Idk, I feel Shad is being unfair here, and missing the design advantages. For one, the spike not only prevents a weapon for sliding downwards/forwards towards an opponent, it forces the person to pull his weapon back... whereas the person holding the Batleth only has to move forward to cause damage with the larger spike. The second part is that comment about the Klingons. Klingons are NOT comparable to humans. Some are strong and some are weak, but the averages are greater for the Klingons. Case in point, Klingons have a lot more "advanced" physiology in terms of combat- from 8 chambered hearts, to more ribs, livers, lungs ect. Its not that they cannot be killed instantainously, they can and have been. Its that on average, it would take more blows to kill a Klingon, or at least an extremely precise one. For humans, sufficient cuts and blood loss becomes an issue during combat, I assume much less for Klingons. Keep in mind that Klingons also had the mekleth, so style of combat was also intended to contend with such a weapon as well.
I appreciate that Tyranth brings a different perspective on most of the weapons you guys talk about. Having a "devils advocate" so to speak makes the videos alot more interesting to watch
I also agree and personally I think the Bat'leth could be a little better in a duel than Shad thinks, we could put this whole thing to rest with a duel of our own, Shad with his sword and Tyranth the Bat'leth!
tgo be fair, shad is struggling to try to put out more frequent content to satisfy algorithm hopscotch. so they'll have to get used to doing vids with less prep time.
@@BluegrassKnightShad seems to want to sidestep Tyranth's point about context. A sword is "poorly optimized" against any ranged weapon. I think training plays a role, too. Untrained swordsman versus a trained soldier with a bucket of rocks...
@@shadiversity Can you explain where they even came from historically? Most weird weapons are based on farming tools or lesser versions of actual weapons, but where did nunchucks first come from? if they were so ineffective how did the practice/use of them survive through history?
8:56 That clip is saying that klingons vary in strength, not whether their average strength is more than humans. I'm finding conflicting information on the topic with a quick google search. Memory alpha says they are at least as strong as vulcans, while other sources say they just have more endurance and have a martial culture.
As a huge DS9 fan, I was a bit bothered by that as well, as I remembered the context for that scene. I also remember Worf saying he accidentally killed a kid when he was young during a soccer match, because klingons are much more durable than humans. So, if Klingons aren't stronger (which they most likely are, let's be honest), they at least have a good deal more endurance than humans do, and are more resilient. Hell, they even have redundant organs. If a human and a klingon both fought each other with a Batleth, the obvious bet would be the klingon.
Worf is routinely seen lifting things with ease that no human could. How many times has a bulkhead collapsed on someone and Worf just goes and lifts it off?
@@Scientist_SalarianThat's true but it's also true that Worf is a particularly strong Klingon. He's routinely shown as being well above the average Klingon as a warrior. So Worf may not be the best measure for comparison,though I suspect your right overall
8:58 Shad, you’re killing me! Klingons routinely demonstrate on-screen feats of strength far superior to any human. Even if, say, Worf is a stronger-than-average Klingon, he still easily lifts massive objects (usually bulkheads or crossbeams) that no human could do.
Klingons have redundant biological systems, two hearts, four lungs, etc. so it would seem to reason their muscular system would be the same for every muscle a human has they have two. Also, a Klingon once head-butted Data in TNG and lived to walk it off, a human would have splattered their brains across the room doing the same.
People don't realize that while Riker did get into a fight/scuffle with a Klingon (and won), Jonathan Frakes is 6' 4" (193 cm), and in-character was presumably in great shape at the time as a relatively young officer in his prime.
Can't blame Shad for this, not really at least. Star Trek as a whole does a horrible job with consistency regarding Klingon strength. They often say one thing but show the opposite.
Yet in combat Klingons frequently get their ass handed to by the Federation crews... -.- Writers not understanding stuff really can become an issue to the fandom.
it's funny, in lore Kahless "The Unforgettable" who designed and created the Bat'leth intentionally with drawbacks and be very hard to use. The idea was that by mastering such a difficult weapon and overcome it's inefficiencies, you would master yourself through technique, discipline, rituals and tradition. Through the weapons, klingons kept in check their aggression in combat basically. This is how Kahless clan beat out all the other clans and became dominant... this is why the weapons its popular on Klingon, not because it's a good weapon, but because if it's history and purpose. P.s. why did they win with the Bat'leth against other klingons that had swords and other practical weapons... well apparently when Kingons have easy to use practical weapons, their aggression and bloodlust in combat makes then over reach and leave themselves open during combat... with the Bat'leth klingons always have to think about technique, correct form and defense, so they are more disciplined and good in combat then Klingon that user practical weapons that loose themselves in combat and overreach, forget about defense. So Bat'leth was best weapon for klingons against other klingons on their home planet only. At least that's what i remember from startrek deep space 9 and other star trek shows.
From my memory it isn't so clear form what is depicted in the shows but it is a good explanation. It's funny though that the TV shows might actually acknowledge that is is a poorly designed weapon when there are people in the real world trying to justify it and say it's good.
I don't remember that and I am toward the end of a DS9 binge, so unless it's late season 6 or 7 I don't think that's a thing. It's plausible though, DS9 was a much better written show than the rest of Star Trek.
@@shadiversity it makes sense, the klingons love a good fight, so why make a weapon that is quick and effective, they made it clunky and bad so it can prolong the fight, and a long fight is a good fight to the klingons
How to test the effectiveness of a weapon: Is it better than a rock? Is it better than a nunchaku? Are you Jackie Chan? 1 yes: better than nothing 2 yes: you can make this work 3 yes: weapon of mass destruction
It's always an interesting video when Shad shows off a weapon of his own design to Tyranth. I also agree with what another commenter said; let Tyranth plan a video and then surprise Shad with it to get honest reactions and throw some fun improv stuff into the mix. Maybe make it a once-a-week thing? Keep up the good work!
I've started to consider the bat'leth, at least in its modern form, as the equivalent of medieval weapons used in judicial duels. You got the weirdest things there, too.
Here, you get a pitch fork and have to stand in this 3 ft deep hole. You, you get a pillowcase with rocks in it, and you are chained to the man in the hole. Go!
That's exactly what it _was_ when it was first introduced in TNG. Then the creep set in, and a different generation of writers worked on the series, and they didn't understand that and made it an actual battlefield weapon in DS9. 🤦
@TerryProthero I totally support this premise. I had a similar thought too. It's been so long since I've seen those fight scenes amongst all the series that I wondered how well the actors actually used them. Also curious about all the variants depicted, like the original Sword of Kahless
@@GaiusIncognitus I'm not a Hema expert. But the actors did a good enough job to convince the average viewer like me. Which is still quite an accomplishment given how novel of a weapon it is. They were lucky they didn't take out a camera man with it. And regardless of what Shad says, I sure wouldn't want the pointy end of that thing stuck in my chest. So, in my unprofessional opinion, if something can send you to Stovokor, it performs the essential function of a weapon. As for variations, I didn't notice any big differences between the weapon Worf used and the Sword of Kahless shown on the STNG series. I don't know, however, if someone would spot small differences between weapons if they examined the scenes more closely. Even Captain Janeway used one to take out a Borg drone on Voyager. So, they are featured several times in Next Generation, DS9, and even Voyager. Not to mention Star Trek movies like First Contact where Worf takes out Borg with it there.
By the time Dorn joined the cast at DS9 they introduced for him the Mek’leth. A one handed version of a Bat’leth. That is what Worf used in First Contact. It’s very hard to describe, but it has chopping thrusting and cutting capability. We see him use that more than the Bat’leths. Because he’s an expert in stage combat, Dorn preferred it over the Bat’leth but he was able to incorporate a variety of unarmed strikes into his sequences and using the Bat’leth tripping weapon. During the attack on deep space nine in the episode way of the warrior, we see all three actors using them to block and counter with unarmed strikes.
I'd like to see people try to use a standard Batlith in tight ship's corridors instead of open fields. Longer weapons snag on walls and ceilings Klingons are doing an aggressive boarding action where details like range, reach, and not seeing around corners dramatically impact the fighting
I don't think a Klingon warrior would have paper clips. But one of their office clerks would likely be deadlier than most human beings. So, it probably wouldn't be wise to mess with them either. Unless you like getting pommeled with a paper weight.
And that’s where the truth lies. The Bat’leth and other blade weapons preferred by Klingon are cultural more than functional. Otherwise they would rely only on hand to hand and phasers.
@@DavidDrew-n6z They look like something that was originally religious or ceremonial. Then they were later adapted to combat. After sufficient training, a person could get good with them. But as you say, they were originally chosen for reasons of tradition. Not because they considered various options and thought these were the best choices.
Tyranth sounds so pedantic and annoying, I wish he'd stay on his own channel. It's fine to have someone on to give a different opinion but the way Tyranth talks make it sound like he just wants to argue with everything.
I think you guys forgot one crucial thing about the weapon. It is a lot of times used in corridors of space ships. Having larger weapon is therefore a lot of times disadvantage. You risk hitting something arround you or your mates close next to you. Bat'leth is held very close to the body, but can be used as an axe when the environment allows to swing it. It is a shield and a weapon at the same time. On the ground it does not make sense, but in corridors? Hmm I think there is something about it, that when an agressive Klingon runs up to you, parries your blade and swings the Bat'leth to your face right after...
The batleth is a mix of a bo-staff, a sword and an axe... its all of those things at once and like all season tires, its a compromise. You get all those functions while not being as good as a specialized weapon, if you need all of them, you can carry one weapon.
I know quite a bit about that weapon. I talked to the people who designed it for the set and created the back story and history of it. It was actually designed for T. N. G and had the history of it created then. The weapon started out as a farming implement. This is because when the weapon was first designed and created the race that made it. The Klingons were enslaved by the Herk. The Herk did not allow them to have weapons. They only allowed them to have farming implements. The Herk had and dominated their slaves with spaceships. The Klingons needed a weapon they could disguise as a farming implement and could be used in extreme close quarters. The weapon was never designed to be used in wide open spaces. The actual proper way to test the viability of the weapon is to take it into your (house) and use it in the halls. Because that's the size of the environment, that is a spaceship in the setting it was made for.
You reckon a batleth is more practical in tight spaces than, say, a gardening fork with the ends sharpened? Or just like, a literal utility knife? That's the thing about all the supposed stories of something starting out as a farming implement - Farmers use knives. Farmers use axes. Farmers use machetes. Farmers have to kill animals and chop down trees. You know what is a great weapon? A billhook. You know what is literally a farming implement? A billhook. Point being that it's obviously not true. If you were a farmer under a tyrannical yolk, you can just throw stones at people. You can hit them with a stick. You have a knife for chopping veg with. Absolutely no-one would have these weird goofy things that are "obviously not a weapon honest", when they can have a knife concealed about their person.
I was thinking about the space limitations throughout the video. Especially when the question arises, "when would this be a better option?" Polearms, Longswords, Spears, and in some cases even rapiers (if you have limited space in front and back), wouldn't be great. In this case you want a shorter weapon, and then the Bat'leth would be compared to Gladius, Dagger, and Knife. In that context does it fall short? In my personal experience, the closest analogue to a Bat'leth would be Rifle and Bayonet. Which would be its closest melee opponent in reality.
@@taemien9219 Idk, it seems to me a spear would be good in a corridor. It gives you a ton of reach and makes it harder to dodge because of limited space to move side to side.
@@thejinn99 Depends on the length, which is what a rifle and bayonet functionally is. Like I said longer reached weapons tend to run into issues when there is tight spaces to the front and back. If your opponent is less than 5ft (~1.5M) away, and you have a wall just behind you, there might be some interesting outcomes. I do realize I'm being incredibly specific, but if you've ever been inside a ship or other large craft, it can get pretty cramped. The bat'leth itself might be limited, and I think it would be interesting to see a demonstration to that end.
For me the Bat'Leth only makes sense as a traditional ceremonial weapon. You can defend your honor against another one like it but you'd be screwed against most other weapons.
It looks cool. Maybe the Bat'leth is for sport, where it's intentionally not optimized for winning a fight, but rather for forcing close combat, relying more on the person, than the weapon. Maybe only for bat'leth vs bat'leth.
