NAVAL BOARDING PIKES for VICTORY, with Drachinifel and Schola Gladiatoria
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- Опубліковано 18 кві 2023
- Drachinifel ( / @drachinifel ) and Matt Easton/Schola Gladiatoria talk about naval boarding pikes!
3 extra videos each month on Patreon, which hugely helps support this channel:
/ scholagladiatoria
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Schola Gladiatoria HEMA - sword fighting classes in the UK:
www.swordfightinglondon.com
Matt Easton's website & Pinterest:
www.matt-easton.co.uk/
www.pinterest.co.uk/matt_east...
Easton Antique Arms:
www.antique-swords.co.uk/
This was great fun! For those of you who are wondering, cutlass and boarding pike stocks were officially removed from Royal Navy ships in the latter part of the 1930's, but some 'ceremonial' examples were rationed on ships already in commission, some of which would see use later in the war, albeit very rarely.
Love this collaboration project, great stuff!
Who is this guy who keeps posting your alt channel while pretending its his own?
Have watched you both religiously for years! Always glad to see you collaborating, I recall your cameos in Matt's content from Tewkesbury :)
This was a great video that retained my interest, so I wasn't BOARD(ed) at all. 😁
:) :) :) :)
Of all the rare things in Matt's collection the most precious is a friend who likes history.
Also ones who leave weapons for you.
And when multiple friends leaves you armaments, you have a polyarmory🤣
Heheheheh.
I suspect Matt has many friends like that.
Now, the next step up is friends with Battleships.
Amongst the old French Marines (Compagnies Ordinaires de la Mer) it was traditional for an officer's portrait to be painted with a boarding pike rather than the more traditional swords used by other arms.
I like the idea of having a gun to deal with the best enemy swordsmen. Very Indiana Jones.
Very Boxer rebellion. :)
@@mikepotter5718 really proud of that one aren't you
The crossover we never knew we needed 😲
Good to see Drach popping up on different channels.
Another thing for those who are wondering about the fact that the British were still building boarding pikes in the 1890's. Keep in mind that until Sir John Fisher became first sea lord in 1904, the Royal Navy still had converted ironclads (wooden ships that had steam engines installed and iron plates added) in commission. Sir John Fisher described them as "a miser's hoard of useless junk" and decommissioned them.
I love when my favorite 'Tubers collaborate. I actually found Drach because of your previous colab on boarding actions!
In the movie Master and Commander the French on board the Acheron used boarding pikes to defend their deck when the crew of the Surprise tricked and then boarded them after hitting them point blank with a full broadside of cannon fire.
Drach pops up on this channel and earlier today, on The Tank Museum channel doing his Bottom 5 Tanks. He's all over UA-cam!
You can’t stop him. You can only hope to contain him.
These videos are the best. I have never heard about boarding pikes before this. Now i want one. Note: I received my first sword ( viking era one) yesterday . Thats what Matt do to us all
Oh yes.
Excellent video, thank you! FYI the 'ceiling' in a ship is called a deckhead.
Thanks
or just the 'overhead'.
"Imagine you're on your ship, rocking and rolling." So, the Sabaton Cruise? 🤘🤣
Or an Alestorm video 🤣
Pirate swinging on rope overhead: "Yarr!" Bosun wielding pike underneath: "They do NOT like it up 'em!"
Come the Zombie Apocalypse pikes will be well back in fashion.
Love these more specific deep dives which are rich in detail ❤
I'm certain blunt weapons would be the meta instead of bladed ones in a zombie apocalypse.
@@ugandanknuckkles9667 It takes much more energy to accelerate a blunt weapon. Swings are harder to recover than a miss, and you aren't 100% certain to destroy the brain with each hit you DO connect with. A pike like this is NOT a bladed weapon. The edges of that triangular spike aren't sharp. It's just a solid, very robust point on the end of a long stick. perfect for puncturing skulls at a safe distance.
Zombies will run right down a smooth pike. You want wings or forks to keep them back, like a boar spear :)
We call the ceilings "the overhead", at least in the US Navy when I was in.
I love seeing Drach popping up in all corners of UA-cam, especially on channels I didn't know I would enjoy!
