Can a Spear be used to strike, as well as slash, or is it a thrusting exclusively weapon?
What I mean is, could someone effectivelly use the shaft of the spear as a quarterstaff to perform striking techniques with the bluntmost parts, while using the shaft and spearhead for traditional historial/hema spear techiniques, and also the blade for small slashing techiques agaisn't lighting armoured opponends?
Assume the wieldier is athletic and well feed, and could wave a heavy wooden shaft around + spearhead farly quickly.
I ask for HEMA practice, and also because I a spear with an 5'10 ashen shaft is part of my go-kit.
It's a big stick, I'm pretty sure that you can smack someone with it
Grayson Hernandez
lacrosse players wear pads for a reason and the long stick defense players mostly use light, hollow titanium poles. i took some shots thatll numb your arms.
Jayden Thomas
Sure you could still use a spear as a staff. But depending on the size of the spear head the balance could be off compared to a real staff.
Lindybeige did this interesting video at a HEMA event. He brought a trainer spear and had many different people spar with it vs swords. The spear came out as the victor over 65 sparring matches in various formats. This is interesting because nobody was trained in the spear, they were all sword guys just giving spear a try. I imagine had they been trained as spearmen it would have been an even bigger victory for spears.
Given that a spear is silent, can't run out of ammo or jam, penetrates soft armor, and has far greater wounding potential than any handgun round, is a spear a better HD weapon than a pistol?
It is a stick, with a pointy, sharp thingy on the end. You can do anything you like with it. No need to get too formal about this.
Matthew Reyes
>guy screaming as he gets repeatedly stabbed >silent People don’t just die when they get stabbed. It’s a process.
Jayden Young
guy screaming is still way quieter than a gunshot I mean I'm not gonna have to get a silencer or keep electronic earpro next to my HD spear
Anthony Barnes
Depends on the specifics of the spear but yeah, I imagine so. If you're fighting for your life then you'll want to use everything at your disposal. Obviously though the most effective and most frequently used aspect would be the thrusting point.
Looking at the boar spear in your inage i expect you could also use the wings to catch shields and swords so as to pull them out of position for a thrust.
Jackson Gonzalez
>what is a polearm for 500 also i know you mean spears specifically. anyhow, there are things like the alhspeiss with a drawn out blade
Camden Torres
Put a bayonet on a full length rifle. Now you have a spear that can also shoot.
You do you bro. I can get hits from way further than I can throw a spear and I can do it more than once, I can't unthrow a spear. Fuck the noise, that's the neighbors problem.
Jackson Wright
A spear would be good interesting for HD. Would a sword be better though?
No. Small doorways and hallways do not lend well to a sword. Perhaps a short one like a Roman sword.
Spears are excellent HD weapons becuase they give you distance. Distance equals life in a deadly situation.
Aiden Jackson
In close quarters you may not have enough room to get your swing on and for thrusting a spear is objectively better, even in comparison to a thrust-optimized sword like a rapier or something
Henry Stewart
Depends on the user. A small woman? No. A full grown man? Perhaps.it would be one hell of a psychological mind fuck to have a dude running down a hall screaming wooing a spear at your balls.
Love where you guys are going with this. Why not go full bore. Trench gun with a long ass bayonet. 6 000 shells to mess people up and a good short spear for use in tight quarters.
Here's some more. This is the summary of an earlier set of videos. I'm sure you can find the rest. Spear > Swords. Only true problem with a spear (assuming you know what your'e doing) is that you can't strap it to your body like a sword or knife, which is why they're called side arms.
This is why swords were almost exclusively last ditch or hand to hand when on the battle field. Spears and the like we’re always used by knights and peasants alike.
Chase Anderson
Certain variants of Japanese spears are basically daggers on sticks, sometimes with a couple more daggers sticking out at 90 degree angles.
Matthew Stewart
It depends on the type of spear head. A lot of spear heads are basically like big hunting knives, if you imagine it had a traditional knife handle instead of being on a long stick, you'd probably think it's a pretty intimidating blade. I've seen crime scene photos of people getting medical treatment after getting slashed with a hunting knife and it was some pretty horrific large gashes and hunks of hanging meat. Imagine using a lever on top of that, physics giving you more leverage potentially if the blades long enough for surface area I wouldn't be surprised if it'd cleave right into someone quite horrifically.
I think people really underestimate how much getting hit with a stick hurts too. I mean there is a bit of a reason why caning is almost universally rejected as a form of punishment, and that's often quite a smaller stick. I'd wager a big stick like a spear is quite a bit more effective.
I know right, it's like lances and cavalry charges weren't that effective since people did tournaments with blunt poles. It's almost as if everyone used spears to repel cavalry because they'll die from their armor getting impaled on a spear.
