As a military man I always loved my knife but hated my bayonet. I also carried a spike hawk and me mate was issued a kukurie. We use what we like and I think pirates where no different
Knives are usual tools and get used as weapons when nothing else is at hand. But you had one always with you. Axes and hatchets are most of the time tools also. The short blade military Backup weapon is the dagger. Thats something Multimedia always gets wrong, a dagger is neither a tool nor a fashion Item.
The part about the ax ladder is exaggerated, but not unheard of. I'm a firefighter, and when cutting a hole in roofs, there's a tactic for steep roofs where you drive the spike of a halligan bar into the roof to give you a place to keep your foot when you work. The same could be done with a fire axe spike, but we typically bring flat head axes for that job, because if the chainsaw fails, the back end is used for smashing.
Knives are definitely at a disadvantage when in measure of a longer weapon. However once things fall to grappling in tight quarters it would be superior.
Which is why a cutlass - knife combination would probably work quite well. I'm not sure how useful one shot is when fighting at close quarters, but it seems to me likely, that not as useful as a short blade
10:50 *"It might've been better defensively as thicker shaft and wide blade could easily parry blows"* This a bold theory since axes lack any sort of handguard which makes it difficult to defend with them without immediately putting your hand in danger.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 The Vikings used the same damn kind of axes. There is a reason they took shields with them. 1730s soldiers had no excuse, in this age they still had The Rotella, and The Highland Targe. Such tools may have been smaller, but they could still cover you completely when you crouch down. They were excellent protection against muskets, but fell out of style in favor of the protection against muskets simply being the ability to shoot back.
@@RachDarastrix2 shields were wooden, they would not stop a musketball. a shield that would stop a shot in those times would have to be made of thick enough metal it would be impractical to wield. Shields are not passive weapons in melee, you do not hide behind it you parry with it, this is why bucklers were a practical design and the giant roman shields weren't more common. Shields fell out of style moreso during the renaissance, as armour developed to the point they were no longer nessecary for defending against arrows, and a longer two handed weapon is simply better and more agile than a shorter one handed one. once armour was made impractically heavy by guns, there was no reason for either to continue being mainstream. The highlanders had primarily melee units and so they were used to great effect, but to any modernly equipped unit they would become little more than extra weight on the march
@@Kyuschi *"shields were wooden, they would not stop a musketball"* --- Partially true. Yes, at point-blank range no shield could stop a bullet but at a longer distance and angled Scottish targes were said to on occasion stop musket bullets. Doubtful they could do that reliably but they should still be somewhat reliable against pistols. Oh, and one more thing, shields are made form various different materials, not just wood. *"Shields are not passive weapons in melee, you do not hide behind it you parry with it"* --- Once again partially correct. It obviously depends on the type of shield. Larger and/or heavier shields like pavise, Roman scutum, or a Scottish targe or a metal rotella would be obviously used more passively. Lighter shields, especially when they are small were used more actively. *"Shields fell out of style moreso during the renaissance, as armour developed to the point they were no longer nessecary for defending against arrows"* --- Once again I have to disagree. Even if armour itself offers enough protection against projectiles that doesn't mean that suddenly every soldier around can afford such armour. Also, the shield remained in quite common use in Europe even past Rennesiance. Reasons for the abandonment of shields by infantry are many but primarily come down to the use of firearms against which shields offered very limited protection. *"a longer two handed weapon is simply better and more agile than a shorter one handed one."* --- Dubious claim. It depends on the weapon and the context in which it is used. *"once armour was made impractically heavy by guns, there was no reason for either to continue being mainstream."* --- Was it made impractically heavy by guns? Could you cite some sources to support that? From what I've seen so far the weight of armours in XVI and XVII centuries remained the same or even decreased as people moved away from using full harnesses to 3/4 or half-armours. Amongst other to save weight. The reasons why armour become less common on European battlefields are numerous and far more complicated than just "muh gun make armor bad". For one armour endured in use by heavy cavalry well into XIX and even the early XX century.
I’d probably go with cutlass and dagger. If it’s a defensive boarding action, I can hide with my dagger in wait. In an offensive action, I can be much more aggressive with a cutlass. Having a dagger is also just a nice tool for anything I wouldn’t want to damage my cutlass on.
Tomhawks are throwing, twigging & skinning axes almost exclusively, at least the authentic ones. While yes they were used on pirate ships, unlike other axes they had far less utility as tools on ships. On top of that, while some buccaneers specifically used them for hunting, in particular French ones who had access to merchants that regularly traded with the Indigenous nations that produced them, they would have to have gotten them from the Northern American mainland, which was rare. Boarding axes, pickaxes and logwooding hatchets would be more common. As for gunaxes, they were more common as a cavalry weapon, which Polish, Lithuanian & Hungarian Hussars all used different period, so i'm surprised to hear that buccaneers specifically had access to them.
