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The very best unmounted non-missile weapon in 3 categories:

Untrained or nearly untrained militia. Probably not very well equipped. May or may not be able to hold a formation. Probably used mostly for city defense.

Well-trained foot-soldier. The average soldier in a professional army. Probably capable of staying in a mutually supporting formation in almost any situation. Used for attack and defense.

Undisputed master. The very best anyone could do given the limits of the human body. Just one, so no formation. One person just trying to kill as many people as possible. If an action movie taking place in a historical time had a scene where the kick-ass hero had to kill a few hundred people, which weapon would be best for that task?

So what's it going to be? The halberd, so good the Pope chose it as the armament of his personal guard? Or the pike, which just before the advent of gunpowder, was the weapon of choice for almost all of Europe? Or the good old fashioned sword and shield?

The descriptions given may be wrong, they're just my take on what each of the people in those 3 categories. If any part of any description is wrong, just disregard it and substitute accurate information, and answer the question to the best of your knowledge.

For the untrained (or barely trained) the pike was and remains the best choice. First you get the advntage of range. a 12 or 14ft pike means the enemy is at least that far away from you if they have swords or something else. Second its about the only way for infantry to stand up to cavalry. Lastly it doesn't take much to get proficient, you just have to be absolutely ruthless about maintaining unit cohesion. The halberd is just too damn likely to slice your own side up for untrained militia.


For a well trained soldier probably go with either the halberd or the pike. All the advnatges of the pike remain for trained infantry and they are even LESS likely to break formation (which is where the strength of the unit comes from)

For an excellently trained single combatant I would go with the spiked mace and a shield (probably a buckler). You need something fast nd agile that gives you a chance to beat through armor of your opponents while the buckler gives you a chance to get inside a pike formaiton (allbeit a small chance)

Halberd gives you three in one, Axe, spear and tripping attachment, perfect for yanking knights off their bloody high horses.

Untrained:Pike(Anyone can use a pike, stick the point end in the other fellow, what-ho good job)

Well-Trained Foot-soldier:Halberd w/shield

Undisputed Master:Light saber... failing that, Mono-filament wire, failing that... I've always thought the so called "Tiger-Head" Hook swords backed with up a shield rather than a second sword would be the most useful. A sword designed to be pointy, flexible and it's useful for tripping, disarming and stabbing people at the same time? Even a Knight in full plate is pretty dang vuranable to you tripping him, then using the dagger tip to stab him in the vitals.

That last one is of course only semi-serious, but I've always liked the idea of the swiss-army sword. Sure it's not a Claymore to blast through all defenses, but it does damn near everything else.

Mr Bean wrote:Well-Trained Foot-soldier:Halberd w/shield

Not feasible, halberds are too large (ca. 9 foot long) to use with a shield of any reasonable size. The length of the weapon itself is what protects you.

I've always thought the so called "Tiger-Head" Hook swords backed with up a shield rather than a second sword would be the most useful. A sword designed to be pointy, flexible and it's useful for tripping, disarming and stabbing people at the same time? Even a Knight in full plate is pretty dang vuranable to you tripping him, then using the dagger tip to stab him in the vitals.

You have to remember that the knight is also armed, and well trained, and trying to kill you as well. Hook swords are pretty much a novelty weapon and there's no evidence of their use on the battlefield, which is a bit of a hint that they weren't that great. In all probability a knight, even one considerably less skilled, would just bull through them with his armor and a two-handed weapon like a poleaxe or large sword and kill the other man.

One of the things about personal weapons is that a lot of the technique depends on so many other factors in the equation. A late medieval knight would want something heavy and two-handed, because he has to pierce armor and he doesn't worry so much about a shield, because he has his own armor.

Probably the overall deadliest single warrior would have been a late medieval knight, in gothic plate, equipped with a poleaxe or similar weapon--a poleaxe basically being a halberd which was shorter (only about as long as a man) and had more nasty stuff on the business end. He has the power to pierce armor and the reach to beat one-handed weapons with shields.

The bayonett.

What? It allowed to dispense with the unwieldy tercio formations, allowing European armies to bring several times the firepower to bear without sacrificing protection from cavalry. It was truly revolutionary.

Then there's the sharpened entrenching tool, too...

Isn't the Bayonet an offshoot from the Venerable spear? After all, during the Napoleonic era, there were still cavalry charges to be deal with.

