this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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tbf, it's too specialized. They're heavy so they can hurt through armor, which makes them slow. Terrible weapon vs an unarmored opponent, who can more easily just get out of the way or stay out of your reach.
A spear is at least good everywhere but indoors.
Like, what is the absolute last medieval weapon you would ever want if you were fighting 3 unarmed guys? All fast, all know what they're doing. I'd say mace is solidly last.
Now, are they all wearing heavy plate armor like knights? Then mace becomes really, really good, it'll break your bones through that steel, dent the steel inward so it compresses your body and the joints stop working properly, all sorts of shitty things. And you're too slow to get out of the way.
source: I like maces.
I've always found them the most scary. If someone has mastered one, able to control and time the weight, opening up opportunities for blows, you're fucked. A light blow with a blade or spear, you're taking shallow damage and can scamper back. But with a mace? You're off-balance now or quite stunned and that's exactly what leads to the skull being crushed in a second later.
So, sure they're slower and harder to land, but patiently, just one good hit and it's game very quickly and violently over. Not to mention, the wielder doesn't have to worry about their weapon being stuck in the dead guy.
Good plate armor was nowhere near as ungainly as many people imagine. A knight wearing a well-made suit would actually retain a surprising amount of agility and speed. The downside was that they obviously had to be custom made and were so expensive that only the wealthiest nobles could afford them.
While true, it doesn't take much speed reduction to make a mace, or anything else, no longer miss you. Inertia is what it is, and the margins are not always large. The armor can deal with a lucky sword stroke, unless it's really, really lucky. It can't deal with a lucky mace stroke, you're a casualty. Broken arm, leg, skull, something.
Otherwise maces wouldn't have much of a point, anyway. Tiring to swing, shorter reach, yeah it hurts, but so does a sword if there's no armor in the way. Takes minimal training, but so does a spear, and spearmen can stand in close order and poke. A maceman can't do that, you gotta swing that thing. It's not much of a poker, like say, a roman gladius is.
If there's no heavy armor on the field, leave your mace at home. If there's heavy armor, bring the mace. Battering through that shit is what it's for.
All true, just want to add to it.
You can bring the mace anyway, just in case, as long as you don't mind carrying it. One other major benefit is that the things could be dirt cheap because you don't need good quality metal.
But if you want to hit people, and have a money and time for training, go for an axe. Pretty much all the advantages of a mace, but can cut on top (and usually poke too).
The other part of the equation is not getting killed, and usually the guys in heavy armor are good at killing you. Getting in striking range for a medium range weapon like a mace/axe/sword is damn dangerous, so a slower weapon like a mace or axe that's additionally bad at defending because of a more distant point of balance means a much increased risk to your life. So if it's one on one, you should really think twice about trying to getting that lucky strike in.
So as a mace guy I should just follow around some dude in armor and we just go fuck up everyone who also is wearing armor
Even if you're armed with the choice weapon, and skilled, 3 knights on foot looking to fuck you up are gonna do so lol. Those guys were brawlers more than anything else
A recurve bow and a horse.
But yea, probably accurate. lol
Maces tended to be lighter and shorter than equivalent swords.
Maces aren’t as good against unarmored opponents, because unarmored opponents bleed and get incapacitated from a few well placed cuts. Swords tend to balance their weight closer to the handle to offer precision to make those cuts.
Maces specialize in delivering nearly the entire energy behind a strike. They were balanced to the tip of the weapon for that reason. Which is great against cut resistant armor due to energy transfer. Note that this places maces utility well before invention of plate armor.
If it’s heavy and slow, it’s not a weapon. Slow weapons kill their weilders. Rare armor rendered the user so slow as to let you swing in a game-like “lumberjack dealing with a stubborn log” fashion. There are plenty demonstrations around that show how fast and deadly an armored swordsman is.
The statement about spears indoors is game logic. The variability in spears and swords designs is such that most swords and spears would be equally dogshit indoors, but those that wouldn’t would all work quite ok. In a narrow, defensibly built passageway, thrusting attacks are nearly the only attacks available to combatants. A short spear then can offer a good deal of utility that sword wouldn’t, and vise versa. Short maces are nowhere near being useless there either.
Couple points in there I could argue, but it's fair enough. Source for maces generally being lighter than equivalent swords? My experience has been very much to the contrary, though I've never held an actual historical artifact, only replicas.
For example, https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1916.1589
It being from 16th century, it’s likely the heavier variant for cavalrymen (which the description kinda confirms). Even then it weighs only 1.6kg.
Some sword examples:
Note the years and descriptions on the lighter swords. They are more of an everyday tool for civilians at that point. A regular club competed with those, probably very successfully.
I rather doubt a regular club competed with a fencing sword successfully, in hands of equal skill. That I'm afraid I will argue. It's a question of speed and weighting. That heavy weighting towards the top you were describing earlier in a mace, and also present in a typical club or baton, has far more effects than merely focusing force over a smaller surface area. You also have the basic physics of moving a lever through an arc, and overcoming the intertia of the end of it, if you desire to change its direction.
