What about the weapons that combined swords with polearms? Examples of sword-polearm hybrid weapons include the Han Dynasty sha, Scandainavian swordstaffs, Japanese nagamaki with sword and handle in almost equal proportions, etc. LK Chen has a video on the sha swordstaff: ua-cam.com/video/FTBagvDyTk0/v-deo.html
@wulpurgis I wouldn't think so as the large two handed sword has a lot more versatility. It would be intresting to see what others think but generally the advantage a large ax has is a lot less over a single handed sword vs axe. Least in my opinion.
Something I noticed you didn't touch up on was the socioeconomic for these swords. The money swords in Africa tells me that it wasn't impossible to make these giant swords but it seems the right combination of need and pressure to was not really prevelent. China has a unique position in history being isolated from the rest of the world for the most part and this is true of Japan to. I think this could be a significant factor.
Mr. Easton, a question from a german viewer of your well reputated channel. In german museum or palace collections there is often a leather cover from Parierstange / cross guard to perhaps 6'' over the Parierhaken/ parry hooks. Are this ,leather hoses' an additional Griff/ handle for using the Bidenhänder as a short polearm?
Just as an aside - I think I've mentioned it before - _Zweihänder_ were also called _Gassenhauer_ (Gasse = narrow street, alleyway; Hauer = beater, in the context of swords also chopper), presumably because they were used to chop an opening into the enemy formation. Gotta love how straightforward German is.
Never underestimate the psychologial effect of a zweihander, especially against unexperienced troops. My university fencing club does a big event at the beginning of the year, where we invite as many freshmen as we can and do group fights with larp weapons after just basic training. So those freshmen are very comparable to medieval levy troops. With our rules, it should be quite easy to get into grappling with a zweihander, but I've seen time and time again those freshmen freeze when facing it, as the greatsword works very differently to anything else they've been trained to fight.
Except by the time these massive two handed swords were a thing standing armies and professional mercenaries were rapidly becoming the mainstay of warring nations. A professional soldier or mercenary isn't going to panic or feel the same sense of fear a untrained peasant might. Not to mention even your average farmer or townsmen would have spent time in their local militia or even on campaign with their local lord.
@@clothar23 I wouldn't say you're wrong, but the mere fact that it's a weapon they aren't used to or necessarily trained against would put a lot of even professional soldiers at a disadvantage. Guys like e.g. the Landsknechts were usually not even wearing full plate harness, whereas the guys using these big fuckoff swords would be. These were not common swords, and I personally don't think they were used in massive infantry blocks, but rather by a smaller number of high-status soldiers within polearm blocks to threaten the more common soldiers when they got into close melee. As to your point about professional soldiers, I think greatswords may have somewhat supplanted poleaxes because the knightly/lordly class were dealing with professional, but only partially armored opponents.
@@clothar23 You don't need all of the professional soldiers to be afraid, just enough to mess up formations or plans. And if they are known to be effective in combat, than the pros are going to be leery of them as well. Soldiers don't want to die, if they think something is too bloody risky, they'll try to go a different way. You can do a lot of things that don't lead to you fighting the hard bastards with swords as big as you, before doing anything as drastic as breaking ranks and fleeing. At the end of the day, you don't get paid if you're dead, but you can get paid later if you lose.
2 weeks ago I was at a friends place and he is into Hema! So we decided we‘d do some swordfighting and we wore some chainmail and gambesons. He had a full visor helm while I only had this Norman nasal helmet. Needless to say it was careless of us and he hit me in the face a couple of times with his arming sword... A few minor scratches/cuts. even tho the blades were blunt but sometimes a dent in the edge hits you and the dented metal can be a bit sharp, but nothing too bad. Well he then asked me if i was okay with him using a bastard sword, because most people get scared when he starts using them. I said sure why not. we fought a couple of rounds and I gotta say the momentum on that sword was completely different. I was flinching a lot more cause i really didnt want to get hit. all of a sudden he hit me in my eye and i dropped to the floor, at first I thought I had lost vision in my left eye but after a short inspection it turns out it was just swelling up like crazy and he gave me a nasty cut across the face! It‘s all healed up now and I learned my lesson: never fight without a full visor helmet again. But let me tell you when he grabbed that big sword it was a complete game changer for me! It hurt a lot more and he oftentimes just cleaved through my block and hit me so hard I cried out in pain lmao... Arming sword was way less painful and scary!
@@REALdavidmiscarriage That sounds like it could have gone very bad. Glad you got out of it okay, but I'd caution you against using even blunts without some experiences, it's still around 3 feet of steel flying at your face. Just not worth the potential injury. Your points on the larger weapon match my own experiences, though in my case it was wood, and plastic practice weapons. We still beat the tar out of each other lol.
Never underestimate 'Because it's cool!' as a reason. Metatron did a video that was basically an extended rant about archaeologists calling things ceremonial objects because they didn't seem to be practical enough, even when they were unearthed from battlefields. I can imagine a future museum exhibit of a M-4 labeled as ceremonial because no sane person would ever weigh down a weapon intended for actual use with a dozen pieces of tacticool. "The fleshlight attachment obviously marks this as a fertility idol..."
That's my big reason why I don't mind "vikings" with horns, particularly in fantasy. Do we have any finds with that among the Norse? No. But we see big stupid things on top of people's war hats all over the place, so if these guys want horns on theirs it's not as silly as people might think. Humans are frequently not the most efficient beings, we do things that are counter intuitive all the time, because our reason isn't strictly linear.
@@Lurklen I think in vikings case its because we dont find horns nearly at all at sites however. Like, even in myths regarding the characters right? Save for like Heimdhaller
@@XonixDerps Oh sure, there's every evidence that it was just an artistic affectation by later people. But whenever people continue that artistic tradition, in say games, films, or comics you have other people who pop up saying "No one would put anything like that on their head, it'd be totally impractical!" and I mean, it is pretty impractical, but that's never stopped humans before. It's not historically accurate, because we've found no evidence, but not because it's implausible.
@@Lurklen Ofc, our boios up here had a vid on making sure not to be on either side of the: "That could never have happened" boat because you end up creating new myths as well. My side of the argument is to not say something does when we still dont have anything. Possibility? Hell sure, they're pretty weird but hey so was everyone.
Well, the example of an M4 strapped with tons of tacticool is not the best because... Actual soldiers and especially special forces do it too. And they do not do it to be cool. Those are force multipliers that actually have viable use in combat. And sometimes their rifles can look kinda ridiculous to us, but they would never part with even one bit of the kit just because it might be crucial to have it on the rifle and ready in that one moment that decides everything.
re: the utility of fighting multiple assailants/being outnumbered, the fact that its more difficult to grab a sword blade than a spear/axe shaft could be a strong factor favoring the greatsword for that use over any polearm. If you have multiple assailants it becomes even more important to keep your weapon active/mobile, one-on-one the prospect of an assailant trying to wrestle ur weapon away might not be such a big deal, figuring ur just as able as they are to try and wrestle back control while defending urself. more than one assailant, and any time ur weapon is bound up is more time for other assailants to land free attacks.
In addition to grabbing just… getting close. If you’re fending people off the flanks with a spear as you swing the spear to fend off one person a second can close in. When the shaft comes back in the swing to hit the second person it no longer has a blade at that point. It’s just the shaft which is far less dangerous
@@billmartovich9009 range is a massive advantage! 2 on 2 with same range weapons is 50/50. 1 vs 2, and the 2 can't REACH the 1. 1 wins. It's like 2 shotguns vs 1 sniper.
@@TrickinNinja range is very important. Lindybeige's video on this topic really illustrates that. The greatsword against the regular longsword, and I quote, "almost feels like cheating."
UA-cam search: "Maximilian & Marie De Bourgogne, fight scene 2: Zweihänder" The scene concentrates on faces, no words, so not 100 percent technically accurate, but still good techniques and judicial intensity.
When it comes to bodyguards, one thing a greatsword can do better than polearms is area denial. By swinging it around, you can make a pretty big area a highly dangerous zone. Three or four bodyguards could probably completely surround their lord with an area denial. I don't see that tactic working too well against well equipped and trained opponents, but it should be reasonable effective against ruffians and a mob.
Such guards do not even need to defeat their enemies, just hold them for a while. The rest of the guard will arrive shortly to overwhelm the attackers and they may have ranged weapons as well. So when you do your best to avoid that huge swinging blade an arqebusier takes up position behind you.
@@michaelpettersson4919 in the doccumentary/tvshow on the ottoman siege of constantinople they mention how the genoese(european) warfare was often based on a the knight leading a squad of men with lighter(but strong) armour, big shields, crossbows and swords(falchions/maces) the knight would stay in front of the men in his full plate, and the regular soldiers would form a wedge formation seting up their shields and readying their crossbows, when the enemy got closen they would loose a volley and the knight would charge in wreaking havoc while the squad supports him with ranged fire and joining the melee
Swords were originally owned only by the elite... and only "nobles" were allowed to have them, precisely because they were for use against unarmored peasants... a.k.a "ruffians".
@@cognitivedisability9864 So where does the zweihander and its unwieldiness come in? You don't expect it to be twirled around in close quarter battle with pikes left, right and center.
That made a lot of sense. The whole "lopping off pike heads" thing didn't ring super hard for me. Directly comparing and contrasting balance, edge length, and techniques really demonstrated what was going on. Nice vid!
@UCRp2ds3iqR6c2uTS1052tkQ Yeah, but pike hafts were often tapered to make them easier to handle, the thing is that if you are focused of cutting the heading of the weapon of an opponents that out reaches you, especially a pike, which outreaches you allot, you are probably going to get stabbed by him or his friends.
i have heard the flanks, as he slightly mentioned, were kept tight by dopplesoldiers; and if opened they would run to an appointed shield wall gap, and try to take some spear heads with them, often closing the flank behind.
I really hope someone do a video on it using sharpened and historically correct swords and pikes. The pikes being very long did taper quite a bit an have tiny heads for balance issues. Its unlikely to have being the main tactic but still, I think it happen ocasionally.
@@AdlerMow Yeah, especially since they can get really flipping long.. the low end is ten feet and high as twenty five feet... a twenty foot non tapering ash shaft would be impossible to use.
Carl or Karl is also a german mens name, but i think this means in reallity churl , in german Kerl. I read this archaic english word some time ago in a comment about prussian ,long guys'.
@@brittakriep2938 Its the same word. But the word churl in English means a dumb peasant, hence the world churlish, which means rude and ill-mannered. You'd be ill advised to assume a Huscarl was a dumb peasant if you wanted to keep your head on your shoulders however. In reality the word and the name leads back to a word common to all Germanic languages simply meaning a man or husband and has had different connotations and forks in meaning through the ages.
@@osric1730 : First a sidenote: In german language the outdated word , tumb' also exists. Also in german language ,Kerl' is today mostly used to describe a man, not being a gentleman. But sometimes it is still used in old sense ,being a strong , hard and relayable man'. What meaning, old or modern, the speaker means, you can notice in context or the way of speaking. If somebody says : Kommt da so ein Kerl .../ There comes such a Kerl...- a ruffian, rowdy. But: Das ist ein richtiger Kerl/ Thats a real Kerl- old positive meaning. So possibly also english churl had once a totally different, postive meaning.
