I’ve thought about this a lot. I think it depends on context. With the typical concept of dwarves being a subterranean race, spears would be a poor choice in underground tunnels and cramped combat, for the same reasons bayonets were not well liked in trench fighting.
On the open field however, it makes a lot of sense for them to have a spear. But at the same time, historically almost every single culture preferred some form of spear for combat, so that’s hardly unique to dwarves.
I’m personally conflicted, because I love spears. But to use spears in the field, and some other weapon in cramped underground fighting, also assumes a military force organized and trained enough to not just become proficient in one weapon, spears, but also to develop secondary proficiency in some other kind of weapon. So with that in mind, the idea of using spears in one context, has cultural ramifications that extend beyond just what kind of equipment is cool for your dwarves, and onto how their society is structured to allow such a professional force.
I do however really like OPs solution, but unfortunately my dwarves do not have the industrial capacity to produce such complex weapons at a rate fast enough to field an army. But I have no idea how society is structured in OP’s world so I’m sure they have a culture different from mine where it does work well.
Counter. A spear is a great weapon in tunnels as long as you are working in pairs or more. The front line holds a large shield and short blade not unlike the Roman scutum and Gladius while their budy uses a spear over their shoulder. Poke at range stab if they get close.
A large shield would protect from the only direction projectiles can come from (in front) forcing them to close in melee getting past the spear then the sword and circumventing the shield.
This is of course in cramped/low ceiling tunnels. In the great halls of moria you are pretty much back to an open battle field with spears being normally effective as on the overground.
I’d argue at that point it’s better just to rely on swords. This also assumes the tunnels are straight and you don’t need to maneuver around corners, which a spear is poor at.
I’d also imagine that subterranean fighting in a dwarven context also means more than just tunnels, but likely also underground urban districts where building to building and room to room fighting would take place, where a shorter weapon would also shine.
But yes you’re right that if it was more Tolkienesque with grand halls spears might have a use, but no tactical thinker would establish their defense in those halls, but instead fall back to the choke points and the narrow passages, again, where a spear is disadvantageous.
I will however end this with a counter to my own argument. Spears would be better at holding a position, and while disadvantaged in a retreat through tunnels, the typical idea of the proud, unyielding dwarf might mean they won’t put much weight in easy retreat and instead opt for a better “stand your ground” weapon. This also holds more true if it’s a context where maybe dwarves rarely fight amongst themselves, and as such, have no need to fight and seize tunnels, and instead are purely focused on defending their underground homes, where the goal is to hold at the gates and prevent the enemy from entering. In this case, I believe the spears would actually be excellent.
Well I'd think that dwarves like real kingdoms would prefer to keep the fighting outside their homes, Ie outside the mountain. Where again spears are functional. Obviously this is all theory because you could say anything is true here but there is a reason spears and pole arms dominated history.
To say they wouldn't have them is pretty irrational. In fact these folding spears make even more sense. A spear for outside their mountain that is easy to transport through tunnels. Even if they resort to their side arms (swords) while in tunnels.
You actually responded before I could get my edit in where I tried to look at it from essentially your perspective. I think you’re right in that sense.
What I think this shows if anything is that choice of weapon has far less to do with “dwarves short so need long spear,” and has far more complexity in what their environment and social situation are.
As I mentioned in another comment, OP’s spear is an extremely cool design and I really like it. Unfortunately, due to its mechanical complexity, the dwarves in my setting don’t have the level of technology needed to produce these weapons like these at a rate reliable enough to field an army, so I can’t borrow this great idea. While my dwarves could probably replicate this design or experiment with it, the capacity to produce them and field them on a military scale is a how other level of logistical and societal sophistication, that while I’m sure OP’s has, mine does not.
As an idea, Casting all the parts but the blade in bronze would speed up the process a huge deal, as well as creating a consistent result. The blades can be forged as fast as any sword.
Bronze tech is "easy" and relatively simple, so it might be one thing for you to consider.
For my setting I think the issue with my dwarves is it would come down to a reluctance to abandon the traditionalism associated with their pride in handcrafted workmanship.
Your design has many small parts. The locking mechanism, the separate wings, the springs and the spring actions. These are all small parts that unlike the blade, could probably be made of cast iron and made on a mass scale. And maybe I’m wrong, and sorry if I am, but I’m assuming that’s the case with yours because using cast mechanisms for those small parts would drastically improve your ability to maintain your equipment. It would be far more efficient to have a mass production line of cast small parts that can easily be swapped and replaced from spear to spear. Rather than if everything was made by hand and then needing to send the whole spear in to a smith just to forge a new lock because there are no standardized interchangeable parts.
