pole hammer vs historical accurate armor (lucerne hammer | falcons beak | bec de corbin | mordaxt)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.ค. 2024
- Training weapons by dominus gladius made from rubber and hard plastic:
dominusgladius.com/drevkova-z...
dominusgladius.com/drevkova-z...
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro
2:28 - the polehammer for the test
3:33 - the weapon test
11:38 - conclusion
13:30 - duel weapon or battlefield weapon
15:31 - poleaxe or pole hammer
16:46 - pole hammer or longsword
19:18 - polehammer in combat training
20:40 - training weapons
22:04 - outro - กีฬา
I hope the weapontest surprised you.
If you are interested in save training weapons made from rubber and hard plastic, here are the links:
dominusgladius.com/drevkova-zbroia/534/
dominusgladius.com/drevkova-zbroia/537/
really informative presentation. thank you. you mentioned the safe pole-hammers you duelled with had 250gram heads. How heavy, roughly, is a real polehammer head? 750grams? 1 kg? 1.5kg?
@@ericaugust1501 that's a good guess. I think it's around 600 to 1300 grams max
how effective do you think this was on the battle fild in formation, like how do you invision its use and the differences to a duel?
Like i imagine that grappeling was probably a lot less, coz its too dangerous when the men next and behind to your target are free to strike at you while youre defenveless
@@giftzwerg7345 I am not a battlefield expert but I think the same!
In my opinion, your channel is the best about medieval weapons
This is definitely Dequitem, an armored fighter in non-choreographed knight fights like these:
"I am and I will continue to be!" Matt Easton
Ever since I read The Deeds of Jacques de Lalaing and Le Jeu de la Hache I was preaching that poleaxes/polehammers weren't meant for armour penetration or repeated bashing, since that would give little to no results. Jacques mostly used it as a spear to aim for the gaps, only occasionally using it as a hammer when he could deliver a very powerful blow, but never once he tried to penetrate armor, supposedly because he knew it would be fruitless.
Yep, I thought le Jeu was unique, but Pietro Monte also taught the the queue use until there was an opening.
It's basically boxing: you jab until you get an opening, and then you come in with your rear hand for actual power.
Yes that definitely a good way to use it!
or even could get stuck in the armor, and in that instant you'd be basically disarmed and exposed
I bet these would be used for a lot of repeated bashing in a battlefield environment where there would often be opportunities to strike from the second rank at a target who is already engaged. But yeah, in a duel that does not seem to be a good approach.
Seems silly that you wouldn't just have a spear or a halberd of some sort, then. The hammerhead would literally just be weighing you down. Surely someone stuck it on there, and people chose to keep making them, for a reason.
1:03 bro was sent to sleep here.
"Don't kill your friends." Excellent advice! 😂 Great video as always!
I am glad to see you show the test vs maille armour. I think the hammer is still anti-armour, its just plate armour is anti-anti-armour
I think many get confused when they think of plate
Like crossbows being better on armour at times, just that armour was multiple layers of maille or brigandine with windless crossbows not being a decisive counter to plate
Love it how realistic your fights are portrayed. Plain and simple. No fancy shit.
Hey those look pauldrons look familiar!! Haha, great test and analysis my friend.
Yes now you know we're the holes came from.
@@dequitemhaha indeed
This is really interesting. The falcons beak under performed to my expectations. 🤔
Mine too.
I feel like we have seen a few tests like this against plate armor, and in most cases the plate (even if largely unhardened iron-alloys) provides sufficient protection that a human (or analog) would be largely uninjured from the weapon systems and/or circumstantial parameters of the testing. Additionally, most of these armor tests are setup to favor the weapon over the armored target (i.e. the armor being tested has fewer glancing blows do to the target being stationary and less yielding than human combatants), and yet we still see very few instances where a plate has been penetrated deeply enough to give consequential battlefield injury. I think a poleaxe/polehammer is still an optimal weapon for foot combat in plated harness, but that has more to do with the overall toolset and mechanical advantage such weapons offer.
As a reenactment participant. I truly enjoy your descriptions, discussions and exhibitions.
Thank you. Keep it coming please.
Great job! I like how you are demonstrating how resistant plate armor is, dispelling some of the myths surrounding the supposed anti armor weapons. I also love the fact that you are testing the weapons in full contact sparring and not just theoretically study them.
