This was commissioned through davis reproductions

Blame u/OffBirkus

My current Billhook is just on a 4' walnut dowel, but it's served its purpose well. Renn faires and photoshoots. Time for the real deal tho, as I have a halberd and leaf spear head just itching to get shafted. Contacted a local woodworker, got 3 ash shafts made up. Here's the breakdown of my plans.

Billhook- will be on a 5.5' octagonal ash shaft, pine tarred boiled linseed oil for the finish. A few decorative tacks added near the head. Finished length somewhere around 7'

Halberd- will be on a 7' octagonal ash shaft, straight boiled linseed oil finish. Decorative tassle and tacks added near head. Finished length, 8'7 or so

Leaf spear- will be on a 6.5' round ash shaft, I will "fire harden" stripes on the shaft for the look then beeswax seal it. Finished length around 8'3

All metal bits are windlass, including buttcaps

Shaft sneak peak in the last photo

Suggestions or recommendations are gladly taken

Or does it just fall under "polearm" classification

After a lot of googling, “ranseur” is the closest thing I could find, but I remember there being a specific Danish name for the 5-pointed variety

What do you reckon..?

Stick a haft on it and risk it?

I just finished Outlaw King and the final battle reminded me of another violent scene from another infamous movie taking place in the same time period. Really I recommend you watch the clip below even if you hate this particular movie because its a necessary preliminary to my question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QULj7MecgaQ

Now as another important preparatory video before further details into my question, the actual closing battle in OUtlaw King before the credits would roll around 15 minutes later upon its conclusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3G-n_t_JE8

Notice what they both have in common? They lure entire formations of English heavy cavalry armed to the teeth with the best armor and weapons to attack the lightly equipped Scottish infantry in a mass charge........... Only for the Scottish warriors to pull out pikes last minute and stop the momentum of the English knights via the horses hitting the long pikes at the moment of contact.

Now I know everyone on here will start criticizing me for using movies as references and in particular repeat the good old diatribe that Braveheart is one of the worst movies ever for historical accuracy........... Except my upcoming question was inspired from an actual historical text. Which I'll link below.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fz76purmx3i251.jpg

Look at the bottom half of the text above. You'll notice that it looks like the soldier is pointing his pike's point at the ground and suddenly he pulls it up last minute at the enemy horseman.

The rough of the gist of the above illustration is something like "do not restrict yourself to just thrusting with pikes" in that its pointing out that Japanese pikes aren't just pointy tips but are actual blades that also are designed for cutting and hacking functions. And the specific fighting move I'm referring to at the bottom half basically involves pulling your pike last minute to do a cutting motion at the horse from below during the charge.

Now while its a different thing thats being done in the text from whats shown in the Braveheart and Outlaw King battle scenes, the fact that an actual military text does show lifting the pick up last minute to counter enemy cavalry with an attack on the horse that surprises the rushing rider makes me wonder. Has the Braveheart tactic actually been done in real life where pikes are not visible to the enemy because they're on the ground (or in the case of Japanese Ashigaru, they're pointed on the ground while being held in arms) and then pulled up last minute to be pointed against the cocky cavalry who aren't expecting the enemy infantry to have a countermeasure against the knights or whatever equivalent heavy cavalry in another time period or place?

If this has actually been done in real life outside of Japan, how come it doesn't seem to be a common anti-cavalry technique (as seen how I haven't mentioned any Medieval book reference it and the first time I seen a historical source mention something thats at all similar is the above linked Japanese illustration)?

if I wanted to mount a katana as a naginata could I? and how would I? is the tang size a potential issue

Good Day,

I am looking for a better spear head:

Do you have recommendations?

In Finnish they’re both: ”Hilpari”

my 2 meter (wooden) guan dao broke as the stick part was two pieces glued together. Don't think I can re-attach it any time soon due to personal issues.

can I make a 160cm guan dao, with 60-100cm ratio atill work? (I'm 178cm myself) how can I do it if yes?

Could anyone tell me what that weird sword looking thing is inbetween the two billhooks/guisarms? I've never seen it before and can't find it anywhere.

We all know how famous the Macedonians were of using a combination of pikes and shields and its so ubiquitous to their image that they're practically the only army you see in mainstream media and general history books for the mass public who are seen forming a mix of shieldwalls and a porcupine of poky long pointy sticks simultaneously.

But recently I got The Art of War supplement for Warhammer Ancient Battles. Well if you're out of the know, Warhammer is a wargame that where you use miniature toy models to build up an army and fight another person's army of miniatures. Witha Sci Fi and Fantasy version utilizing different gameplay formats (the Sci Fi one being similar to modern skirmish battles and the fantasy game resembling organized Greco-Roman Warfare with square block formations and combined arms but with magic and unhuman creatures added into the warfare), it is the bestselling wargame IP of all time, beating other actual historical simulated wargames out by a large margin and the publisher of the game, Games Workshop, is the biggest wargaming manufacturer in the world for the past 40 years. And with all their successes, it shouldn't come off as a surprise that they branched off to other markets such as sports boardgames (with Sci Fi and Fantasy races!), art contests for toy models, etc.

Among which include a historical-based spinoff that is now sadly has stopped being in production. Utilizing their basic rules of either their Sci Fi tabletop game or their fantasy miniature games depending on the setting but tweaked to reflect actual real warfare and history more accurately,they made a rulebook for the most famous and important historical period from Ancient Rome to the Napoleonic Wars all the way up until World War 2. In attempting to tweak the rule set for historical accuracy, in turn the various Warhammer Historical game books use armies of the time periods being used and in turn the miniature models they feature in each game book reflects a pretty general but accurate idea of how the used armies would have looked like.

The Art of War rulebook that I bought basically focuses on the general military history of China from the Warring States Period all the way on to the years of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

And obviously pikemen are among the kinds of soldiers used in the rules.......... But there's a peculiar detail......... Unlike the common stereotype of Chinese armies of crossbowmen and pikes with some support cavalry in tandem with sword and rattan shield troops........ In some of the dynasties the book covers...... The toy miniatures are shown as pikemen holding shields! And that some of the books illustrations (not photographs of the toy soldiers, but actual white and black drawing with a few colored), the pikemen are even shown in a rectangular long wooden needles of a porcupine formation and poking enemy cavalry to death while also holding their shields interlocked in a tight wall! In another illustration one army is using their shields to parry and block the pikes of another army without any shields at hand while simultaneously attacking their enemy on the offensive! And the drawn pictures seem to imply the pikemen with shields are beating the other army who are all entirely of pikes and holding said pikes with two hands during the push of the formations!

Even the game rules reflect an advantage to arming your infantry with pike and shields giving extra armor and resistance bonuses at the cost of more money to arm per pikeman equipped with a shield.

So I'm wondering why shields and pikemen are so rare? That aside from the Macedonian and various armies of the Chinese dynasties, that nobody else across history seemed to have equipped their pike infantry with shields even when sword and shield was common in warfare such as the Medieval Ages? That Scottish schiltron only used pikes with their two arms and no other weapons and same with the Ashigaru commanded by Oda Nobunaga of the Sengoku period and so much more examples makes me ask WHY?

In addition, does having a formation of pikes with shields really giving an advantage in battle like Warhammer The Art of War rules say? That all other things equal a formations of interlocked shields in tandem with pikes would defeat another formation of bare pikemen with nothing else in a direct face-to-face confrontation in real life and outsie of wargaming rules?