[Aleksei Sosnovski]

[Kurt Scholz]

E. M. Remarque's "All quiet on the Western front" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front
has become the very basic manual of armed close combat in modern German military.
Freely translated he advises to uses sharpened spades and strike diagonally between the shoulderblades. If strinking with the spade this way you cause a blunt trauma that disables the enemy instantly. Remarque advises against the bayonet (Seitengewehr) because it gets stuck and you have to pull it out again, however, if you use a bayonet stab into the belly because it's much easier to get out there than in the ribcage. He doesn't talk about hitting the face or helmet.

[Johan Gemvik]

If a blow doesn't have the effect of a closed head injury or at least loss of consciousness it's either not truly weilded with deadly intent, and I sure hope no one does today, else the police should arrest them for attempted murder, or the billhook lacks realistic historical proportions and mass. A real billhook is like taking a big sledgehammer to the head full on. Now imagine taking that hit to the base of your skull. No helmet known to man stops that.

Please don't kill or disable each other for life in the pursuit to prove someone wrong on the internet. The skull and brain is a fragile thing. Much more so than some seem to believe today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_head_injury

[Aleksei Sosnovski]

[John Turner]

To return to the original post, If you watch the video carefully, it is not the bill of the hook which does the cutting but the straight edge. Whilst interesting, I do not think that this provides a good example of the best use of the bill on the hook providing additional cutting power. There are plenty of examples of straight and curved blades cutting necks (both in butchery and execution), both from history and currently - the Saudis use a curved sabre for their judicial executions, and the execution swords from the medieval period were almost invariably straight, so it may be difficult to argue one way or the other conclusively.

Much like the spike on the reverse of some poleaxes, the bill on a billhook when delivered as a blow, functions in the same manner as the thrust of a spear, in concentrating the energy into a very small area. That is possibly why they are better at penetrating armour than a sword.

There are many examples of curved swords (cavalry sabres) being just as effective at lopping off limbs as recurved swords (falcatas and kukris) - there are plenty of tales from the Napoleonic period of limbs removed by both heavy and light cavalry swords - admittedly to unarmoured opponents(I cannot find any at present as I am at work).

[John Turner]

[Kurt Scholz]

[John Turner]

Kurt,

Without wishing to drag this post off subject, (knockout power has been discussed elswhere in this forum) indeed one of the causes of MTBI is undoubtably overpressure due to blast - and there is very little that can be done to protect against this - a huge amount of R&D is being directed towards mitigating these effects. The brain is particularly susceptible to this, as you rightly pointed out. However, at least 15 % of the patients that I see with MTBI do not have a history of exposure to blast overpressure, but rather blunt force impact to the helmet. These helmets have a ballistic plastic shell with a padded liner, specifically designed to protect agaisnt two things - penetration, and absorption of energy. The fact that the resin that the ballistic fibres are suspended in has plastic/elastic properties should make it better at protecting against transfer of energy than steel. The specially designed padding and suspension systems are better at absorbing energy than horse hair or flax padding - I would therefore not be hesitant to draw the conclusion that modern helmets are better at protecting from blunt force trauma than their medieval counterparts. If we still see these type of injuries now, I think it is also safe to assume that they were suffered by soldiers armoured in steel.

The type of trauma suffered by boxers (sometimes catastrophic) is exactly the type of trauma that I see in many of these patients. it does not take many impacts that shake the brain in the wrong way to cause minor long term damage. The effect of this is difficult to measure, but the outcome can often be seen in career boxers (Mohammed Ali is a prime example).

Any claim that "because I get hit on the head a lot and have never been knocked out, therefore my helmet will stop it ever happening" is a dangerous argument. After all, as has been mentioned elsewhere on this forum, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

All I was trying to do was to caution against trying to test the principle that any helmet can provide absolute protection. From my experience of modern helmets there is no such thing. It would be a shame to see the intellectual power of this forum diluted brain damage due to dangerous experiments!

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Aleksei Sosnovski]

I don't think you would find anybody saying in this thread that a helmet can provide ABSOLUTE protection. What some people including me want to say that polearms are far less effective then some people might think.

