@@Vlugazoide oh come on, everyone knows huge spears are impossible, spears can only come in 4 sizes, Small > Regular > Slightly Longer > Even Slightly Longer. If they were to come in huge size the chart would have to be completely reworked.
arguably cause with a sword or axe u can hack a limb off but since zombies aren't gonna fall in shock from a thrust that perforated heart or lungs the way a living opponent would....
@@galadballcrusher8182 well if you want more options besides stabbing em between the eyes, then grab a glaive (short sword on a stick), or a halberd (axe, spike and hook on a stick). Now you can hack and slash from a safe distance.
@Kristoffer Pettersson I'm currently watching walking dead as well, and it also pisses me off lol, of course they can't use spears, they have to use KniVeS for some reason. Daryl is the smartest one because he uses a crossbow, it's silent, with deep penetration, and has retrievable, easily reproducible ammunition, you can see him making his own arrows in a few scenes.
Not only a spear extremely simple to understand, pick up, and use, it's also the weapon best designed to take advantage of human musculature. Thrusts are so quick and powerful because you're using all of the most powerful muscles in your legs and back to generate force. Swings can make up for using weaker, less developed muscles through taking advantage of momentum, but a spear is brutal and simple. It's just every bit of force you can exert in the smallest possible point
Hell, the axe gets more love in games. Grell in Fire Emblem 9, Hector in FE6, all the minion characters in those games, Simon Belmont and Ritcher throws axes.
Yep, I'm annoying in that I always take a spear/javelins, and a short bow helmet and shield over body armor when rolling up a character. I know the mechanics don't always make it pay off but it's just doesn't make sense for me any other way.
Tbf, the statistics of weapon in game may not represent their effectiveness in the ‘game universe’ because the balance of game play is more important. But yes, we need to see more high rank warrior type characters use spear.
Many didn't have to imagine. Hence why many chose to lead from a horse or chariot, from the rear, incase they suddenly remembered they had to be somewhere else.
@@guypierson5754 Considering that the most practical weapon from a horse was a heavy spear I don't see what your getting at. Honestly a noble would likely be trained in both sword and spear as well as any other relevant weapons barring complete incompetence from their instructor. Also bear in mind swords weren't that expensive, it was the armour and mounts that made up the majority of the cost for a knight.
There's kinda alot of limitation in useage of the bayonet compare to the spear tho. Like when using a spear, you could retract the handle if the opponent passed the sharp point, you could also use the spear with quarterstaff techniques. But you can't use those techniques with a rifle and a bayonet, the only techniques you could perform is thrust forward or do very small cuts
@@jaketheasianguy3307 depends on the rifle. If it's a modern rifle, like the ones the British army use's (although I can't remember what they are called. It's LA3 or something like that) then yes, you can't really use anything except the bayonet itself, which is a short cutting blade and a nice point, because the materials used aren't really capable of taking hard impacts such as you get from being slammed into someones skull. However, if you have an older style rifle, such as the lee enfield or even a musket, anything which has solid wood and metal construction really, then you can beat the everloving shite out of anyone who gets past the point of your bayonet, because it's wood and metal. Admitly, you can still damage the rifle by slamming it into someones skull, but that damage tends to be repairable with the tools you'd have available on a battlefield within a reasonable length of time.
I'm playing a TON of Mordhau lately, and they use a point system for balancing builds. The spear is the most expensive melee weapon, meaning you can't afford heavy armor if you choose the GODSTICK.
A problem with this is that it's probably more difficult to create a fighting system that's both: relatively accurate and fun with spear than it is to do the same thing with sword. I mean in fantasy combat,yeah you can go crazy with it. But when you want to keep your game more down to earth,even in fantasy,spear combat would be difficult to design. It's just a "pointy stick" in the end. It's a different story with halberds tho,as imo they have a lot potential for video games with realistic fighting. I mean,hooking limbs and weapons as well as using different "tools" on the halberd surely sounds like a lot of fun
Pointy sticks will always be the meta of warfare, no matter if they are launched with strings, launch small lead balls themselves, or are just simply held in hand.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory Technically in the case of firearms, the projectile is the pointy stick. It's just very short. If you were referring to bayonets, the attachment itself is indeed a pointy stick.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory i prefer my pointy sticks short, fat, hollow, filled, metal finned and thrown at stuff someone else has told me they want pointy 'splodey sticks thrown at...
I trained with bayonet on the m16a2 back in 1998. They still spend a lot for basic. Almost 2 days introducing bayonet during hand I hand training week.
@@joelcarberry9898 The German army doesn't even have bayonets anymore, they only have combat knives. I'm not a soldier, but wouldn't a bayonet be better than just a knife? I mean with a bayonet you have more reach, you can thrust harder, you can block better, you can also use the buttstock to hit the enemy and you can use a bayonet as a normal knife, but you can't use a knife as a bayonet. Am I missing something?
@@wilhufftarkin8543 Most kills don't happen in melee, so bayonets were used much more for survival and other utilities. Bayonets were replaced with knives because you can make them more ergonomic, making the utility aspect easier and faster to do.
Hundreds of thousands of years of advancements in both technology and warfare yet the best hand-to-hand combat weapon is still the long pointy booper some grug invented 500,000 years ago.
I dunno tho, a bow and some arrows could fk up an experienced spearman pretty badly before he could even get close. And those didn't take much longer to be developed after the spear in some regions
Oberyn Martell was one of the coolest characters from Game of Thrones to me purely because he fought with a spear. Also Achillies vs. Hector in Troy. Love that scene. Great video.
Oberyn was so under utilized, he saunters into the duel full of charisma and charm, then gets his ass kicked in like 30 seconds by a guy named after a really tall pile of rocks.
@@patricklonge8912 that was one of the big issues with anyone who fought either Clegane brother, people thought they were dumb brutes and underestimate them. Both the Mountain and the Hound were "combat pragmatists" meaning they could appear brutish and simple when they were actually just efficient and used whatever worked in combat. Unlike many of the knights in GoT they didnt have any formal training so they didnt use any fancy moves or stylish fighting style, they learned through experience so they tended to be efficient if simplistic
The Chinese called the staff "the father of all weapons." Most weapon techniques derive directly or indirectly from the staff. And the spear is just a staff with a pointy thing on the end. It's very intuitive to use and dangerous to counter. And it's really difficult to overstate how important it is that a weapon is cheap to mass produce and requires little training to use. There's a reason crossbows became so popular; even though in many ways they were objectively worse weapons than regular bows, they required far, FAR less training to use effectively, allowing you to have much larger units of archers and increase the threat of missile weapons in total. Likewise, equipping your army with spears allows you to equip and train a larger army more quickly, increasing your presence on the battlefield.
In an army setting the spear has one more great advantage. It reduces fear. Your average conscripted peasent doesn't really have high morale to begin with. And if you now want to force them into close quarters combat they will likely just run away. But with a spear the enemy is farther away and thus doesn't feel as threatenein. Thus your conscripted peasent might actually stay and fight.
Well, you could want: Enraged by everything, arrow proof, fire proof, poison proof, curse proof, frost proof, immune to executions, vigilant to stealth, great strength, thick skinned and a gang of hunters too
Pointed sticks? Oh, oh, oh, you want to learn to defend yourself from pointed sticks, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you, eh? Well, when some madman comes running at you with a pomegranate, don't come crying to me!
Similarly, a spear requires less technological know-how to make and are much easier to learn to use than a sword, which is the AR pattern rifle of the melee-weapon world.
@@DarthGibberish Except that AKs are incredibly difficult to manufacture and require a lot of specialized tooling. Basically every nation who builds them (except maybe the US) has received technical assistance and tooling from the USSR and/or China (itself getting it from the USSR).
The AK is vastly superior though. Since, unlike the spear, it has a removable piece that may be thrown in battle. Like a makeshift pommel. A cheap spear is often cheap because they lack this lethal option.
There's a lot of ceremonial hewing spears from later centuries but I can see that's the obvious choice for town or palace guards. A few guys can keep a large crowd at bay, sure if enough people rush them they'll be overrun, but who's going to be the first to step forward?
Depends on what the rusher has to fight that spear, their experience against them and how good they are with that weapon. Spears are so common cuz the vast majority are easily made and easy to weild effectively without much training but not too many people using them were particularly skilled or trained enough to make them EXCEPTIONALLY lethal like any other weapons
"We got nukes, we got knives, SHARP STICKS!" Haha the part about someone trying to grab the end of your spear and try to control you! In Rifle + Bayonet training, that little circular move you showed at 7:53 was taught to us, it will stop their grip on your weapon, and we were taught about immediate follow ups like a step in + rifle butt strike to the face, quick bayonet thrust, etc. Fun stuff! And that was with a relatively shorter M16A2. Modern assault rifles aren't that long. You can go back with the older days with longer battle rifles + bayonets, those would be nasty. Nobody wants to get run through by a blade.
@@sinaparsi6736 Then what do they call it then? Because I thought the word Assault Rifle came from Germany and spread out all over by both U.S. and U.K. And I'm in Vietnam. where ranged weapons is near entirely the domain of military and law-enforcers. And they call them "tiểu liên" ("small machinegun" if translated semi-literally; the word is also used for sub-machinegun), or "súng trường" (roughly translated to "long-gun" if we are being literal, and Rifle for the correct translation; also used for assault rifle, battle rifle, and rifles that came before and used the word long before those two). Or if we are being literal-literal, "tiểu liên" is short for "tiểu liên thanh" in which "liên thanh" means "consecutive-repeating-sound", and "tiểu" is for "small".
