Axes are not as good cutting weapons as sword. Not as good blunt/piercing weapons as maces, and doesn't have the reach of spear.
Plus, you have to swing it, unlike a spear.
So, I get that axes are like a cheepo sword that has some piercing ability, but whats the point of the great-axe?
You want a weapon to fight unarmored people, use a spear. If you want to fight armored foes, use a mace/hammer. You can afford either of those if you can afford a great-axe.
So whats the point?
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It's great and it's an axe.
uhhh... you can chop down trees with it? I imagine thats usefull
They were pretty good at felling horses.
Axes can do something that swords, hammers and spears Can't do; they can hook an enemies should and pull it from him.
Fictional meme weapon
Dane-axes shattered shields.
Weapons are not tools, and they are bad at things tools excel at. You can chop wood with battle axe, sure, but you can also chop with knife, or with a spoon, or with a safety-pin...
Axes can smash weaker shields, spears, and can usually kill or at least maim someone with a blow. Plus, most farmers or woodsmen had at least some sort of axe lying around. Generally, before the age of standardized armies with unified supply, soldiers took what weapons they could get.
No one ever used something as huge and heavy as that in actual combat, it would be unwieldy as fuck. See for something that's actually useful in a fight
I don't think this question can be answered without Lindybeige's input
they didn't exist
They never used axes like this irl in battle, it's just fantasy shit. The danish axe and the Russian bardiche are the biggest axes got and even they had very thin and moderately sized heads.
Also, double headed axes were only used for cutting trees or ceremonially, not in war.
Looks baller
Call me a retard, I don't give a shit, but I believe that the labrys may of been used as a weapon in the bronze age. Not a good weapon, mind you, but I believed it was used.
not with real ones:
Double headed battle axes are attested in sagas.
I't fucking brutal as fuck. That's the point.
Labrys doesn't seem to be that different from Royal Scepters, or Thor Hammers.
Or Groose Pierre swords.
For swinging it really hard, you get more bang for your buck with an axe than a mace or a sword. If you want to overpower your opponent there isn't a better choice.
The double heads in and of themselves can be useful (more weight behind blow, better balance, 2nd head could be useful as a backup in case the other side cracked)
i bought this on a bored impulse buy
now, to justify it's existence, i post it ITT
having gotten into HEMA since then i hate myself for not putting the hundred dollars into a federschwert instead
i remember reading somewhere that axes are effective in concentrating the transfer of kinetic energy in a way swords can't (you wouldn't try to cut down a tree with a sword), so it becomes really staggering when you hit someone in the head if they have a helmet on, and then the edge is an effective cutting tool in itself.
but i don't remember where i read it, so it might be complete crap
No, that's right. It's just that it's not as good at crushing as a mace or as good at cutting as a sword. If you want to bludgeon someone then a mace is better and a sword is much more nimble and versatile than an axe if you want to cut or stab someone.
It's great for destroying wooden shields and the arms underneath them, though, and yurop had those in abundance.
A giant fuck-off double bladed hunk of steel like that? Yeah that's pretty useless.
Something like a Dane-axe or a halberd, where you have a reasonably sized blade at the end of a long pole? You got reach, power, a handy hook, and it's much cheaper than a sword too.
An axe is a superior weapon against maille armor, but inferior to a sword against flesh and to a mace against plate. Also, an axe is a terrible defensive weapon, it's unweildy and can't be used to effectively parry. As to why you'd use one, you probably wouldn't IF you owned a sword, but of course an axe is much easier and cheaper to make than a sword so part-time soldiers might find an axe to be the best weapon they have access to.
axes in general were used widely for a makeshift weapon. It wasn't the norm that you came in contact with a great axe. from architectural findings what there are a lot of in large scale battles were spears, arrows, and swords. Axes however could be found in the earlier years of the Middle Ages, 1000's and earlier, I'd sight some sources, but honestly as a history major, just this past semester i've probably put in roughly 150 pages worth of work and I am tired of formal writing style.
