Lances were designed to shatter and be disposable?

[Quartz]

I've just seen this YouTube short which points out that medieval cavalry lances were supposed to shatter and be disposable whereas spears were not.

Breaking a lance when jousting #shorts

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I had, of course, seen the exploding balsa lances of A Knights Tale but assumed that was for dramatic effect. Turns out I was wrong.

Presumably Krynn's Dragonlances are so named because of their form, not of their function.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Lances are sports’ equipment. They are designed to break to make it less likely someone will be killed.

 

[MarkB]

One thing to bear in mind with a lance is that the optimal successful outcome of using one in combat is to leave an entire armoured human or possibly a horse impaled upon it, and once that happens you as the rider are going to need to let go of it pretty promptly or else you're not going to be the rider a few seconds later as that long, heavy lever interacts with you and your charging horse.

So by their nature lances are disposable, one-use-per-combat implements. Making them durable just means you've disposed of a viable weapon for an enemy to come along and pry loose then use against you.

 

[aco175]

My cousin works in the lance building union for the Kingdom. Tournaments are not every day and he got 10 kids to feed.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Lances are sports’ equipment. They are designed to break to make it less likely someone will be killed.

Jousting lances are, but lances used in war are not.

So by their nature lances are disposable, one-use-per-combat implements. Making them durable just means you've disposed of a viable weapon for an enemy to come along and pry loose then use against you.

They're not designed to shatter on impact, though. And actually, historically in the 14th-16th centuries, they weren't "one use". Late medieval war-lances weren't the fancy curved-guard things we see used in jousting, by and large, they were basically just long, relatively thick-hafted spears and often tapered a fair bit.

They were not "one-use" most cases - you might well lose one in a charge, in which case you change to whatever backup weapons you had, or ride off and get another lance, but you don't like aim to lose them.

And they were absolutely built sturdily enough to survive a charge.

 

[GMMichael]

They were not "one-use" most cases - you might well lose one in a charge, in which case you change to whatever backup weapons you had, or ride off and get another lance, but you don't like aim to lose them.

And they were absolutely built sturdily enough to survive a charge.

Darn right. How else am I gonna ride around, showing off my prey by letting him dangle from the end of my lance?

 

[jian]

I think the word “lance” covered a wide range of options from cavalry spears (definitely meant for more than one use) to medieval heavy chivalry (often large and possibly disposable, looked more like jousting lances). Jousting lances are definitely disposable.

Certainly as you go into the 16th century and beyond - lances were in use well into the 20th century - the word means “cavalry spear which is your main weapon for stabbing people from horseback as often as possible”.

For instance, the game of polo is said to be derived from a Persian game (chovgan) from the 2nd century BCE onwards, which may have been lance practice for cavalrymen and was often practiced as such from the 10th century onwards - Saladin was apparently an excellent chovgan player.