Hello, many thanks for your work ! I feel the need to correct what you said about the crossguard of a sword or dagger : The primary purpose of a cross guard is to prevent enemy blades from hitting your hand. Your own hand sliding onto the blade is a secondary concern. There are much more pressing things to deal with, aka the people in front of you with an intent to cause harm. From my own experience with friends and blunt weapons, a hit on the fingers hurts a lot. I like my fingers, and I wouldn't want to expose them to sharp blades. I believe you are right when you say the crossguard marks a neat difference between a tool and a weapon. Its usage is only for the fight. The crossguard can also be used as a leverage point for disarming the adversary, or blocking their weapon with your own. And, of course, it can be used as an offensive part of your weapon. A straight quillon is a valid thing to thrust into a face. (as is a pommel) This usage is circumstancial and comes best when you are closing the distance, obviously. Hilts and baskets are the evolution of this defensive system. Some weapons with hilt or basket kept a cross guard (mostly swords I believe.). From my humble experience, a straight crossguard is better at being predictable : you know where it is and how the incoming blade will hit it. And you also know where the quillons will hit if you have to use it that way.
I would have used a tomahawk along with a few pistols. I like the cutlass, but I have long arms due to being tall, and having been on ships in the Navy, even getting a solid thrust below deck would be difficult, especially if the sword has been dulled. A hatchet can be swung with short distance and still do some serious damage, plus also be a tool.
I don't see how it makes sense. If your arms are long then using a cutting-only weapon will demand even more space from you. In the case of a cutlass, you can thrust, draw, and push cut as well as simply threaten someone with the point to claim more space. You have way more options. There is a reason why boarding axes were mostly used as tools. Axe on its own is not a great weapon.
@kamilszadkowski8864 on the top deck reach is critical, below decks thrusting is your only option if you use a sword. A hatchet allows for swinging with enough momentum to cut without needing much room to effectively chop. So because I have reach I have more angles for leverage producing a more effective swing, even if it's just a basic downward swing without extending the arm
@@BlueJayWaters *"below decks thrusting is your only option if you use a sword"* --- As opposed to boarding axe which only gives you swinging as an option regardless of the space available. This is actually false, just like your statement about swords but let's follow your own logic here. I can tell you've never held a sword in your life or if you did it was a very poor replica. No, you don't need more space to cut with a sword than with a hatchet (for one, cutlasses were made relatively short specifically so they can be used effectively in tight spaces). In fact, I would say that in most cases the opposite is true. If an axe is primarily used as a tool, it won't have a very sharp age or a blade geometry that allows to retain a lot of sharpness because such blade geometry usually means it would get damaged way too easily. Swords are way sharper in general. With that sharpness combined with the length of the blade, you can use draw cuts and push cuts. You literally just put the blade against someone and make a slicing motion or a pushing one. It means you can cut with a sword even at a grappling distance, something that is much harder with an axe. Finally, time to point out the biggest disadvantage of an axe of any kind. Lack of any hand guard. This, and I can't stress this enough, makes an axe a very poor weapon to go on it's one against a swordsman regardless of context. Notice how when shields fell out of use so did axes. With no shield or metal gauntlet, your hand is extremely vulnerable. It makes it extremely hard to parry any upcoming blows because even if you stop the opponent's blade on the axe's shaft it still may slide down and cut your hand. Cutlasses on the other hand had basked hilts. If you would ever try any kind of fencing HEMA or Olimpic, you would know that the hand holding the weapon is one of the easiest and most common targets. Finally, let the sources of the era speak for themselves. If you go through the sources from the Age of Sail they all almost entirely agree, regardless of the country they come from, that boarding axes make for very poor weapons.
