Posts: 62 Location: California
Wed 02 Aug, 2017 9:16 pm
Stephen, why are we assuming that the gallowglass line is the same length as the line of billmen (assuming that we are talking about lines of men at all, as I understand it, Ireland is made almost entirely of rough terrain)? It seems like if two or three gallowglass can cover the frontage that five billmen can, then that leaves an extra two or three axemen to run around the flanks and start chopping people up.
As I see it, an axe has the advantage of potentially dealing more immediately lethal wounds, being less likely to get stuck in somebody, and maybe being good for swinging in front of you to keep adversaries at bay in a manner similar to a two-handed sword. Axes might inflict wounds that are more demoralizing to the fallen man's friends, since they would probably bleed more, involve loss of the head or limbs, etc. Consensus seems to be that thrusts are harder to recover from than cuts, but I have a hard time imagining anyone recovering from a direct hit from a spar axe.
In short, an axe seems like a good weapon for scattering a bunch of Kerns. Run in, swinging the thing around in front of you, cut down anyone who stands in your path, and you don't have to focus in on one opponent or stop to pull it out of somebody that you'd already killed.
A spar might also have an advantage against
shields, Highlanders with sword and targe make short work of government pike and bayonet armed troops in the late 17th century, I imagine billmen a century earlier might run into similar difficulties. It's hard to know for sure, but I think an axe might over better options against a targeteer than a bill.
I'd say its a bit of a toss up what's better at dealing with an adversary in mail, an axe or a bill.
The bill has the advantage of being quicker, nimbler (probably easier to use for hooking), and better reach. I'd expect that bill would be a good weapon for fighting a gallowglass with a spar (you can stab him before he can axe you, and a good bill can probably pierce his armor), but maybe not so good for fighting the traditional opponents the gallowglass faced (while you're sticking one Kern in guts, the others are surrounding you and tossing javelins at you, and a mail coat might be a better defense against javelins than a helmet and buff coat or breastplate.) So maybe we're looking at a billman beats gallowglass, gallowglass beats kern, kern can take on billmen sort of situation? That seems like it would be tally with the historical record of how things played out in the end.