Well with Cutlass use there was at least one documented case of a coxswain using a Cutlass to fend off a north Korean boarding party when his landing craft was stuck aground during the Korean war.
So other than the cool story about someone doing it that means the USN had them in inventory till at least the Korean war.
I'm more inclined to think that's the case of an oddball who brought his own weapon, Mad Jack Churchill style. Pretty baller nonetheless.
There are several reasons why a boarding pike would be fitted with an ash pole. Firstly, it's abundant. Ash trees take to being _pollarded_ very well. This is a pruning method which essentially involves docking back the limbs heavily, which in-turn produces clusters of "suckers", which are basically ready-made poles. In even earlier times, this same method produced the waddle from which the walls of homes and fences were woven. Secondly, another big advantage ash offers is that it has the highest strength to height ratio of any wood. There are certainly tougher woods out there, but they tend to weigh a lot more! Lastly, the structural integrity of ash is virtually unaffected by humidity. Great vid, really enjoyed it.
Pollarding results in like, a root with 'staff' like trees growing out of it along the ground right?
@@5peciesunkn0wn Pollarding usually involves pruning limbs back to a major junction, leaving the junction only; making the limb look like a club, sort of. The tree then responds to the shock this causes to its system with an explosion of new growth. This new grow tends to grow in 'clumps', from those junctions at the end of the pruned limbs, and tends to be fast-growing and fairly straight.
@@EgaoKage Aah. I'm thinking of something different, but similar then. Apparently England has a lot of trees with this one huge root that they harvest 'poles' from which was used for arrows, bows, staffs and so on, but is mostly used for fencing pieces nowadays.
A very interesting aspect of naval warfare that I never really knew or thought about. Thanks gents!
20:46 The famous Brown Bess, the primary weapon of the British infantryman from Blenheim to Waterloo was officially known as the Long Land Musket. There was a shorter version used by the Royal Marines known as the Sea Service Musket.
*Long Land Pattern musket ;)
some thoughts on pike thickness:
1) using a spear like that can double as a battering ram
2) in the 16/1700's when they were originally deployed, small boat landings were more common, a pike can be a steering pole like on a gondola.
3) the added weight lends armour piercing use. on the 1600's brigandines/jacks were still around although a conquistadors plate is probably too much.
Don't wory, I subscribe to both of your channels. Drachnifel and this. I just love listening to people who know what they're talking about.
This was so interesting. I had no idea cutlasses and pikes were used so recently in history.
The other reason for the difference in thickness is the armies of the world had to carry their pikes while they marched, so the less weight they had to carry the better. Same reason why the army colt revolver was lighter than the navy one.
What a great collaboration I'd love to know more about the tactics for age of sail- late Victorian and Edwardian ship to ship close combat and how it changed as repeating firearms early mechanical machine guns etc came to the fore
It’s a very dynamic time period in Naval history, but the more you learn about it, the more gradual the changes seem. Drach has a bunch of great videos that may interest you
"Ye olde pointystick" for the win! Hahahaha
The latter discussion of boarding parties reminds me of something I read a while back.
Colonial setting, where the navy has landed an army unit to attack a local fort.
Army attack parties are driven off a couple of times, then a naval landing party storms the walls in short order.
It could be like that sticky jam jar lid, where the army had "loosened it up for you".
But the author suggested that the landing party had fewer firearms, so got stuck right in, whereas the soldiers were likely to exchange volleys, and lose impetus.
Other factor to consider, in the Age of Sail, nothing could climb like a sailor.
When lubbers get their salty sea legs, they call a ceiling a deckhead.
That's what I was taught! Deck (floor), bulkhead (wall), deckhead (ceiling), overhead (anything attached to the deckhead, such as storage or bunk).
Very interesting!
I expected boarding pikes to actually be much shorter than conventional spears, but now I know some basic principles to boarding actions, the way they repel boarders, their length makes more sense.
.
The manuscript for my novel (in editing now), a group (specializing in fighting with tight spaces) of that did use their pistols conventionally at first before switching to melee weapons; I didn't realize that was an actual tactic. But I was very intrigued about the alternative, holding off the pistol as a wild card. The group in question fight overwhelming numbers twice, and the leader takes a nasty wound when they were trying to use their pistols in both hands in the panic of facing such odds.
