Axemen or Masemen in real world: where they are used FOR REAL?

[Ajidica]

The reason for the popularity of a mace was later religious (the No Spilling Blood admonition of the medieval Church)

Can you point to a source for this? I was under the impression that 'maces were used because the Church said no spilling blood' was something thought up by Victorian Antiquarians or Dungeons and Dragons. In the Song of Roland Archbishop Turpin is referred to as fighting with sword, and in early medieval deeds involving religious figures of a martial persuasion indicate they were equipped in the same manner as other elite warriors - horse, mail, helm, shield, spear, sword, and sometimes bow.

 

[Sarin]

Can you point to a source for this? I was under the impression that 'maces were used because the Church said no spilling blood' was something thought up by Victorian Antiquarians or Dungeons and Dragons. In the Song of Roland Archbishop Turpin is referred to as fighting with sword, and in early medieval deeds involving religious figures of a martial persuasion indicate they were equipped in the same manner as other elite warriors - horse, mail, helm, shield, spear, sword, and sometimes bow.

That's something I'd like to know as well. It seems that ultimately everything leads to speculations about one piece of Bayeaux tapestry that shows a bishop using a club. It's probably one of those persistent myths that are kept alive by endless repeating.

 

[H4run]

Can you point to a source for this? I was under the impression that 'maces were used because the Church said no spilling blood' was something thought up by Victorian Antiquarians or Dungeons and Dragons. In the Song of Roland Archbishop Turpin is referred to as fighting with sword, and in early medieval deeds involving religious figures of a martial persuasion indicate they were equipped in the same manner as other elite warriors - horse, mail, helm, shield, spear, sword, and sometimes bow.

When I read that I feel bit weird also, this is reminds me of Buddhist or Daoist monk pictured in Wuxia's stories, whenever they about to resolve matter with violent, they always saying something like "I will make this day an exceptional violation from my oath of pacifism", which they will break that oath, and continue to be pacifist again, and the circle continue. In the end, they can always resolve matter with violent anyway lol.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

In fact, the ONLY 'contemporary' source for Bishops using Maces is the depiction of Bishop Odo at the Battle of Hastings, shown in the Bayeux 'tapestry' - and he's actually shown using a wooden club. Since medieval maces frequently had flanged or flared heads which could penetrate armor, they were in any case not a particularly good choice for a weapon that would 'avoid shedding blood'.

What they were good for, and the flanged versions of the 14th - 15th centuries in particular - was hurting somebody who was wearing articulated plate armor, arguably the most sophisticated personal protection devised before Kevlar. If you hit him in the chest with a long-handled Mace (the longer the handle the more leverage and force of impact at the business end) then even if you didn't penetrate the armor, you'd crack or break ribs, and a blow to the arm or leg could break long bones even without penetrating the armor completely At Agincourt, most of the dismounted English knights were using maces, battle axes or other 'blunt force trauma' weapons, not swords - Henry V stuck to a sword and it was considered that he was being more chivalrous than efficient (although he may have been using a Great Sword or two-handed sword - there is no eyewitness account to be sure)

Note that in all the discussion of maces, the long-handled Axe was actually the most common Great Weapon used by infantry from the 10th to the 13th centuries - depicted far more often than Great Swords, maces, regular swords or any other weapon except Spears. Once the plate armor became common (13th century on) the Mace, flanged or plain, became more popular among mounted troops because even used with one hand, it carried enough force of impact, as noted above, to damage an opponent in plate armor. Generally, maces in this period used by horsemen have longer handles (more impact) than those used by foot troops, for whom it was more of a 'specialty' weapon much less common than halberds or spears/pikes.

And now for the Trivia Pursuit Fanatics . ..

In the mid-1960s, during the Vietnam War, there was actually a serious proposal to arm American infantry with Tomahawks rather than bayonets. The argument was that it was a 'traditional' American weapon, that it is a handy tool as well as a combat weapon, and that it has more of a psychological effect than a simple knife on the end of a rifle. That last argument is, in fact, not true - the knife always carries the psychological fear of castration, as both American and Israeli military psychologists determined from extensive investigation of weapons' effectiveness in the 1970s and 80s. Mercifully, US troops were not burdened by reverting to the hand axe as a personal weapon, since no doubt the next step would have been to issue them halberds . . .

