Underappreciated Historical Weapons: the SPEAR

but they may take our lives but they'll never take almost your nation the machicolations [ __ ] available through teespring link in the description [Music] greatings I'm Shanna and welcome back to underappreciated historical weapons now this weapon is kind of interesting because many of you might think this isn't really I'm unappreciated but then at the same time it kind of is I'm really mainly talking about its appearance and prevalence in movies and pop culture and stuff like that of course yes I'm talking about the spear all right now the spear is not necessarily underappreciated in the sense that is unknown most people know of this spear yet they don't really know how prominent it was okay the spear is a weapon that has existed in most cultures okay it's just that pointy stick but then we can try and improve that point enos by adding something that retains its point much better than just wood and so you can put a bronze point on it and upgrade that to I and an even steel okay and so it's really easy to see how easy this weapon is to developed and therefore why it is sort of prominent in other cultures but there's another side to this okay which other people might not fully understand and it's that the other reason why this video is so prominent it wouldn't have been so prominent if it wasn't effective okay the spear is a profoundly effective weapon now in contrast to other weapons like that it's effective in many different circumstances and so a good comparison to the spear will be a very popular weapon and it's the sword I love songs and the sword is my favorite weapon why is the sword my favorite weapon when Spears are so prominent and indeed effective honestly I like the look of them I like the look of swords far more and they are also a bit more convenient to carry around so the problem with this spear is that big okay you generally need to have be always be holding it with one hand at least hold it is there a way to hook it on your body in which you can use both hands kind of but it's very big and awkward and easily hit things when you're moving around somebody out the sword has a level of convenience which helped it become such a prominent weapon and one the main ones really used for self-defense yet the sword is not really used for hunting the spear used for hunting for many times many cultures even primitive cultures this feels like a go to hunting in implement and then on top of this as well a spear is also a very effective battlefield weapon in realms that the sword can not match okay this be can be far more effective against certain types of armor which a sword is incapable of doing and then even in one-on-one combat the spear has some profound advantages in regards to reach and also some levels of versatility and then if we look at the historical record as to which weapon has been the most prominently used amongst armies before the invention of you know gunpowder and the like the spear is pretty much on the top of the list this was the basic and most fundamental battlefield weapon of history which makes it very odd when you see movies and stuff like that where everyone is running in with a slaughter and shield a supplier Oh granted there are some examples in history where the spear was not a prominent weapon and other weapons were used over them but generally especially you know when you look to certain periods in history like Viking warfare ok the spear historically was the most prominent Viking weapon of that P not just amongst Vikings ok max everyone in that period okay if you have an army depict in that period Spears should be everywhere if they really ever I mean look at the Vikings TV series how many Spears do you see in there it's all sort and access granted but still in this sense absolutely this sphere is very underappreciated and not given the credit it deserves in pop culture movies and stuff like that because one of the unfortunate kind of I guess problems that people would I believe about this fear is that they aren't as cool as other weapons I think they can be cool but even I my so said I like swords because they look better as well the sword is have just a cool iconic weapon has this romantic imagery associated with it you know the night holding the sword in front of his face stuff like that or using the sword to represent the Cross praying and any things like that the sword has this iconic beauty and reverence that has attained a kind of symbolism in our folklore and also just general life the sword is a symbol for many things swords are an expensive weapon to make and in comparing it to spear it's far more expensive this is I asked one of the reasons feature so prominently seems going from they're really effective and they're really cheap so of course they're going to be prominent but if you want to have a weapon that's a sign of great wealth hmm the spear isn't really gonna do it for you is it so I can understand how this floor that became connected with wealth power position and things like that and why the idea you might have then started to come about that only the wealthy were allowed swords no perhaps it was just that only the wealthy could at first afford swords but there are many situations in the past which salons became quite affordable secondhand ones essentially and so in this sense it is kind of easy to understand why heroes are not given spears because they are not really considered expensive or prestigious kind of weapons they're just really really useful and so if the hero just wants to use a really good weapon yeah that's probably would be SP because this is the interesting thing like contrasting history okay to fantasy settings there's a big difference as to what weapons you would choose and then become more prominent if you knew you are going to be facing combat all right you pick weapons that are perfectly situated for that and so for a larger part in history the battlefield weapons like I've mentioned Spears they're everywhere okay swords were also used but more often than that swords were a backup weapon in case you lost your primary weapon and we can almost kind of include certain types of pole arms in this discussion but they do become more expensive moral evidence things like that just