What makes halberds so good? I've heard they're the best polearm, but not why.
>>65016937you could hook other pole arms with them and use them to chop.they are also probably over rated/over represented because guards would use them because they gave you a lot of reach to hold off unarmored retards, you could use the haft to push fags around, the hook/spike and ax were used for firefighting stuff and they weren't so long as to be completely fucking unwieldy as a pike would be. you basically had a spear with a dane ax and a hook that was useful for both war and town guards
Poleaxe + spear with (occasionally) a hook built into it>the multitool of polearms
>>65016937Its dog shit and its why the swiss used pikes.
>>65016937It is just a versitile head on a pole. What's not to understand? Same reason for the (italian) bill or whatever it is called nowadays. >>65017255No. The "pike blocks" utalised by the swiss in the 15th century were a mixture of pikes, helbards and bills (with a few battleswords and two handed axes sprinkled in here and there). Ffs the Swiss were one of the most prolific users of the halberd.
Anglos will claim the english bill is better, but look at it. It's basically the same thing in a slightly different shape.
>>65016937Combination of versatility and power. On one hand, you had decent reach and hooking options. You could hook and drag a man out of the saddle or set the halbert against the ground to resist a cavalry charge. The haft was often thicker than a spear's and reinforced with langets so you could clash with swords all day and still have a weapon. On the flip side, you had a really nice axehead with a lot of leverage. It's said that King Richard III of England was killed in battle by a halberd to the head.
>>65016937It isn't the halberd, butt that is carrying it.
>>65017329The "classical" english bill and early halberds are practically the same and are even from the same time period. The more ornamental halberds that get often posted here are from the 16th, 17th or even 18th century.
It's all just a spectrum, man.
>>65017511Darwin's finches, but more choppy.
>>65017255the swiss fucking INVENTED the halberd
>>65017296*arethe swiss guard still uses them technically, even if they all have guns too
>>65017408This Lombard lookin' ZESTY, this Lombard lookin' MOIST, he's got sugar in his wine, he's light with a blade, he's a Ill bit fruity, he plays for the other Condottiero, he fights at the other end of Genoa, this Lombard theatrical, this Lombard good with colors, this Lombard gonna coordinate yo arse wit you halberd and that shit gonna look good! This Lombard lifts cannonballs, this Lombard on the second level of hell, this Lombard be a Venetian trader, this Lombard fights uphill, this Lombard packs gunpowder, he's a friend of Machiavelli, he feels the love that dare not speak Its name, he loves to dance, he's of the Ottoman brotherhood, he indulges in the Greek vice, he has an monetary sexual Instinct, he's fluent in Barbary, he's a refugee from Moscow, he's on the wrong vessel, he fights for the other Duke, he's temperamental, he's 'one of if you catch my drift.
>>65017255the swiss also used halberds with their pikes to break up pike formations with the halberd hooks.it doesn't make sense to arm literally everyone with a halberd because pikes are better vs cavs but mixing in halberds or other hooked pole arms was a good way of beating pike blocks
>>65017341>It's said that King Richard III of England was killed in battle by a halberd to the head.it might have been a bill, but same fucking thing, a pole arm that was longer than a man with a semi complex head with a hook, cutting edge and spear point
>>65016937All pole arms are just a quarterstaff with attachments. You can pick any of them. Spear, halberd, English bill ect it literally doesn't matter. Much like wrestling there are so many techniques, counters, traps, it all comes down to who is better once reach has been eliminated. The plain quarter staff has long been claimed to have an advantage when all else is equal simply because it cannot be trapped. As someone who used a quarterstaff in boy scouts I can tell you it's dangerous as fuck. Any decent strike anywhere is breaking a bone. Causing head trauma. Leaving gashes. Even in a helmet one good strike will ring your bell so hard your brain is on pause and you have a lifelong neck injury.
>>65017296>RonconeARMA TERRIBILISSIMA
>>65017540I was refering to the times of the classic swiss Gewalthaufen during the Burgundian Wars, Swabian War and the Italian War. And the Pontifical Swiss Guard were and are neither de facto nor de jure part of Switzerland and its military.