 

[Oleksandr Sereda]

That's good information, thanks, folks!

Someone commented that using axes or maces would require a big area for a swing and that's why regular armies used more spears+swords than axes/maces.
I guess we can agree that fighting a plated opponent, axe or mace would be more effective on delivering the damage than spear or sword, but in a tight formation that would not be practical. That would be a good explanation of why axes/maces were not as popular in later years after humanity learned how to deal with iron/steel. I guess mounted warriors could carry a different set of weapons, including maces and if needed could use it in closed combats, and that might well be the case. Funny, in modern movies, those are not as 'visual' as swords, that's why I assume we don't see them often.

 

[Hygro]

In D&D 2nd edition the cleric could use any weapon. The default pantheon's weapon type was to suggest a mace, but in the player's handbook was the vanilla "War Pantheon" which included swords etc.

Obviously maces and axes were used extensively in war, but civs' abstraction of "this is a legion of guys using exactly this weapon" is unrealistic.

 

[H4run]

In D&D 2nd edition the cleric could use any weapon. The default pantheon's weapon type was to suggest a mace, but in the player's handbook was the vanilla "War Pantheon" which included swords etc.

Obviously maces and axes were used extensively in war, but civs' abstraction of "this is a legion of guys using exactly this weapon" is unrealistic.

Maceman, Axeman, Swordman, Crossbowman, Spearman, Pikeman, Knifeman, Spoonman, Forkman lol.

 

[Sarin]

Forkman lol.

Must be worshipper of Sheogorath to use forks.

 

[Lexicus]

Spoonman

This unit has 166 combat strength and is composed of the Oracle potential children from The Matrix

 

[Sofista]

In fact, the ONLY 'contemporary' source for Bishops using Maces is the depiction of Bishop Odo at the Battle of Hastings, shown in the Bayeux 'tapestry' - and he's actually shown using a wooden club. Since medieval maces frequently had flanged or flared heads which could penetrate armor, they were in any case not a particularly good choice for a weapon that would 'avoid shedding blood'.

Starting with the 14th century, originally in Palermo, the iconography of the 'Madonna of the mace' gain popularity. Could it be related somehow?

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[Boris Gudenuf]

Starting with the 14th century, originally in Palermo, the iconography of the 'Madonna of the mace' gain popularity. Could it be related somehow?

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Note that none of these images actually shows a 'mace', which is a long-handled weapon with a weighted head, but a club, which is simply a stout bar of wood or metal. That makes them identical to the weapon shown in the hands of Bishop Odo at Hastings, but by no means the same as the metal-headed maces used in combat in the 14th century. I suspect there is some kind of religious symbolism here that has little or nothing to do with actual combat techniques and weapons.

 

[Lexicus]

As noted, the primary weapon in history, straight up from Ugg the Caveman to arguably the development of breech loading rifles was a long stick or tube with a point on the end, with other weapons serving as a sidearm or a highly specialized role.

And note that pre-machined-rifling firearms only truly came into their own when the socket bayonet was developed, which allowed the firearm to function as a pointy stick

The two most common bronze 'secondary weapons' (after the spear, sometimes held in two hands like a later pike) in ancient Mesopotamia seem to have been the 'sickle short sword' and the bronze axe or mace. Bronze swords were relatively rare by comparison, at least from the archeological and pictorial evidence that survives.

"It is entirely seemly for a young man to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death, all things appear fair."

 

[GinandTonic]

IIRC at Agincourt most of the French knights died from small axes and knives after they were unhorsed and incapacitated. If longbows and mud won the battle, the bowmen's domestic tools did the killing.

 

[really]

There's a battle site near me named 'Cnoc Tua' which translates as the hill of the axes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Knockdoe

Despite the name it is known as one of the earliest battles using gunpowder in Ireland.
It was also probably the beginning of the end of Gaelic Ireland (a Gaelic-Norman lord vs an Anglo-Norman lord)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

And note that pre-machined-rifling firearms only truly came into their own when the socket bayonet was developed, which allowed the firearm to function as a pointy stick

Sightly different relationship applied here, though.