When it comes to the pollaxe though, while a lot of historical examples were dull I am not entirely convinced they were not sharpened. A sharp pollaxe would be very useful against opponents who were not fully armored, since chopping into those unarmored parts would be fight ending compared to trying to smash the armor, of which you have the hammer available.
The main spike could be used to easily penetrate even the best mail. I believe that is exactly what it was designed to do. Nothing besides a good gun could reliably be used to penetrate quality plate armor in the late mideval period. That is why specialized weapons were adopted to exploit the armors only weakness, which was the gaps usually covered by mail.
Plate armor was still worn well into the 18th century. It had to be thicker to be resistant to bullets, but it could resist bullets until that period. That thickness meant extra weight, though, so it was typically only a breastplate worn in the final years.
Fiore de'i Liberi wrote that a pollaxe thrust could defeat plate armor: "This guard delivers a powerful thrust that can penetrate cuirasses & breastplates." It's possible this was hyperbole/boasting. On the other hand, period armor varied a lot in quality, especially circa 1400. Strength & skill likewise varies.
Your videos are some of the most informative on armored fighting!
Love your non-choregraphed fighting and the knowledge you bring. Great video.
That's a truly fearsome weapon! Great video as always.
This is a well shot video. Great job with the explanation and demonstration.
truly an unfortunate outcome, i really thought it would go through the helmet! lucerne hammer will still be my favorite polearm though, such an awesome piece of history. thanks for everything you do dequitem
Wow your channel has grown a lot! I've been watching you on and off for a long while now and these videos are just awesome. Glad to see you doing well!
Thanks man!
Great video! Thank you for doing these tests
Tolle Doku...mit stimmungsvollen Kampfbeispielen...Wie immer...hohe Qualität und supi Optik...Danke!!!
man I love these videos, very rare genera of content which I've searched for over many years
Poleaxe or polehammer seems like a great choice for a strong knight who knows he is not that good at wrestling. One accurate or lucky blow to the head has the potential to knock down the opponent, and you can get your ransom or win the duel.
Awesome production as always
Stuff like this is the most effective weapon to fight someone who has made by wearing armor most weapons ineffective against them. The point of armor is to make weapons less effective against the wearer, that is why the owners invested large fortunes to get them and wear them. People think that armor can be just negated, but in practice the most you can do is try to get around it and that is where these come in.
Thanks for your insight, very interesting test and video!
Not surprised there was little to no penetration on the plate armor on these tests (armor works!) but I'm very curious what that kind of damage would look like to the people on the other side. Broken bones, broken necks, brusing, being knocked around, etc. Time to fund a ballistic gel head for Dequitem!
Thank you very much for testing diffrent quality material. i was commenting about that in a previous video of yours so im genuinely thankful beeing able to see that. i can imagine that people in the past didnt know how to overcome amor either. weapons like poleaxes and so forth where just the best bet. this is why grapling, ending it dirty on the ground is described to often.
i wonder how much % did have plate on an historical battlefield
In the 15th century nearly everyone, but of course the quality and armored parts depends. Most men in arms only had a breastplate and helmet. But there are normaly no unarmored peasents on a battlefield.
I like the filter you used for the video. Makes it look like a painting
Bravo! Finally! This is the video the internet needed!! Love it!
It’s a lot lighter than I expected!
Absolutely awesome im about to binge watch now
any puncture wound deeper than 2 inches can be mortal, a spike like that of your Warhammer, can sever any mayor vein or artery, the narrow spike stab will provoke internal bleed on top of a potentially bone breaking contusion, if received on the viscera it can reduce organ function, kinetic force can shred organs like the liver, kidneys and brain, without any puncture.
I'd like to see how well it does poking metal, chainmail and gambeson all together. Also, have you heard about partially reinforced plating? something like armor thicker in certain point's to protect the viscera? it was used at all? if so, was it successful? is that level of craftsmanship only attainable to the nobles? I'm not quite as versed in this topics as you sir. GReat content! btw greetings from Colombia (America)
It's hard to aim for it or rely on it.
Pretty much all armor was thicker from the front of the chest & helmet, and thinner in the limbs, faulds & sides...
Fiore de'i Liberi's treatise does indicate that a single powerful blow to the helmet from a pollaxe could kill or incapacitate. Doing so wouldn't require penetrating armor. & a test of a historical halberd against a historical munitions-grade harness achieved penetration of the helmet by striking with the halberd's beak. So spikes & beaks could pierce plate armor at times, depending on the wielder & the armor in question.
Yes but normaly not hardened armor of a knight.
