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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   34673 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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There was a striking incident yesterday in the UK when a beach party in Southend turned into general public disorder, with open fights between young men with machetes.

My question for the sub isn’t directly about this, but rather the widespread use of knives in gang warfare as weapons in countries where firearms aren’t readily available. In particular, why aren’t pole arms more widely used instead? My understanding from medieval warfare is that pole arms are generally preferable to close-range weapons like swords and axes, in terms of ease of use, lethality, and safety. Granted, a spear would be hard to conceal, but you’d think that enterprising young men could find ways to eg convert umbrellas or walking sticks into effective melee weapons by attaching a sharp point to them.

Is this a case of an inadequate equilibrium in weapon usage? Or is there a very good reason why pole arms aren’t being used?

Gang fights and urban violence, for what I know, aren't conducted by well-organized militias armed and trained to maximize combat effectiveness. The ready availability of the weapons and their presence in consciousness - what people instinctively think of when thinking of a weapon to bring - will play a much larger role than their actual usefulness in a given fight.

Plus, polearms are fantastically cumbersome to carry around, doubly so indoors or in vehicles.

In particular, why aren’t pole arms more widely used instead?

Speaking as a history nerd/reenactor, presumably for the same reason they weren't used widely in street fights back in the day.

Shields and Pole-arms were the pre-firearm equivalent of an assault rifle or machine gun today. Far more effective than a side-arm such as a sword or dagger but also far harder to conceal and sending specific social signals regarding not just a willingness to fight but an intent to.

You walk down the streets of a town carrying a scutum or a halberd and you are not obviously part of a specific group/organization or wearing the king's colors people are going to make assumptions.

A machete isn't terribly concealable either, though, I'd imagine.

Pretty wide range of sized available. Depending on your bulk, the bagginess of your clothing and the option of bringing a backpack, I'm very confident most people would be able to conceal something identifiable as a machete on their person, under most circumstances.

Huh? They're very concealable, there's just no comparison between that and a spear.

I think you’re neglecting the need to carry the weaponry around town and the need to not look like a threat to police. I also expect a spear would be difficult without training.

Agreed... except... that last part. Spears are SS+ tier in terms of skill floor, ease of production, ease of use, leverage, reach... there's a reason so many weapons of antiquity are variations on long stick with pokey end.

...convert umbrellas or walking sticks into effective melee weapons by attaching a sharp point to them.

Or maybe bring back the shillelagh, an Irish traditional walking stick / bludgeon weapon.

A side point on this - in reading about the peak era of football hooliganism, knives were common, but not machetes. Weapons were mostly small and improvised, but there are multiple accounts of hooligans using fire axes. I'd assume this is a question of higher surveillance on hooligans and stronger rule of law back then, since a machete is harder to conceal on your person than an axe and "honest, officer, I was just gardening my jungle" wouldn't cut it.

Walking around with a pike is impractical. You can't even fit it through a door. The main advantage of a sword or knife is that you can easily carry it in your day-to-day life. There's a reason Romeo went around with a rapier on his hip instead of a pike strapped to his back.

The pike or spear is a weapon of war. You only bring it with you when you go into battle. The sword is a sidearm, which you carry everywhere just in case you need it.

A machete is legal to own, since it has a legitimate use as a gardening tool. Concealed carry is possible with a machete if you have a large bag, and a knife simply fits into your pocket.

A spear is quite obviously a weapon. Unless you are a registered collector, having a spear in your home will draw the attention of police. You can't stuff a polearm in your pants to carry it around.

A pitchfork is probably the only improvised polearm a Brit might have in his house, but walking towards a fight with a pitchfork means you're most probably not a gawker that has been pitching hay when he hear the commotion, and unless you're a part of a mob carrying torches and pitchforks, the police will intercept you.

Converting an umbrella or a walking stick into a polearm means you have a concealed weapon, which is usually punished heavier than just having a knife. You can't claim that you didn't want to stab anyone, you just had a knife on you for an innocent reason if you have spent several hours painstakingly converting your umbrella into a stabby thing.

So while a polearm is strictly superior to a sword or a knife if you're not fighting indoors, it's much simpler to bring a machete to a fight.

