Why were FLAILS used in medieval combat?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2021
- Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/scholagladiatoria_sep_1 and get a special starter pack 💥 Available only for the next 30 days
Why were flails used in medieval warfare, what advantages do they offer, and why weren't they more popular? Collaboration video with Tod: • Weird Weapons from His...
Patreon & Extra Videos: / scholagladiatoria
Support & extra content on Subscribestar: www.subscribestar.com/matt-ea...
Facebook & Twitter updates, info and fun:
/ historicalfencing
/ scholagladiato1
Schola Gladiatoria HEMA - sword fighting classes in the UK:
www.swordfightinglondon.com
Matt Easton's website and services:
www.matt-easton.co.uk/
Easton Antique Arms:
www.antique-swords.co.uk/ - บันเทิง
Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/scholagladiatoria_sep_1 and get a special starter pack 💥 Available only for the next 30 days
@Geo-fury Eeeeh... no. Bear skin is just that, skin. It ofcourse acted as armor a little bit, but its not in any way close to even gambeson levels of protection, much less chainmail.
in assassin's creed Valhalla flail is dope!
so powerful to use.
the most powerfull high lvl regularly respaun soldiers are equiped with flails too.
before playing this game I accidentally constracted flail like tool with my levi straus belt.)))
Curious how nobody ever thinks about the advantages of the horsemans flail when used on horseback.
i think in Peasant revolts there where Flails comon .
I think Knights had to know how to defend against.
If you and tod were to do a scientific test the length of the flail fully extended straight should be the same length as the stick and weight. I believe a flail will produce more force because it is like a whip or trebuchet, the speed of the lever at the point of force(hands or counter weight for trebuchet) is much slower than at the end of articulation. A human using a whip doesn't swing the handle at supersonic speeds but the leverage and transfere of energy to the very end of the whip is so great it makes a sonic boom by going faster than the speed of sound. In order to get good energy transfer the handle or point of force is always much heavier than the end point being accelerated, a whips end is much lighter than the thick heavy handle and a trebuchets counter weight is many times heavier than the stones being thrown. I look foreward to you and tod testing this.
Would the use of the one handed flail while mounted be due to hand shock? If you strike someone with it while you and your mount are armored to protect from backlash, and the weapon does not jerk as much in your hand when you strike with it, this advantage might be enough of a reason that some people preferred it. Most one handed flails that I saw in the painting presented were from mounted people, while those on foot used two handed flails.
I think that's a really good point, especially for cavalry. You'd have to be doubly careful though not to injure your horse.
@@Robert399 Hold your arm out a little bit and swing a flail tip around vertically. Easy mode mace with more range and less hand shock.
Generally, the Footman's weapon was always longer than the mounted sidearm, when it was a sidearm. For example a Footman's Mace. This was mostly so you had a hand free to control the horse. (And hold the shield, if any.)
The Scholar-General made that exact point about its use by Chinese cavalry in response to one of Shad's videos.
@@thekillers1stfan Yes but once it strikes it can bounce anywhere, quite likely into your horse's flank (or head).
I think the question you should be asking yourself as a dirt-poor serf, farmer or peasant, is this:
Do I go to war with my fists or do I take the flail?
I choose STICK. :D
The peasant probably did have a staff. Which suggests that the flail was better as a battlefield weapon.
@@fpassow1 the pole part of the flail is a staff. Disassembly cannot be very hard. Maybe there even is a spare arround. That would support your idea.
You say that as if a farmer couldnt take a number of other implements to use as a weapon. And even if he couldnt, he could still take the head of the flail off if it was advantageous. The fact that the flail was used as it is clearly indicates it was not purely a last resort improvised weapon.
"Striking comes down to timing and distance." That right there is pure-quill 24 Karat Board-Certified Truth. Write it on parchment and put it in the Martial Arts Scriptures and the Secret Lost Book of Shaolin.
Or write it in a comment under a Shadiversity video
@@oneofegoraptorschins4422 Where it will be .... oh never mind. I am trying to give up gratuitous catty remarks. :)
talking about unit composition, titbit about the Hussites: "The basic unit of the Hussite army was the wagon. Sources either quote 10 or 20 as the standard crew for a wagon. Certainly German ordinaces of the era put the required crew at 20 'after the Hussite fashion'. This is usually broken down as 2 armed drivers, 2 handgunners, 6 crossbowmen, 4 flailmen, 4 halberdiers and 2 pavisiers."
Sounds kinda fun, like something out of Mad Max, or zombie movies.
Pavisier? So what do they do, just hold shields?
@@nunyabiznes33 Yes, they hold shields. One place they might be holding them is in the space between two neighboring wagons. In "dismounted" combat they can provide a bit of the defense that flails otherwise lack, while allowing the flails to attack over them freely.
I can imagine a soldier starting to swing his flail and finding himself alone pretty quickly as his friends disperse and get away from him
Another bit on things such as the Hussites-note that the walls of their war wagons would provide the defense, much like curtain wall battlements. The ability to duck behind the wall would mitigate a lot of the defensive problems of flails-making it harder to grab them (and less of a problem even if they are, since the person holding it may still be well out of reach and able to rearm themselves) and providing cover akin to a giant shield, while also limiting the variety of attacks that can reach them. Similarly, flails used _from_ horseback have less of a problem with their slow recovery since, after the strike, the horse has probably carried you well out of reach of anyone for more than enough time to ready another attack, anyways.
Just a note, flail recovery isn't any slower than maces of a similar design. Since there's less torque, it ought to be faster if anything.
@@vanivanov9571 I think it is a relative speed. To strike with a blunt weapon you need to return to a strike position, for a bladed weapon you can flip and draw a reverse cut without much force from an extended position without needing power, blades do not need to return to their strike position. The time to recover from a strike and be in a position to deliver a second blow is time other weapons do not need (as much), and if you aren't threatening a blow, then you are in pure defence and vulnerable to counter strike in that time, and lacking a guard, you are doubly vulnerable, then add in the flexible joint/chain reducing your solid blocking surface and you have a serious lack of defensive options relative to other weapons. That reduction in recovery time till you are fully prepared for you next action could be death on the face of a skilled opponent.
@@littlekong7685 Yeah, blunt-force weapons require heavy swings to be used effectively. That's a major advantage for concentrated pressure weapons, blades.
But as to defence... How are you planning to defend, exactly? They demonstrated in the sparring video you can defend just fine. If the haft was longer than that, it'd have more torque and weight (the square of the length, IIRC), which makes it more awkward for attack and defence.
And I just pointed out recovery should be faster if anything, due to that reduced torque.
There is one important variable people overlooked. In life/death battle, where you and your enemy stand also matter.
@@chengkuoklee5734 there are some very good observations here, but I have to agree with you… positional awareness is already *vital* in any kind of combat; and flails (or most any flexible weaponry) require even more attention towards relative position of combatants… pretty damning, imho.
There may be some merit to use in Mounted combat, but I have no experience with that, tbh.
Consider that a traditional sling is functionally very similar to a flail - much higher tip speeds can be generated for the same amount of energy input. That will absolutely result in harder percussive force. But also that timing and form are absolutely crucial for accuracy. The flail is probably much like a sling in that a skilled user can do amazing things with it - but requires considerable practice to be proficient.
4:27, there are STILL people on the internet that adamantly insist flails never existed historically!
Then proceed to set up a straw man by making the flail chain as long as the handle.
Wow people are stubborn and wrong on the internet?! Also, this floor appears to be made of floor.
@@martytu20 there are historical flail type weapons with chains longer than handles as well, so even that argument falls flat.
@@HeadCannonPrime I disagree with your floor assertion, as a life long floorist.
@@LangstonDev At least we can all agree that the floor is round
I think you are correct in that it made you look like a peasant if you had a flail instead of any other weapon. Effective but unpopular because its associated with the poors. Then comes the 15th century and the start of pastoral romanticism and the nobility starts to dress and fight like peasants for fun, which is where they start showing up in fencing treatises.
That makes a lot of sense. The Hussites didn't scoff at peasants like most armies of the time, they embraced the fact that they were formed mostly from peasants and used it to their advantage. Thus, flails.
The Hussite tactics focused on getting the absolute most of what they had, to levels unprecedented at the time. If medieval combat was a game, they were using all the exploits. Including that new weapon which most armies still didn't know how to incorporate in their battle order, and suddenly found it's OP when properly used against them - firearms.
Another advantage: Much less hand shock!
Yes! And it's so obvious, too, if you've ever (accidentally or on purpose) hit something unyielding with a staff or similar. That really really hurts, so you have to hit it softer not to hurt yourself.
@@GodzillasaurusJr I guess they trained their hands to use a staff at full force, but the hands get tired faster.
In contrast, a farmer could use a flail for hours.
To expand on what I said elsewhere re the short, military version:
You'll find quite a few examples in old German castles.
Unlike English knights, German ones tended to fight on horseback. A one handed flail is a great back-up weapon for a charging man on horseback.
Consider that a battle can last hours. Start charge with lance. When you break or lose it, draw flail from your left side saddle holster and bash away while you still got room to move your horse in spurts. When the melee gets worse, or you lose the flail, draw short axe (with spike on the other side) from the other saddle holster. After that, sword and finally dagger.
BTW, you (and your horse) are armored. A gambeson to cushion blows, and some iron on top of that. Steel gauntlets. Compared to the many dangers you are facing on the battlefield, a back-bouncing flail is a minor nuissance.
