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MrDwhitey wrote:

Slarg232 wrote:

Ahtman wrote:*I wouldn't call this a scythe, for example.

Spoiler:

Egyptians seemed to use sickles more than scythes. There seems to be a lot of conflation of sickles and scythes going on here.

I believe, and don't quote me on this, that that is called a Shotel.

Dark Souls has educated you.

Lies, I am all knowing.

I edumacated Darksouls.

ifStatement wrote:If you had any idea what you were talking about you would have explained to me that you meant it in the adverbial sense the moment I first refuted it. Instead you've researched it as you went along. Like I said, if you search for the answer you want on the internet you will find it.

The dictionary has it listed as an adverd. If you want to have a little cry party about it then I suggest sending them a strongly worded letter. As it is you're in the minority camp and at this point you're just being petulant about it. I researched it as I went along because you forced the issue into inane territory. At every step I was correct in my use and assumptions.

How about this example. You're hiding aloft in a barn and someone
with ill intent is looking for you in there when suddenly you jump down at them.
At just the second you are lined up with their head and shoulders as though you were standing in a wheat field, you make a swipe and cut off their head?

Sounds like a plausible weapon to me at that point.

ShumaGorath wrote:

ifStatement wrote:If you had any idea what you were talking about you would have explained to me that you meant it in the adverbial sense the moment I first refuted it. Instead you've researched it as you went along. Like I said, if you search for the answer you want on the internet you will find it.

The dictionary has it listed as an adverd. If you want to have a little cry party about it then I suggest sending them a strongly worded letter. As it is you're in the minority camp and at this point you're just being petulant about it. I researched it as I went along because you forced the issue into inane territory. At every step I was correct in my use and assumptions.

No you were wrong on the base of it and have found a get out clause in an ill used adverb which makes it onto dictionary.com but not into the oed, collins or any dictionary worth reading.

ifStatement wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

ifStatement wrote:If you had any idea what you were talking about you would have explained to me that you meant it in the adverbial sense the moment I first refuted it. Instead you've researched it as you went along. Like I said, if you search for the answer you want on the internet you will find it.

The dictionary has it listed as an adverd. If you want to have a little cry party about it then I suggest sending them a strongly worded letter. As it is you're in the minority camp and at this point you're just being petulant about it. I researched it as I went along because you forced the issue into inane territory. At every step I was correct in my use and assumptions.

No you were wrong on the base of it and have found a get out clause in an ill used adverb which makes it onto dictionary.com but not into the oed, collins or any dictionary worth reading.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/practically?q=practically
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/practically
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/practically



Did you come from some alternate dimension where things are only very slightly different? It's an adverb in everything. Go troll someone else.

Which begs the question, is a Webster's a plausible weapon?

ShumaGorath wrote:

AustonT wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

AustonT wrote:I m surprised that this thread has so many responses and not one of them has pointed out that Scythes have been used in military action on several occasions.

When?

Ancient Egypt
1525 Peasant's Revolt
1655-1660 The Deluge
1685 Monmouth Revolt

I don't see anything about scythes in the histories of those, but presumably peasant wielded them as weapons. When did the Egyptian military class use scythes? They used a lot of sickle like weapons, but I haven't seen any use of scythes in actual warfare.

The Princes' troops were mostly mercenaries. As such they were well equipped, were well trained, and had good morale. The peasants, in contrast, were badly equipped with scythes and flails (they mean grain flails in this case).
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Frankenhausen
At Bridgwater, the shortage of regular weapons of all kinds led him to order the equipment of about 500 men with bills improvised by riveting scythe blades onto 8 ft poles. These scythemen were better armed than those who had to make do with hatchets, pitchforks or even clubs.
http://www1.somerset.gov.uk/archives/ASH/Monmouthreb.htm

I have to drive home so you'll forgive me for not doing one each.
I'll try to find an image or quotation for scythes in Eqypt, anime does not make it easy.

Personal attacks are not allowed on DakkaDakka. ~Manchu

4 pages? I expected 20 responses maximum.

Ahh, you are one of those people. Consider this conversation ended! Good day to you sir!

As I said, they were peasants and used mixed peasants weapons.

AustonT wrote:At Bridgwater, the shortage of regular weapons of all kinds led him to order the equipment of about 500 men with bills improvised by riveting scythe blades onto 8 ft poles. These scythemen were better armed than those who had to make do with hatchets, pitchforks or even clubs.

Do you realize what you just said was that they took scythes and then turned them into polearms they were more effective than improvised peasant weapons? They change the scythes to more useful weapons. It was even posted earlier showing that a War Scythe is a type of spear/polearm, and not like a farming scythe at all.