>>65018844>All pole arms are just a quarterstaff with attachmentspikes aren't. pikes are way too long to be quarter staffs
>>65017296>the Swiss were one of the most prolific users of the halberdEvery road bodyguard used halberds accross Euroep from Heny VIII, the French monarchs like the bourbons, the Electors of the holy Roman Emperor, teh Papacy which at that stage was also a full independent nation etc, they only really got displaced by wheelock pistols.
>>65019054It's a quarterstaff with a quarterstaff attachment
The halberds great advantage is that it can be used not just in massed formations but as the most effective weapon for dealing with any mele weapon attack. It can snare teh bridle on a horse, pull someones leg out from under them or drag a rider from a horseIt was the go to weapon for bodyguards in its era. Pic Halberds of the bodyguard of the Holy Roman Emperor.mathhias from the early 1600s. It was NOT just used in mass formations, it was the prefered weapon for any casual encouter involving a determined psycho at close range. If you have two men with these, then one restrains by pinnning or tripping while the other stabs. Game over.
>>65016937Stabby bit to stabHooky bit to hookChoppy bit to chop And it is long so you can do it from a safe distance
Fin fact I own a Halberd that was used by the bodyguard of louis xiv the sun king.
Most of the time the hooks are blunt they are not for slashing but hookinng or tripping. Only the spear point is used for the kill.
>>65018844lmao the Quarterstaff retard has arrived.
It came to me with the personal effets of the son of Napoleon the III who died in the Anglo Zulu wars in British service. He was a nice boy full of adventure, very sad that whole affair. Cherlmford was one of the dumbist and cruelest men I ever met and I have met a lot of stupid men.
>>65017511Luv me Spetum/Runka>>65018950The german name for them is "Rossschinder" meaning horse flayer/tormentor>>65019059The swiss were one of the earliest (if not the originators) of the Halberd. The example I posted previously is dated to 1375 - 1400. Nearly a century before Henry VIII. was born. And Halberds weren't replaced by wheellocks. If anything ceremonial/palace/court guards switched to broad bladed partisans or glaives because those could be finely engraved to show off wealth.
Pic rel is a finely decorated Partisan that belonged to the guard of the Archbishop of Salzburg Sigismund III. Christoph von Schrattenbach from the middle of the 18th century. The coat of arms is that of the Archdiocese.>>65019074Neat. I rarely find decorated Halberds.
>>65019219>>65019224usually NCOs had halberds and then those NCOs or at least the officers and NCOs had half pikes similar to your partisan as symbolic arms until the early mid 1800s
>>65019092I bet you have never been in a fight that didn't end with you balled up and crying or cunt up unconscious.
>>65016937It's just another flavor of poleaxe. Everyone used poleaxes because they were the most effective weapon against someone in armor. The variety with the hammer was more common.
>>65019307no, halberds aren't poleaxes and weren't used as poleaxes their heads aren't robust enough and they are kind of long for poleaxes. they were used the way a bunch of posters itt explained, they were basically like long 2 handed spears/half pikes with protrusions that used for hooking other weapons, horse riders and other foot troops. they're spears with hooks. most polearms that aren't pike after a certain date are just spears with hooks.
for me, its the ahlspiess
>>65019348that probably fucks armor but it looks like it would be less effective in a formation because it doesn't have hooks like a lot of other polearms. Like it's like one of those various poleaxes where you just know those things rape other armored men one on one but would be inferior to a pike in formation fighting
What do you guys think of this?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgvYezpHuRkhe's arguing the glaive without a hook protrusion is basically just a poleaxe/polehammer/>>65019348 thing where it's slightly bigger than a guy and is used by a guy in armor to crack open another armored guy or try to cut off his hands or fingers when in a bind.
>>65018977never said they were, though having completed swiss military training is a requirement to become one.and they are still "the Swiss", as in swiss people.