No, the bat'leth was designed for fighting in confined spaces. It's not optimized to use in open spaces, which is why Shad's not seeing it's use cases, he's stuck in the open battlefield fallacy where he can't conceive of other areas people might be fighting in until he realizes he's in that fallacy and forces himself out of it. Bat'leths are designed for fighting on starships (and maybe in caves as someone else in these replies mentioned), where you have walls and a roof close by, and no room to use a traditional sword properly. If you were to use the weapons Shad's calling "better" in a narrow starship corridor or cramped room, you'd have your "better" sword getting caught up on objects constantly and be forced into a half blade grip, holding it more like a bat'leth, only your lead hand would be fully exposed while the bat'leth's outer blade acts as both a push blade, blocking surface and cross guard all rolled in one. The "spikes" Shad complains about look to me more like they function as a more traditional cross guard, meant more to control opposing blades and keep them from your vulnerable middle and push then to the outsides so you can control the centre line more easily. They're not meant to strike with but to protect you from the blade running to the middle after a parry. Just like a traditional sword's cross guard is meant to protect the hands from an enemy blade running up your sword and right onto your own hands. If you look at it purely from the point of view of using it in confined spaces, it begins to shine with surprising potential as a weapon. That does not mean it's not without it's flaws, but all weapons have their flaws. For example would you want to use a great big long pike in a medieval city street? Obviously a weapon designed to be used in formation on an open battlefield is crap for personal defense on a cramped and probably crowded city street. That does not make the pike crap as a weapon, it's just crap in certain cases it was not designed for. think of a bat'leth as a reverse pike designed not for the open field, but the cramped and crowded space a pike is crap in. Yes, the bat'leth is crap in the open, and a pike is the master of the open space, but a bat'leth is deadly in confined spaces where a pike is crap.
@@Seriously_Unserious So I was partially right. It was indeed for close-quarters combat. I'm a big Star Trek fan, but don't know all the details. I could have watched a few video clips and remembered everything and left a more precise comment, but not as in depth as yours. Thanks for explaining it.
he will need to resize it back to bat'leth size, both for weight, and because he's still missing the purpose of a bat'leth, it's designed for close quarters, confined spaces fighting, not wide open spaces which his thinking is stuck in. For his redesign to be effective, it'll need to retain that confined spaces functionality, meaning short reach so it doesn't bang into walls or get wedged in spaces narrower then the reach of the weapon, but also gives different options for it's wielder then a standard bat'leth design.
Oh boy, and I still remember the time Shad already analysed and "fixed" the Bat´Leth years ago... with a 3d model... Well, there it goes my "I´m feeling old" of the day :,)
This weapon was created by Khaless from a lock of his hair that he held in the lava of the Kri'stak volcano and then dipped in Lake Lusor. The Bat'leth is more of a ritual weapon than a weapon of war. In duels, *Bat'leth meet Bat'leth* and mastering it is one of the characteristics of a warrior.
Wait what was in Khaless' Hair? Is that how all Klingons are, are they like that volcanic snail with iron in their outermost layers? Or did Khaless just have some wicked dreads? I always loved that lore about kahless making his blade but holy moly it leaves a lot of questions in its wake.
I have a friend who fights in combat larps with me (fighting like the SCA where limb hits remove the use of the limb and torso shots kill). He dedicated about 10 years of fighting to the Bat'leth. He developed a fighting style that incorporated chinese crescent weapons and Japanese jo staff as the basis. He also had some very nice defensive movements by flicking the weapon to lie flat on the shoulder/arm/back area to block incoming projectiles and block/deflect heavy blows from two-handed weapons. he was also nasty in any fight that got to 40 fighters on a side or higher. Heh he also had this nasty trick where he would lock your weapon with the end fork and flick it into your wrist/elbow/or armpits. I wish he was still around to explain the combat style better, sadly he passed due to an auto accident in the 2010's. He made it a very nasty and mean weapon to fight against. part of it was how he used his knowledge from ARMA to counter and confound his opponents with the Bat'Leth. hope this helps
This is so insightful! Honestly, underlining it as a *defensive weapon answers so many questions. It's great to see some has actually tried it AND gotten good at it.
Similarly, I was introduced to ways to be effective with a Bat'leth by someone who blended styles, mostly around stave and polearm fighting, but also crescent blade and yes, I could face off against 2-3 people with swords and win. Part of that was the Bat'leth confused them, but also because I counter-punch with it: You try to hit me, I block and deflect and, with the same action, hit you with the other end. To me, it's a puncture weapon, not slashing. The main spike is where you're doing the damage, with some slicing with the inside edge of that spike: The second spike is for snagging and controlling the opposition's weapon. Oh, and I also used First Sword design, not the three grip type. So yes, there's also a centre spike, the main spikes are longer, and it's a single handle, not three segmented handles. That does make a difference.
I have a book that showed a Bat'leth style that was based largely on Hung Gar, was nicely done and had the instructor and his assistant in Klingon costume and makeup. Also had a bunch of passages of glyphs you had to translate to learn more things. They had a test you could take by filming yourself, submitting it and receiving some sort of certificate. Back in the day there was a guy on named Daqo'tah that made a 'road tested' Bat'leth that he tied to his truck and dragged it on a road to distress the blade. Pretty crazy stuff.
The only time I saw the Bat'leth used was in judicial combat in either TNG or DS9 when i watched the original airing on TV in the 90s. I knew about strange specialty weapons designed for use in judicial combat and assumed that's what they were.
It's a cultural weapon for sure. Both historical and for the warrior spirit of modern Klingons. It's like when Britain's Space Marines would use replicas of Excalibur when boarding a starship.
That’s a good point- we don’t see a bat’leth used in actual combat that much. Worf seems to prefer a mek’leth in a real fight. There are a few times Klingons use bat’leths against Jem Hadar in DS9, but they come off as clunky, even so. It doesn’t help that DS9 directors are really, really, really bad at portraying the realities of personal combat. It’s kind of hard to judge Kligons’ martial ability when a 6’5/250 lb. fully armored warrior can beat a Jem Hadar, but also get knocked out by 5’5/130 lb. Kira Nerys.
their design also makes them ideal for confined spaces, like those common on starships. The short reach means you don't need a lot of lateral space to use the weapon, whereas the swords Shad was comparing them to, do need a lot more room then the bat'leth does. Once you start getting into spaces small enough to constrain the movements of a traditional sword, you hit the spaces a bat'leth was designed to excel in. Testing a bat'leth vs swords in open spaces is about as useful as testing polearms in confined spaces. What confounds me is Shad even encountered this and commented on it when testing shooting bows from trees and found his longbow kept getting caught up in the foliage and that made the big bow too unwieldy to use in confined spaces like thick forest. he found the smaller short bows actually worked much better as they didn't impact the environment as much. I don't know why he does not or can not translate that lesson to melee weapons, nor why he can't figure out that the weapon's often used in space ships and that those are be necessity, tightly packed spaces where every square meter of capacity is too precious to waste on unnecessary open space.
but would you still prefer them if you had to fight in a narrow starship corridor, when the longer weapons keep getting stuck on the walls while the shorter counterparts don't?
"Jackie Chan makes the ladder look like a really effective weapon." Yeah? Look up how effectively Jeff Hardy uses it. 😂 He once busted a man's face open with one.
A challenge to Schad. Can you design a weapon meant to be a penance for a dishonoured warrior? The warrior had lost his honour because he fled from an enemy. The only way to regain his honour and standing is to do several years as a metaphorical glass canon. This means fighting with a weapon that can deliver A LOT OF DAMAGE but exposes the warrior to greater risks. Whether he survives or not, his honour is regained.
I think the main thing Shad is missing is the culture of the person wielding the blade. The history of human warfare is a linear progression of people saying, "I want to kill that guy over there, but I'm all the way over here, and I'd really like to not get hurt in the process." Knives become swords, axes become halberds, spears get longer and longer. Armor goes from leather to laminate to segmented, chain, full plate, and onward, all behind a shield. It's all about keeping your opponent at a safe distance. Klingons don't do that. Klingons have regular swords, knives, etc. They have armor. What I've never seen though, is a Klingon shield (not including energy shield on the ships). Klingons flight aggressively. They don't keep their enemy at bay, they get in close. Klingons will absolutely bring a knife to a gunfight, because where we would go into battle thinking about how we're going to come home, Klingons go into battle thinking how to make sure you never do. A Bat'Leth, near as I can tell, is designed with this principal in mind. A wide blade to deflect an opponent strike while simultaneously giving the wielder the opportunity to move in and gore the opponent on one of the end spikes. It's not a weapon designed for parrying and careful thrusting. It's designed to be brutal. Cut down your enemy and move on to the next one. If you die in battle, you die with honor.
My thoughts similarly. The Bat'leth is used in close quarters fighting in boarding actions against foes who are typically armed with phasers. If going for a full-melee weapon option, having a sword can actually be a detriment in this environment. The unique curvature of the Bat'leth allows it to deal hooking, stabbing, and twisting cuts when most of your foes are holding one or both arms out holding a pistol-style weapon (and even then usually from handshake grip), or holding a two-handed firearm. If you try using a traditional sword in tight quarters, your body needs to flex and contort more to produce an effective cut or chop which can [very briefly] leave you exposed. The Bat'leth if used aggressively enough can be used to push into an enemy and pin/redirect the arm with far more leverage. Most of the initial damage is done with push cuts as you bodily press into an area in the doorways and halls of a ship. Obviously having a firearm of some kind is probably a lot better, but against largely untrained crews with limited phaser shots it could work out tactically with applied aggression and speed since the Bat'leth encourages the Klingon way of pressing in hard and fast (versus cautiously trying to apply CQC urban combat fire team tactics which is very slow and methodical by comparison).
@@WritingFighter Also consider the number of creatures encountered that are heavily resistant to phaser fire. Where would I take a batleth over another weapon? Against tentacales, fangs, and amorphous _things_ that go bump in the night, while in the cramped interiors of non-federation starships. Planetside I'd want a spear. And no, I don't think I'd much want his "updated" version for that sort of thing, just carry a different weapon for the use cases where you want a sword.
These cultural considerations are valid, but they still have to be tempered with the reality of winning and losing. Yes it's mighty fine to die in battle with honor, but if too many of your side die with honor too quickly, you lose the war and your culture gets genocided and erased, to be replaced by opponents whose cultural conception of honor is more in line with practical reality. Particularly if you are a hot-blooded warrior race that fights more wars than average. So there is a limit to how far you can let cultural considerations be explanations for suboptimal design choices.
When I look at the Bat'Leth, I am reminded of Sunday Breakfast. The restaurant I go to has the register right by the door, so there's always a throng of people trying to get in, trying to leave, and smashing into each other. Since I'm the biggest one of the family, I am oft put in the position of parting the crowd so everyone can follow me out. Having a large, sharp stick that I can use to shove people out of the way or poke would make getting to the car a lot easier. I don't think the Klingons would have ever developed something like the Roman Phalanx. I think the Bat'Leth is designed to move people, not weapons. Knock aside a thrust, maybe, but then shove your opponent to the ground, then drive a spike into their chest. If you can't shove them down, hook those spikes on the end inside their armor aiming for joints. Sever an artery and they bleed out. Cut a tendon and they can't hold their weapon. But the main thing is you have to get in close because the Bat'Leth works best at spitting distance. It could probably stand with an update to increase its killing potential, but I think Shad's design, though cool in its own right, misses the point of the weapon it's replacing.
@@SCOm1359AP There are certainly similarities to the "man catcher", so you may be right that it favors control and aggression over immediate lethality. Given the practicalities of bulkhead breaching when forcefields are an issue, killing your target _in_ the "door" way is at times going to be much less important than bodily knocking them back so you and a few of your cohort can get through the wall before the forcefield activates. I'd much rather bat'leth into someone than shoulder into them.
One thing that shad , Didn't get right the average Klingon in canon even in the original series, are actually 2-2.5 times stronger than a healthy fit human, the statement that Jadzia dax says, is merely stating that similar to humans they have very strong and weaker Klingons depending on the specific Klingon, plus somewhat like humans it also depends on how well they've kept good care of themselves physically. So specifically to give a good reference a really strong fit human like Henry cavil ,vs average guy who doesn't regularly work out and tries to keep himself decently physically fit.
(on the issue of the weight of the bat'leth) 6:33, 7:00 star trek clip for the americans : 5 kilos (kilograms) is about 11 pounds. 3 kilos is about 6 and a half ponds.
I think the issue is trying to use it like a western sword. This thing looks like it has some kung-fu roots like from the Shuang Gou twin hook swords, or the Bagua Zhang Crescent Moon Knives which have a similar shape. The kata they use is more of a drunken monkey style, with spins, feigns, and backhanded cuts. Trying to use this thing like an axe is not what it was meant for. I remember an old Next Generation video with Worf teaching his son about the Bat'leth and it had very spiritual roots and you were supposed to spin it around your arm. It felt more like a kung fu weapon than a straight up battle weapon. Mostly for duels instead of front line combat. Would love to give the Bat'leth to a shaolin master and see what forms he would come up with and see how he would use it against a longswordsman.
yes exactly. I swear i had a TMNT figure from the third movie that had, in addition to a crescent knife, something that looked way more like a bat'leth.
I like the idea of giving it to a Shoulin master. I'd even go as far as to present it (a replica) with no context and ask "How would you fight with this thing if you had to? How would you wield this?" and see what their thoughts would be.