No i like it brought up this conversation. I just didnt think a topic like this wuld get much traffic.

hotsauceman1 wrote:No i like it brought up this conversation. I just didnt think a topic like this wuld get much traffic.

Sorry, my post was meant towards the guy who was throwing English dictionaries from the 1850s at me as hard as he could. There's nothing wrong with this thread. It's a perfect nerd thread.

hotsauceman1 wrote:No i like it brought up this conversation. I just didnt think a topic like this wuld get much traffic.

We are talking about (Possible) medival weapons, how is it NOT going to get alot of traffic?

Ahtman wrote:As I said, they were peasants and used mixed peasants weapons.

AustonT wrote:At Bridgwater, the shortage of regular weapons of all kinds led him to order the equipment of about 500 men with bills improvised by riveting scythe blades onto 8 ft poles. These scythemen were better armed than those who had to make do with hatchets, pitchforks or even clubs.

Do you realize what you just said was that they took scythes and then turned them into polearms they were more effective than improvised peasant weapons? They change the scythes to more useful weapons. It was even posted earlier showing that a War Scythe is a type of spear/polearm, and not like a farming scythe at all.

No GAK really? It's almost as if I said that's how scythes are used on the first page of this thread. Let's take a time warp.

AustonT wrote:I m surprised that this thread has so many responses and not one of them has pointed out that Scythes have been used in military action on several occasions.
Is it a preferred weapon: no.
But to quickly arm a force, particularly one in rebellion straightening the blade of a scythe and mounting it on a straight haft is a time honored tradition. More inventive groups would come up with even better adaptations like straightening and then hooking the end.
So as a plausible weapon history gives it a profound yes. As a primary arm for combatants whose profession is war, a profound no.
If you wander your way over to Home Depot where the shovels are you'll find tha many farm implements are much better suited as weapons that scythes with no adaptations. Pole axes, pitch forks, axes, mauls, etc.

Shuma asked a perfectly legitimate question: When; to which I provided an answer. If you don't like it you can take your ball and go home, crying won't change the fact that scythes have been used as a weapon for centuries which answers the question: "Is a scythe a plausible weapon?" quite cleanly.

AustonT wrote:Shuma asked a perfectly legitimate question: When; to which I provided an answer. If you don't like it you can take your ball and go home, crying won't change the fact that scythes have been used as a weapon for centuries which answers the question: "Is a scythe a plausible weapon?" quite cleanly.

You seem to be letting your emotions spiral wildly out of control over something not worth it at all. Before your panties get so twisted you have to go to the emergency, consider this: is a poleaxe the same as a scythe? If not, then it doesn't make sense to continually called modified scythes scythes and then using it to point out that they had military uses. We all know that polearms had military uses.

This is a scythe:


This is a war scythe:


when you take the blade and put it parallel to wood it stops being a scythe and becomes more of a voulge, bastiche, or glaive.

In all fairness I found one source out of several that still referred to it as just a scythe when turned into a military weapon. Still, I don't think OP was referring to this:



so much as this:



There is a huge difference between grabbing a farm implement and going off to fight, and turning a farm implement into a practical weapon before going off to a fight.

The point of a weapon, any weapon, is to give reach and, to put momentum behind the strike, to focus the point of impact, all while keeping the weapon as light as possible. A scythe would give some increased reach, but most of that would be undone by the blade facing inwards, as to threaten the target you’d have to push the blade past them before bringing it blade back in.

That said, I think it’d work reasonably well in putting momentum behind the swing, simply given the weight of the thing, though the long, curved blade would be far less effective in penetrating armour than other designs like a polearm.

The design also limits the types of attacks you can make – limiting you to swinging out past the target and bringing the attack back in.

ifStatement wrote:The model isn't pivotal to the point that it is not impossible to wield a scythe like a quarterstaff. A cat flying to the peak of killamanjaro while playing the flute, that's impossible. Wielding a staff with a blade on the end like you would a staff without a blade on the end, that's stupid yeh, difficult, yes. Impossible? No.

The point to a quarter staff is an even distribution of weight, so the attacker can quickly change angles of attack, from wielding with hands wide apart, threatening to strike with either end, to quickly switching one hand to an end with the other toward the centre and thrusting like a spear.

Having a big heavy blade on one end makes that impossible.

Four pages in this seems to be where we are:

Can a scythe be used as a weapon? Yes

Is it a good weapon? Not really, unless modified

Has it been used in combat? Modified scythes have been used by the military, the original farming tool has been used by non-soldiers on occasion

Ahtman FTW.