Not THAT many examples survive, of course, because in medieval times the flail (long or short) was considered a "unritterliche", unknightly weapon, like the crossbow. Good for Hussites and peasants, or fighting them as well as heathen, but a true noble fighting fellow god-fearing knights? Nah.
So besides some robber barons, only non-noble (but fully armored) men at arms were likely to wield them regularly. For a knight, if he used them at all, it wouldnt be a priced possession like a sword, which meant they were way less likely to survive the centuries in some family arms collection.
That goes double, as those weapons weren't works of art like good swords, but as utilitarian as they come. During the middle ages, steel was relatively scarce. Low quality wrought or cast iron did the job well enough for a flail, so nobody had any qualms about reusing the metal for other purposes when times changed.
And one major change that happened in the HRE in the 15-hundreds was the "industrial revolution" taking place in metalurgy and metalworking in general, due to more and more water power being used to drive huge furnaces, hammers and mining equipment.
Production numbers for high quality (mild and hard) steel shot up exponentially (Austria exported 1,5 million knifes / year to the Ottomans before Ferdinand I put in an embargo; not too successfull thanks to smuggling via Poland).
Which made the 16th centrury all-metal flails possible. By that time, the knight had lost his role to heavy cav (cuirassiers) who didnt have any qualms about using flails whenever it seemed advantagous.
This German book from 1893 has a chapter on flails, tracing them through history. Starting at p 792.
archive.org/details/diekriegswaffeni00demmuoft/page/n3/mode/1up
First use is attributed to the huns, though that one is said to have been more whip-like.
Elsewhere? You mean everywhere. Relax buddy.
@@starnostras I say go for it and keep posting it. The op is not a big youtuber that can relay this important information and have it reach a very wide audience. The most he could do is to relay this info and hope that it reaches other yt users to then bascially share this info with others.
I've always heavily disagreed with shad's take on the flail. He basically went on and said that the one handed flail is useless saying that it's impractical and that it would harm his fellow foot soldiers, where in fact, the one handed flail has always been a weapon for horseback.
SHORT- almost every farmer in medieval times had used flails to thresh wheat for decades, making them expert marksmen (modern equivalent to a roofer wielding a hammer)
LONG- the construction of the flail is made to lessen the shock to the forearm, especially when you realize that most farmers would be spending 3-5 weeks cutting grain stalks during the day, then spreading the wheat, millet, or rice out across the threshing floor and working through the night, get 4 hours of sleep, then start before sunrise and do it all over again.
The flail is (mostly) an adapted agricultural implement (like the Asian short flail / rice flail aka nun-chucks)
Exactly ! The articulation made hard work less painful. And as with so many other tools they were taken to war by peasants. So the next step was to make tools into weapons adding metal reinforcement and spikes.
@@rotwang2000 The video "Threshing with hand flails - two pairs" gives you a great idea of the coordination and impact from (not-so-young) farmers. First, imagine they're pissed of peasants corning a viking raider and mashing him to a pulp. Second, imagine an advancing battle line of 20-40 synchronized flails wielded by young men who've spent their lives doing manual labor. Third, think of the sound- the psychological effect of a battle line of 40 men advancing with synchronized flails bouncing off the ground- whump, Whump, WHump, WHUmp, WHUMp, WHUMP...
Realy cool remark "lessen the shock to the arm of the wielder" we are in-variously regarding effectiveness in dealing damage to opponent not to the stress caused by hitting 100 time with that heavy mace !
@@stephanelegrand8181 The ACTUAL pace (based on re-enactors) was closer to 15-30 strikes a minute (15 for a duet of threshers, 30 for a quartet of threshers)
For probably 12 hours, over many weeks, so it's actually about 250,000 to 500,000 times swinging a grain flail to hit the threshing floor.
Then, do that for decades- you've got people with millions of coordinated
strikes as part of their muscle memory-
@@stephanelegrand8181 Interesting points. Since most medieval soldiers didn't die in battle, they fought and then fought again, in those situations something where you keep up your defense and let them exhaust themselves on offense would be common- (think Star Wars- Form 3 lightsaber / Rocky Balboa boxing, or biblical David & Goliath) keep inviting (but then parrying) their full exertion swing-a-mace with your low-exertion spinning-a-flail until they make a mistake.
Think of a flail as energy storage. A damage capacitor.
I can see knights and other "people of quality" practicing with "peasant weapons" such as flails in order to train how to defend against them, similarly to Aikidokas training with swords in order to train in defending against them.
Something you said needs closer examination- "disruptive" weapons. Every time a new weapon is introduced, it disrupts the usual ways of making war. I don't doubt flails were disruptive to soldiers trained with "real" weapons. You might consider doing more videos on that topic.
It's also a way to dishonor a prissy pants, contextually, likely. Y'know.
Nothing takes the steam out of years of swordsman training like being trounced by either a simple (yet skill-equivalent effective) staff, or worse off a flail or improv pitch fork. Though that is also a difference between duels and grabbing any weapon you can in a bad situation on a battlefield. Being self-comfort level familiar with most if not all weapon types is ideal for a warrior, since you may need to improvise, repeatedly, and face unknown challenges. I don't think many trained for those Hussite tactics, but once they were seen, were worth considering..
As for disruptive.. that multi-arrow launcher is an oddity I told some about before.
Flails were used well into the 19th century as self defense weapons. Look up "fruit cosh" and "life preserver weapon".
I've got an early Victorian era bludgeon that's not quite a fruit cosh. The head and shaft are proportioned an awful lot like Tod's big flail with an elongated head and a chain rather than a cotton rope holding it together. There's also something that looks suspiciously like a set of toothmarks on the head. The museum card said it was a "Coachman's Flail"
My great-grandad’s brother was killed with a leather cosh in Lemon South Dakota in the 1920’s. He was hit at the base of the skull from behind while drinking at the bar. He had been mistaken for someone the killer had previously quarreled with over mining wages.
@@toddellner5283 So cool to hear you have that piece of history! I’ve seen few flails like that online, they look a little like nunchucks with a designated head end. Look up a site called Cthulhureference (specifically the post about melee weapons) for a few pictures of the original flails.
@@CannaCJ Ouch, what a way to go. Sounds like he got hit with a classic blackjack, a lead head attached to a coiled spring and wrapped in leather.
@@KnightlyNerd Uh, I'm getting a lot of HPL Mythos results but can't find a site that matches what you're talking about.
I had a chance to use a Czech farmer's flail a few years back (the weapon the Czechs used to defeat European crusaders) and noticed:
1. It takes almost no skill to use. A rank amatuer like me was able to swing it effectively. Only limit is the users strength.
2. As Matt mentions, there is very little impact on your hands as the impact falls on the lever. Unlike a sword or an axe, your hands dont hurt using it.
3. There is literally no defence against it. The way it whips around the shield, the defender has no chance.
You can see how Czech farmers were able to kick the stuffing out of German knights with these.
Of you can just make sure to block the half that's swinging at you and not the half that isn't, something which would be exceptionally easy for someone trained with a shield versus someone who is quite literally just flailing away at them.
@@seanfoltz7645 Gosh, I never thought of that.
If only all of those German soldiers who were beaten by peasants with flails had thought of that. Its so simple when you put it that way. If you and your expertise had been there, Jan Zizka and his army of peasants armed with flails wouldn't have been undefeated. Only you knew the secret.
Theres more to it than that otherwise they would have been used more
@@ironsideeve2955 the main reason Jan Zizka the Hussite General used them is because he raised a peasant army. All peasant farm workers knew how to use flails. They were adapted with spikes. Zizka also used armored wagons with small howitzers (the first to use field artillery) and early handguns. The Hussites defeated 5 Crusades sent by the Pope and the rest of Europe. Zizka was blind the last 4 years of his life and never lost a battle. Often heavily outnumbered, Battle of Sudomer was maybe 400 peasants armed with flails, polearms, handguns, a dozen wagons and a small number of crossbow men against some 2000 mounted knights (Pilsen Landfrieden and Strakonice) and won. The battle of Vitkov Hill was an even larger force ratio something like 7-8000 knights against a few hundred men in a defensive position just outside of Prague.
@@peterkratoska4524You shouldn't forget that the Hussits fought in a bulge. Sure, you can block a Flail, but in most cases that isn't the only one.
The Knights also fought with their nose high up, just another peasant revolt...Jan Žižka and Andreas Prokop proofed the wrong.
The Bohemian Peasants fought well organized!
Peasant: I must use this farming tool as a weapon because I have no other choice. My king has called me to war and I will likely die, fighting for my life with this tool.
Noble: Haha look at this thing! I killed a peasant for it or something. Just look how it flops haha! Hey man, you wanna armor-up and spar with it? It’ll be fun I promise!
LMAO! 🤣
Huzzah
lol :D
The guy that runs the Object History channel wrote a great book on flexible weapons. I think it was called "Saps, Blackjacks and Slungshots: A History of Forgotten Weapons."
Ahhh… the Ne’r-Do-Well line of weaponry.
Pretty interesting since this subclass is ‘forgotten’, largely, on purpose.
Good book. Especially the part about the Protestant flail. 300 years before Bruce lee.!
Not forgotten, secret. Love my slungshot. Loaded with a 2" steel ball out of a ferris wheel bearing.
@@paulpolito2001 depends on who is doing the forgetting. Those weapons are largely illegal today because they are so effective.
