He was referring to a pike. You are correct that a typical polearm (spear, halberd, etc) has a HUGE advantage over a sword, but a pike is simply too long to be effectively employed in a 1 v 1 contest.
I'd say that's pretty much true for a spear but not for a pike... cause the deadly end is... well... at one end of the weapon... if you have a 5meter pike and I close in to 4,5 meters fast enough you're just hitting me with a (quite hard and strong) stick... that hurts but leaves much opportunity to get even closer and use my sharp piece of metal to do serious damage...
If you have a pike that is _that_ long the trick is to not grab it at the end., but somewhere in the middle so it is only 2m long in front of you. That way you can stab with it quite quickly. IIRC techniques like that are explained in historical documents from the 16th century about "Landsknechte". But yeah, the very long ones (over around three meters) are mainly formation weapons. (for short range they had the "Katzbalger").
Still I think a too long weapon means some disadvantage even if you grip it in the middle... then you still have two meters in front and two behind you making any kind of oberhau or unterhau nearly impossible and even diagonal strikes quite difficult... that only leaves thrusting as offensive move...
I agree. Also, with some much extra length at the back, the weapon will be quite unwieldy because you will lose a significant amount of point control. So even in terms of thrusting it will be much less effective. A pike is simply not a very effective 1 on 1 melee weapon.
Already did, but you just continually call it fake. Where is your picture? That's where you're wrong... I wasn't implying that I was Chris Hemsworth... I am Thor himself.
no not really, it's that the internet helpfully points out his name whenever a picture of him shows up otherwise I wouldnt even recognize his name. I am an enigma wrapped in a mystery covered by a secret. It's difficult taking pictures of that.
Since when was a Sith Lord a hero? (Apart from Darth Vader when he sacrificed himself to kill Palpatine and ended the Sith forever) OK, but that doesn't stop you proving yourself to me Hooray Thor again! It isn't impractical to Thor though as he only needs part of his strength to lift it. If he needed all his strength just to lift the thing he wouldn't be able to do much else with it. Coward! Fight like a man! That's better, a noble weapon of a bygone age, but here's a better one: Unless one of the swordsmen cuts off the spear tip. Then the spearman is in trouble unless he uses the haft like a quarterstaff Agreed here. The English crushed the Scots at Flodden as they used billhooks that were more wieldy than the pikes the Scots used, as well as having better training.
Cutting clean through the shaft of the spear is going to be rather problematic though if it's made out of halfway decent wood... I doubt it'd be very practical.