If you had to arm untrained peasants to fight armored fighitng men...

When in doubt, spear. Everyone can use a spear.

Spears as main and bludgeon weapons as backup

If only one can be used, spears are the correct choice then

Spears
Slings
Hunting bows
Axes
Farming equip

This is tangentially related to something far more important: morale. There's a reason people who use ranged weapons are half-seriously called cowards. It takes a lot more courage to fight someone in close combat where the other guy can seriously hurt you. Since you're not going to suddenly turn your untrained peasants into grizzled veterans anytime soon, equipping them with spears so they can keep their distance helps maintain their morale so they don't fall into disarray the moment the shit hits the fan.

Spears. Always spears.
You peasants can't go rounds with a hard end vet. Letting a seasoned warrior near your farmers spells trouble, so you create a wall of sharp bits. It allows the second rank to clean up any that get past the initial wall. The extent of a pike man's training in a pinch is "pull back, push forward.". Even a full plated fighter can get stabbed in the squishy bits with enough pikes.

Swords are too unwieldy and specialized, and bludgeon weapons , while effective, still rely on strength and need space to weild. Pikes, that shit is nasty. Even if the cavalry charges, at least some of the enemy horses will fall dead. I really couldn't see a mace really stopping a charge.

Pole Flails are the traditional weapon of peasant and middle class uprisings. The real trick is to make it so they can't fight on their own terms, because they have the advantage on an open field. War wagons, crossbows, guns, pikes, and bludgeoning weapons.

Drifters is an anime with a very good concept but an iffy execution.

I am at least glad that it isn't as bad as GATE.

That fucking theme, though, stuck in your head for YEARS

Blunt weapons are best against plate armor,
so unless your peasants are fighting knights. . .

. . .I'd go farm equipment.
They will be the most familiar with it and will have it abundantly on hand

Just give me the feeling

...

Na na na na na na

>need space to weild
So do spears

Spears, not pikes. Pikes are long to the point of needing training and high levels of coordination. There are enough of battles In history where an untrained like line was beaten by a weapon much shorter due to poor training.

Just make a pedant railgun

Mounted or not?

Do you have an example? Not calling you out but am a genuinely interested historyfag

No, spears are vastly superior. They have longer reach and are very easy to train people with.

Polearms are still the best option. Bludgeons are for finishing off the knocked down man at arms.

Other than that you would need to dig in, there is no way your peasant mob could stand against an army without an advantage.

I can't think of any example of the top of my about an untrained line of pikes, but disorganised pikes are easily beaten. See Battle of Flodden or Battle of Dupplin Moor. And an untrained unit of pikes is almost certainly going to be disorganised

Crosssbows, muskets, suicide vests

A mix of both. Majority with spears to hold the line and keep distance while jabbing away like mad. And some of the bigger or more capable guys with bludgeoning weapons to break through the ranks or flank to deal some hit and run attacks.

Just use polearms, it's what they used to historically. The billhook is literally just farming equipment, sharpened.

Scythes turned into pikes (not war scythes, scythe-based pikes) are probably the most dangerous weapon you can arm your peasants with.
Unless you have guns, that is.

It really depends but I would personaly go with spears and shields.

The spear will give the enemy infantry a hard time to get close and the shield will hopefully make sure that those pesky archers will have a hard time turning your plebian horard into pincushions.

Then it comes down to location. I don't know that the area looks like but a forrest will make the archers life harder (you try to hit shit with a arrow through hundreds of meters of leaves and trees) and enemeis with heavy armour will have to stumbel around on root filld uneven ground with helmets that have bad vision.

Also make sure to fight on high ground to make it even worse for them.

>Shovels
>Dig holes fucking everywhere
>Regardless of what you arm/train them with moral and a sense of purpose if a bigger force multiplier than the weapon they hold.

hammers, makeshift shields and knives. go get'em boys.

obviously i am assuming that the peasant have the numbers. if not, i'll tell them to surrender or flee

spears are sh*t against enemies in plate armor on foot. only use them against mounted enemies. against the foot soliders, hammer, shield and knife. the idea is to overwhelm them in numbers, stun, them grapple them and finally stab them with knives and daggers.

What's the general tech level are we talking about? Is gunpowder weapons a thing? Do we have Halberds, maces, hammers or swords?

Yeah that's not such a bad idea, If certain anecdotes from the great war is to be trusted they where pretty effectivet at dealing both blunt force truma and cleaving.

However compared to a spear which requires a lot less metal (which means you can make more of them) and is generally much easier to wield efficiently in a large group they would probably work better

what context?

what technology? roman? 18th C? high medieval?
what sort of untrained peasants? city? farmers? etc?
what equipment at your disposal for equipping them? Trade? Local blacksmith?
what sort of armoured fighting men are you defending from? vikings? 15th C italian mercenary company? genoese crossbowmen?

so many variables, there's no easy answer.

but bludgeoning weapons are rarely the right answer. they are generally short, and lose the advantage of reach. Close-in works fine if you are the one armoured... when you're unarmoured, you rapidly end up being dead.

