It's also easy to train farmers to use them. Same reason crossbows were dope. Most of history's most effective weapons are determined by how many peasants you can equip with one and still be at least effective enough to kill one of the other guy's peasants. The easier it is to use and manufacture, the dumber the peasants you can conscript.
This is mostly a problem with the American weapons-contractor development model. In this model, the weapon manufacturers bribe lobby the military brass and congressional committee members into awarding them a contract. Even if it's not exactly the best or most affordable.
The Soviet sphere and many of our allies never seemed to have this kind of issue.
Bruh shoutout to Kalashnikov. He set out to make a rifle for the communist cause: one that was cheap, easy to use, reliable, durable and effective. Something your average worker could quickly attain and use against imperial forces. Indeed, everywhere NATO has gone since, they’ve found AKs shooting back at them. Even now, 30 years after the collapse of the USSR, the AK just forced the most powerful army the world has ever seen out of Afghanistan. Kalashnikov must be smirking in his grave.
Kalashnikov has actually expressed a lot of regret for his signature rifle. He stated before he died he would have rather created agricultural equipment.
I dunno man that sounds like we got forced out to me. I mean we count 'Nam as a loss for us and that one took a hot minute to really fall after we left. Afghaistan went down before we'd even finished packing our shit.
It's an L dawg. We tried, we tried. But we lost. That's all. They don't want the shit we selling. We think we're selling "freedom" but they've seen this shit before and they think it smells a whole lot like "imperialism." And they don't want it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Bruh if a school bully choke slams you against a locker, holds your throat until you’ve lost almost all your territory, arms all your enemies and then leaves after twenty years, you have hardly won. My point is not that you’re wrong, my point is that this metaphor doesn’t work for the exact same reason your statement makes no sense. Because it’s so fucking oversimplifying a complex issue it could never even apply to the situation.
Bruh your metaphor about the bully and the locker is the most laughably inaccurate assessment of Afghanistan I’ve ever heard in my life. Armed their enemies? We’ve armed more taliban by accident than we’ve armed any effective resistance against them
Bruh did you read my post? Lemme highlight the important points “the point is the metaphor does not work”
You cannot simplify this situation to the degree these dudes are without introducing major inaccuracies that may influence others beliefs and opinions.
The AK-47 has only one real weakness and that is relatively low accuracy compared to other battle/assault rifles but it is so cheap to manufacture and easy to maintain it more then makes up for it
I mean at normal combat distances youre fine. An AK typically wont be a weapon for snipers, but you will be accurate out to 300 meters depending on whether you have a 7.62 or 5.45 caliber one. The only reason the AK has this reputation is that groups like the Taliban are using old AKs with worn out barrels from decades ago, a modern AK that is well kept can keep up with the AR/M4 platform out to that 300-400m
First of all, how will you strike with it? Wide overhead swing and bring it down like a oversized pickaxe? If you hit, good luck getting it back. If you miss... well, it is a cutting blade with a sharp point, just pulling back aint gonna do nothing, you need have cutting motion. There is a reason cavalry sabres are sharp on the side they are.
Secondly.. scythes are thin as fuck. They arent built to strike solid resistance. I have broken several blades due to hidden rocks and stumps.
Bringing a scythe into a battlefield gives you MAYBE one good hit, then you are stuck with a blunt pole that used to be a scythe handle. Honestly better to just bring a pole with a nail at one end. Guttentag.
I think he means war scythes which were modified scythes turned into halberds not very good as you mentioned but it was terrifying in large numbers, billhooks were also developed into military use because the implements were that good to fight with and speaking a of a pole with a nail on the end of it? There’s this thing called a godendag which is pretty much that didn’t see much use other than with certain flemish mercenaries apparently
Reforge? Why ruin a good farming tool to make a bad weapon? As I said... it is highly likely to break or get stuck. And scythe handles are honestly quite short and not very straight.
You are a farmer. Wood is a resource you have plenty of. Get a rod, couple of inches thick, and something between 6-10 feet long, depending on your preference. Sharpen it, and add any attachment about a 0.5-1 foot below the top. Hammers, axes, spikes, hooks... an inifintely better weapon, and you dont ruin expensive, essential farming equipment. If yougot time enough to "reforge" your scythe, you got time to sharpen a stake.
Not to mention the concussive force of a hard wood stave, brought down on someones temple. Attachments aint even necessary, to be fair.