@@dequitem Question! In Tods workshop bows vs arrows 2, they determined that mild steel acted similarilly to the cross laminated wrought iron that would have been common at Agincourt. How well would this weapon preform against plate that is mild steel?
P.s love the work keep it up!
@@zacharyshoemaker835 I don't agree with tod there, but something between my hardened steel test and the iron rondel.
@@dequitem The thing for me is that this isn't technically their owm conclusion but rather a peer review of Alan Williams findings in The Knight and the Blast Furnace.
Very informal. I had not considered that a spike may be better at transferring blunt force trauma through armor, if it settles within it. Even if it does not penetrate deeply, it must be a nasty hit.
Yeah. The primary thing you're penetrating with is not the weapon itself, but the force. People with huge bruises, broken bones, and concussions aren't going to resist much against you finishing them off or taking them captive.
@@DanielMWJ I agree with the concussion part. But I do not think even a broken bone would be demoralizing enough, in the face of death, to allow someone to kill you. Especially not a bruise. It will certainly make you an easier target, however.
@@Poeneutral adrenaline might just keep you long enough standing to finish the fight, people get shot and run away, or fight on, only to realize a few minutes later that they got hit. depends on who, when, where.. obviously
@@Poeneutral The spirit is willing, but the body is spongey and weak.
It's really just a loss of initiative from having slightly dulled responses while already being on the backfoot (or worse) from being pounded.
Absolutely!!!
Thanks for doing the chain mail tests, the plate armor is the pinnacle, but chain and padding is the every man's armor. This weapon is absolutely badass.
thanks for showing Lucy some love! i feel like the Lucerne is often under represented in a lot of media. Which is a shame because it's such a cool weapon.
Okay but what's the best Ash of War to use on it?
Can't go wrong with spinning slash, though braggarts roar is great too.
Wtf?
@@PancakesEnjoyer Shriek of sorrow when it fails to penetrate any armor
@@DieLuftwaffelit’s an Elden ring reference. The lucerne hammer has been featured in several From Software games, so it’s where a lot of people first got introduced to them.
I prefer Storm Assault.
Hello again! Loved the video, covered a lot of things I was wondering about the weapons. I had a suggestion for a video, that being an overall idea of how one grapples while in a harness. Most of your fights all end with grappling and stabbing for gaps, and I was wondering if you could shed more light on that.
I will defenetly do that in the future. It is on my list with nearly 100 other themes 😬
The forest setting adds great atmosphere to your presentation.
I think its good to make sure armor in an armor test is on something with some, but not too much, give, to simulate that a body wearing it also has some give. it has some weight, but isn’t fastened solid to spot in space so that all the energy goes strait into the material at one point, but instead, some of it is dissipated by the body moving a bit with the blow is struck.
So I think what can be taken away from this is that with the increased use of metal in armor, for instance, covering joints in 16th century armor, that the hammer could have been used more to lock up and disrupt the joints making it harder for one to react. If we look at the evolution of armor and how it moved to cover both more vulnerable spots and tie downs, that means weapons were utilized to take advantage of these openings.
The images from Hans Talhoffer's manuscripts are absolutely showing techniques for an armored duel with unarmored figures. In the personal manuscript (1459), the figures randomly lose their armor in the middle of the armored-duel section but keep using armored techniques. Pollaxes of whatever variety are quite functional for unarmored fighting, however. They're not the best, but many halberds had similar basic stats & a halberd is quite potent in an unarmored duel or skirmish even if it's inferior to a spear.
I'm a simple man. I saw a guy in a full suit of armor holding a warhammer and I hit like.
Mal wieder ein schönes Video.
Uh I am really excited about this video.
I bet I will see some correction in terms of how "Anti-Armor"-Weapon it is. I presume it will not be Armor piercing, but rather be Pain-under-Armor-bringing.
Let's have a watch...
Great video! Thank you for making this.
I mostly thought the Beak is used for opponents with gambesons or Mail and the other Pieces are for letting the Knight go KO or get stabbed in the gaps of the armor.
I really like your take on that matter.
Your videos are awesome, especially your camera and open fighting. You are not only speaking theoretically, you also go on practical with your equipment against a resisting Partner.
Какой молодец спасибо за то что объяснил
I'm very glad that in the sphere of historical arms, this complex and intriguing area of historical sciences, there is always place for both researching the in-depth documents and hitting stuff (as well as, in a safe manner, people) with large spiky objects.
