Spears

[LT Sandpaw]

Dagger aren't heavy enough to sustain a blow from a sword and can do absolutely nothing against a battle axe. If you were fighting against a sword the dagger would be knocked from your hand no matter how tight of a hold you have on it.

Against the spear unless your greased lightning on your feet you'll get stabbed. The dagger just isn't a capable weapon, I can see it being used as a secondary if it ever comes to grappling in battle which is most likely rare.

[Wylder Treejumper]

Depends, perhaps, on your defenition of dagger. Most people tend to think knife at the word, but a normal dagger had a blade of 12" but could go up to 24", afterwards becoming a short sword. In the Middle Ages a short sword could be a long dagger and vice versa. So if you used two long daggers at, say, 18", I would say that would be pretty proficient weaponry. Also, if you close on an opponent, you have a far better chance with a 18" dagger than a 36" sword.

[The Skarzs]

True, but when most people think of a dagger they think of something around 8-12 inches (20-30 cm).

[Wylder Treejumper]

Well, if Brian armed beasts with only daggers, they wouldn't have been puny short ones...

[Hickory]

And if they did use short blades, he'd've called them Sgian Dhus.

[Wylder Treejumper]

Not necessarily, those were specific highlander blades.

[Stonestripe]

Even Rasconsa (spelled horribly wrong) had a short sword I believe

[Lady Ashenwyte]

Depends, perhaps, on your defenition of dagger. Most people tend to think knife at the word, but a normal dagger had a blade of 12" but could go up to 24", afterwards becoming a short sword. In the Middle Ages a short sword could be a long dagger and vice versa. So if you used two long daggers at, say, 18", I would say that would be pretty proficient weaponry. Also, if you close on an opponent, you have a far better chance with a 18" dagger than a 36" sword.

Half-swording is also always a valid option.

[rrrrr]

Or maybe a sword that can turn into a dagger?

[Dannflower Reguba]

       The popularity of the spear was also do to the fact that a wall of well placed spear-type weapons was a great counter to mounted units, it's biggest flaw being less mobility combined with the potential threat of ranged assault. The Roman's are still renowned for their "turtle" strategy, now I don't know if they managed to use it in such a way that their "spears" were pointing outside, but that would certainly be a reason for them to keep them close.

       As to the spear being under-rated, I can certainly admit it's not being used to its' full effect. However, I also must point out that a lot of the situations presented by the book would call for weapons such as swords or bows over spears. Often times, the fighting is in a wooded area, or another enclosed space. Lack of mobility in tight spaces is an already mentioned weakness of the spear, whereas a sword, while somewhat sharing this weakness, isn't going to suffer as nearly as much as a spear, especially if it's a short sword. You'll notice that some of the invading armies had what would appear to be a decent amount of this armament, Cluny's horde for example. That was a situation, where the vermin had a good strategic reason to use a spear over other weapons, they would expect to fight on the inside of the Abbey grounds, an open space with plenty of room for movement and organization. They also would've been coming from a pillage and plunder lifestyle, attacking places that didn't necessarily have walls to protect them, also allowing full effective use of the spear.

       And besides, they don't look nearly as awesome as other weapons. 

(Shout out to the Landsknecht, first time I've seen someone mention them before.)

[Faiyloe]

For some reason I never looked at this topic till just now and this is perfect. I am actually working on a fan fiction with the Spearlady Gorse in it so this is perfect research for that.    Oh fate is good.  XD

[Lady Ashenwyte]

@Dan The romans never used spears, they used the gladius, the spear you must be referring to is the on thrown, called a pilum.

[The Skarzs]

For some reason I never looked at this topic till just now and this is perfect. I am actually working on a fan fiction with the Spearlady Gorse in it so this is perfect research for that.    Oh fate is good.  XD

Heh.

[Jetthebinturong]

@Dan The romans never used spears, they used the gladius, the spear you must be referring to is the on thrown, called a pilum.

Except thrown spears are still spears and pila were often used in melee combat

[Dannflower Reguba]

       Spear, Javelin, Lance, Whatever you want to call it. I'm using the more general term spear to make things easy. I don't care what fancy name an ancient civilization gave to their spear, it's still a spear.