"Unimpressed by the ahlspiess" Topic

Earlier today I was cleaning one set of the ahlspiess wielding arms from the Perry Foot Knights (1450-1500) set and it came to my mind that this seems to be relatively unimpressive weapon by the late 15th century standards, especially for a man-at-arms with resources to buy a full plate armour. Essentially, what you get with ahlspiess is a pointy stick with a relatively limited reach and a little metal rondel to give your hand some protection.

Given the wide variety of late medieval polearms, there was no lack of alternatives. These could provide not only a spiky point, but also some sort of a heavy blade, hammerhead or another spike that could be swung to obtain some a good momentum. These weapons could also feature some sort of hook to grab and unbalance/unhorse the opponent, and the weapon head might provide handy locations for catching your opponents weapon. These could also provide a bit more reach than ahlspiess, though if serious advantage on that was needed a long spear or pike would offer even more.

I guess they might look attractive on peace-time ceremonial guard on a ducal palace, where no serious opposition was expected and the weapon would be handy for use indoors. But as a battlefield weapon against a well-armed and -armoured opponent it seems pretty limited.

That said, even though I am a bit puzzled by these weapons, they were certainly used historically, so I will have a few as weapons for my models. Maybe they were at least relatively inexpensive?

Perhaps they were more useful when fighting in close quarters or ranks? With something like a voulge, pollaxe or halberd, you'd need some room to use the spikey bit on the reverse side, or the blade end (unless you were using a up-and-down chopping motion?). An ahlspeiss with a tremendous emphasis on a thrusting tip might be more useful under those conditions…

Damon.

Also wondering if the interpretation of the handguard might be a little off. Rather than serving as hand protection, I'm wondering if instead it was there to prevent the hand from sliding down the weapon when you tried to penetrate plate armor? It would still require a considerable amount of force to punch through a good set of "white armor," and a knight/MAA probably is already wearing plate gauntlets/mittens for hand defense already. So the rondel might be there to brace the hand rather than for protection.

Damon.

Perhaps it was more to keep the spiess from going too deep into the enemy body, thus making it hard to retrieve the weapon.
The weapon was designed to penetrate armour, and its wide usage probably means that it was good – or rather – better in it then other weapons.

The "all spice"? Never heard of it….

Not sure what the Perry version looks like but the real one has the disc just below the long point and above the languets (the bits that fix it to the shaft).

I'd say it was as likely to prevent an opponent sliding his blade down the shaft or making a cutting stroke at the bearer, guided by the shaft.

As surviving examples have shafts 5-8 foot long (plus the 2-3 foot point) I'd say they don't lack reach. If the Perry version is smaller that may be why it doesn't look effective.

@Gildasfacit – Hmm, that sort of describes a boar spear. Is there a common root in the ancestry?

Besides protection for the hands, the rondel also helps to parry. As Garand correctly surmises, its strength is as a thrusting weapon in close quarters. Worth remembering that it's not a blade on the end, but a substantial spike, usually of square cross section. You can punch through plate with sufficient force, but you're better off going at one of the joints.

Plate armour … This made the classic sword redundant, that's why they switched to maces, warhammers, pole-axes while swords became long sharp points designed to be forcefully rammed into the gaps in the armour or the eyeslits. YouTube link

These weapons were designed to be used with two hands to apply as much force as possible to the target and cause all kinds of injuries. YouTube link that pole-axe might not be able to pierce a helmet or breastplate, but the impact will give a serious concussion or knock you to the ground, making you vulnerable to being stabbed in gaps in the armour.

YouTube link

The Ahlspiess is a specialized sharp object designed to stab through armour, eyeslits or any gap you can find and send the poor "Sir Opponent" to the great beyond. Once you know how the techniques of the time worke (find a way to bypass the armour because attacking it directly is damn tiring) it makes sense as a weapon.

YouTube link

Forget Hollywood where the hero somehow kills his opponent by dragging the edge of his sword against a steel breastplate … get a poleaxe instead.

With something like a voulge, pollaxe or halberd, you'd need some room to use the spikey bit on the reverse side, or the blade end (unless you were using a up-and-down chopping motion?).

With pollaxe and halberd, there is also a spikey bit in the far end, which can be used for thrusting in a similar way to ahlspiess. That said, ahlspiess might be a bit better balanced for thrusting, not having such a heavy head.

