"When did they stop flinging sticks at each other." Topic

So most ancient armies threw spears before and during combat. We know this continued at least untill the end of te viking age. But when did ut stop? Did it continue untill shields disappeared? Did they do it during the high medieval period?

Spanish and Italian light cavalry seem to have continued to use darts or javelins into the early 16th century, alongside other weapons.

I think Australian native infantry used a throwing stick into the 20th century.

Well the use of javelins persisted in Irish warfare up until the end of the 16th Century, often referred to as "darts", and they can only have remained in use if they were still effective weapons. One can argue that Ireland is a place in which older ways of fighting persisted because of the isolation of the place, but its more a case of older methods continuing alongside newer methods introduced from the continent; one might have seen javelins and calivers in the same army.

EDIT; There's a well known quote from John Dymmok, an Elizabethan soldier who described Kern (a type of light infantry) as..
"…armed with a sword, a target [round shield] of wood, or a bow and sheaf of arrows with barbed heads, or else three darts, which they cast with a wonderful facility and nearness."

Interesting question. Without wanting to hijack your thread, did any of the native American tribes ever use the spear? Thy are evident throughout Africa and in New Guinea even today.

did any of the native American tribes ever use the spear?

North of Mexico in historic times, only as a stabbing weapon, but many of the tribes used light javelins propelled by the atlatl, which acts as an extension of the arm to give greater velocity. It was generally superseded by the bow, which is more efficient.

I wonder if the abandonment of the throwing thrusting spear is due to the development of the lance armed charge by cavalry with high saddles and long stirrups around the year 1000. If being charged by well armoured knights was the problem then longer weapons that you did not throw away were the solution.

There's evidence the nascent British Air Force dropped darts ["flechettes"] on the German army during the Mons campaign [1914].

Lewis there is nothing stopping you from having two spears one for flinging one for stabby stabby.
Most vikings had spears. They didn't throw them all.

They didn't just carry two Gunfreak, there's a chap on the Bayeux Tapestry with a whole bundle of spears to throw. However, thrusting/ throwing spears are generally rather shortand will not make such a secure anti cavalry device as a single longer spear. If your infantry are mainly static and used to protect and support your knights against other knights then a linger spear makes sense.
Of course there were those who combined a long soear and javelins such as the 14th century Almughavars. However, they were vituoso warriors with a fearsome reputation and rather tougher than the part time citizen soldiers of the Italian, German and Low Countries militias.

Italian and Albanian Stradiots used javelins throughout the renaissance. They were hired as mercenaries by French armies. In Spain Genitor cavalry could also use javelins. Light cavalry in Burgundian armies carried a javelin, perhaps in imitation of Stradiots? This is getting outside of "my" period, ah, hah.

Infantry use of the javelin seems to have largely disappeared in western Europe fairly early on. I believe that the last large scale use of it was Italian militia, but the pike replaced the throwing spear.

Eastern European infantry continued to use the javelin a lot longer, right into the early Renaissance….

Light cavalry in Burgundian armies carried a javelin, perhaps in imitation of Stradiots

If you are referring to the coustiliers in Burgundian ordonnance forces, my undestanding is that the pointy sticks they carried were not throwing weapons, but light lances for thrusting purposes.

As for Albanian stradiots, I was under the impression that their favoured missile weapon was bow rather than javelin, and that the spears they carried were for thrusting purposes.

As for infantry with throwing weapons, my impression is that Bretons tended to employ javelins for quite a while until they were surpassed by bows.

The Dutch used darts in naval encounters betimes in the 16th century.

In Ireland there was some lamentation that some Palesmen had given up the Longbow and taken up the casting of darts which our informant believed they did not have the skill to effectively do. I find that interesting as we have a fair idea of what a Longbow could do. It seems said Palesmen thought they would be better off with darts why is an interesting question. It could be climate, cultural influence, military effectiveness or economic reasons time or money.

Stradiots "evolved" and seem to have taken on an array of weaponry. The bow was later replaced with pistols. Perhaps there is not conclusive evidence for NOT throwing the short "lances"? I've already said more than I know. As I said, "not my period". But I was going by our rules, which my late friend Rocky Russo put together for the Renaissance. If anything, he was loath to include unsubstantiated details. But he also had "favorite" troops which he tended to give a pass, a little bit, I thought. Perhaps the "javelins" for Stradiots were wishful thinking?…

I guess we all have our Achilles heel

I believe that the last large scale use of it was Italian militia, but the pike replaced the throwing spear.

There's a mention of Spanish infantry with throwing "lances" at third Seminara, 1503:

"…but 1,500 Swiss were overwhelmed by superior numbers of Spanish infantry, including recently arrived Galicians and Asturians armed with throwing lances…"
(Mallett & Shaw, The Italian Wars 1494-1559, p.64, citing Pieri)

(There was some discussion of this on the dbmmlist Yahoo list back in 2012, if anyone cares to pursue it further.)