Matt, it was expressly mentioned that the lifeguards of the king of Portugal were armed with montantes, and if we look closely at several of the rules we can plainly see they are designed to protect someone on the ground. I can still find no source of the kind of "two handed swords" that the Knights of St. John at the siege of Rhodes had when they filled the gaps in the wall. They apparently made quite an impression on the Turks. Excellent video, thank-you.
@@DaveSK I read it in an old article in Military History magazine, so I would suggest looking on Wikipedia. I have found several of their old articles reprinted on it before. It's dodgy though.
There's the problem with describing things in absolutes. 🤔 I have several swords which "schwing" when drawn. In my experience, steel scabbards do it more often than not if you draw the sword quickly. It's a lot less common with metal-throated wooden or leather scabbards, but it can happen. I tested it just now with a U. S. Navy officer's sword and got a soft but audible schwing. I don't know why people persist in spreading information that's so easily debunked.
I think the point about the long edge is important when considering that idea of "area control." If a person must occupy a point and offend several opponents to keep them at bay, he cannot stop to gauge his distances and place a smaller edge on-target. If he has the longer blade, however, every attack is more likely to connect with the edge. This both serves the purpose of making him more dangerous to the enemy, but also makes him more impressive to his enemy. A brave soldier might risk stepping inside the offending range of a huscarl with an axe, confident that the shaft could only hurt him slightly and that he could kill the huscarl himself or allow his allies to. It would take a brave soldier indeed to try the same against a landsknecht with a whopping two-handed sword.
The point about swords having a longer cutting Edge and axes missing their mark more often is true. There's not much you can really do mid swing with a single-handed axe. However I have learned that with a dane axe one can adjust where the head is going to impact by pulling the haft with the back hand. This brings the head closer to the user when swinging the axe. It's a bit of a skill to learn and must be practiced; but like many things become second nature in time. It is still not as easy as having the entire edge of a sword but it does compensate a bit for the axe's shorter edge.
Well said. I do the same thing with my (foam rubber and pvc) pollaxe while sparring. My opponent never knows if I am going to hit them with the axe or hook them the axe head’s bottom or pull back to poke them with the dague. I’d imagine a Dane axe would be great for that trick.
@@mitcharcher7528 Thank you for saying that it helps validate the idea. And if it works for both of us, and probably others, then warriors of old certainly might have used it too.
Uesugi Kenshin kept an ad hoc corps of nagamaki specialists for anti-cavalry purposes. I very much agree with them being specialized weapons developed as "answers" to specific field tactics.
Terra Prime Light Armory did a very in depth history of the Zhanmadao in a response video to Metatron in which he actually does pull up 11th century historical sources on how these anti-cavalry units were supposed to function. They were a specialist unit that would be called on to swarm and hack up enemy cavalry once they had been bogged down by polearms. Emphasis in training was placed on chopping the horses' legs. "Among the infantry we must select strong and able-bodied troops. Arm all of them with zhanmadao and select a separate commander to lead them like Tang Dynasty Li Shiye's modao method. Facing the charge of the iron hawk (a military formation), etiher they harass our formation or trample our infantry. Then we can advance with zhanmadao, which is a surprise method to ensure victory."
@@tcuegonbear This one is obvious. The swordstaff. If you're looking for a long-handled single edged choppy sword, there's also the warbrand AKA faussart.
I love your passion for your work. It's infectious. I accidentally clicked this video and your excitement that was evident from the first second kept me watching. Never thought I'd watch such a long video on very big swords. But I enjoyed every minute.
@@TarnishedEldenKing maybe may wording was suboptimal. What I mean is, since these swords are often used in "halfswording" they are not particularly sharp close to the handguard.
@@_XR40_ Not without a shield or armor. Short sword vs a zweihander means the short sword wielder is gonna have a bad time unless he has a shield or is properly armored.
Adding on the subject that big swords look fancy and convey that their wielders as elite and scary, this lends well to another part of their proposed use of a smaller number of soldiers tying up a bigger number of the enemy. Since they're easily marked out, look intimidating, and probably holding an important position on the battlefield, more of the enemy might be directed towards attacking them. Which incidentally, leans in on how the big swords are used - with their big, circular, turning-type movements.
Indeed, crowd control. People are not mindless zombies, so they'll be very reluctant to rush into the range of those swings. Which makes perfect sense for a small number of elite guards to defend an objective from a less experienced but bigger crowd.
Main advantage is a great sword can easily switch between grappling and polearm range with halfswording and other techniques. Most polearms are near useless in grappling range. Greatswords were often used to attack polearms formations from the sides while they were already engaged by other polearms from the front. They also offer great defensive advantages against multiple opponents and were often deployed in 2s and 3s with crossbows and arkebusiers in their back. Fast enough to outrun large polearms formations and strong enough to defend against small groups of skirmishers to give the ranged troops time to relocate or deal significant damage to their opponents.
Thanks for bringing up the physical aspect of the Doppelsöldner, I had not thought about that. I know a guy who was a paratrooper in both the East German NVA and also in the Bundeswehr after the reunification, served a tour in Kosovo, and who is now working with the federal police - he is one of the officers who knock on really bad guys' doors at 3am or works as a special unit in riot control. If I imagine him (imposing physique and tough as nails) in a medieval setting wielding a Zweihänder against levied pikemen... Jeez Louise. I can only imagine the pikemen wishing they'd worn their brown trousers that day. I also find the mechanical advantage argument convincing. With the pikes being held out in front, it should be quite possible to sweep several of them aside with a good swing. The great sword would not need to cut the shafts in half, but the edge should be easily sharp enough to create a bind. If you have several Doppelsöldner working together, because why wouldn't they, they should be able to pass the effective range of the pikes and really wreak havoc on the pikemen.
I think that last is a big plus for the two-handed swords; simply that they are giant swords that would cost a lot, and take a ton of training and expertise to use effectively, and that is imposing, shocking, and I think maybe heartening to your own side. I think seeing that on the battlefield, you're some poor 16th century German peasant-turned-soldier, and you come upon 100 guys, decked to the nines, wielding these things, it would have an impact. Might be you've been a soldier for a number of campaigns, you've seen a lot of polearms, but the...prestige of such a weapon would have a shocking effect, a demoralizing effect, and maybe a positive effect on the morale of their own side. It is the 16th century, sure swords are everywhere, but a corps of specialist troops with those beasts? But, Matt didn't talk about the reverse side of that, which I think is just as important. Say you are some poor German-turned-soldier fighting on the far left flank, and you see out of the corner of your eye 100 of these dudes with these swords, getting ready for their own charge on the enemy flank. Or say they are standing behind you and to your left before the battle begins, so you know your flank is good, those elite SOBs aren't going to let anyone get to your flank. Imagine simply seeing these guys training with their swords in the days leading up to a battle, knowing those guys with their slabs of steel are on your side would absolutely hearten you, make you feel like, if your leader can afford these guys, there is no way he can lose. Honestly, I think that is the real legacy of the claymore. I doubt it was super effective, just too costly to have many of them in a poor kingdom like Scotland. But damn does it look IMPOSING. Knowing the kind of technology that went into it, even with as basic a knowledge as a random soldier on a medieval/Renaissance battlefield would have, would probably be pretty striking. Sometimes weapons don't have to be hugely impactful in sheer damage, if they are hugely impactful in extremely precise places, as said in the video specialist troops. As said in the video, on the enemy absolutely, but on your own troops too I think. They would just give like a flat +morale buff.
Beyond just looking awesome the fact that german mercenaries regularly uses great swords means they must have been a very good weapon choice. If your job is to always go into combat & you are paid well enough to be able to afford any weapon you would like then the weapon you choose is going to be the best for the way you fight.
In the Battle of Civitate (1053) the Swabian heavy infantry also used very heavy and very long two-handed swords instead of polearms, much earlier than the Renaissance era.
I'd also imagine rare weapons have the advantage that opponents would have had less training fighting them, while the wielders themselves would have been training against the more regular weapons their opponents use.
Excellent video as always. While stationed in Germany in the 80s, I remember going to castles and seeing woodcuts of Thirty Years War soldiers with all types of weapons - Katzbulgers and such. There were several of Double Soldiers wielding great swords, some with wavy blades. Several of those woodcuts show them whacking the tips off pikes, I guess to break up the pike block's effectiveness. Since massed formations like pike block's were not nimble not easy to move, I could see this being somewhat effective in raising your own morale and lowering theirs. There were scenes of two double soldiers fighting in between pike formations. Given your display of how maneuverable these swords were, that must have been a sight to see.
Watching you swing that thing around is actually quite intimidating, if I were a soldier back then I definitely wouldn't have wanted to face off against one. Just pleased I have a crossbow!
From one Matt to another, thank you very much! This video took everything you've said about these weapons in the past, added more information and did a thorough compare and contrast. Great job, you are my favorite member of the community of the sword.
The most basic technique for dealing with a pole weapon, especially if you have a shorter weapon (& shield?), is to enter: to get inside of the danger area of the business end of the pole weapon. A great sword’s edge runs all the way down its very long blade. There is no way to simply step inside its cutting edge! Of course, the great sword’s edge can be blocked with another weapon or shield. But there is a lot to be said for ruling out a primary combative technique. And if you enter inside the pole weapon danger area with your great sword, you’ve got an edge.
Also, think about that huge guard. An opponent that closes in far enough to escape the blade can easily be prodded back with the guard. I think that utility also explains the large guards on longswords. Without the guard, you can use the blade and pommel. The guard isn't just there to "protect the hands".
eh, not so much on a battlefield methinks. Remember the best protection in warfare you can get is the guy either side of you. running up the polearm I think would quickly get you murdered by the guys either side of the man you are attempting to offend.
@@thomasoakes4917 As Matt suggests, you don't see phalanxes of great sword (or dane ax) wielders. They tend to be used by elite guard units. They need to be able to freely swing their weapons to cover ground.
I've been studying weapons and armour as a serious hobby for about 3 years now, and you, Matt are one of the best resources that got me really going in this! So it makes me happy that in this video about one of my favorite weapons, you arrived at many of the same conclusions as myself! It tells me I'm on the right track. Thanks for making this video, it was very clarifying and concise. I've loved seeing your progress as a teacher and UA-camr. The channel I'm commenting with is actually intended to be an informational channel about combat. I'm just getting started, but I thought I'd let you know that you inspired me! You're awesome Matt! And so respectful. Cheers!
I have to say the LK Chen Miao Dao was much lighter than expected, and yet quite sturdy. Thanks so much for these videos, I learn quite a lot from your experience and perspective and look forward to the next!
It's not that sturdy. The tang is going to be your most like point of failure, and those blades are not going to be able to standup to a lot of force-against-force clashing.
