wood against steel

[Caelan Arendor]

The practice of combat with a staff (apparently Mat's preferred weapon) boasts a long tradition, particularly in Asian countries. This circumstance likely stems from the fact that individuals of lower social strata, including monks, were prohibited from bearing conventional weaponry. Bōjutsu is the Japanese term, translating literally to 'staff technique,' while Jōdō utilizes a slightly shorter staff (around 1.30 meters).

My question to you now is: How is it conceivable that a blunted staff, lacking an edge or point, could prevail in combat against steel weapons such as swords, axes, morning stars, spears, rapiers, sabers, and the like? Furthermore, in the first millennium BCE, were bronze weapons already considered inferior to the newer iron weapons?

[Starla Yilmaz]

Idk man, this is going deeper than I ever thought about while reading the books. I guess I accepted that a staff could beat a sword because the staff has more range compared to a sword.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

A staff could easily beat an unarmoured man. Whether it would survive against heavier polearms (such as an axe), I couldn't say, possibly part of the technique would be to make sure you deflect your opponents blows rather than letting directly strike the staff. 

 

A "war" quarterstaff would likely be reinforced such as spears were with steel. 

 

Armour would likely negate much of a lighter staff's effectiveness. Then you would be more looking at variations of halberds and bills which were specifically developed to deal with heavily armoured soldiers. A staff would also need a lot of room to operate so not very useful in formation, and I'm not sure it would fare well against other long reach weapons such as a zweihander sword. 

 

Iron isn't superior to bronze. It has different properties, but the main feature was the abundance of iron ore. High grade steel is a superior metal, but ancient civilisations did not have that technology. Even in the middle ages, the technique for mild steel was closely guarded and apparently lost. Milanese armour in the 14th century was mild steel, in the 15th it was simple iron, iirc. 

 

We tend to assume that iron was better than bronze because we believe in progression and technology, but the real reason bronze fell out of use was the scarcity of tin and I believe it is very labour intensive to work. In short it was expensive and rare. 

[Mailman]

2 hours ago, Caelan Arendor said:

The practice of combat with a staff (apparently Mat's preferred weapon) boasts a long tradition, particularly in Asian countries. This circumstance likely stems from the fact that individuals of lower social strata, including monks, were prohibited from bearing conventional weaponry. Bōjutsu is the Japanese term, translating literally to 'staff technique,' while Jōdō utilizes a slightly shorter staff (around 1.30 meters).

My question to you now is: How is it conceivable that a blunted staff, lacking an edge or point, could prevail in combat against steel weapons such as swords, axes, morning stars, spears, rapiers, sabers, and the like? Furthermore, in the first millennium BCE, were bronze weapons already considered inferior to the newer iron weapons?

Assuming that the staff is not insanely thin then those weapons are not going to straight cut through a hardwood staff cleanly which means until the integrity of the weapon was compromised by repeated blows that the weapon could continue for a considerable time.

 

Then the question would come down to the armour being employed full plate until gunpowder came to the fore was more beaten by attacking the weak spots or blunt force than being stabbed through. None of the BS of running a man through the front and back of a plate armour with a single thrust.

 

The staff would also have the potential advantage of greater range than anything apart from the spear.

[Caelan Arendor]

Thanks for your contribution dear friends. I was firmly convinced that even unhardened iron was superior to bronze weapons. I’m thinking of the 'Iron Dorians' who brought an end to Homeric classical Greece. But I suppose I’ll have to delve more into this subject; it’s not something we would have learned in middle school.