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Medieval weapons: why so many? And how do they differ?
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<blockquote data-quote="Derren" data-source="post: 7909547" data-attributes="member: 2518"><p>There are many reasons why there are different weapons.</p><p></p><p>1. Effectiveness.</p><p>A sword is good against lightly armored enemies, but fares poorly against heavy armor. An axe is better in that situation, but has only limited ways of how you can attack with it. Maces are even better against armor but otherwise rather bad. Sames for daggers because if their short range. </p><p>Spears are good when fielded in large numbers. Some weapons are specifically made to counter certain types of equipment like curved blades that go around shields.</p><p>And of course when you do not have a shield you can use different weapons than with a shield or when you use them from horseback.</p><p></p><p>2. Production</p><p>Some weapons are harder to make than others. Making a sword requires a lot of knowledge so often people made axes instead. Spears are easy to make so thats another reason why they are used so much.</p><p>Often people tended to weaponize the tools they had which resulted in things like scythes reforged into polearms.</p><p></p><p>3. Cultural/Regional specialities</p><p>Some cultures found a tactic that worked for them, either to counter the other nations around them or because it matched their social structure and equipped their armies accirdingly. For example the Romans with their gladius+square shield combination or Huns and Mongols with mounted archers. But warfare never stopped to evolve so the weapons evolved with it.</p><p>The samurai evolved from mounted archers, thus they only used 2 handed weapons (I think the only culture that did not use some sort of shield?).</p><p>But it was not only because of culture. For example Japan had poor iron. Thus swords were harder to make, making them more expensive and a status symbol but also meant you won't meet many enemies with metal armor.</p><p></p><p>4. Lack if standartization</p><p>Except for highly organized nations there usually was no standartization. Tell ten smiths to make a stick with a blade on the end and you end up with 10 different weapons. Word of mouth might lead to some regional standartization but you still end up with one weapon type per region which is basically the same thing but different enough to have its own name.</p><p>That was for example a big problem once ships started to carry cannons as they ended up with 10 different calibers and had to match the cannon balls to the cannons which tended to be all of a different length and even a mix of muzzle and breech loader.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Derren, post: 7909547, member: 2518"] There are many reasons why there are different weapons. 1. Effectiveness. A sword is good against lightly armored enemies, but fares poorly against heavy armor. An axe is better in that situation, but has only limited ways of how you can attack with it. Maces are even better against armor but otherwise rather bad. Sames for daggers because if their short range. Spears are good when fielded in large numbers. Some weapons are specifically made to counter certain types of equipment like curved blades that go around shields. And of course when you do not have a shield you can use different weapons than with a shield or when you use them from horseback. 2. Production Some weapons are harder to make than others. Making a sword requires a lot of knowledge so often people made axes instead. Spears are easy to make so thats another reason why they are used so much. Often people tended to weaponize the tools they had which resulted in things like scythes reforged into polearms. 3. Cultural/Regional specialities Some cultures found a tactic that worked for them, either to counter the other nations around them or because it matched their social structure and equipped their armies accirdingly. For example the Romans with their gladius+square shield combination or Huns and Mongols with mounted archers. But warfare never stopped to evolve so the weapons evolved with it. The samurai evolved from mounted archers, thus they only used 2 handed weapons (I think the only culture that did not use some sort of shield?). But it was not only because of culture. For example Japan had poor iron. Thus swords were harder to make, making them more expensive and a status symbol but also meant you won't meet many enemies with metal armor. 4. Lack if standartization Except for highly organized nations there usually was no standartization. Tell ten smiths to make a stick with a blade on the end and you end up with 10 different weapons. Word of mouth might lead to some regional standartization but you still end up with one weapon type per region which is basically the same thing but different enough to have its own name. That was for example a big problem once ships started to carry cannons as they ended up with 10 different calibers and had to match the cannon balls to the cannons which tended to be all of a different length and even a mix of muzzle and breech loader. [/QUOTE]
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