I THOUGHT YOU SAID DUAL WIELDING WASN'T REAL AND ISN'T AN APPLICABLE MEANS OF COMBAT!

I did fight with zweihanders and I'm always mad how clunky they are portrayed.

I trained iaido and kendo - both have me a bit of insight how those weapons were even used.they suck Vs armor, but are pretty fun and cool to use.

I've fought against shield and sword, and I have to say that it is pretty strong combination.

I was also amazed how good cloth armor is at softening the blows you take.

>Can you elaborate or talk more about the spear?
I can, a bit. Basically, its the most natural, the easiest to learn weapon (learn, nit master, mind you), the simple forward stabbing motion is kind of hardwired into humans, so you don't need as much training as a swordsman would. Onehanded spear and a shield was the basic weapon combo because both are made largely from wood (and thus can be repaired in the field) and its cheap af. which is important when iron/steel is hard to come by.
also, long reach means you poke them before they stab you, which is pretty neat.

I've been saying this and other things for some time now:

pastebin.com/RZifh6nu
>Real Life European Dual Sword Wielding
The paste bin is recent, but I've said it on Veeky Forums for a year already. Check the details of the pros and cons on it.

pastebin.com/MVqh7Yi9
>Sources about cavarly warfare and related topics
Here's another subject of medieval warfare.

This entire post is why I avoid all weaponry discussion on Veeky Forums. A couple years of historical rapier/HEMA makes it hard to talk to people about historical accuracy when they have never been in a swordfight before.

As for actual tabletop gaming, it doesn't really bother me. The only thing it's ruined is watching fights on TV, what with the rampant theatrical spins and flips. It loses all sense of tension

But spinning is a good trick!

Guys people always told me that spinning roundhouse kicks that expose your back is bad,
Then I did and they have a spinning roundhouse kick with your back exposed!

That totally makes it legit and the common sense and history we have showing a distinct lack of spinning roundhouse kicks in war is now invalidated because of MUH ANECEDOTAL experience with .

Dumb argument, I don't sperg about characters doing things that would be impractical, but you wailing on some other dude with a plastic stick you call a sword does not suddnely make you an authority on a subject that has clearly been show to be impractical historically.

Doable in a duel =/= doable on a battlefield
Watch that guy for more info on how/why/when each type of weapon was historically used : youtube.com/channel/UCt14YOvYhd5FCGCwcjhrOdA

>I always see people on Veeky Forums saying that it's completely unrealistic and not a good means to defend yourself

I don't see it often, and I read most of those threads. It's pretty well known that two-weapon combinations like dirk and shortsword, rapier and dagger, rapier and main-gauche, Five Rings kenjutsu, etc, were used.

This.

Also

youtube.com/watch?v=4rewvqm4pdw

OP means using two equal sized swords.

Case of rapier is well known thing, though. Anyone on Veeky Forums who actually cares about muh realism discovered hema and historical manuals long time ago.

Just because it was done doesn't mean it's necessarily a viable tactic on the battlefield. In almost any circumstance in which two swords would be useful, a sword and a shield would be more useful.

Hey spinning is in historical fencing texts too!

You try any overhead spear use, where you throw and catch it towards the end of the shaft? Curious how well that works. The redneck vikings seem to think it works great.

he referred to small sword in his left hand, implying that the one in his right was larger

>Five Rings kenjutsu
Damn you're on the internet can't you take a couple of seconds to get it right, just write it HNIR if need be...

Well one problem is that "small sword" are a specific type of sword too. In our modern terminology anyway.

What did you find?

Dual wielding is viable on the battlefield under certain *very* specific circumstances.

Remember that every war was fought by densely packed formation slugging it out with another densely packed formation. Raid, skirmish and ambush are just as, if not even more, common.

In particular, shield is very much a hindrance and dead weight when fighting/ambushing in dense tropical forest, as it will cause unnecessary sound and getting caught up in branches. A second sword will serve you much better here.

Secondly, in some (particularly Eastern) cultures, a soldier tend to bring lots of equipment on his belt: a sword, a quiver, a bow bag for composite bow, and possibly bullet pouch and gunpowder bottle etc. On top of this, he sling his musket on his back, and carry a spear or polearm by hand. Since there's no place for a buckler and shield anymore, he might just as well brought a second sword (which can be placed in the same sheath as his first sword).

Sword and buckler is dual wielding, and that showed up from English longbows to Spainish Tiercos. A buckler is more like a dagger than it is a shield.

Which brings to mind the depiction of Highlanders that wielded an extra dagger under their targe.

Oh yeah, I've done that as well. Crazy Scottish, they carry a knife under their buckler and put a buckler on their sword.

Just because it's the internet doesn't mean we can't all laugh at you for being a pretentious weeb.

...

Why wouldn't it be real? Don't listen to american internet retards who have loads of hot opinions about history. People were made to walk the plank, greatswords were used in combat, samurai literally wandered around having sword fights. There's a reason all these tropes exist and they aren't new, they come from when they actually happened.

If you consider that a shield is a weapon (you do most of the fencing with it, after all), dual wielding is actually the norm until technology allows you to ditch shields alltogether. The problem of the modern perception of dual wielding comes from the gamist view that weapons are used for shaving off hitpoints from enemies, as opposed to giving you more options for fencing. So instead of dual-wielding sensible combinations, people always try to use the biggest damage dealers together. This leads to immersion breaking bullshit like dual-wielding longswords/katanas/zweihänders/scythes, or other weapons that are awkward to use with one hand and would actually reduce your ability to properly fence. This in return has lead modern game devs to force very specific restrictions on dual-wielding, so you get to only wear specific dual-wield weapons (like parry-daggers) or face massive penalties.