There are a few things that occurred to me: even in the 23rd century, klingons still all seem to wear a kind of torso armour, probably more of a vestige than anything, but if you imagine a more complete armour covering all of a sudden an up-close and personal weapon with a choice of spikes (similar in use to a pair of men in plate armour half-swording to kill each other) it suddently makes more sense to optimise the bat'leth for use at grappling ranges. If your next question is "well then why hasn't it been adapted for a less armoured environment?" you need look only as far as the ceremonial swords carried by our current militaries to see that it's completely reasonable that a melee weapon, once made obsolete by ranged weapons, might stop evolving and remain in the same form in perpetuity. In short: yes, a sword is more effective for unarmoured combat, but that's ok, because the klingons traditionally wear armour. In an unarmoured context you could complain that a mace has too much weight for its reach next to a sword, but that's not the use it was designed for.
I've always liked the explanation that it was a ceremonial weapon designed to be less lethal. Because as Shad repeatedly mentions, it is almost optimized to give shallow cuts compared to deep wounds. It is difficult to use compared to a simple sword. And because it is so short ranged, you are practically grappling while using them So it's almost optimized for a culture that loves duels with live weapons to reduce actual death and replace it with healable injury
@@Benjamin1986980 that's a fair point in terms of cutting, but in terms of levering those points around your opponent's weapon and towards the gaps in their armour, then driving it in with both hands... i'd say that it could very well be a very lethal weapon. those points are plenty long enough to reach internal organs if driven through armpit/shoulder/neck joints.
I like the way you contextualize the way Klingons do things. Because it is accurate to how real world people advance with technology irl The Klingons were basically still in their Medieval/Renaissance or Farmer and Country era before either the Romulons or the Hurq made first contact. Then the Klingons either reverse engineered the new space technology, or simply stole or bought it. Of course they wouldnt use the batleth for combat anymore I have parents born in what was once considered the 3rd world part of their origin country. Its crazy to see how fast technology advanced after a major war. People that grew up never even seeing electricity and lamplights all of a sudden are using cellphones while still living in grass hut style homes. That and they still occasionally use bow and arrow to fish. But sometimes instead use a net, or a line, or a casual grenade. All of the old technology becomes relatively replaced, meanwhile the old tech that stays usually gets ritualized. Star trek is absolute genius with its writing because its exactly what real people do in these circumstances. Dudes with cool advanced tech show up to try to rob you? Kill em, wear their clothes, steal their shoes. Boom. You have now advanced to space technology
If you also consider this question - in what environments does the bat'leth remain in active service? Starships is your answer. And a weapon designed to be used in tight spaces that doesn't need a lot of lateral room to use effectively is what you need in a narrow starship corridor. A longword needs some room to use properly, and won't be as effective in a narrow starship corridor as a bat'leth is. In fact, what's going to be the most likely grip you'll see someone armed with a longsword using in a narrow corridor of a starship? Probably half blading, meaning your swordsman will be forced by the environment to use their longsword like a a makeshift bat'leth! Only you won't have any of the hand protection the proper bat'leth has. Just like you can do a murder stroke with a sword to turn it into a makeshift mace, which is better then trying to cut through metal with a sword, which is impossible, but still a real mace is much better then using a sword as an improvised mace.
... Klingons are renown for being incredibly strong, incredibly resilient, and emphasize overcoming pain as a main part of their culture... so their use-case is not similar to a normal human. They're on par, if not in excess, of Vulan/Romulan from what I remember, and at the very least they are substantially stronger and hardier than humans; this is why Worf in TNG was used as the "bamf measuring stick" for baddies in the show by losing to them in hand-to-hand/melee combat. I also think that the Klingons evolved on a planet with a metric crap-ton of caves and labyrinthian tunnels, so it is possible that the weapon is meant to be more structured for specifically CQC in situations where too much reach could cause an issue(though I don't actually know if that's cannon, it's just based on what I can remember) with a confined environment. A cutting blade for slashes would be more optimal with reach, but requires room to do said cuts as the injuries need to be crippling and devastating to keep a Klingon down, as quick minor cuts will only annoy them, which makes the room needed to actually use a slashing blade an issue in caves. It can still be done, but it might have been tossed by Klingons just because of the potential to collide with a wall/ceiling if you misjudged the space you have to throw a cut. While this can still happen with a Bat'leth, you don't end up massively exposed as the "guard" is still around your torso... which would make recovery from an error like that far less likely to be lethal. Purely thrusting weapons will also be detrimental to the user as something like a rapier would only be effective with instant-kill shots. An abdominal wound is just going to result in an angry Klingon pushing themselves down the blade and you stuck without a weapon... which even if you defend yourself, you need to retrieve before his buddy gets to you(and it's literally up to the hilt in dead Klingon). A weapon that can easily be shifted for slightly more range, but keeps the total width at only 2 or so times the body of the user at maximum, and if held diagonally fits within the same area as the user, while still allowing a large area of defense(preventing an attacker from simply pushing beyond the threat range) while having the ability to attack from two directions without telegraphing or needing room to maneuver seems valid for that use-case for dealing with Klingons that don't care about an injury that isn't immediately fatal; more so when the weapon can be used to push back the attacker at arms length with both arms and act as a solid blade barrier. So... fighting Klingons in tunnels is where a Bat'leth would be better than a sword.-Give Tyranth time to consider the question before popping something like this on him, Shad. There can be actually intuitive answers. A sword is definitely better in most circumstances, but I can see the use of the massive guard on the Bat'leth for defense against enemies that would literally run themselves down the blade to get to you and rip your throat out with their teeth. Honestly, I think we'd be more likely to see something akin to a Boar Spear than a sword for war time... but even then... Klingons are supposed to be incredibly brutalitarian by culture.... so a swift death might not even be the goal.
@@unshackledjester yeah a friend of mine who is a way bigger fan was just telling me about it, otherwise I would have thought they were stronger. he cited sources and everything.
@@KairuHakubi I mean, I'll defer to a super-fan. There's a reason I prefaced with uncertainty of the specifics, but certainty of them being stronger than humans. =P The rest of my arguments still stand as to the design, though.
I almost feel the batleth is more akin to a quarterstaff, bo, or shortstaff rather than a sword or axe. The fact that it's bladed is there, but it seems like you use it more like a staff.
I really like the argument, that the Bat'Leth is more versatile, since the different holding techniques allow it to be also used in close-quarter combats as well as in open combat. With a sword you get only one holding point, which pretty much fixes its effective range in place. With a Bat'Leth you get two decide your effective reach.
Remember that this is a close quarter weapon where melee is done close to the body. Boarding actions in confined hallways makes this more practical. it can attack from multiple angles with a quick follow up on the 180 degree axis. it has the ability to trap or disable limbs quickly and efficiently. Try using a longsword in a hallway and then compare...this is a use case you ignored by doing this out in the bush.
It's a bit like a falx in many ways, the curve lessens it's actual reach but the forward curve lends it some are like qualities. Shad canonically is right. The Bat'leth was intended to be a less useful weapon in order to challenge the klingon warrior to be even better.
he's also missing the key environment it's typically used in - starships. Ships by necessity, are full of tightly packed spaces and long reach weapons are a disadvantage in such environments. The shorter reach of a bat'leth in the places it actually gets used mostly is actually it's ADVANTAGE, NOT it's flaw. To truly get the measure of how useful a bat'leth is as it was originally designed, he would need to do something to simulate a narrow starship corridor and test how well his long reach swords do when confined, compared to a bat'leth. I think he'd find mechanically, that he'd have no choice but to resort to half blading with a sword and that would basically be turning his "superior" swords into shittier versions of bat'leths to compensate when he starts hitting the walls or getting his sword blade caught on stuff attached to the walls. Whereas with a bat'leth, you can quarterstaff grip it and the narrowness of a corridor no longer hinders you much, and both hands remain protected, while the half blade hand will be exposed and vulnerable to getting his fingers chopped off.
Yeah, but you could do that with a spear, which is just a pointy stick. You are then safer, because you don't have to approach enemies with a knife to ward it off
@@MrSzaman12 Spears are not known to be good weapons for indoor use. When you need to pass through doorways and walk through narrow hallways with additional hallways at 90 degree angles and doorways every couple meters that can have enemies pop out at any point then something shorter a spear is a much better option as a weapon.
@@ChristophBrinkmann you realize we're comparing an alien weapon built to be supported by their different physiology against weapons built for us, Klingons have an honor code that requires them to hamper and handicap themselves because in their own words they killed their gods because they were too petty and childish.
Not a criticism, but maybe interesting in context. The designer of the Bat'leth was Dan Curry, a visual producer for the Trek shows in the 80's/90's. Curry was an actual martial artist, specifically Tai Chi, and designed the Bat'Leth and it's little brother the Mek'Leth with Tai Chi in mind. So neither may gel 1/1 with HEMA, though Skallagrim did like the Mek'Leth when he analyzed it. Curry also returned to design a new Klingon weapon, the Kur'Leth, for Picard season 3 for use by Worf. That weapon in particular might be slightly more adaptable to HEMA techniques as it's much more of a straightforward arming sword type weapon, with a fun little surprise in the pommel. Bit heavy though. EDIT: Funny enough, in the MMO Star Trek Online the Bat'Leth-type weapon basically matches the "upgrade" in this video in terms of proportions almost 1:1.
@@cp1cupcake Essentially, yes. It's an angry Kukri with more edges and a spike to punch people with. And a teeny tiny handle. Because a true warrior slays their enemies with their pinky extended.
Picard season 3... Is it worth watching that season by itself (no way I'd ever go near S1 or S2) or is it still better to just ignore that Picard exists and keep watching the classic shows?
Just finished watching "Picard" for the third time, and now on to "Enterprise"... yes I know, out of sequence, but I did like how Mr. Worf carried the smaller sword. (I still want a Bat'leth though 😂)
The spikes are for piecing armour or dealing deep wounds. The 2 handed grip gives you more leverage and would allow you to parry easier. You would have to be aggressive but once you got inside a swords guard you have plenty of options to cause injury.
The only pre-space travel bat’leth we’ve seen is the sword of kahless which is a lot straighter than modern ones. Perhaps the size and shape of the modern bat’leth is optimized for the narrow corridors of spacecraft, something your design would be too long for.
Yeah, there's two kinds of enemies a bat'leth is expected to face - judicial duels and boarding actions against people without melee weapons. So range doesn't really matter. You aren't going to outrange a phaser/disruptor/whatever, and you will outrange arms and chair legs or whatever improvised stuff is handy for the defenders.
@@walkir2662 not to mention, let's say your opponent is Sulu with his saber, yes, his saber out ranges your bat'leth, but what good is that in a narrow hallway when it hits the walls and messes him up, while the bat'leth does not? In other words, long reach is a disadvantage in confined spaces, and I'd argue more of a disadvantage then short reach is in the open. In the open, at least you don't have to worry about your weapon banging into or worse, getting stuck in stuff, like you do long reach in confined spaces.
Also, when looking at the Sword of Khaless, the inner points are closer to the center, along with being more curved. That, along with the center spike, gives five points, and multiple angles of attack.
@@joshuafrahm8778 Recently, Sellsword Arts tried sparring with bat'leth vs bat'leth, bat'leth vs longsword and bat'leth vs saber, and they found that while the longsword did have a major reach advantage, the nature of the bat'leth's protected half swording grip tended to allow the bat'leth user to close in and control the centre. They also found those inner spikes, the ones Shad things should be removed, where decisive in being able to control and move the longsword blade to the side, allowing the bat'leth user to dominate the centre at close range. The longsword wins mainly came from getting a quick strike in before the bat'leth user could close and the longswordsman would tent to do a lot of retreating to keep distance. Now, imagine you're using a longsword in a narrow ship's corridor and boarders come charging at you shouting some blood-curdling war cry, and your longword, with it's reach, prevents any of your mates from standing beside you, forcing you to line up single file, while the boarders can come at you in pairs. Plus, your sword keeps catching on the walls if you try to use it's reach for cuts from the side to get around the bat'leth user's guard. Which weapon are you gonna prefer then?
13:37 Potential uses of the secondary point on a bat'leth: • The second point could stop over penetration by the primary point which could cause you to lose your weapon while fighting multiple opponents. • The second point could cause an additional wound on an opponent. • The second point would allow a secondary range and angle of attack to keep your opponent guessing. • The second point could be more effective in up close melee fighting where you cannot get full range of motion. Just being generous with this fantasy weapon. I'd love to see what martial fighters would make of it. I'd also love to see it engineered to be more functional both in material components and shape. I'm hoping this video is eventually going in that direction.
Try looking at the video from Sellsword Arts about it, they do some experimental sparring with it against itself and other weapons. I believe Skallagrim also has an experimental sparring and theorycrafting video on it
The dual spikes are very flexible and practical in my opinion from a mechanical point of view - its part cross guard, part hooking, and part striking feature. And that extra inner pair of striking points are very useful when fighting with it more like a staff and in very close or in tight corridors where you just can't get the longest spikes on target easily. Also those dual spikes are so far apart they are if anything actively useful rather wolverine claw - stopping overpenetration on the main spike so you can more easily lever it back out is a good thing! You really don't need to be able to spike your blade all the way through somebody to beat them.
