Sword can only kill unarmoured units

>Swords fast, can deal with lots of unarmoured enemies
>Hammer slow, can deal with one or two armoured enemies

Hmmm, it's almost as if choice of weapon depends on the situation. What next, you're going to say that archers never used bows because they're impossible to use at close-quarters combat with knights, defeating the purpose??

>sword fast, hammer slow

Yeah, on the defense. Not on the offense.

hammer is just very akward to wield, because its center of gravity is far away from your groip

*grip

Swords are a large lump of steel, even if you wear armour that deels enough shock damage to knock enemies to the ground. And when they are on the ground you can rondel them in the armpit.

Name one place I can't hit someone with a hammer and they not feel it's impact

Put on a leather bike jacket and let me hit you with a sledgehammer then

No but user you're forgetting that overall hammer's DPS is higher and it doesn't suffer a penalty to unarmored units like sword does with any unit with a higher armor than tier one, so hammer is obviously better.

Plus, combo moves are important to take into account.

High medieval chestplate with padded garnet underneath

Early medieval chainmail with padded garnet underneath

Leather bike jackets made to suffer a biker scraping past the concrete, not to soften the blow of a hammer dumb dumb.

Put on a gambeson, and a chestplate over it, and a hammerblow to the chest won't harm you all that much.

Name one place I can't hit someone with a sword and they not feel it's impact

Which is relevant in defense, and not in offense, where its center of gravity is just right to deliver quick, strong blows.
The problem is you cant as quickly retreat the weapon to deflect enemy blows.

Axes are a better offending weapon than the sword, and a worse defending weapon, for that reason.

More impartant thing is probably reach, warhammers are on average, a lot shorter than swords, and even a bit shorter than axes.

you are just way quicker with sword in general.
if your enemy parries your strike, you can hit him again from a different angle immediatelly.
meanwhile, with hammer, you are simply not nearly as quick

you do know the vast majority of a medival army where unarmered levy with a spear?
I'd take a long sword over a warhammer anyday when facing someone weilding a fucking a spear. Warhammers where speciality weapons used against the way less common armored elites, and even then. Why would you want to kill a knight when you could ransom him for so much more profit.

This is relevant in a low armor situation, where your main means of defense is deflection and evasion.
If you are in full kit, you will probably even wrestle a but, pull and push each other, use the axe or hammer to hook away weapon, shield, head of the opponent and so on. It will be close up and daggers will make their way in.

So a low armor situation calls for the sword, because of its effectiveness and because of the distance low armor fighting is done at, while heavy armor calls for the hammer and dagger, because of its own requirements of beating each other into submission with multiple blows and driving the metal spike in with both hands.

In the same line of thought, it is easier to parry a sword strike than it is to parry a hammer strike.
You can't quickly recover after parrying a hammer, because the blow is stronger and will be more dedicated, since you can't quickly withdraw a hammer anyway, might as well go all out.

How is reach not important in 'high armour situations"? Do you think they invented the poleaxe because it looked so snazy? No becayse it was an axe/hammer combo on a long pole. Reach is everything in combat, even in situations were everybody is walking around in heavy armour. Because even in heavy armour, not getting hit is preferreable to getting hit.

It's probably harder to parry a swords strike because the center of mass is closer to the controller of the weapon, thus making it easier to keep control of your weapon. While a warhammer is balanced towards the tip, making it a lot harder to control.

>Do you think they invented the poleaxe because it looked so snazy?

No, they invented it to fight horsemen, and to block the way for criminals in urban environments.

You aren't making any sense. Tip heavy weapons simply strike with more force, and thats why they are harder to properly parry.
You have to block more force, and thus its unlikely that you can transition into a counter attack.

>not using a polehammer and a sword along with a shield
No such thing as bad weapons if you don't limit yourself to how many you can have
Unless it's a katana, that one is garbage

>ITT: people think they know more about medieval combat than those who fought and died doing it for multiple generations.

1. swords can not "only kill unarmoured".
2. blunt weapons can not kill as easily.

they are shorter reach - a significant disadvantage. they are less practical to defend with, far less practical to make any sort of fencing type action and response, as per the german longsword plays (ie, zornhau into ochs, absetzen, mutieren, winden, etc.). impact weapons are not an instant win vs armour - most impacts are deflected, just the same as bladed weapons (people significantly underestimate how tough armour is).

maces, and warhammers excel in limited areas. Horseback, one-handed, principally.

You are thinking about the halberd or the pike a poleaxe is a two handed weapon specialised in taking out heavy armoured infantry, take a look at it's wikipedia page, that's probably on your level.

Tip heavy weapons don't strike with more force, they strike with more concentrated force. The amount of force in a strike is the same, with a sword or with a warhammer. This is important because if you are gonna block a warhammer blow, you will probably aim for the handle (if you have a melee weapon and not a shield). Because the handle is larger, thus easier to hit, it's also wood so your weapon will have more grip on it. If you manage to block the hit you will have weapon contact with the enemy weapon BELOW it's heaviest point, giving you a lot more control than your opponent.Thus it's easier to misdirect the blow.