Granted, the Bayonet still has use for close quarter fighting.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Isn't the Bayonet an offshoot from the Venerable spear? After all, during the Napoleonic era, there were still cavalry charges to be deal with.

Granted, the Bayonet still has use for close quarter fighting.

Of course it was, but it's easily a separate weapon system, seeing as it's useless without a firearm to attach it to

PeZook wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Isn't the Bayonet an offshoot from the Venerable spear? After all, during the Napoleonic era, there were still cavalry charges to be deal with.

Granted, the Bayonet still has use for close quarter fighting.

Of course it was, but it's easily a separate weapon system, seeing as it's useless without a firearm to attach it to

Actually I have used bayonet for many things while not being attached to my rifle. It certainy functions as a quick knife espeially back in the day when they were still extra sharp. Anyway given that they are useless in combat without a rifle (they don't stop mass charges of pikemen without being a rifle) I wouldn't put it down as a seperate melee weapon but rather a development of the rifle which made it better.

My vote is for the spear, the pike (backed up with a short sword for messy close encounters, or an axe), and finally, the falchion. Best of the world of the sword, best of the world of an axe. Maneuverable and fast, but great at limb removal.

Dominus Atheos wrote:Untrained or nearly untrained militia. Probably not very well equipped. May or may not be able to hold a formation. Probably used mostly for city defense.

Pike as everyone else said already.

Well-trained foot-soldier. The average soldier in a professional army. Probably capable of staying in a mutually supporting formation in almost any situation. Used for attack and defense.

Heavy two handed axe. Even if the blow doesn't cut through armor the blunt trauma will still seriously injure if not outright kill the person.

Their is a reason why the ERE, Mamelukes, Khwarzm, etc leaders deployed heavy axe men as their personal foot guard.

Undisputed master. The very best anyone could do given the limits of the human body. Just one, so no formation. One person just trying to kill as many people as possible. If an action movie taking place in a historical time had a scene where the kick-ass hero had to kill a few hundred people, which weapon would be best for that task?

ERE Kataphraktoi spiked mace. You get hit in the head with that, you are dead on contact even if you are wearing a well padded helmet.

Untrained or nearly untrained militia. Probably not very well equipped. May or may not be able to hold a formation. Probably used mostly for city defense.

At the risk of parrotting, I'm going to to agree with the pike being the foremost weapon for untrained militia. Like everyone's already mentioned, it's quite simple to use (set it and stick/thrust), though pike walls do depend on formation cohesion, so attempting a phalanx or latter-day Swiss pike wall with uncertain troops might not be the best idea; if they break and the formation loosens and opens, they lose a good deal of effectiveness.

Well-trained foot-soldier. The average soldier in a professional army. Probably capable of staying in a mutually supporting formation in almost any situation. Used for attack and defense.

Hard to say. I wouldn't neccessarily say that a soldier with a two-handed axe has any one-up on someone with a shield and Late Roman spatha/Migration period sword/Arming sword. If the goal of the well-trained foot soldier is to fight in formation, two-handed weapons generally aren't the best for that, as they require a bit more room to use effectively, especially in ranks. So for this, I'll say a good, solid shield and either a sword or mace.

Undisputed master. The very best anyone could do given the limits of the human body. Just one, so no formation. One person just trying to kill as many people as possible. If an action movie taking place in a historical time had a scene where the kick-ass hero had to kill a few hundred people, which weapon would be best for that task?

Either a poleaxe, a Byzantine menavlion (which I've heard described as a kind of polefalx, though I'm not sure if that study was ever validated) or a voulge-guisarmes. Depends on the era, really.

Maxentius wrote:Hard to say. I wouldn't neccessarily say that a soldier with a two-handed axe has any one-up on someone with a shield and Late Roman spatha/Migration period sword/Arming sword. If the goal of the well-trained foot soldier is to fight in formation, two-handed weapons generally aren't the best for that, as they require a bit more room to use effectively, especially in ranks. So for this, I'll say a good, solid shield and either a sword or mace.

Even Romans fought three feet apart from the nearest person, only closing ranks to resist a direct cavalry charge if someone was stupid enough to try it against unbroken infantry.

Also battles are quite rare and usually the sight of the Heavy Axemen I mentioned are enough to send foes running, making them easy prey for cavalry.

Psychological Warfare was the rule in the Middle Ages. The best Generals were masters in it.

For untrained militia and well-trained soldiers, I say the spear (or pike); the Spartan phalanx is one example of this weapon being VERY effective in well-trained hands.

