Pole-arm

A Japanese Naginata

A Pole-Arm technically refers to any type of weapon consisting of a metal head with a long wooden pole. Spears technically fall under this classification, but more often than not it is used to refer to weapons with something more than just a point intended for poking at the end and can also be used to chop and hack. These include axe heads, spikes and sword blades. Pole arms have been used by numerous civilizations, including Europeans, Turks, Russians, Chinese and Japanese.

Pole-arms in warfare

When compared to spears, pole-arms retain some of the advantage of reach while gaining more flexibility in how they attack. While a spearman is limited to simply poking his enemies to death, the Pole-armed soldiers can also hack or slash. This generally comes at the price of a somewhat shortened reach.

Types of Pole-arm

Spears are far from being the only form of polearm- there are numerous others, most of which tend to be difficult to distinguish from one another. A short list of some of the more notable types is as follows:

• Poleaxe: It's an axe head on a pole, just as the name suggests. Compared to a halberd, it has a smaller head, which focuses kinetic energy onto a smaller area and lets it cut through armor more effectively. The spike on the end of the pole's butt also made it useful for thrusting attacks, and it could be used to block in the same way as a quarterstaff.

• Halberd: Another pole-arm, differing from the poleaxe in the long spike on the top of the axe head and the hook on the back of the axe's blade, which was ideal for pulling a mounted knight off his horse. It could be used as a spear as well as an axe in close quarters.

• Lance: A bigger, heavier spear intended for knights and other mounted warriors. They were too bulky to be wielded on foot and too heavy to throw, relegating them to use on horseback; however, they could be absolutely devastating during a cavalry charge. Variations of the lance continued to be used until World War I. They were also the go-to weapon for jousting tournaments.

Charge at them and you'll be skewered in no time.

• Pike: Perhaps the most effective of the pole weapons, the pike was a very long (about 10-25 feet long) spear that was ideal for defensive maneuvers, especially when wielded en masse- each rank of pikemen was trained to hold their pikes so any charging enemy infantry had to deal with more sharp spiky objects than a hedgehog convention pointed at them. However, the tight formations needed to pull this off made pikemen vulnerable to archers and the unwieldy size of the pikes made it too difficult for them to effectively defend themselves if outflanked. Nevertheless, their lethality and defensive skill made them popular into the late 1600s, at which time standing around in dense formations made pikemen an easy target for arquebusiers and artillery. Both the Landsknechts and the Swiss became famous for their proficiency with pikes. Some Japanese Yari would be long enough to qualify as Pikes.

• Quarterstaff: The simplest type of polearm there is, inasmuch as it is an actual pole. A favored weapon of monks and other unarmed classes in DnD, these could be used both as a blunt implement and as a thrusting weapon, while a carefully aimed sweeping blow aimed at the legs could easily knock a foe off his feet and send him sprawling onto the ground. It's not too likely that these were used in actual warfare, as they were mainly meant for self-defense and martial arts. (They were also useful as walking sticks, of course.)

• Glaive: The glaive was equipped with a single-edged tapering blade (like a kitchen knife) affixed similarly to an axe head. Some variations (called glaive-guisarmes) had a small hook on the end meant for catching horsemen, like a halberd.

• Military Fork: It's basically a big pitchfork. The prongs made it effective at piercing plate armor, and some had hooks much like other polearms to counter calvalry.

• Naginata: Similar to the glaive, the naginata is a wooden shaft with a large curved blade at the end which was covered with a sheath when not in use. Like the katana, it became a favored weapon of the samurai, particularly the women (who were especially appreciative of its ability to keep opponents at a distance, thus compensating for the difference in raw strength between the sexes). While they can be used to stab and hook opponents, the curved blade makes naginatas most effective as a cutting weapon; although it lacks the speed, control, and longer cutting edge of a katana, it makes up for it with its superior reach and better leverage.

• War Scythe: Contrary to popular belief, a scythe on its own does not make a good weapon- they're too unwieldy for that. But if the scythe's blade is re-mounted to extend upward instead of out to the side, it can be fairly effective as far as improvised weapons go. Because of the ease with which they could be repurposed from common tools, they were one of the most likely weapons to be used in peasant uprisings. War scythes were the preferred pole arm of the Poles.

• Bardiche: A Russian pole arm, a long handled axe with a broad curved axehead on a 1.5 meter long handle. It was notable in that it was often used as a monopod by Stretsi (an elite force of musketeers that existed from the reign of Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great).

• Spetum: A spear-like weapon with two smaller, single-edged blades extending at acute angles from the base of the spear's head. Not only could it be used to impale and stab with the main spearhead, the smaller blades made it effective at knocking aside shields and severing limbs as well.

• Voulge: While superficially similar to the glaive, the voulge had a broader blade meant for hacking rather than cutting- think of it as a meat cleaver on a pole and you have the general idea of how it worked. Also like the glaive, some forms (called voulge-guisarmes) had hooks added to the back of the blade, along with a pointed tip for stabbing.

• Partizan: A weapon that consisted of a spearhead mounted on a long shaft with protrusions on the sides of the spear head, which aided in the user in parrying sword thrusts. It remains in use as a ceremonial weapon in some countries.

• Bill: Derived from a cutting tool called the billhook, the bill has a curved chopping blade with a spike on the top and a hook on the back of the blade, combining the stopping power of a spear, the power of an axe, and the ability to unseat horsemen. It was also capable of piercing gaps in the armor of in heavily armored enemies as well. For this reason, it was the national weapon of England well into the 16th century. Interestingly, at a time when all the continental armies were using Pikemen to form the bulk of their foot soldiers, an army of hastily-raised levies (most of the English army being abroad in France, dying of dysentry and being of minor annoyance to the French) devastated a Scottish Army whose principle weapon was the pike at Flodden fields to such an extent they took a generation to recover.