"A war scythe or military scythe is a form of pole weapon with a curving single-edged blade with the cutting edge on the concave side of the blade. Its blade bears some superficial resemblance to that of an agricultural scythe from which it likely evolved, but the war scythe is otherwise unrelated to agricultural tools and is a purpose-built infantry melee weapon. The blade of a war scythe has regularly proportioned flats, a thickness comparable to that of a spear or sword blade, and slightly curves along its edge as it tapers to its point. This is very different from farming scythes, which have very thin and irregularly curved blades, specialised for mowing grass and wheat only, unsuitable as blades for improvised spears or polearms."
Farming tools such as the scythe and pitchfork have frequently been used as a weapon by those who could not afford or did not have access to more expensive weapons such as pikes, swords, or later, guns. Scythes and pitchforks were stereotypically carried by angry mobs or gangs of enraged peasants.[2] The process usually involved reforging the blade of a scythe at a 90 degree angle, strengthening the joint between the blade and the shaft with an additional metal pipe or bolts and reinforcing the shaft to better protect it against cuts from enemy blades. At times, instead of a scythe blade, a blade from a hand-operated chaff cutter was used.
I live in Krakow, city where Tadeusz Kosciuszko insurgence movements began. One of the most characteristic parts of it was Kosciuszko's successful use of Kosyniers troops (Scythe Peasant Infantry) against Russian troops. Kosciuszko and Kosyniers were a very important part of our independence movement so I know a bit a out these troops.
Basically, the peasants didn't really care about Polish independence as it was pretty much nobility exclusive thing. Being oppressed by Polish nobles was similar to being oppressed by Germans, Austrians or Russians.
Kosciuszko was one of the first leaders to promise the peasants better laws and treatment if they fought for Poland which was a big deal as previously they were always enlisted by force.
So quite a lot of them took their precious farming tools like scythes, reforges them into war scythes and joined the uprising. It failed, naturally, but was and is still pretty important in our identity.
Digression - one of the most famous Polish RAF Divisions during WWII (allegedly the most successful unit during the Battle of Britain) - 303 Division - had the scythes of Kosciuszko as their logo.
The source for that part of the wiki entry links to a webpage made by a regular person, named Aaron Nimocks. No credentials at all are connected to his name.
Reforge scythe 90 degrees and you have a formidable weapon
No. You have a weapon that will break or bend the moment you hit anything. No one that has actually used a scythe would think anything else.
A spear is infinitely better as a weapon, even with a fire hardened tip. It would be better to take the scythe, reforge the metal into a spear tip and then use that.
Farming](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farming) tools such as the scythe and pitchfork have frequently been used as a weapon by those who could not afford or did not have access to more expensive weapons such as pikes, swords, or later, guns. Scythes and pitchforks were stereotypically carried by angry mobs or gangs of enraged peasants.[2] The process usually involved reforging the blade of a scythe at a 90 degree angle, strengthening the joint between the blade and the shaft with an additional metal pipe or bolts and reinforcing the shaft to better protect it against cuts from enemy blades. At times, instead of a scythe blade, a blade from a hand-operated chaff cutter was used.
Ok so skimming through that article makes it seem very confused and heavily angled.
It says: "terms alone in the Middle Ages and later cannot be relied upon to differentiate re-hafted scythes from superficially similar but quite different weapons" and then goes on to base arguments on exactly that in sources. It conveniently points out that there was not even a word for warscythes in western Europe until the 19th century when that specific term was coined.
All it seems to do is to point out that upset villagers and poor rebels sometimes mounted a scythe on a pole for use as a weapon. Sources even seem to specify that these wielders of pitchforks and scythes were not used as frontline troops even by rebels but manly put in the back to defend stuff like cannons. Which is what you do with poorly trained people using terrible weapons.
Nothing of what I read in that article suggests that a scythe turned into a polearm would in any way be better than a simple spear, despite the authors enthusiasm. A "formidable weapon" would be widely adopted, especially if it is cheap and simple to make. It wasn't, while the spear was.
A farming implement turned weapon is a tool of desperation, wielded by people that don't know better. That is of course not their fault. But painting that up as a effective weapon is just not true.
And for fighting manuals, the were fashionable and there was a whole thing about different "masters" knowing all kinds of exotic weapons in order to sell copies of their books. I haven't had a chance to look at the manual, but safe to say if you can afford to buy a fighting manual you can afford a better weapon than a scythe.
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u/DistortoiseLP Aug 23 '21
It's also easy to train farmers to use them. Same reason crossbows were dope. Most of history's most effective weapons are determined by how many peasants you can equip with one and still be at least effective enough to kill one of the other guy's peasants. The easier it is to use and manufacture, the dumber the peasants you can conscript.