>Tip heavy weapons don't strike with more force, they strike with more concentrated force.
Arguing semantics.

>the rest of the post
Arguing from your armchair.
I did HEMA, blocking top heavy weapons is objectively harder than blocking balanced weapons.
Not even the subtle this-beer-tastes-better variety, objective and obvious difference in the difficulty of blocking the strike.
Test it, instead of reasoning it. For finding the truth of a claim empiricism beats rationalism. Especially when its so easy to construct the experiment.

>Doesn't know about muh half swording

>bazooka can kill a tank
>it can also kill a person

why are pistols even used then?

Checkmate atheists.

Just. Stop.

Some of us have actually been in fights. If nerves or muscle aren't severed, limbs still work. I've seen little kids function despite having bone jabbing through skin. I've gone running on a broken fucking foot.

A solid steel plate disperses force and leaves the weapon less than effective.

There were men who took upwards of twenty hits from poleaxes in duels and continued fighting.

The poleax delivers far more force than any mace could hope to.

No, it's also true on the offense, because the sword has better reach for the same mass.

Poleaxes are five feet long, you retard. they're meant for men on foot to kill men on foot.

You don't actually know what a parry is.

Protip: It's entirely different from blocking, and involves redirecting force, not stopping it.

>Some of us have actually been in fights. If nerves or muscle aren't severed, limbs still work. I've seen little kids function despite having bone jabbing through skin. I've gone running on a broken fucking foot.
..it's very much possible to get blunt trauma to the point where you can't effectively use the muscles.

But he has a point that people can take a lot of damage, and you'd better get that perfect hit with your mace if you want to disable the guy's arm. Meanwhile a good hit with a sword can sever tissue and start him bleeding out, not to mention skeletons from pre-modern warfare often show broken bones from sword blows. So there's an element of blunt trauma there anyways.

Yeah sure, don't disagree there at all. He just took it to bit of an extreme.

Because you OP are smarter and more knowledgeable than the entirety of human martial history.

CONGRATULATIONS OP, YOU KNOW BEST. IN TWO SHORT POSTS YOU MANAGED SHOW HOW EVERY OF THE LITERALLY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF BLADED WEAPON DESIGNS SPREAD AROUND THE GLOBE WERE NOT IN FACT PRACTICAL TOOLS GOODS AT THEIR JOB BUT NOTHING SHORT OF MEME WEAPONS CLEARLY OUTMATCHED BY BLUNT INSTRUMENTS. IF ONLY THEY HAD YOU TO CONSULT MAYBE THEY WOULDN'T HAVE WASTED SO MUCH METAL ON FAGGY, SHITTY, LAME-ASS SWORDS.

There comes a point where a cursory glance at history should immediately tell you that your assumption about combat is wrong. That if a weapon is consistently produced from the bronze age, with even attempts to copy the design using flint and stone, the design likely has a merit far beyond your understanding.

There cones a point where opinions should rightfully be ignored and you reached. Your opinion, OP, should be ignored.

...damn

The OP asks a quesstion: "Why were swords even used then?" rather than stating "And therefore there's no point in using swords." Sure the latter COULD be what the OP is thinking or what he actually meant (so that the question would have been a rhetorical one) but let's not be assholes and jump into conclusions.
The first premise is certainly wrong, but being wrong is not a crime.

And you knowledge about swords is based on Berserk manga/anime?

youtube.com/watch?v=5hlIUrd7d1Q

Go to 35s

If the percussive damage of swords was so great, HEMA would be an extremely dangerous pastime.... The protective gear people use in HEMA is certainly less protective than actual armor.

>Why were swords even used then?
Based on the assumption stated in the op that Warhammers and maces were superior at killing people. Which is instantly disproved be the countless civilizations from Egypt to SE Asia that switched to blades and spears from clubs and maces.

>Put on a leather bike jacket and let me hit you with a sledgehammer then

Sledgehammer is not a weapon. It is to heavy so successfully wield it in battle, because as every other tool, you have to strike into stationary targets. Missing with it makes you unable to "pull it back" thanks to high mass.

>Which is instantly disproved be the countless civilizations from Egypt to SE Asia that switched to blades and spears from clubs and maces.
Again

There is a point where opinions, even if framed as a question, should be ignored.

because a war hammer is alot slower and harder to control than a sword

The answers here are retarded. Swords are nimble because their weight is towards the hilt. This let's them be much longer while still deadly because, even if they don't hit a hard, they can cut and thrust through soft things (clothing, flesh). Hammers are designed to deliver blunt impact, so their weight is towards the end. This makes them far less nimble and, so they can be maneuvered at all, much shorter. An unarmored guy with a sword will almost always beat an unarmored guy with a hammer. However, if an armored guy has a hammer he can charge past the cuts and thrusts of a sword, tackle sword man, and beat his skull in.

War hammers are short weapons and they're pretty bad for defence. They're mostly cavalry weapons which you use while riding past people and whacking them over the head.