>>65016937>Be spear with axe and pick >Absolutely fuck up everyone on horse and foot They're also lighter than you'd figure, the likely early 17th century one I handled IRL (pulled from some eastern euro armory sale of corruptions past) and put through some drills couldn't have even weighted 5lbs, 6 or 7lbs with the extra foot or so it probably originally had on the half and healthy moisture content in the wood. It was very similar to the OP pic and the total head of that photo and the one I've fucked around with is like 75% the dimensional size of the shitty gdfb repro I and other reenactors use commonly and shaping and weight is obviously significantly better. Entirely other animal than the heavy bitch 9lb bare head Indian repros (which still manage to show why this design works so well, just not quite how fucked you are with just a sword) They're fast, sink a felling axe sized bit into people with the rotational inertia of a 8+ft haft, and otherwise handle like a spear in the thrust. Polehammers and poleaxes are also svelter and lighter/faster than you'd think from vidya and 40lb fantasy weapons.
>>65021173>Polehammers and poleaxesPeople also tend to forget they were knightly weapons, this was the real-deal shit when Sir Fuksboi needed to go out and beat the shit out of his neighbours, the peasants and other knights. So they were well built, balanced and very effective weapons for crunching through armour, smashing skulls and chopping people up
>>65019082How did a Fin end up with a historical artifact from France?
>>65019092Could be worse, far worse, it could have been quarterpounder retard.
>>65016937They're more versatile spears in essence.
>>65018844Wow. What a retard.
>>65017411congrats for being the only non homo combat hallberd in an entire hallberd thread. /k/ sucks so hard at this.
>>65017511Didn't know the swiss independently made a guan dao The guan dao is a archetypical weapon type that will apparently spring up as polearm and cavalry warfare develops>I bet if I just put a big fuck all chopper on the end of this stick I can lop the legs off horses like nothing
>>65022257There's nothing gay about OP halberd.
>>65022272it's flamboyantly homosexual indeed
>>65017578kek
>>65022257Well with the passing of time the spike of the halberd was just more emphasised while the axe blade got reduced. Both are halberds just in different stages of the development of the weapon.>>65022271"Big blade onna stick" isn't exactly a hard to get idea.
>>65022370yes, and one was used by combat infantry as the their mainstay weapon in actual battles and the other was used by night guards and ceremonial regiments to guard palace gates and royal night pots.
>>65022524
>>65022383The OP halberd would fit a 16th century example and would definately be fit for field combat.
>>65022524The hoe is absolutely goated. I've learned a few wushu forms with it. Every attack is cleaving at the top of the opponent's foot, the top of the knee cutting the whole front of the knee cap off, at the face slicing the whole front of the face off, and at the elbows and hands. It's also very good for trapping shields and pulling them downwards. Two guys with hoes can overpower a guy with a sword and shield or a spear and shield very quickly. It is not a super great 1 on 1 weapon however. Historically it is best fielded when you have an overwhelming number of poor ass farmer militia men. Without at least a 3 to 1 or a 2 to 1 advantage, it should not be used
>>65022564It's also worth noting part of the advantage of a hoe in historical China was that there was zero cost for arms, all the farmers already have one. The training time and cost is near zero, they already use them every single day just not on people yet. But the biggest advantage is that the hoe head is the only real part of the weapon. In agricultural use the stave will be relatively short only 4 to 6 foot long. But in a militia use, the hoe head can be knocked off and fixed to an 8 foot to 12 foot stave, usually just longer than what you expect the enemy pole arms to be. The hoe militia succeeds more often when they have both superior numbers and superior reach
>>65022564The hoes biggest weakness is archers and cavalry though. Since a hoe militia is usually unarmored and undisciplined. Plus hoes are a terrible matchup against horses in general, let alone slightly armored horses fielded by a professional militaryIf you're leading a hoe militia use terrain and ambush tactics if facing a cavalry and archer heavy force
>>65017578Cheers to this post and to you anon
>>65017578
>>65018844A spear and a halberd (halberd type weapons) are two very different things. > Even in a helmet one good strike will ring your bell so hard your brain is on pause and you have a lifelong neck injury.Lol ok retard
>>65019082Pics?