@@sinaparsi6736 Hmmm...I see. But Assault Rifle is a far more popular word. It's just more obvious when you need to distinguise between them and something like a Garand or Arisaka.... Vietnamese can get away with using the same word for sub-machinegun because we don't really see much use of it outside tank crews or fighter pilots, and even then... We can use Rifles for our Galil ACEs and AKs (and is in the process of retiring the AKs; Ceremonial only) because we long since gotten rid of the aging and obsolete Arisaka Type 99, Mosin-Nagant, SKS (This one is still kept around for ceremonial purposes), and SVT,... ...Everything else that was once domain of SMGs are now replaced with Carbines like CAR-15; known as M-18 locally, CTAR-21, Galil ACE 31 (AKS and variants were easily kicked out of the running by the ACE 31).
Despite the sword being more iconic there's a reason why the spear was almost always the preferred main weapon while swords tended to be only a sidearm. My favorite is definitely the Chinese overlord spear, it's as if they took a short sword and strapped it to the end of a staff. It has quite the long blade with a point perfect for thrusts but is also wide enough to deliver strong cuts as well, which is why it's tied for first along with the guan dao for my favorite spear/polearm. If only you could combine the two getting the spears piercing ability with the guan daos cutting/chopping strength without going down the halberd path, alas!
The japanese naginata is basically the same: a short sword with a grotesquely oversized handle. It's maid mainly for cuts, but you can poke with it. And if the shaft breaks, the bit of handle that is left makes the weapon still usable. Something that works for many spear designs, the pointy blade part often has a dull part where the shaft goes in, and that part can double as sort of impromptu grip.
The sword is the king of weapons. Fancy, pretty, and getting all the credit. The spear is the footsoldier. Rugged, straightforward, and doing all the real work.
Swords were good in close quarters when fighting in tight formations. Roman's used short sword called gladius for this purpose. When lines meet the short sword can be used more freely with the shield.
Another possible advantage of the spear you might have forgotten - especially in a duel - is that with the point basically "pointing" at you, making it more difficult to defend against due to an absence of depth perception.
@@HappyBeezerStudios the ak doesnt work as well as you'd think when its in poor condition. ive seen a video of an AK and an AR15 completely submerged in mud, the AK jammed immediately and the AR fired with no issue
@@boofmcgoof1534 Like they did in The Elder Scrolls (played both Oblivion & Skyrim and i've never came across a single spear, ignoring the rieklings javelins that can be used as arrows)
@@boofmcgoof1534 or to make shields and armor realistically effective. Another way to balance spears and polearms in general, is to make it so the player can't stash it in their inventory, forcing them to either equip or drop it. Just like in real life, there's no way to keep a spear on you unless it's in your hands, while swords can always be on you sheathed. That's the trade off.
@Kristoffer Pettersson I'm having trouble picturing what you're describing with the Vikings. I consider javelins different than fighting spears. I know that peltasts held multiple javelins in their shield hand, but that still kept both hands busy. You couldn't have a handful of javelins with a shield and weild another weapon, operate siege machines, or negotiate obstacles. Unless you had a type of quiver, sure. But again, not with fighting spears. Do you have anything to back up people latching it on their back historically? (Not sure if I count shad's video as historical proof). I feel like wedging it between your knapsack or in a rope on your waste would be pretty cumbersome. Also, we're talking gameplay balance, so there has to be a downside to spears one way or another. If you let players strap a spear to their back, then equipping and dequipping should take significantly longer than sheathing and unsheathing a sword. And they should be limited to only one polearm.
@@omnianti0 Lances are not really for thrusting, lances are specialised weapons designed to be used specifically in shock cavalry charges. In other words a lance isn’t that useful when dismounted, unlike a proper infantry spear or a pike or a halberd.
@@dunadan7136 the long pike act the same way as a lance its satic and only the relative move of the target that self impale on it make it usefull so you cant compare it to a spear
I used to be a huge sword fanboy but my favorite medieval weapon now is the "Poleaxe" I like the Versatility Hammer End Sharp Spear point and Axe Head along with the Reach
I love, LOVE that you can look at a culture's spears and tell so much about what other cultures they must have come into contact with, and what kind of technology they must have had access to just based on the iterative improvements and construction details that went into them. Wonderful video, love the bit at the end detailing the special case of the atgeir.
I had written partial RPG rules for weapons based on their lengths at one point. Basically, long weapons such as spears and polearms always had an advantage in combat. Their disadvantages came in non-combat. They could not be sheathed and certainly could not be concealed, meaning that a character was always encumbered in non-combat actions and could never pass themselves off as being unarmed.
Skall, I have had the distinct pleasure of viewing your channel now for several years. I have been so overjoyed to find a community of passionate lovers of history, the combat arts, and the pursuit of knowledge. I just wanted to share that you have been a wonderful companion throughout the years, even though it is a one sided relationship. I most of all wanted to compliment you. Your growth as a martial artist has been the fruit of your dedication. You have grown so much, and it is easy to see for anyone who practices a martial art. You move with the weapon, and your body wants to move as a warrior. I also have struggled with injuries, weight gain and loss, and the loss of dedication. Seeing you persevere through these same challenges has been a constant source of inspiration. Thank you my good sir. I dream that one day, free of quarantine, I might journey to the far off land of Canada and practice some HEMA with you, as well as shoot some of your firearms. I will at the very least toast to your health in the halls of Valhalla.
Thats funny, they got the Japanese translation backwards “yari” means needle/spear, so that’s correct but “Te” means hand and “Nage” means to throw so it doesn’t make sense that the “Te-yari” is a javelin and vice versa. Edit: spelling and time stamp: 2:50
Oh thank god someone mentioned that. I was so triggered by that and thought there was something weird going on. I was like "Wait Teyari is the throwing spear? Wouldn't te be 手?" Googles nage, gets nageru. Immediately angry.
Nowadays the thing that makes a spear impractical for civilian isn't that the point is threatening, because just use a sheath that makes it look like a staff, it's that walking around with a staff is ridiculous. "What? You're disabled? Use an aluminum cane, you look like a wizard with that"
4:17 it's like indians had such a good iron ore that they flexed at each other with the most bizzarre designs they can make while still keeping it as a viable weapon :D
The first weapon in human history is the Club, we have evolved special tendons that allow us to swing our palm in a circular motion with ease, none of the other great apes have that ability.
That's probably more from tool usage than weaponry. Our first weapon was the Rock, we are the only great ape than can use their body weight to accelerate a misile, if a gorilla tries to overhand throw he will overbalance and fall forward. When we all picked up rocks and threw them at predators, THAT was our first weapon, admittedly not a great hunting tool, but masses of rocks to the face will dissuade almost any predator, and make them go look for easier targets. Cohesive mass action and missiles is our great power: give any kid a broom handle and watch once he's finished doing star wars impressions, he'll hold it half way up, one handed, and throw it, with pretty good accuracy: that hasn't been taught, but we can all do it to some extent. That's what a million years of throwing things will do though: horses are born able to walk, we were born with knowledge inside us too. The baby knows to be quiet when large birds circle it, to not cry when handed to a stranger, and later any kid knows how to chuck rocks and spears. These things are in our DNA.
@@guypierson5754 While I agree on it being a rock, I wager that use as a melee implement preceded any significant throwing. All you need to is grab a rock and bash stuff with it, and chipping away to produce a sharp point or edge is ancient. I suspect that the structure to enable throwing may have been a result of already using them as hand implements.
@@BeingFireRetardant we're not necessarily superior to other animals (for example insects and rodents), and we weren't simply given intelligence. Our ancestors depended on teamwork, communication, and intelligence to survive, and then passed those survival traits on. Those traits accumulated and here we are. Other animals such as our cousins, the chimps, depended on other skillsets and now here they are. We are very smart, and they can climb trees, and forage very well.
@@omnianti0 They has decently balanced spears in beta but all the sword cucks kept bitching about it so they basically forced devs to change it. Sword meta may be more fun 1v1 but when it comes to armies and battles it just turns into a joke. You have short sword infantry taking out spear walls.
@@chetnek i know its ever the same problem when the devs atempt to keep sale by adapting the gameplay to the alpha tester as if they was representative of the common player instead on focusing on the realism or just the straight balance between visual and data as you mentionned being a super hero that blow walls of spear is fun for a sword player and disgust the 10 spear players the same apply with battlefield serie where a helicopter player make 20 infantry players rage quit and never spend more money in the serie that looked nice and fun at first its true too for the movies like star wars
It's also like that in the legend of Saint George I mean sure he uses his sword on the dragon but that was just to finish it off after he did some serious damage to the dragon with a blow from his spear that was so powerful the spears tip actually broke off
@Kristoffer Pettersson swedish or not. You don't raid... You are not a viking. I have Norwegian and swedish ancestors as well and I'm a Germanic neo pagan but I'm not a viking either.
I love the spear. It's a wonderful weapon, really versatile and a lot of fun! I used to study spear fencing in accordance Joachim Meyers techniques from The Art of Combat. I've tried sparring with spears against other weapons such as longswords, sword and buckler, dagger (yes, really!), Montante (YES, really!) and I didn't have a really hard time with any of the opponents. Sparring with spear against spear is really hard, but also very fun. It's fast-paced, you have to be on your toes and anticipate attacks at all times, it's hard to stop and rest like you sometimes can do with a longsword vs longsword sparring. I really would love to get into spears again, it's been ages. Maybe this pandemic could bring something to it. Physical distancing is much easier with spears than with long swords.
Fool its the Holy Hand Grenade that reigns upon the land of weapons. Even Saint Attila raised the Hand Grenade up on high saying: "Bless this thy Hand Grenade, that with it may blow thine enemies to tiny bits. In thy my mercy"
After watching Lindybeige's spear videos, I'm fully convinced that the spear deserves more credit. It is interesting how much better two-handed spear is compared to spear and shield. One handed spear seems to really inhibit usability.