>implying choosing the right tactic doesnt have a huge impact on morale

I like the idea of peasants being used to their strength instead of just fodder for trained, experienced soldiers.

Have them on the roof tops with rocks, have them build barricades, traps, spike-pits, have sections of the city ready to burn at a moments notice

The charcoal maker has kindling all over the city, ready to burn controlled sections under the control of the Fire-Watch.

The farm hands have dug pits set with spikes from the carpenters guild.

The Shipwrights and Timberwrights have set up a log-fall trap down mainstreet.

The thespians and acting troupes have wandered in to the enemy camp under the act of entertaining them, they will report back anything useful come morning.

The blacksmiths have been working overtime with any strong enough to bend heated metal in to caltrops.

The herbalists and the cooks have got together and made a nefarious concoxious of itching plants and various peppers shaved and ready to disperse either through dumping a whole blanket over the marching formations or via a very thin clay earn.

Take a leaf out of the Home Guard from WWII in Britain, they weren't given rifles and expected to fight man for man they were given supplies, petrol, explosives, wires. Told to make tank traps and all sorts of shit.

>Implying peasant morale does not massively impact the chances of the plan coming together.

These aren't soldiers, they are peasants. A soldier that can understand and feels confident in the plan yes, the peasant with no understanding of warmaking would not give two blue fucks and would be better served kept busy and be made to feel more useful so as to not think about the army coming to his home.

If it worked for the viet cong, it should work here as well.

A blunt weapon needs to hit hard to do damage. A glancing blow probably won't do much, and a light tap won't get anywhere either.

A point on the other hand will piercing through flesh with little force behind it, and a sharp edge can cut to the bone with frightening ease.

Now in order to deliver those heavy impacts, blunt weapons will tend to be relatively tip-heavy. Making for a slower windup, and sluggish recovery if you miss.

So they don't seem terribly beginner friendly to me, even if they can most certainly get the job done. If we do need to rely on heavy impacts to do damage to heavily armoured foes (wrestling, dagger and halfswording perhaps being less useful in formation fighting) then I would expect a bill or halberd, or even a somewhat suitable spear, to be able to deliver that thanks to the length of the shaft.

Missile weapons and clever use of the terrain are also things to keep in mind.

It didn't work for the VC tho. They were slaughtered en masse, only the NVA could stand up to the Americans.

again, it depends on numbers. if you do have the numbers, also choose the right strategy, if you don't, you risk early setbacks and moral breaking. however, if the peasants can stun and grapple, then stab the heavily armored guys early on with relatively light casualties, their morale will rise high. if they have makeshift shields and the numbers, chances are not bad against foot soldiers.

GATE was hilarious. It wasn't a good anime. That's not why I liked it. I liked it because it justified colonialism. That shit was hilarious.

I think I my sides reached escape velocity when they demanded mining rights. Hilarious.

Depends on the degree of armor. Spears are better if its like pic related (cause enough spears will eventually hit something important), blunt weapons are better if they're more fully armoured.

Of course, I would generally recommend either not arming untrained individuals or providing a bit of training first. Or, and this would be better overall, give them slings and let the professionals handle the actual fighting. You can train someone to basic competency with a sling in a very short amount of time, and its cheap as balls to arm them.

You named two of the battles I was going to quote. Pikes are known for being a bit unweildy and I'd rather take a shorter spear.

Addition, also I think it is called the battle of the golden spurs. Not spears but a weapon called a godenag? Basically a club with a spike on it, which ties into other posts.

No, knights used bludgeoning weapons because they were good against other knights, and the reduced reach was irrelevant against unarmored opponents since the knight himself was armored and most probably on horseback.

Peasants and unarmored man-at-arms used hooks to down and beat knighs.

What about mass produced crossbows?

If you have mass production of crossbows, then the enemy probably have similar tech and a focused force (i.e. fewer men, more materiel per man).
The probable result is that he's sending a unit of riflemen (or mixed crossbowmen and knights on big chargers, or similar) against your rag-tag arqbusiers. Time to flee, user.

youtube.com/watch?v=dqlIcT9Ps8w

Giving crossbows to peasants worked well for Qin though.

Mass crossbows

otherwise spears

>killing a downed noble

Ransom just ain't enough to pay for some sins.

Especially if you know he'll be back in a month to burn down the villages and straight out murder the women.

The animation and artstyle is top notch though, as expected of Hirano. Everything the man touches turns to gold, goddamn

>That scene
>Middle guy belongs to one of the wealthiest families in the land.
>Had a set of arms and armour only a few seasons ago.
>Now fights with a stick while wearing a dress.
>No Poor Fellows/Warrior's Sons, just 'sparrows'
>GoT Season 5/6 in general

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

lure into pit trap, then use long pikes. apparently this is just an attempt to cause rage off some shitty show