@kamilszadkowski8864 bro, you're going too hard about a hypothetical. If we're going to play this game, first off it's 2024. Everything we do is with the benefit of hindsight. What may have been a common tactic or thought 300 years ago may not actually have been the best idea. 2nd, 99% of Earth's population today has not wielded a real sword, let alone touched one. And maybe less than 8% have even touched a "crappy replica" so talking to anyone about sword use today is quite practically irrelevant. But yes I actually have held a real officers sword, albeit made mostly for decoration with a very thin blade and not made even remotely close to the standards of the 18th century, which may have colored my experiences about my choice. And on that note, I have used hatchets, and more specifically tomahawks because I used to throw knives and axes. I never once said a boarding axe, I specifically said a tomahawk/hatchet, which is even smaller than a boarding axe according to the video's research. Now granted those are probably not made to the same degree as the 18th century, but at least I have experience with them, and even more so, I've shot black powder flintlock pistols before as well. I'll freely admit I have not reloaded one without guidance, but seeing as how I have used the weapons in question I've talked about, that's what I feel confident in. And also, I've was in the Navy, and very familiar with ships and their layouts. I've even seen the Constitution over in Boston. I can tell YOU have never been on a ship and cannot imagine how close and narrow corridors and below decks are. I did say on the top deck, a sword probably is the best weapon. But below deck, the minute angle of cutting you could get with even a non-extended arm can cut pretty well, and might take more than one, but its entirely more wieldly than a sword. A large knife like a bowie is probably the overall best weapon. Finally, back then swords were the norm for defense and fighting in those days. But I guarantee even back then it was a weapon of mass production and not every sailor was trained as an expert swordsman. It was just what was readily available. On land, pikes are the dominant weapon because even the untrained can make effective use over a sword. The sword was just the more accessible and common use weapon. Okay so an axe needs more training to utilize effectively. Fine. I'll take that tradeoff to carry a few more pistols and be more effective below decks. Oh and handguards. Well, considering everything I've been saying especially about below decks, that's probably the only real downside, but in such close quarters, I really don't think I'm trying parry or block an attack, I'm more in grabbing range. It's more of swing first strike fast, and if they have limited maneuverability, I probably have the advantage. So yeah. Don't even bother replying because I'm not going to read it. Its 2024 and we are arguing over a way of life I have more experience with, from hundreds of years ago.
I think the axe ladder part got interpreted wrong and the used the axe to make a notch so that something can be wedged in like how they do with modern wood chopping competition but it’s jus a theory
paper cartridges existed and were adapted very early on by pirates especially, around the 1650s, powder horns were used simutaneously as paper cartridges but mostly if not exclusively for priming, you could either reprime from the horn of the priming powder from the cartridge misfired, or you could omit priming from the cartridge and use it only as a main charge and prime from the horn. the priming powder in horns had smaller grains making it burn quicker which made it more optimal for starting fires and causing discharge(it was also used for priming cannons), but it's not optimal for main charges, afaik it was dangerous
Honestly a series on native groups frequently encountered by pirates would be cool, like the Miskito, Kuna, Caribs, Malagasy, and various West African and Southeast Asian natives as well
When considering any weapon and its use, one has to know the tactical situation being faced by the combatants. There are weapons that are more useful for, say, defending or denying an area (i.e. preventing boarding) and those that are more suitable for attack. Confronted by a bristling row of pikes, pirates would want to break the pikemen's formation, ideally with ranged weapons. Those pikes won't do much when a pirate fires a volley of grape from a couple of swivel guns (thus the popularity of swivel guns...an anti-personnel weapon that won't destroy the objective, that is to say, the ship and its cargo.) Pirate tactics almost always aimed to reduce the number of casualties (for them, duh) since you can't enjoy your ill-gotten gains when you're dead. Of course, for self-defense, the best weapon is the one you've got, and the fact is those flintlock pistols and that fairly heavy (as swords go) cutlass would be kind of a pain to carry around all the time means that pirates did what everyone else would do: they used whatever was at hand. We get our images of those times mostly from the 'moobies' so we see the guys lounging around with their swords and pistols, but if you've ever had occasion to actually carry a weapon on a regular basis in a non-military setting, you quickly discover how inconvenient they can be. (Really hard on the furniture, ladies.) I'm glad you mentioned the size of the ropes on a ship. You'll see the hero in the movies using a knife to cut some huge cable...laughable. Many time fouled lines are a shipboard emergency and must be dealt with immediately. The axes were usually stored on deck in convenient locations...kind of like a fire extinguisher would be...if you needed an axe, you usually needed it quickly. Aboard ship at sea, nobody's carrying their weapons, those come out when prey is actually within range, and that could take hours or even days. So sure, if a shipboard fight among the crew broke out, it was going to be with knives, belaying pins (get a hold of one and you'll see it does make a dandy truncheon), axes, buckets, a mug, a fork...like I said, it's the weapon you've got that you use. Great production, as always. I like that you give us intelligent and thought-out analysis based on historical records. As a novelist, I tend to try to put myself into a foreign world and go from there. What weapon would I want for various piratical situations? The best one for the task at hand. If you're interested, a video on some of the more unusual weapons of the time would be fun...multi-shot flintlocks, Native American weapons adapted by Europeans, Asian pirate weapons vs. European, etc. Devil take the hindmost!
