[John A. Brown]

I notice many movies portray pole arm weapons such as pikes, naginitas, guandaos, halberds, and spears as being a very easy weapon to use. You just hold the spear,pike, or whatever pole weapon and wait for the enemy to stupidly run into it.

The best example is the Stirling Battle Scene in Bravhart where William Wallace's soldiers awaited for the English Heavy Cavalry to charge at the Scots. The Scots merely placed large wooden stakes on the ground and angled it at the English Horses and they were slaughtered as they charged into it. So many other movies with troops using spears as their primary weapon portrays using spears in a similar fashion. You hold it and form whole wall of spears and just wait for your enemies to stupidly run into it and die.

Even after the initial charge, using the pole arms to kill is portrayed simply as pushing it to the next guy in front of you, wait for that guy to be impaled and fall, then hit the next guy in line with it and repeat. 300 shows this perfectly. Watch the video.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdNn5TZu6R8

As you seen in the clip, the Spartan decimated the Persians with a tactic so simple. Simply push the spear into the next guy in front of you in line after the initial charge and push the spear into him killing him like he's a human shape cardboard stand that you see in stores and he falls to the ground. Waits for the next Persian in role to appear and they suddenly push the spear into the next guy and kill him and keep repeating until an entire Persian unit was decimated.

Spear battles are often protrayed as this in movies once the initial moment where enemies rush into spears with no regard for their own lives and get impaled like barbecue on a hot fourth of July. Push your spear like your enemy is n inflated baloon and you will kill them by the hundreds.

So its portrayed as so long as you don't lose your balance and remaining holding it pointed at your enemy on the defensive, you simply stay where you are and let your enemy charge you and the killing commences as you pull the spear and push it towards the next marching troops in line at the front row after the initial charge was stopped by your spears.

Even martial art movies portrays spears int he same manner. Often the master martial artist awaits for his gang of enemies to run at him and suddenly he starts killing hordes of men with simple pushes of the spear as the come nearby with a fancy trick from staff fighting thrown in every 3rd or fourth bad guy.

However I remember a martial arts documentary in which some guys were in Japan trying to learn how to use the naginata. The weapon was heavier than many martial arts movie portrays them as. In addition the martial artist teaching them showed them just how clumsy using the weapon was if you are untrained as he made them hit some stationary objects.

The martial artist even made the guests spar with him and he showed them just how goddamn easy it was to deflect and parry thrusts from a naginata and he showed them just how vulnerable they were once a single thrust was parried. He also showed that not just naginata but also yari spears, Japanese lances, and such pole weapons were very easy to disarmed if you weren't train.

So I am wondering after seeing this documentary. Movies show spears as being such simple weapons anyone can use them while being on the defensive against a charging army as I stated in my description above. But the Martial Artist int he documentary really makes me wonder how hard it is to simply just stand there and wait for your enemies to charge into your spear and also how simplistic it was to push your spear into new men repeatedly.

Was using a spear-like weapon much harder than movies portray and require a lot of training like the martial arts documentary I saw show?

Would a spear wall formation be enough to kill raging vikings or naked Celts as long as you stand your ground patiently and wait for them to rush into the wall? Or is physical conditioning and actual training with the weapon required?

[Dan Howard]

These weapons only work when in formation co-operating with a large group of people. This isn't possible to do it effectively without at least a modicum of drill and training.

Usually, when shield walls are clashing, the winner is the side with the most discipline and highest morale. These battles aren't won by attrition, they are won by forcing the other side to rout.

[Lin Robinson]

[Matthew Amt]

[Andrew Gill]

Hi John

To add to the excellent points which Matthew, Dan and Lin have already made:

There are a large number of fencing manuals from renaissance Europe on using polearms, from the spear to halberds, glaives and pollaxes. In some cases, the whole book was devoted to polearm techniques. Just two examples: there's a french text called "le jeu de hache" which is only about pollaxes - a knightly weapon which was highly considered in its time, and a significant part of George Silver's "paradoxes of defence" deals with the way pollarms of various sorts are used, and the advantages and disadvantages of various types in either single combat or the battlefield (polearms were Silver's absolute favourite weapon, and with good reason). There are also lots of Italian and German manuals dealing with polearm usage from loosely the same period. These weapons - even the humble spear - have a lot of potential for skillful use, and there is even a historical account of an englishman holding off and defeating four Spanish swordsmen with a quarterstaff (the simplest polearm).

Regarding impaling huge numbers of screaming charging fanatics with spears: put yourself in the position of the charging side - what level of anger (or drunkeness) would you need to attain in order to run blindly into a hedge of pointy iron-tipped sticks and impale yourself on them? Society, cultural norms, values and beliefs may have changed over the millenia since human civilization began, but I think the aversion to self-destruction by impalement is hardwired into most people on a rather low level, so it probably hasn't changed much in that time.

[Peter Spätling]

John as a small note. When you are riding towards your enemy like in Braveheart, you can just stop. Problem solved. There always is enough space between each rows of riders to make a full halt. And since you ride in a very collected manner to keep the line you are slow anyway. So charging at full speed at your enemy probably isn't authentic.

[Gregg Sobocinski]

I would like to also add that even blunt weapons are dangerous, and fight choreographers need to consider this fact. Spears are deadly even with a dull points and edges, so keeping all of those points still for the fight scene starts sounding a lot safer.

One member of this forum recalled a story where he was in a mock battle in full plate armor, and slipped while climbing a slope. When he threw up his arm to balance, he fell into a blunt spear, which went through his mailed armpit and punctured his lung. Now put dozens of movie extras together and think about what you would direct them to do with a bunch of spears.

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Pikes were used in ranks. The pikemen did not just stand there, but tracked their opponents as they approached. Avoid the first rank? There are others waiting. Against cavalry, it was a good idea for the butt to be braced against the ground, but against infantry, to lift them. Years ago, we played with a few 'mini' pikes (only fourteen feet long) at some SCAdian fighter practices, and it was interesting and enlightening. Using one's arms didn't work; ours were too heavy to use that way, and it helped me understand why the shafts of real pikes were tapered, to lessen the tip weight. We couldn't do much more than hold them out, and afterward my halberd (my normal weapon) felt light as a wand. Instead, the offensive move was a strong step forward, easy to recover from. They hit like a bus. One of the funnier memories was of a crowned head that thought he was just out of range, talking to his men, and my mate lunged and knocked him flat.

[Timo Nieminen]

[Dan Howard]

[Timo Nieminen]