Are double-bladed fantasy swords practical?

[Quartz]

I found this video interesting and informative.

[video=youtube_share;TPXOOKEnvoQ]http://youtu.be/TPXOOKEnvoQ[/video]

 

[was]

I've never really found them to be very practical. Cool, but not practical.

 

[Celebrim]

No.

I suppose you could fight with a double ended glaive of some sort, but even then I don't think it would be practical compared to a simpler lighter weapon. You'd be reducing the effective reach and versatility of the pole weapon, which is two of the three reasons to use a pole weapon in the first place. In particular, I can think of little reason to use such a weapon instead of a paired set of shorter weapons, such as a shuang gou or just simply some sort of sword.

In terms of battlefield utility, almost every culture ends up moving in the direction of sword and shield, or spear (with or without shield), or some sort of glaive for melee weapons. Most other practical battlefield melee weapons tend to be responses to either those weapons or armor specifically designed to defeat those weapons.

 

[Ryujin]

Yeah, I was in on that discussion (the person who mentioned being afraid of gelding myself with something that stupid). Skall has some very good videos, like the series he started to do about the utility of various fantasy weapons. For a more studious look at weaponry check out scholagladiatoria and lindybeige, also both on Youtube. When Skall mentions "Matt" (Easton) he's talking about scholagladiatoria.

 

[Umbran]

I suppose you could fight with a double ended glaive of some sort

Not what you're talking about, of course, but historically, I think it was not uncommon to put a thrusting tip on the butt end of shorter polearms, for when the enemy has gotten inside the reach of the long handle.

 

[Celebrim]

Not what you're talking about, of course, but historically, I think it was not uncommon to put a thrusting tip on the butt end of shorter polearms, for when the enemy has gotten inside the reach of the long handle.

Those butt spikes served a variety of purposes, not limited to providing counter-balance to the weapon, allowing you to brace the weapon against the ground as for resisting a charge, reducing splintering from the shaft on the haft end, or serving as a back up weapon in the event the main fighting end of the weapon was sundered. I know they were used on the dory (Greek spear), sarissa (Greek pike), and medieval poleax.

Nonetheless, as you say, not what I'm talking about. A relatively dull bronze spike is not a sharpened blade.

 

[gamerprinter]

I've seen a historical polearm with a short mace on a chain attached to the butt end of the polearm, exactly for the purpose of successfully attacking someone who has managed to bypass the range of your polearm. I don't know how common it was for such a situation to occur, but I've seen at least one historical example.

 

[Ryujin]

Generally speaking you would just shorten up your grip on your spear/polearm, if someone got inside the long reach. You could then use the haft as a quarterstaff or use the business end, fairly easily. If not then you generally also had an axe, dagger, etc.. You'd generally want to keep the advantage of that reach, though, if at all possible.

 

[BigVanVader]

You know, we are talking about a fantasy world. I think a double-bladed weapon could work if you aren't using a human anatomy. Like, if a robot was using it, he could spin his wrist around really fast and have an awesome helicopter situation going on.

 

[Bluenose]

I can't remember where it was but I've seen a staff weapon that had short blades at both ends. Korean, possibly, though I can't remember for sure. It was supposedly used mostly as a staff, but with the equivalent to a spear point as well. I don't think it exactly qualifies, since the bllades were only a small proportion of the length, but it did exist.