And in fact machetes are actually an amazing, top tier garden tool. Sadly missing from many otherwise well stocked suburban yard work repertoires.

You can't stuff a polearm in your pants to carry it around.

"No, officer, I'm just really happy to see you!"

Spears and other pole arms are clearly superior for using in formations of disciplined men with cohesion and adequate, competent leadership.

That isn’t gangs. Bringing a spear to a general melee is a very bad idea, you want flexibility over reach when you can’t count on your buddy to have your flank. Historically aristocrats in single combat used swords(or ranged weapons) for the same reasons. Spears are for peasant levies more afraid of their sergeants than the enemy.

I'm posting evidence that spears normally win vs swords in 1v1. Watch this Lindybeige video and draw your own conclusions.

I disagree. I follow plenty of HEMA accounts, and from pretty much every attempt at simulating a duel between Dude with Sword vs Dude with Spear, the spear comes out ahead, the advantage from reach is enormous.

The only times where sword dude has a decent chance is when he's got a shield too, or has significant armor coverage letting him press the attack. Random gang members usually bear neither. Swords were normally sidearms, and spears generally inconvenient to carry about during regular life, which is likely why they aren't prevalent today too.

A duel, not a disorganized melee. A disorganized melee optimizes for swords because someone popping up inside your reach is very plausible. In a duel you can change direction easily because there’s only one adversary.

Besides which, the people in YouTube simulations of single combat are, unlike gangbangers, martial artists, and thus have likely practiced with their weapons enough to get over the initial unwieldiness and learn a few techniques for striking and changing angle of attack- very important for a spear user outside of a shield wall.

But the gangs aren't dueling, it's a many vs many fight.

A spear on its own may not be optimal in such a situation but a Halberd with a sharp blade allows you to do swinging actions with reach just like a knife as well as the usual pointy stuff. You can cut down your enemy with a knife before he is within two meters of you.

A spear is still superior! You have much more control of your immediate space and can zone out multiple opponents. Even a minimal amount of practise can make sharp pointy stick a very bad time for someone who can't poke you back. You can also protect your buddies and be an absolute nuisance to defend against in case they're not carrying a spear.

It's the (lack of) availability of armor and shields, combined with how much of a PITA it is to carry around a spear that means they're not really seen in brawls or gang fights. These aren't the sharpest pitchforks in the shed we're talking about to boot.

combined with how much of a PITA it is to carry around a spear

This makes me wonder: might telescoping retractable spears be a solution to this problem? My immediate concern would be that such designs would fare far worse at imparting lots of force to an enemy without breaking, and this seems to have been echoed by one or two of the few things that came up when I searched for such spears just now. But there’s gotta be some clever design that could get around this, right?

Tacticool catalogues have spears that can screw together (example: https://www.budk.com/Amazon-Jungle-Survivor-Break-Down-Spear-Cast-2Cr13-51329)

I don't have this one, but I do have one similar to this, and it's remarkably solid-feeling, I'm pretty happy with it aside from the whole "why would you ever need a spear" question. And it seems easy enough to put together with 5-10 minutes warning on a fight, which might match reasonably well to gang violence: you know when the other gang shows up and as long as you know you're going to fight rather than run, you just screw it together and put it down somewhere that's easy to reach for when things kick off. If they don't, take it back apart, stick it in your backpack, and head out.

A telescoping spear seems quite feasible to make, but in a country that bans guns I'd expect the law to take an extremely dim view of such a thing.

Heck, I remember learning as a kid that nunchucks and butterfly knives were illegal in England not just to own but even to show in movies, which explained some bizarre censorship in some movies (IIRC the Mel Gibson movie Payback had a non-violent, non-combat scene cut where someone was showing off a butterfly knife). So it wouldn't be surprising if telescoping polearms were banned as soon as they became commonly used.

C. Thomas Howell in the original Red Dawn film did the butterfly knife open and close in a random scene I guess to show his transformation into a "real fighter" compared to the high schooler he had been at the film's beginning. I remember owning at least two after watching that and becoming adept, if not in the actual use of the knife, in its rapid, smooth opening and closing.

Or is there a very good reason why pole arms aren’t being used?