I run with gunstock warclub or tamahawk/longknife combo when I’m running the woods, gotta go with the 58cal hawkins rifle. I make my own powder ball and hemp clothe. Anything but primitive living.
My personal choice? Easy. Knives all the way. Learn to close--whether surprise, ambush, or strategy. Either way, the knife's advantages (for me at least)--speed, utility, acceptability, cost, ease of acquiring and replacing, etc.--far outweigh the disadvantage of length.
10:55 Yes, nice. But if you want that job done the cuirass would be a better pick. Maybe wear something underneath it to give back buoyancy incase you get knocked into the water.
The axes shown would only be good for cutting people and rope not wood, of course still better than a sword would be. The heads /blades are flat, axes for wood cutting are wedge shaped to split essentially break the wood. Those boarding axes would cut into the wood without splitting or breaking it- then you would have a hell a time trying to get it back out... There are wood working axes shaped that way for things like timber framing, they are used for precise cuts creating the joints used to join the timbers together and often after a different ax has been used to roughly cut the shape required.
I'm very curious how many recorded pirate ship and town attacks we know about. Like lets narrow that to New World 1630-1730. We know(we have written documents) about 50 incidents? 100? 2000?
since the priming hole/vent is usually so tight you would struggle at getting any powder through, but some were wide enough for even musket-powder(priming powder and musket powder had different grain sizes), either way any significant charge would make the gun explode, since the pressure from the explosion would have nowhere to go: keep in mind that modern guns can explode if there's just snow or dirt in the muzzles
Though i have a bit of a soft spot for the smallsword & dagger i am a musketeer at heart, so i'd chose it with the bayonet. You cannot beat the range of a bullet and the versatility of both ends, plus some of the advantage of the spear without being all too unwieldy. A bit odd that for the dagger you didn't mention the cross guard's ability to catch and trap an opponent's blade with the flick of the wrist though. I think the inclusion of plug bayonets in that manual more likely indicates that since it was a recent development, they may still have had some in storage or were expected to come across some still being used by poorer irregulars who either didn't have the funding to upgrade or were desperate enough for equipment to bring out the older outdated stuff. Sort of like how ww2 guns are still often found being used by middle eastern irregulars to this day. 7:29 also this painting goes so hard.
Can you do a reaction to videos like "pirate expert reacts to hollywood movies" Yeah, I know, a double reaction video. I just noticed how the female pirate "expert" said pirate women were more common than we think. Interesting in what you're thinking about it
As someone who use to use pocket knives instead of regular knives I can confirm they do not make a very good weapon. When you slash with a knife you are effectively slamming the knife, and slamming a pocket knife can knock the blade loose of its safety lock and force it to then slam onto your fingers. I have a scare to remind me of this. Though thankfully the scare is so small you can mistake it for just one of my knuckle lines.
Debating these bladed weopons academicly is kinda dumb. Pirates were/are violent criminals they would use whatever they could. Of course they'd use the best available but what really matters is to attach fast with overwhelming violence!
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never underestimate a knive, it's a deadly weapon and easy to carry even if not the first choice in a fight with military weapons.
As a military man I always loved my knife but hated my bayonet. I also carried a spike hawk and me mate was issued a kukurie. We use what we like and I think pirates where no different
Like a handgun but deadlier and easier to hide
military knives are tools
Knives are usual tools and get used as weapons when nothing else is at hand. But you had one always with you.
Axes and hatchets are most of the time tools also.
The short blade military Backup weapon is the dagger. Thats something Multimedia always gets wrong, a dagger is neither a tool nor a fashion Item.
Not saying I never carried a dagger but you are right a dagger is a totally useless tool@@J_n..
The part about the ax ladder is exaggerated, but not unheard of. I'm a firefighter, and when cutting a hole in roofs, there's a tactic for steep roofs where you drive the spike of a halligan bar into the roof to give you a place to keep your foot when you work. The same could be done with a fire axe spike, but we typically bring flat head axes for that job, because if the chainsaw fails, the back end is used for smashing.
Thanks for sharing !
Super interesting to learn firefighters do a lot of work on functioning 17th and 18th century warships. Never knew that before.
Not sure if you are going to see this but if fire rises, why would you go onto the roof (genuinely curious)
Knives are definitely at a disadvantage when in measure of a longer weapon. However once things fall to grappling in tight quarters it would be superior.
Which is why a cutlass - knife combination would probably work quite well. I'm not sure how useful one shot is when fighting at close quarters, but it seems to me likely, that not as useful as a short blade
Alonso Ramírez really lucked out with that ultra fancy knive.
Understandably, a lot of these weapons are strikingly similar to the improvised weapons used by troops in WWI trench warfare.