Also wondering if the interpretation of the handguard might be a little off. Rather than serving as hand protection, I'm wondering if instead it was there to prevent the hand from sliding down the weapon when you tried to penetrate plate armor?

Good point, though the protective value of the rondel would likely be appreciated by those without gauntlets.

Perhaps it was more to keep the spiess from going too deep into the enemy body, thus making it hard to retrieve the weapon.

Considering that there was a foot or more of the spike in front of the rondel, I somehow doubt that was the main purpose. By the time the rondel would be making contact with the chest of the poor impaled opponent, the spikey end would be coming well out of his back.

As surviving examples have shafts 5-8 foot long (plus the 2-3 foot point) I'd say they don't lack reach. If the Perry version is smaller that may be why it doesn't look effective.

The Perry version is slightly longer than their poleaxes, but significantly shorter than their bills and halberds.

With pollaxe and halberd, there is also a spikey bit in the far end, which can be used for thrusting in a similar way to ahlspiess. That said, ahlspiess might be a bit better balanced for thrusting, not having such a heavy head.

Apologies, I went and re-read my post and realized my thoughts were incomplete. I was always under the impression that the spike at the end of a pole-arm was more for cavalry defence than for can opening. If you had a halberd or pollaxe, you're going to want to use the blade side (or in the case of the pollaxe the meat-tenderizer on the reverse side) to do some serious can opening or bludgeoning. But when faced with enemy cavalry, you can set the pole arm to receive the charge, and hopefully the horses have more sense than to run into a wall of pointy things. But comparatively speaking, the head on an ahlspeiss is much more business-like and specialized compared to a pollaxe or halberd IMHO.

Damon

The spikey end of a halberd is certainly handy for bracing against cavalry, but it should be pretty decent for poking enemy infantrymen if needed.

Ahlspiess might be a bit better in this thrusting action than the less specialised alternatives. Is this really a good trade-off considering the lack of versatility and especially any effective swinging motion (which could provide a very powerful impact).

On an unrelated issue, is there any good English name for ahlspiess? I think I saw a French term somewhere recently.

Awl-pike is the usual translation and I have seen it in contemporary use.

Thanks for the info. I must admit that ahlspiess sounds a bit more impressive than awl-pike – never mind that the later might a bit confusing in a wargaming context, since the weapon in question is not actually as long as a proper pike.

Well, it seems indeed that the "stopper" is more meant as heand guard, watching this here:

Some heads:

Puster, thanks for posting that picture here. Those ahlspiess certainly have very long pointy heads! And notice the decorative painted pattern on the shafts.

The vast variety of guisarms only shows that experimentation and specialization was ongoing.

Pikes obviously stop cavalry better than anything. But they are too long for anything else.

Throw into the mix "halberdiers". But then someone with a more handy polearm, like the eponymous weapon of this discussion, and a halberdier in a press of men is going to get poked palpably, he can't swing effectively, and his weapon is far too heavy to duel on equal terms thrusting. The individual soldier chose the pole weapon he favored.

I love the opening "taking the gate" scene in "Flesh and Blood", the way Martin uses his long sword. No part of it is forgotten as he cuts and batters his way in….

I must admit that ahlspiess sounds a bit more impressive than awl-pike

Could be worse; Spieß is the cognate of "spit" (as in skewer), which is it's primary definition. You can see from those images Puster provided why they chose Spieß rather than Speer, Hecht, etc.

So outside a battlefield, they could be used for cooking souvlaki in a pinch?

The ahlspiess would be excellent in a compact line Melee, the small point would penetrate most eye slits, necks without bevors, under the arm, at the shoulder, and any frontal point of horse.

The cup is used to catch a sword or other polearm following you line for the counter thrust, or even as counter point to push away or stagger an opponent on his attack.

As with all polearms your strength is your measure against an opponent ( the key attacking distance)

Cheers
Matt

Good point about using the ahlspiess for attacking the weak points – the design should provide much more control for such aimed attacks than the polearms with heavier heads.

However, to be able to concentrate on attacking such weak points requires quite a lot of nerves on battlefield conditions.

Its time frame is pretty close to that of the armor punching rapier. Being two-handed it would have more oomph to it. That seems to be the general take of the weapons folk as well link

The "plate" of the period was of highly variable quality. Manufacturers began to specialize by price and purpose. The best plate was defeating longbow and crossbow missiles, but not all armor was made to that standard. It might be possible, for this beast to punch through lesser quality products.