As for an individual master... I'm tempted to say the Guan dao, but it really depends on that master's skill. A master swordsman will say the sword is the best, those who favor reach will say it's a spear, those with great strength may say it's an ax or mace, and Guan Yu would say it's his namesake polearm, etc.

Untrained: Pikes depend on their formation. You won't get good results from giving them to untrained men. IMO at least you won't get good results from poorly trained men at all no matter what you give them. The untrained get whatever's cheap and handy, most likely spears.

Trained: This is where pikes become practical, as do polearms.

One man army: Poleaxe, versatile and handy.

Untrained: I'd go more for shortened spears than actual pikes. Pikes, to be truly effective, need a relatively well-trained force to present a barrier of spikes. With spears, though, you get more maneuverability and versatility so that, when your ill-trained comrades inevitably break ranks, you have something more maneuverable than a thirteen-foot pole to fight with.

Trained: Pikes, for exactly the reasons I said above.

Masters: Halberds or pole-axes, to parrot the others. Combining the best of staves, hammers, axes, spears and spikes into one ruthlessly efficient weapon.

Untrained: Pikes.
So easy to use, they were shortened down into Bayonets on guns.

Trained : MassWeapon & Shield.
Mace, Morning star, Axe, dont matter. They all have weight behind them that crushes as well as a slash or piercing attack. If you want to see how deadly that is, one Viking burial contanted the grave of a man with a shattered left hip ... and bone fragments from the hip were imbedded in the right collarbone, shoulder, and upper two ribs. The blow that shattered the hip killed him by shredding his internal organs with his own bone fragments.

Master : Sword.
Halberds are nice, but get within their reach and the weilder's backpedaling fast. The Flamberge Sword was created just to snap Halberds and other Polearms, and Swiss mercs with one were the highest paid of all troops. The sword is simply the best at melee from it's combination of weight and handling.

untrained: gotta agree with everyone and go with the pike

foot soldier: short sword and small shield

master: large battle ax

Wanderer wrote: Even Romans fought three feet apart from the nearest person, only closing ranks to resist a direct cavalry charge if someone was stupid enough to try it against unbroken infantry.

Three feet may be something of an exaggeration; I've done Roman re-enactments and when ranked up, I'd say I had about a foot and eight inches, maybe two feet on each side. A full meter is almost dangerously spread out, when the Roman model of fighting relies more on group tactic than individual prowess.

Also battles are quite rare and usually the sight of the Heavy Axemen I mentioned are enough to send foes running, making them easy prey for cavalry.

A two-handed axe requires a lot of room to swing; in large, pitched classes between massed infantry, a shock collision between a line of troops wielding shields and one-handers will quickly have the heavy axemen backpedaling to gain more room for a heavy swing, one that would be powerful enough to crack the shield. Heavy axemen are certainly more than adequate as shock infantry against relatively untrained or light opponents, but a pitched, close-quarters battle between infantrymen with shields, fighting in rank (such as the Roman model, or the later Viking shieldwall), would most likely tend to favor the man with the additional utility of the shield.

Maxentius wrote:Three feet may be something of an exaggeration; I've done Roman re-enactments and when ranked up, I'd say I had about a foot and eight inches, maybe two feet on each side. A full meter is almost dangerously spread out, when the Roman model of fighting relies more on group tactic than individual prowess.

It is certainly not an exaggeration, bear in mind the romans were fighting in broken terrain when they formed their system and needed to space their troops in order to avoid men and units from bumping into each other.

Also that three feet separation enabled reliefs to safely filter through and relieve the front troops.

A two-handed axe requires a lot of room to swing; in large, pitched classes between massed infantry, a shock collision between a line of troops wielding shields and one-handers will quickly have the heavy axemen backpedaling to gain more room for a heavy swing, one that would be powerful enough to crack the shield. Heavy axemen are certainly more than adequate as shock infantry against relatively untrained or light opponents, but a pitched, close-quarters battle between infantrymen with shields, fighting in rank (such as the Roman model, or the later Viking shieldwall), would most likely tend to favor the man with the additional utility of the shield.

In that case, the Pike Men would pin the center while the Heavy Axemen flank.

Wanderer wrote:It is certainly not an exaggeration, bear in mind the romans were fighting in broken terrain when they formed their system and needed to space their troops in order to avoid men and units from bumping into each other.