Who was that wan in black panther? Never watched the movie, so I can't remember her name, but she used a spear. As did two of thanos's minions, although technically corvus used a glaive. Aquaman obviously uses a trident, which is basically a spear. In the new walking dead show they use a sort of switchblade spear thing, which is kinda weird but still a spear. Valkyrie in thor ragnarok uses a spear in some scenes. That one greek mythology movie with Liam Neeson as Zeus had the main character use a super magic spear to defeat kronos. And whilst this is a book series, kaladin is one of the main characters in the stormlight archives, and he uses a spear. Unfortunately, not a lot of movies are set before the invention of guns, so melee weapons tend to get pushed to the wayside anyway.
@@suzuxiiiahdv The Night King only really throws spears. You're right about Oberyn, I was super happy to see him use a spear, but that's just one character in 8 seasons of a show with a cast that changed a lot and had a ton of characters
8:00 this looks like one of those things that if your parents walked in right as this part was going on, it would be pretty confusing to explain "Son, why is there a homeless man in a hoodie poking you through the screen with a stick?"
My Sifu (kung fu master) always stuck to the spear being the most versatile but most difficult to master weapon. It was a semi-flexable but also solid blunt weapon, it was a slashing but also stabbing, and it was a short or long weapon. Easy to use but hard to master as it incorporates so many options that other weapons only focus on one or two.
Great vid Skall ( Just like always XD ), really enjoyed this one since the spear is KINDA my favourite weapon but i have one thing to point out, you talked about the balance of the spear when holding it from the 1/4 that is bad and its better when holding it from the 2/4 of the spear. The Greeks had a butt-spike that served as counter balance and it was heavier than the spear shaft, in result they could wield the spear perfectly from the 1/4! I don't know if other cultures did that too, i'm sure they did but i don't know to what extend. For anyone that want information about the Greek butt spike type Dory ( Spear ) and it will show up on Wiki. Keep uploading amazing content Skall!
@@fearedjames I think it was not so much that Australian Aboriginals lacked bows - some early settler encounters with them did record some of them possessing bows. But the majority of the weaponry favoured by Australian Aboriginals did seem to revolve around the spear (thrown with an woomera / atlatl), the boomerang, and axes made of flaked stone.
The thing folks gotta remember about spears is, the overwhelming majority of soldiers throughout all of human history carried spears. They're not the best weapon ever, but they're probably the best melee weapon ever.
In fact, in Gothic 3 its the polearms and spears, staffs etc that are overpowered. Due to reach mostly. And rightfully so. So overpowered that they had to come up with all kinds of fancy swords etc to calm down the sword fanboy maniacs. 💪
Most notably, the heavy orcish halberd, which has the most damage out of (almost) anything else in the game while at the same time somehow having the speed and reach of a regular spear. 1-H swords still make some sense, but no one ever need to ever use two-handed sword if you can have a halberd with the same speed, more damage, and more reach. [all that, of course, in the scope of combat fixed by the community. In vanilla none of this matters, you can LMB-LMB-LMB everyone into oblivion]
@@sergeysapozhnikov5717 yes, the stun lock bs mechanics of Gothic 3 😂😂 I still remember the first forest troll I killed. Bastard barely flinched from all the fireballs that I threw at him, but died to stun locks lmb spam with a cheap ass sword.
@@avandarkwalker9132 That's why once i tried the fixed version, i never came back to stunlock vanilla bs. Fixed version might be hard for the player, but it's better than braindead lmb smap =)
If I remember correctly Irmak's halberd was one of the most optimal weapons in the entire game as it only needed like Heavy Weapons I and just a bit of strenght,yet it's reach and damage were basically everything you needed to take on anything. Also one thing I always liked about G3 regarding the combat how unintentional this feature wouldn't be as it was most prolly a bug is that your positioning actually made a difference and when you had uneven terrain like a hill or sth like this it was always better to stand below your opponent as very often his strikes wouldn't reach you in that situation and he was always exposed to your attacks on the other hand (which btw would be kinda true in a real armed fight as proven by Skall in one of his past videos)
I remember watching some of Lindybeige's videos on spears, particularly when demonstrating how they'd work in a line, and was fairly impressed. So I'm coming into this with perhaps a bit of a leaning to be in favor of spears compared to swords or axes, at least as part of an organized and trained army. As an individual fighting weapon, I'd probably go for an ax, a sword, or a proper pole-arm like a halberd instead.
Great video as allways. I am Norwegian, and have been interrested in this kind of stuff more than 30 years. The atgeir is actually two words. In the norse language it is common to join words. Geirr or geir means spear. Atgeirr is sometimes referred to be synonymous with spjut, however spjut is a hunting weapon mostly for throwing. That being said, the terms of geirr and spjut have been used interchangeably, so it might have been a significant overlap. Atgeirr in my understanding means greater spear, while spjut is smaller spear or javelin. Geirr without any prefix could be something in between. Atgeirr has a very sturdy head, was likely used by stronger vikings and was a dedicated war time weapon. Its been speculated it was for piercing armor, but I am not fully comitted to that idea. Hoggspyd as I understand it has a much longer shaft. The saga's refer to them as so long that the viking could not reach the hafting when standing next to the upright spear. But then again, the viking area was 200 years, and the saga's were mostly written down long after the eara came to a close.
It's was a powerful moment in our history when we all picked up rocks. As humans, we have a very great power against Stealth hunters: we stand upright and forage with our hands, not our face. We then remain upright and bring the food to our mouth: this whole time, we are watching. It is VERY hard to sneak up on a human, compared to other creatures. So, once we saw the leopard coming, we used another great power we have, communication: "Hey, watch out everyone, there's a fucking leopard!" and then the whole tribe knew, and a single stone is unlikely to hurt a leopard, but 10, 20 people all picking up rocks and throwing them? Not worth it, leopard leaves, cause he isn't going to risk it with these aggressive monkeys that stick together and throw rocks, better to find a lone gazelle. Throwing rocks together was most deffinitely our first major defensive weapon, and I believe, when we first realised mass action in coperation and cohesion could bring off results a single individual could never dream of achieveing. Almost all our power stems from this same knowledge, together we truly are greater than the sum of our parts. Wish we could remember this more often.
@@guypierson5754, one minor nitpick. The evidence is pretty strong that protohumans invented spears long before they evolved speech. But otherwise, super solid analysis.
@@DinnerForkTongue, if we're not specifically going by speech, then plenty of other species have far more communication than he was giving them credit for
It was king due to its low costs, low skill floor despite how effective it was, and its versatility. There's more specialized weapons that did specific things better (or did everything better at the cost of being expensive as hell), but if they wanted everything covered, spears were too efficient across the board to be ignored.
For the disadvantage of the shaft breaking. Most every army had soldiers carry 3-4 at all times. Keeping carts and bundles in reserve so as to easily re-arm soldiers in battle. Same with shields.
Citation needed. It's kinda difficult to resupply a spear to a soldier when they're in the middle of a fight, no? And if they break their spear in combat, it's not exactly like you can just tell the enemy "hold on lemme get my other spear."
I know this is super late but those wavy spears have been shown to cause extremely deadly wounds. They were very sharp (as usual) and the wave of the spear would cause wounds that could not be sutures or sealed at all. If you imagine pushing that design into meat and pulling it out, due to the wave, any rotation or pivoting that occurs during the thrust and retrieval would cause a new unique cutting line. It would have been nasty to deal with one.
7:09 in all fairness they are both using a single one handed weapon while you are using a two handed weapon. It would have most likely gone down differently if the had shields. In addition to this, a lot of modern hema practitioners are inexperienced against spears.
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I personally like have counter weight on spear myself when using one to make it more balanced.
And if it was big enough, you could do some serious injury while smashing with it. You always want some extra tools when going to war, life is on the stake afterall
I love this video. I think the spear is underestimated in most shows & film. It bothers me a lot because in some movies the characters could easily make a wooden spear to defend themselves. Like most zombie and survival movies (Jurassic Park 2 & 3 come to mind against raptors). Keep them coming man. I love the content.
I know an ex Special Forces guy who made a spear. It was about 15 feet long and light, with a small knife blade at the end. You could hold it loosely in your left hand, just behind the head, and fling it with your right, and it glides out straight ahead as far as you want super fast, and the person you're flinging it at can't tell when it's coming, or even while it's coming. Then you reverse it backwards with your right hand , and what you've got is like a 12 foot automatic stiletto. Out all the way fast, and back again, all in under one second. And that's how you use a 15 foot fighting spear -- not a pike. A spear.
I actually constructed a prototype modular spear that breaks into 3 section so that you can transport it in a backpack. It has 3 sections of threaded tube steel that you can link up to have 3 different weapon types, a long knife/small club, a shorter cane like spear, and the full length spear. A spear is bar none the weapon i would want in a survival melee combat situation. Sword is a close second tho.
You forget that spears that aren’t meant to be thrown don’t work to well for that. As well as the fact you’re now without a weapon if you don’t kill them, it’s probably your primary weapon that you fight with then leading to the enemy killing you as you fool about trying to get our secondary weapon if you have one.
Since you made a specific video on the spear and have the resources and interest in testing as well as a tendency to make great videos I want to offer a concept I haven't seen mentioned anywhere except for the source where I ran across it, since the idea has stuck with me for years I'd be delighted to see someone actually test it. The idea was to have a very flexible shaft (conducive to many of the systems seen in asian schools) with the use of materials like bamboo but what made it special was that the concept I ran across had a hand hold for your lead hand that served as a greased sleeve/tube on the outside of the shaft which supposedly lent itself to an extreme in thrusting and retracting speed, when combined with a flexible shaft it also allowed for very odd slicing and circular movements as well that I never saw with normal spears as the sleeve handle would act as a pivot which you could manipulate the front of the spear around, allowing for oddly fast and constricting circular movements that could catch an opponent off guard by repositioning the spear much faster than what is normal. Allowing for an effective transfer of force with small movements that then lent itself well to confusing and harassing an enemy combatant while inflicting "minor" cuts or positioning for new thrusts before the opponent could reposition to block. I can't remember the source but the concept itself seems to hold merit in my head so I was wondering if you would be willing to test out the concept, should make for a good video if the theory holds up.
