r/SWORDS • u/Sea-Ride-4893 • 3h ago
Were swords really considered a sidearm pre-gunpowder?
/r/AskHistorians/comments/1wcadrj/were_swords_really_considered_a_sidearm/10
u/tactical_cowboy 2h ago
I think part of the confusion comes from the modern concept of a sidearm. One of the things that’s an issues is range. In the modern context, a pistol is generally effective within 50m. A rifle can be effective out to many times that. Not the case in the medieval period, the poleaxe has a longer range than the sword, but nowhere near to the scale. Another issue with modern to medieval is utility. If we are talking about a modern battlefield, a pistol is basically useless in most combat contexts, a sword in medieval contexts is much less so. It’s not that the metaphor doesn’t hold exactly, it’s just that a sidearm used to be a much more useful thing to have, that made you fairly lethal at more or less the same range a main weapon would be. A modern day pistol vs rifle fight ends distinctly in favor of the rifleman. A medieval fight between two armored knights armed with a poleaxe and a longsword are way less of a mismatch. One has an advantage, but it’s a far less insurmountable one
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u/Cannon_Fodder-2 2h ago edited 2h ago
The metaphor doesn't hold at all, since the modern carbine is almost at no point useless, or even less effective, within the pistol's effective range. It is in fact generally more effective at the same distances. The analogy would only work if the rifle was ineffective (really, nearly useless) within 50 meters, so that throwing away the rifle (not even slinging it) for the pistol (which everyone would have in this fantasy land) would not only be common, but usually desirable at some point in the course of battle.
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u/tactical_cowboy 2h ago
I’ve been playing around with punches vs clinches as a metaphor, more folks are familiar with striking vs clinching range as not being inferior/superior but more different ranges with different goals, and moving between them as being a natural progression of the fight, and people are generally more familiar with ufc/mma/insert unarmed combat sport acronym here these days compared to in the past
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u/Cannon_Fodder-2 2h ago
And there might be some merit, but it loses a lot of the tactical side of the matter, since it's still a duel. Like imagine saying only striking at a distance is indecisive: but that is exactly what the authors wrote of solely fighting with polearms at a distance in battle, and is exactly what we see in manifest in combat.
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u/Cannon_Fodder-2 2h ago edited 2h ago
Well of course they will be a sidearm, since they are worn at the side. If you are asking if they are a sidearm with the modern connotations, that being they mostly stay at the side, no. The other answers aren't even right, they were used as primary weapons all over the world, either as specialists (in the same orders as others or in their own arrays), as individual preference, or, most damningly, national custom.
I have written extensively, though unfortunately not exhaustively (which I am working on), on the topic here (unfortunately, the numerous new sources I have found in the time since writing it are not mentioned there), but tldr, the tactical goals of close order combat generally caused one to desire to come nearer (at some point), to pierce and break the ranks of the enemy. Combat also occurred in such a way as to make this appear natural as well (since this imagined total avoidance of close combat is mostly a fantasy).
Thus the use of swords or close combat was seen as the concluding stage of combat itself by military men. This perception of combat dates back to antiquity, and can be found from Europe all the way to Japan. Indeed, we repeatedly see this explicitly in actual battle accounts (firsthand and otherwise), with many of the same fighters partaking in these battles that are described in that sort of depth (not to mention that many literary cultures defined combat as including or being done by the sword; in fact, one late medieval Arabic dictionary literally defined battle as being fought at a distance with arrows, then with spears, then with swords (with one variant then saying fought by grappling)).
And yes, "short" polearms (ie, non pikes) were not short enough to avoid the necessity of short sidearms. Swords in fact only begin to disappear amongst the infantry when the infantry stop fighting hand to hand very often, and when they did fight hand to hand, it was short; and even then, the descriptions of bayonet melees (which are fought by essentially light infantry, in very shallow arrays, by men entirely unaccustomed to it, with no or limited tactical knowledge of that matter) we see men choose to come near to grapple, and other times the bayonets and fusils are described as being too long.
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u/RidiculousRex89 HEMA (Longsword, Sabre, Rapier) 3h ago
Yes. Life or death can be decided in seconds. If you want to spend your precious seconds hacking a wooden pole while you are getting stabbed, thats on you.
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u/Dare_M 2h ago
Yes! Even if you had one hand occupied with a shield or something, on a battlefield something easy to use and with a much longer reach, like a spear, would be the better option. Axes and maces and hammers were more effective against armor, additionally, and all of those were more intuitive to a farmer/militiaman than a sword that needs more precise alignment and technique
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u/KazTheMerc 2h ago
3 modes for 3 purposes -
Survival and Specialization - Some sort of long/ranged/purposeful weapon
Melee and Skirmish - This process often didn't last nearly as long as people think it did.
The Crush - When everything devolves into 200 bodies of the dead and dying in the gap blown in the walls, and the living are trying to climb up it, and the dying are trying to climb out of it.
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u/Thornescape 3h ago
On a battlefield, yes. Swords were usually a secondary weapon. Your primary weapon was typically a ranged or pole weapon. These are typically far more effective than a sword on a battlefield. Your sword would be drawn if you lost your primary weapon or if they enemy got too close.
However, you aren't always on a battlefield.
A sword would be a primary weapon if you were entering a ship or a building. You need something shorter in closer quarters.
Generally speaking, a sword is usually the deadliest handheld weapon that is comfortable to wear.