Editing Battleaxe (section)

== Battleaxes in warfare ==
Axes are bloody old, almost as old as [[mace|maces]]. Both are "mass weapons," but the main difference is that an axe focuses the kinetic power of the swing into a sharpened edge while the mace strikes with pure concussive force.

An axe is a heavy bladed wedge of hardened material on the end of a handle (lever), utilizing two simple machines. It does damage by swinging that bit into the foe at high speed. On impact it delivers a lot of kinetic energy to a concentrated point with a cutting edge to drive it deep as possible. This can chop through shield, muscle, bone and armor. Even if it does not go through armor, its blunt force trauma can shatter bones. Battleaxes are great at killing people quickly, as their hits not only wound but also shock and cripple target, while mortal wounds from swords, spears or bows usually do not kill the target instantly, allowing it to strike few final blows before passing down.

The problem is that Battleaxes are cumbersome. To make them work as well as possible, they need room to get a good swing going to impact with full force. Swinging an axe at such distance also takes time. If your first strike is not lethal, your enemy has a fair amount of time to strike you while you get the next one ready. This also means that they are not the best weapons for confined quarters (for example, in a cave or a mineshaft), and it fucks up one's ability to fight in a tight formation, which was a very, very critical component of pre-modern warfare. Though if things broke down into a swirling melee, an axe-wielder would fare better.

Battleaxes are generally poorly balanced, meaning you cannot control them as well as swords, and generally should swing them around keeping momentum instead of making swings and thrusts and then quickly returning it to defensive position, like swords. This means axes are terrible at defense - not because they cannot parry, but because they cannot quickly switch between parrying and attacking. This problem, however, is easily solved by taking a shield in the other hand. Axes also tend to stick inside armour, shields or just [[RIP AND TEAR|enemy bones]], unlike mauls and warhammers which are also good against heavily armoured targets. An axe's pole is usually much tougher than one on a [[spear]] or a [[polearm]], sometimes with a metal core, since it isn't as long and, as a mass weapon, it needs less finesse to handle.

Axes are also quite cheap compared to swords, though not as cheap as spears. Axe heads need much less metal than swords, but also require a good smith, unless you're pretty OK with your axe blunting after the few hits. Speaking of which, blunted, chipped or otherwise damaged axes are still quite a dangerous weapons, unlike spears, swords or daggers, so along with mauls they tend to be popular amongst those who cannot afford or assess a proper smith. Unlike swords and spears, axes also could be used outside the battle to chop some wood or to construct a camp. As mentioned earlier, if you are a peasant there would typically be some wood axes around if you needed a weapon and had little money.

In desperate situations axe could be thrown, but unless this particular axe was designed to be thrown and the wielder was specifically trained to throw axes results are usually quite poor. However with proper training and design throwing axes are quite devastating, able to one-hit-kill or at least cripple a man even through shield and heavy armour - something arrows and javelins are unable to do.

Today, battle axes are still used in modern military applications, usually taking the form of hatchets or tomahawks, and are built as multi-purpose tools that can be effective as both a tool for helping with labor or as a weapon for chopping some unlucky sod's head off. They're particularly significant on the Korean DMZ, ever since two officers were murdered with axes over a dispute about clearing a tree; ever since, guards from both sides have often brought axes and axe handles to standoffs.