If I remember correctly, these long swords were a response to tightly packed pike formations. These daring double handed swordsmen would detach from their own pike formations and disrupt the enemy blocks by chopping away at the pikes shortly before the opposing pike formations clashed. More reliable firearms, as time went on, would arm units of skirmishing gunners that did the same job of disruption, and phase out the double handed swordsmen.
22:10 I would also like to bring up the possibility that the author of the treatise was just plain wrong. Drawing from modern examples, there are a *LOT* of people who consider themselves tactical experts who are just plain wrong about many aspects of modern combat (myself included), and some of them consider themselves educators and run self-defense courses or educational UA-cam channels. It's possible that the author of this treatise never actually saw combat and was parroting information which lay-people at the time thought was correct, and perhaps the reason this treatise survived is because it was owned and cared for by a noble/wealthy family that also never saw combat and liked to show off their "tactical" stuff. Just a possibility.
You make some excellent points in this video! I was definitely thinking it was more of a status symbol like you said, but the fact that it has a lower center of mass that allows for wide hewing strikes and area denial was something that I honestly hadn't considered before. Fantastic video!
I think another answer might be versatility. Don't get me wrong; polearms can be versatile, but one advantage of most sword designs is that it can do a lot of things fairly well while similarly-sized axes and spears can do one thing very well but aren't as good at the rest; a sword is generally better than an axe at thrusting and generally better than a spear for cutting for instance. With a big two-handed sword, you have this versatile weapon essentially scaled up to a size where it can compete with polearms. And, as you said, these were used by specialists who might be told to do different tasks at different times. And, going back to what you were saying about hand protection, I think we can probably extend that and talk about defense in general: one thing that swords are very good for compared to spears or axes is they're great for blocking and parrying, and I suspect (I could easily be wrong, but I suspect) that these big two-handed swords probably are generally better for defense than a polearm.
These big swords were good at one particular job : fencing off multiple opponents to keep a zone safe. So yeah, your guess is good. Meanwhile one dude with a spear or a polearm will be in trouble if they're alone
@@azraellacroix2755 A spear with a robust shaft & point on each end can serve effectively against multiple opponents. Johann Georg Pascha has a whole technique for this. George Silver believed a person with such a weapon could defeat two people with sword & dagger or similar. & Richard Peeke claimed to have put this into practice against three foes with rapier & dagger.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 oh gotta check this one out thanks! But yeah I guess that with enough range you can always take on multiple opponents with proper training. Also the surroundings of the battle are a big thing to consider
Great video. I definitely don't have any disagreement. I particularly liked your point about the psychological statement that large swords are while still serving a specific tactical function.
I am sure I read somewhere that the Zweihander was "the weapon of the few against the many". My understanding is that Landsknechts guarding the colours used them. Also, I recall reading that these large swords were very effectively employed by Landsknchts against peasant uprising, such as in Sweden. I wonder if such swordsmen could engage a pike formation from the front? The pikes were fearsome weapons of momentum. Breaking open disputed pike formations would definitely be one way to usefully employ soldiers with Zweihanders.
What I have found watching videos like this from yourself and others is that a commander equipping an army has to consider these factors. 1: How much time does he have to train his troops with the weapons he gives them, already familiar with them almost no time needed. 2: what they are fighting. 3: where are they fighting. 4: how are they fighting, I.e. types and density of formations and mounted vs foot. 5: how easy is it to resupply.
Matt this is some ironic timing lol You did a review a while back on the Windlass English two-handed sword. My birthday is next month and after your review and for long time wanting a rather large sword I decided to get the Windlass English two-handed sword. I ordered it June 9th for Museum replicas (which is a 3.5-Hour drive from my house). Their website said it could take up to 4 weeks so I ordered it around a month before my birthday & I requested standard shipping. I've ordered many times from museum replicas in the past and it has taken 4 to 7 Days on average. Well much to my surprise at 3:00 p.m. on June 10th the package showed up! Only about 24 hours after I ordered it! So tonight I will be filming my unboxing and first impressions video. But as I was wanting something to listen to in the background while I was doing some things I turned on UA-cam and here is your video on big swords 😂
I'd like to add an addendum on the topic of greatswords as horse-killers- horses cannot defend themselves nearly so well as a man with a weapon of any kind, they're less mobile and jumpy, they're likely laden down with quite a lot of weight (at least a man and whatever armor and weapons he's carrying, possibly some barding for itself) and thus, if you have a weapon like a greatsword or a naginata, which lend themselves quite well to being windmilled about to generate momentum, you can more easily land a powerful blow with one that will puncture the throat of, or even possibly decapitate, a horse. There are account by Spanish conquistadors of native jaguar warriors using their equivalent of the greatsword (Macuahuitl) to behead horses in a single stroke, which forced them to tactically reconsider the parameters of their invasion.
They move easier, if your passion is swords. I’ve used long sword type devices in a battlefield medium and even larger long swords have trouble fighting skilled polearm user’s, if you can’t beat em, join em. Giant sword same length as adversarial polearms and outmaneuvers overly long polearms, perfect for cutting pike blocks apart! Another thing, they catch and hold opposing spears which all can be bined up and pushed back, disrupting a well formed spear line. This is easily exploitable.
What about the weapons that combined swords with polearms? Examples of sword-polearm hybrid weapons include the Han Dynasty sha, Scandainavian swordstaffs, Japanese nagamaki with sword and handle in almost equal proportions, etc. LK Chen has a video on the sha swordstaff: ua-cam.com/video/FTBagvDyTk0/v-deo.html
Some of the Ming Changdao (at least the precursors for the Miaodao) were likely anti great spear/pike weapons since the only known form for using these weapons is an anti spear form. The Miaodao was an anti spear weapon, all 3 Miaodao forms are anti spear forms. The Zhanmadao was an anti horse blade. The Miaodao featured in the video uses both grabs and running cuts vs spears. The Miaodao is also relatively frail. It would likely be broken if it were deployed as an anti calvary weapons.
Very likely a part of it was showing importance and wealth, as you mentioned. Regarding use vs. polearms, one possibility may bet that it wasn't so much for chopping the polearm but for chopping the user's hands and arms. As you pointed out the length of the cutting surface makes it easier to make contact with the target, and also polearm users might be the less armored soldiers, so if they're thrusting at you, a long 2-handed sword blade might be an effective way of attacking their hands and arms.
We easily get distracted from the fact that it was formations fighting each other rather than man against man and one big advantage of having a couple Zweihänder in your pike front line is that they can, rather than chopping off tips or arms, simply move points out of the way and open a gap to advance because what is a pike after you passed it's point? Little more than a rather immobile stick. Now once our Doppelsöldner is past the deadly bits he's rather free to swing his weapon in wide horizontal arcs at the rather exposed pikemen who now have three options: Drop the pike and draw their side swords, get hewn down or retreat; all of those widen the gap allowing more troops to flood the gap and break the formation.
Is it possible that huge swords were used as we use "crew served" weapons today? During WWII, a light machine gun crew on Guadalcanal consisted of a gunner and two riflemen. The gunner controlled the area in front of the team and the riflemen protected the gunner. I could see a soldier with a huge sword blocking a bridge or a pass and backed up by a pair of soldiers with long swords to protect the soldier with the huge sword from being overwhelmed or attacked when the weight of the huge sword caused the swordsman to over extend his attack.
It is very good point. Not just longswords, but firearms or even pikes support. Another thing is that it was very exhausting job, to keep this massive thing swinging around and people would like to take some rest, while other guy is going to swing around his massive thing.
But there is massive difference between MG and great sword cases. Machine guns were incorporated in **line** fighting, they did not interfere with troops around them anyhow, while zweihander guy is clearly not a thing you want to find next to your shoulder. Another thing to consider about square formations - they have very vulnerable edges, that are best to be both protected and attacked by mobile specialists, not incorporated in rigid order. A.V. Suvorov used to employ special teams of jaegers and grenadiers to protect edges of his squares in late 18th century against ottomans
If you consider that the zweihander wielding doppelsöldner of the landsknechte were placed in front of the phalanx of pikemen as their defence, this all makes more sense. Also, these weapons (unlike pole arms) would still work in a push of pike that sometimes occurred in battles of the period. Warfare of that time was all about coordinated movement and tight groups of pikemen, so placing these area denial weapons in the midst of them as a way to break up the formation seems like a great idea
CROWD CONTROL! ...it clicked in halfway through, when you started mentioning bodyguards and elite troops, and that they are more balanced than pole-arms so they can be used against multiple opponents. Of course! They can keep a rowdy crowd at a distance. And their intimidation factor can be combined well with how they can be quickly used to keep multiple opponents at a distance. I can imagine just a few guys holding these gigantic swords being able to defend against a mob of hundreds. Because people (especially less experienced ones) are not like zombies or robots who would sacrifice themselves to overwhelm those few defenders. If they're rushed, the guards cut down the first few attackers, and the rest runs away in panic! In this case, their advantage over regular swords is that they can keep the mob at more of a distance, making it less likely that they can swarm you and push you down with their sheer numbers, and their advantage over pole-arms is that you can control a wider area, making it less likely for attackers to slip through and get too close.
Even on the field, dealing with loose formations is more a matter of crowd control than it is 'breaking' the enemy. It's no surprise where the greatsword loses is the moment it's put against a shield wall or an enemy Horse equipped to break shield walls, though you can scare off and encircle half-hearted attempts at both. The dane axe is a better tool for use in conjunction with shield walls, though it's definitely harder for it alone to face its equal in numbers and skill in a war get. It has other benefits of course and you can still do crowd control out of virtue of it being in part a good long stick, but not as well and against a civilian mob swinging the axe head won't win you any popularity contest, while it's probably easier to less significantly wound with a greatsword.
Also think of a squad of Zweihanders working at this together. They start by knocking a several pikes out of the way or breaking them and then rush into that gap and then start massacring the pikemen in close quarters through stabbing via half-swording as they close, then using the looping swings he shows for area denial to create massive vulnerable gaps in the pike formation.
Allegedly Zweihänder were sometimes called "Gassenhauer" in Germany (to be more specific: German speaking countries) in that period of time. It translates into "alley smasher", so these were used to smash an alley through the formation.
@@derpio123 all I could find: www.encyclo.co.uk/meaning-of-Gassenhauer educalingo.com/en/dic-de/gassenhauer en.langenscheidt.com/german-english/gassenhauer
Because they're cool 😎 I don't think the social aspects can be ignored, a zweihander uses more metal and is more expensive as a result. Only a soldier of higher social standing or veteran soldier could afford such a weapon. At the end of the day though, this weapon was only briefly used in Renaissance warfare before commanders realized they were less important than just having more pikemen and arquebusiers
True, harder to quench and make due to their large size would need alot of work, alot of metal, alot of money! You bet a man with this type of sword was of higher standing then your average soldier of fortune
Honestly, I think this is the correct answer. Basically something along the lines of: "Swords are cool, so a really big sword must be that much cooler than a normal sword, right?"