IANAL but I think machetes might actually be legal to own/buy over the counter in the UK (they're single-edged and have non-combat uses), while I think you might need to jump through hoops for a spear. You're not allowed to carry anything for the purposes of self-defence (or, y'know, attacking people), but "legal to buy" sure eases the pipeline.

I feel like you already got most of it with polearms not being concealable but I'd also argue that they're unwieldy and designed to be used in formations and/or at choke points. At the length you're describing something concealable you're just ending up with a much worse sword.

I think a better question is why're they not using shields and armour. A small shield like a buckler could be concealed and even something larger could probably be brought along if it's wrapped up. As for armour, you could easily wear a gambeson under a large coat/jacket.

My guess is that they're generally not planning to fight other armed and unsurprised people. Furthermore I think people just are vain as well. People shoot guns holding them sideways because it's cooler, despite the massive downsides, why would they want to look like a dork, wearing a gambeson (that likely cost a good deal)? Finally, If you're going to that much effort and expense then why not just get a gun?

in terms of ease of use, lethality, and safety

It might sound odd but there's a difference between wanting to disfigure someone and actually trying to kill them. Irish traveller gypsies have these kinds of fights fairly often and they do actually shake ends after a few months/years of sending each other to hospital (here's an example of an ongoing 4 year long feud which might be ending). Killing someone on the other hand puts your whole family in danger for however long it takes for the other side to get real revenge (and obviously it can go on longer if the revenge cycles goes on).

Also I'm not really familiar with the UK legal system but I'd imagine it's like Ireland where murder is really the only guaranteed way to get decades in jail. You can do a lot of damage to someone and get a slap on the wrist compared to what your sentence would be in America.

Americans don’t actually serve those huge sentences, they get out on bail while waiting 3+ years for a trial and then take a plea bargain down to probation(which they then violate). And half the time the cops don’t bother writing it up if there’s no hospitalized victim demanding charges.

Walking sticks would be pretty conspicuous but the umbrella is an interesting idea. Having no authority to speak on such matters, I'd guess that fighting with such a pointy umbrella would be more like using a slow, heavy fencing foil than anything else, which already seems to require a fair amount of training to do effectively. The reach is nice (though not the same as a spear) but if the opponent gets past it the weapon would rapidly become a liability. With a knife, no matter what, one is able to present a viable threat at immediate range.

But the actual answer is probably just that these people do what others do, and weaponized umbrellas would have to catch on somewhere before we see widespread adoption.

Thinking of getting into the scene and going full Battle of Epping Forest? Be the change you want to see in the world.

Swords and knives and small bladed weapons have always been the weapons of honor culture. More aristocratic, more personal. A spear is a soldier's weapon, used in organized combat, where the goal is to win. The goal of gang warfare isn't to win, it's to show personal courage in the face of danger. Reducing the danger is not the goal.

The goal of gang warfare isn't to win, it's to show personal courage in the face of danger.

Don't gang members jump their victims pretty regularly? I'm not sure honor culture is the (whole) answer here.

It's a tortured, degenerate, particular and attenuated form of honor culture. They aren't following the Code Duello. But they are fundamentally seeking to convince their peers and the public that they're tough, badass, scary and not scared of shit. They ultimately control their territory not by physical control over the area, but by reputation.

Probably for the same reason that gang members in the U.S. put their gun in their baggy shorts and then shoot their own legs, or point the gun sideways and hit 3 bystanders while completely missing their target.

They are optimizing for looking cool, not actually winning. Also they tend to be extremely young and stupid.

That said, I would love it if European immigrant gangs accidentally reinvented the phalanx.

There actually originally was a "good" reason why gangsters held their weapons sideways.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-gangsters-hold-their-guns-sideways

A phalanx requires too much cohesion and discipline for loosely organized teenaged boys, and I suspect an organization capable of fielding one which won’t just fall apart instantly is capable of importing enough zastavas for everyone.

I would guess two things. First, pole arms are designed to be used in a formation and would leave you less mobile and potentially open to attack from the side and behind. Second, a pole-axe isn’t concealable, which would decrease gang members’ ability to ambush foes or hide their illegal weapon from the police.

It also allows for varying stages of escalation in a potentially hostile situation (acting like there's no knife at all, patting a concealed knife, flashing it, taking it out etc.) before using the knife to draw blood.

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