After watching this I'm considering in the second time switching tactics, to use the sword in one hand and dispatch foes as needed with the pistol (though then discarding for the second pistol would've been much slower and harder). But the tidbit about combination of weapons makes me wonder again if they should maybe mix it up (since they do have a lot of single-shot pistols between them).
Awesome crossover. Always great when you team up with others in the history content creation community.
Very cool collaboration. Do more of these!
There seems to be no end to the extent of Drach's knowledge. Wonderful.
He is very well read!
TY both, that WAS fun. I beleve we may still have some pikes in our badly under funded RCN.
* Isn't the ceiling of your ship called a "deckhead" a wall is a bulkhead, but each navy has it's own dialect perhaps.
Not the collaboration I was expecting, but a great gift none the less.
a long stick to push things away is pretty standard on ships. typically they have a hook so they can be used to pull things towards as well, but a long stick that doubles as a weapon is very helpful.
No matter where you are, if a fight happens, a long stick has been mankind's best friend lol.
Very glad to have learned about this guy
In my local small town used book store I found Boarders Away With Steel: Edged Weapons and Polearms by Wililan Gilkerson (USA pov). Very interesting and a beautiful large format hardcover with great photos and illustrations ... for about C$10 or 8 pounds of Sterling. Great reading. Thanks for all your work. Cheers!
Used book stores can have great stuff, always feels like finding gold dust in a stream.
You know, I would love a guide on telling the difference between medieval/renaissance pikes and later boarding pikes. I see a lot of artifacts that are just labeled as "medieval pike" that look exactly like 1800s boarding pikes.
I love it when subscriptions collide.
Love this! But then, I do love all things Royal Navy (Victory is on my Holiday list)...
Could you please do a video on the shorter muskets/rifles used on ships, preferably noting the first ones used? A "ship's carbine" was used in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and I'd love some help on the historical accuracy and origins of this.
Cheers mate!
Great collaboration! Thanks!
Two of my favorite UA-camrs
Omg! So wonderful to see you both together! Fan of both of you, much love from New York
Great video and fantastic to see Drach
I like both of your channels and the colabs are perfect!
Thank you Matt and Drach!
The combat triangle: Cutlass beats swivel gun and pistol, pike beats cutlass, swivel gun and pistol beats pike!
I learned something very cool today. Thank you.
Yes!
I would like Drach to 'cosplay' various naval uniforms. I think he'd look great.
That’s a cool idea, actually!
My favorite incident of use of boarding pikes was this:
In 1604, a group of English "Sea Dogs" in a small galleon, the Tiger (commanded by Sir Edward Michelbourne), encountered a wako junk ("a junk of the Japons", as Michelbourne put it). Ostensibly it was a friendly meeting, between pirates from East and West. The wakos were allowed to board the Tiger, drinks were exchanged, etc. Suddenly, the Japanese turned on the English, and killed many of them with their swords. It looked as if the Japanese might have taken the Tiger, but Michelbourne rallied his men, and handed his best fighter pikes. With these they "killed three or four of their leaders", while the rest of the Japanese on board were driven into a cabin. The English then turned two 32-pound culverins on the cabin, and blasted the Japanese at point-blank range. Michelbourne commented, "Their legs, armes, and bodies were so torne, as it was strange to see how the shot had massacred them".
Now this is a surprise to be sure, and very much a welcome one! 😊
Love that Drachinifel
Good video thanks guys 👍🏻
this boarding pike is also very similar to later period cavalry lances
they were that short only 7ft?
Interesting to see Drach in your shed. Good show!
Well done
Drach is everywhere! Here, Bovington, with Ian, with everybody! Matt, great video. Thank you!
Fckin legendary collab
Collaberations such as this really help cement the community of likeminded people we all enjoy
Drach is everywhere now and I am NOT mad about it
Very nicely presented. Thank you...?
Loved this video. It's crazy how so recently there was stuff that seems so medieval
Some things don't change much.
And boarding pikes are very very much still in use to fend off boarding of law enforcement on illegal fishing boats. Not as sharp but more designed to make it impossible to bring the boats alongside. Mostly makeshift sharpened pipe stuck out like cactus spines so that a police boat can't get close. Porcupines what they are called sometimes, the modern version.