But I was going by our rules, which my late friend Rocky Russo put together for the Renaissance. If anything, he was loath to include unsubstantiated details. But he also had "favorite" troops which he tended to give a pass, a little bit, I thought. Perhaps the "javelins" for Stradiots were wishful thinking?…

Well, if Rocky Russo though to then maybe the issue deserves further investigation.

As for the issue of your game, does the javelin actually provide some benefit in it over bow? In a lot of rules bow is simply better, due to longer range.

No advantage over bow in the game.

Each throw of the dice represents three arrows, two crossbow bolts or a single hand-thrown missile.

Some troops can throw TWO hand-missiles per turn, which means that yes, they do have an advantage that way, being allowed to throw to hit twice in a turn.

But of course the bow greatly outranges the javelin.

And this is a simplified description of the comparison between "javelin" and "bow" anyway: because bows come in all "sizes" from simple self bows of hunting draw weight (c. 50 lbs) which are greatly inferior to a javelin, all the way up to draw weights of 100 lbs with composite bows, which are superior to javelins, but not superior to the heavy javelins that Almogavars and Roman legionaries used.

All bows, however, as I said, greatly outrange all javelins, especially the "heavy" (e.g. pilum) kind….

Almogavars?

How is that a question?…

A probable Bidower with javelins in 'Julius Caesar and Attendants' from the 'Nine Heroes Tapestries', Flanders, c. early 15thC

Used as the source for a 14th century Bidower in Armies of the Middle Ages, Volume 1 by Ian Heath

MIRROR SITE
Bidower with javelins in 'Julius Caesar and Attendants' from the 'Nine Heroes Tapestries', Flanders, c. early 15thC

Druzhina
14th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

I wasn't clear, I was asking spesifacly when heavy/close order infantry stopped flinging sticks, not light infantry/Cav, border patrols, ect.

I want to know when they stopped it, We know they did it in 1066, but had they stoppedb by the 1st crusade? 2nd? when did they stop.

If you pop by the Napoleonics Board, you'll see that they're still flinging sticks at one another

On a more serious note, I think part of the challenge is that narratives became less interested in the infantry, but focused on mounted combat.

Gun, the answer is "they never stopped". "They" is a qualified identifier, because apparently Spanish infantry threw "sticks" right out of the middle ages. So did Irish. So did various Slavic infantry. So did Muslim infantry for a long, long time after guns came along.

Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman armies stopped throwing "sticks" early on. There is a passage in Orderic Vitalis' Gesta observing that mounted "milites" had stopped throwing their lances by the end of the first quarter of the 12th century. I wish I had the exact quotation. But I have to go from memory. I remembered it because this is precisely the sort of detail that wargamers, rules designers latch onto in constructing armies lists. I knew that early on, "Normans" were more like "Vikings", and only picked up mounted tactics and traditions from the "French" and Bretons. Bretons, apparently, excelled in less formal forms of mounted warfare, including javelins from horseback. From what I have been able to put together, the couched lance was a "French" invention, and that is what eventually dominated knightly combat. The over and underarm thrust, including the thrown "lance", vanished entirely from Western Europe. Infantry combat, which had included throwing "sticks" (and axes and rocks fastened to the ends of sticks, etc.), while a documented part of Anglo-Saxon combat, disappeared soon after the Franco-Norman conquest. The physical arms of the "fyrd" changed to that of the continental troops who had taken over England.

I've seen zero evidence for any javelin tossing in England by the time of the war between Stephen and Mathilda….

Frisians?

Yes Frisians go on chucking, as do Basques, but then they are 'other' living in marshes or mountains and thus not regarded as 'normal' or mainstream by the chroniclers of the time. Both of these groups used javelins in a fluid skirmishing manner which is not lije the firmed lines of Anglonasaxons or Vikings.

More on the Almogávares. In my pre 2WW Britannica, first volume, page 672 (right at the top of the lefthand page, which I turned to instantly by opening the book at random! what are the chances? :) ), it gives a short article of great interest. Specifically mentioned is that they "…carried the same arms as the Roman legionaries -- two heavy javelins (Spanish azagaya, the Roman pilum), a short stabbing sword and a shield."

It goes on to say that the Almogaváres were "…the most effective element of [Peter III of Aragon's] army."

After the war in Sicily ended, they joined Peter di Flor's mercenary band and were employed by the Byzantine emperor Andronicus to fight against the Turks. After Peter was murdered by his employer in 1305 the Almogaváres held Gallipoli and ravaged the neighborhood of Constantinople. In 1310 they killed the duke of Athens, Walter of Brienne at the battle of Cephissus, or Orchomenus, and founded the Aragonese duchy of Athens.

The sources given for this information are: Ramon de Muntaner's Chronicle (Eng. translation Lady Goodenough, 1920); G. Schlumberger, Expédition des "Almugávares" ou routiers Catalans en orient, de l'an 1302 à l'an 1311 (1902).