keeping it with the base level spear them alone are prominent enough and it all want to see a spear is a more effective weapon than a sword just not as convenient and it's not to downgrade the sword like I said sort of my favorite a lot of swords but if you wanted to pick a weapon that would make you as effective a warrior as possible it would be a spear over a sword and a good example of this is our good friend Nicholas Lloyd from the YouTube channel Lindy Paige has recently made a video with our good friend Matt Eastern pitting swords against Spears and its really worth for watch it's there's not much of a spoiler to let you know that Spears win out because they are a more effective weapon and so let's expand this because just like the other episodes have underappreciated historical weapons not in everyone but some of them we do try and apply the weapons or the adoption of weapons to be used more realistically in fantasy and other things like that because they're underappreciated so the spear is most definitely underappreciated because if you're in a fair sea setting I'm like historically where you just needed a weapon for self-defense for the off-chance which is also unlikely that you might get attacked you have a really effective weapon they're ready to go because in reality it is far more likely that you're not going to be attacked and so it's gonna be far more convenient just have a weapon that's not gonna get in the way so you're not going to carry a spear around with you for like months at a time in which you're never gonna use it because you're actually more likely not to get attacked but just in case you do see the convenience aspect here but in adventuring you are actively going out of your way to look for fighting into debt look for trouble and a fairly reliable standard that you can apply to this is that when you look for trouble you are most often going to find it because you make the trouble for yourself oftentimes and so the mentality should actually be very similar to the same mentality you would have if you're going to battle or to war pick the best weapons for the situation and so how often zwarst swords picked is the primary weapon on a battlefield think about it it's not much it's not much at all alright swords are really the primary weapon they were there okay as backup weapons and of course depending on time period and can vary a little bit they could also vary with the type of fighting you do if you're on horseback okay swords can be very prominent on horseback sabers and horses they work really well fighting Spears and horses but the big difference okay just because you know just say understand the context the problem with the spear on a horse is as soon as you get that weapon into your person you're probably gonna lose it okay because the spear goes into someone and the horse is moving forward and so you can't really pull this beer out to go and hit someone again a sword it can be very effective on horseback because when you hit someone the blade hits slices right through and you pass and you still got the blade ready to go and so on horseback a sword can actually be a far more preferable weapon over a spear but when you're on foot okay and you're fighting and whether this is like monsters and in fact even more so if you are fighting monsters creatures larger than you a spear becomes a far better weapon than a sword to keep your distance and also because those creatures are bigger they will have more muscle meat and other things in between the serf their skin and their vital organs and sorry it's gonna be harder for a sword to hit those vital organs and kill the creature cuts against giant creatures it'll hurt them they'll get annoyed but killing them no it's not really gonna happen thrusting is the way to go but the problem with swords they only have so much length and getting close enough to put it deeper into the creature very very difficult but a spear on the other hand is perfectly structured for that and so when you look at this you know the system logically if an adventurer was an adventurer and I say a fantasy setting you know if we apply real-world logic to it a spear is going to be one of the most prominent weapons that all adventures would be using yet they really ever are so they only go it would actually make a lot of sense that a whole party of adventurers if they're the ones that are actually gonna get in there and fighting a whole got spears with him so onto say they wouldn't have swords as backups like I've already mentioned I think several times in this video about fighting ogres orcs goblins maybe not so much it may be sort of good for goblins okay because like one of the Avengers swords big wide swinging you hit multiple people and attack okay so if you've got small little credit because funnily enough right if we apply this back to a medieval setting in which where a sword might be preferable over a spear if you are a heavily armored Knight and you're fighting people who are less armored and you want to take out as many people as possible because you make almost untouchable or suddenly a really big sword becomes very very useful because a weakness of a spear is that it's really a one-person target weapon all right you don't target one person at a time with each attack or with a sword big wide swing you can hit multiple people with a good-old slash so it's a matter of applying I guess real-world logic to the situation if we did well the spear becomes far more prominent in certain circumstances especially fancy and stuff then we have seen to this point in time so absolutely let's give this spear a little bit more laughs shall we thank you very much for watching I hope you've enjoyed and of course I hope to see you again till that time [Music] [Music]

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 419,173

Keywords: spear, spears, weapon, weapons, history, historical, medieval, middle ages, knight, knight's, castle, castles, skyrim, game of thrones, battle, hema, historical european martial arts, assassin's creed, assassin's creed odyssey, hoplite, hoplon, ubisoft, lord of the rings, for honor, dnd, dungeons and dragons, d&d, roleplaying, rpg, stick, spearhead

Id: o71X08qQppI

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 09 2018