10:50 *"It might've been better defensively as thicker shaft and wide blade could easily parry blows"* This a bold theory since axes lack any sort of handguard which makes it difficult to defend with them without immediately putting your hand in danger.
Yeah this is why most axes for battle are one handed so you can use a shield in the other hand.
@@RachDarastrix2 Exactly. Without a shield or steel gauntlet axe becomes a poor weapon.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 The Vikings used the same damn kind of axes. There is a reason they took shields with them. 1730s soldiers had no excuse, in this age they still had The Rotella, and The Highland Targe. Such tools may have been smaller, but they could still cover you completely when you crouch down. They were excellent protection against muskets, but fell out of style in favor of the protection against muskets simply being the ability to shoot back.
@@RachDarastrix2 shields were wooden, they would not stop a musketball. a shield that would stop a shot in those times would have to be made of thick enough metal it would be impractical to wield.
Shields are not passive weapons in melee, you do not hide behind it you parry with it, this is why bucklers were a practical design and the giant roman shields weren't more common.
Shields fell out of style moreso during the renaissance, as armour developed to the point they were no longer nessecary for defending against arrows, and a longer two handed weapon is simply better and more agile than a shorter one handed one. once armour was made impractically heavy by guns, there was no reason for either to continue being mainstream.
The highlanders had primarily melee units and so they were used to great effect, but to any modernly equipped unit they would become little more than extra weight on the march
@@Kyuschi *"shields were wooden, they would not stop a musketball"* --- Partially true. Yes, at point-blank range no shield could stop a bullet but at a longer distance and angled Scottish targes were said to on occasion stop musket bullets.
Doubtful they could do that reliably but they should still be somewhat reliable against pistols.
Oh, and one more thing, shields are made form various different materials, not just wood.
*"Shields are not passive weapons in melee, you do not hide behind it you parry with it"* --- Once again partially correct. It obviously depends on the type of shield. Larger and/or heavier shields like pavise, Roman scutum, or a Scottish targe or a metal rotella would be obviously used more passively.
Lighter shields, especially when they are small were used more actively.
*"Shields fell out of style moreso during the renaissance, as armour developed to the point they were no longer nessecary for defending against arrows"* --- Once again I have to disagree. Even if armour itself offers enough protection against projectiles that doesn't mean that suddenly every soldier around can afford such armour.
Also, the shield remained in quite common use in Europe even past Rennesiance.
Reasons for the abandonment of shields by infantry are many but primarily come down to the use of firearms against which shields offered very limited protection.
*"a longer two handed weapon is simply better and more agile than a shorter one handed one."* --- Dubious claim. It depends on the weapon and the context in which it is used.
*"once armour was made impractically heavy by guns, there was no reason for either to continue being mainstream."* --- Was it made impractically heavy by guns? Could you cite some sources to support that? From what I've seen so far the weight of armours in XVI and XVII centuries remained the same or even decreased as people moved away from using full harnesses to 3/4 or half-armours. Amongst other to save weight. The reasons why armour become less common on European battlefields are numerous and far more complicated than just "muh gun make armor bad".
For one armour endured in use by heavy cavalry well into XIX and even the early XX century.
I’d probably go with cutlass and dagger. If it’s a defensive boarding action, I can hide with my dagger in wait. In an offensive action, I can be much more aggressive with a cutlass. Having a dagger is also just a nice tool for anything I wouldn’t want to damage my cutlass on.
My favorite TH-camr
Love your channel man! I automatically like your videos as soon as I start watching them. Keep up the good work!
My pirate loadout:
Cutlass
Dagger or knife
two flintlocks
Hatchet or Axe
Keep up the great work. 👍
Boarding axes are looking the most practical of these weapons. Great selection by the way.
Tomhawks are throwing, twigging & skinning axes almost exclusively, at least the authentic ones. While yes they were used on pirate ships, unlike other axes they had far less utility as tools on ships. On top of that, while some buccaneers specifically used them for hunting, in particular French ones who had access to merchants that regularly traded with the Indigenous nations that produced them, they would have to have gotten them from the Northern American mainland, which was rare. Boarding axes, pickaxes and logwooding hatchets would be more common.
As for gunaxes, they were more common as a cavalry weapon, which Polish, Lithuanian & Hungarian Hussars all used different period, so i'm surprised to hear that buccaneers specifically had access to them.
Friday uploads always appear just in time for a coffee break. Thanks for your research, G&G
Great video as always! I’d use the pistol, axe spear thing personally. The shorter version and maybe remove a spike.
Honestly I'd use the first item i could get a hold of as a weapon.
Hello, many thanks for your work !