The fact that professional wars were fought for thousands of years with primarily spears. The only thing that began to cause spear/shield formations were chariots, specialized Calvary, elephants etc. which were expensive and time consuming to maintain and very situational.
The fact you dropped on Stoned-tipped spears being found FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS ago literally made my jaw drop. I'm obviously both ignorant and fascinated with the history of weapons/tools.
Just a note, "geir" is an archaic but still recognizably Icelandic word for spear derived from the old Norse "geirr" - you'll mostly see it in names (Arngeir, etc.). "At" means "fight", and can be found in modern compounds like bull-fighting (nauta-at), or the verb "að atast" (to pick a fight, typically heard from exasperated parents directed at their kids). I remember it from Brennu-Njála, where the hero Gunnar wields an atgeir, and always just assumed it referred to a larger, more aggressive spear than usual, like a hewing spear.
I love it when spears get appreciation! I liked Lindy Beige's demonstration of spears against swords and there are of course ton more in a similar vein. There has been many findings of viking era spears near from where I live and they are just beautiful. If only they could talk and tell their tale!
Odd thing no one points out is the storing of a spear when not in use. The wood shaft tends to warp and become well bent if not properly stored away properly. Odd thing to point out but was one of the first rules I was taught when given my first spear.
Funny this video should pop up right after I read that article on the atgeir. Having read it I have to say I couldn't fault the approach, logic, reasoning nor the conclusion. The Windlass “Gjermundbu” Spearhead would seem to fit the atgeir described in the paper very well, even their "European" spear does a good job. I recommend reading the whole paper, makes a lot of sense.
_Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit_ is one of my favorite series for, among other things, showing that respect for spears. The main character uses a short spear of maybe five feet, but she's easily the best warrior in the entire series, more than a match for even groups of elite swordsmen.
Every time this topic is brought up I'm reminded of the Wheel of Time series, where Mat soundly defeats two skilled swordsmen with a quarterstaff (of course he upgrades to a spear later on). Always made me wonder just how realistic that was. Edit: 7:11 And there it is. lol
One of the coolest medieval weapons I've seen was the Goedendag or Spear-Club. It was a wooden shaft about as long as a short-spear, 4 to 5 feet, that was slightly wider at one end. A metal cap with a long metal spike extending from its center was placed on the wider end making the weapon a vicious clubbing weapon that could also be used to run a man through. Much like the hunting spear the wide metal-capped end prevented you from actually impaling your opponent with the shaft itself. This meant that you could easily pull the spike out and stab or bash to your hearts content! If you think about it it is completely natural that the only weapons found in EVERY culture on Earth, the Club and The Spear, would of course blend into such a versatile weapon.
Spears are great, but they have one fatal weakness, a slightly longer spear.
And thus pikes were born
And the slightly longer spear has another weakness, a spear that shoots tiny round spears out of it.
Or a humble sling shot.
Or a huge spear #sarissagang
@@Vlugazoide oh come on, everyone knows huge spears are impossible, spears can only come in 4 sizes, Small > Regular > Slightly Longer > Even Slightly Longer. If they were to come in huge size the chart would have to be completely reworked.
Its both the king of weapons and a pointy stick. lets just be honest.
Pointy king of weapons
@@WhiskeyTape Sticky point of kings
King of pointy weapons.
Kings on pointy sticks?
Pointy kings and weaponty stick
Spears became Javelins when the guy you stab started running away.
Sword guys have pommels for that )
Why should I trust some random weeb
some spears are not designed for throwing
@L Grace obviously you never heard of Javelins
Yeah, spears can be tossed and are kinda effective if you know what you are doing. But you throw your weapon so...
"not every spear is a javelin"
Not with that attitude it isn't
Y E E T
Fax
Yeet the stick
@@emberhermin52 Y E E T
LMFAO
It was an honor to feature in this video, thanks for having me Skall! Hope we can work together again soon
Wicked little name :D Pointy sticccccccccccccc
ooooh it's you! the sticc from the video
@@Niko-hezze Just back from his piccinnic
Hey there. Quite a fan
BRUH 😅😆🤣😂
Therapist: Your sleep paralysis demon isn't real. He can't hurt you.
My sleep paralysis demon: 8:04
mine always be feigning up, thrusting down, feigning down, thrusting up
HAHA
Ive had sleep paralysis so many times i’m actually friends with them now, yes there’s two of them. They just stop by to say hi every now and then.
legend
that is sad.
Spartan: You know how to use that thing?
Skallagrim: Yes, pointy end goes into the other man.
Zorro reference I like
Spartan: You‘re hired!
Spartan: By the gods! He's a genius!
This is SPARTA! *kick*
Macedonians : hold my Sarissa
Loading screen tips be like
“Spears are good weapons as long as the sharp end is pointed towards the enemy”
You can always apply a but spike.
Now I want an OD green spear with "THIS END TOWARDS ENEMY" stenciled in yellow just below the head.
Spot on mate
Call of duty Agincourt
@@lordicarus8807The funniest thing was that there was actually a roman call of duty game
"spears can be found in every civilization" ... except for any zombie show or movie
For real though.
arguably cause with a sword or axe u can hack a limb off but since zombies aren't gonna fall in shock from a thrust that perforated heart or lungs the way a living opponent would....
@@galadballcrusher8182 well if you want more options besides stabbing em between the eyes, then grab a glaive (short sword on a stick), or a halberd (axe, spike and hook on a stick). Now you can hack and slash from a safe distance.
@Kristoffer Pettersson I'm currently watching walking dead as well, and it also pisses me off lol, of course they can't use spears, they have to use KniVeS for some reason. Daryl is the smartest one because he uses a crossbow, it's silent, with deep penetration, and has retrievable, easily reproducible ammunition, you can see him making his own arrows in a few scenes.
Spears would be too effective and eliminate all drama
Not only a spear extremely simple to understand, pick up, and use, it's also the weapon best designed to take advantage of human musculature. Thrusts are so quick and powerful because you're using all of the most powerful muscles in your legs and back to generate force. Swings can make up for using weaker, less developed muscles through taking advantage of momentum, but a spear is brutal and simple. It's just every bit of force you can exert in the smallest possible point
A Spartan was once asked by another Greek soldier where Sparta's boarders end. The Spartan held out his spear and said "At the tip of this."
"spear"
The Spartans just had all the badass one-line replies, didn't they?
borders*
@@mikeolson7011 Yup. Being very bad-ass yet simple man provides natural the single line threatening quotes.
@@HanSolo__ Until the Romans came up and mowed Greece
The spear IS highly underrated when it comes to games, both video games and D&D underestimate or under-utilize the spear.
DnD creators have absolutely no idea how weapons work IRL. I learned that just by watching Skal' referring on how all weapons were considered in DnD.
Hell, the axe gets more love in games. Grell in Fire Emblem 9, Hector in FE6, all the minion characters in those games, Simon Belmont and Ritcher throws axes.
Yep, I'm annoying in that I always take a spear/javelins, and a short bow helmet and shield over body armor when rolling up a character. I know the mechanics don't always make it pay off but it's just doesn't make sense for me any other way.
I mean, it took D&D 5 editions to realize that the longsword is a two-handed weapon...
Tbf, the statistics of weapon in game may not represent their effectiveness in the ‘game universe’ because the balance of game play is more important. But yes, we need to see more high rank warrior type characters use spear.
Imagine being a noble with a sword that cost more than anything you own, and then you are defeatet by a peasant doing this 8:04
But think about this: Wouldn't the nobleman be trained to be able to fight against all types of weapons?
I'm still laughing! that was perfect.
Many didn't have to imagine. Hence why many chose to lead from a horse or chariot, from the rear, incase they suddenly remembered they had to be somewhere else.
@@TheSteam02 Sure, but they would still be at a significant disadvantage because the pesent has the better weapon.
@@guypierson5754 Considering that the most practical weapon from a horse was a heavy spear I don't see what your getting at.
Honestly a noble would likely be trained in both sword and spear as well as any other relevant weapons barring complete incompetence from their instructor. Also bear in mind swords weren't that expensive, it was the armour and mounts that made up the majority of the cost for a knight.
"Here's a spear."
"How's it used?"
"See the pointed end?"
"Yes."
"You don't want to be on that end."
Spears with pointed butt caps:
🗿
Pointy end goes into other man.
Yup, is that simple 🤣
True :)
This is a sword. You grab it by the sharp side and hit the other guy with the blunt end.
The virgin 100 times folded steel vs the chad pointy stick
Katana fan versus yari enjoyer.
everyone by this point should know the folding of the metal for katanas was required because they had lesser quality metal to work with
@@johnturtle6649 everyone? Press x to doubt
@@danielc.5724 I said "should" know, not DOES know. Press x to go back to school.
VS Mega Chad Greatsword
Adding the "Bayonet" is still a type of spear form, will always be practical on the battlefield!
There's kinda alot of limitation in useage of the bayonet compare to the spear tho. Like when using a spear, you could retract the handle if the opponent passed the sharp point, you could also use the spear with quarterstaff techniques. But you can't use those techniques with a rifle and a bayonet, the only techniques you could perform is thrust forward or do very small cuts
@@jaketheasianguy3307
You can also use the butt of the rifle...
th-cam.com/video/oM2cUbhJqGo/w-d-xo.html
well bullet is technically a thrown spear
@@dinioktavia8471 rifles are the king of spears!
@@jaketheasianguy3307 depends on the rifle. If it's a modern rifle, like the ones the British army use's (although I can't remember what they are called. It's LA3 or something like that) then yes, you can't really use anything except the bayonet itself, which is a short cutting blade and a nice point, because the materials used aren't really capable of taking hard impacts such as you get from being slammed into someones skull. However, if you have an older style rifle, such as the lee enfield or even a musket, anything which has solid wood and metal construction really, then you can beat the everloving shite out of anyone who gets past the point of your bayonet, because it's wood and metal. Admitly, you can still damage the rifle by slamming it into someones skull, but that damage tends to be repairable with the tools you'd have available on a battlefield within a reasonable length of time.