On that "flail science" topic, consider that the first man-made device to break the sound barrier wasn't a car or airplane, but a whip. The crack we're all familiar with is the sound of the tip breaking the sound barrier and causing a sonic boom. Flails (obviously) don't do this the same way, but the fact that they have similar flexible elements could contribute to interesting physics-based weirdness happening.
Experiment with different timings, like swinging and stopping at different positions relative to target. In one test, you might stop early so it swings forward and is curving back toward you when it hits, stopping almost in line so the head hits the target as it's lining up with the shaft, or swinging past/through the target like you would with any normal weapon so the head hits behind the shaft's swing. You'll probably find that other weapons hit with more consistent force/energy on most swings because it's easier to land decent hits reliably, but flails *MIGHT* have a higher potential impact force because of the nature of how they... flail.
Fun thing.. when the ring on mine came too loose, I was smashing a goose cookie jar with it, and the flail head flew several yards into some brush and wasn't found for a year. It luckily(!) went in a straight line.
It was a really good swing, apparently, and I'm not sure of some of the science involved but there is *a lot* of energy once you wind it up in three rotations or so and get it whirling before exerting a direct angle for the force. My swing was horizontal and forward to direct any accidental threat forward away from anyone and myself, and it 'went well' like that. But man.. I can only imagine the PSI give or take one going pin ball through a sea of legs. Especially armored ones, it'd ricochet instead of get buried.
I don't actively do much with mine since it's a pound and spiked, and I have yet to find a sturdy enough link to weld on and replace the old crappy one. I could always tell that much about it.. the link between the head and the chain should be the strongest. When I do 'play' with it, my aim is to grasp the deceleration point our kind host mentioned and the kind of 'what angle / snap of the wrist does what' dynamics. Getting it to stall for a redirection takes some experimenting. I've always played with chains like that but it is in the chain or tether design. Different weights and styles of links of chains determine how they can be swirled (my orientation training trick) and also how/where they snag or sweep smoothly in arcs.
And yes, while a flail won't cause the same effects a whip does, they might be awful to shield against, especially if they deny impact shock on the wielder and the defender has to take it. If they don't out-right break shields, potentially. Probbly need a strong guy to pull that off but nothing FUBARs a shield wall quite like splitting said shields.
The thing as he notes is, as much as it has a variable from instabilities (motor control, wind even, hang-ups in the chain flow) if you do apply understanding to it, it isn't overly unpredictable. The chain design is at least half of it, as well as the head design and the handle is factored in with it for scale. I use various chains I've come across, and not same-style/sized to contrast directly, but I do know they behave differently. Rectangle links, oblong wide loop ones, and tighter rings are going to require different, patterns. It defines some of the arcs they can take, and how they handle those transitions of direction/angle and momentum.
The 'flailing' is more what a person can do with it. If surrounded.. yes, you could go very wild with it and finding an opening could be difficult. My idea with one has always been how many swing rotations it takes to achieve a 'max output' before attack-swinging, and I haven't had comfortable space to try it much, but also what angles need what kind of wind up or self-safe transitions to bridge. Redirecting an attack to an under-swing is very useful, if it can be done reliably. Either way I agree, though more so in terms of 'If I crank it five times over and really get it going for an overhead swing, is it really worth the effort and time put behind it?'
Based on what it took to bend the sketchy link my cheap one came with, certainly possible, and you literally can't swing a static mace with the kind of *rotational, centrifugal force a chain brings. I've seen that aspect of momentum mentioned about tetsubo swinging, since it almost maimed a guy's shoulder who tested one out out of curiosity in a blog. Crushing a cinder block did give his body some nasty impact recoil, a sectioned staff can't generate the same force due to being much lighter but it can generate more kinetic energy.
This same argument could be made about melee'ing versus throwing an ax or knife. Thrown is less effective since it can bounce and hand-held can resist or pull a less ideal target strike, but you can probably cut deeper. Anyone who's ever thrown something into a tree and couldn't get it back out, can attest to that I think.. though that happens sometimes in general due to the nature of lodging a thing. He does mention here, too though, how you can't *really* pull back on a flail swing. Beyond that, it is an application of manual coordination and strength with physics, someone who is able to perform that kung fu trick of keeping a bird on their hand/finger by countering the bird or butterfly's flight take-off movement would have the ideal coordination-style to manage a flail. I do see the eccentric element and nature of the tool/weapon type, but I also know some of my own inconsistencies are more from a click in my shoulder or a poor elbow pivot than 'the weapon', or my understanding of the chain's pattern. The number of links and length ratio is probably the vital piece, since the handle just needs to be sturdy and of length, and the attachments sturdy. Chain and head weight and style is key. If the chain is janky and hangs up, or isn't being functional because the fulcrum points are off (the middle of the chain in terms of links) then it's just a bad design. I mean, I've gotten name-brand knives even of a novelty sort and sometimes they lack the most basic safety features to the point it's basically useless.
And as I mentioned about nunchucks.. these types of weapons can choke or bind someone up nicely. Trick move, too.. juggle it around to catch the ball and surprise wallop with the handle?
@@jairoukagiri2488 Lots of info there, thanks! Definitely sounds like you've had more practice swinging the things around than I have.
hell yeah! a 27 minute video of a british guy talking about flails!
what about armour being sometimes optimized for frontal protection, but flail might hit the back or insides on arms/legs?
imagine that long spikes will hit and penetrate your arm holding shield - then the flail is swiftly pulled back - while spikes are still stuck in your arm ... or the same with your lightly (mail only) protected back
also, farmers might be used to work in groups when using flails - so they might know how to be safe to their friends
Added poing about messing up your judgment and intimidation : Every timd Matt swings his flail in this video I genuinely think 'That's it, that's where the camera gets struck.'
Mom: “What’s all that noise? What are you hitting out there?!” You: “It’s for science!”
Personal speculation: flails may have existed in the historical military equivalent of what modern gamers might refer to as a counter-meta pick, ie. they may have maintained some advantages over common opponents in part because - and only so long as or to the extant that - they maintained their relatively uncommon deployment/use
Extra special ops
The Hussite uprising was fundamentally A peasants uprising. Ergo, A lot of farming utensils, or modified farming utensils, we're used, especially at the beginning of the rebellion. Flails and wagons were commonly found on farms. The halberds and firearms were probably captured or from defectors.
The Gussied, not being trained in combat, mainly fought defensively. However, the armored wagons allowed for offensive strategic actions, but in a tactical manner.
You've got some good thoughts, but without much insight into situation in Czech lands (Bohemian in latin) of that period. After the death of Charles IV. the kingdom fell into constant crisis in which the royal family and all the major feudal clans fight each other, so the whole country turned into battlefield. Tens of warlords and their "družina's" operated there and later participated in Hussite movement. They all were professional soldiers and many of them had foreign military experience from Polad, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, etc.. Meantime in kingdom not only towns had their military companies with townsmen participating, but village homesteads were obligated to have "zbroj" which sustained of helmet, some protective gear and weapon (often crossbow and/or polearm) to be able to place a soldier when ordered by ruler. There are registers from that period and especially towns (which took part in the Hussite movement too) had sometimes pretty big arsenal with lots of firearms included and people who could operate them. So you see that although most of the Hussites came from lower classes of feudal society, they still had some solid military base.
@@kubislav1313
As a general rule, peasants do not risk there lives in a revolt against seemingly seriously superior forces unless they were desparate. LOL
Originally, it was just a religous peasant uprising, but the town militias and some notable minor lords joined soon after.
@@kubislav1313 people also sometimes forget that Prague was second biggest city in Europe during that time and there were rich silver mines in Bohemia.
Firearms did not have to be accuired from fallen enemies they were manufactured in Bohemia. Words like howitzer (houfnice) or pistol (píšťala) are of czech origin. Also Žižka was military genius who perfected use of terrain, mixed military, firearms and swift countrrattacks in such manner that hussites won several crusade wars. In the end only one who could defeat hussites were hussites and they did.
Hello. Do hit flails harder? Let us ask PHYSICS! And the answer is.... it depends.
I will try and make this short. A flail's strong points are the high weight at the end and a comparably long swing radius. This means you will reach very high velocities with the weight and this translates to high impuls and high kinetic energy. Great! BUT, there is a fundamental difference between a stick and a flail. The moment you hit your target the flail the energy of the head piece will be consumed on the impact (broadly speaking). In contrast if a stick hits the target the user will continue to translate energy into the stick and perform work on the target through the rigid body of the stick. This means, depending on the strength of the user and the speed the user can reach with the flail either weapon can be more damaging.
Realistically so if you talk about raw power the stick wins in a average to strong persons hand.
The point of using flails from a higher elevation is important. Flails were also used in ancient China, and in China they were usually considered cavalry weapons.
I also imagine that the massive shock and reverberation forces in the hand from a strike delivered on horseback would be quite unpleasant on most long wooden weapons. A flail would dissipate the energy of the strike into the articulation, allowing for allot of comfort for the user attacking with the weapon.
Yes, the flails found in Eastern Europe were also cavalry weapons for this purpose
This is probably the best argument I've heard in favor of flails.
@@thekillers1stfan I didn't know that, and that is a interesting fact, because If I'm not mistaken the Mongols used flails from horseback as well. I wonder if eastern European flails showed up historically before or after the Mongol invasion.
@@-Zevin- I believe the ones I read about were from the 800-900s AD
To expand on what I said elsewhere re the short, military version:
You'll find quite a few examples in old German castles.
Unlike English knights, German ones tended to fight on horseback. A one handed flail is a great back-up weapon for a charging man on horseback. Attack with your lance first. When you have lost that one, and are in a melee with enemy footsoldiers, you easily can grab a flail stuck in a saddlebag.