Lincoln Miller
Quarterstaves were considered serious weapons for a long time. A big stick with a metal cap on either end to prevent splitting is a serious weapon.
Grayson Lopez
I'm fairly certain most people don't understand hitting people causes internal bleeding. Stuff like bruising is blood from broken vessels leaking. Personally I don't bother to talk about staffs as weapons anymore because I just would sound like a broken record and people tell me it's not effective or very lethal. I always thought the tongue in cheek choke about crusaders using blunt weapons as a play on words to avoid blood shed was kinda funny, besides why would you want to go marauding with an army that hasn't got any fucking sense of humor?
Ryder Harris
afaik, it was actually because there was a prominent Bishop who was also a landowner, who ended up in a war and used his symbol of office (A big fuckoff mace) as his weapon. Later people heard or read accounts of the bishop and his soldiers all using blunt weapons and just kind of assumed it was to avoid bloodshed. A lot of history is written decades or centuries after the fact based on assumption, contemporary values, and third hand verbal accounts, and modern people tend to take it as true just because it was written relatively near the time.
Ryder Cooper
Depends on the type of spear.
Broader spearheads like the those on a partizan/spontoon or one that is longer like that of a spetum can be used to cut, but they are generally heavier. You're not going to be using them like a quarterstaff.
Robert Morales
>I imagine had they been trained as spearmen it would have been an even bigger victory for spears. Sure, but the thing is that most ancient armies were not trained very much at all. Literally just conscripted farmers rounded up by their feudal lords and given pointy sticks. These people stood a significantly better chance at survival with a spear instead of a sword.
David Harris
Then say quiet, not silent. Words have meaning.
William Jenkins
In many HEMA sources, the butt of the spear is used to deflect and strike like a quarterstaff does. Sometimes it was fitted with a spike, but often it would just be a simple metal cap.
You probably wouldn't want to hit with the base of the spear point as, with the weight of the spearhead, it would probably weaken the shaft on impact or even break it.
Also, some spears are capable of slashing, at least drawing cuts. There's a japanese school whose motto even is "spear cuts and sword thrusts" (Saburi-ryu iirc) which uses cuts to the inner arms a lot.
Christopher Russell
A spear didn't take as much training as a sword, especially when they were only used in formation on a battlefield.
Anthony Ramirez
The spear itself is silent, though.
Colton Cox
Depends on the blade shape. There were spears that could slash
Dominic Morales
2 pops in the middle of the night are less noticeable than bloodcurdling screams coming from your house for a solid minute this
Asher Martin
>I don't want to take life, but at the same time I want him to understand that his life was mine to take, and I let him have it. God Bless America
Wyatt Turner
Just get a knife. Either a huge Bowie style blade (the"draw the line from chest to bottom and the stomach falls out" kind) or a good stabby stiletto (for precise stabs) Not as big as a spear, silent and deadly.
Aaron Kelly
Do you think people that get shot immediately collapse and die like Russians in Call of Duty?
Landon Watson
You have to keep the point between you and the target because if he gets around it you are pretty fucked that's why they carried swords on their hip. let alone the bad moment that it breaks.
Sebastian Clark
Weren't the mosins like 5ft long and like 6ft with bayonets attached?
Nathaniel Reed
Deus vult
Christopher Murphy
no
Ayden Reyes
I'd rather have a sword or a spear than to go 1v1 against someone that might also be armed with a knife
Lincoln Foster
Semi-related: due to blade geometry of East Asian spearheads, Japanese and Chinese pike formations actually shop at people. Guys up front thrust, guys at the back support them by chopping them up with a spearhead the size of a small sword or bok them with the shaft.
If you impale someone with the bayonet all the way to the muzzle and then fire would it muffle the noise much?
Sebastian Collins
So is a gun, but you don't say that.
Michael Wright
I read something once that suggested that a spear/pikeman is the lowest cost/max effective unit for medievil warfare, so much so that it generally takes a skilled fighter ie with only a sword to defeat an untrained fighter with a spear.
Archers, knights, mounted etc can obviously be much more effective, but cost significantly more to outfit and train.
Moral of the story, is i think it suggested that if you had to field an untrained army lots of spearmen may be the way to go as they are generally effective against all other types.
Kind of makes sense though, a thrusting spear would obviously pose a significant danger to even lightly armored knights, any man on horseback etc.
If you cant fight and find yourself in a situation in which you need to fight in open ground against other people who dont have firearms and bows, a spear may be your best option.
Landon Turner
Yeah, there is a reason this has been the standard issue equipment for hundreds if not thousands of years, literally any moron can be dangerous with half a days training.
