Polearm
Because many polearms were adapted from agricultural implements or other fairly abundant tools, and contained relatively little metal, they were cheap to make and readily available.
Bills, picks, dane axes, spears, glaives, guandaos, pudaos, pikes, poleaxes, halberds, harpoons, sovnyas, tridents, naginatas, bardiches, war scythes, and lances are all varieties of polearms.
This can be due to a number of factors, including uncertainty in original descriptions, changes in weapons or nomenclature through time, mistranslation of terms, and the well-meaning inventiveness of later experts.
For example, the word "halberd" is also used to translate the Chinese ji and also a range of medieval Scandinavian weapons as described in sagas, such as the atgeir.
[1] In the words of the arms expert Ewart Oakeshott, Staff-weapons in Medieval or Renaissance England were lumped together under the generic term "staves" but when dealing with them in detail we are faced with terminological difficulty.
The problems with precise definitions can be inferred by a contemporary description of Royalist infantry which were engaged in the Battle of Birmingham (1643) during the first year of English Civil War (in the early modern period).
The infantry regiment that accompanied Prince Rupert's cavalry were armed:[3]with pikes, half-pikes, halberds, hedge-bills, Welsh hooks, clubs, pitchforks, with chopping-knives, and pieces of scythes.The dagger-axe (Chinese: 戈; pinyin: gē; Wade–Giles: ko; sometimes confusingly translated "halberd") is a type of weapon that was in use from Shang dynasty until at least Han dynasty China.
Other rarities include archaeology findings with two or sometimes three blades stacked in line on top of a pole, but were generally thought as ceremonial polearms.
Known in Malay as a dap, it consists of a wooden shaft with a curved blade fashioned onto the end, and is similar in design to the Korean woldo.
Described in English as a "sparth" (from the Old Norse sparðr)[6] or "pale-axe",[7] the weapon featured a larger head with broader blade, the rearward part of the crescent sweeping up to contact (or even be attached to) the haft.
The blade bears a moderate to strong curve along its length; however, unlike a bill or guisarme, the cutting edge is on the convex side.
Like most polearms it was developed by peasants by combining hand tools with long poles, in this case by putting a pruning hook onto a spear shaft.
[12] A glaive is a polearm consisting of a single-edged tapering blade similar in shape to a modern kitchen knife on the end of a pole.
Illustrations in the 13th century Maciejowski Bible show a short staffed weapon with a long blade used by both infantry and cavalry.
A svärdstav (literally sword-staff) is a Swedish medieval polearm that consists of a two-edged sword blade attached to a 2-metre (6 ft 7 in) staff.
[16] The illustrations sometimes show a socket mount and reinforcing langets being used, but sometimes they are missing; it is possible this weapon was sometimes manufactured by simply attaching an old sword blade onto a long pole on its tang, not unlike a naginata.
[19] It was appreciated by samurai who fought on foot as a weapon to maintain optimal distance from the enemy in close combat, but after the Onin War in the 15th century, large groups of mobilized infantry called asigaru began to equip themselves with yari (spear) yumi (longbow) and tanegashima (gun), making naginata and tachi (long sword) obsolete on the battlefield and often replaced with nagamaki and katana.
During the Sengoku period, a large group of ashigaru in a formation used yari as one of their main weapons and exerted tremendous power on the battlefield.
Honda Tadakatsu a vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu, had gained a reputation as a master of one of the Three Great Spears of Japan, Tonbokiri.
The Joseon government implemented rigorous training regimens requiring soldiers to be proficient with swordsmanship, and the use of the woldo.
Besides, historical accounts of the Three Kingdoms era describe Guan Yu thrusting his opponents down (probably with a spear-like polearm) in battle, not cutting them down with a curved blade.
A podao is an infantryman's weapon, mainly used for cutting the legs off oncoming charging horses to bring down the riders.
The Barcha is a type of lance with a wooden handle, once common in South Asia in the 16th century and was popular weapon of choice in the Maratha Empire.
Nagni Barcha is identified as the weapon used by the Sikh warrior Bhai Bachittar Singh to kill a drunken Mughal war elephant at the Siege of Lohgarh.
The Swiss were famous users of the halberd in the medieval and renaissance eras,[31] with various cantons evolving regional variations of the basic form.
The poleaxe emerged in response to the need for a weapon that could penetrate plate armour and featured various combinations of an axe-blade, a back-spike and a hammer.
