It’s because people want to imagine themselves as a hero, engaging in one on one combat. A knight or samurai.
They don’t want to imagine themselves as a barely trained serf in a block with 30 other people holding 3m long pikes trying not to shit yourself as arrows start to rain down.
By the time of 3m pikes most infantry would be receiving pretty decent training.
This just in- being able to hurt your enemy from farther away than they can hurt you conveys a large tactical advantage. More at 11.
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I think a shield and sword together are better than a spear https://youtu.be/uLLv8E2pWdk?si=vXiyUTTnSbIq-vC8
Wait until you hear about Spears with shields.
Were they very common?
Ancient Greek and Rome used them quite a lot, as I know.
Also Vikings iirc
The famous Roman legion rarely engaged in formation combat with sword and shield, more often Fighting started with spear and shield and moved to sword and shield.
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Even for all who had swords, their primary assault weapon was usually some form of pointy murder stick, usually handheld and horse-propelled
The sword is the pistol of ancient times whereas the sprear is the assault rifle.
That analogy bothers me more than it should because pistols are generally cheaper than assault rifles (but I get your point)
Long stick > any other melee weapon
the bow and arrow is just a logical extension of mankind’s desire to poke each other at ever longer range.
The natural wish to poke but not get poked back
rock->spear->bow and arrow->cannon->handheld cannon->auto-repeating handheld cannon->howitzer->ICBM->Predator drone
->relativistic kill vehicle.
You see it coming, omae wa mou shindeiru.
Only thing more scary would be triggering a vacuum decay event. But these tend to backfire quite spectacularly.
Aliens see us as the water balloon planet.
Chinese Soldiers: “What if we put a sword on a stick and call it a day?”
You need to arm 100 guys? 100 spears is a lot cheaper and easier to train than 100 swords.
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pokes oh hey didn’t see you from all the way over here.
Present in very many cultures as well. Be it called yari, ji, iklwa or sarissa they are all long pokey sticks.
Spears are way harder to make a cool spectacle in fantasy though
Kinda reminds me of that scene in Indiana Jones where the guy is doing a load of flashy movements with his sword and he just gets shot in the face