Brotherhood of Blades is a fantastic movie about 3 Chinese brothers, each of which used a different blade type. The eldest brother fought with a giant sword, and the film did a nice job of showcasing how such a blade might have been used (theatrical embellishments aside).
What about the weapons that combined swords with polearms? Examples of sword-polearm hybrid weapons include the Han Dynasty sha, Scandainavian swordstaffs, Japanese nagamaki with sword and handle in almost equal proportions, etc. LK Chen has a video on the sha swordstaff: ua-cam.com/video/FTBagvDyTk0/v-deo.html
As a lover of giant swords, seeing that dao being swung around at full speed really provides a pretty good argument for why people would want one, that thing is utterly terrifying! Trying to attack somebody using a sword like that would be like walking into a giant blender.
Despite aknowledging "dao" simply means "sword", it leaves me with no small amount of frustration how every time I hear it I think of something along the lines of the ones seen being used by WW2 Chinese soldiers just to then be faced with something completely different, and the Chinese just as well don't shy away from calling even polearms just "dao", with no other adjective, affixes or suffixes to differentiate, or using such seemimgly with no rhyme or reason, just the fondness of addressing how good the chunkier types are at chopping horses. Perhaps you know more? Like that 'great-' dao in the video, what would you call it?
As far as i know, Zweihanders were pretty much used in small groups in formation battles when pikes and similar weapons became common. They followed behind the pikes and waited until the opposing pike lines collide into each other. Just when the frontline was stuck and the pikes moved over to carefully stabbing and testing the opposing line, several elite Landsknechte with Zweihanders pushed forward through the lines, massively swirling around and by that, breaking and pushing the enemie's pikes aside. In german you would say "sie schlugen eine Gasse", that's why a nother common german expression for this special type of sword is "Gassenhauer". They granted the opportunity to tear a gap into the pikes in which allies where able to follow quickly, separate and surround a small group of enemies and eliminate them. After this the remaining Gassenhauer went back behind the pikes and started this procedure again some meters away to isolate the next portion of the enemy army. Yes, they were somewhat elite, but yes, they used to die quite often *cough* It was just a very very dangerous job and therefore payed very well, I think.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was because swordsmiths were just flexing and people looked at whatever the fuck they made and went like ''bloody hell that's cool!''
I always thought they may work well used as a riot control style weapon. Small number of guards "police" vs large numbers of unarmored opponents with small or improvised weapons.
Not really. Because if there are a mob of enemies having a large two-handed weapon means you're not carrying a shield. If you're not carrying a shield you're very vulnerable to getting pelted with rocks (even if you're wearing good armor and a helmet a cobblestone will hurt, just through its delivered kinetic energy. Enough that a rain of cobblestones will knock you out). The best riot control weapon (if you want to kill someone) is a large shield and sword. If you don't want to kill people then a large shield and a baton or cane.
@@fiendishrabbit8259 This is a good point about larger crowds, but as the group gets smaller, toward say, a gang or group, part of controlling that situation becomes more psychological. Having a shield and single-handed weapon diminishes your range and offensive power, especially on one side. It makes you look defensive, instead of offensive. I imagine in a gang you don't want to be the first guy cut down by a great big sword and it might be enough to discourage 3-6 people from taking you on.
For crowd control you don't need to kill everyone. One or two sliced up qith a honking big blade and a majority will leave. Untrained militias and peasant rebellions have a very bad reputation on the battlefield. They are expected to cut and run, unless they have overwhelming numbers. That is until faced with an aparently or perceived unstoppable force. Take any crew of 5 guys spoiling for a fight, one is the ringleader, one is the cronie, and 3 want to go home. Expand this, add the sociology of crowds, then a gruesome death at the hands of an armored spinning whirlwind of death, and poof there goes up to 80% of your crowd. Was it used that way? No idea. The hypothesis seems plausible though.
The more I think about it, the more great sword makes sense as an area denial weapon. The point of balance makes it easier to swing it fast in wide arcs, and long cutting area means that you cannot get inside the reach as easily as with polearm. This combined with the intimidation factor and show of status make it ideal bodyguard weapon. Great analysis!
I wonder if far into the future historians will be having similar discussions about high-end sports cars. They are incredible feats of engineering that eat up tons of resources in production and use but are impractical from any reasonable standpoint. It might just be that a huge expensive sword was more about impressing and intimidating others than being the most practical tool for the job.
I think large swords are a bit quicker on the strike compared to halberds for instance. The rotational speed of a halberd requires more acceleration compared to a long sword blade, and thus you can re-direct, defend and counter strike with a large sword faster than a polearm other than a spear
not as massive as many of final fantasy weapon. cloud great sword for example (not sure about this, but in general japanese have fetish about massive,heavy sword. i think it was because the heavy big weapon was associated with demonic strength culturally)
It seems to me that the greatsword could be used to defeat polearms by aiming for the hands almost exclusively. Moving in quadi-bind, and causing injury with the long cutting edge.
RIGHT, when people think about how heavily armored the 15th century was in general they forget that the _average_ soldier still wouldn't have more than a breastplate and maybe some mail if they wanted to spend the cash for it (but they had little reason to expect blades!) Now you've got this bigass sword windmilling around threatening to slice your limbs.
If a two handed sword is more prone to breakage with early metallurgy; wouldn't that suggest that they are less likely to survive in tact and therefore might have been more common than the historical record suggests.
Factor also reusing swords or repurposing them and it makes you wonder. Especially after WWI & II not to mention the 7 years war, lot of metal was taken an repurposed for the wars.
That is a very good point. I got that same idea once, when I tried to research dussacks. Steel dussacks survived to be uncovered by modern archaeologists, but the leather/wood training dussacks definitely didn't because of their ability to decompose. We only really have illustrations of training dussacks to prove that they existed. And from there, it becomes harder to tell how common they were from our modern retrospective perspective.
I've always found great swords a little puzzling, since they existed at a time when armor was at or near it's most protective, but lacked either the impact of an ax/mace/war hammer/poleax or the fine point of most longswords and later arming swords.
Thank you for making content and sharing your wisdom with us. It benefits many people that you do this- without men like you there is precious little in the way of master level knowledge and skill on these topics, especially in the world NOWADAYS.
How much of an advantage do you get from the fact that the weapons are simply unusual/rare? Does the experience of fighting against smaller swords translate well to fighting against someone with a really big sword? If not then having a really big sword might give you an advantage because your opponents won't have as much experience when it comes to fighting against your weapon.
You're right, it doesn't translate well. One handed and two handed swords are completely different. You've got a lot less reach with a two handed sword, but make up for it with the longer blade. You can't stop a two handed sword once it's started moving, it's got too much energy. You have to rush them, but then they'll just smash your head in with the pommel or cross guard, or half sword you. Most people with a two handed sword have been well fed with nutritious food, well trained, and well rested. They also tended to be crazy as hell. They're not going to be easy opponents, no matter the weapon they're using.
To my mind in the realm of defense you have a very fast weapon to keep assailants at bay when outnumbered and you'd expect your other security to keep anyone running around in full harness well away from the person being guarded, but just weapons are much easier to hide, that or in case of a mob as a weapon against people out of armor the advantages seem even clearer.
Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/kkBloi and get a special starter pack 💥 Available only for the next 30 days
What about the weapons that combined swords with polearms? Examples of sword-polearm hybrid weapons include the Han Dynasty sha, Scandainavian swordstaffs, Japanese nagamaki with sword and handle in almost equal proportions, etc. LK Chen has a video on the sha swordstaff: ua-cam.com/video/FTBagvDyTk0/v-deo.html
@wulpurgis I wouldn't think so as the large two handed sword has a lot more versatility. It would be intresting to see what others think but generally the advantage a large ax has is a lot less over a single handed sword vs axe.
Least in my opinion.
Something I noticed you didn't touch up on was the socioeconomic for these swords. The money swords in Africa tells me that it wasn't impossible to make these giant swords but it seems the right combination of need and pressure to was not really prevelent.
China has a unique position in history being isolated from the rest of the world for the most part and this is true of Japan to. I think this could be a significant factor.
😂 should of finished the video first you did touch up on that.
Mr. Easton, a question from a german viewer of your well reputated channel. In german museum or palace collections there is often a leather cover from Parierstange / cross guard to perhaps 6'' over the Parierhaken/ parry hooks. Are this ,leather hoses' an additional Griff/ handle for using the Bidenhänder as a short polearm?
Just as an aside - I think I've mentioned it before - _Zweihänder_ were also called _Gassenhauer_ (Gasse = narrow street, alleyway; Hauer = beater, in the context of swords also chopper), presumably because they were used to chop an opening into the enemy formation. Gotta love how straightforward German is.
This is the gassenhauer it hauers gassen
"Be'cus it match my hat"
A german mercenary
thumbs up just because in Destiny 2 I paint my weapons to match my armour. lol!
You mispelled Landsknecht.
@@deviles i tried to use that word but couldn't remember, i just used the english name
@@ecthelionalfa I know. But mercanairy is far too generalized to describe the Awesomeness of their hats.
Weil es zu meinem Hut passt
Never underestimate the psychologial effect of a zweihander, especially against unexperienced troops. My university fencing club does a big event at the beginning of the year, where we invite as many freshmen as we can and do group fights with larp weapons after just basic training. So those freshmen are very comparable to medieval levy troops. With our rules, it should be quite easy to get into grappling with a zweihander, but I've seen time and time again those freshmen freeze when facing it, as the greatsword works very differently to anything else they've been trained to fight.
Except by the time these massive two handed swords were a thing standing armies and professional mercenaries were rapidly becoming the mainstay of warring nations.
A professional soldier or mercenary isn't going to panic or feel the same sense of fear a untrained peasant might.
Not to mention even your average farmer or townsmen would have spent time in their local militia or even on campaign with their local lord.
@@clothar23 I wouldn't say you're wrong, but the mere fact that it's a weapon they aren't used to or necessarily trained against would put a lot of even professional soldiers at a disadvantage. Guys like e.g. the Landsknechts were usually not even wearing full plate harness, whereas the guys using these big fuckoff swords would be.
These were not common swords, and I personally don't think they were used in massive infantry blocks, but rather by a smaller number of high-status soldiers within polearm blocks to threaten the more common soldiers when they got into close melee. As to your point about professional soldiers, I think greatswords may have somewhat supplanted poleaxes because the knightly/lordly class were dealing with professional, but only partially armored opponents.
@@clothar23 You don't need all of the professional soldiers to be afraid, just enough to mess up formations or plans. And if they are known to be effective in combat, than the pros are going to be leery of them as well. Soldiers don't want to die, if they think something is too bloody risky, they'll try to go a different way. You can do a lot of things that don't lead to you fighting the hard bastards with swords as big as you, before doing anything as drastic as breaking ranks and fleeing. At the end of the day, you don't get paid if you're dead, but you can get paid later if you lose.