But in effect, they are still boarding pikes.
Oh, man. I'm excited for this one.
I find that I appreciate the enthusiasm for history you both have when at first I just appreciated dedication to finding the truth.
Cheers lads, here's hoping for the internet to continue to grow those like you and the cheap variety channel type "common myth" internet continues wither.
And I hope you both can someday see children who got interested on your work grow to become historians and proper enthusiasts themselves too. Y'all deserve to be around for that someday.
Only the best guests on this channel. Great stuff.
Damn! Drach gets around. Good to see ya.
Floor= Deck
Wall= Bulkhead
Ceiling=Overhead
Door=Hatch
at least in the US Navy.
Thanks for the video. "Git back" *STABBY-STABBY*
Hmm. I never knew it was fairly simple spear. When reading the Patrick O'brain series I always wondered how a naval pike was special and imagined them to be a lot like a pike pole.
This was fascinating.
Thanks
I'm getting so close to being able to play "6 degrees of separation" with my subscriptions.
Excellent👍
you guys worked well together in that vieo😊
Ok now i want a vintage boarding pike 😂
I was introduced to Drach back when Matt had him at the old house. Since then Drach has practically become a daily requirement for me. Nightly for sure.
Y'know, naval based sleep-aid and all.
Crikey, wouldn't want to face the Scharnhorst's broadside without my trusty pike.
Egads! Drach seems to be everywhere these days!
Great video!
Always a good time when Drach shows up! Quite the *pike there
More Drach collabs please!
When discussing storage above your head, this is commonly called the "overhead" aboard ship. USN, Retired.
Yay more Drach!!
Maybe he should make a video about the slungshot ?
What unholy matrimony of awesomeness is this. Drach and Matt in one place. Sometimes life isn't so bad
WHAT this is awesome
In the confusion of melee the cutlass guard was great for slamming someone in the face if they get past your edge.
Also good for slamming someone in the face just cos….
15:40 Doing an about face with a pike or bayonetted rifle in a confined space? Assuming you're starting with the standard stance of left hand forward about level with your chest and the right hand lower down close to the right hip you bring the left hand up to the right shoulder and right hand down so the pike/musket runs parallel to your right side then do your pivot. It's similar to certain drill movements so it would come naturally.
I can't say how well it work for overhead obstructions with a 7 foot pike but I believe the standard combined length of musket and bayonet from this period didn't usually exceed 6 feet.
Don’t leave Drach with the Boarding Pike!.....just don’t.
Great video.
What a nice surprise. Always good to see that dryly funny bastard Drach. Almost as good as the yearly Matt with Lucy.
The videos I remember seeing with people doing ship melee combat fights had them hold the discharged pistols with the barrel along the wrist like a mini-shield.
Just finished judging a single stick tournament. Fun to see how close these weapons are to us.
Brilliant timing! Our crew is practicing boarding pike & cutlass as we speak! It should be noted that due to the Navy Board issuing defense contracts to makers, boarding pikes were made with either a lance-like tip as shown here or a spear tip depending upon the maker. They were ordered as needed per ship from what we've seen, but as ships paid off and were broken up, equipment was reissued to new ships, eventually seeing both types being wielded by one crew. Both, however, would still have langets & the butt cap. Wonderful pieces.
man drach will do crossovers with any body
HELL YEAH, I LOVE BOARDING PIKES
In one of the Flashman novels, Fraser writes about RN sailors following a 'stamp and go' drill while facing Malay pirates. He suggests that the technique was unstoppable. Any hint as to how cutlass drill worked out in the field?
The ceiling on a ship is called the overhead
In the US Navy the "ceiling" is called the "overhead".
There are few things quite as terrifying in my mind as trying to board an enemy ship, mid ocean - whilst it's being desperately defended by pikemen and canon, pointblank firing grapeshot.
Those guys had balls of steel - chapeau - horrific.
Great presentation gents, thanks for the nightmare fuel!!
The "ceiling" is called a "deck head" on RCN ships, so I imagine it's the same in the RN.
Interesting stuff. I'd love to see you talk about some of the Mandalorian armored combat from the last 2 episodes of the Mandalorian this season. Scifi action where the armor ACTUALLY WORKS! What a thought! I'd love to hear your take sir.