What is the better infantry weapon, Pike or halberd?

Billhooks and halberds are the best pole arm weaponry.
But billhook still reign supreme against halberds.

Bill hooks.

Halberds however win in the style department.

In what situation? If a soldier has a choice of weapons what he ends up carrying would most likely depend on what kind of combat he expects, in what conditions and against what enemy.

I'm gonna provide my context since OP does not specify one; in the early renaissance the Swiss would use tight formations of pike, moving as one and fighting in support of each other to effectively counter cavalry charges. Halberds would be mixed in the formation in smaller numbers (I to recall 10-15% of the total fighting men mentioned as a number somewhere) to take care of knights who got too close to the pike and to support attacks.

The better weapon this depends on how close you are to your enemy and how many mates you got with you. Pikes if you and your friends want to hold of cavalry charges, halberds if you perosnally want to get up close to a knight and split his skull open.

That is a shit smithing job

Neither.

Pike keeps your opponent far away from you. That's typically good for your health. If they get past your pike point though, you better hope your battle brother behind or beside you has a halberd or poleaxe to fuck that guy up. If the enemy is a Landsknecht mercenary then both of you are doomed

Pikes make for great formations, while halberds make for great gap exploiting or protecting weapons

It's a stupid question because it provides no context.

Halberd will be superior against opponents wearing armour (more impact) as evidenced by the generations of habsburg knights that got chopped to bits by burly Swiss peasants with halberds, and it is multi-use (hook, chop, thrust etc).

A pike is superior in situations where the only thing that matters is reach, and as a defensive weapon deployed to protect archers or troops with guns. The pike is also nearly useless when used outside of a large formation of other pike-wielders, and much too clumsy to use one-vs one due to it's length, it's only really effective when you have a block of people who are drilled to move in formation with it.

So what are you using it for?

Pike is absolutely not easier to learn since it's worthless without lots of training in moving with it, as evidenced by The Battle of Flodden in 1513 when Scottish pikemen got absolutely murdered by English Billmen, despite outnumbering them, largely due to their trouble in maneuvering with the pike.

meanwhile, halberds and bills, due to their shorter length and easy instinctive use (hack them to bits) is a lot more forgiving to give to fresher soldiers.

poleaxe is just a rich man's halberd.

>The swiss fear the mighty Zweihander

i'm really digging the little groups of dudes with guns in these pictures. a lot of people don't think about the fact that knights and guns coexisted in warfare for a time.

>for a time
For a couple hundred years.
Earliest reliable evidence of use in medieval Europe is from around 1330, both cannon and handgonnes.

Articulated "knightly" armour started to really decline around the second quarter of the 1500s.

Some people have already hit on it and there's a lot of cool books in the /hwg/ that explain this better than I am, but they were gradually moved over to mixed formations, with pikes for defensive formation against cavalry and halberds for chopping flanks of engaged blocks pike pushing.

Over time the ratio of halberds:pikes went more and more in favour of pikes for various reasons. Less armour, more defensive focus of pike blocks, (although if I remember, the sweedish brought in aggressive pike block charges later). They remained officer's weapons, bodyguards, etc. for some time afterwards though. There's also a decent amount of regional difference, in a massive overgeneralization they were still more prevalent for longer in forces east of the HRE and in various middle eastern armies. And mercenaries/loan troop of various nationalities, cultural groupings, etc. fought all over the place so its not particularly uniform. 15th-17th century pike&shote warfare was when modern standardization of armed forces was just starting to be a thing again for most of Europe.

It's not entirely correct to say it was designed to be used by heavily armoured warriors, it was designed to be more useful in closer quarters and man against man, rather than as a formation weapon.

The shorter reach makes it less unwieldy and easier to use for blocks, cross checking and general movement restriction.

It was ideal for armoured fighters going up against other armoured fighters for that specific reason, but it was used by other people than knights and men at arms too.

Halberd is a good general purpose weapon.
Pikes are for massed organized fighting, not man to man combat.

>1330
1250's user.
And the stereotypical full plate shiny knight armor got developed in the 1500's.

>1250's user.
Source? I'm talking legit archaeological evidence of use in the region, not the first time they were actually used or mentioned.

>And the stereotypical full plate shiny knight armor got developed in the 1500's.

Did you confuse 15th century with 1500s or something? There were definitely what we'd recognize as knights in plate armour before that. Complete suits of plate armour had been developed by 1420, and for a looong time before that you had everything except the one-piece breast plate.

This one is from around 1450.

>Source?
Mongols. By the mid 1200's Europe was already aware of gunpowder. The very fist European made guns were made during the late 1200's to early 1300's.
>15th
1500's is where the pinnacle of plate armor was achieved, its when the best and most ornate ones were made, is what i meant.

I'm sure they were aware that early, since like you said, Europeans had encountered mongols and chinese mercenaries by then. But evidence of European use tends to put it as 1320s for cannon and 1330s for handgonnes, if we stick to solid findings and not speculation or manuscripts.

If you want to be vague as fuck, be my guest, but it sounded an awful lot like you were saying that full plate knightly armour got developed in the 1500s. Because you did. Neither the stereotypical nor the full plate part is correct, so maybe you should just have said that you meant "pinnacle" and avoid being off by a century.

What is the difference between a poleaxe and a big axe like the ones the Danes used?

Poleaxe has a square or hexagonal haft, is about two feet longer, and usually has a spike on top and a hammer at the other end. Oftentimes they had a little disc guard and spikes on the side of the head as well.

I wish I could say glaive but that's probably untrue.

Glaives cut better than halberds, but can't thrust as well. So they're good if you're fighting guys without much armor.

Alternatively, you can just be Guan Yu, and your super-heavy dragon glaive can cleave Western barbarians by the dozen, regardless of whether they choose to hide behind metal.

Yeah but that would require a dragon mount to fly over my enemies and shame them with their lack of style, I can't afford the genetic experiments and dark rituals to make that, I make like 9.50 an hour

>Guan Yu
>needing anything more than strength, courage, and good old Red Hare

Shameful.

If you're in a large area with allies side by side, pike.

If you're facing infantry with no allies in slightly closer quarters, halberd would probably be better. Halberd is easier to use like a staff as well. The sweeping motions of a halberd are great if there's no immediate friends close to you

Can you maintain a tight, numerous formation with dudes trained enough to not break the formation while manouvering over difficult terrain and won't be shot to bits? And your opponent has no way to get past the wall of pikes?
Pikes.

Everything else, particularly 1 vs 1:
Halberd (/poleaxe).

Pikes only work as long as you can keep formation, have the numbers and other factors (e.g. can't be outflanked by cavalry) in your favor. As soon as you can't do so then you will get slaughtered even by short swords (see Romans during the conquest of Greece, though they did face both pikes and much shorter ranged (and used with shields) hoplite spears).
Polearms are absolutely great in 1 vs 1 and were REALLY good at killing heavily armoured opponents, something that swords absolutely failed at and battle axes/hammers had too short a range.