[NR] Sword vs Spear...

aethelstan aethelstan at mmcable.com
Wed Jun 20 15:37:03 PDT 2001


Good question,
I tend to agree with Bunny that on it's own merits a spear used single
handed in the SCA will not be very effective.

however, it might be used to great advantage in a shield wall.  If you were
to say give every third person a 6 foot spear and a "dangle mace" and a
shield then you would effectively have three zones of contact between
forces. The first zone being the long spears (Aeosph, Daffyd, and Bunny
blazing to glory....gawd I love to watch that)....the second zone would then
be the 6' area with not only the single handed spears, but also the great
and bastard swords....and finally the third zone being shield to shield with
the enemy.  That middle zone is usually the weakest because of the
relatively few number of great swords that are commonly used (Fluffy and
Balvin are their own zone and should not be included here....geeesh), anyway
by putting more firepower in that zone it might help to slow any advance of
an enemy and give time for the long spears to fall back into effective range
as well as opening up more targets for the other 2/3rds of the line.  If an
all out charge happens then the short spears can be handed back to reserves
and maces brought to bear with the long spearmen taking advantage of the
shorter spears in closer quarters.

as far as fighting one on one in tourney with short spear and shield, I
remember a few Samhain's years ago when Michael brought out round center
grip shields and 6' spears....that was fun!!
Spear and shield against most other weapons styles...hmmmm...don't think
so...(says the life long sword and shieldman :)


Aethelstan
who's too tired to think up a sig line :)





> In the SCA I don't think that a spear and shield combination would be as
good a
> combination as it would in real life.  You gotta hit folks in the SCA hard
> enough for them to first, realize they have been hit and secondly, they
have to
> think that the hit would have incapacitated them.  It is hard enough to
get a
> fighter to call a spear with just a push two handed, much less one handed.
Real
> spears do not glance off of chain mail nor does it take but a scratch to
put out
> an eye or tear a cheek off and that can be accomplished with a good real
spear
> on a stout shaft that is small enough to grasp one handed (snip)

> Alrek
> Bunny not Ducky





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