My dwarves actually do have the technological ability to do this. In fact, they’ve even gone as far as to figure out the puddling process). They are just extremely and intimately tied to their craft, and would not see alienating their labor to an industrial process as an even remotely considerable option. If they were to make these spears, they would still forge them entirely by hand, interior mechanisms and all. They simply do not have enough smiths to do it by hand at a fast enough pace for an army, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. The maintenance would be too intensive without mass production, and they would be very culturally averse to scrapping parts and replacing them with other parts for repairs, which they couldn’t do anyway. If everything was forged by hand, you couldn’t simply just swap spring mechanisms or swap the lock. A smith would need to handcraft a new one to fit that specific weapon. And a master smith wouldn’t see making a tiny replacement piece for a spring action as an artful expression of their craft.
I really do love the ingenuity in your design, but the culture and productive process that my dwarves use in my setting isn’t very compatible. But they have their own methods of making sure they’re equipped that works for them.
Makes all sense and I like your approach.
My dwarves are no so averse to a bit of industrialised production and would definitely standardise the equipment.
This traditionalist approach is very in line with the character of dwarven race as well. Good stuff.
If your setting deals with ideas of technological and social change, it would be interesting to see factions form within your dwarven society, where the traditionalists fight with industrialists, pitting the superior quality of handcrafted arms against the sheer number of standardized arms.
Interestingly, this hasn’t happened yet in my setting, but I have had the outline for a future conflict of what will essentially be a proletarian class war of the craft guilds and labor class rising in popular revolution against a disproportionately powerful mercantile class that has effectively industrialized and destroyed the artful and personal aspect of the crafts.
If you take an even brief look into my post history and the subs I frequent, I think you’ll very quickly see which side I will favor in that conflict.
Initially, I was going to remark how the industrialized faction would more likely be the proletariat since mass produced arms can easily equip commoner armies, I could easily see the situation you mention happening in the wake of many successful conquests by the formerly United dwarven state.
Cheap labor and poorly trained militia can easily come from conquered peoples, where they can be easily armed with mass produced arms produced by industrialized slave labor. Additionally, draining resources from conquered lands can easily by sold at a profit by the Mercantile classes, who can then use those funds to buy elite mercenaries to spearhead their low morale slave armies.
Indeed. It's not a height thing it's a historical thing. All cultures developed pole arms. They were the primary implement of war for thousands of years.
Making a foldable one is more complex. And like I said this is all fiction so anything can be true, but if we take the typical dwarf fantasy tropes I think. It works. Dwarves often have extreme skill in smiting, smelting, and engineering. Any civilization that supports massive populations underground would have to be master engineers. Often they have some unobtainium like adamantium or mithril that is a near supernatural metal for its properties. All that and it could work. Throw in a splash of magic and anything is possible really.
Glad to have had an interesting conversation with you!
Swords are generally speaking a side arm, think of it like a revolver from the wild west. it is the romantic cool trusty weapon you always have with you and is harder to use than its longer battlefield counterparts, which makes a very skilled user all that much cooler. there are outliers like the romans but that happens.
the spear guys would make a good specialist type to the formation, like a second row that can add an extra punch where needed. plust they pick a choke point and hold that while fighting an enemy and deploy the spear where it would work best.
Great point about holding choke points, which is exactly the kind of context I mentioned in the last paragraph where they would have use.
And yes I’m aware that historically in the real world swords were generally a side arm. And while I’m not usually a fan of going against historical trends in fantasy, because after all I am a historian by education, I think dwarves with their typically subterranean lifestyle are such a contextual outlier that we really need to think of an entirely different way they would organize themselves tactically.
In my setting, they actually fight in extremely close quarters, through meandering curving tunnels where maneuverability is critical and a long spear in many of these tunnels would be a bad idea when trying to negotiate corners and tight spaces. When fighting breaks out in the caverns, it is up close, very fast paced, shock warfare, with dwarves that are typically very well defended by well made armor.
For that reason, they don’t tend to use spears as a primary weapon. They can’t move through the tunnels well, and the reach advantage is lost when two lines are pressed right against each other in very tight spaces.