We need more Spears in video games.
And in prominent position. I loved how in The Banner Saga, _Prince_ Ludin wields a spear.
I'm playing a TON of Mordhau lately, and they use a point system for balancing builds. The spear is the most expensive melee weapon, meaning you can't afford heavy armor if you choose the GODSTICK.
Check Dynasty Warriors franchise- tons of spears, halberds, maces, hammers, etc
A problem with this is that it's probably more difficult to create a fighting system that's both: relatively accurate and fun with spear than it is to do the same thing with sword. I mean in fantasy combat,yeah you can go crazy with it. But when you want to keep your game more down to earth,even in fantasy,spear combat would be difficult to design. It's just a "pointy stick" in the end. It's a different story with halberds tho,as imo they have a lot potential for video games with realistic fighting. I mean,hooking limbs and weapons as well as using different "tools" on the halberd surely sounds like a lot of fun
Mordhau
Skall: Spear; King of weapons or just a pointy stick?
Skip: Yes.
So funny
Pointy sticks will always be the meta of warfare, no matter if they are launched with strings, launch small lead balls themselves, or are just simply held in hand.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory Technically in the case of firearms, the projectile is the pointy stick.
It's just very short.
If you were referring to bayonets, the attachment itself is indeed a pointy stick.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory i prefer my pointy sticks short, fat, hollow, filled, metal finned and thrown at stuff someone else has told me they want pointy 'splodey sticks thrown at...
@@SonsOfLorgar theres always supersonic sticks from space too.
Muskets and rifles with bayonets are basically boom-spears, so they were even used until the 20th century. ;)
I trained with bayonet on the m16a2 back in 1998. They still spend a lot for basic. Almost 2 days introducing bayonet during hand I hand training week.
A bayonet charge even happened in 2004 in the Iraq War.
They don't teach bayonet in BCT in the Army anymore.
@@joelcarberry9898 The German army doesn't even have bayonets anymore, they only have combat knives.
I'm not a soldier, but wouldn't a bayonet be better than just a knife? I mean with a bayonet you have more reach, you can thrust harder, you can block better, you can also use the buttstock to hit the enemy and you can use a bayonet as a normal knife, but you can't use a knife as a bayonet. Am I missing something?
@@wilhufftarkin8543 Most kills don't happen in melee, so bayonets were used much more for survival and other utilities. Bayonets were replaced with knives because you can make them more ergonomic, making the utility aspect easier and faster to do.
Hundreds of thousands of years of advancements in both technology and warfare yet the best hand-to-hand combat weapon is still the long pointy booper some grug invented 500,000 years ago.
Simplicity is often times so much better.
Grug found a pointy stick
Grug use pointy stick to fell animals
Life is good
*gets fucking shot*
I dunno tho, a bow and some arrows could fk up an experienced spearman pretty badly before he could even get close. And those didn't take much longer to be developed after the spear in some regions
@@peteypete9357 I clearly specified hand-to-hand combat.
Oberyn Martell was one of the coolest characters from Game of Thrones to me purely because he fought with a spear. Also Achillies vs. Hector in Troy. Love that scene. Great video.
Lloyd has an entertaining review of that scene
@@appa609 different Troy I believe
Oberyn was so under utilized, he saunters into the duel full of charisma and charm, then gets his ass kicked in like 30 seconds by a guy named after a really tall pile of rocks.
@@arthas640 He was winning until he got cocky and tried to get the Mountain to confess.
@@patricklonge8912 that was one of the big issues with anyone who fought either Clegane brother, people thought they were dumb brutes and underestimate them. Both the Mountain and the Hound were "combat pragmatists" meaning they could appear brutish and simple when they were actually just efficient and used whatever worked in combat. Unlike many of the knights in GoT they didnt have any formal training so they didnt use any fancy moves or stylish fighting style, they learned through experience so they tended to be efficient if simplistic
The Chinese called the staff "the father of all weapons." Most weapon techniques derive directly or indirectly from the staff. And the spear is just a staff with a pointy thing on the end. It's very intuitive to use and dangerous to counter.
And it's really difficult to overstate how important it is that a weapon is cheap to mass produce and requires little training to use. There's a reason crossbows became so popular; even though in many ways they were objectively worse weapons than regular bows, they required far, FAR less training to use effectively, allowing you to have much larger units of archers and increase the threat of missile weapons in total. Likewise, equipping your army with spears allows you to equip and train a larger army more quickly, increasing your presence on the battlefield.
@Tango Zulu UNTIL The king of the Battlefield , arrived the BFG of the artillery.
Stick = staff rock = knife knife + stick spear spear+ metals = swords
The Chinese called the spear the "King of weapons"
@Tango Zulu The hand is the *true* mother of weapons
the ancestor of all weapons...the Mind
It's easy to make, it's efficient, it's easy to use and it's cheap to make and replace!
What else do u need except a backup sword and shield with it
If it's long enough you don't even need a shield (it's nice though)
@@themanthemyth4522 Why get a shield when you ARE the shield?
This post was made by Swiss Halberdier gang.
@@Monke-fj2qz XD I mean if u have 15-16 century body armor u don't need a shield
spear is what turned humans from weird, almost harmless bipedal monkeys into apex predators.
@@elkapro6534 True. The great emu war was a loss because humans used firearms instead of spears.
"This is not a civillian defense weapon by any means"
Challange accepted.
Idk, if you have a moment to prepare, a walking stick could quickly become a spear. Ditto with a walking stick and staff-sling.
Staff sling is fun
Takes some practice, but it's fun
spear vs gun, a very equilibrated battle
Imagine using a 7 foot long spear in close quarters LOL.
Let me guess you're a cannibal registered by Silk
In an army setting the spear has one more great advantage. It reduces fear. Your average conscripted peasent doesn't really have high morale to begin with. And if you now want to force them into close quarters combat they will likely just run away. But with a spear the enemy is farther away and thus doesn't feel as threatenein. Thus your conscripted peasent might actually stay and fight.
"Ya got reach and ya got stab! What more could ya want?"
- Random Uruk, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Well, you could want:
Enraged by everything, arrow proof, fire proof, poison proof, curse proof, frost proof, immune to executions, vigilant to stealth, great strength, thick skinned and a gang of hunters too
@@horsenuggets1018 and ya dont want to be on the recieving end of the beating stick of that combination. Unless of course, you bring in a graug.
@@motage_4487 oh forgot:
BEAST SLAYER
P.S. still won't beat four captains rushing you
Last resort: lure to cliffside and figure out how to knock them off the map. The fall will do the rest. They need to make this game multiplayer.
Ya want chop? Get a halberd. Ya want krump? Get a Poleaxe.
Pointed sticks? Oh, oh, oh, you want to learn to defend yourself from pointed sticks, eh?
Fresh fruit not good enough for you, eh?
Well, when some madman comes running at you with a pomegranate, don't come crying to me!
Release the tyger!
And now, for the passionfruit!
Skall looks menacing with his hair being let loose
The spear helps.
imagine if he let loose his beertiddies!! skallardthicc the baconserker
@@user-yr5nv2gv7m lmao
So not caged but free roaming? :p
@@DinnerForkTongue hmm... Makes sense.
8:04
That one kid in Street Fighter who just spams buttons instead of combos and somehow beats you.
So it's the ak-47 of the premodern world,
Cheap reliable and gets the job done
Similarly, a spear requires less technological know-how to make and are much easier to learn to use than a sword, which is the AR pattern rifle of the melee-weapon world.
@@DarthGibberish Except that AKs are incredibly difficult to manufacture and require a lot of specialized tooling. Basically every nation who builds them (except maybe the US) has received technical assistance and tooling from the USSR and/or China (itself getting it from the USSR).
@@Ivan_I99999 "technical assistance" is soviet for "seizing the means of production"
@@Ivan_I99999 *Laugh in Khyber Pass dialect*
The AK is vastly superior though. Since, unlike the spear, it has a removable piece that may be thrown in battle. Like a makeshift pommel. A cheap spear is often cheap because they lack this lethal option.
There's a lot of ceremonial hewing spears from later centuries but I can see that's the obvious choice for town or palace guards. A few guys can keep a large crowd at bay, sure if enough people rush them they'll be overrun, but who's going to be the first to step forward?
The town drunk :p
Depends on what the rusher has to fight that spear, their experience against them and how good they are with that weapon. Spears are so common cuz the vast majority are easily made and easy to weild effectively without much training but not too many people using them were particularly skilled or trained enough to make them EXCEPTIONALLY lethal like any other weapons
@@goreobsessed2308 or the homeless crack head
The crazy guy chucking barrels and feces at them.
@@goreobsessed2308 no, not the town drunk. They're to powerful
"We got nukes, we got knives, SHARP STICKS!"
Haha the part about someone trying to grab the end of your spear and try to control you!
In Rifle + Bayonet training, that little circular move you showed at 7:53 was taught to us, it will stop their grip on your weapon, and we were taught about immediate follow ups like a step in + rifle butt strike to the face, quick bayonet thrust, etc.
Fun stuff!
And that was with a relatively shorter M16A2. Modern assault rifles aren't that long. You can go back with the older days with longer battle rifles + bayonets, those would be nasty.
Nobody wants to get run through by a blade.
The motion is a redouble [redooblay, can't type the accent], exists in fencing too.
@@sinaparsi6736 to let people who haven’t been in the military understand better
@@sinaparsi6736 And in my country, we call those Assault Rifles either Sub-machineguns or just rifles...your point?
@@sinaparsi6736 Then what do they call it then? Because I thought the word Assault Rifle came from Germany and spread out all over by both U.S. and U.K.
