The "Myth" of the "Dacian Falx" as a super weapon

[Matthew Amt]

I know only a small amount of this:

1. The falx, in essence, is a scythe blade mounted on a short haft. It is not a sword. It is a polearm, like a bill or a voulge or a war-scythe.

Not quite. It's more of a pruning bill, as we've said. Scythes are not the same, nor are sickles. I'll agree that it is not a sword, though!

2. Such a weapon would, with it's heft, momentum, weight and power, tear through armoured troops like they weren't there.

What?! That's a pretty bold claim! If you look at the photo I posted, you will see that the shield *stopped* the falx. It did cut pretty deep, but in a combat situation that falx-man would be down with a gladius in his guts a second or two later. While I again agree that the falx is a nasty weapon, and probably more likely than most others to penetrate shields or armor, hundreds of years of battle descriptions involving various polearms never mention that they could "tear through armoured troops like they weren't there". In fact, a quote from the Battle of Flodden springs to mind, in which an English writer notes that the Scots were so heavily armored that they kept fighting even when several bills hit them at once. Do you have any evidence that the falx was THAT effective in battle?

To describe it as a 'super-weapon' is inaccurate.

Agreed!

It is simply another polearm, admittedly, one a thousand years prior to the mass use of polearms, and the reason it became popular is the same one that other polearms became popular - military proliferation of heavy mail (and plate) armour on a large scale, necessitating the use of a specific anti-armour weapon like a polearm to defeat these bodies of armoured troops.

Basically what Paul suggested above. But note that its use did NOT lead to victory over those armored troops!

Vale,

Matthew