Not THAT many examples survive, of course, because in medieval times the flail (long or short) was considered a "unritterliche", unknightly weapon, like the crossbow. Good for Hussites and peasants, or fighting them as well as heathen, but a true noble fighting fellow god-fearing knights? Nah.
So besides some robber barons, only non-noble (but fully armored) men at arms were likely to wield them regularly. For a knight, if he used them at all, it wouldnt be a priced possession like a sword, which meant they were way less likely to survive the centuries in some family arms collection.
That goes double, as those weapons weren't works of art like good swords, but as utilitarian as they come. During the middle ages, steel was relatively scarce. Low quality wrought or cast iron did the job well enough for a flail, so nobody had any qualms about reusing the metal for other purposes when times changed.
And one major change that happened in the HRE in the 15-hundreds was the "industrial revolution" taking place in metalurgy and metalworking in general, due to more and more water power being used to drive huge furnaces, hammers and mining equipment.
Production numbers for high quality (mild and hard) steel shot up exponentially (Austria exported 1,5 million knifes / year to the Ottomans before Ferdinand I put in an embargo; not too successfull thanks to smuggling via Poland).
Which made the 16th centrury all-metal flails possible. By that time, the knight had lost his role to heavy cav (cuirassiers) who didnt have any qualms about using flails whenever it seemed advantagous.
This German book from 1893 has a chapter on flails, tracing them back through history. Starting at p 792.
archive.org/details/diekriegswaffeni00demmuoft/page/n3/mode/1up
The first ones used on horseback are attributed to the huns there, though those where more whip like.
Fun fact, in the his introduction Paulus Hector Mair mentions it as "an old weapon which the Sarmatians, Huns, and other peoples used for ages called the flail." While that is certainly an interesting idea to imagine, it should probably be taken with a grain of salt as in the same part of the book he also said that the short staff was created by the Romans and Persians, the Dussack by the Spartans, the dagger by the ancient Germans, and the halberd and poleax by the Amazons!
Ah, the respected tradition of Pulling Facts Out Of The Bum so that you can Look Wise and nobody can prove you're wrong. So much of studying history is debunking that sort of rubbish.
He's not wrong. Well, not entirely wrong. Sort of. Eastern European and nomad cultures did use maces and articulated weapons since early medieval times at least - it's just that the flail that was used was the one handed kind, not the agricultural tool kind. There are even two different words in at least some Slavic languages to distinguish the two (Czech has cep and remdih, Slovak has cep and bijak for onehanded and twohanded kind respectively).
I'd love Matt and maybe even Todd to join the Nunchuck war, no matter which side (or more likely, a lack of true side) they might come in on. We all know Shad has a tendency to get a bit... energetic, sometimes, but quite frankly I've yet to see an argument that's made me genuinely question Shad's assertion that nunchucks are garbage.
th-cam.com/video/UpXxw1dnhkU/w-d-xo.html
Nevis already posted the video that tore Shad's nunchaku debate to shreds (though there are many videos that accomplish that mean feat). Shad's assertions were because he never hit anything with nunchaku before... he seriously was stunned to a shocked silence in his SECOND video, when he found you could apply push with nunchaku; so he never spent so much as one hour practicing his strikes before then.
And as for him being energetic, more like slimy, dishonest, and absurdly bullying, gross and vicious. He tried to incite a hate mob to attack the historical Longbow group, because they banned him after he trolled them like a child for literal HOURS. His lies and incitement against Nu were so bad, he had to tone it down a lot, and said nice things about Milani (the SMALLEST POSSIBLE youtuber he could find, with the worst argument to contest) while making crude sex jokes and belittling him. I've seen him attack small youtubers and boast about not being academic in his videos. And that's not to mention him getting people injured with terrible medical advice, censoring experts, or hearting degenerate comments which lick his feet and curse his enemies.
And I'm bewildered by anyone who considers Shad entertaining... his long, empty rants make Matt look concise, his last nunchaku video was almost two hours long and it was just him repeating himself and saying nothing, screaming until he goes hoarse.
@@EpsilonNought ...Brrr.... talk about cringe: _"Please Senpai, tell us how wrong our opinions are!"_ Thanks for letting me know my points made you angry enough to post this revulsion, but that you can't dispute one point I made, either about Shad or about his laughable arguments.
Come on, tell me how it was good of Shad to incite a hate-mob which harassed Nu Sensei, that he was right to do the same to the historical archery group who didn't like his trolling, or how he was justified in belittling the smallest possible youtuber for over an hour. If you're going to stand up for your revolting idol, who gets people to tear their shoulders, you might as well do it honestly and with actual arguments.
Admittedly, you already said he has the right to defend his lies... so apparently causing harassment and whipping up attack-mobs is fair game.
They would destroy the opposition.
@@mr.spider6859 Arguably, they already are, fighting a subtle guerilla warfare. Matt pointed out in the previous video that rebound isn't an issue, almost immediately.
Really enjoyed this, I am a 3 section flail practitioner and so I totally get the part about how you can take yourself out real easy ... flails like this enable a peasant to take on a swordsman and win I believe.... Can I come to one of your fight clubs to test this out?
Hi Matt, being a specialized weapon, I think it wasn't more popular because you just need one in a party of n. soldiers and more could interfere with one another, they lack the versatility that is needed by most men. Much like a grenades launcher makes sense among n. rifles, so a flail may make sense among n. spears. If I had to pick a wooden weapon in a farm to face the unknown, it would be a quarterstaff, because it's more versatile than a flail.
A pesant's flail is basically a quarterstaff with more reach and power. And much of the versatility of a quarterstaff is generally not as effective as simply braining them like it's a simple club. Most duels come down to luck and the better fighter, so you might get through regardless... but that's quite a handicap.
@@HAYAOLEONE if it had to be fully wooden, otherwise I'd bring an axe
@@vanivanov9571 I was making a plan for the "unknown" which includes wolves, robbers on the road and so on. There are many scenarios in which swinging a flail would be an hard task, the alpine bush being just one of them
@@carloparisi9945 My mistake, thought you were speaking of a duel. Yeah, quarter staff works better as a walking stick. You could even attach a head, with some forewarning; or even make it a staff-sling.
And true that flails aren't great for enclosed spaces, if you're going through dense woods.
All I can say is that those claiming that flails don't work or aren't functional, clearly have never been hit with the buckle of a belt before! Just sayin.... the two aren't all that different. 😐😐
of course they were functional or they never would have been used. Are they superior to a mace? no.
@@ebreshea They are if you want to hit a guy behind a shield or corner
They're also superior to the mace in terms of reach, power, torque, grappling and utility. Honestly, the only reason to prefer the mace is enclosed spaces.
@@ebreshea They are if you are mounted cavalry. No hand shock..
Of course they work but they are dangerous to use for a novice.
I used to be involved in re-enacments some time ago, and I specialized in ball and chain. I was the only one allowed in our group. The reason why they were effective is something you nailed. They went around things. If you aimed your handle for your opponent's shield, the ball would fly over the sheld and hit the opponent. Why there weren't more, is why I was the only one with one, is they are difficult to control. It was easy to hit yourself, it was easy to hit your mates, it was easy to get caught up on environmetal objects. And you couldn't pull a blow, there was no finesse. I did find a ball and chain effective up close. I didn't swing it wildly like you did, I would hold it back cocked, and use my shield to defend, and when my opponent presented his shield as trained, I would aim the handle at the shield and strike it, and it rarely missed. I would rap the shield, and the ball would fly around behind it almost every time.
It was also dangerous because the chain was prone to failure. I much preferred my poleaxe.
About 30 years ago I watched a reenacting of a Viking era battle in the UK. I dodged an axe head that had broken off during the melee and flew into the crowd. It missed everyone but the danger was real.
Called the Kisteni in Kievian Rus, they have a wide use and many are found in archaeological digs made from iron and came in many shapes
Kisteni= bone
@@rossmelnyk1900 it's not. Kist' is hand (the part ofthe arm distal from the wrist), and also brush/tassel (a bunch of freely waving, cropped strings). Other version of the etymology is derivation from Turkic kistän, club.
Bone in Russian and similar languages is kos't'.
@@ayebraine but Kist and Kost are not that different. In Ukrainian single bone can be called Kist and multiple bones can be called Kosti....I see no difference in meaning..
@@rossmelnyk1900 Look, I'm just not OK with you explaining to others that it's the case, when you haven't actually checked (at least it seems so).
Etymology is not about "making sense" at first glance (that's how folk etymology, and Zadornov's kooky theories, work). That's a frequent problem in translations, word looking the same doesn't mean it means the same.
So anyway, I checked with two main etymological dictionaries (Fasmer and Krylov). They definitely point at Turkic origin, kistän (club, truncheon), and disprove the link to kist' (hand/wrist). They also offer examples of the same etymology in other languages, e.g. in Polish (kiścień). Can there be more to it? Sure. But there need to be sources then.
@@ayebraine I understand your concerns. Yes I'm well familiar with etymological sound/ word phenomenon where two similar sounding words can have different roots. However, you should be aware that your etymological hypothesis of origins and meaning of this word is just one of THREE major hypothesis. So of course I have my sources...but good luck translating them..lol To be honestly I have no problem is this word means both...turkish word club as well as bone...since some of the first clubs made by humans were bones...
ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%8C
Something just occurred to me from watching this video. One use they could work for siege warfare? For defenders harassing men at arms trying to scale walls. Especially if the attacking forces were on ladders and some defenders were slamming the attackers close to the top of the walls. Of course in conjunction with the full compliment of other weapons too.
but we're fighting in a field
HUSSITE: we take the wall with us.
I also have the same guess. People often overlooked terrain variables in combat.
more people need to hear what you said about fear. I think you should make a new video with that excerpt.
I would imagine the problem with facing that pole type of flail, or at least appears that way from the sparring segments, is when you see your opponent holding it, you expect to facing something the length of the handle. But when the heading is not hanging down it's surprise extra length your brain did not account for.
In general, people are surprisingly good at judging the trajectory of a stick or a stone, but bad at predicting the trajectory of the head of a flail. There is no evolutionary advantage to it.
It's worth keeping in mind though that a part of this is may be due to a lack of modern familiarity with flails. If you where living in a medieval agricultural society and where accustomed to threshing grain with flails, you might find them to be much more predictable due to simple experience. You know, the same way we can predict exactly how a car is going to turn based on very subtle, almost subconscious, cues.
@@ColonelSandersLite Using a flail to thresh grain is very different from hitting a vertical object with the intent to do damage to that object.
Apart from that, human beings are good at predicting the trajectory of a single object because there was an evolutionary advantage, there is no evolutionary advantage in predicting the trajectory of flail-like objects.
@@quintoblanco8746 There is a pretty big advantage in not accidentally getting hit in the face by your fellow farmers while you're all in a circle threshing grain is what I'm saying.
@@ColonelSandersLite Yeah, that doesn't happen. I have used traditional flails and I have seen people using them.
People are not going wild.
The grain is on the ground. You aim at the ground. You don't aim at your fellow workers.
And you are focused on your own work, not on the people around you.
Because, you know, you trust them not to go wild and hit you.
This how people get work done.
Flails are everywhere, around the world, easy to train in, has no hand shock when striking, and entangles shields, weapons, arms and legs.
I think another reason they may have been used less often is the many points of failure. You have the shaft, the joint to the chain, the chain itself, the joint to the "projectile" bit, and the projectile bit itself. Lots of places for damage to leave the weapon inoperable.
higher chance of hitting yourself, and the chain/joint can get caught on clothing, armor, or other weapons.
@@dirus3142 Still a good choice for men at arms as a second weapon. A battle can last hours. Start charge with lance. When you break or lose it, draw flail from saddle holster and bash away while you still got room to move your horse in spurts. When the melee gets bad, or you lose the flail, draw short axe with spike on the other side. After that, sword and finally dagger.
@@dirus3142 flails are not nunchucks, they are designed to mitigate that risk. However it has higher chance than other weapons for friendly fire. It is a weapon where you need to divert some focus away for terrain awareness.
and how are these 'point of failure' more prone to damage than any other part of any other weapon ?
@@oevr37 Because a chain or hinge is more likely to break than a solid bit of wood with a socketed spear.
"About your brother Nunchucks...."
Flail: "He's adopted."
I've been wanting to make and test a pole flail for a while, out of all the articulated weapons, pole flails have made the most sense and seemed the most practical to me by far. Skallagrim also made a great video more recently looking at flails and talked about their lack of hand shock, which I find to be a really interesting aspect to articulated weapons. Loved the video, it will certainly lead to more discussion on this type of weapon, and I'm really looking forward to you future videos on it!
If you were interested in discussion, you would've accepted Object History's invitation to discuss... instead, you targeted Milani with crude jokes, screaming at and belittling him for over an hour.
To expand on what I said elsewhere re the short, military version:
You'll find quite a few examples in old German castles.
Unlike English knights, German ones tended to fight on horseback. A one handed flail is a great but cheap back-up weapon for a charging man on horseback.
Consider that a battle can last hours. Start charge with lance. When you break or lose it, draw flail from your left side saddle holster and bash away while you still got room to move your horse in spurts. When the melee gets worse, or you lose the flail, draw your mace or short axe (with spike on the other side) from the other saddle holster. After that, sword and finally dagger.
BTW, you (and your horse) are armored. A gambeson to cushion blows, and some iron on top of that. Steel gauntlets. Compared to the many dangers you are facing on the battlefield, a back-bouncing flail is a minor nuissance.
Not THAT many examples survive, of course, because in medieval times the flail (long or short) was considered a "unritterliche Waffe", an unknightly weapon, like the crossbow. Good for Hussites and peasants, or fighting them as well as heathen, but a true noble fighting fellow god-fearing knights? Nah.
So besides some robber barons, only non-noble (but fully armored) men at arms were likely to wield them regularly. For a knight, if he used them at all, it wouldnt be a priced possession like a sword, which meant they were way less likely to survive the centuries in some family arms collection.
That goes double, as those weapons weren't works of art like good swords, but as utilitarian as they come. During the middle ages, steel was relatively scarce. Low quality wrought or cast iron did the job well enough for a flail, so nobody had any qualms about reusing the metal for other purposes when times changed.
And one major change that happened in the HRE in the 15-hundreds was the "industrial revolution" taking place in metalurgy and metalworking in general, due to more and more water power being used to drive huge furnaces, hammers and mining equipment.
Production numbers for high quality (mild and hard) steel shot up exponentially (Austria exported 1,5 million knifes / year to the Ottomans before Ferdinand I put in an embargo; not too successfull thanks to smuggling via Poland).
Which made the 16th centrury all-metal flails possible. By that time, the knight had lost his role to heavy cav (cuirassiers) who didnt have any qualms about using flails whenever it seemed advantagous.
This German book from 1893 has a chapter on flails, tracing them through history. Starting at p 792.
archive.org/details/diekriegswaffeni00demmuoft/page/n3/mode/1up
First use is attributed to the huns, though that one is said to have been more whip-like.
@@positroll7870 Very good post. Thanks for sharing your research with us, and sharing your source. I'll make sure to check it out.
Interesting point that they were considered unritterliche... I hadn't realized they'd look down on them. Just because of their similarity to the threshing flail, or because they were deadly to knights like the crossbow, unsuitable for taking a prisoner?
@@vanivanov9571 A bit of both, probably. Maybe also some element of it being "crooked", not fighting straight .... "Hey, these dirty peasants are cheating!!!"
@@positroll7870 Hahah, I always find that funny. Like the British in the bayonet fencing contest, who whined that the Japanese used too many tricks, such as shouting loudly.
I think flails had a far better reputation with Eastern Europe, particularly the Rus.
Another interesting thing that I've noticed in your sparring video collab with Tod is the unusual places the flail head would often hit. Amongst others, the back of the thighs and legs, the back of the head (could it be part of the reason why we added rondels to the back of sallets?), the inside of the arm behind the shield, etc. More often than not, these areas were less armored if they were armored at all, hitting these vulnerable spots almost 'by accident' while they would usually require 'sniping' attacks, so to speak, which would otherwise put you in a less-than-ideal position towards the enemy, be it by comitting to the strike a lot or by grappling them/getting dangerously close.
Some very interesting points made. Fear and intimidation is definitely a huge part of war. Flame throwers are a great example. Another is that, an archer could loose more arrows a minute than a musketeer fire shots, but the musket was more frightening for a number of reasons.
Thank you Matt for making this one for us. The Hussite rebellion and Jan Ziskas' story are some of my favorite historical subjects. Really appreciate this one. CHEERS!
I've mentioned this in other videos about flails and I also did a video on it on my channel a few years ago but in terms of power generation I think many people assume that when swinging a flail you should swing it with the ball at full extension the same way you'd swing a stick.
Windsong this way you definitely get a good area around you that you're defending but I don't believe this is how flails would have been used certainly not single-handed flails.
For anyone who has ever gone fishing think of a flail as being a bit like casting a luer. You sort of throw the lure out; you do not swing the fishing rod like you would swing a stick.
Another way of thinking about it is like a trebuchet. Imagine the shaft of the flail being the arm of the trebuchet and the spindle essentially being the rope and net of the trebuchet. When you're swinging the flail you pull with your pinky and ring finger at the apex of the swing. This allows the spindle to snap over the top of the flail handle and generate a lot more force than swinging it fully extended like you would a stick.
I don't have a way to measure it but when I have done tests with an all-wooden single handed flail, nunchucks and a stick it feels to me like snapping a flail/nunchucks in the way I described can generate more inertia in the strike than swinging either weapon fully extended like a stick.
I said this on Shad's video as well, but it bears repeating here.
I think part of the danger in the kind of practical archeology that folks rely upon in places like the HEMA community is that it often overemphasizes the importance of utility in individual combat. You do a much better job in pointing out the obvious that this sort of weapon has much greater utility in the context of formed battle lines and combined with pike or shield walls or over the edges of Hussite wagenberg.
Another reason why you might not see so many flails: If you have actors playing a battle, they are going to have swords and spears, because they can posture and parade and play fight safely with swords and spears. You can't do a stage fight with a flail. If someone who doesn't fight that much wants to LOOK like a fighter, they can do the flourishes with a sword that they saw on stage. Someone who flourishes with a flail to intimidate someone is going to likely hurt themselves. Similarly, someone who DOES carry a flail is basically sending the message that if they get in a fight, they want to HURT the other person, not disarm them, not capture them, hurt them.
Matt, flails hit harder via the law of conservation of "angular" momentum (L).
L = radius x mass x velocity.