Btw, I was wondering if the tassets (don't know if that is the correct term, I mean the metal skirt) of your armor are based on any historical examples. The somewhat angular shape looks cool, I just want to see more.
Yes it's historical based. Most of the surviving tasets have more decorations.
Most curious to me was learning that most heavily armored duels ended in grappling and wrestling. I of course knew that was a common end point, but I really had no idea it was so prevalent. I was aware that the end almost always came when the villain was on the ground.
Although you guys should always keep in mind that your armor is much thicker and more uniform than the historical quality, potentially higher metallurgic quality too if high carbon. Limb defenses could be quite thin and much more susceptible to serious damage from very fine points concentrating impact energy, or just heavy blunt impacts on the hand/back of the head, etc.
Did you watch the video? I already used 0,8 mm steel. And I forged it traditionally with a hammer by hand, so the thickness isn't uniform. Yes the steel quality can be higher, but there are some outstanding 15th ans 16th century armors with the same high steel quality.
Thank you so much for this video! You had teased it in comments before, but it's even better than I was expecting.
If you managed to get your opponent on the ground, would you try penetrating gaps with the queue/buttspike or another part of the polehammer, or would you prefer mounting with a rondel dagger?
Defenetly the but and front spike!
Another amazing video from Dequitem. Made my day.
I will get one of these bad boys soon.
Love them
The spike on the pole hammer is not for trying to penetrate plate armor but for tripping and "scratching" and backslashing tendons, legs, arms necks and so on. Same for the axe of pole axe - the axe head has the same usage. U can use it as and axe but also as the beak. Same for the halberds - not primarily used for chopping but for backslashing after thrust and tripping your opponent. The main striking part of these weapons is the hammer head.
hey the quality is unreal!! would you mind naming the Camera Setup?
Fujifilm XT5
Hey @Dequitem have you ever tested work-hardened mild steel armor?
A while back Tod and Matt Easton did that test with a rondel dagger against raw sheet metal and they got significant penetration. The thing is, plain mild sheet is usually softened from the factory to make it easier to work with. I'd be really interested to see if shaped and work-hardened mild steel would be enough to change those results
Me two. But I have to buy a sharp dagger first.
First time here. I've immediately recognized your German accent 🥰. Based channel! I subbed.
Great stuff!
Great work man ❤
Enjoyed that thanks
Always loved the bec de Corbin, used it in a Warnanlage mod a while back, always thought it was sick.
Deine Autokorrektur hat mich zum lachen gebracht. Grüße!
Astonished at how well the armor did; I guessed it would be opened right up.
@1:08 Holy crap! That hit to the head screamed "Concussion!" Hope that guy was ok.
He is.
WOW ! YOU ARE VICIOUS!
Great video :)
Another excellent video!
The name literally means "beak of the raven" or, raven's beak/ravensbeak.
Sometimes called bec de falcon or falcons beak as a twohanded version.
You talk about when a penetrating weapon would injure or kill. Could you explain the general threshold for a lethal hit or a wounding hit with various weapons?
PS your hair is majestic.
PPS, what are the advantages or flaws of fluted armor versus regular armor?
flutes armor makes it harder to deliver a solid hit, and actually adds more strength to the armor
can you elaborate with what you mean by "general threshold" everyone has another threshold for when they die, bigger guys obviously need more of a punch
@@BelieverOfChrist2 Knights of average size for the time. What would generally be a lethal hit or otherwise a wounding one, an injuring one, or a relatively ineffective strike?
Sounds interesting. @BeliverOfChrist2 has already successfully answered the armor question but the leathel hit discussion will be on my list of upcoming videos!
@@dequitem the fans will keep giving topics, dont worry!
Great video as always! I would love to know who made this beautiful hammer?
Good question. I buy it second hand.
it doesn't necessarily seem to be worth the effort to use as anti armor, because even if you go through, you're really only going through a few centimetres and there might be plate and/or Gambeson beneath that so how much are you really penetrating or causing harm?
great video
Great historical weapons and armor impressive to see strength of modern smithing.
I do question the validity of the penetration depths in the mail test, as you are swinging into wood as opposed to flesh.
Yes but the wood was rotten and the ring stopped it not the wood.
Those hits to the head look strong.
Because they were strong. Sorry to my friend 😬.
Really nice video. But is longsword better than shorten poleaxe or they are matched? It's a bit unclear
Personal preference in a duell on foot. On the battlefield in foot combat it's a longer poleaxe and on battlefield horseback it's a sword
Great video as always. Who made your polehammer?