@@ChristophBrinkmann No I didn't at all - if you want to stand static in their measure with them out of yours its easy for them. But the reach here isn't that bad and the hand protection and parrying capacity excellent - you should be able to get inside their effective radius with their longer weapon. And unlike them who will need to be dropping the sword/spear and going for their knife your thing is still quite effective in close. Reach does absolutely matter, and is a factor in the real world that might make you choose a long sword for your sidearm. But there are plenty of historical weapons without any great reach that remain almost universally common, even into the age of guns... The ability to carry it, work in formation, how defensive it is - can you use a shield with it etc etc. In this case its a solid all rounder that is only going to be really really beaten in reach by polearms - so you like your opponents would probably carry a spear/javelin or two as well. So as long as the weight is reasonable enough you can wield it....
5:49, the catching of the blade isnt to hold onto it, its a way to deflect an incoming strike to an angle that leaves them open, and if you catch it hard enough you can injur the wrist of a sword wielder really easily. the bat is meant to be fluid like an axe, never stopping and always in constant motion, like martial arts you want to move with the momentum of the blade and the motions of the enemy, its often refered to as a dance, they are in fact warrior poets after all, they also carry back up blades so if need be they can drop the bat and swap out the fighting style. but mostlythe short spike is for hooking tactics, no for their blade but like shields, and other guards, notice its more of a curve them a blade, designed to dig in and catch goody bits like intestines, arm pits, and armor straps. the mid wholes are for thrusts, when someone thrusts dip and let them run their blade intot he hole and then spin, they either let go or you send them to the ground. there are videos on youtube showing how they should be used properly also it was used for its intimidation factor, yes a real swordsman will know its not as mean, but a farmor or merchant? who klingons loved to rob? absolutely terrifying haha
and in narrow corridors because they were boarding other peoples starships with their culture based upon being warrior clans even tho they reached type 3 civilization (spacefaring)
Ever since Kor talked about Kahless harvesting his fields with it on the DS9 episode, I always imagined it as a farm tool that doubled as an improvised weapon.
@@dony2852 I'm thinking religious or ceremonial in this case. But it mirrors how people used farm implements in Asia as weapons when other options weren't available. It was first chosen for symbolic reasons and then people took on the challenge of training with it and figuring out how to use it in combat. With enough practice, it would become far deadlier than it normally would be.
Given the primary purpose of a bat'leth is close quarters combat in confined spaces, to remain true to that purpose, it would have to be reduced in size to about the same size and a regular bat'leth so it retains it's short reach advantage for tight spaces. Yes, in tight spaces long reach is actually a detriment, as you might guess, as your weapon will hit things other then your opponent and may even get lodged in something and pulled out of your hand. A shorter weapon that, by it's design, doesn't need a lot of lateral space to use is ideal, and a bat'leth, by it's very design, does that, while also having the weightiness of a military grade weapon and offers the hands protection, with the option of alternate grips to give more or less reach as needed, based on the available space around you. Shad's redesign would have to be sized correctly to still perform that core function. Otherwise, taking a close quarters weapon and just making it bigger is just as pointless as taking a polearm and just cutting off the shaft to make it function effectively in close quarters. Sure it will make the short pike work better for that, but it'll still not be the best option for close quarters, other weapons like a dagger or very short blades sword would still be far superior in that setting. All those types of redesigns are doing is just taking a weapon designed for a specific purpose and trying to make it work for a purpose it was not designed for, sure it can be less shitty at that off purpose use, but it's still shitty for that, and now been made useless for it's primary purpose.
@@ThaitopYT exactly. Kind of like saying a gun would be even more better than a sword, so a medieval knight should use a gun. A Klingon doesn't typically use a bat'leth unless it's during a duel. Edit: Apparently I'm wrong. The were used as melee weapons during wars, and were best used in situations where the environment acted as cover that could be pivoted around (such as inside ship interiors or around trees) My bad.
It seems more like it is designed as a heavily defensive weapon like a staff but for tight quarters like narrow hallways or caves. The design can block with the center and sweep up from below to disembowel or cut the legs. For lower tighter spaces swinging overhand can be impossible for a long weapon. It is very well suited to parry and sweep either end to wound. The center curves are to control your opponent's weapon then the longer points are to attack.
I like the look of the redesign, but Tyranth is right: that's not a bat'leth. Could be something from the same "family" of weapons, but not a bat'leth. Hmm... Shad'leth
@@clothar23 And they've also won against races with much greater strength like vulcans and jem hadar. My point isn't that they'd win every fight or individuals within each race can't be stronger but that being stronger than humans ON AVERAGE would make a 5kg weapon not be on overweight weapon like it would be to a human. 5kg is a heavy weapon for the AVERAGE human. Not all humans. I train with an 8kg sledgehammer and I swing it around as easily as a smaller man would a 4kg sledge. I use a 60lb bow for practice, 100 shots per day, and not a single one of my friends can even draw it. (They aren't archers.) My initial comment was on AVERAGES not specific individuals.
8:00 reminds me that during the violence of 2020 in the US, I kept a heavy table disassembled because its leg weighed about 5 kilos. I, at 90kg and 1.7m with former rock climber arms, could hit maybe once with it because it was so unwieldy. Granted the two 1/4x20 bolts sticking out and all the square corners at that weight would hit like a freight train jousting a knight with a telephone pole, but it was unwieldy with the changes in diameter from all the lathe work on it.
For it's intended use in spaceship boarding, I think the inner spikes are actually very useful. Block/cut the hand with the phaser and then use the inner spikes in 2-hand mode to either stab the head or teh stomach. And the outer spikes are for reach, especially in one handed mode.
Tyranth... you did a GREAT job! Shad is always gonna be a pain in the butt to deal with in "debates" like this one... not because he's right or you're unprepared but because he's shad... you gotta love the total package because vexatious as he may be you always know his heart is in the right place! What makes this video fun is you being slightly wrongfooted and flustered to shad's earnestness... also, you gotta know he probably started having the argument about the batleth with one of the daemons swimming around in his head several hours before you got there... and will still be having the argument long after everyone else in Australia has fallen asleep this afternoon or whatever time it gets dark in the acurssed upside down kingdom of theves and leppers you guys inhabit...smh birds aren't real either (and the world isn't round or flat it's obviously a negatively curved surface). Cheers m8!
Well the weight is based on Klingon strength, too, so the canon weight is stupid but the realostic weight ospre reasonable concerning their canon strength and endurance. Bevause Klongons aren't just stronger, but WAY more enduring. They can go for days, and if a factor's impact is reduced enough, then it becomes negligible in consideration.
The problem isn't that Star Trek writers didn't understand about the ideal weight for weapons, like many Americans, they didn't understand kilos. I think, for me, the comparison weapons for the Bat'leth, are Roman weapons used by gladiators. Typically, Roman legionaries didn't go into battle armed with tridents and nets, but it looked impressive in the arena and there were cultural reasons for a retiarius to do so.
It's not whether or not there is a situation that it could be useful, it's in what situation would it be the best choice. Is it optimized for any situation, or even set of situations? The best option I could think of was adventuring, a situation where you would be fighting in both enclosed and open spaces against armored and unarmored foes with and without weapons. It is very versatile, for all its faults, though Shad's sword does perform better in that situation as well.
I almost thought it was an older video until i looked when it was posted. I'm subbed to the channel but would definitely have glossed over it if i didnt notice the upload date. Maybe a title like The Bat'leth Re-visited and Re-designed: Featuring Tyranth
I can see a use; a Klingon boarding party using these to push and cut their way through narrow corridors of starships and space stations/colonies. Techno barbarian space pirates.
Shad didn't fix the Bat`Leth. He created the Shad`Leth.
"We fixed the BAT'LETH!".....Pulls out 9mm pistol.
@@brokeandtiredYeah, but Klingons bring bat'leths to PHASER fights!
Bladed weapons in a sci-fi setting, firearms and energy weapons already exist. Are those wall hangers or ceremonial?
Idk, I feel Shad is being unfair here, and missing the design advantages.
For one, the spike not only prevents a weapon for sliding downwards/forwards towards an opponent, it forces the person to pull his weapon back... whereas the person holding the Batleth only has to move forward to cause damage with the larger spike.
The second part is that comment about the Klingons. Klingons are NOT comparable to humans. Some are strong and some are weak, but the averages are greater for the Klingons. Case in point, Klingons have a lot more "advanced" physiology in terms of combat- from 8 chambered hearts, to more ribs, livers, lungs ect. Its not that they cannot be killed instantainously, they can and have been. Its that on average, it would take more blows to kill a Klingon, or at least an extremely precise one. For humans, sufficient cuts and blood loss becomes an issue during combat, I assume much less for Klingons.
Keep in mind that Klingons also had the mekleth, so style of combat was also intended to contend with such a weapon as well.
That sums things up quite well, I think.
I appreciate that Tyranth brings a different perspective on most of the weapons you guys talk about. Having a "devils advocate" so to speak makes the videos alot more interesting to watch
I also agree and personally I think the Bat'leth could be a little better in a duel than Shad thinks, we could put this whole thing to rest with a duel of our own, Shad with his sword and Tyranth the Bat'leth!
Could be me reading into it but Tyranth seems to just be frustrated with shad in this vid
@SudoNem01 didn't seem different to normal in my view. Just a little annoyed shad hadn't given him much time to prepare a defence of the weapon
tgo be fair, shad is struggling to try to put out more frequent content to satisfy algorithm hopscotch. so they'll have to get used to doing vids with less prep time.
@@BluegrassKnightShad seems to want to sidestep Tyranth's point about context. A sword is "poorly optimized" against any ranged weapon. I think training plays a role, too. Untrained swordsman versus a trained soldier with a bucket of rocks...
Nunchucks have done more damage to Shad emotionally than they have physically in their entire history
Someone needs to send Shad two Bat'leth connected by a chain. 😈
I will not rest until I have destroyed them
@@shadiversity "You could've had stick! Stick very good!" - Shad
The moment Shad understood the weakness of the mallninja, he sought the purity and certainty of the blessed HEMA 😊
@@shadiversity Can you explain where they even came from historically? Most weird weapons are based on farming tools or lesser versions of actual weapons, but where did nunchucks first come from? if they were so ineffective how did the practice/use of them survive through history?
8:56 That clip is saying that klingons vary in strength, not whether their average strength is more than humans. I'm finding conflicting information on the topic with a quick google search. Memory alpha says they are at least as strong as vulcans, while other sources say they just have more endurance and have a martial culture.
As a huge DS9 fan, I was a bit bothered by that as well, as I remembered the context for that scene.
I also remember Worf saying he accidentally killed a kid when he was young during a soccer match, because klingons are much more durable than humans. So, if Klingons aren't stronger (which they most likely are, let's be honest), they at least have a good deal more endurance than humans do, and are more resilient. Hell, they even have redundant organs. If a human and a klingon both fought each other with a Batleth, the obvious bet would be the klingon.
Worf is routinely seen lifting things with ease that no human could. How many times has a bulkhead collapsed on someone and Worf just goes and lifts it off?
@@Scientist_SalarianThat's true but it's also true that Worf is a particularly strong Klingon. He's routinely shown as being well above the average Klingon as a warrior. So Worf may not be the best measure for comparison,though I suspect your right overall
think klingons are comparable to neanderthals but taller and more resilient because of the multiple hearts.
8:58 Shad, you’re killing me! Klingons routinely demonstrate on-screen feats of strength far superior to any human. Even if, say, Worf is a stronger-than-average Klingon, he still easily lifts massive objects (usually bulkheads or crossbeams) that no human could do.
Klingons have redundant biological systems, two hearts, four lungs, etc. so it would seem to reason their muscular system would be the same for every muscle a human has they have two.
Also, a Klingon once head-butted Data in TNG and lived to walk it off, a human would have splattered their brains across the room doing the same.
People don't realize that while Riker did get into a fight/scuffle with a Klingon (and won), Jonathan Frakes is 6' 4" (193 cm), and in-character was presumably in great shape at the time as a relatively young officer in his prime.
Can't blame Shad for this, not really at least. Star Trek as a whole does a horrible job with consistency regarding Klingon strength. They often say one thing but show the opposite.
Yet in combat Klingons frequently get their ass handed to by the Federation crews... -.-
Writers not understanding stuff really can become an issue to the fandom.
@@tehScribbles Big lad... O.o
Shad: "I FIXED THE NUNCHUNKS"
Also Shad: Throws a big stick on the table.
Bruce Lee disagrees
it's funny, in lore Kahless "The Unforgettable" who designed and created the Bat'leth intentionally with drawbacks and be very hard to use. The idea was that by mastering such a difficult weapon and overcome it's inefficiencies, you would master yourself through technique, discipline, rituals and tradition. Through the weapons, klingons kept in check their aggression in combat basically. This is how Kahless clan beat out all the other clans and became dominant... this is why the weapons its popular on Klingon, not because it's a good weapon, but because if it's history and purpose.
