Overpenetration is one of the biggest problems warriors faced when using spears. Putting wings on the shaft in an extremely simple and effective way to combat this problem. So why would you not have them?

Winged spears were mainly used in hunting, not combat. The wings kept the speared animal from charging up the shaft. :) ....McM

You logic is not flawed, but I do think over penetration was not the primary concern most of the time.

Adding wings made manufacture more complex, and added expense by requiring more metal. More importantly, this extra mass slows down the spear's primary attack, which is a quick thrust, as well as adding weight to carry on the march. The wings would also make it harder to stab past a shield, even if they would add a hooking function.

Like you, the thought of wings on spears is appealing to me, but the practicalities of war seem to have drawn more people to a simpler spear head.

Whatever the purpose, it would seem easier to simply have a toggle lashed on the haft just below the socket, or use a separate bar in place of a rivet. That was certainly the solution in later times. Time and use would leave us with the spear head, separated from the various devices--toggles, bars, hooks, rondels--meant to keep boar and bear away from the spearman.

FWIW, here's what I would call a boar spear--with separate toggle--being used in a military context.

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That's exactly what I did on a spear I made using a Windlass long hewing spearhead. I used leather lacing to tie a deer antler prong between the blade and the socket. It will rotate, but has little movement up or down. Instant boar spear. ;) ....McM

Martin de Eguiluz's 16th-century military manual mentioned the problem of overpenetration against human opponents, of people (specifically Turks) taking a thrust and running up the shaft to deal a blow to the pike wielder.

This is another medieval discussion that might be sorted by some field experience. I spear boars and you will find spears do not enter things as easily as you think. Youtube the cold steel boar spear and while effective see the difficulty it has in penetrating some hits. Its oversized admittedly but the principal is at some point the cylindrical socket and shaft will hang up on the pigs ribs before it enters too far.

Similarly for humans attacking the vitals, after the spear head has slipped through the ribs the shaft is going to be lucky to slip between not 1 but two layers of ribs,( including the ribs on the exit side of the body) The collar bones, scapulae and spine won't help either. I believe if you make spear shafts of a certain thickness I think you could control over-penetration much of the time. Of course for less than than perfect hits to fleshy areas or stomach the spear may certainly run through more easily.

Dan, your technical explanations always enlighten me. ;-)

Early modern cavalry lances and naval boarding pikes, through to the 20th century, lack wings, toggles or bars. Some infantry spontoons though had bars and England used two lengths up into the mid 19th century. In the Lewis&Clark journals are comments of using the spontoon's bars as a steady rest for their rifles. In the naval context the pikes reduced to square section awls on 8'-10' hafts. Late cavalry lances similarly skinny thrust-centric point with nothing but a guidon (if attached) and the base of the socket often wider than the blade/point. In the case of the naval pikes surely to clear rigging as much as economy.

Cheers

GC

Sam I get the feeling that you got this idea of over-penetration from a Matt Easton YouTube video. Matt does have a good channel, but in this case I think he took accounts of bayonets over-penetrating targets and extrapolated that backwards to apply to spears. Like others here I don't think that over-penetration was a big problem for men on foot in a shieldwall. The only situation where I think that over-penetration might typically happen is during a cavalry charge with couched lance. However lances would usually break after one usage, so extracting the spearhead wouldn't be possible anyway.

Jason

Philip. The only drills that I'm aware of to extract a lance after impact involve holding the lance out at arms length, not in the couched position which I specified. If you know of a drill to extract a lance held in the couched position, then please let me know.

Jason