this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2026
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How effective were spears back in the day? Kind of seems flimsy with just a metal tip and a long body. Why not just target the the wooden part and it's done. How did they last so long? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 days ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/askhistorians@lemmy.world
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[–] keimevo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

They frequently broke, but they were very cheap to make compared to "cooler" weapons and didn't require as much maintenance.

And most importantly, spears are one of the easiest weapons to learn to use at a basic level (for war), and as most armies in the past were composed of a majority of regular people, not professional soldiers, spears were very popular.