For simplicity let's look at the ball only. When the shaft stops (i.e. on a shield edge), the radius of the head travelling is lower. Thus, velocity has to be higher to conserve angular momentum. Linear momentum (p) = mass x velocity. When velocity increases, linear momentum is thus higher. The ball then impacts harder.
When you're a levy and picking between pitchfork and a flail, remember: most pitforks were made entirely of wood. That makes them quite a bit less effective against gambesons and such than you might think. Even converting scythes is harder, because, well, you need to bend them 90 degrees, flail is good to go as is.
Knowing how to use a flail is a factor, but we should bear in mind they are highly seasonal, you use them a few days out of a year, unlike pitfork (all year round) or scythe (you cut all sorts of grass with it, not just grains).
Articulation and judgement are even trickier, because a flail with a hinge behaves just differently when compared to flail with a chain to throw you off. Hinged flails are easier to fight against, especially with a shield.
I can attest to psychological effects of even fomahead flails, you get whacked over your shield to the back of your head only so many times before you decide "aight, that guy right there with the flail? he dies first". If you replace an annoying whack to the back of the head causing a respawn with seeing your frined's bascinet get caved in by an actual flail head, I imagine it will cause you to adopt a more cautious approach to things.
You can swing a flail fairly softly, problem is that the decision whether or not to do so must be made at the start of the swing - after that, you can't take it back mid-swing the way you can with a sword.
One of the major reasons why flails hit harder is that, well, you can't use them to parry very well if at all, so you might as well do the most powerful swing you can. If you can use a sling, you can use the same technique to accelerate a ball and chain flail - and having a steel ball come right at you at half again the speed of baseball pitch is probably bad for you.
Another reason against flail use is the horse. If you think you need to be careful with uing them on foot, imagine what kind of focus you need to not whack your own horse while mounted. It's possible to do so, and we see mounted flailmen, but it's definitely something you need to keep an eye on and something that may well make you decide to pick a warhammer instead.
Armoured war hourses could likely ignore a small spikey ball, and preserving your arms streangth from hand shock is likely useful in protracted engagements.
Especially if you have to run down lot of routed infantry, hurting your hand halfways through cause of handshock from your mace would be rather annoying if it lets your enemy escape the persuit.
Everything is more skill demanding when done from horseback. Even operating a lance was often too much for early modern western cavalries that needed to focus on quantity over quality. If it weren't for steppe nomads westerners would speculate that horse archery would have been impossible as well.
Horseback flail use:
th-cam.com/video/867AgtIz9U8/w-d-xo.html
"Novelty peasant's weapon"
This makes sense. It's like Jason Bourne using a pen in a fight scene -- everyone watching knows how useless a pen would be in a fight, so the ability to turn it into a "real weapon" makes Bourne the badass. A king using a peasant's tool in a way no one's ever seen makes him the badass.
King using peasant's "weapon" makes king a peasant. Peasant's are summarily killed in raids.
The Wushu Engineer did a pretty comprehensive and well designed analysis of several different flail type weapons vs the closest non-articulated analogue. He did all the data collection and analysis. Very informative video and looked like it was a massive pain in the neck to make.
Excellent video yourself sir. Love all your content; keep up the good work.
An interesting anecdote is that the Chinese had a "horse flail" that was designed to be wielded from, you guessed it, horseback. It migrated to Korea where it was especially popular, particularly as a cavalryman's "anti-cavalry" weapon. Curiously, though I've been told that one-handed versions of the horse flail do exist, most examples I've seen on the internet are two-handed (yup, a two-handed weapon on horseback. Reigns are for wimps, apparently.)
Great video Matt!
Good case. Reins are for wimps, essentially. You can't properly use a bow on horseback either, if you're reliant on the reins.
To expand on what I said elsewhere re the short, military version in Europe:
You'll find quite a few examples in old German castles.
Unlike English knights, German ones tended to fight on horseback. A one handed flail is a great back-up weapon for a charging man on horseback.
Consider that a battle can last hours. Start charge with lance. When you break or lose it, draw flail from your left side saddle holster and bash away while you still got room to move your horse in spurts. When the melee gets worse, or you lose the flail, draw short axe (with spike on the other side) from the other saddle holster. After that, sword and finally dagger.
BTW, you (and your horse) are armored. A gambeson to cushion blows, and some iron on top of that. Steel gauntlets. Compared to the many dangers you are facing on the battlefield, a back-bouncing flail is a minor nuissance.
Not THAT many examples survive, of course, because in medieval times the flail (long or short) was considered a "unritterliche", unknightly weapon, like the crossbow. Good for Hussites and peasants, or fighting them as well as heathen, but a true noble fighting fellow god-fearing knights? Nah. Not ouside of tournaments, really.
So besides some robber barons, only non-noble (but fully armored) men at arms were likely to wield them regularly. For a knight, if he used them at all, it wouldnt be a priced possession like a sword, which meant they were way less likely to survive the centuries in some family arms collection.
That goes double, as those weapons weren't works of art like good swords, but as utilitarian as they come. During the middle ages, steel was relatively scarce. Low quality wrought or cast iron did the job well enough for a flail, so nobody had any qualms about reusing the metal for other purposes when times changed.
And one major change that happened in the HRE in the 15-hundreds was the "industrial revolution" taking place in metalurgy and metalworking in general, due to more and more water power being used to drive huge furnaces, hammers and mining equipment.
Production numbers for high quality (mild and hard) steel shot up exponentially (Austria exported 1,5 million knifes / year to the Ottomans before Ferdinand I put in an embargo; not too successfull thanks to smuggling via Poland).
Which made the 16th centrury all-metal flails possible. By that time, the knight had lost his role to heavy cav (cuirassiers) who didnt have any qualms about using flails whenever it seemed advantagous.
This German book from 1893 has a chapter on flails, tracing them through history. Starting at p 792.
archive.org/details/diekriegswaffeni00demmuoft/page/n3/mode/1up
First use is attributed to the huns, though that one is said to have been more whip-like.
Hussites using an armoured personnel carrier with flails for infantry...I like it
It's more like a mobile fort. Though sometimes they put cannon on them.
Pole flails seem to have been popular in Korea as a horseback weapon. Most seem to have had no spikes. I imagine their purpose was as a blunt trauma weapon with little to no hand shock and little to no chance of getting stuck in an opponent.
Im so happy about the topic. My favorite weapon type and so underrated when everyone fancies swords. So thanks for it.
Flails with long enough chains are the best weapons for slaying demons, monsters vampires and such, just don't forget your short sword and maybe a speaker companion.
They make a very satisfying cracking sound hitting fleeing troops on the back of the head!
"They (flails) are not fancy." I believe the Witch King of Angmar might like a word.
Oh, wait, he can't, because he got a sword shoved through his face.
@@schwarzerritter5724 That doesn't change how fancy his flail is. :p
Yeah, fancy. But I put a very big question mark on lugging a weapon around that looks like it weighs several hundred kilo''s while riding a flying animal...
@@edzejandehaan9265 It's a high fantasy setting with magic on both sides. Pretty safe to assume that the flying mounts of the Nazgul are kept aloft by something unrelated to Newtonian Physics.
@@DavidSmith-vr1nb Yeah, yeah, I know, the good old "a wizard did it"...😏
Then again, why give them cumbersome wings, instead of something useful?
Great primer for flails, thank you! Some notes from personal experience you might find useful, in the fully armored combat group I belong too we do use one handed flails, and full disclosure I love one handed flail paired with a shield. On if they hit harder then maces, a mace of equal weight and overall length can deliver greater impact. That being said, you really don’t need it. Flails even then one handed versions can deliver a huge impact! Also flails of similar weight tend to be longer then their mace counterparts giving you more reach in addition to their ability to wrap. Still on average if your really winding up and throwing your weight into it I think maces hit harder. On using a one handed flail, there’s two schools of thought, one that the ball should be at rest and then snapped towards the opponent the other that the ball should be kept in continuous motion moved around the body in arcs. I favor the second approach, I find that when snapping the ball becomes chaotic and more of a danger to its user and less accurate. Keeping the ball in constant motion keeps the chain taught, and the tension tells you where the ball is and allows you to very accurately manipulate its path. The down side, because the ball is traveling all around you in sweeping arcs, no one wants to stand anywhere near you. Makes it hard to keep a tight formation or a shield wall, but put a man with flail and shield on a bridge and he’ll hold it till his arm falls off.
I imagine the mace can hit harder because it remains connected to the user's body allowing weight and core /leg muscles to assist. The claim head vet's only it mass x acceleration as maximum force. F=MA with a flail.
Thanks for sharing your experience. This is great stuff.
_"On if they hit harder then maces, a mace of equal weight and overall length can deliver greater impact."_
You tested that? As you said, a mace the same overall length as a flail is going to be huge, with hideously clumsy torque on your wrist. What surprises me is you got it to roughly the same weight, since you need a serious haft to survive the leverage/power on that monster.
_"Still on average if your really winding up and throwing your weight into it I think maces hit harder."_
For pushing them over, probably, but in terms of impulse/impact the math and experiments (Kevin Grey's notably) show it's higher for the flail. Shady-University has been successfully miseducating people about the physics.
Really neat that your style is to keep the flail in motion. I'm more used to the first school of thought, using it a little like a whip. And true point about them being hard to use in formations/enclosed spaces, that's why flails weren't more standard weapons.
@@bluelionsage99 Core and legs assisting... they have mechanical disadvantage if your arm is extended, and apply basically nothing. You use your legs and core to accelerate your strike a little bit more to maximize impulse; any follow-through after that (yes, after the real impact) is just a bonus of knocking them off balance as they die.