I feel the need to correct what you said about the crossguard of a sword or dagger : The primary purpose of a cross guard is to prevent enemy blades from hitting your hand. Your own hand sliding onto the blade is a secondary concern. There are much more pressing things to deal with, aka the people in front of you with an intent to cause harm. From my own experience with friends and blunt weapons, a hit on the fingers hurts a lot. I like my fingers, and I wouldn't want to expose them to sharp blades.
I believe you are right when you say the crossguard marks a neat difference between a tool and a weapon. Its usage is only for the fight.
The crossguard can also be used as a leverage point for disarming the adversary, or blocking their weapon with your own. And, of course, it can be used as an offensive part of your weapon. A straight quillon is a valid thing to thrust into a face. (as is a pommel) This usage is circumstancial and comes best when you are closing the distance, obviously.
Hilts and baskets are the evolution of this defensive system. Some weapons with hilt or basket kept a cross guard (mostly swords I believe.). From my humble experience, a straight crossguard is better at being predictable : you know where it is and how the incoming blade will hit it. And you also know where the quillons will hit if you have to use it that way.
I would have used a tomahawk along with a few pistols. I like the cutlass, but I have long arms due to being tall, and having been on ships in the Navy, even getting a solid thrust below deck would be difficult, especially if the sword has been dulled. A hatchet can be swung with short distance and still do some serious damage, plus also be a tool.
I don't see how it makes sense. If your arms are long then using a cutting-only weapon will demand even more space from you.
In the case of a cutlass, you can thrust, draw, and push cut as well as simply threaten someone with the point to claim more space. You have way more options. There is a reason why boarding axes were mostly used as tools. Axe on its own is not a great weapon.
@kamilszadkowski8864 on the top deck reach is critical, below decks thrusting is your only option if you use a sword. A hatchet allows for swinging with enough momentum to cut without needing much room to effectively chop. So because I have reach I have more angles for leverage producing a more effective swing, even if it's just a basic downward swing without extending the arm
@@BlueJayWaters *"below decks thrusting is your only option if you use a sword"* --- As opposed to boarding axe which only gives you swinging as an option regardless of the space available. This is actually false, just like your statement about swords but let's follow your own logic here.
I can tell you've never held a sword in your life or if you did it was a very poor replica.
No, you don't need more space to cut with a sword than with a hatchet (for one, cutlasses were made relatively short specifically so they can be used effectively in tight spaces). In fact, I would say that in most cases the opposite is true.
If an axe is primarily used as a tool, it won't have a very sharp age or a blade geometry that allows to retain a lot of sharpness because such blade geometry usually means it would get damaged way too easily. Swords are way sharper in general.
With that sharpness combined with the length of the blade, you can use draw cuts and push cuts. You literally just put the blade against someone and make a slicing motion or a pushing one. It means you can cut with a sword even at a grappling distance, something that is much harder with an axe.
Finally, time to point out the biggest disadvantage of an axe of any kind. Lack of any hand guard. This, and I can't stress this enough, makes an axe a very poor weapon to go on it's one against a swordsman regardless of context.
Notice how when shields fell out of use so did axes. With no shield or metal gauntlet, your hand is extremely vulnerable. It makes it extremely hard to parry any upcoming blows because even if you stop the opponent's blade on the axe's shaft it still may slide down and cut your hand.
Cutlasses on the other hand had basked hilts.
If you would ever try any kind of fencing HEMA or Olimpic, you would know that the hand holding the weapon is one of the easiest and most common targets.
Finally, let the sources of the era speak for themselves. If you go through the sources from the Age of Sail they all almost entirely agree, regardless of the country they come from, that boarding axes make for very poor weapons.
@kamilszadkowski8864 bro, you're going too hard about a hypothetical. If we're going to play this game, first off it's 2024. Everything we do is with the benefit of hindsight. What may have been a common tactic or thought 300 years ago may not actually have been the best idea.
2nd, 99% of Earth's population today has not wielded a real sword, let alone touched one. And maybe less than 8% have even touched a "crappy replica" so talking to anyone about sword use today is quite practically irrelevant. But yes I actually have held a real officers sword, albeit made mostly for decoration with a very thin blade and not made even remotely close to the standards of the 18th century, which may have colored my experiences about my choice.
And on that note, I have used hatchets, and more specifically tomahawks because I used to throw knives and axes. I never once said a boarding axe, I specifically said a tomahawk/hatchet, which is even smaller than a boarding axe according to the video's research. Now granted those are probably not made to the same degree as the 18th century, but at least I have experience with them, and even more so, I've shot black powder flintlock pistols before as well.