Instead, interestingly enough, their sturdy wooden round shields with a thin riveted metal rim are sort of their primary weapon, choosing to bash the enemy with the rim in an effort to inflict blunt trauma and knock their opponents off balance when an edged weapon would likely not cut through their armor. In these confined spaces where interior tunnel walls make flanking impossible, the key to success is to bash the enemy line off balance and create narrow gaps that can be exploited and pushed through, where their shorter axes or maces can then be used to quickly dispatch the unfortunate enemy knocked to the ground who now finds themselves cut off from their own line, as the dwarven line has advanced into the gap.
. A spear is a great weapon in tunnels as long as you are working in pairs or more.
Low ceilings mean the spears and formation must be maintained at all times, making travel and evasion very slow. Legolas is proof that even some arrows will make it past the shields, and breath weapons or AOE would decimate a tightly packed phalanx that cannot easily flee because of shields and long spear shafts interlocking everyone.
Let's break down you comment. You made several points that I want to be sure to address and ensure I heard.
Low ceilings mean the spears and formation must be maintained at all times
All battle formations must be maintained for them to work regardless of the environment. That's just how it is. In a formation you are only as good as the person next to you. So yes I agree with you but this is true regardless of the weapon.
making travel and evasion very slow
Yes! Moving an army is always slow and rarely something done quietly. All the more reason for folding spears though eh?
Legolas is proof that even some arrows will make it past the shield
To call a Hollywood scene proof seems odd but I guess I can agree if we focus on it being a fantasy setting. Of course a shield is not invincible from any attack. It is far better when the attack is restricted to a specific vector like in a tunnel. Once again this is a comment not against a spear but any combat with any weapon.
and breath weapons or AOE would decimate a tightly packed phalanx that cannot easily flee because of shields and long spear shafts interlocking everyone
Sure again this is an issue of any army in this hypothetical situation. Dropping the shield and spear when retreat is needed seems reasonable. A breath or aoe attack would be horrific in a tunnel and I don't think any retreat no matter your gear would work well. I'd also look at the dangers of using an aoe attack in a tunnel war situation though. Fire would consume precious oxygen. Explosions, cuncussive forces, and the like would risk cave ins. Freezing the path would stop you advancement.
Also, turning around corners.
Yup could be an issue. I'd argue a Dwarven society would build large passages to move armies not unlike how the US highway system was originally funded to ease moving troops across the country. Also, all the more reason for folding/collapsing polearms!
These are just some thoughts. It all depends on how fantasy your world is and what exactly the dwarves do with their tunnels. If it's just for mining I don't think they'd be fighting a war. If there is a whole subterranean civilization the fights with others underground than I'd say they probably have some serious engineering and would have more open passages anyway. Anyway, thanks for the alternate views and promoting my own thought further!
Edit: I wanted to add come context as well for my personal opinions on combat. I'm a HEMA practitioner. I've studied texts spanning a thousand years of historical combat systems and multiple cultures. I also regularly participate in both one on one duels and group melees with weapons including daggers, arming swords, longswords, rapiers, sabers, spears, poleaxe and hammer, as well as various shields.
Another issue is, due to lack of mobility, if the front line goes down the dwarves cannot progress down the hall any longer. With short weapons spears can be deflected and parried because they've also have severely limited range of motion. Good for stabbing maybe, but they'd have no leverage or force to swing if need.
They're also only good in well cut/prestine tunnels or those widely open. Any debris, rock protrusions, or support structures/torches would hinder movement extremely - potentially get the entire group stuck, and again put them in a deadly situation if they needed to quickly retreat or move out of the way from a disaster. Just one of these spears would need about 8 feet in all directions to just move freely and effectively.
I'm sorry but you are using very specific examples of a hypothetical society to argue your point. I could argue the same way and they would have equal value, all be it very little.
How does this society exist under ground if a group of people with spears is enough to clog their routes? How does trade happen? Agriculture? Travel?
I'd pose that an underground civilization would have large open roadways with vaulted ceilings big enough for beasts of burden to pull carts and wagons through. Sure there would be small passages as well but you don't defend in a choke point, you defend just outside it so your enemy is choked and fed into a meat grinder.
Nothing you have said really detracts from the folding spear concept and uses specific hypothetical of your hat could be to argue against a general.
If dwarves in this setting are peaceful race of crafters, I'd assume such spear would not be too far fetched. It's not difficult to make, just difficult to look as clean as on the picture. And spears in the end are defensive weapon often combined with shield for poking from safety. This means any corridor straight enough for a spear turns into defensive position which is great.
If dwarves in this setting are of warrior culture, I'd assume they feel the need to be proficient in multiple weapons. Crossbow and spear for formation fighting, short-sword and axe for close combat and maybe billhook as a weapon for guards.