Like my the fellows who have commented recently; The Danes, Norsman, (vikings) were most common users of axes in battle, but we only really see this in norther European battles, as we know the clans of "vikings" that make it to Italy adapt and improve their weapons as they move closer to Rome.
as for the advantages of axes, there were not many. They were good for busting a sheild, though it left one's body exposed if the axe god stuck. Also if an axe was wooden, which they often were, they had a good chance of breaking at the shaft and the man being left with just a piece of wood before they could really have done damage to multiple people. However, IF they did use that axe once or more... they did do some serious damage to armor, limbs, and so on. you see armor at the time when axes were most common is really just metal covering to protect from slashes, cuts, maybe arrow ricochet. what you see is a lot of leather, mail, and bits of plate. what this kind of armor did was really just protect vitals, if you were hit in the arm from a sword while wearing plate or mail.... you were hurting! you didn't lose your hand or arm at that moment and maybe be able to keep fighting, but you were looking at a deep wound possibly and had the potential to lose it later on from infection or die from bleeding out if you survived the battle. WHAT AN AXE DID was full on destroy that armor. a good hit from an axe in the head, arm, stomach... you were dead man.
have you ever seen what happens to things that get hit by axes?
So are giants and dragons
you just pulled that shit straight out of your ass the very same time you were typing it.
Curious as to why you think that?
because it's fucking retarded shit without a single joint to the real world and you know it.
Pretty much everything he wrote was either outright wrong or laughably overstated. It's 3 in the morning, can't be assed to address it all right now, but if this thread's still alive in the morning I will.
I really should refrain from commenting on
>I'd sight some sources, but honestly as a history major ... i've probably put in roughly 150 pages worth of work
>from architectural findings
... but I'm not that good of a person.
If axes were so shit why were they used up to the 16th century?
And I don't even mean as an emergency poor mans weapon but even by relatively well equiped/rich soldiers.
baka... i meant archaeologist. wow, silly me.
HOWEVER
> If you're talking about European Warfare?
>If you're talking about those poles that are sometimes 5-7 feet tall and have an ax blade at the end. I think that's called a halberd.
>if you're talking about Battle axes were eventually phased out at the end of the 16th century as military tactics began to revolve increasingly around the use of gunpowder. I think you should stop looking to Wikipedia for information.
>if you look closely I'm talking specifically about Great Axes, you know the thing this thread is about in OP, and wooden axes used in battle by norsman.
>If you're talking about Decorative Axes, you should really reread the word Decorative because you don't really use decorative axes in battle. just like you dont use fine china as your everyday dinner or lunch plate.
>and by all means if you want to talk about other places where axes were being used, the middle east? asia? the Americas? then yes axes were being used well up past the 16th century. but as far as the great axe like the one in op then no. we really don't see great axes in battle.
I know what I'm talking about, I don't know why you want to pick a fight, just trying to inform a bit up here.
I'll tell you what though, you two find some good sources besides wiki and lmk.
Don't know why you are using such a hostile tone, I am not even the guy who said you were full of shit, but ok. I am talking about battle axes. Everyone says axes are shit in battle but they were used en masse for centuries.
Pic related
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Btw what do you consider a great axe? Most axes were 2 handed and had a haft of around 80 to 100 CM.
my mistake sir.
yeah no doubt, axes were used. I mean you look at Natives in the Americas, poor guys didn't have iron, they had wooden axes and clubs for centuries.
Axes are sharp warhammers really. They combine the lethality of bladed weapons with the bone crushing power of anti armor weapons.
Obviously they're not as effective as either, as they're too top heavy to be as agile as most swords, and their sharpness means they're more likely to glance off of curved plates, hence why they started declining in popularity after plate armor started supplementing or even replacing mail.
well great axes are usually defined by weight, size yes, and sometimes the double edge.
the axes just shown are again wooden handled, make shift weapons by non knights, and as for the picture of your fella there with the fancy clothes, I don't believe anyone ever ran into battle looking like that, again DeCoRaTiVe
> I don't believe anyone ever ran into battle looking like that
Why are you p[osting in a history board if you don't know any history? Look up the landsknecht as a start at least.
>the axes just shown are again wooden handled, make shift weapons by non knights
Nothing about these axes is makeshift. And although they're not knights, you'd find that knighty axes weren't much different from them (pic related).
Which one? The first one? Cause that is a landsknecht they did look like that. The second one I don't know, judging from the saber he's eastern european. Not that familiar with the area.