And I'm in Vietnam. where ranged weapons is near entirely the domain of military and law-enforcers. And they call them "tiểu liên" ("small machinegun" if translated semi-literally; the word is also used for sub-machinegun), or "súng trường" (roughly translated to "long-gun" if we are being literal, and Rifle for the correct translation; also used for assault rifle, battle rifle, and rifles that came before and used the word long before those two).
Or if we are being literal-literal, "tiểu liên" is short for "tiểu liên thanh" in which "liên thanh" means "consecutive-repeating-sound", and "tiểu" is for "small".
@@sinaparsi6736 Hmmm...I see. But Assault Rifle is a far more popular word. It's just more obvious when you need to distinguise between them and something like a Garand or Arisaka....
Vietnamese can get away with using the same word for sub-machinegun because we don't really see much use of it outside tank crews or fighter pilots, and even then...
We can use Rifles for our Galil ACEs and AKs (and is in the process of retiring the AKs; Ceremonial only) because we long since gotten rid of the aging and obsolete Arisaka Type 99, Mosin-Nagant, SKS (This one is still kept around for ceremonial purposes), and SVT,...
...Everything else that was once domain of SMGs are now replaced with Carbines like CAR-15; known as M-18 locally, CTAR-21, Galil ACE 31 (AKS and variants were easily kicked out of the running by the ACE 31).
"King of Weapons? Or Just a Pointy Stick?"
Both. Both is good.
Yes. Just yes 😂
8:04 "Does this bother you? I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you."
Despite the sword being more iconic there's a reason why the spear was almost always the preferred main weapon while swords tended to be only a sidearm. My favorite is definitely the Chinese overlord spear, it's as if they took a short sword and strapped it to the end of a staff. It has quite the long blade with a point perfect for thrusts but is also wide enough to deliver strong cuts as well, which is why it's tied for first along with the guan dao for my favorite spear/polearm. If only you could combine the two getting the spears piercing ability with the guan daos cutting/chopping strength without going down the halberd path, alas!
Is guan dao the 'machete on a stick' thing that guan Yu has in dynasty warriors
The japanese naginata is basically the same: a short sword with a grotesquely oversized handle. It's maid mainly for cuts, but you can poke with it. And if the shaft breaks, the bit of handle that is left makes the weapon still usable.
Something that works for many spear designs, the pointy blade part often has a dull part where the shaft goes in, and that part can double as sort of impromptu grip.
@@nurgle333 Yes it is
i mean, the Spear was Odin's weapon of choise. Why would you question him?
Exactly. The Allfather knows what he is doing after all.
It was also the choice weapon of Cuchulainn.
And his spear never missed
@@PobortzaPl If only he'd stop killing himself
Why should we take the advice of a one eyed man that liked choking himself?
The sword is the king of weapons. Fancy, pretty, and getting all the credit.
The spear is the footsoldier. Rugged, straightforward, and doing all the real work.
İ disagree
let make a simulation in a tower stairs with spears versus swords
Smal brain
..and most people never used a sword unless they had no other choice, it was usually a sidearm, not your primary weapon
Swords were good in close quarters when fighting in tight formations. Roman's used short sword called gladius for this purpose. When lines meet the short sword can be used more freely with the shield.
Another possible advantage of the spear you might have forgotten - especially in a duel - is that with the point basically "pointing" at you, making it more difficult to defend against due to an absence of depth perception.
I’ve always thought the spear was like the AK-47 of the preindustrial age. Idiot-proof both to use and maintain.
Youd be amazed how many idiots have messed up with both.
Only difference is that the AK will work poorly maintained, while a spear in that conditions might be rusty and moldy.
@@HappyBeezerStudios the ak doesnt work as well as you'd think when its in poor condition. ive seen a video of an AK and an AR15 completely submerged in mud, the AK jammed immediately and the AR fired with no issue
@@trolltalwar Ah, I see you too are a casual Garand Thumb enjoyer
@@greganderson6371 im actually thinking of a different channel that did it a few years ago
"Moribito: guardian of the spirit" features a spear wielder protagonist and she kicks all kinds of butt.
Definitely an excellent series in my opinion!
That series only had like 2 or 3 fight scenes. But my god were those one of the best fights in anime.
Preach
So sad that spears are underappreciated in most RPGS...
Ikr they my favorites
Thankfully FromSoft shows them lots of love.
too op,the only way to balance them with other weapons is to just omit them...
@@boofmcgoof1534 Like they did in The Elder Scrolls (played both Oblivion & Skyrim and i've never came across a single spear, ignoring the rieklings javelins that can be used as arrows)
Started playing Final Fantasy 14 recently and I’m so glad there’s a spear using class
Criminally underutilized in video games. The spear is one of my favorite weapons.
They're too OP,only way to balance them with other weapons is just to not include them.
@@boofmcgoof1534 or to make shields and armor realistically effective. Another way to balance spears and polearms in general, is to make it so the player can't stash it in their inventory, forcing them to either equip or drop it. Just like in real life, there's no way to keep a spear on you unless it's in your hands, while swords can always be on you sheathed. That's the trade off.
@Kristoffer Pettersson I'm having trouble picturing what you're describing with the Vikings.
I consider javelins different than fighting spears. I know that peltasts held multiple javelins in their shield hand, but that still kept both hands busy. You couldn't have a handful of javelins with a shield and weild another weapon, operate siege machines, or negotiate obstacles. Unless you had a type of quiver, sure. But again, not with fighting spears.
Do you have anything to back up people latching it on their back historically? (Not sure if I count shad's video as historical proof). I feel like wedging it between your knapsack or in a rope on your waste would be pretty cumbersome.
Also, we're talking gameplay balance, so there has to be a downside to spears one way or another. If you let players strap a spear to their back, then equipping and dequipping should take significantly longer than sheathing and unsheathing a sword. And they should be limited to only one polearm.
If u dual wield it in ac valhalla its really usefull. Also i have odins spears
The spear is the ultimate ‘stay away from me bro’ weapon.
Nah, bad hygiene is the most effective.
the lance is more ranged
@@omnianti0
Lances are not really for thrusting, lances are specialised weapons designed to be used specifically in shock cavalry charges.
In other words a lance isn’t that useful when dismounted, unlike a proper infantry spear or a pike or a halberd.
@@dunadan7136 the long pike act the same way as a lance its satic and only the relative move of the target that self impale on it make it usefull so you cant compare it to a spear
Social distancing turned violent
I used to be a huge sword fanboy but my favorite medieval weapon now is the "Poleaxe" I like the Versatility Hammer End Sharp Spear point and Axe Head along with the Reach
I love, LOVE that you can look at a culture's spears and tell so much about what other cultures they must have come into contact with, and what kind of technology they must have had access to just based on the iterative improvements and construction details that went into them. Wonderful video, love the bit at the end detailing the special case of the atgeir.
I had written partial RPG rules for weapons based on their lengths at one point. Basically, long weapons such as spears and polearms always had an advantage in combat. Their disadvantages came in non-combat. They could not be sheathed and certainly could not be concealed, meaning that a character was always encumbered in non-combat actions and could never pass themselves off as being unarmed.
I like it
Skall,
I have had the distinct pleasure of viewing your channel now for several years. I have been so overjoyed to find a community of passionate lovers of history, the combat arts, and the pursuit of knowledge. I just wanted to share that you have been a wonderful companion throughout the years, even though it is a one sided relationship. I most of all wanted to compliment you. Your growth as a martial artist has been the fruit of your dedication. You have grown so much, and it is easy to see for anyone who practices a martial art. You move with the weapon, and your body wants to move as a warrior. I also have struggled with injuries, weight gain and loss, and the loss of dedication. Seeing you persevere through these same challenges has been a constant source of inspiration. Thank you my good sir. I dream that one day, free of quarantine, I might journey to the far off land of Canada and practice some HEMA with you, as well as shoot some of your firearms. I will at the very least toast to your health in the halls of Valhalla.
Thats funny, they got the Japanese translation backwards “yari” means needle/spear, so that’s correct but “Te” means hand and “Nage” means to throw so it doesn’t make sense that the “Te-yari” is a javelin and vice versa.
Edit: spelling and time stamp: 2:50
Silly gaijins.
@@GameTimeWhy . Indeed
Oh thank god someone mentioned that. I was so triggered by that and thought there was something weird going on. I was like "Wait Teyari is the throwing spear? Wouldn't te be 手?" Googles nage, gets nageru. Immediately angry.
Nowadays the thing that makes a spear impractical for civilian isn't that the point is threatening, because just use a sheath that makes it look like a staff, it's that walking around with a staff is ridiculous. "What? You're disabled? Use an aluminum cane, you look like a wizard with that"
Rosewood is more elegant.
I don't care about people judging me, I carry a pike with me everywhere I go
4:17 it's like indians had such a good iron ore that they flexed at each other with the most bizzarre designs they can make while still keeping it as a viable weapon :D
The first weapon in human history is the Club, we have evolved special tendons that allow us to swing our palm in a circular motion with ease, none of the other great apes have that ability.
Really? That's pretty cool
Almost as though humans were created to be different and superior to animals being that we were given a brain to design and use tools as well.
That's probably more from tool usage than weaponry. Our first weapon was the Rock, we are the only great ape than can use their body weight to accelerate a misile, if a gorilla tries to overhand throw he will overbalance and fall forward. When we all picked up rocks and threw them at predators, THAT was our first weapon, admittedly not a great hunting tool, but masses of rocks to the face will dissuade almost any predator, and make them go look for easier targets. Cohesive mass action and missiles is our great power: give any kid a broom handle and watch once he's finished doing star wars impressions, he'll hold it half way up, one handed, and throw it, with pretty good accuracy: that hasn't been taught, but we can all do it to some extent. That's what a million years of throwing things will do though: horses are born able to walk, we were born with knowledge inside us too. The baby knows to be quiet when large birds circle it, to not cry when handed to a stranger, and later any kid knows how to chuck rocks and spears. These things are in our DNA.