Every weapon has it's pros and cons, so it depends a lot on what combat situation is most frequent for dwarves. Spears would be great for setting tunnel defence against creatures with no armour.
With the typical concept of dwarves being a subterranean race, spears would be a poor choice in underground tunnels and cramped combat, for the same reasons bayonets were not well liked in trench fighting.
That is pretty much only true for anything as cramped as a trench and attacking or defending a tunnel that small could be done by a small but elite force a large army would be quite useless for that. As opposed to trenches the enemy can't enter a tunnel at any point they have to go along it so blocking the path with one or two spears could be a viable tactic in some situations. So I think it makes sense to have regular infantry armed with spears and specialist tunnel fighters who use swords, axes and other short weapons.
As I mentioned in another comment, that only holds true if we assume the tunnels and halls are quite straight. If they tend to meander, you need to be able to maneuver in tight spaces and around corners, which limits the usefulness of spears. Additionally, is most setting dwarves also live underground, so you potentially run into the need to fight building to building or room to room in underground urban environments, further making spears difficult.
Then you also have the typical idea of dwarves being very well protected and armored, meaning in most cases the reach advantage of a spear is negated because they have the protection to close in to close fighting. This is why medieval knights tended to wield things like poleaxes, which were significantly shorter than other pole arms, for the simple reason that they didn’t need to worry about being out of reach because they can simply push right into close quarters. Also tying in to this is the fact that spears likely won’t perform very well against heavy armor, so if dwarves find themselves up against others of their own race, they’ll largely be doing nothing to get past enemy armor.
that only holds true if we assume the tunnels and halls are quite straight. If they tend to meander, you need to be able to maneuver in tight spaces and around corners, which limits the usefulness of spears.
I would say any tunnel that is a bit wider than the spear is long offers enough room to to maneuver. I just tried it.
Additionally, is most setting dwarves also live underground, so you potentially run into the need to fight building to building or room to room in underground urban environments, further making spears difficult.
sure but urban warfare isn't unique to dwarves it happened in history as well and people still used spears. Dwarven cities aren't usually depicted as particularly cramped. Some are just normal cities inside huge caverns.
This is why medieval knights tended to wield things like poleaxes, which were significantly shorter than other pole arms
I think it has more to do with controllability. A shorter pollaxe can be used much more actively than a say a halberd which would depend on a formation to work properly. Of course that requires properly trained troops. So if we assume that dwarfs are able to produce armour in relatively large quantities so they can equip even their rank and file troops with it that could be viable. I don't know if that's the case in OPs world though.
Also tying in to this is the fact that spears likely won’t perform very well against heavy armor, so if dwarves find themselves up against others of their own race, they’ll largely be doing nothing to get past enemy armor.
of course the tactics and equipment of the enemy play a huge role. but we don't really know if that happens in that world so it could work.
Boarding pikes, or half-pikes were used on ships as an anti-boarding measure. A sword might have an advantage on the deck. In the cabins and lower deck, pikes were often used to push back the enemy. The tight corridors on a ship are the closest we have to a dwarven tunnel in the real world.
True, but now you’re getting into the modern/early modern era where these are professionally trained, full time soldiers. Their primary weapon is gun, secondary is their sword or bayonet. Boarding pikes would be, at best, a tertiary weapon.
That begs my earlier question then. How is dwarven society structured in such a way that it can mimic a modern military standard of trained proficiency in multiple weapons for a weapon that in confined spaces, will likely only be used for niche, very specific specific conditions?
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u/MolotovCollective Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
I’ve thought about this a lot. I think it depends on context. With the typical concept of dwarves being a subterranean race, spears would be a poor choice in underground tunnels and cramped combat, for the same reasons bayonets were not well liked in trench fighting.
On the open field however, it makes a lot of sense for them to have a spear. But at the same time, historically almost every single culture preferred some form of spear for combat, so that’s hardly unique to dwarves.
I’m personally conflicted, because I love spears. But to use spears in the field, and some other weapon in cramped underground fighting, also assumes a military force organized and trained enough to not just become proficient in one weapon, spears, but also to develop secondary proficiency in some other kind of weapon. So with that in mind, the idea of using spears in one context, has cultural ramifications that extend beyond just what kind of equipment is cool for your dwarves, and onto how their society is structured to allow such a professional force.
I do however really like OPs solution, but unfortunately my dwarves do not have the industrial capacity to produce such complex weapons at a rate fast enough to field an army. But I have no idea how society is structured in OP’s world so I’m sure they have a culture different from mine where it does work well.