Did you know that folk wisdom in Bulgaria is to leave your scythe out in the weather in your yard year-round? It's supposed to get a bit rusty, so that when you hone it the rust coming off "helps to sharpen it". You do not want to get cut with one of those suckers. Not because it's especially deadly, but because tetanus (or getting another booster shot) is no fun.

My father in law taught me to mow the lawn with his scythe. It would make an impractical weapon. If you were desperate you could hold it near the end (like a polearm rather than like a scythe) and swing it, trying to impale the target, but it would certainly be unwieldy. You could even possibly hook over someone's shield, though you'd want a friend with a shield to be defending you so you didn't get run through the belly while trying this maneuver. In general trying to hook/cut with it would pretty much be a fool's errand.

OTOH if you were to remove the blade and re-mount it as a war scythe, that would be a decent spear-type weapon.

All of this has pretty much been covered already, except for the folk customs and the bit about me using one to mow the lawn.

While we are in trivia mode:

A rusty tool won't give you tetanus necessarily, a dirty tool will; which granted a rusty tool is more likely to be.

The rust kinda might help sharpen it as a soft metal holds and edge better than hard metal. The thought being that soft metal shears away uniformly thus maintaining the edge where as a hard edge just dints.

Beyond all that a scythe would make a crappy weapon I'd think as it is meant to cut as it is drawn towards you so you'd have to encompass your foe and then swing it fast enough to catch up with him as he is running towards you, then if you do chop his head off you have a decapitated body still hurtling towards you with none of its momentum diminished.

Magpie wrote:While we are in trivia mode:

A rusty tool won't give you tetanus necessarily, a dirty tool will; which granted a rusty tool is more likely to be.

The rust kinda might help sharpen it as a soft metal holds and edge better than hard metal. The thought being that soft metal shears away uniformly thus maintaining the edge where as a hard edge just dints.

Beyond all that a scythe would make a crappy weapon I'd think as it is meant to cut as it is drawn towards you so you'd have to encompass your foe and then swing it fast enough to catch up with him as he is running towards you, then if you do chop his head off you have a decapitated body still hurtling towards you with none of its momentum diminished.

I think this is the main reason it simply wouldnt work compared to other tools that find their way into battle. And axe/hammer you either hack or bludgeon them to death fairly easy. Where as the Scythe does what is mentioned here. Granted one could, with practice, figure out how to maneuver around the dead/dying person, it just seems to awkward all around for practical use.


And I cannot believe how ignorant some of you are on this thread. Holy hell, how can such a simple, insert your opinion question, turn into such a gak fest.

What we also seem to have forgotten is that scythes have a pointy end as well as a blade edge. As an improvised weapon, I would not attempt to hack and slash at the enemy with a scythe. Instead I would attempt to drive that nice sharp point on the end of the blade as far into their body as I can, and the cutting edge just makes it more damaging on the way out again.

Again, not the best of weapons, but still a damn lethal one...

Well for you guys across the pond, that may be, as yours are typically pointed.




Where as American versions, are typically less pointy



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not to mention, youd be using it, as a pick, and again, they have already put picks into battle, and they are used FAR better then that.

about all you can do with a scythe is sweep behind someone and give it to their tendons realyl good. if they havent stabbed you to death by then, they will be on the ground unable to move and you can poke them all you want.

really tho, scythes are heavy and a pain to swing. plausable, yes; optimal, no. i think id rather use a rake.... or a hoe... pitchfork being most preferred

I'd only opt for a scythe if I were Death from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Looks cool but potentially just as lethal to its wielder if they went OTT swinging it around!

My Daemonhunters Inquisitor reckons they're 'ard as nails...

RossDas wrote:I'd only opt for a scythe if I were Death from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Looks cool but potentially just as lethal to its wielder if they went OTT swinging it around!

Death also has a sword...

purplefood wrote:

RossDas wrote:I'd only opt for a scythe if I were Death from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Looks cool but potentially just as lethal to its wielder if they went OTT swinging it around!

Death also has a sword...

Only for kings and other royalty.

I would imagine that a scythe could be used well, however, to do this you would need to form squares of warriors using the scythes as halberds, and if you're going to that much trouble just use halberds anyway.

Also, you're thinking of single people using them, in which case no, it's utterly terrible.

I think the scythe can be a weapon as a man with a scythe can attack another man and certainly kill him with it, to some extent of efficiency. However, in terms of use against another armed opponent, as everyone else has pointed out, it comes out rather short as it is either an inefficient pick or and inefficient staff. Definitely not a wartime weapon, but a psychotic's weapon.