And a few words about modern and medieval helmets. Modern helmets are light. Medieval ones (at least some of them) were much heavier, and mass helps preventing MTBI. Medieval helmets were often made of soft steel so that they would bend absorbing the energy, so not much difference here. Difference in padding efficiency is also arguable, there were helmets with pretty thick padding. As was already stated

[Kurt Scholz]

Hi John,

thanks for clarifying these issues.

So we have this theory of the billhook working as a big hammer and causing shocks to the armoured person.
I'm not entirely convinced because the blade of this weapon might easily hit at angles that deflect the blow. I think any point or points that are able to grip into the armour upon impact enable a transfer of energy without deflection. Wooden hammers with a lead core possibly don't offer a platform as suitable for these gripping spikes as Luzerne hammers or single spikes. However, less grip would work against armour with a less harder surface or select parts of the armour.
The question is: Can I hit with the spike of the billhook an armour surface with enough grip so a wide range of angles of successful attacks is possible? There's no need to place a living being underneath that armour for this test. This would also mean that the point of the billhook is especially hardened while the metal behind provides the elasticity and rigidity needed. I would almost expect a fuller in the blade.

[John Turner]

Alexsei,

Apologies if I came across preachy, It was not my intent - I just know the sort of people who would think that belting each other with things whilst wearing a tin pot would be a kind of fun experiment, and would not consider the consequences - I end up picking up the pieces from Her Majesty's finest doing all sorts of stupid things to their heads (and other assorted bits) and tend to err on the side of caution when discussing experiments on the damage that weapons can do.

Not sure I would agree with the general statement that modern helamets are light - try wearing one for 18 hrs a day! Seriously though, my current combat helmet weighs more than my 14 ga Great Helm, and considerable more than my bascinet.

I tend to agree with your point that it is easy to overrate the fighting power of pole arms, and there seems to be a trend to see them as some kind of medieval superweapon. - if they were that could they surely would have completely replaced the sword and hammer. They have their place indeed but are not indeed as powerful as many seem to believe

As to the billhook vs Hammer debate, I think, despite the lack of grip on the armour, I would probably prefer to be hit in the great helm with a billhook than a lead wrapped maul! I have seen what a sledgehammer does to a door, and as long as the helm held up, the force of impact would probably be greater. I don't like concussion. It's like the hangover without the booze!

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Johan Gemvik]

[Bob Burgess]

Hi

Just found this post when searching my favourite topic of billhooks, so joined the forum in order to be able to reply..
First nomenclature - the word billhook is derived from two Old German/Dutch words.... Bill from Beil/Bijl i.e. a sword or axe and Hook from Haken/Hacke i.e. a chopping tool (see: http://www.billhooks.co.uk/Etymology.htm).

The point of a billhook is not the bill - it should be called the beak. Early billhooks were just referred to as bills, sometimes with an adjective to describe their use or origin: hand bill, hedging bill, welsh bill etc - the term billhook was known in the 17th century, but only became widespread from about 1800 onwards - hookbill (from the OG hackbeil or OD hakbijl) was an alternative.... The most common abbreviation today is hook, rather than bill...

The billhook is an obvious antecedent of the bill as a pole arm or weapon, and examples in the York Museum show signs that ordinary billhooks were modified to make fighting bills...

Quote from Richard Jeffries (Chronicles of the hedges):

The billhook cuts chiefly with the incurved part, not the tip nor the straight edge, but between the two—the bend which holds the bough like a fish-hook. The tip answers, too, as an actual hook with which to pull the bush or branch towards you, to reach it as with a crooked stick, so that it may be brought near enough for chopping. This tip, and the power it confers of dragging anything towards the wielder of the weapon, shows in a moment how handy the bill of the ancient foot-soldier was for the destruction of horsemen. The knight, if the bill stuck in any chink of his armour, must topple and clang on the ground, when the three-cornered, file-like misericorde could be thrust through an opening, perhaps only in the arm—a mere prick, as with a needle, but from which, being unable to rise, he must die, while otherwise safe in his plate mail. His bridle was of steel links that it might not be cut with these bills.

