• Chariotwheel@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Generally, speers are being done dirty. Like close up sword battles and duels are just cooler, in a way, but the spear was the backbone of many armies. Perfect for even simple formations, it gives range edge, spears are cheaper to produce, easier to train untrained people in and so on.

    • darq@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Yup, even in Japan, the general weapons of choice were the spear and the bow. The sword was mostly ceremonial.

      If a samurai had their sword out in a battle, they had probably fallen off of their horse and were in a lot of trouble.

      • Chariotwheel@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        In some time periods there was actual dueling. People of rank would call out their name and position and duel with someone of the same standing.

        This ended after the mongol invasion. They tried calling out the mongols for duels and the mongols didn’t know what that was and didn’t give a shit and just cut everything down.

        At that point the Japanese dropped that for actual war.

      • RobertOwnageJunior@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It just makes sense. Why would you go in with a sharp piece of metal when you could just shoot a sharp piece of wood/metal from a safe distance?

    • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      Whenever you actually see a spear in a movie or TV show, they always start twirling it and dancing around like a majorette. Which is pretty legit against a single opponent who manages to close the range, but still pretty unrepresentative of the weapon they don’t call Pokey McPokeface.