My own training is mostly in actually using weapons, not academic understanding of them, and you're entering my turf. lol
By compete I mean to compete in utility and general use, not in a duel. Fencing sword is of no use when you get whacked at the back of your head. It’s also relatively useless on a battlefield, from which I presume it occupied mostly the same space the clubs did - streets and roads.
I won’t argue on weight distribution influence. Sharp object balanced near the handle doesn’t need much of a swing to render my arms unusable. A mace simply cannot do that, its utility lies elsewhere.
PS: I would love to see a skilled fight using a thrusting sword and a mace. Thrusting swords don’t have a cutting edge, which makes it possible to grab and grapple them aside. I imagine the moment your opponent grabs your sword and swings their club presents quite a pickle.
I feel like it would be fairly easy to leap backwards so long as your back isn't to a wall. The force of the leap alongside you yanking your sword backward should free it from most grips, I'd think. I'm just spitballing though, I've never actually tried to seriously grab any kind of thin blade, much less a fencing sword of some sort. I guess you could torque it in your grip to improve your control, I don't know how much of an effect this could have. I doubt it'd go much like the (fantastic) finale scenes of Rob Roy though, just because your asking your forearm muscles to combat a pretty hefty amount of momentum via mostly friction, which just isn't very likely to work imo.
Unless you had an equivalent amount of forward momentum yourself, coming in with a massive lunge to maintain distance against the retreating opponent. That's pretty all-or-nothing though. If instead of leaping backwards he moves into you, you have no cover (both of your hands are in use at this moment) against a potential fist or elbow to your face from his free arm, with the extra momentum of the two of you approaching each other.
By the way, I never thanked you for the corrections to my understanding, so thank you. This is admittedly not the first time I've had to take my spankings from an educated academic, I am a bit of a poster child for replica weapons being frequently inaccurate and thus teaching mistaken impressions. I do try to remember this, but it isn't always easy. I do have a strong appreciation for accurate understanding of history though, so thank you for taking the time to write up corrections and provide sources.
Oh, I’m not an academic, just an ADHD poster child. Historic weapons keep appearing on my radar for the past few years and I repeatedly find myself spending time on researching what I’ll never practice.
I try to find and share sources for that reason - they allow others to skip incorrect assumptions I made along the way.
Still an educated academic, simply self-taught. If you do your due diligence appropriately, which your fluency with source material seems to demonstrate is so, that's good enough for me.
I'm reminded of Drachinifel on youtube, originally an engineer by trade, but now a well-regarded expert on naval historiography, specifically from the age of sail to the pre-modern era, with a particular focus on Spanish ships.
Dude just reads a lot, and has research skills, a good memory and a knack for history communication.
There's just one lesson in mace school: "come at them from behind".
Walk softly and carry a big stick
I think most weapons, including lack of weapons, benefits from surprise attacks from behind.
I'd put a pair of Sai behind the mace against the unarmed guys. Those things are useless, unless you know exactly what you're doing. A mace is just an improvement on a warhammer, so even untrained, I have a pretty good idea of how to use it. A sledgehammer is similar enough.
not sure i agree people tend to wield baseball bats the same just swinging for the fences but a quick jab with the base or top is the most effective way to use them.
i think it's all technique
A baseball bat is a two handed club anyway. Maces are shorter and heavier.
What's your opinion on flails?
The haft with a long chain and ball on the end is fantasy. However, I fought with one for a couple of years as a combat actor/choreographer and ren-faire reenactor and would say that the flail is a duelist's weapon only. And in a duel its chief function is to remove your opponent's shield.
A well placed flail strike will go around the guard of your opponent and potentially break fingers, hand, wrist, or arm.
You can also try to use it to disarm their primary weapon but it's less reliable in this regard as it becomes a tug of war strength contest.
Use your flail to break their hand and make them drop their shield and then drop the flail and draw your side sword or whatever else you happen to have.
Too slow and clumsy of a weapon to fight against a group or near allies.
An even weirder one, a flail with a bike style chain: https://youtu.be/K5sPDbwr7EI
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Seems to me like a bearded axe does many of the same things while being easier to control and being more effective as a striking weapon, no?
Yeah pretty much, which is why the axe was actually used and flails as we know them are fantasy weapons. The flail has the intimidation and cool factor but otherwise I'd rather have an axe.
The flail might have more reach, but the longer the chain the slower the weapon and more skill required to land a blow.
One handed flails were never used in warfare. They were made for decoration. There was a 2 handed flail that couldn't reach the user but it was still not very effective.
Hits really hard. Probably kinda hard to use. If I picked up a real one I'd probably end up giving myself a concussion somehow.
I guess I don't know very much about flails... I thought they were more of a cavalry weapon irl, but I'd have to look that up. Unless it's the old makeshift farm implement version that some peasants probably picked up at different points.