I'll freely admit I have not reloaded one without guidance, but seeing as how I have used the weapons in question I've talked about, that's what I feel confident in. And also, I've was in the Navy, and very familiar with ships and their layouts. I've even seen the Constitution over in Boston. I can tell YOU have never been on a ship and cannot imagine how close and narrow corridors and below decks are.
I did say on the top deck, a sword probably is the best weapon. But below deck, the minute angle of cutting you could get with even a non-extended arm can cut pretty well, and might take more than one, but its entirely more wieldly than a sword. A large knife like a bowie is probably the overall best weapon.
Finally, back then swords were the norm for defense and fighting in those days. But I guarantee even back then it was a weapon of mass production and not every sailor was trained as an expert swordsman. It was just what was readily available. On land, pikes are the dominant weapon because even the untrained can make effective use over a sword.
The sword was just the more accessible and common use weapon. Okay so an axe needs more training to utilize effectively. Fine. I'll take that tradeoff to carry a few more pistols and be more effective below decks.
Oh and handguards. Well, considering everything I've been saying especially about below decks, that's probably the only real downside, but in such close quarters, I really don't think I'm trying parry or block an attack, I'm more in grabbing range. It's more of swing first strike fast, and if they have limited maneuverability, I probably have the advantage.
So yeah. Don't even bother replying because I'm not going to read it. Its 2024 and we are arguing over a way of life I have more experience with, from hundreds of years ago.
I think the axe ladder part got interpreted wrong and the used the axe to make a notch so that something can be wedged in like how they do with modern wood chopping competition but it’s jus a theory
Saw the title and said fuck yeah
Never underestimate a good knife.
I was wondering something earlier, was paper cartridges a thing during the pirate age or did they load their guns with powder horns??
paper cartridges existed and were adapted very early on by pirates especially, around the 1650s, powder horns were used simutaneously as paper cartridges but mostly if not exclusively for priming, you could either reprime from the horn of the priming powder from the cartridge misfired, or you could omit priming from the cartridge and use it only as a main charge and prime from the horn. the priming powder in horns had smaller grains making it burn quicker which made it more optimal for starting fires and causing discharge(it was also used for priming cannons), but it's not optimal for main charges, afaik it was dangerous
@@GoldandGunpowder Smart move. Putting both types in 2 separate containers are a good way to prevent injury by keeping track of which powder is which.
@@GoldandGunpowder thank you
Yo I hear contradictory info on the Caribs.
It would be cool to see a video on them.
Honestly a series on native groups frequently encountered by pirates would be cool, like the Miskito, Kuna, Caribs, Malagasy, and various West African and Southeast Asian natives as well
When considering any weapon and its use, one has to know the tactical situation being faced by the combatants. There are weapons that are more useful for, say, defending or denying an area (i.e. preventing boarding) and those that are more suitable for attack. Confronted by a bristling row of pikes, pirates would want to break the pikemen's formation, ideally with ranged weapons. Those pikes won't do much when a pirate fires a volley of grape from a couple of swivel guns (thus the popularity of swivel guns...an anti-personnel weapon that won't destroy the objective, that is to say, the ship and its cargo.) Pirate tactics almost always aimed to reduce the number of casualties (for them, duh) since you can't enjoy your ill-gotten gains when you're dead.
Of course, for self-defense, the best weapon is the one you've got, and the fact is those flintlock pistols and that fairly heavy (as swords go) cutlass would be kind of a pain to carry around all the time means that pirates did what everyone else would do: they used whatever was at hand. We get our images of those times mostly from the 'moobies' so we see the guys lounging around with their swords and pistols, but if you've ever had occasion to actually carry a weapon on a regular basis in a non-military setting, you quickly discover how inconvenient they can be. (Really hard on the furniture, ladies.)
I'm glad you mentioned the size of the ropes on a ship. You'll see the hero in the movies using a knife to cut some huge cable...laughable. Many time fouled lines are a shipboard emergency and must be dealt with immediately. The axes were usually stored on deck in convenient locations...kind of like a fire extinguisher would be...if you needed an axe, you usually needed it quickly.
Aboard ship at sea, nobody's carrying their weapons, those come out when prey is actually within range, and that could take hours or even days. So sure, if a shipboard fight among the crew broke out, it was going to be with knives, belaying pins (get a hold of one and you'll see it does make a dandy truncheon), axes, buckets, a mug, a fork...like I said, it's the weapon you've got that you use.
Great production, as always. I like that you give us intelligent and thought-out analysis based on historical records. As a novelist, I tend to try to put myself into a foreign world and go from there. What weapon would I want for various piratical situations? The best one for the task at hand.