P.s. why did they win with the Bat'leth against other klingons that had swords and other practical weapons... well apparently when Kingons have easy to use practical weapons, their aggression and bloodlust in combat makes then over reach and leave themselves open during combat... with the Bat'leth klingons always have to think about technique, correct form and defense, so they are more disciplined and good in combat then Klingon that user practical weapons that loose themselves in combat and overreach, forget about defense.
So Bat'leth was best weapon for klingons against other klingons on their home planet only.
At least that's what i remember from startrek deep space 9 and other star trek shows.
From my memory it isn't so clear form what is depicted in the shows but it is a good explanation. It's funny though that the TV shows might actually acknowledge that is is a poorly designed weapon when there are people in the real world trying to justify it and say it's good.
I don't remember that and I am toward the end of a DS9 binge, so unless it's late season 6 or 7 I don't think that's a thing. It's plausible though, DS9 was a much better written show than the rest of Star Trek.
I hit up a couple of AI sources, and neither could confirm any admission of issues with the bat'leth in universe.
@@shadiversity it makes sense, the klingons love a good fight, so why make a weapon that is quick and effective, they made it clunky and bad so it can prolong the fight, and a long fight is a good fight to the klingons
@@kevinmorricelol. Klingons are such drama queens. It makes sense their favorite music is opera. Lol.
How to test the effectiveness of a weapon:
Is it better than a rock?
Is it better than a nunchaku?
Are you Jackie Chan?
1 yes: better than nothing
2 yes: you can make this work
3 yes: weapon of mass destruction
Only if he gets all the Talezmen
It's always an interesting video when Shad shows off a weapon of his own design to Tyranth. I also agree with what another commenter said; let Tyranth plan a video and then surprise Shad with it to get honest reactions and throw some fun improv stuff into the mix. Maybe make it a once-a-week thing? Keep up the good work!
You forgot that Klingons also often fight in bording actions on enemy ships and stations were space might be limited
I've started to consider the bat'leth, at least in its modern form, as the equivalent of medieval weapons used in judicial duels. You got the weirdest things there, too.
Exactly! A judicial weapon. Or even a sporting implement.
Here, you get a pitch fork and have to stand in this 3 ft deep hole. You, you get a pillowcase with rocks in it, and you are chained to the man in the hole. Go!
So the Bat'leth is like a fencing sword? Or dueling pistols? Not really practical in war but useful for sport and ceremony.
oh hell yeah, like those big unwieldy shields, specifically desigend to not give an advantage to someone with any fighting proficiency
That's exactly what it _was_ when it was first introduced in TNG. Then the creep set in, and a different generation of writers worked on the series, and they didn't understand that and made it an actual battlefield weapon in DS9. 🤦
Now have Tyranth spring something on Shad, out of the blue.
Great format.
Yes, I like this idea. gives both of them a chance to think on their feet.
Looking forward to the inevitable Screen Tested where Tyranth makes his own batleth
Then he'll binge watch Star Trek to get properly trained in it's use. It would be hilarious if he managed to get the crazy thing doing some damage.
@TerryProthero I totally support this premise. I had a similar thought too. It's been so long since I've seen those fight scenes amongst all the series that I wondered how well the actors actually used them. Also curious about all the variants depicted, like the original Sword of Kahless
@@GaiusIncognitus
I'm not a Hema expert. But the actors did a good enough job to convince the average viewer like me. Which is still quite an accomplishment given how novel of a weapon it is. They were lucky they didn't take out a camera man with it. And regardless of what Shad says, I sure wouldn't want the pointy end of that thing stuck in my chest. So, in my unprofessional opinion, if something can send you to Stovokor, it performs the essential function of a weapon. As for variations, I didn't notice any big differences between the weapon Worf used and the Sword of Kahless shown on the STNG series. I don't know, however, if someone would spot small differences between weapons if they examined the scenes more closely. Even Captain Janeway used one to take out a Borg drone on Voyager. So, they are featured several times in Next Generation, DS9, and even Voyager. Not to mention Star Trek movies like First Contact where Worf takes out Borg with it there.
Yes, this would be great.
By the time Dorn joined the cast at DS9 they introduced for him the Mek’leth. A one handed version of a Bat’leth. That is what Worf used in First Contact. It’s very hard to describe, but it has chopping thrusting and cutting capability. We see him use that more than the Bat’leths. Because he’s an expert in stage combat, Dorn preferred it over the Bat’leth but he was able to incorporate a variety of unarmed strikes into his sequences and using the Bat’leth tripping weapon. During the attack on deep space nine in the episode way of the warrior, we see all three actors using them to block and counter with unarmed strikes.
I'd like to see people try to use a standard Batlith in tight ship's corridors instead of open fields. Longer weapons snag on walls and ceilings Klingons are doing an aggressive boarding action where details like range, reach, and not seeing around corners dramatically impact the fighting
Dude, Shad your redesign looks frigging awesome I'd love to own that as an actual sword.
HAPPY NEW YEAR'S PINEAPPLE ON PIZZA!
A true Klingon warrior is deadly with a paper clip.
True Klingon warriors don't exist.
I don't think a Klingon warrior would have paper clips. But one of their office clerks would likely be deadlier than most human beings. So, it probably wouldn't be wise to mess with them either. Unless you like getting pommeled with a paper weight.
And that’s where the truth lies. The Bat’leth and other blade weapons preferred by Klingon are cultural more than functional. Otherwise they would rely only on hand to hand and phasers.
@@DavidDrew-n6z
They look like something that was originally religious or ceremonial. Then they were later adapted to combat. After sufficient training, a person could get good with them. But as you say, they were originally chosen for reasons of tradition. Not because they considered various options and thought these were the best choices.
"A determined Warrior can Slash a thousand throats in a night"
Shad: "I'm going to fix the bat'leth!"
*proceeds to make a large sword*
Shad used AI art to try and improve the bat'leth.
He should flip it around and then you have a bad A weapon
Shad is so excited that he sounds almost angry😂
Tyranth didn't even have enough chances to speak😂
He's like a hyperactive child
Let Tyranth speak!
Tyranth sounds so pedantic and annoying, I wish he'd stay on his own channel. It's fine to have someone on to give a different opinion but the way Tyranth talks make it sound like he just wants to argue with everything.
I think you guys forgot one crucial thing about the weapon. It is a lot of times used in corridors of space ships. Having larger weapon is therefore a lot of times disadvantage. You risk hitting something arround you or your mates close next to you.
Bat'leth is held very close to the body, but can be used as an axe when the environment allows to swing it. It is a shield and a weapon at the same time.
On the ground it does not make sense, but in corridors? Hmm I think there is something about it, that when an agressive Klingon runs up to you, parries your blade and swings the Bat'leth to your face right after...
The batleth is a mix of a bo-staff, a sword and an axe... its all of those things at once and like all season tires, its a compromise. You get all those functions while not being as good as a specialized weapon, if you need all of them, you can carry one weapon.
I know quite a bit about that weapon. I talked to the people who designed it for the set and created the back story and history of it. It was actually designed for T. N. G and had the history of it created then.
The weapon started out as a farming implement. This is because when the weapon was first designed and created the race that made it. The Klingons were enslaved by the Herk.
The Herk did not allow them to have weapons. They only allowed them to have farming implements.
The Herk had and dominated their slaves with spaceships. The Klingons needed a weapon they could disguise as a farming implement and could be used in extreme close quarters.
The weapon was never designed to be used in wide open spaces. The actual proper way to test the viability of the weapon is to take it into your (house) and use it in the halls. Because that's the size of the environment, that is a spaceship in the setting it was made for.
You reckon a batleth is more practical in tight spaces than, say, a gardening fork with the ends sharpened? Or just like, a literal utility knife? That's the thing about all the supposed stories of something starting out as a farming implement - Farmers use knives. Farmers use axes. Farmers use machetes. Farmers have to kill animals and chop down trees. You know what is a great weapon? A billhook. You know what is literally a farming implement? A billhook.
Point being that it's obviously not true. If you were a farmer under a tyrannical yolk, you can just throw stones at people. You can hit them with a stick. You have a knife for chopping veg with. Absolutely no-one would have these weird goofy things that are "obviously not a weapon honest", when they can have a knife concealed about their person.
I was thinking about the space limitations throughout the video. Especially when the question arises, "when would this be a better option?"
Polearms, Longswords, Spears, and in some cases even rapiers (if you have limited space in front and back), wouldn't be great. In this case you want a shorter weapon, and then the Bat'leth would be compared to Gladius, Dagger, and Knife. In that context does it fall short?
In my personal experience, the closest analogue to a Bat'leth would be Rifle and Bayonet. Which would be its closest melee opponent in reality.
@@taemien9219 Idk, it seems to me a spear would be good in a corridor. It gives you a ton of reach and makes it harder to dodge because of limited space to move side to side.
@@thejinn99 Depends on the length, which is what a rifle and bayonet functionally is. Like I said longer reached weapons tend to run into issues when there is tight spaces to the front and back. If your opponent is less than 5ft (~1.5M) away, and you have a wall just behind you, there might be some interesting outcomes.
I do realize I'm being incredibly specific, but if you've ever been inside a ship or other large craft, it can get pretty cramped.
The bat'leth itself might be limited, and I think it would be interesting to see a demonstration to that end.
For me the Bat'Leth only makes sense as a traditional ceremonial weapon. You can defend your honor against another one like it but you'd be screwed against most other weapons.
You guys devolving into a bat’leth measuring contest toward the end is pretty great.
The ladder is more deadly than a nunchuck
Three rocks or a nunchuck?
@@PeasantNo.471 it depends on the rock
On a count that I was nearly killed by a ladder and never by a nunchuck I can affirm that notion
Terrifying weight and reach.
Here in the US, roughly 30,000 people per year are killed by falls. So yeah, ladders are actually quite deadly.
It looks cool.
Maybe the Bat'leth is for sport, where it's intentionally not optimized for winning a fight, but rather for forcing close combat, relying more on the person, than the weapon.
Maybe only for bat'leth vs bat'leth.
Exactly it is a weapon designed by masochists with a great sense of honor.
The earliest Klingon fighters were fighting in caves for the most part.
No, the bat'leth was designed for fighting in confined spaces. It's not optimized to use in open spaces, which is why Shad's not seeing it's use cases, he's stuck in the open battlefield fallacy where he can't conceive of other areas people might be fighting in until he realizes he's in that fallacy and forces himself out of it.
Bat'leths are designed for fighting on starships (and maybe in caves as someone else in these replies mentioned), where you have walls and a roof close by, and no room to use a traditional sword properly. If you were to use the weapons Shad's calling "better" in a narrow starship corridor or cramped room, you'd have your "better" sword getting caught up on objects constantly and be forced into a half blade grip, holding it more like a bat'leth, only your lead hand would be fully exposed while the bat'leth's outer blade acts as both a push blade, blocking surface and cross guard all rolled in one. The "spikes" Shad complains about look to me more like they function as a more traditional cross guard, meant more to control opposing blades and keep them from your vulnerable middle and push then to the outsides so you can control the centre line more easily. They're not meant to strike with but to protect you from the blade running to the middle after a parry. Just like a traditional sword's cross guard is meant to protect the hands from an enemy blade running up your sword and right onto your own hands.
If you look at it purely from the point of view of using it in confined spaces, it begins to shine with surprising potential as a weapon. That does not mean it's not without it's flaws, but all weapons have their flaws. For example would you want to use a great big long pike in a medieval city street? Obviously a weapon designed to be used in formation on an open battlefield is crap for personal defense on a cramped and probably crowded city street. That does not make the pike crap as a weapon, it's just crap in certain cases it was not designed for. think of a bat'leth as a reverse pike designed not for the open field, but the cramped and crowded space a pike is crap in. Yes, the bat'leth is crap in the open, and a pike is the master of the open space, but a bat'leth is deadly in confined spaces where a pike is crap.
@@Seriously_Unserious So I was partially right.
It was indeed for close-quarters combat.
I'm a big Star Trek fan, but don't know all the details.
I could have watched a few video clips and remembered everything and left a more precise comment, but not as in depth as yours.
Thanks for explaining it.
Seems like a good weapon for psychological warfare. Imagine a hundred howling Klingon warriors coming over a rise with those things in their hands.
Shads improved bat’leth actually looks awesome. I want to see it made with steel.
he will need to resize it back to bat'leth size, both for weight, and because he's still missing the purpose of a bat'leth, it's designed for close quarters, confined spaces fighting, not wide open spaces which his thinking is stuck in. For his redesign to be effective, it'll need to retain that confined spaces functionality, meaning short reach so it doesn't bang into walls or get wedged in spaces narrower then the reach of the weapon, but also gives different options for it's wielder then a standard bat'leth design.