2 weeks ago I was at a friends place and he is into Hema! So we decided we‘d do some swordfighting and we wore some chainmail and gambesons. He had a full visor helm while I only had this Norman nasal helmet. Needless to say it was careless of us and he hit me in the face a couple of times with his arming sword... A few minor scratches/cuts. even tho the blades were blunt but sometimes a dent in the edge hits you and the dented metal can be a bit sharp, but nothing too bad.
Well he then asked me if i was okay with him using a bastard sword, because most people get scared when he starts using them. I said sure why not. we fought a couple of rounds and I gotta say the momentum on that sword was completely different. I was flinching a lot more cause i really didnt want to get hit. all of a sudden he hit me in my eye and i dropped to the floor, at first I thought I had lost vision in my left eye but after a short inspection it turns out it was just swelling up like crazy and he gave me a nasty cut across the face! It‘s all healed up now and I learned my lesson: never fight without a full visor helmet again. But let me tell you when he grabbed that big sword it was a complete game changer for me! It hurt a lot more and he oftentimes just cleaved through my block and hit me so hard I cried out in pain lmao... Arming sword was way less painful and scary!
@@REALdavidmiscarriage That sounds like it could have gone very bad. Glad you got out of it okay, but I'd caution you against using even blunts without some experiences, it's still around 3 feet of steel flying at your face. Just not worth the potential injury.
Your points on the larger weapon match my own experiences, though in my case it was wood, and plastic practice weapons. We still beat the tar out of each other lol.
Never underestimate 'Because it's cool!' as a reason. Metatron did a video that was basically an extended rant about archaeologists calling things ceremonial objects because they didn't seem to be practical enough, even when they were unearthed from battlefields. I can imagine a future museum exhibit of a M-4 labeled as ceremonial because no sane person would ever weigh down a weapon intended for actual use with a dozen pieces of tacticool.
"The fleshlight attachment obviously marks this as a fertility idol..."
That's my big reason why I don't mind "vikings" with horns, particularly in fantasy. Do we have any finds with that among the Norse? No. But we see big stupid things on top of people's war hats all over the place, so if these guys want horns on theirs it's not as silly as people might think. Humans are frequently not the most efficient beings, we do things that are counter intuitive all the time, because our reason isn't strictly linear.
@@Lurklen I think in vikings case its because we dont find horns nearly at all at sites however. Like, even in myths regarding the characters right? Save for like Heimdhaller
@@XonixDerps Oh sure, there's every evidence that it was just an artistic affectation by later people. But whenever people continue that artistic tradition, in say games, films, or comics you have other people who pop up saying "No one would put anything like that on their head, it'd be totally impractical!" and I mean, it is pretty impractical, but that's never stopped humans before.
It's not historically accurate, because we've found no evidence, but not because it's implausible.
@@Lurklen Ofc, our boios up here had a vid on making sure not to be on either side of the: "That could never have happened" boat because you end up creating new myths as well. My side of the argument is to not say something does when we still dont have anything. Possibility? Hell sure, they're pretty weird but hey so was everyone.
Well, the example of an M4 strapped with tons of tacticool is not the best because... Actual soldiers and especially special forces do it too. And they do not do it to be cool. Those are force multipliers that actually have viable use in combat. And sometimes their rifles can look kinda ridiculous to us, but they would never part with even one bit of the kit just because it might be crucial to have it on the rifle and ready in that one moment that decides everything.
re: the utility of fighting multiple assailants/being outnumbered, the fact that its more difficult to grab a sword blade than a spear/axe shaft could be a strong factor favoring the greatsword for that use over any polearm. If you have multiple assailants it becomes even more important to keep your weapon active/mobile, one-on-one the prospect of an assailant trying to wrestle ur weapon away might not be such a big deal, figuring ur just as able as they are to try and wrestle back control while defending urself. more than one assailant, and any time ur weapon is bound up is more time for other assailants to land free attacks.
In addition to grabbing just… getting close. If you’re fending people off the flanks with a spear as you swing the spear to fend off one person a second can close in. When the shaft comes back in the swing to hit the second person it no longer has a blade at that point. It’s just the shaft which is far less dangerous
I would rather have more allies than a bigger sword
TRUE
@@billmartovich9009 range is a massive advantage! 2 on 2 with same range weapons is 50/50. 1 vs 2, and the 2 can't REACH the 1. 1 wins. It's like 2 shotguns vs 1 sniper.
@@TrickinNinja range is very important. Lindybeige's video on this topic really illustrates that. The greatsword against the regular longsword, and I quote, "almost feels like cheating."
"That's a great sword essentially."
Zweihänder: "Thanks, man!"
UA-cam search: "Maximilian & Marie De Bourgogne, fight scene 2: Zweihänder"
The scene concentrates on faces, no words, so not 100 percent technically accurate, but still good techniques and judicial intensity.
_I imagine the Polish people really didn't want to donate their limbs for warfare unless absolutely necessary._
Pole arms!😂😂😂😂
trust me it was necessary
Funny:) definitely I would't give my arm for that purpose;)
Polish hussars use to say they would use their pole arms to hold heaven if it ever was to fall on their heads lol
Disarmingly funny
it was big enough to still be called a sword... massive, thin, and not that rough... indeed. it was more like a giant blade, of steel...
Rest in peace, Miura-sensei...
@@NevisYsbryd Put your grasses on , everything went wrong 😢
Tell me what, tell me what,
tell me what you say,
@@Lo-tf6qt i don't know wa, dono wa, dono Donovaan🎶
When it comes to bodyguards, one thing a greatsword can do better than polearms is area denial. By swinging it around, you can make a pretty big area a highly dangerous zone. Three or four bodyguards could probably completely surround their lord with an area denial. I don't see that tactic working too well against well equipped and trained opponents, but it should be reasonable effective against ruffians and a mob.
Such guards do not even need to defeat their enemies, just hold them for a while. The rest of the guard will arrive shortly to overwhelm the attackers and they may have ranged weapons as well. So when you do your best to avoid that huge swinging blade an arqebusier takes up position behind you.
@@michaelpettersson4919 in the doccumentary/tvshow on the ottoman siege of constantinople they mention how the genoese(european) warfare was often based on a the knight leading a squad of men with lighter(but strong) armour, big shields, crossbows and swords(falchions/maces) the knight would stay in front of the men in his full plate, and the regular soldiers would form a wedge formation seting up their shields and readying their crossbows, when the enemy got closen they would loose a volley and the knight would charge in wreaking havoc while the squad supports him with ranged fire and joining the melee
Swords were originally owned only by the elite... and only "nobles" were allowed to have them, precisely because they were for use against unarmored peasants... a.k.a "ruffians".
@@cognitivedisability9864 So where does the zweihander and its unwieldiness come in? You don't expect it to be twirled around in close quarter battle with pikes left, right and center.
That made a lot of sense. The whole "lopping off pike heads" thing didn't ring super hard for me. Directly comparing and contrasting balance, edge length, and techniques really demonstrated what was going on. Nice vid!
@UCRp2ds3iqR6c2uTS1052tkQ Yeah, but pike hafts were often tapered to make them easier to handle, the thing is that if you are focused of cutting the heading of the weapon of an opponents that out reaches you, especially a pike, which outreaches you allot, you are probably going to get stabbed by him or his friends.
i have heard the flanks, as he slightly mentioned, were kept tight by dopplesoldiers; and if opened they would run to an appointed shield wall gap, and try to take some spear heads with them, often closing the flank behind.
Problem: A long sword isn't going to lop-off the head of a pike. The shaft would be too thick, and often reinforced.
I really hope someone do a video on it using sharpened and historically correct swords and pikes. The pikes being very long did taper quite a bit an have tiny heads for balance issues. Its unlikely to have being the main tactic but still, I think it happen ocasionally.
@@AdlerMow Yeah, especially since they can get really flipping long.. the low end is ten feet and high as twenty five feet... a twenty foot non tapering ash shaft would be impossible to use.
Seriously, a bunch of house carls wielding Dane axes would be an intimidating sight. Especially if they all had mustaches.
Carl or Karl is also a german mens name, but i think this means in reallity churl , in german Kerl. I read this archaic english word some time ago in a comment about prussian ,long guys'.
@@brittakriep2938 Its the same word. But the word churl in English means a dumb peasant, hence the world churlish, which means rude and ill-mannered. You'd be ill advised to assume a Huscarl was a dumb peasant if you wanted to keep your head on your shoulders however. In reality the word and the name leads back to a word common to all Germanic languages simply meaning a man or husband and has had different connotations and forks in meaning through the ages.
@@osric1730 "That's a nice head you have on your shoulders!" - Huscarl probably
@@osric1730 : First a sidenote: In german language the outdated word , tumb' also exists. Also in german language ,Kerl' is today mostly used to describe a man, not being a gentleman. But sometimes it is still used in old sense ,being a strong , hard and relayable man'. What meaning, old or modern, the speaker means, you can notice in context or the way of speaking. If somebody says : Kommt da so ein Kerl .../ There comes such a Kerl...- a ruffian, rowdy. But: Das ist ein richtiger Kerl/ Thats a real Kerl- old positive meaning.
So possibly also english churl had once a totally different, postive meaning.
@@brittakriep2938 seems highly plausible. A lot of terms for people change in meaning over time, not least in English.
Matt, it was expressly mentioned that the lifeguards of the king of Portugal were armed with montantes, and if we look closely at several of the rules we can plainly see they are designed to protect someone on the ground. I can still find no source of the kind of "two handed swords" that the Knights of St. John at the siege of Rhodes had when they filled the gaps in the wall. They apparently made quite an impression on the Turks. Excellent video, thank-you.
Interesting! Do you have a link, something I can read about the Turks' reaction in English?
@@DaveSK I read it in an old article in Military History magazine, so I would suggest looking on Wikipedia. I have found several of their old articles reprinted on it before. It's dodgy though.
@@100dfrost Cheers!
"Significant mechanical advancement" that's a good way to describe the use of longswords as steel came about
- What's that?
- It's a sword!
- Nah. That's not a sword. _This_ is a sword!
UA-camr describing sword myths: "Real swords don't 'shwing'"
Miadao: "swing!"
Swords shwing if you have a metal-lipped scabbard. Medieval scabbards were generally not metal-lipped (and instead wood or leather).
Meow Dao
There's the problem with describing things in absolutes. 🤔 I have several swords which "schwing" when drawn. In my experience, steel scabbards do it more often than not if you draw the sword quickly. It's a lot less common with metal-throated wooden or leather scabbards, but it can happen. I tested it just now with a U. S. Navy officer's sword and got a soft but audible schwing. I don't know why people persist in spreading information that's so easily debunked.
@@theblancmange1265 Meow Doh!
@@itsapittie Can we rebunk this instead?
I think the point about the long edge is important when considering that idea of "area control." If a person must occupy a point and offend several opponents to keep them at bay, he cannot stop to gauge his distances and place a smaller edge on-target. If he has the longer blade, however, every attack is more likely to connect with the edge. This both serves the purpose of making him more dangerous to the enemy, but also makes him more impressive to his enemy. A brave soldier might risk stepping inside the offending range of a huscarl with an axe, confident that the shaft could only hurt him slightly and that he could kill the huscarl himself or allow his allies to. It would take a brave soldier indeed to try the same against a landsknecht with a whopping two-handed sword.