I buy it second hand.
Arma Bohemia sells one in stock that they list as "copy of a warhammer" on their site with 95% similar head design and same length (though 0.2 kg lighter, maybe wood type) so it may be whoever makes that model, I've bought it and its very solid but I haven't smacked anything with mine yet. You can also ask Bjorn Ruther where he got his as I believe the head is the exact same design and make th-cam.com/video/mSQn1ufScSQ/w-d-xo.html.
@@torenbesnoren7929 Thanks!
Crazy you could beat that plate all day and just give them a bruise. But any kids Glock will go straight through it.
For its day plate armor was such a cheat code for the rich and royal.
That weapon has "deadly" written all over it😮. Nonstop action all over 1's face. Very powerful battle's 👍💯💙❕❕❕
1:02 daaaaammnnn
I am no professional at all.. not even an amateur.. Just the typical random internet guy. However, when i would have to think about how this tool was used I'd go towards finding gaps in an armor. Further I think that in case your oponent is using sword and shield you'd have a massive advantage in reach and leverage. Keeping the enemy from you while being able to "pull" the shield away with the beak and then going forward to penetrate the gaps in the armor (under the arms or maybe between helmet and breastplate) with the speared front. The hammer part? I have no clue at all.. maybe for lesser armored foes to deliver more blunt force trauma to the head?
Anyways, great Video! Subbed! :D
Sounds reasonable, but in reality it didn't work so well. A shield user can overcome you and close the reach disadvantage. A onehanded sword is much more versatile in closed combat.
With your comment about hooking things with the axe head, couldn't you also hook things with the beak? Or would that be less practical since the beak historically was smaller?
You can also hook with the spike but it's less effective!
Another great video. Do you think that in pre-plate times, assuming you would not use lamellar / scale / splint or smaller plates over mail shirt, could mail protect center of mass (lets say chest) from piercing attacks if it was made in similiar fashion as the mail that was used in later periods for the aventail / neck area. Recently I saw a good evidence (Fateful Force archery videos) that bodkin arrow with 40-50 joules (45-70 lb bow, depending on type and draw length - basically entry level warbow or even hunting bow) could penetrate decent quality riveted mail based on mail armors from plate armor era.
I am trying to find some logical reason why bows did not dominate battlefield in Europe in pre-plate middle ages because based on what I know they actually did not dominate, but based on evidence they can definitelly penetrate "normal" mail and in many parts of Europe lamellar / scale / etc was not that common so how was melee infantry and cavalry (let alone shock infantry) so dominant in the "mail period" when bows seem to defeat it so easily? I know shields existed, but arrows can penetrate them to the point where they hit the arm or other body part of the wearer. Any ideas?
Maybe because of the use of shields as dominant secondary weapons, often counter war bows.
Curious how far away they tested those bows, compared to the distances they were generally used in battles
@@aLukepop Generally short distance, except for the shield test which was done up to 100 metres. However it is all about kinetic energy, 60 pound bow at point blank range may have energy of 80 pound bow at 100 metres, so it is relatively easy to extrapolate.
@@philozoraptor6808I loved your realistic combat mod for bannerlord. Wish you the best
Im seriously considering buying a bec de faucon, what brand would you say makes the best inexpensive ones?
Very good question. I didn't test that much smith's. Don't have the money for that kind of advice.
Awesome video. Just a tip; ‘Hardened’ is pronounced ‘har-dund’ (2 syllables) and not ‘har-dun-nid’. Same with ‘shortened’ (pronounced ‘shor-tund’, with 2 syllables).
Keep up the good work!
Ups. I try better!
@@dequitem Your channel is great! Subscribed haha. Btw any chance of getting a hold of a ghiavarina in the future? I read it’s one of Fiore’s favorite weapons but I never see any demonstrations with it. Anyways, tks for the great content!
@@vaporz109 is there a English translation for the weapon? Do you talk about the double spear?
Knights are so god damn cool. Can't wait to finish my suit of armor.
I mean given that these strikes were to the shoulder i suspect that if you hit at that angle a few times no penetration would be needed to render the user permanently crippled lol
I may be in a bit of a bubble but I didn't know people expected the plates, especially of a higher quality (and as we know from the findings a ton of stuff was well below what we consider hardened these days), would be pierced by these. It even just *looks* purpose meant to break maille. In fact we still use tools shaped like this beak to break welded chains lmao
I don't think that you injure someone trough the plate.
