spears, did require more specialized tactics for effective use, so their use is less common in the long period when it would have been effective.  Said another way, for spearmen it's enough to teach them to hold rank, advance, and push hard when they have to.  For pikemen, the sheer length of the thing requires much more drill for the troops to be effective. That's why pikes were less used in history; the training involved.

-Jeff

[Stuart]

Hi All,

The spear issue has been adressed well. The rapier issue however hasn't

Bob said"But do keep these simple facts in mind:
If the Rapier were not a superior duelling sword, it would never have supplanted the others (which it did.)
If the Sword were not a superior battlefield weapon, it would never have supplanted the spear (which it did.)
Combat is NOT rock-paper-scissors."

There seems to be a little problem of definition here as to what a rapier is and can do and how long it was around.

Firstly, the rapier was only around for 100 years or so before people went back to light backswords, adopted the sabre and invented the smallsword. Basically, it was realised just how inefficient they were as weapons.

If the rapier was the be all and end all of swords then they would have been around alot longer than the 100 years they were in vogue. I say in vogue because they were a fashion item that makes for a interesting fight in the fencing salle.

Ok. Cutting. I have seen a cut with a blunt rapier using a pulled blow on an exposed head when someone slipped and exposed the back of their head in training. Needed stitches. Imagine what a sharp one swung full force could do.
2. Linearity. A rapier is not wielded like a fencing foil. A double time defence involving a parry riposte is not sound with this weapon which is played at in the round. Traversing to the side against attack is very important as is counterthrusting against incoming attacks and defence with the off hand or with a dagger. As a result, rapier is not played from a side stance. The body is turned forwards so that the dagger or off hand can parry thrusts.
3. Speed. It is important to remember that a true rapier is heavier than a shortsword, even a basket hilted one so attacks are fast only given the speed and no telegraphic nature of the lunge which has little to do with the weapon.

OK Rock paper scissors.

Lets see. Tower manuscript 1.33 (sword and buckler manual circe 1300) is based on the principles of ward (guard) and counterward. There are a number of wards to lie in. Every ward has one or more counters. Sounds like rock paper scissors to me.

Silver 1599. (This is straight out of the book)
Gardant fight stays, puts back, or beats gardant fight.
Open fight stays, puts back, or beats open fight.
Variable fight answers variable fight in the first distance, and not otherwise, except it be with perfect length against imperfect.
Close fight is beaten by gardant fight.
Variable close & gardant fight, beats gardant fight, open fight, variable fight, and close fight. Sounds like rock paper scissors to me.

German Longsword. There are a number of wards which all have a stroke designed to break them. Sounds like rock paper scissors to me.
Cheers
Stu.