Also that three feet separation enabled reliefs to safely filter through and relieve the front troops.

After reviewing Polybius, it seems that you are correct. Though I assume that is measured from shoulder of one man to the next; the size of the scutum makes the gap seem smaller when one considers that the shield edge extends approximately eight inches to a foot further than the shoulder.

I must admit though, I am unsure as to what you mean when you refer to the 'Roman system' as being formed in broken terrain. To my knowledge, Roman system can refer to at least four entities - the Roman hoplite of the 6th and 5th centuries BC, the Polybian/Manipular legion of the Punic and Macedonian Wars, the post-Marian legion, or the evolution of the Marian legion into the Comitatensis and Limitanei of the late Empire, neither of which, as far as I am aware, was unduly influenced by broken or rough terrain - the manipular legion benefited from broken terrain at Pydna (though it may have been Cynoscephalae, I oft confuse the two), as a matter of fact, when the uneven ground caused the Macedonian phalanx to lose cohesion. Would you mind elaborating on what you meant by that?

In that case, the Pike Men would pin the center while the Heavy Axemen flank.

A weapon isn't exactly the greatest weapon of all if it requires the presence of a secondary force to be completely effective, is it?

I think we had this discussion before and the consensus was the gladius was the most effective melee weapon ever devised.

Maxentius wrote:I must admit though, I am unsure as to what you mean when you refer to the 'Roman system' as being formed in broken terrain. To my knowledge, Roman system can refer to at least four entities - the Roman hoplite of the 6th and 5th centuries BC, the Polybian/Manipular legion of the Punic and Macedonian Wars, the post-Marian legion, or the evolution of the Marian legion into the Comitatensis and Limitanei of the late Empire, neither of which, as far as I am aware, was unduly influenced by broken or rough terrain - the manipular legion benefited from broken terrain at Pydna (though it may have been Cynoscephalae, I oft confuse the two), as a matter of fact, when the uneven ground caused the Macedonian phalanx to lose cohesion. Would you mind elaborating on what you meant by that?

I think he was referring to the fact that the Romans switched from the Greek hoplite model to the Sammite model while fighting up in the hills and the Greek phalanx was just simply incapable of handling unit cohesion.

A weapon isn't exactly the greatest weapon of all if it requires the presence of a secondary force to be completely effective, is it?

Sure it can be, he was just descibing an ideal situation for it to be effective

loomer wrote:My vote is for the spear, the pike (backed up with a short sword for messy close encounters, or an axe), and finally, the falchion. Best of the world of the sword, best of the world of an axe. Maneuverable and fast, but great at limb removal.

I guess you've been reading about falchions on Wikipedia, where they say just about what you say here. Let me tell you, however, that Falchions are not that great. They do not have the powerful chopping force of axes nor the balanced versatility of swords; they are a jack of all trades weapon... meaning they are a master of none. If they were such good weapons, frankly, they would have seen wider application. Melee combat was refined over the course of millenia; the weapons we find at the end of melee combat in various civilizational contexts can be taken to represent the zenith of that particular region.

There is no perfect weapon for melee combat. What we do know, however, is that European knights (generally regarded as the pinnacle of melee combat) tended to prefer multifaceted axe-type weapons. Weapons which carried their weight near the business end, to allow maximum application of force, but which did not sacrifice versatility in the bargain--often featuring hammer, axe, and spear-heads in one weapon. I picked pollaxes, because they fit this role best, but as in any question of this sort, it is a complex issue.

Ender said above that the gladius was the best weapon. This is false. Although superior in mass combat, with a tower shield and many comrades to help protect you, the gladius is actually not much more than a big, thick knife. In individual combat it's an invitation for someone with a weapon with more reach to kill you. As with any question of this kind, the answer depends very heavily upon context, and in most melee contexts, a weapon that combines power, reach, and versatility is strongest.

The spear would seem to be a good choice for the untrained soldiers; it's not exactly a super-sophisticated weapon system. In a mass of troops, it'd also give a measure of psychological comfort, because you and your buddies can keep the enemy at a distance. I'm not sure what the length distinction between pikes and spears is, but I'd imagine over a certain distance you'll lose that psychological boost completely, since you won't be able to stab with the thing, and it'll stop being a weapon you can personally defend yourself with.

Not to mention that untrained troops will presumably have difficulty staying correctly-spaced and in ranks, so you'd want a weapon that's as wieldy as possible.