To feel the reverse leverage in action, go to a doorway, and do wall pushups, first with your arm close to your body. Then, try it with your arm fully extended to the right/left, and you'll find you can barely hold yourself up. You can also try this with a stick to increase the reverse-leverage beyond your arm, and it really gets impossible.
@@vanivanov9571 I was just thinking that when I shop wood with downward and some side chops I can get my whole body into the blow. Just splitting wood with only arm motion is less force - smaller hatchet though. But I can bury an axe into a tree far deeper with a chop than a throw when the throw hits perfect.
@@bluelionsage99 Well, I'd have to see your technique. There's a big difference between a beginner and an Olympic javelin thrower. A javelin thrower can actually thrower harder than they could stab, and as far as I know would seriously injure themselves if they tried to keep holding on. Additionally, you can throw harder in battle than you can afford to stab in melee, since overcommitting like that is dangerous in CQB.
But anyway, the physics of it are impact force. The more force you can get into a smaller period of time, the more devastating the impact. But trying to apply your slow bodyweight to a strike is like trying to hit with an upside down hammer. If you hold a hammer by the head, it applies very little force when you strike with the base.
Something else to note, is that with blades, it's a bit difference. You only need a few pounds of pressure on a slice to cut someone open, so you literally can push someone to death. And since axes are wedged-blades, you can actually use your weight to thrust a wedge deeper. It actually has a lot more to do with the grain of the wood than anything else, though, where some people use intentionally dull axes to increase the splitting effect and to stop it getting stuck.
But if you try that with a club, whether you follow-through makes little difference to the impact-force, the impulse.
Great assessment, I love all the details including the practical applicatiions and advantages!
Loved the video with Tod's workshop
For the flails to hit harder keep in mind that they will need a different technique to strike. You will need to take advantage of the rotating speed of the head and time it with with the rest of your arm and hips and time it so that every "joint" (flail articulation, wrist, arm, hips/legs) strikes at its maximum rotational velocity.
It's not that complicated. You just need to hit with the shaft. The ball will gain velocity just like how you use a yoyo to do a finger wrap trick thing or whatever. It's centripetal acceleration or whatever and transfers energy to the ball making it go faster than it otherwise would if it's instead stuck on the end of a mace. Like if you hit the shaft on a shield edge, the ball will wrap around much faster than a direct hit with the ball. You know how the whip tip breaks the speed of sound? Similar principle.
Also note that on a much larger scale, NASA uses this principle to wrap spacecraft around planets using gravity to sling them at greater speeds toward outer planets.
@@rasmasyean No
I loved the video you did with Todd. Fantastic and really surprising to see how effective they could be. Totally unexpected.
I love the background and the subtle changes you make, it demonstrates brilliant taste and is in a state of harmony
This is interesting, and I would definitely like to learn more about the horseback use of flails in China and Korea. Perhaps you could ask LK Chen (since you've reviewed so many of their swords positively) to point you to some source material. The Scholar General could read it, if there is no English translation.
23:12 - Why didn't the main shaft have a spike in addition to the flail part? It could serve both roles of a flail and a spike.
It would interfere with the movement of the hitting end. I suppose you could have one on the butt end, but then there will be times that the spike is pointing right at you.
the spike would get in the way of the swinging flail head
@@manatoa1 I did not mean the spike to protrude beyond the end. There has to be some sort of steel end part that holds the link to the butt, just form that into a short spike.. well I guess it would not work or otherwise they would have done it.
I would like to add few points, sorry in advance for my grammar.
Back in the day (80s, rural Poland) I was taught basics of flailing crops by my father. Flail was made of oak, pieces were connected with a hare skin.
First of all, flail is incredibly energy efficient. When you use it, you use your arms as little as possible, movement should come from back and legs. Once you master the movement, you can do it for hours without resting. It's possible because main long stick moves very little, it's only the short part that moves very fast. Big part of saving energy is to swing it in loops, even when you don't hit anything you don't jerk the flail. What you do is you just redirect energy, make it swing constantly in 0 or 8 shape pattern. Main sticks moves always slower in fluid motion.
Another thing is, they are very precise in the hands of experienced peasant, I bet even in tight space of Husyte wagon they could aim it like a surgeon.
Imagine trying to attack the wagons only to get smacked in the head and arms by a goddamn piece of reinforced oak again and again, while you get stabbed and shot at. No wonder that Tabor was such a force.
Striking from the back row of a shield wall over the top of an opposing shield wall makes a ton of sense, and in practice, would be really difficult to defend against for the guys in front of the wall because if they lift their shield up to defend their head they can get stabbed in the body by the opposing front line.
Bishops go at 45s, Rooks go at 90s, but Knights are tricky because they have flails 😀👍
What were the largest morningstar flails ever known?
Put another way, who had the "biggest balls of them all"?
"Mirrors mirrors on the walls, who's the one with the biggest balls?"
0:01-0:02 Matt's faces while holding a flail has soooooooooo much meme potential especially when you add the sub of him saying "Let's talk about flails"
Jan Žižka, who led resistance to five consecutive crusades knew how to deal with well armored well trained soldiers (he learned at Grunwald against Teutonic Order). Untrained levy soldiers no problem, he gave them tools that they had already in their muscle memory a protected them by the warwagons against cavalry charges... How to kill much more armored and skilled soldier? High ground and killing blow. If it is good for Obi-Wan it is good for Hussites.
I would like to Czech some video about Hussites in future :-)
I believe Joerg Sprave could easily design a testing jig that would be adaptable between different weapons, and produce reliable and reproducible results...
Well, the hardest part would be acquiring the pressure sensing equipment that’s sturdy enough to hit real hard, all you’d really need to build is a frame so you could hit it horizontally over vertically if you just put it on a table or somesuch and swung down on it
@@widdershins5383 I'm fairly certain Joerg has that, or access to it, from watching his videos for years
@@brianknezevich9894 oooohhhh then this sounds doable, fortuitous
@@widdershins5383 I was actually thinking a rubber actuated articulating arm, to be as close to human physics as possible...
But if someone talks to Joerg about it, I'm sure he'd come up with something good, if nothing else, an easily replicated device.
If you do the "science of flails" experiments - has anyone actually tested the hand shock saving qualities of flails compared to non articulated polearms/maces/axes? My very simple thought - if blunt force trauma is the main way to hurt someone in armor AND 'hand shock' limits how many times you can strike armour in a battle before you literally lose your grip THEN a flail might need no other justification than "with a flail I can deliver numerically, many times more blunt force trauma blows in one battle." Only pondering the physics and anatomy elements - don't know much about actual combat or armor. If one guy with a flail can deliver four times as many blows to armor as any other blunt force weapon holder - that is a pretty large advantage.
Hand shock is certainly a major factor in the flail's development as an agricultural tool. Threshing grain takes dozens upon dozens of strikes, usually at the immovable ground, over hours in a day by men, women, and children.
@@CaraesNaur An excellent point which had not occurred to me.
this is a long though but worth the read! i think the biggest over looked thing is reach of a flail vs sword axe spear etc a 30 in "handle" a 25 in chain and ball leaves 5 in " hand area" the same as hand and a half sword one could use this flail with one or two hands... making just weapon reach at 55in plus say a 20in arm your reach would be 75in so one could out reach every thing but a lance on the field. side know in high school i throw in track n field both for the school and junior olympics my coach george mathews is to this day still a world record hammer thrower. to get to the point the hammer we used as 17 and younger is 12 pounds on a 3 ft chain and we clocked your speed of ball at around 130 mph! now take our flail with a 3 pound ball at say 80 mph one can easily reach this if they have a few months of training and very controlled ( we trained for months just on control of a high speed heavy ball so we did injury/kill us or someone else) but a 3 pound ball at 80mph on impact has 640 foot pounds of energy a 5 pound slughammer with the hardest swing in 66ftlbs so this flail would hit all most 10 times harder than a slug hammer plus out reach every thing and have zero hand shock!!! few people would have used it on foot maybe a last stand knight who fell off his horse? but on horse back have a lot of side reach from the horse ( and lances cant hit side of horse only front) and with this 30in long stick 25ft chain and ball it would never hit your hand let alone the horse... leaving the flail knight extremely deadly who can out reach and at full speed no shield or amour would stop it from putting the enemy out of the fight.... maybe this is why they hardly was used you cant ransom a dead man...
When you mentioned that they have a tendency to break the fear factor got significantly boosted; even if you block it it might hit you, and even if you block and it wouldn't hit you, it might break and send a crazy ball into your head...
"the best weapon is the weapon you don't have to use"
Indeed overlooked on a regular basis! Thank you :)
I wonder how effective flails are at wrapping around an enemies weapon or arm and controlling said weapon or arm. 🤔
bad for controlling, great for smashing. You don't actually want to control the enemy though because when you control them, they also control your weapon. Its far better to do quick decisive damage and be able to reload and attach again.
By my limited experience with a "safe" Flail, even after wrapping arround things, it controlled nothing since it opened itself very fast.
Due to the change of directiom in the momentum, it is also difficult to block a flail with a one handed sword. But wrapping arround it with such a short chain did nothing in my few sparring sessions
A line of 200 soldiers, for every 15 spears you have 4 Axes, 1 Pole Flail and you have an unpredictable line.
Small One Handed Flails seem pretty reasonable for Cavalry, it's basically a Mace with no hand shock when you hit someone at a gallop.