And how are these axes makeshift weapons. It is obvious these were made specifically for warfare. One even has a spike for stabbing. They aren't woodworking, or any other type of tool, axes utilized as a weapon. These are made solely for killing.
lol
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>What are polearms?
Double edged axes are mostly overused fantasy trope, only some vague manuscript mentions some used in decorative purpose.
As for axe being non knightly weapon, that's false, axes were used by mounted cavalry in all of Eurasia, particularly those that had smaller head and were lighter. Later in medieval periods you have halberds, berdiches and other variations of great axes or polearms with axe heads. They were used in infantry formations or when gunpowder weapons arrived, Russians used berdiches as kind of a stool for their heavy muskets to have a better aim.
As for people with fancy clothing, before WW1 and weapons that can shoot you a mile away, warfare was a bravado show, you had most fanciest and experienced troops carrying some outlandish clothing on a battlefield as a sign of wealth and experience and Landchnecht were no different.
Not in sagas of icelanders, where the axes are
>weapons are not tools
Oh and what are they? Extension of one's own will?
Weapons are tools
You know what he meant. While a weapon is a tool, it is not a "tool" in the sense of something designed purely for utility and not combat.
Double-bit aren't really for combat. They were mainly for lumber (both sides have different sharpness for different purpose). They are good for throwing, but obviously throwing axes in warfare was never popular.
Axes were used to a varied degreed, more so in the bronze age with groups like the messagetae. Once iron came around, though, swords became the dominant warfare weapon. Swords are designed for war and we're the premier warfare weapon. Axes were built as a tool and bad to be morphed into a real weapon. Axes advantages are they much cheaper and have effective penetration. They were used by Norsemen, Saxons, Hungarians, and the Irish, but most likely for things like financial reasons.
>(both sides have different sharpness for different purpose).
Nah. It's just for backup if the other edge gets too dull or something.
In the woodsman's axe it doesn't matter since it has to have that mass anyway whether you shape it into an alternative blade or just blunt lump, but battle axe is supposed to be as light as possible so extra blade would also be extra weight and thus impractical.
someone had a polehammer and though "I wish this was choppy".
Normally for a double bit axe, one side is sharpened more narrowly as a felling edge while the other is blunter for knots and cutting near the ground.
Talking swords are though
not as unwieldy as OPs image, the heads being fairly light.
Well there are many inferior/ineffective sword types too. What justifies their existence? People didn't theorycraft that much beforehand making and using weapons for war. However, that being said there are some unique aspects of axes which might make them advantageous to other weapons depending on the circumstances.
1) You've already answered this one. They are hybrid weapons. Cuts worse than swords but blunts better than them reverse is true versus maces too. Shorter than spears/poles but able to block better than them. They more or less perform every role for melee weapons (can include pointy ends for piercing too) albeit at a lower performance. Think axes as highly customized weapon platforms.
2) They can hook, grab and pull opponents which is a feature not found in swords, spears ans most of blunts.
3) Balanced axes, especially small ones, can be thrown. Franks-Fransiscas
4) They are cheaper to produce compared to swords and maces.
5) Somewhat personal opinion: They look scary which gives them bonus points for intimidation.
How much and where?
Axe also becomes totally obsolete with advanced pole weapons.
Berdiche and Glaive are natural advancement over it. Reinforcing weak points. Great axe did break a lot, another reason that it went out of use.
Halberd is it's armour crushing variation with two extra tools on top of it.
And ronconne is swiss army knife of them.
Pollaxe is handier, faster and quicker knights choice.
And then you have ahlspeise, partizan, vogue, battlescythe, and some further ten other pole weapons.
Yep but you can't use poles 1h and can't certainly throw them =)
A greataxe actually has a lot of power. Also, double-sided ones are an RPG meme.
>check out this guy on the internet who doesnt know what hes talking about
there are swords designed to hook into an enemies shield and pull it from them.
you uh wouldnt cut down a tree with a battle axe. have u ever chopped wood?
nvr mind i know the answer is no
>starts out with a Skyrim paddle
>turns into HEMA manuscripts
This made me very happy.
Polearms didnt have such ridiculous fantasy proportions like OP's pic.
Axes are powerful as a hammer, with a sharpened edge, add the self-satisfaction of mastering a heavy and hard to use weapon (great strength and skill needed) with the plus characteristic of being super cool and lethal. lml