>>65022612> Plus hoes are a terrible matchup against horses in generaDepends on the ho
>>65022257>>65017411the met one >>65017411 is objectively worse than the other ones because it doesn't have a top hook for hook pushing, like >>65022257 has a slight top hook and 2, maybe 3 bottom hooks, but >>65017411 only has a bottom pull hook
>>65022271there are some shorter yuropoor versions of these, like french, where they are closer to poleax length and were intended for a fully armored guy to be able to use it 2 handed to rape lightly armored fags while still being useful as both a spear for cavs and a poleax for fighting other armored dudes. Like it's obviously worse vs armor than a poleax but it's better vs unarmored than a poleax because better cutting
>>65022370because the spike was what was used offensively. Like you could chop with them, but the faces were mainly used as hooks and the chopping power comes from the fact it's on a long ass stick instead of the blade profile of the ax face
>>65023462a halberd is just a spear with hooks and some type of chopping edge
>>65023467they didn't have cameras back then
>>65023763Yeah, almost like it’s different. Like I stated.
>>65016937very high skill ceiling
>>65023462>A spear and a halberd (halberd type weapons) are two very different things.Only when you don't use it like a spear which is only like 2% of the time. The other 98% of use cases, they're being handled as a spear.
For a modern spear/polearm that makes me feel weird as a shaft head...>this thing can whack in all directions and cut someone without twisting the shaft>has a hallow handle for it already
>>65017511why did the axe part get smaller over time?
>>65028132Weight of the spike and reversed head contribute to the striking power of the axe head, so you can get away with a smaller axe head without losing any effectiveness.
>>65028121Wasn't that thing a total flop?>>65028132Armor became better and an axe blade isn't an automatic counter. However thicker and longer thrusting spikes were the new focus and thus the axe blade part got reduced in size.
>>65019074and BTW, those tassles are to soak up blood, so it doesn't run down the pole and jeopardize your grip.That's learned experience going into design, right there.>t. engineer
>>65028104Not so much. Halberds saw a lot of peacetime use with guards and they used them more like quarterstaffs. The weapon is tip heavy so you end up using the butt to poke at enemies and that's really only good at setting you up for a follow-up swing. In actual warfare, it's not practical to stab through plate. Instead, you'd entangle the enemy with the hooks, force them to the ground, and beat them with the axeheads until they promised you money. >>65028132Armor fell out of fashion. Note the year, 1600-1700s. That's about the time muskets took over warfare and armor lost relevance. By the mid 1700s the Halberd was basically ceremonial.
>>65016937Several factors:- long reach, so good for novices that aren't really used to combat (the closest you are to your enemy, the harder to kill him),- very high skill ceiling,- relatively easy to manufacture (emphasis on "relatively", it's still harder to craft than a spear or a pike),- excellent for formations,- very good versatility: use the axe side to kill people, the pointy head to stop horses and Picts women, and the pick side to damage armour.It's probably not that good IRL because you can get jumped and shanked before you can get in a combat stance, but in fantasy, it's probably the weapon weapon you can get.Just remember it's a jack of all trades and master of none, so there are other weapons that will be better at cutting, poking and penetrating.
>>65028325>and BTW, those tassles are to soak up blood, so it doesn't run down the pole and jeopardize your grip.Oooh, that's what they're for.
>>65028249>Wasn't that thing a total flop?The original one was a meme collector's piece and they're still quite expensive--among collectors that is, it's a shit knife that nobody actually uses for anything. The chinks have been making malljinja tier knockoffs.
>>65028486>The weapon is tip heavy so you end up using the butt to poke at enemies and that's really only good at setting you up for a follow-up swing.A very niche thing that proves the earlier sentiment of the weapon being rarely making use of the axe. Besides, if you're going around poking people it's not like a spear has a bad reputation for that specific task.>In actual warfare, it's not practical to stab through plate. Instead, you'd entangle the enemy with the hooks, force them to the ground, and beat them with the axeheads until they promised you money.Full plate armor was never common and is no evidence of it ever being the deciding factor in large battles in the medieval period. Truth is that spears (or any other weapon at the time) never had to be able to pierce plate armor to be effective in battle.
>>65028486>>65028806from what I understand you do see chest/hip/shoulder armor finally showing up en masse in the 1400s-1600s because they could finally mass produce it or at least produce it at the scale and cost needed to outfit armies with, but that also corresponds to the same time period firearms started coming into vogue which then reduced the usefulness of armorthe average soldier was also never going to be that armored because, even without factoring in cost, marching with full leg and back armor was probably hell.