I do Filipino martial arts the entire thing is built around having a weapon in each hand if possible.

>Conall
>Yes Donall
>How are we going to siege the castle
>Hmm
>Hmm
>Donall
>Yes Conall
>Get up on my shoulders I have an idea

Oh, Dual-Wielding is an absolutely real and applicable means of combat. The problem is that A) a lot of depictions show people using two full-size weapons, which WASN'T done and B) autists took the idea that a lot of dual-wielding depicted in media is impractical and ran off with the idea that ALL dual-wielding is impractical.

Notable examples of dual-wielding include rapier/dagger in European tradition, katana/wakizashi in Japanese tradition, tomahawk/knife in Native American tradition, and so on and so forth. The common theme? In all of these, there's either one short and one long weapon so the two don't get tangled up, or two short weapons that can be maneuvered easily.

Granted, dual-wielding was used more for personal defense than on the battlefield, but that's because you forfeit the use of either a shield or polearm if you use a weapon in either hand, which are big no-nos in terms of battlefield effectiveness/survivability. Still, there's a reason most traditions (Japanese sword-fighting aside) use knives as their off-hand weapon. They're utilitarian and easy to carry, meaning it's much less of a burden than carrying a buckler, which only has one use.

tl;dr Dual wielding is great for personal defense and sucks for battlefield combat.

It's excellent for duels and the like, but a shield will always serve you better against more than one opponent.

I have always been curious, is there a reason why shields never became a very common thing in Japanese warfare? They seem super common on the continent, so it's odd to me that you hardly seem to see them at all.

I assume it's because they preferred katanas, and they're two-handed blades

Not necessarily, given that in this very thread people have talked about the daisho being wielded at the same time.

They did have shields, but that was more of a thing for commoners, so they didn't go out of their way to make pictures or write poems about them. Most modern depictions of "samurai culture" stems from a time where the average samurai was a glorified tax collector with a sword, a large ego and far too much spare time. Additionally samurai used a lot of two-handed weapons (bows/long spears) despite their relatively weak armor during the time they actually engaged in warfare instead of peacocking around.

Well, all I can find are examples of shield walls, I can't find any examples of personal shield use like we would associate with say, a Hoplite.

Found one searching for "ashigaru shield", despite it depicting a samurai.

>a lot of depictions show people using two full-size weapons, which WASN'T done
Of course it was done, wielding two full size swords at the same time is depicted in at least 10 treatises of the Renaissance and this is only by looking at the Italian ones. It was done for proof of mastership and demonstrations, but it was certainly trained and regarded highly as a martial skill.

>Clearly been show to be impractical historically
>We have manuals teaching the technique and record of effective use of the technique

They had shields before, and then they stopped using it, because they used horse archers (samurai) and spearman with two handed spear (ashigaru)
It was not useful in this context, and they still had a sort of "shield" by using very large pauldrons on their armors

We didn't "find" anything. It was an internet argument. His argument was that the bayonet would get caught in the trench coat and you could use one club for defense and one for offense.

A katana is literally just a two-handed saber. And two-handed saber can be used one-handed

You can use sledgehammers with one hand as well, as long as you can lift them. You won't do more than slowly windmilling with them, though. Essentially at one point, which differs from person to person, a weapon tends to become too heavy to effectively fence with in one hand. This is were dual wielding actually helps you: You can use a fencing weapon to bind the enemy's weapon, so he can't defend against the slow attack with the oversized weapon. This is why shield+mace or wakizashi+katana were a thing, but axe+axe wasn't really that popular. Although in case of the katana+wakizashi thing the style was more "attack with the katana with two-hands and should you both miss, draw the wakizashi and disembowel him, before he can bring his own katana around for a second swing".

I kek'd

>Although in case of the katana+wakizashi thing the style was more "attack with the katana with two-hands and should you both miss, draw the wakizashi and disembowel him, before he can bring his own katana around for a second swing".
You're wrong, Musashi's school was all about using both swords at the same time, as well as a few others I can't bother to dig up at the moment.
So it was just sort of dropped and never really picked back up? It just seems so odd to me given the fetishizing that the Japanese often engaged in with the Chinese, and shieldwalls were practically synonymous with their style of warfare for quite a long time.

Technically, your statement is true. What I meant was that it can be used effectively in one hand. It's basically a curved bastard sword.

This.

Most gamers have never been in a fist fight, much less a fight to the death.

So they go off what they read and what the alpha nerds say.

It also depends on what you mean by dual wielding. I mean, the shield is also a weapon, not just a protective (depending on size, type, and your army's standard tactics).

>good cloth armor

Holy shit, you are not wrong. Thick, felted or quilted fabric is fucking hard to cut through, offers good protection from clubs and projectiles, and is usually much lighter and easier to move in than mail. Toss in some jack chains (if they actually existed) and a decent buckler/shield and helmet, and I'd say you're ready to face almost anything that isn't artillery or overly stabby.

A lot of Filipino weapons training (not all, by any means, but a lot) is based on Spanish dagger and rapier fighting. The flips just used sticks to train with and adapted a lot of the techniques to accommodate traditional weapons and agricultural tools. To pretty good effect, too.

>Musashi's school was all about using both swords at the same time
It had the use of two swords but it was still a typical school with a lot of two-handed use. It wasn't "all about" nito, there's 5 techniques of nito in a curriculum of 42+ techniques.

99% of the enemies you face will have spears. Spears are prolific.