The hedge-tool, with its short handle, slices off hard thorn and stout ash, and nut-tree and crab, as if they were straws; now add to it the leverage of a long handle, and the furious descent of such a weapon swung with weather-hardened sinews must have been irresistible. Being easily made by the village blacksmiths, and the poles cut from the copses close by there was not a man who had not a weapon; and thus armies—the armies of those days—sprang from the sward like a flock of starlings at a sound. The village muster-roll is forgotten, the trumpet no longer blows in the hamlet, nor do the haymakers or the reapers gather at the forge, where, perchance, some messenger, waiting for his horse to be shod, has brought news of Bosworth and the crown of England thrown into a hawthorn bush, as you may see the torn rim of a straw hat hanging on the hedges in summer. Now the bill, the long handle shortened and the spike removed, slashes ash and nut-tree and crab, clears away growth of bramble, and sharpens stakes for the intertwining of the fence.

and

The billhook is the national weapon of the English labourer. As the lance to the ancient knight, the rapier to the cavalier, the bowie to the backwoodsman, so the billhook to the man of the hedges. It is never far from his side; it is always somewhere within reach; the sword of the cottage. When he was a boy, while his father sat on a faggot on the lee side of the hedge eating his luncheon he used to pick up the crooked tool and slice off the smaller branches of the cut bushes to fit them for binding together. He learned to strike away so that the incurved point, if the bough was severed with unexpected ease, might not bury itself in his knee. He learned to judge the exact degree of strength to infuse into the blow, proportioning the force to the size of the stick, and whether it was soft willow, stout hazel, or hard thorn. The blade slips through the one with its own impetus; in the other it stays where the power of the arm ceases........

A billhook weighs about 1lb (under 0.5kg) but in the hands of a skilled woodsman will cut through about 1.5" (40mm) of green wood (and that's an average 20th century user, not a skilled 16th century hedgelayer or farmworker - see comments on bow pulls at the time of the Mary Rose above). As a hand weapon it must have been formidable at close quarters.... Put a slightly heavier head on a 36" (1 metre) handle and you have a tool that will cut through 2" (50mm) of hazel or ash - the slasher of the hedgelayer (the hedge bill).

Many patterns of English and Welsh billhooks have back hooks (for pulling or pushing branches) as do many from continental Europe. These would be ideal for pulling down a horseman... Put on an even longer handle, say 6' (1.8m) and you put the user at a safer distance, but the weapon starts to become unweidy - good for thrusting, or pulling with a back hook - but useless for chopping - yes, one has the leverage to give greater force to the blow, but not the precision of the shorter handle.... An even longer pike type of weapon would be good against horsemen, but useless once they were down and expect every pikeman also carried a smaller billhook if he did not have a sword...

Billhook blades were made from a steel edge forge welded to a wrought iron body - they could be hardened to a hard temper as the softer body gave the shock resistance neeed - a beak could thus be sharp and hard enough to penetrate through soft iron armour up to about 1/16" (1.6mm). It may not penetrate far, but the shock wave if it was a helmet that was struck would be considerable - enough to stun, confuse or even render unconscious the opponent...

Billhooks have been around in the UK for over 2000 years - handles may be fitted by tang or socket, the latter allowing a short handle to be easily replaced by a longer one. Only in the last 20 years have they disappeared from the English psyche (apart from a small revival by conservation groups) - pre 1900 every countryman would have had at least one, and known how to use it.... Do not underate such a common tool as a weapon - and when the war was over, the survivors could have the blacksmith cut off the unnecessary spikes and hooks, put back a shorter handle and use it for peaceful agricultural purposes once again...

[Michael Ekelmann]

Ten years or so ago my wife and I visited a living history farm in Normandy (maybe here? http://museorama.com/pages_fr/ficheMuse.php?m...-Cote-712) The tool shed contained a plethora of chopping, cutting and mashing tools that one would find decidely unpleasent to recieve. The key thing to remember is that experienced troops knew how to face these implements and the weapons into which they had developed.