Flails also allow you to have a longer weapon that is much easier to handle than a fixed one of the same length. This means more range and power, both very useful on horseback too.
An observation I have made while watching many of these flail test videos is the fact that most of the testers attempt to strike with the ball. I think one of the large advantages of a flail is its ability to concentrate energy in the ball through the whip action, which would require the user to strike with the closer end of the articulation, allowing the energy to travel through the articulation.
Weird example, but take a rubber hose. If you swing it and strike with the tip, it will sting, but if you strike about six inches closer to your grip, the whip action concentrates the energy enough that it is likely to draw blood.
I believe Skallagrim came up with an interesting idea that flails would be good weapons for horseback, because it reduces the percussive shock on the user; and it would not have any issue traveling past the target as you ride by.
It's not an "interesting idea" but historical fact. Flails were very popular cavalry weapons in asia.
th-cam.com/video/867AgtIz9U8/w-d-xo.html
Not to forget that, when the handle is blocked, the ball will actually accelerate.
Does it accelerate? I thought it would maintain velocity, but I don't actually understand the acceleration part.
@@vanivanov9571 Conservation of angular momentum. The moment of inertia decreases, so the angular velocity has to increase. Similar to the standard "figure skater" example.
@@matthiasklein9608 Oh, hadn't thought of it that way. Thank you for clarifying that for me, Matthias.
That makes flails even more frightening. You have to make sure to guard against the chain or head, or you're in for a world of hurt.
Why weren't flails used more?
1) More difficult to use--- they require more trainingand skill.
2) A flail requires more room to swing, thus making them very difficult to use in formation.
more room to swing - I kinda doubt that would be necessity - wheat was usually processed indoors (rain, dew, birds), sometimes in rather smaller buildings, more people working at the same time
make your own flail and you will notice that you do not need tremendous wide swing to deliver hard hit - you might use lever of your arms (made a flail from a broom as a kid, it was actually more safe not to do big swings - it still broke things, itself included)
Well said...which is why you'd not have many in any group but just a scattered few might be enough to get the job done. In one of those Hussite war wagons you couldn't have a whole group of men packed in one all using flailes but say you had 2 guys one for each end of the wagon that would be fine for not getting in each others way of swinging.
? It requires more training and skill...? Didn't you watch the other video? Those guys never picked up a flail before, but were beating guys who had practiced with swords for years.... The idea it requires more skill is from Shadi's idiotic nunchaku videos, which were torn to pieces by people with actual experience with nunchaku, including a couple of street survivors. Most people learn the flail/nunchaku inside of a week.
@@sukubann You make some good points, but the fact of the matters is a flail is a very long weapon, and that's a lot of energy on it. Swinging it with power without endangering men to your left or right would be challenging, and restrict your motions. Similarly, nunchaku aren't so great for very enclosed environments, which is where you get tricks to shorten it like swinging it by the cord.
And yeah, nunchaku/flails have so much energy they tend to break themselves apart, even massive oaken ones.
@@HAYAOLEONE That's where the kusarigama got around this limitation by combining a sort of flail with a blade. You could similarly use a shield and/or dagger with a one-handed flail. With a two-handed one, you just need to be ready to draw your sword, as with other polearms.
Why does everyone seem to overlook the fact that a chain makes it easy to hit something very, very hard without the risk of that force coming back into the wielder's hand? That kinetic energy is essentially dispersed by the chain. It's not a hard thing to test, either. Hit a tree with a stick, then hit that same tree with a flail-like thing. Way more of that force comes back on you with the solid weapon. If you're trying to hit someone wearing heavy, strong armor -- and one or both of you are moving, as was often the case -- you want to make sure that any excess force from your attack doesn't come back through that weapon. A flail is a great tool for that. That's why it's used for threshing in the first place. Otherwise, you're just hitting the ground with a stick, and the ground isn't going to absorb very much of that force. It comes right back up the stick and into your arms.
the emotional and cultural part of weapons and combat is very often forgotten, or ignored. so glad you reiterate that!
From a military perspective.
Reasons to use a onehanded flail. Versatility.
Scouts, foragers, and raiders can save space and carrying weight while still carrying a simple weapon with reach.
Reasons not to use a one-handed flail. Cost and time.
It's easier to put a chunk of metal on a stick than attaching a chunk of metal to the stick using other chunks of metal.
So, fails are good for fighting around corners? 🤔 Also, because they are nonlinear, they appear to be hellishly difficult to defend against.
Also hellishly difficult to defend WITH. IMO your best bet against a flail is to have a longer weapon and just stab them. I think flails are meant to be second-line weapons because going in the front line with that is suicide.
@@Robert399 Your best bet against most melee weapons is just to have a longer one and just stab the opponent. At least until you both have the longest weapon that is practical. And thus everyone mostly had spears.
@@ninjafruitchilled this is not the case when full armor is involved. When armored, you’d be most effective with a weapon about the same length as you are tall.
@@Robert399 What gave you the idea they're difficult to defend with...? They're not as good as a sword, but that goes for clubs, too. You actually get some utility for grappling and guarding with the chain.
And the idea of just getting a longer weapon has been mocked by George Silver and Musashi alike. Lindy's test of sword and shield versus spear had the swords winning basically every time... because keeping people back is harder than you'd think.
@@vanivanov9571 Well one-handed clubs, maces and axes are also bad for defending with. I would argue a flail is even worse because of the head bouncing around.
If we're talking about the two-handed version, it's bettER but it's still a short, heavy stick where that weight gives you no leverage or strength in defence because it's articulated.
Great video!
It doesn't seem to me like the medieval world was focused on the "shield-byass" property of the weapons like the flail because I would expect weapons like the shotel would have also developed and it doesn't seem to be the case that similar forms made an appearance. Weapons like the bill or other hooks on weapons to try to pull away or control the enemy weapons seemed preferred for the purpose. Though it may be that the flail performs against armored opponents in a way that a shotel around a guard wouldn't.
Matt injuring himself with a flail: "Tis but a scratch"
Love this topic. Thanks for being willing to give it some additional attention. One "mental trap" that I bet a lot of folks (myself included) fall into, with the type of fail you're holding in this video (as opposed to the video with Tod), lies in thinking of the chain as flexing uniformly. I think it's important not to fall into the habit of conceptualizing it the same way we might a rope or whip. How is this relevant, and not completely obvious? Well, with the larger pole version, featuring only a short flexible joint, you'd have to pretty-accurately land that joint against the edge of a shield (or whatever), to get the best wrap-around effect. That could be awfully hard to do, when your opponent is moving and well-aware that this is a strategy you're likely to employ. Whereas, with a longer chain, whatever point along that chain makes contact with any obstacle, becomes its joint. Which would probably aid greatly in successfully landing a wrap-around strike. I imagine, with experience, a person might even learn to gauge that initial point of impact, ideally well enough to get deliberate results when the weapon's head follows-through. Also, not only could they wrap over things, they could just as easily wrap (sideways) around things. So, if you were inside a castle, you could actually strike (in a limited way) _around_ a corner. I doubt this-alone was a deciding factor to anyone who chose to carry one, but-still...better than _not_ being able to strike around a corner, right? And, I bet at least a few of those war-wagons had holes in the floor, tight up to the base of the wall, so that the head of the weapon could be draped down the outside of the wagon's walls, while the bottom of the haft was secured in the hole. This would add an annoying obstacle for an enemy trying to climb into your wagon, and get the head out of the way of those in the wagon (while they're operating their bows or crossbows). It would also put it in a position from whence it could be easily deployed, but nearly impossible for your enemy to snatch away from you. It's also not as though those war-wagons had any sort of suspension system. So any jostling, as the wagon moved, would have those flail-heads moving in an almost automated defensive mode (probably only relevant if an ambush were sprung, while in transit). Another question which sometimes gets overlooked (not so much by you, but others), is: if we're asking the question, "why did they fight using X weapon?"; well, how can we not also ask the question, "who were they primarily fighting _against,_ and what did those people use?" Because it was most likely an intertwined series of (usually) logical decisions; not unlike those we make in present day.
I think one aspect, at least of the judgment issue - if not the 'hitting harder' one, is that the head will accelerate substantially once the shaft impacts something solid and the wrap-around begins. It's the same physics at play that governs whips.
This Video was not an Epic Flail!
Or was it?
flaily funny
Polearm-type flails might have a devastating initial strike, but there does not appear to be a potential of “follow through” push attack.
I see no reason why you wouldn't stick a spike or a cutting edge near the top so you could at least bind with the shaft below the swinging section. Probably would get battered by it's own head a lot though.
War works different than duels. You need to take terrain and buddies for consideration.
I can't believe I've never noticed the similarity between the Dutch word "vlegel" and the English "flail" until you mentioned the agricultural tool just now.
Dutch and Old English are very closely related.
German: Flegel. Which also can refer to a rough/impolite/naughty person ...
This is such good analysis, simply wow!
Raid: legendary cancer
Hi Matt! Don't forget that flexible weapons can entangle weapons and limbs to trip, disarm, and/or grab.
The one handed flails main feature is that you can neutralize a shield. It will wrap around a shields edge or reach the less well protected backside of an armored soldier. A spike ball is easy to entangle. It's a secondary arm. A farm hand however is very familiar with the long tool and very fit from flailing. Infantry like the medieval swiss and their monarchic adversaries used them. The originals can be seen in museums in Berne and Zurich. The arsenal and weapons collection of Berne is quite something.
Love the weapon vs weapon insights. Very thought provoking