The point about swords having a longer cutting Edge and axes missing their mark more often is true.
There's not much you can really do mid swing with a single-handed axe.
However I have learned that with a dane axe one can adjust where the head is going to impact by pulling the haft with the back hand. This brings the head closer to the user when swinging the axe.
It's a bit of a skill to learn and must be practiced; but like many things become second nature in time.
It is still not as easy as having the entire edge of a sword but it does compensate a bit for the axe's shorter edge.
Well said. I do the same thing with my (foam rubber and pvc) pollaxe while sparring.
My opponent never knows if I am going to hit them with the axe or hook them the axe head’s bottom or pull back to poke them with the dague. I’d imagine a Dane axe would be great for that trick.
@@mitcharcher7528 Thank you for saying that it helps validate the idea.
And if it works for both of us, and probably others, then warriors of old certainly might have used it too.
Uesugi Kenshin kept an ad hoc corps of nagamaki specialists for anti-cavalry purposes.
I very much agree with them being specialized weapons developed as "answers" to specific field tactics.
Miss Uesugi Kenshin is one of my favorite historical figures, along with admiral Yi.
Terra Prime Light Armory did a very in depth history of the Zhanmadao in a response video to Metatron in which he actually does pull up 11th century historical sources on how these anti-cavalry units were supposed to function. They were a specialist unit that would be called on to swarm and hack up enemy cavalry once they had been bogged down by polearms. Emphasis in training was placed on chopping the horses' legs.
"Among the infantry we must select strong and able-bodied troops. Arm all of them with zhanmadao and select a separate commander to lead them like Tang Dynasty Li Shiye's modao method. Facing the charge of the iron hawk (a military formation), etiher they harass our formation or trample our infantry. Then we can advance with zhanmadao, which is a surprise method to ensure victory."
@@tcuegonbear This one is obvious. The swordstaff.
If you're looking for a long-handled single edged choppy sword, there's also the warbrand AKA faussart.
@@tcuegonbear I could also mention the "falx" used by the Dacians which could get quite long. It no doubt started out as an agricultural tool.
So it chops down horses then.
But why is it that kids romanticize it as the ultimate weapon in RPG battles?
I love your passion for your work. It's infectious. I accidentally clicked this video and your excitement that was evident from the first second kept me watching. Never thought I'd watch such a long video on very big swords. But I enjoyed every minute.
Hard to get "inside their reach" when their weapon is sharp from right by their hands out to three or four feet.
But they arent sharp right at their hands.
@@vorrnth8734 time for hiltless from demon souls.
Actually, _easier_ to get inside their reach. Particularly with a short sword...
@@TarnishedEldenKing maybe may wording was suboptimal. What I mean is, since these swords are often used in "halfswording" they are not particularly sharp close to the handguard.
@@_XR40_ Not without a shield or armor. Short sword vs a zweihander means the short sword wielder is gonna have a bad time unless he has a shield or is properly armored.
I would argue that a bodyguard looking deadly is more important than proving he is.
Deterrence is good. Will keep away all but the most motivated..
Adding on the subject that big swords look fancy and convey that their wielders as elite and scary, this lends well to another part of their proposed use of a smaller number of soldiers tying up a bigger number of the enemy. Since they're easily marked out, look intimidating, and probably holding an important position on the battlefield, more of the enemy might be directed towards attacking them. Which incidentally, leans in on how the big swords are used - with their big, circular, turning-type movements.
Indeed, crowd control. People are not mindless zombies, so they'll be very reluctant to rush into the range of those swings. Which makes perfect sense for a small number of elite guards to defend an objective from a less experienced but bigger crowd.
Main advantage is a great sword can easily switch between grappling and polearm range with halfswording and other techniques. Most polearms are near useless in grappling range.
Greatswords were often used to attack polearms formations from the sides while they were already engaged by other polearms from the front. They also offer great defensive advantages against multiple opponents and were often deployed in 2s and 3s with crossbows and arkebusiers in their back. Fast enough to outrun large polearms formations and strong enough to defend against small groups of skirmishers to give the ranged troops time to relocate or deal significant damage to their opponents.
I honestly feel that the first guy that ever did it just started with the concept of, "swords are cool and effective, let's make a gigantic one!"
Giant swords are so expensive you need the Raid sponsorship money to buy them...
Thanks for bringing up the physical aspect of the Doppelsöldner, I had not thought about that. I know a guy who was a paratrooper in both the East German NVA and also in the Bundeswehr after the reunification, served a tour in Kosovo, and who is now working with the federal police - he is one of the officers who knock on really bad guys' doors at 3am or works as a special unit in riot control. If I imagine him (imposing physique and tough as nails) in a medieval setting wielding a Zweihänder against levied pikemen... Jeez Louise. I can only imagine the pikemen wishing they'd worn their brown trousers that day.
I also find the mechanical advantage argument convincing. With the pikes being held out in front, it should be quite possible to sweep several of them aside with a good swing. The great sword would not need to cut the shafts in half, but the edge should be easily sharp enough to create a bind. If you have several Doppelsöldner working together, because why wouldn't they, they should be able to pass the effective range of the pikes and really wreak havoc on the pikemen.
YES FINALLY A ANSWER. I was asking that myself for a long time now.
Same here!
I think that last is a big plus for the two-handed swords; simply that they are giant swords that would cost a lot, and take a ton of training and expertise to use effectively, and that is imposing, shocking, and I think maybe heartening to your own side. I think seeing that on the battlefield, you're some poor 16th century German peasant-turned-soldier, and you come upon 100 guys, decked to the nines, wielding these things, it would have an impact. Might be you've been a soldier for a number of campaigns, you've seen a lot of polearms, but the...prestige of such a weapon would have a shocking effect, a demoralizing effect, and maybe a positive effect on the morale of their own side. It is the 16th century, sure swords are everywhere, but a corps of specialist troops with those beasts? But, Matt didn't talk about the reverse side of that, which I think is just as important. Say you are some poor German-turned-soldier fighting on the far left flank, and you see out of the corner of your eye 100 of these dudes with these swords, getting ready for their own charge on the enemy flank. Or say they are standing behind you and to your left before the battle begins, so you know your flank is good, those elite SOBs aren't going to let anyone get to your flank. Imagine simply seeing these guys training with their swords in the days leading up to a battle, knowing those guys with their slabs of steel are on your side would absolutely hearten you, make you feel like, if your leader can afford these guys, there is no way he can lose.
Honestly, I think that is the real legacy of the claymore. I doubt it was super effective, just too costly to have many of them in a poor kingdom like Scotland. But damn does it look IMPOSING. Knowing the kind of technology that went into it, even with as basic a knowledge as a random soldier on a medieval/Renaissance battlefield would have, would probably be pretty striking. Sometimes weapons don't have to be hugely impactful in sheer damage, if they are hugely impactful in extremely precise places, as said in the video specialist troops. As said in the video, on the enemy absolutely, but on your own troops too I think. They would just give like a flat +morale buff.
Beyond just looking awesome the fact that german mercenaries regularly uses great swords means they must have been a very good weapon choice. If your job is to always go into combat & you are paid well enough to be able to afford any weapon you would like then the weapon you choose is going to be the best for the way you fight.
In the Battle of Civitate (1053) the Swabian heavy infantry also used very heavy and very long two-handed swords instead of polearms, much earlier than the Renaissance era.
"Zweihaender" are often also called "Gassenhauer", because it carves an alley in the forest of pole arms.
I'd also imagine rare weapons have the advantage that opponents would have had less training fighting them, while the wielders themselves would have been training against the more regular weapons their opponents use.
That's one of the reasons I love your channel. Such a damn good teacher with factual knowledge!!
Excellent video as always. While stationed in Germany in the 80s, I remember going to castles and seeing woodcuts of Thirty Years War soldiers with all types of weapons - Katzbulgers and such. There were several of Double Soldiers wielding great swords, some with wavy blades. Several of those woodcuts show them whacking the tips off pikes, I guess to break up the pike block's effectiveness. Since massed formations like pike block's were not nimble not easy to move, I could see this being somewhat effective in raising your own morale and lowering theirs. There were scenes of two double soldiers fighting in between pike formations. Given your display of how maneuverable these swords were, that must have been a sight to see.
Watching you swing that thing around is actually quite intimidating, if I were a soldier back then I definitely wouldn't have wanted to face off against one. Just pleased I have a crossbow!
From one Matt to another, thank you very much! This video took everything you've said about these weapons in the past, added more information and did a thorough compare and contrast. Great job, you are my favorite member of the community of the sword.
The most basic technique for dealing with a pole weapon, especially if you have a shorter weapon (& shield?), is to enter: to get inside of the danger area of the business end of the pole weapon. A great sword’s edge runs all the way down its very long blade. There is no way to simply step inside its cutting edge! Of course, the great sword’s edge can be blocked with another weapon or shield. But there is a lot to be said for ruling out a primary combative technique. And if you enter inside the pole weapon danger area with your great sword, you’ve got an edge.
Also, think about that huge guard. An opponent that closes in far enough to escape the blade can easily be prodded back with the guard. I think that utility also explains the large guards on longswords. Without the guard, you can use the blade and pommel. The guard isn't just there to "protect the hands".
@@uumlau Good points! (On each side of the sword)
eh, not so much on a battlefield methinks. Remember the best protection in warfare you can get is the guy either side of you. running up the polearm I think would quickly get you murdered by the guys either side of the man you are attempting to offend.
@@thomasoakes4917 As Matt suggests, you don't see phalanxes of great sword (or dane ax) wielders. They tend to be used by elite guard units. They need to be able to freely swing their weapons to cover ground.
I've been studying weapons and armour as a serious hobby for about 3 years now, and you, Matt are one of the best resources that got me really going in this! So it makes me happy that in this video about one of my favorite weapons, you arrived at many of the same conclusions as myself! It tells me I'm on the right track. Thanks for making this video, it was very clarifying and concise. I've loved seeing your progress as a teacher and UA-camr. The channel I'm commenting with is actually intended to be an informational channel about combat. I'm just getting started, but I thought I'd let you know that you inspired me! You're awesome Matt! And so respectful. Cheers!
"She's got whopping great, er, *ARMOR*..."
I love it.
Huge tracts of land.
I usually find montante wielders harder to deal with than spearpeople. The learning curve is way trickier, though.
They were made for really big lads so they didn't look out of proportion when they had their portraits painted to send home for their mums
I have to say the LK Chen Miao Dao was much lighter than expected, and yet quite sturdy. Thanks so much for these videos, I learn quite a lot from your experience and perspective and look forward to the next!
It's not that sturdy. The tang is going to be your most like point of failure, and those blades are not going to be able to standup to a lot of force-against-force clashing.