A smaller version would be cool.
Oh boy, and I still remember the time Shad already analysed and "fixed" the Bat´Leth years ago... with a 3d model... Well, there it goes my "I´m feeling old" of the day :,)
Have you ever heard the battle cry of a Klingon short order cook?
Perhaps today is a good day to fry!
There was that one klingon cook on DS9. Would have been a great line.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Things really have to boil over to go there.
Gagh and racht are served raw and wriggling. Because there's nothing worse than half-dead racht.
May Kahless bring great honor to the House of Pancakes.
I didn't expect a follow up to such an old topic.
A surprise indeed, but a welcomed one.
Is that you Palpatine?
@@DJRockford83 No, else he would have said "to be sure", not "indeed"
know the difference
Shad needs a blacksmith on his team to build this stuff for real and actually test them
Forged in fire, Star Trek edition.
This weapon was created by Khaless from a lock of his hair that he held in the lava of the Kri'stak volcano and then dipped in Lake Lusor.
The Bat'leth is more of a ritual weapon than a weapon of war. In duels, *Bat'leth meet Bat'leth* and mastering it is one of the characteristics of a warrior.
Wait what was in Khaless' Hair? Is that how all Klingons are, are they like that volcanic snail with iron in their outermost layers? Or did Khaless just have some wicked dreads? I always loved that lore about kahless making his blade but holy moly it leaves a lot of questions in its wake.
I have a friend who fights in combat larps with me (fighting like the SCA where limb hits remove the use of the limb and torso shots kill). He dedicated about 10 years of fighting to the Bat'leth. He developed a fighting style that incorporated chinese crescent weapons and Japanese jo staff as the basis. He also had some very nice defensive movements by flicking the weapon to lie flat on the shoulder/arm/back area to block incoming projectiles and block/deflect heavy blows from two-handed weapons. he was also nasty in any fight that got to 40 fighters on a side or higher. Heh he also had this nasty trick where he would lock your weapon with the end fork and flick it into your wrist/elbow/or armpits. I wish he was still around to explain the combat style better, sadly he passed due to an auto accident in the 2010's. He made it a very nasty and mean weapon to fight against. part of it was how he used his knowledge from ARMA to counter and confound his opponents with the Bat'Leth. hope this helps
This is so insightful!
Honestly, underlining it as a *defensive weapon answers so many questions. It's great to see some has actually tried it AND gotten good at it.
@@kylelind6239 I mean, it's both offensive and defensive
Awesome, sorry for your loss man, but it's definitely amazing to see how it can be used
Similarly, I was introduced to ways to be effective with a Bat'leth by someone who blended styles, mostly around stave and polearm fighting, but also crescent blade and yes, I could face off against 2-3 people with swords and win. Part of that was the Bat'leth confused them, but also because I counter-punch with it: You try to hit me, I block and deflect and, with the same action, hit you with the other end.
To me, it's a puncture weapon, not slashing. The main spike is where you're doing the damage, with some slicing with the inside edge of that spike: The second spike is for snagging and controlling the opposition's weapon.
Oh, and I also used First Sword design, not the three grip type. So yes, there's also a centre spike, the main spikes are longer, and it's a single handle, not three segmented handles. That does make a difference.
I have a book that showed a Bat'leth style that was based largely on Hung Gar, was nicely done and had the instructor and his assistant in Klingon costume and makeup. Also had a bunch of passages of glyphs you had to translate to learn more things. They had a test you could take by filming yourself, submitting it and receiving some sort of certificate.
Back in the day there was a guy on named Daqo'tah that made a 'road tested' Bat'leth that he tied to his truck and dragged it on a road to distress the blade. Pretty crazy stuff.
At this point I try to comment on all of my favourites TH-camrs that don't get enough exposure just so that it might help a bit with the algorithm
I do the same, I have recently been told you need 7 words or more for maximum effect.
The only time I saw the Bat'leth used was in judicial combat in either TNG or DS9 when i watched the original airing on TV in the 90s. I knew about strange specialty weapons designed for use in judicial combat and assumed that's what they were.
It's a cultural weapon for sure. Both historical and for the warrior spirit of modern Klingons. It's like when Britain's Space Marines would use replicas of Excalibur when boarding a starship.
That’s a good point- we don’t see a bat’leth used in actual combat that much. Worf seems to prefer a mek’leth in a real fight. There are a few times Klingons use bat’leths against Jem Hadar in DS9, but they come off as clunky, even so. It doesn’t help that DS9 directors are really, really, really bad at portraying the realities of personal combat. It’s kind of hard to judge Kligons’ martial ability when a 6’5/250 lb. fully armored warrior can beat a Jem Hadar, but also get knocked out by 5’5/130 lb. Kira Nerys.
their design also makes them ideal for confined spaces, like those common on starships. The short reach means you don't need a lot of lateral space to use the weapon, whereas the swords Shad was comparing them to, do need a lot more room then the bat'leth does. Once you start getting into spaces small enough to constrain the movements of a traditional sword, you hit the spaces a bat'leth was designed to excel in. Testing a bat'leth vs swords in open spaces is about as useful as testing polearms in confined spaces.
What confounds me is Shad even encountered this and commented on it when testing shooting bows from trees and found his longbow kept getting caught up in the foliage and that made the big bow too unwieldy to use in confined spaces like thick forest. he found the smaller short bows actually worked much better as they didn't impact the environment as much. I don't know why he does not or can not translate that lesson to melee weapons, nor why he can't figure out that the weapon's often used in space ships and that those are be necessity, tightly packed spaces where every square meter of capacity is too precious to waste on unnecessary open space.
When the sword is locked in the batleth fork, try to do a move with the other end of batleth against opponent.
i actually prefer the designs of the longer bat'leth and the sword'leth.
but would you still prefer them if you had to fight in a narrow starship corridor, when the longer weapons keep getting stuck on the walls while the shorter counterparts don't?
"Jackie Chan makes the ladder look like a really effective weapon."
Yeah?
Look up how effectively Jeff Hardy uses it. 😂
He once busted a man's face open with one.
A challenge to Schad. Can you design a weapon meant to be a penance for a dishonoured warrior? The warrior had lost his honour because he fled from an enemy. The only way to regain his honour and standing is to do several years as a metaphorical glass canon. This means fighting with a weapon that can deliver A LOT OF DAMAGE but exposes the warrior to greater risks. Whether he survives or not, his honour is regained.
The first thing that comes to my mind is an overweighted flail.
I think the main thing Shad is missing is the culture of the person wielding the blade. The history of human warfare is a linear progression of people saying, "I want to kill that guy over there, but I'm all the way over here, and I'd really like to not get hurt in the process." Knives become swords, axes become halberds, spears get longer and longer. Armor goes from leather to laminate to segmented, chain, full plate, and onward, all behind a shield. It's all about keeping your opponent at a safe distance.
Klingons don't do that. Klingons have regular swords, knives, etc. They have armor. What I've never seen though, is a Klingon shield (not including energy shield on the ships). Klingons flight aggressively. They don't keep their enemy at bay, they get in close. Klingons will absolutely bring a knife to a gunfight, because where we would go into battle thinking about how we're going to come home, Klingons go into battle thinking how to make sure you never do.
A Bat'Leth, near as I can tell, is designed with this principal in mind. A wide blade to deflect an opponent strike while simultaneously giving the wielder the opportunity to move in and gore the opponent on one of the end spikes. It's not a weapon designed for parrying and careful thrusting. It's designed to be brutal. Cut down your enemy and move on to the next one. If you die in battle, you die with honor.
My thoughts similarly.
The Bat'leth is used in close quarters fighting in boarding actions against foes who are typically armed with phasers. If going for a full-melee weapon option, having a sword can actually be a detriment in this environment. The unique curvature of the Bat'leth allows it to deal hooking, stabbing, and twisting cuts when most of your foes are holding one or both arms out holding a pistol-style weapon (and even then usually from handshake grip), or holding a two-handed firearm.
If you try using a traditional sword in tight quarters, your body needs to flex and contort more to produce an effective cut or chop which can [very briefly] leave you exposed. The Bat'leth if used aggressively enough can be used to push into an enemy and pin/redirect the arm with far more leverage. Most of the initial damage is done with push cuts as you bodily press into an area in the doorways and halls of a ship.
Obviously having a firearm of some kind is probably a lot better, but against largely untrained crews with limited phaser shots it could work out tactically with applied aggression and speed since the Bat'leth encourages the Klingon way of pressing in hard and fast (versus cautiously trying to apply CQC urban combat fire team tactics which is very slow and methodical by comparison).
@@WritingFighter Also consider the number of creatures encountered that are heavily resistant to phaser fire. Where would I take a batleth over another weapon? Against tentacales, fangs, and amorphous _things_ that go bump in the night, while in the cramped interiors of non-federation starships. Planetside I'd want a spear. And no, I don't think I'd much want his "updated" version for that sort of thing, just carry a different weapon for the use cases where you want a sword.
These cultural considerations are valid, but they still have to be tempered with the reality of winning and losing. Yes it's mighty fine to die in battle with honor, but if too many of your side die with honor too quickly, you lose the war and your culture gets genocided and erased, to be replaced by opponents whose cultural conception of honor is more in line with practical reality. Particularly if you are a hot-blooded warrior race that fights more wars than average. So there is a limit to how far you can let cultural considerations be explanations for suboptimal design choices.
When I look at the Bat'Leth, I am reminded of Sunday Breakfast. The restaurant I go to has the register right by the door, so there's always a throng of people trying to get in, trying to leave, and smashing into each other. Since I'm the biggest one of the family, I am oft put in the position of parting the crowd so everyone can follow me out. Having a large, sharp stick that I can use to shove people out of the way or poke would make getting to the car a lot easier.
I don't think the Klingons would have ever developed something like the Roman Phalanx. I think the Bat'Leth is designed to move people, not weapons. Knock aside a thrust, maybe, but then shove your opponent to the ground, then drive a spike into their chest. If you can't shove them down, hook those spikes on the end inside their armor aiming for joints. Sever an artery and they bleed out. Cut a tendon and they can't hold their weapon. But the main thing is you have to get in close because the Bat'Leth works best at spitting distance.
It could probably stand with an update to increase its killing potential, but I think Shad's design, though cool in its own right, misses the point of the weapon it's replacing.
@@SCOm1359AP There are certainly similarities to the "man catcher", so you may be right that it favors control and aggression over immediate lethality. Given the practicalities of bulkhead breaching when forcefields are an issue, killing your target _in_ the "door" way is at times going to be much less important than bodily knocking them back so you and a few of your cohort can get through the wall before the forcefield activates. I'd much rather bat'leth into someone than shoulder into them.
One thing that shad , Didn't get right the average Klingon in canon even in the original series, are actually 2-2.5 times stronger than a healthy fit human, the statement that Jadzia dax says, is merely stating that similar to humans they have very strong and weaker Klingons depending on the specific Klingon, plus somewhat like humans it also depends on how well they've kept good care of themselves physically. So specifically to give a good reference a really strong fit human like Henry cavil ,vs average guy who doesn't regularly work out and tries to keep himself decently physically fit.
(on the issue of the weight of the bat'leth) 6:33, 7:00 star trek clip
for the americans :
5 kilos (kilograms) is about 11 pounds.
3 kilos is about 6 and a half ponds.
I think the issue is trying to use it like a western sword. This thing looks like it has some kung-fu roots like from the Shuang Gou twin hook swords, or the Bagua Zhang Crescent Moon Knives which have a similar shape. The kata they use is more of a drunken monkey style, with spins, feigns, and backhanded cuts. Trying to use this thing like an axe is not what it was meant for. I remember an old Next Generation video with Worf teaching his son about the Bat'leth and it had very spiritual roots and you were supposed to spin it around your arm. It felt more like a kung fu weapon than a straight up battle weapon. Mostly for duels instead of front line combat. Would love to give the Bat'leth to a shaolin master and see what forms he would come up with and see how he would use it against a longswordsman.
excellent appraisal and TNG episode memory!
yes exactly. I swear i had a TMNT figure from the third movie that had, in addition to a crescent knife, something that looked way more like a bat'leth.
Agreed. I've trained for many years with Deer Horn Knives and always thought they might have been at least a partial inspiration for this weapon.
I like the idea of giving it to a Shoulin master. I'd even go as far as to present it (a replica) with no context and ask "How would you fight with this thing if you had to? How would you wield this?" and see what their thoughts would be.
There are a few things that occurred to me: even in the 23rd century, klingons still all seem to wear a kind of torso armour, probably more of a vestige than anything, but if you imagine a more complete armour covering all of a sudden an up-close and personal weapon with a choice of spikes (similar in use to a pair of men in plate armour half-swording to kill each other) it suddently makes more sense to optimise the bat'leth for use at grappling ranges. If your next question is "well then why hasn't it been adapted for a less armoured environment?" you need look only as far as the ceremonial swords carried by our current militaries to see that it's completely reasonable that a melee weapon, once made obsolete by ranged weapons, might stop evolving and remain in the same form in perpetuity.