@@guypierson5754 While I agree on it being a rock, I wager that use as a melee implement preceded any significant throwing. All you need to is grab a rock and bash stuff with it, and chipping away to produce a sharp point or edge is ancient. I suspect that the structure to enable throwing may have been a result of already using them as hand implements.
@@BeingFireRetardant we're not necessarily superior to other animals (for example insects and rodents), and we weren't simply given intelligence.
Our ancestors depended on teamwork, communication, and intelligence to survive, and then passed those survival traits on. Those traits accumulated and here we are.
Other animals such as our cousins, the chimps, depended on other skillsets and now here they are. We are very smart, and they can climb trees, and forage very well.
Tell this to Bannerlord fans. Their sword fetish makes spears almost useless.
tell this to chivalry medieval warfare gamers
I'll be the first to play spear only once they're properly implemented and deal more than 3 damage on average
@@Negniwret maybe they have to make diferent spears with diferent modifier for fit all the tastes
@@omnianti0 They has decently balanced spears in beta but all the sword cucks kept bitching about it so they basically forced devs to change it. Sword meta may be more fun 1v1 but when it comes to armies and battles it just turns into a joke. You have short sword infantry taking out spear walls.
@@chetnek i know its ever the same problem when the devs atempt to keep sale by adapting the gameplay to the alpha tester as if they was representative of the common player instead on focusing on the realism or just the straight balance between visual and data
as you mentionned being a super hero that blow walls of spear is fun for a sword player and disgust the 10 spear players
the same apply with battlefield serie where a helicopter player make 20 infantry players rage quit and never spend more money in the serie that looked nice and fun at first
its true too for the movies like star wars
I'm not going to lie I have always seen the spear and shield as a hero's weapon I think that's because I grew up reading Greek mythology
When you read the Iliad it is very easy to have that impression. Very noble weapon when read about in the context of mythology and poetry.
It's also like that in the legend of Saint George I mean sure he uses his sword on the dragon but that was just to finish it off after he did some serious damage to the dragon with a blow from his spear that was so powerful the spears tip actually broke off
I like it. Im kinda the same but i grew up with nordic mythology so for me its an axe
@Kristoffer Pettersson with all the respect, u are not even close to a viking.
@Kristoffer Pettersson swedish or not. You don't raid... You are not a viking. I have Norwegian and swedish ancestors as well and I'm a Germanic neo pagan but I'm not a viking either.
my middle name of Garreth means "spear bearer" and growing up spears were always my fav weapon.
My name has absolutely nothing to do with spears and growing up spears were always my fav weapon.
I love the spear. It's a wonderful weapon, really versatile and a lot of fun! I used to study spear fencing in accordance Joachim Meyers techniques from The Art of Combat. I've tried sparring with spears against other weapons such as longswords, sword and buckler, dagger (yes, really!), Montante (YES, really!) and I didn't have a really hard time with any of the opponents. Sparring with spear against spear is really hard, but also very fun. It's fast-paced, you have to be on your toes and anticipate attacks at all times, it's hard to stop and rest like you sometimes can do with a longsword vs longsword sparring. I really would love to get into spears again, it's been ages. Maybe this pandemic could bring something to it. Physical distancing is much easier with spears than with long swords.
how about a pistol? sounds a much like it but...better in any way?
I’ve always loved the use of spears, they can be so aggressive in use as well as slow and controlling.
The spear is not the king of all weapons, that title belongs to the throwing pommel, obviously.
The rock. I think that should be the oldest weapon also.
Ah yes, but much more than a pointy stick
@@Ramiroocampo Dwayne Johnson is only 48
Fool its the Holy Hand Grenade that reigns upon the land of weapons.
Even Saint Attila raised the Hand Grenade up on high saying:
"Bless this thy Hand Grenade, that with it may blow thine enemies to tiny bits. In thy my mercy"
@@redbepis4600
An actual rock though.
After watching Lindybeige's spear videos, I'm fully convinced that the spear deserves more credit. It is interesting how much better two-handed spear is compared to spear and shield. One handed spear seems to really inhibit usability.
Not entirely true, you're underrating the utility of a shield
You don't like spear+shield? King Leonidas would be ashamed.
Two handed spear is fine until the enemy has archers.
@@Candlemancer just start spinning.
Guess why many cultures using spears had spear rests in their shields...
Gotta disagree with it not being chronically overlooked. What famous western movie character uses a spear? Other than 300 obv
I mean, the characters from The Maze Runner? Oberyn from GoT? Okoye from Black Panther? Eomer from LoTR? The Night King from GoT? Aquaman kindof?
Achilles(Brad Pitt) in Troy
Even there Leonidas primarily used his sword.
Who was that wan in black panther? Never watched the movie, so I can't remember her name, but she used a spear. As did two of thanos's minions, although technically corvus used a glaive. Aquaman obviously uses a trident, which is basically a spear. In the new walking dead show they use a sort of switchblade spear thing, which is kinda weird but still a spear. Valkyrie in thor ragnarok uses a spear in some scenes. That one greek mythology movie with Liam Neeson as Zeus had the main character use a super magic spear to defeat kronos. And whilst this is a book series, kaladin is one of the main characters in the stormlight archives, and he uses a spear. Unfortunately, not a lot of movies are set before the invention of guns, so melee weapons tend to get pushed to the wayside anyway.
@@suzuxiiiahdv The Night King only really throws spears. You're right about Oberyn, I was super happy to see him use a spear, but that's just one character in 8 seasons of a show with a cast that changed a lot and had a ton of characters
8:00 this looks like one of those things that if your parents walked in right as this part was going on, it would be pretty confusing to explain
"Son, why is there a homeless man in a hoodie poking you through the screen with a stick?"
My Sifu (kung fu master) always stuck to the spear being the most versatile but most difficult to master weapon. It was a semi-flexable but also solid blunt weapon, it was a slashing but also stabbing, and it was a short or long weapon. Easy to use but hard to master as it incorporates so many options that other weapons only focus on one or two.
Great vid Skall ( Just like always XD ), really enjoyed this one since the spear is KINDA my favourite weapon but i have one thing to point out, you talked about the balance of the spear when holding it from the 1/4 that is bad and its better when holding it from the 2/4 of the spear.
The Greeks had a butt-spike that served as counter balance and it was heavier than the spear shaft, in result they could wield the spear perfectly from the 1/4!
I don't know if other cultures did that too, i'm sure they did but i don't know to what extend.
For anyone that want information about the Greek butt spike type Dory ( Spear ) and it will show up on Wiki.
Keep uploading amazing content Skall!
I'm pretty sure Matt Easton from Schola Gladiatoria has shown an African spear with a metal counterweight at the butt
Fear the pointy stick! Fear it!
I find it fascinating that every culture has two weapons: bows, and spears.
Australian aboriginals I'm pretty sure lacked bows. Had javelins tho.
@@fearedjames I think it was not so much that Australian Aboriginals lacked bows - some early settler encounters with them did record some of them possessing bows. But the majority of the weaponry favoured by Australian Aboriginals did seem to revolve around the spear (thrown with an woomera / atlatl), the boomerang, and axes made of flaked stone.
quite a fee cultures didn't have bows.
No bows in America either. Slings and Atlatl.
@@fearedjames thats because they invented the boomerang and knew it was much cooler than a bow
The thing folks gotta remember about spears is, the overwhelming majority of soldiers throughout all of human history carried spears. They're not the best weapon ever, but they're probably the best melee weapon ever.
"Hold, step forward, stab" the most effective way to kill until "point and shoot".
In fact, in Gothic 3 its the polearms and spears, staffs etc that are overpowered. Due to reach mostly. And rightfully so. So overpowered that they had to come up with all kinds of fancy swords etc to calm down the sword fanboy maniacs. 💪
Most notably, the heavy orcish halberd, which has the most damage out of (almost) anything else in the game while at the same time somehow having the speed and reach of a regular spear.
1-H swords still make some sense, but no one ever need to ever use two-handed sword if you can have a halberd with the same speed, more damage, and more reach.
[all that, of course, in the scope of combat fixed by the community. In vanilla none of this matters, you can LMB-LMB-LMB everyone into oblivion]
@@sergeysapozhnikov5717 aaaah the Krush Tarach 💪❤
@@sergeysapozhnikov5717 yes, the stun lock bs mechanics of Gothic 3 😂😂 I still remember the first forest troll I killed. Bastard barely flinched from all the fireballs that I threw at him, but died to stun locks lmb spam with a cheap ass sword.
@@avandarkwalker9132 That's why once i tried the fixed version, i never came back to stunlock vanilla bs. Fixed version might be hard for the player, but it's better than braindead lmb smap =)
If I remember correctly Irmak's halberd was one of the most optimal weapons in the entire game as it only needed like Heavy Weapons I and just a bit of strenght,yet it's reach and damage were basically everything you needed to take on anything. Also one thing I always liked about G3 regarding the combat how unintentional this feature wouldn't be as it was most prolly a bug is that your positioning actually made a difference and when you had uneven terrain like a hill or sth like this it was always better to stand below your opponent as very often his strikes wouldn't reach you in that situation and he was always exposed to your attacks on the other hand (which btw would be kinda true in a real armed fight as proven by Skall in one of his past videos)
I remember watching some of Lindybeige's videos on spears, particularly when demonstrating how they'd work in a line, and was fairly impressed. So I'm coming into this with perhaps a bit of a leaning to be in favor of spears compared to swords or axes, at least as part of an organized and trained army. As an individual fighting weapon, I'd probably go for an ax, a sword, or a proper pole-arm like a halberd instead.
The spirit of spears even managed to survive well into the progression of guns with the bayonet.
Rifle rounds are basically micro javelins, so the logic of the spear follows even there.
Great video as allways.