Because they are epic! Most men would want to drive Lamborghini or Ferrari, even though Skoda or Opel do the job just fine...
@wulpurgis hipsters existed ever since cronk used a mossy rock to hunt because "it looks nice."
@wulpurgis 😳
To be fair, an Opel probably won't do the job just fine. Or at least not for very long :D
If you're facing a horde, grab your biggest sword*.
*And find a good choke point, like a bridge.
Because if you infuse it with chaos and have 99 humanity you can slap in PVP
Giant dad supremacy
@@sobrev1viente MLG
@@ExtraVictory the legend never dies
Well, what is it?
Shiva the East? More like SHIVA THE DECEASED
If I remember correctly, these long swords were a response to tightly packed pike formations.
These daring double handed swordsmen would detach from their own pike formations and disrupt the enemy blocks by chopping away at the pikes shortly before the opposing pike formations clashed.
More reliable firearms, as time went on, would arm units of skirmishing gunners that did the same job of disruption, and phase out the double handed swordsmen.
22:10 I would also like to bring up the possibility that the author of the treatise was just plain wrong. Drawing from modern examples, there are a *LOT* of people who consider themselves tactical experts who are just plain wrong about many aspects of modern combat (myself included), and some of them consider themselves educators and run self-defense courses or educational UA-cam channels. It's possible that the author of this treatise never actually saw combat and was parroting information which lay-people at the time thought was correct, and perhaps the reason this treatise survived is because it was owned and cared for by a noble/wealthy family that also never saw combat and liked to show off their "tactical" stuff. Just a possibility.
I mean, possibly
Great video Matt. I've been thinking along much the same lines, but it's nice to follow a breakdown by a professional.
And then there's the Nagamaki in Japan, where they couldn't decide whether to make a polearm or a giant sword, so they kind of did half of both...
You make some excellent points in this video! I was definitely thinking it was more of a status symbol like you said, but the fact that it has a lower center of mass that allows for wide hewing strikes and area denial was something that I honestly hadn't considered before. Fantastic video!
I think another answer might be versatility. Don't get me wrong; polearms can be versatile, but one advantage of most sword designs is that it can do a lot of things fairly well while similarly-sized axes and spears can do one thing very well but aren't as good at the rest; a sword is generally better than an axe at thrusting and generally better than a spear for cutting for instance. With a big two-handed sword, you have this versatile weapon essentially scaled up to a size where it can compete with polearms. And, as you said, these were used by specialists who might be told to do different tasks at different times.
And, going back to what you were saying about hand protection, I think we can probably extend that and talk about defense in general: one thing that swords are very good for compared to spears or axes is they're great for blocking and parrying, and I suspect (I could easily be wrong, but I suspect) that these big two-handed swords probably are generally better for defense than a polearm.
These big swords were good at one particular job : fencing off multiple opponents to keep a zone safe. So yeah, your guess is good. Meanwhile one dude with a spear or a polearm will be in trouble if they're alone
@@azraellacroix2755 A spear with a robust shaft & point on each end can serve effectively against multiple opponents. Johann Georg Pascha has a whole technique for this. George Silver believed a person with such a weapon could defeat two people with sword & dagger or similar. & Richard Peeke claimed to have put this into practice against three foes with rapier & dagger.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 oh gotta check this one out thanks!
But yeah I guess that with enough range you can always take on multiple opponents with proper training. Also the surroundings of the battle are a big thing to consider
Great video. I definitely don't have any disagreement. I particularly liked your point about the psychological statement that large swords are while still serving a specific tactical function.
I am sure I read somewhere that the Zweihander was "the weapon of the few against the many". My understanding is that Landsknechts guarding the colours used them. Also, I recall reading that these large swords were very effectively employed by Landsknchts against peasant uprising, such as in Sweden. I wonder if such swordsmen could engage a pike formation from the front? The pikes were fearsome weapons of momentum. Breaking open disputed pike formations would definitely be one way to usefully employ soldiers with Zweihanders.
Definitely a weapons that would cut down any number of peasants or low skilled soldiers.
What I have found watching videos like this from yourself and others is that a commander equipping an army has to consider these factors.
1: How much time does he have to train his troops with the weapons he gives them, already familiar with them almost no time needed.
2: what they are fighting.
3: where are they fighting.
4: how are they fighting, I.e. types and density of formations and mounted vs foot.
5: how easy is it to resupply.
Matt this is some ironic timing lol
You did a review a while back on the Windlass English two-handed sword. My birthday is next month and after your review and for long time wanting a rather large sword I decided to get the Windlass English two-handed sword.
I ordered it June 9th for Museum replicas (which is a 3.5-Hour drive from my house). Their website said it could take up to 4 weeks so I ordered it around a month before my birthday & I requested standard shipping.
I've ordered many times from museum replicas in the past and it has taken 4 to 7 Days on average.
Well much to my surprise at 3:00 p.m. on June 10th the package showed up!
Only about 24 hours after I ordered it!
So tonight I will be filming my unboxing and first impressions video.
But as I was wanting something to listen to in the background while I was doing some things I turned on UA-cam and here is your video on big swords 😂
Awesome video! Now have to rewatch your Zweihander video.
To be honest i think the answer is "Beacuse swords are cool"
Facts
Haven't watched the video yet, totally agree with you
Bit like driving a Ferrari in London. Looks cool but useless.
@Segyl It's comforting to hear that your being honest concerning your thoughts on the matter....to tell you the truth.
The "cool factor" has always existed
I'd like to add an addendum on the topic of greatswords as horse-killers- horses cannot defend themselves nearly so well as a man with a weapon of any kind, they're less mobile and jumpy, they're likely laden down with quite a lot of weight (at least a man and whatever armor and weapons he's carrying, possibly some barding for itself) and thus, if you have a weapon like a greatsword or a naginata, which lend themselves quite well to being windmilled about to generate momentum, you can more easily land a powerful blow with one that will puncture the throat of, or even possibly decapitate, a horse. There are account by Spanish conquistadors of native jaguar warriors using their equivalent of the greatsword (Macuahuitl) to behead horses in a single stroke, which forced them to tactically reconsider the parameters of their invasion.
They move easier, if your passion is swords. I’ve used long sword type devices in a battlefield medium and even larger long swords have trouble fighting skilled polearm user’s, if you can’t beat em, join em. Giant sword same length as adversarial polearms and outmaneuvers overly long polearms, perfect for cutting pike blocks apart! Another thing, they catch and hold opposing spears which all can be bined up and pushed back, disrupting a well formed spear line. This is easily exploitable.
What about the weapons that combined swords with polearms? Examples of sword-polearm hybrid weapons include the Han Dynasty sha, Scandainavian swordstaffs, Japanese nagamaki with sword and handle in almost equal proportions, etc. LK Chen has a video on the sha swordstaff: ua-cam.com/video/FTBagvDyTk0/v-deo.html
Smaller handle, more blade movements but can be half sworded and yes, that big cross guard does act like a hammer head.
Some of the Ming Changdao (at least the precursors for the Miaodao) were likely anti great spear/pike weapons since the only known form for using these weapons is an anti spear form. The Miaodao was an anti spear weapon, all 3 Miaodao forms are anti spear forms. The Zhanmadao was an anti horse blade. The Miaodao featured in the video uses both grabs and running cuts vs spears. The Miaodao is also relatively frail. It would likely be broken if it were deployed as an anti calvary weapons.
Why were MASSIVE SWORDS used instead of RAID SHADOW LEGENDS?
Because they were soldiers, not monsters
Great swords were also used at the Battle of Killiecrankie in Scotland. It was there last known use in Scotland, 1689.
Very likely a part of it was showing importance and wealth, as you mentioned. Regarding use vs. polearms, one possibility may bet that it wasn't so much for chopping the polearm but for chopping the user's hands and arms. As you pointed out the length of the cutting surface makes it easier to make contact with the target, and also polearm users might be the less armored soldiers, so if they're thrusting at you, a long 2-handed sword blade might be an effective way of attacking their hands and arms.
We easily get distracted from the fact that it was formations fighting each other rather than man against man and one big advantage of having a couple Zweihänder in your pike front line is that they can, rather than chopping off tips or arms, simply move points out of the way and open a gap to advance because what is a pike after you passed it's point? Little more than a rather immobile stick. Now once our Doppelsöldner is past the deadly bits he's rather free to swing his weapon in wide horizontal arcs at the rather exposed pikemen who now have three options: Drop the pike and draw their side swords, get hewn down or retreat; all of those widen the gap allowing more troops to flood the gap and break the formation.
Landsknecht with greatswords really give me The Giant Dad from DS1 vibes
Is it possible that huge swords were used as we use "crew served" weapons today? During WWII, a light machine gun crew on Guadalcanal consisted of a gunner and two riflemen. The gunner controlled the area in front of the team and the riflemen protected the gunner. I could see a soldier with a huge sword blocking a bridge or a pass and backed up by a pair of soldiers with long swords to protect the soldier with the huge sword from being overwhelmed or attacked when the weight of the huge sword caused the swordsman to over extend his attack.
It is very good point. Not just longswords, but firearms or even pikes support. Another thing is that it was very exhausting job, to keep this massive thing swinging around and people would like to take some rest, while other guy is going to swing around his massive thing.
But there is massive difference between MG and great sword cases. Machine guns were incorporated in **line** fighting, they did not interfere with troops around them anyhow, while zweihander guy is clearly not a thing you want to find next to your shoulder.
Another thing to consider about square formations - they have very vulnerable edges, that are best to be both protected and attacked by mobile specialists, not incorporated in rigid order. A.V. Suvorov used to employ special teams of jaegers and grenadiers to protect edges of his squares in late 18th century against ottomans
If you consider that the zweihander wielding doppelsöldner of the landsknechte were placed in front of the phalanx of pikemen as their defence, this all makes more sense. Also, these weapons (unlike pole arms) would still work in a push of pike that sometimes occurred in battles of the period. Warfare of that time was all about coordinated movement and tight groups of pikemen, so placing these area denial weapons in the midst of them as a way to break up the formation seems like a great idea
CROWD CONTROL!
...it clicked in halfway through, when you started mentioning bodyguards and elite troops, and that they are more balanced than pole-arms so they can be used against multiple opponents.
Of course! They can keep a rowdy crowd at a distance. And their intimidation factor can be combined well with how they can be quickly used to keep multiple opponents at a distance.
I can imagine just a few guys holding these gigantic swords being able to defend against a mob of hundreds. Because people (especially less experienced ones) are not like zombies or robots who would sacrifice themselves to overwhelm those few defenders. If they're rushed, the guards cut down the first few attackers, and the rest runs away in panic!
In this case, their advantage over regular swords is that they can keep the mob at more of a distance, making it less likely that they can swarm you and push you down with their sheer numbers, and their advantage over pole-arms is that you can control a wider area, making it less likely for attackers to slip through and get too close.
Even on the field, dealing with loose formations is more a matter of crowd control than it is 'breaking' the enemy. It's no surprise where the greatsword loses is the moment it's put against a shield wall or an enemy Horse equipped to break shield walls, though you can scare off and encircle half-hearted attempts at both.