In short: yes, a sword is more effective for unarmoured combat, but that's ok, because the klingons traditionally wear armour. In an unarmoured context you could complain that a mace has too much weight for its reach next to a sword, but that's not the use it was designed for.
I've always liked the explanation that it was a ceremonial weapon designed to be less lethal. Because as Shad repeatedly mentions, it is almost optimized to give shallow cuts compared to deep wounds. It is difficult to use compared to a simple sword. And because it is so short ranged, you are practically grappling while using them
So it's almost optimized for a culture that loves duels with live weapons to reduce actual death and replace it with healable injury
@@Benjamin1986980Makes it harder to usurp your superiors with a lucky hit in a mutiny duel. :p
@@Benjamin1986980 that's a fair point in terms of cutting, but in terms of levering those points around your opponent's weapon and towards the gaps in their armour, then driving it in with both hands... i'd say that it could very well be a very lethal weapon. those points are plenty long enough to reach internal organs if driven through armpit/shoulder/neck joints.
I like the way you contextualize the way Klingons do things. Because it is accurate to how real world people advance with technology irl
The Klingons were basically still in their Medieval/Renaissance or Farmer and Country era before either the Romulons or the Hurq made first contact. Then the Klingons either reverse engineered the new space technology, or simply stole or bought it. Of course they wouldnt use the batleth for combat anymore
I have parents born in what was once considered the 3rd world part of their origin country. Its crazy to see how fast technology advanced after a major war. People that grew up never even seeing electricity and lamplights all of a sudden are using cellphones while still living in grass hut style homes. That and they still occasionally use bow and arrow to fish. But sometimes instead use a net, or a line, or a casual grenade. All of the old technology becomes relatively replaced, meanwhile the old tech that stays usually gets ritualized.
Star trek is absolute genius with its writing because its exactly what real people do in these circumstances. Dudes with cool advanced tech show up to try to rob you? Kill em, wear their clothes, steal their shoes. Boom. You have now advanced to space technology
If you also consider this question - in what environments does the bat'leth remain in active service? Starships is your answer. And a weapon designed to be used in tight spaces that doesn't need a lot of lateral room to use effectively is what you need in a narrow starship corridor. A longword needs some room to use properly, and won't be as effective in a narrow starship corridor as a bat'leth is. In fact, what's going to be the most likely grip you'll see someone armed with a longsword using in a narrow corridor of a starship? Probably half blading, meaning your swordsman will be forced by the environment to use their longsword like a a makeshift bat'leth! Only you won't have any of the hand protection the proper bat'leth has. Just like you can do a murder stroke with a sword to turn it into a makeshift mace, which is better then trying to cut through metal with a sword, which is impossible, but still a real mace is much better then using a sword as an improvised mace.
... Klingons are renown for being incredibly strong, incredibly resilient, and emphasize overcoming pain as a main part of their culture... so their use-case is not similar to a normal human. They're on par, if not in excess, of Vulan/Romulan from what I remember, and at the very least they are substantially stronger and hardier than humans; this is why Worf in TNG was used as the "bamf measuring stick" for baddies in the show by losing to them in hand-to-hand/melee combat.
I also think that the Klingons evolved on a planet with a metric crap-ton of caves and labyrinthian tunnels, so it is possible that the weapon is meant to be more structured for specifically CQC in situations where too much reach could cause an issue(though I don't actually know if that's cannon, it's just based on what I can remember) with a confined environment.
A cutting blade for slashes would be more optimal with reach, but requires room to do said cuts as the injuries need to be crippling and devastating to keep a Klingon down, as quick minor cuts will only annoy them, which makes the room needed to actually use a slashing blade an issue in caves. It can still be done, but it might have been tossed by Klingons just because of the potential to collide with a wall/ceiling if you misjudged the space you have to throw a cut. While this can still happen with a Bat'leth, you don't end up massively exposed as the "guard" is still around your torso... which would make recovery from an error like that far less likely to be lethal.
Purely thrusting weapons will also be detrimental to the user as something like a rapier would only be effective with instant-kill shots. An abdominal wound is just going to result in an angry Klingon pushing themselves down the blade and you stuck without a weapon... which even if you defend yourself, you need to retrieve before his buddy gets to you(and it's literally up to the hilt in dead Klingon).
A weapon that can easily be shifted for slightly more range, but keeps the total width at only 2 or so times the body of the user at maximum, and if held diagonally fits within the same area as the user, while still allowing a large area of defense(preventing an attacker from simply pushing beyond the threat range) while having the ability to attack from two directions without telegraphing or needing room to maneuver seems valid for that use-case for dealing with Klingons that don't care about an injury that isn't immediately fatal; more so when the weapon can be used to push back the attacker at arms length with both arms and act as a solid blade barrier. So... fighting Klingons in tunnels is where a Bat'leth would be better than a sword.-Give Tyranth time to consider the question before popping something like this on him, Shad. There can be actually intuitive answers.
A sword is definitely better in most circumstances, but I can see the use of the massive guard on the Bat'leth for defense against enemies that would literally run themselves down the blade to get to you and rip your throat out with their teeth. Honestly, I think we'd be more likely to see something akin to a Boar Spear than a sword for war time... but even then... Klingons are supposed to be incredibly brutalitarian by culture.... so a swift death might not even be the goal.
I believe the 'mostly caves and tunnels' thing purely because that is TV-budget-friendly.
I do think they're a little below vulcan strength though
@@KairuHakubi Very much a possibility on both accounts, since it's been a while since I've watched Star Trek.
@@unshackledjester yeah a friend of mine who is a way bigger fan was just telling me about it, otherwise I would have thought they were stronger. he cited sources and everything.
@@KairuHakubi I mean, I'll defer to a super-fan. There's a reason I prefaced with uncertainty of the specifics, but certainty of them being stronger than humans. =P
The rest of my arguments still stand as to the design, though.
I almost feel the batleth is more akin to a quarterstaff, bo, or shortstaff rather than a sword or axe. The fact that it's bladed is there, but it seems like you use it more like a staff.
The upgraded version is definitely an improvement, I'd Carry that into the apocalypse lol
I really like the argument, that the Bat'Leth is more versatile, since the different holding techniques allow it to be also used in close-quarter combats as well as in open combat. With a sword you get only one holding point, which pretty much fixes its effective range in place. With a Bat'Leth you get two decide your effective reach.
yeah i think at best it is a jack of all trades, master of none. And that has value.
Titan sword: Yay, I have another sibling!
This is the first time Shad video popped up in recommended section (and right after it went up) for me in... very long time.
I got to say, I love the intro with Ty cutting the arrow out of the air and Shad with the whip and Nate looking proficient with the fiery sword
Remember that this is a close quarter weapon where melee is done close to the body. Boarding actions in confined hallways makes this more practical. it can attack from multiple angles with a quick follow up on the 180 degree axis. it has the ability to trap or disable limbs quickly and efficiently. Try using a longsword in a hallway and then compare...this is a use case you ignored by doing this out in the bush.
It's a bit like a falx in many ways, the curve lessens it's actual reach but the forward curve lends it some are like qualities.
Shad canonically is right. The Bat'leth was intended to be a less useful weapon in order to challenge the klingon warrior to be even better.
he's also missing the key environment it's typically used in - starships. Ships by necessity, are full of tightly packed spaces and long reach weapons are a disadvantage in such environments. The shorter reach of a bat'leth in the places it actually gets used mostly is actually it's ADVANTAGE, NOT it's flaw. To truly get the measure of how useful a bat'leth is as it was originally designed, he would need to do something to simulate a narrow starship corridor and test how well his long reach swords do when confined, compared to a bat'leth. I think he'd find mechanically, that he'd have no choice but to resort to half blading with a sword and that would basically be turning his "superior" swords into shittier versions of bat'leths to compensate when he starts hitting the walls or getting his sword blade caught on stuff attached to the walls. Whereas with a bat'leth, you can quarterstaff grip it and the narrowness of a corridor no longer hinders you much, and both hands remain protected, while the half blade hand will be exposed and vulnerable to getting his fingers chopped off.
The weapon is great for controlling tight corridors against knife or bare handed enemies, people forget how narrow some passages are on space ships
Yeah, but you could do that with a spear, which is just a pointy stick. You are then safer, because you don't have to approach enemies with a knife to ward it off
I was just about to say that.
@@MrSzaman12 Spears are not known to be good weapons for indoor use. When you need to pass through doorways and walk through narrow hallways with additional hallways at 90 degree angles and doorways every couple meters that can have enemies pop out at any point then something shorter a spear is a much better option as a weapon.
No it isn't. And a short sword, knife, dagger, staff or axe would be far better to control a tight space.
@@ChristophBrinkmann you realize we're comparing an alien weapon built to be supported by their different physiology against weapons built for us, Klingons have an honor code that requires them to hamper and handicap themselves because in their own words they killed their gods because they were too petty and childish.
Not a criticism, but maybe interesting in context. The designer of the Bat'leth was Dan Curry, a visual producer for the Trek shows in the 80's/90's. Curry was an actual martial artist, specifically Tai Chi, and designed the Bat'Leth and it's little brother the Mek'Leth with Tai Chi in mind. So neither may gel 1/1 with HEMA, though Skallagrim did like the Mek'Leth when he analyzed it.
Curry also returned to design a new Klingon weapon, the Kur'Leth, for Picard season 3 for use by Worf. That weapon in particular might be slightly more adaptable to HEMA techniques as it's much more of a straightforward arming sword type weapon, with a fun little surprise in the pommel. Bit heavy though.
EDIT: Funny enough, in the MMO Star Trek Online the Bat'Leth-type weapon basically matches the "upgrade" in this video in terms of proportions almost 1:1.
From what I remember though, the Mek'Leth is just basically a kukri. It very reminicent of a functional weapon so it should be functional.
@@cp1cupcake Essentially, yes. It's an angry Kukri with more edges and a spike to punch people with. And a teeny tiny handle. Because a true warrior slays their enemies with their pinky extended.
Picard season 3... Is it worth watching that season by itself (no way I'd ever go near S1 or S2) or is it still better to just ignore that Picard exists and keep watching the classic shows?
@@NateTheScot the latter. Trek died after Voyager.
Just finished watching "Picard" for the third time, and now on to "Enterprise"... yes I know, out of sequence, but I did like how Mr. Worf carried the smaller sword.
(I still want a Bat'leth though 😂)
One thing y'all seem to be missing is that bat'leth is used frequently in confined spaces like hallways of ships, space facilities, and fortresses.
The spikes are for piecing armour or dealing deep wounds. The 2 handed grip gives you more leverage and would allow you to parry easier. You would have to be aggressive but once you got inside a swords guard you have plenty of options to cause injury.
I swing around a 6.8kg mace to make my muscles stronger. I couldn't imagine trying to fight somebody with it.
So, to test the weapons viability, you need an environment that mimics the inside of a spaceship.
The only pre-space travel bat’leth we’ve seen is the sword of kahless which is a lot straighter than modern ones. Perhaps the size and shape of the modern bat’leth is optimized for the narrow corridors of spacecraft, something your design would be too long for.
Yeah, there's two kinds of enemies a bat'leth is expected to face - judicial duels and boarding actions against people without melee weapons.
So range doesn't really matter. You aren't going to outrange a phaser/disruptor/whatever, and you will outrange arms and chair legs or whatever improvised stuff is handy for the defenders.
@@walkir2662 not to mention, let's say your opponent is Sulu with his saber, yes, his saber out ranges your bat'leth, but what good is that in a narrow hallway when it hits the walls and messes him up, while the bat'leth does not?
In other words, long reach is a disadvantage in confined spaces, and I'd argue more of a disadvantage then short reach is in the open. In the open, at least you don't have to worry about your weapon banging into or worse, getting stuck in stuff, like you do long reach in confined spaces.
Also, when looking at the Sword of Khaless, the inner points are closer to the center, along with being more curved. That, along with the center spike, gives five points, and multiple angles of attack.
@@joshuafrahm8778 Recently, Sellsword Arts tried sparring with bat'leth vs bat'leth, bat'leth vs longsword and bat'leth vs saber, and they found that while the longsword did have a major reach advantage, the nature of the bat'leth's protected half swording grip tended to allow the bat'leth user to close in and control the centre. They also found those inner spikes, the ones Shad things should be removed, where decisive in being able to control and move the longsword blade to the side, allowing the bat'leth user to dominate the centre at close range. The longsword wins mainly came from getting a quick strike in before the bat'leth user could close and the longswordsman would tent to do a lot of retreating to keep distance. Now, imagine you're using a longsword in a narrow ship's corridor and boarders come charging at you shouting some blood-curdling war cry, and your longword, with it's reach, prevents any of your mates from standing beside you, forcing you to line up single file, while the boarders can come at you in pairs. Plus, your sword keeps catching on the walls if you try to use it's reach for cuts from the side to get around the bat'leth user's guard. Which weapon are you gonna prefer then?