If you're interested, a video on some of the more unusual weapons of the time would be fun...multi-shot flintlocks, Native American weapons adapted by Europeans, Asian pirate weapons vs. European, etc.
Devil take the hindmost!
I run with gunstock warclub or tamahawk/longknife combo when I’m running the woods, gotta go with the 58cal hawkins rifle. I make my own powder ball and hemp clothe. Anything but primitive living.
Billhooks were essentially Englishmens' machetes.
There’s also the Boucan Knife they wear made from broken cutlass
Spear all the way. No doubt.
Targes were my favorite of all items they had.
My personal choice? Easy. Knives all the way. Learn to close--whether surprise, ambush, or strategy. Either way, the knife's advantages (for me at least)--speed, utility, acceptability, cost, ease of acquiring and replacing, etc.--far outweigh the disadvantage of length.
I dug that axe pistol!!!
10:39 gangsta
Ahoy!
10:55
Yes, nice. But if you want that job done the cuirass would be a better pick. Maybe wear something underneath it to give back buoyancy incase you get knocked into the water.
Kukri
The axes shown would only be good for cutting people and rope not wood, of course still better than a sword would be. The heads /blades are flat, axes for wood cutting are wedge shaped to split essentially break the wood. Those boarding axes would cut into the wood without splitting or breaking it- then you would have a hell a time trying to get it back out... There are wood working axes shaped that way for things like timber framing, they are used for precise cuts creating the joints used to join the timbers together and often after a different ax has been used to roughly cut the shape required.
Boarding Axe
Need info on my ancestors time, CPT Christopher Newport, Elizabethan.
I'm very curious how many recorded pirate ship and town attacks we know about.
Like lets narrow that to New World 1630-1730.
We know(we have written documents) about 50 incidents? 100? 2000?
In the case of a plug-in bayonet... Can't you pour powder through the ignition hole and fire this small charge to push the bayonet out?
since the priming hole/vent is usually so tight you would struggle at getting any powder through, but some were wide enough for even musket-powder(priming powder and musket powder had different grain sizes), either way any significant charge would make the gun explode, since the pressure from the explosion would have nowhere to go: keep in mind that modern guns can explode if there's just snow or dirt in the muzzles
@@GoldandGunpowder A point for Russian Winter.
Talk about pirate Grenadess
Do you think a pirate could carry a plug band that as a normal knife?
Did some of these weapons vary from century to century?
Did pirates use bows and arrows?
Nice Powerfuff Girls reference haha!
Though i have a bit of a soft spot for the smallsword & dagger i am a musketeer at heart, so i'd chose it with the bayonet. You cannot beat the range of a bullet and the versatility of both ends, plus some of the advantage of the spear without being all too unwieldy. A bit odd that for the dagger you didn't mention the cross guard's ability to catch and trap an opponent's blade with the flick of the wrist though.
I think the inclusion of plug bayonets in that manual more likely indicates that since it was a recent development, they may still have had some in storage or were expected to come across some still being used by poorer irregulars who either didn't have the funding to upgrade or were desperate enough for equipment to bring out the older outdated stuff. Sort of like how ww2 guns are still often found being used by middle eastern irregulars to this day.
7:29 also this painting goes so hard.
What's a gunwale?
It would have been the socket bayonet.
Can you do a reaction to videos like "pirate expert reacts to hollywood movies"
Yeah, I know, a double reaction video. I just noticed how the female pirate "expert" said pirate women were more common than we think. Interesting in what you're thinking about it
As someone who use to use pocket knives instead of regular knives I can confirm they do not make a very good weapon. When you slash with a knife you are effectively slamming the knife, and slamming a pocket knife can knock the blade loose of its safety lock and force it to then slam onto your fingers. I have a scare to remind me of this. Though thankfully the scare is so small you can mistake it for just one of my knuckle lines.
Blunt is best
Yohoho
Debating these bladed weopons academicly is kinda dumb. Pirates were/are violent criminals they would use whatever they could. Of course they'd use the best available but what really matters is to attach fast with overwhelming violence!
Yarr! 🪓🏴☠
🗿👍
rapir och dolk inte smalsword och dolk
Você libera seu canal para ser dublado em português aqui no Brasil👋🏻👍🏻👍🏻
E também poderia comentar sobre pirataria na América Latina os brasileiros adoram ouvir coisas históricas sobre o país deles só tô falando desse jeito para não suar estranho para você🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
✨🏴✨🥰✨👍✨♥️✨🤗✨.
I've just gotta ask, have you seen One Piece?
nah
@@GoldandGunpowder Ah, that's alright.
I think it's cool to see how many real life parallels and references the author put into his story