The flail

Did people actually use this barbaric thing in the battlefield? How devastating is it against armor? Or would a normal mace be better?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Good way to smack someone in the back of the head even if they have a shield.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      they weren't common, most forms were adopted from farming equipment, the main advantage they offered was like said - they are harder to defend against because even with a shield they can whip around the edge and crush bones behind it

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The Hussites used a flail when in their wagon forts IIRC. It was more like pic rel though since it was a farming tool.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Did people actually use this barbaric thing in the battlefield?
      There two types of weapons that goes by the name of flail, the threshing flailhere is far more well documented, the "ball and chain" one is less so, to the point where some have belived that it didnt existed at all, usually with arguments about its cartoonish impracticability, but there are evidence for it existing, and i have seen people with skill haddling weapons who have tried it, disagree about its impracticability.
      >How devastating is it against armor?
      What type of armor?
      >Or would a normal mace be better?
      Ive seen two things conflicting, one is that is that you are getting a weapon that is both longer, and threafore hits harder, but at the same time is about as compact as mace; the other the is that chain might be detriemental to the impact force, so it doesnt actually hits harder, but i havent seen any consise testing on this, so i dont know. A third thing would be that compared to maces and warhammers, which transfer the vibrations to your hand, you can hit stuff way harder and still be keep your hands confortable.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Wave it violently towards your opponent
    >miss the target
    >It comes swinging towards you by inertia

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      That's why you keep on spinning to maintain your momentum

      take the Night Goblin Fanatic pill

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      You'd have to be much more careful with it otherwise

      Have you guys never thrown a punch? Or swung someting in your arm?
      If the chain is even slightly shorter than the stick it becomes physically impossible to hit yourself

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    You have to consider how generational medieval warfare and technology was. I'm not sure how long this sort of flail is speculated to have been in use on the battlefield, but i've heard it be said it was used to strike armored opponents on the back. It certainly held a more tertiary role.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Or if it even was. The ball and chain type of flail might've been the medieval version of the Asp for all we know, sort of like wooden flails were in the seventeen hundreds.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I heard the chain was much shorter

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      You'd have to be much more careful with it otherwise

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Behold, some guy using a three-headed flail in a 15th century fresco by Piero della Francesca, although it might just be artistic license considering some of the other equipment depicted in the painting is a bit weird looking

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It should be noted that he depicts a historical battle from antiquity there. As far as I know, most depictions of these kinds of flails stem from historicist depictions.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Yes.
    Better than a mace because more swing.
    Dk about effectiveness.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I would say that a flail would be considered armor penetrating, as for other examples though I will defer you to this video, too much to explain

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    You go "bonk" hard on their head, they get bleedy and die
    Simple as

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Nope. It's a stupid idea for a weapon. The force doesn't follow through and rebounds instead.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This is a good thing from horseback, way less recoil.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I think you underestimate the weight of these. Bashing someone would not only knock someone of his horse it might very well cause his own armor to crush him.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Meme weapon

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I always found it hilarious how in jap media everyone is a knight. You have knightly orders and knight corps and exiled knights and slave knights and royal knights and any kind of knight you could ever dream of

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I kinda like, especially with the pseudo-historical armors mixed with fantasy elements you find in media like Berserk and Dark Souls, it's fun.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >every (law abiding) swordsman is a samurai in edo japan
        >clearly every swordsman must be a knight in medieval europe
        It's fricking stupid, but you can easily see where they got it from. Even western culture tends to apply historical stereotypes very anachronistically and anatopistically..

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >every (law abiding) swordsman is a samurai in edo japan
        >clearly every swordsman must be a knight in medieval europe
        It's fricking stupid, but you can easily see where they got it from. Even western culture tends to apply historical stereotypes very anachronistically and anatopistically..

        Except that's not the case with Berserk, there were mainly mercenaries in the manga, not sure about everyone else in the manga, though.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >Except that's not the case with Berserk
          Are you fricking serious, there were a lot more knightly orders than mercenary companies.
          In fact, I can't even think of any named mercenary bands aside from the hawk and whatever Gambino's company was named.
          Whereas for comparison, you have holy iron chain, blue rhyno, black dog, white tiger, blue whale, black ram, etc for the knights.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I get what you’re saying but the manga did make a brief mention of other mercenary bands of how they were made up of rough, rugged men with often shady pasts. Of course, that’s the very least they did.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    How do you not get stabbed a hundred times in the time it takes to swing that thing?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It's meant to strike behind their cover. So I imagine the best situation to use it is in the middle of an advancing shield wall

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >these weapons are real damaging bro i've seen a youtuber do it

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >these weapons were never real bro a youtuber told me so

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    No, it was a meme weapon drunk knights would pull out to impress their buddies/peasants at parties, no one actually went to war with it

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I bet it would be fun to spar with

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They're historically attested, but it's become clickbait to say otherwise to drive traffic

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    haha spiky ball goes brr

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    worked like a mutherfuker, though it may have been more of cavalry sidearm, isolated self defence type weapon. That thresher thingy tho, was much common for infantry. Both would fuk up dudes in plate.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    see >> 13776942

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