The dane axe is a better tool for use in conjunction with shield walls, though it's definitely harder for it alone to face its equal in numbers and skill in a war get. It has other benefits of course and you can still do crowd control out of virtue of it being in part a good long stick, but not as well and against a civilian mob swinging the axe head won't win you any popularity contest, while it's probably easier to less significantly wound with a greatsword.
This is a great video Matt! I've been looking for something to easily link to people that really explains the uses and benefits to those huge swords.
Even if these zweihaender don't break or chop the spears, they're still moving their points offline and leaving pikemen open to the next attack.
Also think of a squad of Zweihanders working at this together. They start by knocking a several pikes out of the way or breaking them and then rush into that gap and then start massacring the pikemen in close quarters through stabbing via half-swording as they close, then using the looping swings he shows for area denial to create massive vulnerable gaps in the pike formation.
@@dimman77 Exactly what I've always thought was meant by "breaking pike formations" and similar phrases. You said it well.
Allegedly Zweihänder were sometimes called "Gassenhauer" in Germany (to be more specific: German speaking countries) in that period of time. It translates into "alley smasher", so these were used to smash an alley through the formation.
@@derpio123 Awesome!
@@derpio123 all I could find: www.encyclo.co.uk/meaning-of-Gassenhauer
educalingo.com/en/dic-de/gassenhauer
en.langenscheidt.com/german-english/gassenhauer
Very interesting stuff. In the SCA, I generally use a six-foot long rattan "greatsword" in melees. I go after enemy spearmen.
Because they're cool 😎 I don't think the social aspects can be ignored, a zweihander uses more metal and is more expensive as a result. Only a soldier of higher social standing or veteran soldier could afford such a weapon. At the end of the day though, this weapon was only briefly used in Renaissance warfare before commanders realized they were less important than just having more pikemen and arquebusiers
True, harder to quench and make due to their large size would need alot of work, alot of metal, alot of money! You bet a man with this type of sword was of higher standing then your average soldier of fortune
Honestly, I think this is the correct answer. Basically something along the lines of: "Swords are cool, so a really big sword must be that much cooler than a normal sword, right?"
Brotherhood of Blades is a fantastic movie about 3 Chinese brothers, each of which used a different blade type. The eldest brother fought with a giant sword, and the film did a nice job of showcasing how such a blade might have been used (theatrical embellishments aside).
What about the weapons that combined swords with polearms? Examples of sword-polearm hybrid weapons include the Han Dynasty sha, Scandainavian swordstaffs, Japanese nagamaki with sword and handle in almost equal proportions, etc. LK Chen has a video on the sha swordstaff: ua-cam.com/video/FTBagvDyTk0/v-deo.html
Great video! Hugely enjoyable. I had wondered about this, too, and this video seemed very reasonable.
As a lover of giant swords, seeing that dao being swung around at full speed really provides a pretty good argument for why people would want one, that thing is utterly terrifying! Trying to attack somebody using a sword like that would be like walking into a giant blender.
Despite aknowledging "dao" simply means "sword", it leaves me with no small amount of frustration how every time I hear it I think of something along the lines of the ones seen being used by WW2 Chinese soldiers just to then be faced with something completely different, and the Chinese just as well don't shy away from calling even polearms just "dao", with no other adjective, affixes or suffixes to differentiate, or using such seemimgly with no rhyme or reason, just the fondness of addressing how good the chunkier types are at chopping horses.
Perhaps you know more? Like that 'great-' dao in the video, what would you call it?
It's a miaodao, descended partially from the older and bigger changdao, which were descended from the Japanese nodachi.
As far as i know, Zweihanders were pretty much used in small groups in formation battles when pikes and similar weapons became common.
They followed behind the pikes and waited until the opposing pike lines collide into each other.
Just when the frontline was stuck and the pikes moved over to carefully stabbing and testing the opposing line, several elite Landsknechte with Zweihanders pushed forward through the lines, massively swirling around and by that, breaking and pushing the enemie's pikes aside.
In german you would say "sie schlugen eine Gasse", that's why a nother common german expression for this special type of sword is "Gassenhauer".
They granted the opportunity to tear a gap into the pikes in which allies where able to follow quickly, separate and surround a small group of enemies and eliminate them.
After this the remaining Gassenhauer went back behind the pikes and started this procedure again some meters away to isolate the next portion of the enemy army.
Yes, they were somewhat elite, but yes, they used to die quite often *cough*
It was just a very very dangerous job and therefore payed very well, I think.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was because swordsmiths were just flexing and people looked at whatever the fuck they made and went like ''bloody hell that's cool!''
27:45 “You’re moving your hands up and down the shaft”
I always thought they may work well used as a riot control style weapon. Small number of guards "police" vs large numbers of unarmored opponents with small or improvised weapons.
Not really. Because if there are a mob of enemies having a large two-handed weapon means you're not carrying a shield. If you're not carrying a shield you're very vulnerable to getting pelted with rocks (even if you're wearing good armor and a helmet a cobblestone will hurt, just through its delivered kinetic energy. Enough that a rain of cobblestones will knock you out). The best riot control weapon (if you want to kill someone) is a large shield and sword. If you don't want to kill people then a large shield and a baton or cane.
@@fiendishrabbit8259 This is a good point about larger crowds, but as the group gets smaller, toward say, a gang or group, part of controlling that situation becomes more psychological. Having a shield and single-handed weapon diminishes your range and offensive power, especially on one side. It makes you look defensive, instead of offensive. I imagine in a gang you don't want to be the first guy cut down by a great big sword and it might be enough to discourage 3-6 people from taking you on.
For crowd control you don't need to kill everyone. One or two sliced up qith a honking big blade and a majority will leave.
Untrained militias and peasant rebellions have a very bad reputation on the battlefield. They are expected to cut and run, unless they have overwhelming numbers. That is until faced with an aparently or perceived unstoppable force. Take any crew of 5 guys spoiling for a fight, one is the ringleader, one is the cronie, and 3 want to go home. Expand this, add the sociology of crowds, then a gruesome death at the hands of an armored spinning whirlwind of death, and poof there goes up to 80% of your crowd.
Was it used that way? No idea. The hypothesis seems plausible though.
@@fiendishrabbit8259 By the time thease weapons are made good plate armour are also avalible so you can do without the shield.
The more I think about it, the more great sword makes sense as an area denial weapon. The point of balance makes it easier to swing it fast in wide arcs, and long cutting area means that you cannot get inside the reach as easily as with polearm. This combined with the intimidation factor and show of status make it ideal bodyguard weapon.
Great analysis!
I wonder if far into the future historians will be having similar discussions about high-end sports cars. They are incredible feats of engineering that eat up tons of resources in production and use but are impractical from any reasonable standpoint. It might just be that a huge expensive sword was more about impressing and intimidating others than being the most practical tool for the job.
If your bodyguard carry a huge impressive sword it may scare of thugs from trying to rob you.
One look at my Fiat would have shaking in your Manolos.
Why it was actually made:
Landsknecht: "I have a giant sword, your argument is invalid."
I think large swords are a bit quicker on the strike compared to halberds for instance. The rotational speed of a halberd requires more acceleration compared to a long sword blade, and thus you can re-direct, defend and counter strike with a large sword faster than a polearm other than a spear
You can boost a pole weapon strike with your hips, though. Makes it thunder-fast.
Always love Matt's nuanced, material understanding of history.
Massive swords: *exist*
Makers of FF7: "Write that down! WRITE THAT DOWN!!"
not as massive as many of final fantasy weapon. cloud great sword for example
(not sure about this, but in general japanese have fetish about massive,heavy sword. i think it was because the heavy big weapon was associated with demonic strength culturally)
I have got to say - your content lately has been really great :)
It seems to me that the greatsword could be used to defeat polearms by aiming for the hands almost exclusively. Moving in quadi-bind, and causing injury with the long cutting edge.
!
Excellent ! Yes THIS is a real good reason.
RIGHT, when people think about how heavily armored the 15th century was in general they forget that the _average_ soldier still wouldn't have more than a breastplate and maybe some mail if they wanted to spend the cash for it (but they had little reason to expect blades!) Now you've got this bigass sword windmilling around threatening to slice your limbs.
At 17:00 it looked like he was gonna slice the heck out of his hand with all those gestures.
If a two handed sword is more prone to breakage with early metallurgy; wouldn't that suggest that they are less likely to survive in tact and therefore might have been more common than the historical record suggests.
Factor also reusing swords or repurposing them and it makes you wonder. Especially after WWI & II not to mention the 7 years war, lot of metal was taken an repurposed for the wars.
Perhaps, but if they broke that much I doubt they would continue being made
That is a very good point. I got that same idea once, when I tried to research dussacks. Steel dussacks survived to be uncovered by modern archaeologists, but the leather/wood training dussacks definitely didn't because of their ability to decompose. We only really have illustrations of training dussacks to prove that they existed. And from there, it becomes harder to tell how common they were from our modern retrospective perspective.
If they were common and broke a lot we'd have more broken
ones? A broken sword doesn't dissolve when it breaks, etc
one word: iconography
I've always found great swords a little puzzling, since they existed at a time when armor was at or near it's most protective, but lacked either the impact of an ax/mace/war hammer/poleax or the fine point of most longswords and later arming swords.
Matt: "These are very offensive weapons."
UK Gov: "We're offended. Time to ban them."
This episode nearly ruptured my innuendo gland.
Interesting, but I think I'd still prefer a swordstaff/naginata (with longer blades than most polearms) in those situations.
Thank you for making content and sharing your wisdom with us. It benefits many people that you do this- without men like you there is precious little in the way of master level knowledge and skill on these topics, especially in the world NOWADAYS.
How much of an advantage do you get from the fact that the weapons are simply unusual/rare?
Does the experience of fighting against smaller swords translate well to fighting against someone with a really big sword?
If not then having a really big sword might give you an advantage because your opponents won't have as much experience when it comes to fighting against your weapon.
You're right, it doesn't translate well. One handed and two handed swords are completely different. You've got a lot less reach with a two handed sword, but make up for it with the longer blade. You can't stop a two handed sword once it's started moving, it's got too much energy. You have to rush them, but then they'll just smash your head in with the pommel or cross guard, or half sword you. Most people with a two handed sword have been well fed with nutritious food, well trained, and well rested. They also tended to be crazy as hell. They're not going to be easy opponents, no matter the weapon they're using.
Your final comments about the fear-factor inspired by guys armed with Zweihänder were very astute.
Hypothesis: Swords are cool, ergo bigger sword equals more cool.
Minsc agrees.
To my mind in the realm of defense you have a very fast weapon to keep assailants at bay when outnumbered and you'd expect your other security to keep anyone running around in full harness well away from the person being guarded, but just weapons are much easier to hide, that or in case of a mob as a weapon against people out of armor the advantages seem even clearer.
This title will generate some interesting comments.