Overrated, the apparent utility, much like a Swiss army knife, appeals to the non-user.Only became relevant when infantry had heavy armour so could use two handed weapons, when battles were small scale and the logistical issues of the halberd were less pressing, but before the age of pike and shot, where anyone armed this way would be both piked, and also shot.
>>65029089>Overrated,it's a spear with hooks on it. why did every culture develop one or more spear with hooks design if they were overrated?
>>65029089>when battles were small scaleThe armies of the Burgundian and Swabian Wars nearly always had strenghts of 15000 to 20000 men. I wouldn't call that small scale.>and the logistical issues of the halberd were less pressingWhich issues would those be?
>>65028806The problem wasn't full plate, it was breastplates. Yes, a spear could still score a blow on the limbs but remember that the halberd is tip heavy. It takes a lot more force to accelerate and as a result, the halberd is less agile and more predictable and when aiming for limbs, this was important. What you actually used the point for was deterring cavalry charges. You'd set the butt against the ground and tilt the halberd towards the enemy. Even if the enemy killed you they'd skewer themselves and they knew it. Unless the enemy was suicidal, you were fine.
>>65029295>Tip heavy They aren't any more than any other polearm and AS A SPEAR that is where they wouldn't matter anyway. A pike is "tip heavy" too but not in the thrust. You have not done this IRL. Halberd were deployed largely to the sides of pike formations for flanking defense. The hook and blade is best used in formation for hooking(imagine that) and cutting to the less defended legs of enemy infantrymen. We have fechbuchs of use of the poleaxe in personal defense that ward and cut much like the great sword and they do work well like that, but specifically in that situation. It's not how they were used in a formation.
>>65030662>They aren't any more than any other polearm and AS A SPEAR that is where they wouldn't matter anyway.>AS A SPEARNo. Have you even looked at how much material is at the end of a halberd? That's an entire axeblade and axeblades only work when there tip heavy. You're generalizing halberds with other polearms like billhooks or naginata.The fact is that the Halberd has been known to chop through even plate armor such as when Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, too a halberd to the face that pierced his helmet. This simply isn't credible unless the Halberd is a 6 foot long axe in terms of balance. I don't know what you've been practicing with but it's not a halberd.
>>65030814Anon fighting axes tend towards light and thin blades. They don't need to be particularly heavy, you have the leverage from the shaft to generate power. Halberds are absolutely more tip heavy than a spear, but you'd still mostly be trying to stab people with it, for the simple reason that it's the thing that commits and exposes you the least. Well, that and hitting people in the head, as even a fucking foam halberd can concuss people or knock them off their feet if you go full retard with it it, nevermind what it'll do to a shoulder or clavicle if the other guy only has mail on his arms.
>>650308142 handed axes were sub 4lbs as are all good repros of daneaxes and lochober axes. A poleaxe or polehammer would be under 5lbs too. These are nimble, fast, hard hitting weapons that don't feel like you're holding a breaker bar. >U haven...Repros and originals. The originals are lighter and handle far better largely because they have distal taper in the blades and Indians staring at internet pictures oversize things. >But how could it pierce a helmet then Because it's a spike moving with the rotational force of a 10ft haft into a visor or side of helmet where it's thin. Helmets weren't 3mil through hardened springsteel like in buburt either. Field finds, middens, etc. show dents and pierce throughs on armor. It's not the expectation or even lethal in large cases but armor was compromised by weapons of its time and if anything was to do it it'd be polearms.
>>65030814>>65031837the fact archers remained viable as long as they did shows that armor at the time was super fucking mid
>>65032282No, it just shows what we already know - most people didn't have complete armor, and were thus vulnerable to being shot.
>>65032811which would still mean a lighter ax head would be fine for killing an unarmored fag
>>65032827Yeah, it's as if in the grand scheme doing anything besides thrusting with the pointy end didn't matter at all.
>>65032949you could use halberds to hook enemy pikes. that's why so many different cultures all made different versions of >spear but with hooks
>>65032969Anon there are literally no examples of halberd going head to head with pikes, do I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from.
>>65033217the swiss used guys with halberds as part of pike formations
>>65033217No, but there's records of halberds flanking pikes. The idea was to escort Pike Blocks with Halberdiers. When you went head to head with another pike block you can pull and push enemy pikes out of line so your own pikeman can get a good stab in.
