What is the ideal halberd length?

Your average footman is somewhere between 5'6" and 5'10"

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    7ft maybe?

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The more friends you have the longer you want it
    If you are alone you want around your height

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    About tree fiddy

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The size of an average human mother.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Halberds were always a ceremonial weapon and were never used in organized warfare. Any army that could potentially field a unit of halberds would use pikes instead.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Yeah they were, there was quite a long period of time where pikes were supported by large numbers of men armed with other melee weapons.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      From what I saw on historic examples 1 foot longer than the guy is tall.

      You're dumb and you should feel bad.

      halberds are usually on the longer end for polearms. not 18ft like pikes but 10 to 12ish. as in the length is a defining characteristic and shorter things that look like halberds have different names such as poleaxe

      nope, just no

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You goddamn moron.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Decent bait anon, but you'll have to make it more obvious. The general level of moronation is so high in this board, people will think you're being serious.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Thats the point of bait

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    halberds are usually on the longer end for polearms. not 18ft like pikes but 10 to 12ish. as in the length is a defining characteristic and shorter things that look like halberds have different names such as poleaxe

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Pollaxes varied a lot, from 5ft to gracing 7 or 8ft, they were also characterized by being bolted or screwed multiple pieces rather than just socketed single piece heads.

      From what I saw on historic examples 1 foot longer than the guy is tall.

      You're dumb and you should feel bad.

      [...]
      nope, just no

      Halberds could be on the same category as voulges, bills and glaives which means they were long enough to stick out and be used in formation, they look about as long in drawings and art of the time

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I visited several collections here and you rarely find a period halberd longer than 220cm. most of them are below that on average the staff and head combined are about mans height.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Several collections where anon, arsenals tend to have a lot of the same because they are arsenals. Also do keep in mind medieval people WERE shorter, not as short as early modern people but still enough 220cm stuck out way past most peoples' heads at the time, they didnt have to be Sarissa sized to be used in formation

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          What's the advantage to a halberd over a regular pike/spear?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >regular pike
            It's not utterly useless if the enemy is closer than, say, six or seven feet away.

            >spear?
            Pic.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            swinging a polearm at an armored kBlack person generally produces better results than trying to poke them. being shorter and choppy also makes halberds more effective when people get too close

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Depends on the armor, if you wrestle the fat bastard into the mud, a thin point going into an eye slit or armpit joint ends the problem just as quickly

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                "If". You try jumping right into the enemy formation on your own to focus fully on one of them and see how well that goes for you. And remember, there's no reason for the guy you attack to be any worse at wrestling or in any worse physical shape than you are.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                kinda hard to wrestle with a pike m8

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The European Halberd is probably an Italian invention from the 13th century and was popularized by the Swiss during the 14th and 15th century. Original it was used by the Swiss to have a chance at penetrating the armour of the adversaries who had mostly mail and gambeson at the time. It tunred out that it was a very versatile weapon both useful in formation and melee. One of the advantages in line is that you can swing it down like an axe or use it as a spear, and if you miss you have a chance to get him when you pull back because of the spike and the axe blade. It also was versatile enough to attack guys on horseback and hack trough quality mail.
            Later in the 16th, 17th and 18th century it became mostly a ceremonial weapon and got phased out on the battlefield but remained popular with guards of all kind because potent jack of all trades weapon that can help defend a gate or whatever.

  7. 1 year ago
    KM

    A rough overview of man vs halberd vs pike length, courtesy of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna.

  8. 1 year ago
    KM

    Now obviously these armour stand only places things very approximately in the height they'd be when worn, but given that heights of men and halberd alike varied it may be about as exact as there's much meaning to for us without getting into actual collection of statistical data.

    We also have what George Silver wrote. "To know the perfect length of your short staff, or half pike, forest bill, partisan, or glaive, or such like weapons of vantage and perfect lengths, you shall stand upright, holding the staff upright close by your body, with your left hand, reaching with your right hand your staff as high as you can, and then allow to that length a space to set both your hands, when you come to fight, wherein you may conveniently strike, thrust, and ward, & that is the just length to be made according to your stature. And this note, that these lengths will commonly fall out to be eight or nine foot long, and will fit, although not just, the statures of all men without any hindrance at all unto them in their fight, because in any weapon wherein the hands may be removed, and at liberty, to make the weapon longer of shorter in fight at his pleasure, a foot of the staff being behind the backmost hand does no harm."
    This is likely a bit longer than what we normally see, possibly because he taught single combat while most halberds (etc) are likely for formation combat, and there a lot of extra pole behind may get caught in/beat up the guy behind you. Or Silver was just a bit of an outlier in his personal preferences.0j0sx

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      They come in mostly two lengths as all the polearms meant for single or loose formation combat - see English bills. Basically as tall as a man and a man + outstretched hand.

      Silver likes to call something superior or inferior based on whether he thinks it's more continental or European. I am sure he hates the shorter size just because he saw Europeans use those more. Another point would be that pikes were also thought to more continental and less English, so he writes that a pike is too long and a halberd of shorter length that would support pike in formation with it is too short.

      Also I am unsure whether Silver actually taught anything professionally. As far as I remember he wasn't a master and merely wrote a book which wasn't even meant to be used for teaching.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Ideal length is snapped into pieces and thrown into trash. It's a worthless euro weapon which was only used because they couldn't do better. Any person back then would have immediately ditched it for superior chinese pudao glaive sword(which euro idiot tried to steal)

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Your average footman is somewhere between 5'6" and 5'10"
    factually incorrect. Pre-Industrial Revolution peoples were a few inches shorter than we are now on average.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    60 feet or more

    if the pole ain't bendin, you just pretendin

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The eternal questions is:
    For what?

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