Spear vs Longsword Nick vs Jake AHF sparring

A sparring bout between Nick and Jake of the AHF, using a spear against a longsword.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Spear vs Sword 1
• swordfight
• swordfighting

[qpae123]

When I was young, me and friends fought with poles and wood swords without any protection, and we were for '' real '' , I meen we hit each othe as hard as we could, something like Fight Club :)). Ofcourse we had bloody fingers, were full of bruises but was hell of fun :))

Real fighting is a lot more complex then u see in films or in gym. And whe n we fight for real, there is not such thing as '' clean fight '' .

[Nikos3000]

@qpae123 Yep, been there. Many years ago when we started it was steel re-enactment weapons and gardening gloves if you were lucky, how things change :-)

Certainly real fights are rarely as 'clean' as the movies, but you certainly can reach the stage of beautifully efficient and executed. Sort of like the difference between watching a really good boxing match and a movie fight.

[Brandonkerrfl]

I've often wondered why medieval knights did not switch to the spear with the advent of plate armor. It's light and fast and has better range for finding the weak points in armor.

[Nikos3000]

@Brandonkerrfl There were plenty of spears used by plate armoured knights and troops. However, it was generally found that it was beneficial to have a blade, hammer or spike, or several. The addition of blunt trauma strikes that can crush through armour is hugely useful. The armour the users wore meant that the reduction in agility was not really a problem.

[spiderman1321]

would it not be better for the swordsman to deflect the spear with his hand? and counter with the sword - im sure a longsword can be wielded by one hand for thrusting

[Railstarfish]

@mopbrothers Not necessarily better, just has an advantage in this particular fight. Sidestepping or grabbing the spear is very difficult. If armour or shields allows the swordsman to get close more easily he might have the advantage instead. In this case, the swordsman has no experience fighting spears so this may have skewed the results a bit.

[Railstarfish]

@AngeloNiklis There is a good article on "myarmoury" website called Mail: Unchained, which gives examples of mail being very effective against arrows and even lances (although the padding was very important).

Plate armour was not really heavier than mail, but one reason it was developed was likely that mail was more labour-intensive to make, which became more expensive after the Black Death.

[mopbrothers]

Is the spear better than the sword? I thought swordsmen had these fancy parry techniques that let them sidestep or grab the spear.

[elgostine]

when you guys thrust the spear by sliding the rear hand forward and back with the spear like at around the 0:29 mark what kind of thrust is that called, a sliding lunge? pool cueing?

i know that in Bo staff its called 'punching' but im looking for the word used in WMA circles so i dont need to call it 'slidey lunge method' but instead use the proper term

[Nikos3000]

@AngeloNiklis The principal of destroying a spear with a sword is generally regarded as a myth or exceptional circumstance. Countless tests and research have found it to be highly improbably. Large swords tend to be used to bind big pole arms and to surge into blocks of troops.

Sword training varied greatly depending on the era. For much of its medieval and renaissance history it was dominated by the middle classes. That meaning anyone who could pay and wanted to learn.