War scythe

In the 1685 battle of Sedgemoor, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, fielded a 5000 strong peasant unit armed with war scythes.

They were used in the 1784 Transylvanian peasants' Revolt of Horea, Cloşca and Crişan, in the war in the Vendée by royalist peasant troops, in the 1st War of Schleswig in 1848 in Denmark, and again in various Polish uprisings: the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794 and the battle of Racławice, in which scythe wielders successfully charged and captured Russian artillery.

In that year Chrystian Piotr Aigner published a field manual, Short Treatise on Pikes and Scythes, detailing the training and operation of scythe-equipped forces, the first and probably only such book in the history of warfare.

The description of a fighting unit as "scythemen" was used in Poland as late as 1939; however, the Gdynia "kosynierzy" were armed with hunting guns rather than scythes.

They could be used, depending on construction and tactics, to make slashing or stabbing attacks, and with their uncommon appearance and considerable strength could have a psychological impact on an unprepared enemy.