I am Norwegian, and have been interrested in this kind of stuff more than 30 years. The atgeir is actually two words. In the norse language it is common to join words. Geirr or geir means spear. Atgeirr is sometimes referred to be synonymous with spjut, however spjut is a hunting weapon mostly for throwing. That being said, the terms of geirr and spjut have been used interchangeably, so it might have been a significant overlap. Atgeirr in my understanding means greater spear, while spjut is smaller spear or javelin. Geirr without any prefix could be something in between. Atgeirr has a very sturdy head, was likely used by stronger vikings and was a dedicated war time weapon. Its been speculated it was for piercing armor, but I am not fully comitted to that idea.
Hoggspyd as I understand it has a much longer shaft. The saga's refer to them as so long that the viking could not reach the hafting when standing next to the upright spear.
But then again, the viking area was 200 years, and the saga's were mostly written down long after the eara came to a close.
There is an anime Seirei no moribito ("Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit"), where main character use spear as only weapon. And fights is very intensive
I'm gonna guess that the earliest weapon was either a rock being thrown or a club.
Then maybe the spear
It's was a powerful moment in our history when we all picked up rocks. As humans, we have a very great power against Stealth hunters: we stand upright and forage with our hands, not our face. We then remain upright and bring the food to our mouth: this whole time, we are watching. It is VERY hard to sneak up on a human, compared to other creatures. So, once we saw the leopard coming, we used another great power we have, communication: "Hey, watch out everyone, there's a fucking leopard!" and then the whole tribe knew, and a single stone is unlikely to hurt a leopard, but 10, 20 people all picking up rocks and throwing them? Not worth it, leopard leaves, cause he isn't going to risk it with these aggressive monkeys that stick together and throw rocks, better to find a lone gazelle. Throwing rocks together was most deffinitely our first major defensive weapon, and I believe, when we first realised mass action in coperation and cohesion could bring off results a single individual could never dream of achieveing. Almost all our power stems from this same knowledge, together we truly are greater than the sum of our parts. Wish we could remember this more often.
@@guypierson5754 this is one of the most intelligent comments I have ever seen.
@@guypierson5754, one minor nitpick. The evidence is pretty strong that protohumans invented spears long before they evolved speech. But otherwise, super solid analysis.
@@TheAchilles26
He said communication, not speech. It's more widely encompassing than verbal language.
@@DinnerForkTongue, if we're not specifically going by speech, then plenty of other species have far more communication than he was giving them credit for
It was king due to its low costs, low skill floor despite how effective it was, and its versatility.
There's more specialized weapons that did specific things better (or did everything better at the cost of being expensive as hell), but if they wanted everything covered, spears were too efficient across the board to be ignored.
For the disadvantage of the shaft breaking. Most every army had soldiers carry 3-4 at all times. Keeping carts and bundles in reserve so as to easily re-arm soldiers in battle.
Same with shields.
Citation needed.
It's kinda difficult to resupply a spear to a soldier when they're in the middle of a fight, no? And if they break their spear in combat, it's not exactly like you can just tell the enemy "hold on lemme get my other spear."
I know this is super late but those wavy spears have been shown to cause extremely deadly wounds. They were very sharp (as usual) and the wave of the spear would cause wounds that could not be sutures or sealed at all. If you imagine pushing that design into meat and pulling it out, due to the wave, any rotation or pivoting that occurs during the thrust and retrieval would cause a new unique cutting line. It would have been nasty to deal with one.
When you are playing solo on Conan Exiles, a spear is probably the most survivable weapon. Not very flashy, but you won't die.
7:09 in all fairness they are both using a single one handed weapon while you are using a two handed weapon. It would have most likely gone down differently if the had shields. In addition to this, a lot of modern hema practitioners are inexperienced against spears.
I personally like have counter weight on spear myself when using one to make it more balanced.
And if it was big enough, you could do some serious injury while smashing with it. You always want some extra tools when going to war, life is on the stake afterall
I love this video. I think the spear is underestimated in most shows & film. It bothers me a lot because in some movies the characters could easily make a wooden spear to defend themselves. Like most zombie and survival movies (Jurassic Park 2 & 3 come to mind against raptors).
Keep them coming man. I love the content.
I know an ex Special Forces guy who made a spear. It was about 15 feet long and light, with a small knife blade at the end. You could hold it loosely in your left hand, just behind the head, and fling it with your right, and it glides out straight ahead as far as you want super fast, and the person you're flinging it at can't tell when it's coming, or even while it's coming. Then you reverse it backwards with your right hand , and what you've got is like a 12 foot automatic stiletto. Out all the way fast, and back again, all in under one second. And that's how you use a 15 foot fighting spear -- not a pike. A spear.
I actually constructed a prototype modular spear that breaks into 3 section so that you can transport it in a backpack. It has 3 sections of threaded tube steel that you can link up to have 3 different weapon types, a long knife/small club, a shorter cane like spear, and the full length spear. A spear is bar none the weapon i would want in a survival melee combat situation. Sword is a close second tho.
"I'll just step outside the spear range"
Spear user: Unga bunga! *throw*
You forget that spears that aren’t meant to be thrown don’t work to well for that. As well as the fact you’re now without a weapon if you don’t kill them, it’s probably your primary weapon that you fight with then leading to the enemy killing you as you fool about trying to get our secondary weapon if you have one.
Don't underestimate pointy sticks. Signed: Your sabretooth tigre (went into hiding after dictation).
Since you made a specific video on the spear and have the resources and interest in testing as well as a tendency to make great videos I want to offer a concept I haven't seen mentioned anywhere except for the source where I ran across it, since the idea has stuck with me for years I'd be delighted to see someone actually test it.
The idea was to have a very flexible shaft (conducive to many of the systems seen in asian schools) with the use of materials like bamboo but what made it special was that the concept I ran across had a hand hold for your lead hand that served as a greased sleeve/tube on the outside of the shaft which supposedly lent itself to an extreme in thrusting and retracting speed, when combined with a flexible shaft it also allowed for very odd slicing and circular movements as well that I never saw with normal spears as the sleeve handle would act as a pivot which you could manipulate the front of the spear around, allowing for oddly fast and constricting circular movements that could catch an opponent off guard by repositioning the spear much faster than what is normal.
Allowing for an effective transfer of force with small movements that then lent itself well to confusing and harassing an enemy combatant while inflicting "minor" cuts or positioning for new thrusts before the opponent could reposition to block.
I can't remember the source but the concept itself seems to hold merit in my head so I was wondering if you would be willing to test out the concept, should make for a good video if the theory holds up.
The fact that professional wars were fought for thousands of years with primarily spears. The only thing that began to cause spear/shield formations were chariots, specialized Calvary, elephants etc. which were expensive and time consuming to maintain and very situational.
Spears are amazing, particularly in the defensive mindset. There’s a reason Sparta was able to hold off so many with their phalanx.
- Thrust me, I can deal with your pointy stick.
- Spear me the arrogance, I'll do as you wish.
(I am very sorry)
Don't be sorry man, these were still worth reading ;)
No need to apologize, you made your...point.
If they're grappling your spear-tip, that's when you gotta break out the Ninjitsu ball-grabs.
The fact you dropped on Stoned-tipped spears being found FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS ago literally made my jaw drop.
I'm obviously both ignorant and fascinated with the history of weapons/tools.
Just a note, "geir" is an archaic but still recognizably Icelandic word for spear derived from the old Norse "geirr" - you'll mostly see it in names (Arngeir, etc.). "At" means "fight", and can be found in modern compounds like bull-fighting (nauta-at), or the verb "að atast" (to pick a fight, typically heard from exasperated parents directed at their kids).
I remember it from Brennu-Njála, where the hero Gunnar wields an atgeir, and always just assumed it referred to a larger, more aggressive spear than usual, like a hewing spear.
so basically spears are AKs of the human history
Very much so yes. The AK-47 would be the modern equivalent in regards to cost efficiency and reliability
I love it when spears get appreciation! I liked Lindy Beige's demonstration of spears against swords and there are of course ton more in a similar vein.
There has been many findings of viking era spears near from where I live and they are just beautiful. If only they could talk and tell their tale!
King of Weapons? Or Just a Pointy Stick?
Oh, are these mutually exclusive?
King Pointy Stick of Weaponland.
Odd thing no one points out is the storing of a spear when not in use. The wood shaft tends to warp and become well bent if not properly stored away properly. Odd thing to point out but was one of the first rules I was taught when given my first spear.
Funny this video should pop up right after I read that article on the atgeir. Having read it I have to say I couldn't fault the approach, logic, reasoning nor the conclusion. The Windlass “Gjermundbu” Spearhead would seem to fit the atgeir described in the paper very well, even their "European" spear does a good job. I recommend reading the whole paper, makes a lot of sense.
_Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit_ is one of my favorite series for, among other things, showing that respect for spears. The main character uses a short spear of maybe five feet, but she's easily the best warrior in the entire series, more than a match for even groups of elite swordsmen.
Every time this topic is brought up I'm reminded of the Wheel of Time series, where Mat soundly defeats two skilled swordsmen with a quarterstaff (of course he upgrades to a spear later on). Always made me wonder just how realistic that was. Edit: 7:11 And there it is. lol
8:08 those are the "you wanna die soilder!?" eyes right there
One of the coolest medieval weapons I've seen was the Goedendag or Spear-Club. It was a wooden shaft about as long as a short-spear, 4 to 5 feet, that was slightly wider at one end. A metal cap with a long metal spike extending from its center was placed on the wider end making the weapon a vicious clubbing weapon that could also be used to run a man through. Much like the hunting spear the wide metal-capped end prevented you from actually impaling your opponent with the shaft itself. This meant that you could easily pull the spike out and stab or bash to your hearts content! If you think about it it is completely natural that the only weapons found in EVERY culture on Earth, the Club and The Spear, would of course blend into such a versatile weapon.
Ah yes, the bludgeoning spear, my favorite type of spear
spear and shield for unarmored and light armor duels, poleaxes for heavy/full body armor duels, spear and shield for formation
Spear is also very good guard weapon. Even for crowd controll it's really effective.