Poleaxe on battlefield, long sword in duels. If you have someone standing next to you then you want reach and a strong forward downstroke. You won’t benefit from sword swipes in a line formation.
Specialized longswords for armored dueling were somewhere between typical longswords & pollaxes.
It's amazing to me that pauldrons and such other extremity-covering plates don't need to be super thick. I was also watching Tod Cutler and his associates testing a 160 pound longbow against plate armor similar to what the French would have worn at Agincourt, and I was amazed how much of a beating thin shoulder plates could take from the arrows at close range.
And that was very cheap mild steel, that wasn't historical forged with micro dents....
@@dequitemwhy do micro dents matter?
The forging process with the dents as an results makes the material a little bit harder. It will be compressed. It's not hardened steel, but much harder than without forging.
@@dequitem okay thank you 👍
So... people made these things and continued to buy and wield them instead of something more practical like a halberd or plain ol' longsword why, exactly? By the time these things were in-vogue quite a lot of people were wearing cuirasses at least. I didn't think that anyone expected any part of this to actually spike _through_ solid plate, just cause enough force to knock someone over or at least keep them down.
It's ironic that when the armour developed into its most perfect form, black powder weapons became popular and the whole concept of armour became gradually anachronistic.
As a fun fact - it actually didn't. Extreme thick plates become popular which even protected against bullets. The main reason full plate armor ceased to be relevant ist that the huge infantry Formation of the 16th century and later were well euqipped against heavy cavalry plus these expensive full body plate armors were way too expensive to field a large number of them. But they were still popular with the very rich and powerful class
@@afistfulfett7526Exactly muskets weren't as good as other weapons they just were really cost effective
at 1:06 I dont think they'd keep disengaging, they'd try to grapple each other or lock their weapons, and either be trying to disarm the other or take the fight to the ground
Where did you get this beautiful reproduction of the polehammer?
I mean the metal one
I would love to know also
I think he made it since he makes his armor
@@Kingdomkey123678 I've seen similar/same model on other channels (scholagladiatoria
and Björn Rüther), so I think it's from an arms maker.
I buy it second hand.
That swaying log absorbing a lot of the impact
Like every padded or real target.
Just out of curiosity what altitude are you usually dueling at cause it looks like an alpine forest
13:26 When I saw you hit your opponent and drop him, what happened? Did you knock him out? What actually brings a man down in armor, is it stunning from repeated blows? is it concussion like in a boxing match, is it losing balance? Please do a video on this.
Hard to tell u can't messure it. And the answer of a man after the fight is hard to judge because you can't remember that much. Adrenaline makes all unclear and soft.
Talhoffer does not depict pollaxe combat outside of armour. This is a common misconception - in truth the section is entirely in armour and the artist for reasons unknown to us decided to stop drawing the participants in armour partway through the treatise. The section starts with them armoured and never once indicates it's switching to unarmoured combat.
You turn my words. Yes it shows unarmored people with poleaxe, but they show armored techniques without armor, like many people show techniques without armor today. So the reason is clear. It's easyer to show a technique and hold still without armor, so the artist can draw it.
AWESOME VIDEO ! Its amazing how tough the medieval armour was ! No wonder one full plated knight on horseback could fight few dozen peasants with pitchforks wearing only gambeson type cloth armour ...
How do you ensure that your thrusting attacks to the neck, don’t slide between padding and cause serious injury?
Hope and good equipment!
Can this weapon pierce armor?
*John put on the suit*
great locations
Was a bit surprised the spike penetrated the steel at all. Thought it would only function against chain.
I'm sure some favored it in duels because it was simply more practical to them to get very, very good with one weapon; career soldiers would almost certainly need to get good with a hammer anyway, and if you have the choice of spending, say, 30 weeks training with a weapon you're definitely getting in fights with because that's your job, or 15 weeks each split between that and a weapon you might only use in a duel for a moderate advantage... Of course training for battlefield combat and training for duels are different, but maybe there was enough overlap for some to decide to just go all-in and use it even in less ideal situations.
The depictions of unarmored duelists using polehammers (and unarmored duelists using "nonsensical" weapons in general) may have been in light of that, or it may have been done to make it clear for certain techniques that your opponent's exact armor is irrelevant (blunt strikes, hooking and tripping, etc).
I think it's more of showing the techniques and not a real fight.