this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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Wasn't the spear also one of the easier weapons to learn? Which is why a big part of a medieval army was made out of spear carriers?
Stick them with the pointy end.
From eight-plus feet away. That part is pretty important, you don't even give them a chance to get close.
From what I understand spears popularity comes from
Being the easiest weapon to craft in prehistory, get a stick and sharpen the end to a point, add some plant fiber for a grip and boom you have one of mans earliest killing tools.
Spears have a great reach and can target pinpoint locations
With proper technique you can throw them as a limited range weapon
Can be wielded easily while managing a shield
Spears are probably cheaper to make too
In no way, shape, or form am I an expert in martial arts or combat. I would imagine however it depends on the situation. An army with spears and an individual with a spear are two very different things. Armys equipped with swords vs spears, spears win. Individuals fighting with a sword and a spear probably comes down to individual skill more than the specific weapon.
You might like this video, https://youtu.be/LX3n4XIwHZo?si=9KC7upiLOFaR0ddN
At 8:50 the guy says that traditionally one person with a spear was roughly as good as two equally skilled persons with a sword.
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I don't take the opinions of modern "enthusiasts" seriously on this topic.
Professional warriors for thousands of years clearly saw a point to having weapons other than just spears, we simply don't have the institutional knowledge anymore to be able to say things like that with a straight face.
Spears are tools, swords are tools, armor types are tools, but all our actual experts in their use and knowledge of the situations that make one superior to another are dead, and all we have are dorky amateurs fighting in the backyard with sticks and telling themselves "Well this is how it worked out for me, and I'm PRETTY SURE I'm as good as someone that spent their whole life training with and using these things to actually kill people."
I don't think that was his point. He's simply saying that the benefit of reach and leverage makes it so that equally skilled and unarmored combatants would make it so you need 2 swordsmen to reliably fight a spearman.
That being the case doesn't mean that they wouldn't have multiple weapons for multiple circumstances, and it doesn't mean that the appropriate armour wouldn't impact it.
Finally, battlefield usage is a totally different situation as you have regiments with mixed skill levels.
I think the only thing he was trying to say is that if you have two guys with similar skill and fitness, unarmored, the guy with the spear has a large advantage.
Also, I think he's a bit more than an Enthusiast. His resume is fairly impressive (https://www.matt-easton.co.uk/about).
Generally also beats a sword except in pretty specialized circumstances.