Romongus

What's the best melee weapon? The answer is unambiguously the spear, which is also one of the cheapest and oldest weapons. Neanderthals used spears. The answer to the question posed in the image below is that in one-on-one combat, the sharp pole will usually win, but in disciplined mass combat, the long sharp pole can be used to form a pike mass, and then it can beat almost anything. Even the fabled Roman legions lost when facing trained pikemen unless they could break up the pike line, flank them, or otherwise do some kind of workaround. Lindybeige on YouTube has several videos in which he gets re-enactors to fight with swords against spears. He goes through lots of variations - spears with shields, without shields, swords allowed to flank, or not allowed to flank (trying to simulate an unflankable line), and so forth. Even though his spear-using Brits are usually unfamiliar with their weapon, and his sword-users fairly experienced, the spears win almost all the time. 1/3