Also, against heavily armoured opponents wearing plate you don't want to use the blunt end but the beak instead.

>Swords
Center of balance is around the guard making it much easier to control, worse if they hit armour, better control makes it potentially easier to circumvent armour. This is generally a faster weapon and is very effective against unarmoured or lightly armoured levies that make up the bulk of the army.

>Maces/Warhammers
Centre of balance is further along the weapon, control is exchanged for additional weight at the end of the weapon. This is a slower weapon and is more effective against armoured opponents.

As a result most people brought multiple weapons to the battlefield.

Why didn't priests use warhammers instead of maces? They couldn't use swords, since it would draw blood.

And even then, they still preferred maces.

>They couldn't use swords, since it would draw blood.
>And even then, they still preferred maces.

Both of these are myths.

Why the fuck are priests not allowed to carry plate armor?
this is fucking retarded

>inb4 muh paladin

Blunt weapons like pic related require more momentum and power to effectively operate.

To deal a blow to an armored opponent, you'd have to bring the hammer back and initiate a relatively long swing. If you take too long to swing, your opponent can easily stab you. If you miss, you'd exhausted most of your energy and it would take longer to initiate the swing again, thus making you an easy target.

Swords, on the other hand, require less momentum and power. Using a sword is obviously much faster than a hammer (unless you're using a claymore or something). This speed also allows you to effectively block any blows from the opponent.

>"but a sword can piece armor"

There a parts of armor that aren't protected ;)

In a typical phalanx, a indivual would not have enough space to swing anything overhead. That's why stabbing weapons work best. Longer weapons, like spears and lances, have bad leverage and are ineffective after the enemy get close.

That's why it's better to use sharp weapons in large scale combats.

OP has no idea on how to use a sword against a man in armour

I hate to say this, but warhammers weren't blunt...

swords and daggers were around for a lot longer until proper "anti-sword" armour appeared, the same way guns were killing everyone until a proper "anti-bullets" armour appeared lately
let's just say that a proper combatant would have the right tool for the right job: hammer to stun heavy armoured foes, sword for fencing other sword wielders and knife for very-close-combat stabbing. protection evolved later than weaponry, as a reaction

>being this martially illiterate

A child could drive the point of a longsword through your heart twice in the time it takes you to swing that thing.

This isn't D&D... or is it ?

>A child could drive the point of a longsword through your heart twice in the time it takes you to swing that thing.
t. someone who's never held a longsword

>This isn't D&D... or is it ?

no, most of that's D&D. Tiny kernel of history, in that Odo, brother of William the Conqueror, used a club or cudgel, because he's sworn a vow not to use a sword.

the whole "maces dont draw blood" bitt is also rather wrong, if you've ever seen what a mace will do to a watermelon, and use a tiny bit of imagination of what the same result is to a skull.

its a blue board, so I'm not adding a picture, but the word "splash" comes to mind.

polearms>rapiers>whatever

Now, context! Germany speaking...

A sword is a sidearm, you can wear one with little trouble while doing just about anything. A polax is a weapon of war, you can't really "wear" it, you have to hold it in your hands.

Many blunt weapons are sidearms too...

>rapiers
Maybe in duels and in certain styles.

Swords are more effective than blunt arms in a lot of situations.
>speed
Swords are all together faster to use. Generally their weight is backwards allowing one to chamber and other nice things.
>distance
Swords are deadly just striking with the tip, however, in extreme close quaters they can be used to create draw and push cuts by using the length of the weapon.
>defence
Because of their distance a speed they are used differently. This allows for gaps to be quickly covered and small pokes at the enemy to be relatively safe until they decide to risk it and attack outright. With blunt weapons the strikes require a more pronounced movement. This would mean you'd want to start getting your hits to count earlier rather than setting things up.
>damage
Unless you're fighting heavily armed men, usually seen in later period war there's no massive bonus. Smaller engagements or earlier engagements didn't provide the full suits of armour to handle.

That's a cavalry weapon and it's kinda shitty on foot.

Someone on the ground would use pic related with a sword as well.

>Why were swords even used then?
Kek, because everyone was more or less unarmoured.

I don't feel like reading the entire thread? Who won the debate, sword or hammer fag? I want to play diablo II again for the nostalgia as the Barbarian and need to chose my weapon.

The winner is polearm (like it always is)

Oh. I think I'll pick the sword anyway ;^)

Sword is very practical.
It can be used as a blunt weapon (pommel), cutting weapon, or for stabbing.
It's faster and more balanced. It can be used more efficiently in close quarters combat.
There's a reason swords were used for so long, even if they weren't primary weapon.
That said, literally nothing stopped you from carrying a sword, a blunt weapon like hammer, and a polearm as a primary weapon. In fact, many did.

Swords are cool.

Swords are a much better weapon overall. You target is not a test dummy.

>can't be grabbed
>quickly retracted
>kills effortlessly with slashing
>can parry

just a few reasons

>can't be grabbed