First, the socket bayonet precedes massed rifled firearms by over a century: it was officially adopted by the French Army in 1703, by the Dutch and English/British Armies a few years earlier, and by virtually every army in Europe by 1708 (Russia's Tula Arsenal Model 1708 musket was, I believe, the last hold-out). It was adopted at virtually the same time that the flintlock smoothbore Fusil was adopted by the same armies for the bulk of their infantry.

This was a Singularity Change in tactical combat in Europe. The old Matchlock musket did not fit a bayonet, unless you counted the plug bayonet which was stuffed into the barrel and made the weapon no longer a firearm for the rest of the battle (they had to be pried back out of the barrel with tools). That meant that the matchlock musketeer's only melee weapon was a short, cheap sword he sometimes carried but was not trained to use, and a 15 - 20 pound clumsy club which was the non-firing musket. In addition, since the matchlock required a lit, smoldering match to fire, about half the movements in the manual of arms for loading the weapon involved keeping the lit match from setting fire to yourself, your ammunition, or the man and ammunition to either side of you in the formation. That meant that 'musket' formations had to be very open: 4 - 5 feet per man in all directions to keep the lit matches away from everyone, and the rate of fire was, at best, about 1 shot per minute.

The flintlock and socket bayonet meant several things changed All At Once:
No lit matches. The Manual of Arms suddenly went from 40 + movements to a little over 20, the speed of fire went from 1 to 2 - 3 shots per minutes, and the fusiliers could be shoulder to shoulder. The firepower on a 100 meter front of musketmen suddenly went from 75 shots per minute to 600 - 900 shots per minute, and the formation now presented a solid hedge of bayonet points to any attack, since the second or third rank could 'close up' to apply their weapons to the front as well.

The manufacture of flintlock firing mechanisms in quantity, by no coincidence, comes right after the invention by Hooke and Huygens of the hairspring mechanism that made convenient pocket watches possible, in 1675 CE. That also required the metallurgical consistency for spring-loaded flintlock firing mechanisms and the intricate assembly techniques for the firing, striker and pan combinations.

 

[r16]

as usual , most of the discussion is way above the head , but would say the Vietnam proposal might be something else .

the war of the 1960s was supposed to be in Congo . At one point air interdiction in Korea was destroying 15% of Communist truck production for that month ; the Reds would be bankrupted at a war they could not avoid . And just like Dien Bien Phu had liberated Vietnam , half controlled by Reds and the other half not quite indirectly by America , a war in Africa would emancipate places for total American exploitation ... And might havd eased racial issues at home .

some famous moment when a ClA plane makes a low level dash across a target area in Africa to take photos it is engaged by actual spears . Silencers would always beat arrows even if ı have had the impression that the Spanish special forces [used to] practice hard with the composite bows for sentry elimination . Would tomahawks , which ı take to be small axes on sticks , be more "impressive" and more adaptable againsts "primitives" well versed in close combat , not in SEA , especially when the unlucky Americans would be draftees with so little time to train with blades and the whole mindset already revolving around napalming everything if everything could not be nuked ?

 

[H4run]

Starting with the 14th century, originally in Palermo, the iconography of the 'Madonna of the mace' gain popularity. Could it be related somehow?

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Not to be disrespectful, but the last picture look to me like Mary is holding a pan or a wok.

 

[Farm Boy]

If the mace is being used, remember its not the sort of weapon that usually strikes for the torso. You aim to strike hands, wrists, forearms... but mostly the head/face if you can get past the weapon/shield. Hammers/maces were nasty from horseback at popping infantry on the noggin once the lance had already been embedded in some poor sod.

 

[Angst]

Goedendag

Just making a general appreciation post that we named a weapon "good day" as in "hello"

 

[H4run]

Hammers/maces were nasty from horseback at popping infantry on the noggin once the lance had already been embedded in some poor sod.

Reading this, this song pop into my mind: