Hm. Breaking a spear shaft with a shield. Would that work? Probably not. You can cut through a spear shaft, but it takes several
blows with a sharp sword. It's not a lightsaber. Hi, I'm Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria, and I teach people how
to use things like spears and swords and daggers, and I also deal in antique weapons. I've been teaching people how
to use weapons for 20 years. So today we're going to be looking at some polearm combat scenes from movies to judge how real they are. OK, so stabbing the foot
there, that was really nice. And I think a lot of people
might think that's silly, but funnily enough, there's
an anonymous treatise from the early 16th century
that repeatedly talks about stabbing the opponent in the foot and stabbing them in the crotch. So absolutely it was done. This kind of distraction tactic is in medieval treatises, so I love it. OK, whoa, whoa, whoa! They're, like, flipping this, spinning this thing around. So, this is a thrusting weapon, but she is twirling it around like a snooker cue in a bar fight. That's not going to have
much effect on people. It's not a good striking weapon. Thrust with it. It's a spear. Taking turns. So, this is a favorite way for multiple people to attack a hero in a movie, or a big villain, is to take turns at attacking them. Just attack them at the same time. Don't go one, two, three, four. So if they are trying to surround him, they should still have their spear points forward predominantly and form essentially a
ring of points around him. Perhaps the only excuse
you could give them is they're trying to capture him rather than trying to kill him. One of the things that really bugs me about spear use in "Black Panther" is that the spears are used
more like quarterstaves. Now, not to say you can't use
a spear like a quarterstaff. You can strike with a spear, it's just not the most efficient and effective way of using a spear. If you've got a sharp
point, use the sharp point. So, I've got to be honest. I am going to give it a 3 out of 10. So, tridents absolutely
were used in combat, most famously by Roman
gladiators, of course. That's the most famous example, but tridents did continue
existing into the medieval period. The fact that you've got
multiple projections at the head, the fact that they are heavier.
This is a heavier weapon designed for fighting against armor. In that sense, that makes them
more like this poleax here. And he seems to have a
secondary crossed guard a little bit lower down,
which is quite interesting, because there's a parallel
with European poleaxes there as well, which
has a hand guard here. That's not only to protect the hand, but it's also to give
more force to the push. So if you're fighting in armor and you plant the cross, as it's called, in their armpit and you want to push them, it gives you something
harder to push against. So, one of the first things to note is how twirly this fight is. I'm not a huge fan of such turning. I mean, they turn their
backs on each other so much. So, there's a really nice technique there where he basically turns
the back end of his weapon around his opponent's neck
in order to throw him. It's sort of an impression
of some of the techniques that we do see in historical treatises. And in armor, this is a very good way of overcoming someone. They can get up, but it's not that easy
and it's not very quick. That gives you the
opportunity to attack them while they're on the
ground and disadvantaged. And you can look for
the gaps in the armor, like their armpits. There's a really nice technique there where the bad guy, one end
of his weapon is locked up. And so he swings the other
end of the weapon round to strike with the back end. And, again, that's completely
typical of poleax combat. If one end gets occupied or dealt with, then that being pushed aside, you immediately come
around with the other end or the middle. I would give this about a 5. So, "Troy"'s really, really interesting because it's one of those
rare occasions in movie fights where we see them
actually attempting to use spear and shield together. You know, the spear and
shield was absolutely the standard dueling weapon for heroes to fight with
in the ancient world. And you only have to look
at ancient Greek vases to see the two heroes standing
in front of each other with the spear raised and
the shield in front of them. Achilles lances his spear out at maximum length with a thrust. And that is predominantly how spears are supposed to be used. You grip it as near to
the back of the shaft as you possibly can. It's actually remarkably difficult to find an opening to stab with a spear if the opponent has a
large shield, as here. That's why people used them. Really, really nice detail there. We see Achilles switching
the spear around. So he's using both ends of it. And in fact, we know in
the ancient Greek world spears often have two ends on them. Throughout history,
lots of types of spears have two ends on them. So you can stab with
the main principal end, but you can also stab with
the foot end or the heel. It's not usually so sharp or so big, because it has to stand on the
ground a little of the time, but nevertheless, if you're
being stabbed with it, it's fairly unpleasant. So, there was one little
minor detail there that kind of bugs me. Hector basically kind of
slashes with his spear. And now, with a typical
spearhead like this, it's not going to have a
lot of cutting potential. So I suppose it's fair that in a pinch you might do this to
make someone back off, especially if it's kind of face level. So it's going to make a
person flinch or move away, but even if it had connected, it wouldn't have done
an awful lot of damage. It would've been like being
hit with a stick, basically. Resting the spear on his back and thrusting over the top of his shield, this is incredibly short range
and I think of dubious use. Hm. Breaking a spear shaft with a shield. Would that work? Probably not. Look at movies where
things like this spear are chopped through with a sword. We've done experiments,
we've tried to do it. You can cut through a spear shaft, but it takes several
blows with a sharp sword. It's not a lightsaber. Breaking through one with
a shield, even less likely. So, really, spear shafts are designed to be relatively durable. Relatively light, but not super light, but pretty strong. If they're not strong, then they're not going to
work as effective weapons. We see Achilles' spear get
broken by being stamped on. Now, this is slightly more plausible. I don't think it would be
as easy as it's shown here. However, it's more plausible
than breaking it with a shield. but this is an Olympic-style javelin. It's not really a weapon. If it's the same as a typical one, it's an aluminium tube with a
kind of slightly pointy end. So this is not something that's designed to penetrate thick clothing or go through armor or anything. And I have to say, they're
not terribly strong either. I mean, if you stepped on one, She's using it like a giant lightsaber, as if it's magically
cutting through people, Oh, a double stab. So, finally she thrust with it. I have no issue with that. She actually used a spear
like a spear eventually, but what's all the swinging it around? It's not going to cut anything. I'm going to give this a 1 out of 10. It really, really bugs me
how he uses this spear. It is the most stupid way that he could have used this spear. Basically he could have won this fight in the first few seconds if
he'd just used it like a spear. Instead he uses it like, I
don't know, like a broom handle. He thrusts with the wrong foot backward, giving himself the minimum reach. He's got enough space,
especially in the corridor, to occupy that space with
the point of the spear and keep the opponent in front of him. So the main advantage of any polearm, but particularly of spears, is reach. But with reach also comes leverage. The two things go hand in hand. A small movement at the back end means a large movement at the top end. So, quite simply, if you're trying to get
around an opponent's shield, you can go from high to low. You could go above the
shield and below the shield in the blink of an eye, which takes longer to do with a sword. The usual balance is a spear person can beat two swords people if there's no armor and
no shields involved. A spear is a game changer. Spears can block with
any part of the shaft. You can block with the tail end. Sometimes the middle of
the shaft can be used. The problem with using the middle is it means any defense
is closer to your body. But most predominantly, spears are used with the
pointy end projecting forwards, and most of the defense will
be done with the front end. The way he used this spear is infuriating. And at one point he's
even got the spearhead pointing backwards away from the opponent while holding the blunt end outwards. I mean, he doesn't even
have two spiky ends. It's an entirely metal
spear, which is unusual. Generally you wouldn't
want to make a spear entirely out of metal because although it would be stronger, it would be so heavy that it would give up the advantages that the spear has. If you make it heavy, it also makes it far easier for the opponent to grab. Although they have a lot of advantages of reach and leverage, they are way, way easier to grab, for the opponent to grab hold of, than something like a sword. A sword is mostly blade,
so it's harder to grab. This particular fight will
get a really low score of 2 out of 10. I love this episode, but
this fight just sucked. Too much swinging of the
spear, not enough thrusting. Thrusting doesn't look
as impressive on-screen. It's also slightly more
dangerous for the actors as well. Despite the fact that in the modern world we probably think of axes or swords associated with Vikings, in any army in the so-called Dark Ages, in the early medieval period, the spear and shield was the
primary weapon of battle. They fought in shield walls with a spear. Yeah, richer people might have a sword and other people might have an ax, but those are weapons that
are only really useful once you've closed beyond spear range. One of the great things about spears is they are one of the best hand weapons that you can have in your hand, and they're also a really
good missile weapon. At any moment they can get thrown, and psychologically that makes a huge difference within the fight. Even if the opponent
doesn't throw the spear, the knowledge that they could throw it at any moment as a javelin
really changes how you fight. It makes sure you keep your shield up. It makes you very wary. I've once been in a fight
in a tournament, in fact, where the opponent had a spear and shield, I had sword and shield. So I'm up there preparing
to protect my head and my torso against the spear throw, and I get a spear right in the leg. And if that had been a real
spear and gone through my leg, then I wouldn't have
been fighting anymore. Throwing spears are incredibly powerful. They will stick deeply into a shield. If they hit you in the body,
you're in big, big trouble. I mean, they'll go
through a person's torso, and they'll also penetrate
certain types of armor. I would give this 6 out of 10. So, what we see here is
the famous pike phalanx. These are Macedonians, but pike phalanxes were used
all over the ancient world. They were used by the Romans initially. It's very good against cavalry. It makes it very difficult for cavalry to operate on the battlefield. These are very, very long spears. You're far more limited
in how you can use them. You don't generally turn them
around to use the back end, although these pikes do
have a counterbalance on the back end with a spike on it. Now, that's partially so
if the pike gets broken, you can turn it around
and use the other end still as a weapon. Also, it
provides a counterbalance so you can hold more of
the pike out in front. Hoplites were quite characteristic for using the pike two-handed. They needed to use it two-handed because it was so big
and relatively heavy, but they also used shields. And so what they did is
they strapped the shield in such a way that they
can hide behind the shield to some degree, obviously protection against arrows, but also protection against enemy pikes. This has been represented
very well, very accurately. So, against arrows it's difficult because you're holding a
great long pike with two hands and you've kind of got
the shield suspended. It's not that easy to, at that
point, put your shield up, because you're not
really holding the shield in the typical way, and also the shield doesn't
cover your whole body. The problem with arrows is they'll find, it doesn't matter how good the armor is or what shields you're carrying, they will find gaps. So absolutely peppering
a phalanx with arrows, it is good advice. So, one little detail, it makes it look like the pike is traveling very, very
quickly and piercing bodies. And the one thing you
have to say about pikes is they don't move quickly because they only move as
quickly as the pike block moves. You can stab a bit with a pike, but it doesn't go through
an awful lot of motion. 8 out of 10. So, it's a massive, massive glaive. Yeah, glaive is an
English word for a weapon that's essentially like
a falchional broadsword on the end of a stick. So it has the reach of a polearm, but it has the cutting
and thrusting abilities and type of a sword. And it would be a form of dao. A dao is a single-edged weapon. So it's something that's
very effective at cutting. That's a very, very big glaive head. So this is a heavy polearm. OK. I actually like the cutting
mechanics that he's doing. They're pretty good, but why have they got
to grappling distance? He shouldn't have allowed the
swordsman to get that close. If you get to grappling distance, the swordsman has the advantage. [laughs] The spinning around the neck, it's not something you'd really want to do in a real fight at all, unless you wanted to lose. I wouldn't say he's necessarily holding it in the most logical way, because he's given up all
of his reach advantage by holding it across his body. The opponent's got a sword. He's got a weapon that's twice its length, so he should be using the reach advantage. I mean, it's beautifully choreographed, but a lot of it is totally unrealistic to how you'd actually use those weapons. And that goes for the
swords or the polearms. 3 out of 10. So, the bad guy has what we would call, we'd probably call it a form of halberd. So a halberd is essentially an ax blade with a rear spike, and usually they have a top spike. But if the ax blade is shaped
to have a top spike already, then you don't need an
additional top spike. Now, the way he's using it, [laughs] it looks comedic, but actually, can you think,
if you're occupying a space, how intimidating that would be? This is a weapon which weighs, probably if it was a real
one and if it was steel, probably about 6 pounds. If someone's got a 6-pound weapon, of which about 5 pounds
of that is the end, and they're whirling it around, that's really, really intimidating. One hit from that and you're going down. Absolutely the right thing
against the polearm wielder. I really, really liked it as a fight. An 8 out of 10. I would say that out of the movies that we've looked at today, "Troy" is the first one that comes to mind that actually shows
spears used like spears. I think that this is one of the
best spear fights on-screen. Thanks so much for watching. I hope you've enjoyed this video. Why don't you click on this one up here to see something else that
hopefully you'll enjoy as well?