13:37
Potential uses of the secondary point on a bat'leth:
• The second point could stop over penetration by the primary point which could cause you to lose your weapon while fighting multiple opponents.
• The second point could cause an additional wound on an opponent.
• The second point would allow a secondary range and angle of attack to keep your opponent guessing.
• The second point could be more effective in up close melee fighting where you cannot get full range of motion.
Just being generous with this fantasy weapon. I'd love to see what martial fighters would make of it. I'd also love to see it engineered to be more functional both in material components and shape.
I'm hoping this video is eventually going in that direction.
Try looking at the video from Sellsword Arts about it, they do some experimental sparring with it against itself and other weapons. I believe Skallagrim also has an experimental sparring and theorycrafting video on it
There is a guy in Australia that makes batleths. My wife bought me one for father's day.
the third version of the Batleth reminds me of a dental floss/tooth pick tool lol XD
Not going to lie I kind of like the redesign. I definitely think it needs to be smaller but yeah.
The dual spikes are very flexible and practical in my opinion from a mechanical point of view - its part cross guard, part hooking, and part striking feature. And that extra inner pair of striking points are very useful when fighting with it more like a staff and in very close or in tight corridors where you just can't get the longest spikes on target easily. Also those dual spikes are so far apart they are if anything actively useful rather wolverine claw - stopping overpenetration on the main spike so you can more easily lever it back out is a good thing! You really don't need to be able to spike your blade all the way through somebody to beat them.
Reach. You forgot about reach. Your opponent can easily stand at a distance where they're 100% safe from you and can still easily hit you.
@@ChristophBrinkmann No I didn't at all - if you want to stand static in their measure with them out of yours its easy for them. But the reach here isn't that bad and the hand protection and parrying capacity excellent - you should be able to get inside their effective radius with their longer weapon. And unlike them who will need to be dropping the sword/spear and going for their knife your thing is still quite effective in close.
Reach does absolutely matter, and is a factor in the real world that might make you choose a long sword for your sidearm. But there are plenty of historical weapons without any great reach that remain almost universally common, even into the age of guns... The ability to carry it, work in formation, how defensive it is - can you use a shield with it etc etc. In this case its a solid all rounder that is only going to be really really beaten in reach by polearms - so you like your opponents would probably carry a spear/javelin or two as well.
So as long as the weight is reasonable enough you can wield it....
One thing you're missing is Klingons fight up close. They are not worried about reach.
Bat'Leths look like they would be great in mele combat in narrow ship corridors where you could only send 1-2 people down them at a time.
5:49, the catching of the blade isnt to hold onto it, its a way to deflect an incoming strike to an angle that leaves them open, and if you catch it hard enough you can injur the wrist of a sword wielder really easily. the bat is meant to be fluid like an axe, never stopping and always in constant motion, like martial arts you want to move with the momentum of the blade and the motions of the enemy, its often refered to as a dance, they are in fact warrior poets after all, they also carry back up blades so if need be they can drop the bat and swap out the fighting style. but mostlythe short spike is for hooking tactics, no for their blade but like shields, and other guards, notice its more of a curve them a blade, designed to dig in and catch goody bits like intestines, arm pits, and armor straps. the mid wholes are for thrusts, when someone thrusts dip and let them run their blade intot he hole and then spin, they either let go or you send them to the ground. there are videos on youtube showing how they should be used properly
also it was used for its intimidation factor, yes a real swordsman will know its not as mean, but a farmor or merchant? who klingons loved to rob? absolutely terrifying haha
This! This is a good comment!
Looks like you need a steel replica for cutting tests.
The Bat'leth was obviously designed to fight against other Bat'leths.
Also daggers. Klingons carry around some nasty blades. It's a close quarters combat weapon. Klingons would be using disruptors at long range.
and in narrow corridors because they were boarding other peoples starships with their culture based upon being warrior clans even tho they reached type 3 civilization (spacefaring)
Yeah, this has a falvor of "I optimized your spiky duel shield!"
Ever since Kor talked about Kahless harvesting his fields with it on the DS9 episode, I always imagined it as a farm tool that doubled as an improvised weapon.
@@dony2852
I'm thinking religious or ceremonial in this case. But it mirrors how people used farm implements in Asia as weapons when other options weren't available. It was first chosen for symbolic reasons and then people took on the challenge of training with it and figuring out how to use it in combat. With enough practice, it would become far deadlier than it normally would be.
Half of Shad's argument is "I speak louder and more aggressively and I ignore what you say so I am right."
come on that's insulting, it's at least 3/4 if not more.
@@badandy8504 Its not 3/4. Its like 9/10
I believe it was a farming tool that they used because they had nothing else and it because famous because of the feet the hero managed with it
damn, I love that redesign, especially axe mode. yall need to make a steel or carbon fiber regular length version
I think the 3rd hook in the lower middle makes this a very Klingon looking weapon. It resembles the Klingon 3-pointed badge
Given the primary purpose of a bat'leth is close quarters combat in confined spaces, to remain true to that purpose, it would have to be reduced in size to about the same size and a regular bat'leth so it retains it's short reach advantage for tight spaces. Yes, in tight spaces long reach is actually a detriment, as you might guess, as your weapon will hit things other then your opponent and may even get lodged in something and pulled out of your hand. A shorter weapon that, by it's design, doesn't need a lot of lateral space to use is ideal, and a bat'leth, by it's very design, does that, while also having the weightiness of a military grade weapon and offers the hands protection, with the option of alternate grips to give more or less reach as needed, based on the available space around you. Shad's redesign would have to be sized correctly to still perform that core function.
Otherwise, taking a close quarters weapon and just making it bigger is just as pointless as taking a polearm and just cutting off the shaft to make it function effectively in close quarters. Sure it will make the short pike work better for that, but it'll still not be the best option for close quarters, other weapons like a dagger or very short blades sword would still be far superior in that setting. All those types of redesigns are doing is just taking a weapon designed for a specific purpose and trying to make it work for a purpose it was not designed for, sure it can be less shitty at that off purpose use, but it's still shitty for that, and now been made useless for it's primary purpose.
I argue that a sword-ified bat'leth should have come out looking like an Elmslie type 2a messer.
Are we assuming this weapon is being used for anything other than a klingon duel, where the laws dictate both duelists use one?
or just in close range/ship.
Yes. What's the point of arguing which one is better if you have no choice?
@@ThaitopYT exactly. Kind of like saying a gun would be even more better than a sword, so a medieval knight should use a gun. A Klingon doesn't typically use a bat'leth unless it's during a duel.
Edit: Apparently I'm wrong. The were used as melee weapons during wars, and were best used in situations where the environment acted as cover that could be pivoted around (such as inside ship interiors or around trees) My bad.
Worf fought a duel and won with his bat'leth against Duras with a straight sword.
The bat'leth is the main melee weapon of the Klingons, they use it in war too not just duels.
Today is a good day to watch Shadiversity
Shad didn't fix the batleth, he just made a final fantasy sword...
I have to disagree with Shad about the Batleth. To me, the Batleth is a dueling weapon and not a field weapon.
The amount of times Klingons used it as a battlefield weapon in DS9 disagrees with you.
Great vid as always! Didn't expect to see Jackie in this one. Haha
Love that they revisit old videos and weapons.
Yes Shad we know you hate everything except swords XD
You fixed the algorithm it seems! ;-)
For the algorithm
It has benefits for defense as a quarter staff, for offense as a sword breaker and an axe and a sword in close combat.
It seems more like it is designed as a heavily defensive weapon like a staff but for tight quarters like narrow hallways or caves. The design can block with the center and sweep up from below to disembowel or cut the legs. For lower tighter spaces swinging overhand can be impossible for a long weapon. It is very well suited to parry and sweep either end to wound. The center curves are to control your opponent's weapon then the longer points are to attack.
I like the look of the redesign, but Tyranth is right: that's not a bat'leth. Could be something from the same "family" of weapons, but not a bat'leth. Hmm... Shad'leth
It's like if you told him to make a one-handed Bat'leth and he hands you a D'k tahg
Canonically Klingons are shown to be stronger than Humans so the 5kg weight would be less detrimental to them.
And yet plenty of Klingons have lost in melee combat and other contests of strength against humans.
@@clothar23 And they've also won against races with much greater strength like vulcans and jem hadar. My point isn't that they'd win every fight or individuals within each race can't be stronger but that being stronger than humans ON AVERAGE would make a 5kg weapon not be on overweight weapon like it would be to a human. 5kg is a heavy weapon for the AVERAGE human. Not all humans. I train with an 8kg sledgehammer and I swing it around as easily as a smaller man would a 4kg sledge. I use a 60lb bow for practice, 100 shots per day, and not a single one of my friends can even draw it. (They aren't archers.) My initial comment was on AVERAGES not specific individuals.
Any real melee weapon would be superior. Sword, polearm, spear, staff - they all have far superior range.
@@ChristophBrinkmann And your point is? They already discussed that in the video...
I came here to say the same thing, QAPLA’!
While he's mostly right, I still think the Bat'leth isn't that bad
Worf says "My bat' leth kills all threats to Picard, and he's like, you're better than Yar, damn right I'm better than Yar."
"I could teach you, but you're an honor-less targ!"
8:00 reminds me that during the violence of 2020 in the US, I kept a heavy table disassembled because its leg weighed about 5 kilos. I, at 90kg and 1.7m with former rock climber arms, could hit maybe once with it because it was so unwieldy. Granted the two 1/4x20 bolts sticking out and all the square corners at that weight would hit like a freight train jousting a knight with a telephone pole, but it was unwieldy with the changes in diameter from all the lathe work on it.
For it's intended use in spaceship boarding, I think the inner spikes are actually very useful. Block/cut the hand with the phaser and then use the inner spikes in 2-hand mode to either stab the head or teh stomach.
And the outer spikes are for reach, especially in one handed mode.
Tyranth... you did a GREAT job! Shad is always gonna be a pain in the butt to deal with in "debates" like this one... not because he's right or you're unprepared but because he's shad... you gotta love the total package because vexatious as he may be you always know his heart is in the right place! What makes this video fun is you being slightly wrongfooted and flustered to shad's earnestness... also, you gotta know he probably started having the argument about the batleth with one of the daemons swimming around in his head several hours before you got there... and will still be having the argument long after everyone else in Australia has fallen asleep this afternoon or whatever time it gets dark in the acurssed upside down kingdom of theves and leppers you guys inhabit...smh birds aren't real either (and the world isn't round or flat it's obviously a negatively curved surface). Cheers m8!
are they aussies? I thought i remembered them saying they were in NZ (although I guess that's effectively almost the same thing) 🤔
The only thing I know about this thing is that a man in Florida swung it at a roundabout.
😂
You’ve heard of Florida Man; I give you Florida Warrior.
Shad: "How do we fix the Bat'Leth? Turn it into a Shard Blade."
Well the weight is based on Klingon strength, too, so the canon weight is stupid but the realostic weight ospre reasonable concerning their canon strength and endurance. Bevause Klongons aren't just stronger, but WAY more enduring. They can go for days, and if a factor's impact is reduced enough, then it becomes negligible in consideration.
The problem isn't that Star Trek writers didn't understand about the ideal weight for weapons, like many Americans, they didn't understand kilos.
I think, for me, the comparison weapons for the Bat'leth, are Roman weapons used by gladiators. Typically, Roman legionaries didn't go into battle armed with tridents and nets, but it looked impressive in the arena and there were cultural reasons for a retiarius to do so.
We need to get someone out there to make a real Shad’leth and test it!
Title of the video: Shad makes sword and calls it bat'leth
Let's see a sparing match between the Bat'Leth, Shad's new design, and a sparring long sword or arming sword.
It's not whether or not there is a situation that it could be useful, it's in what situation would it be the best choice. Is it optimized for any situation, or even set of situations? The best option I could think of was adventuring, a situation where you would be fighting in both enclosed and open spaces against armored and unarmored foes with and without weapons. It is very versatile, for all its faults, though Shad's sword does perform better in that situation as well.
Careful with these thumbnails, they may make them look samey and tiring. Maybe shake it up with relevant fonts like a Star Trek font?
I almost thought it was an older video until i looked when it was posted. I'm subbed to the channel but would definitely have glossed over it if i didnt notice the upload date. Maybe a title like The Bat'leth Re-visited and Re-designed: Featuring Tyranth
Qapla! 🍻
Well done Shad. This is the content that was made for TH-cam.
I can see a use; a Klingon boarding party using these to push and cut their way through narrow corridors of starships and space stations/colonies. Techno barbarian space pirates.
I usually naturally side with Tyrant, but I gotta give you credit for this design
It's so cool looking and probably quite functional once scaled down