Indian Mace

[Jim McDougall]

This is an absolutely 'textbook' thread!!! and Brian, thank you for posting this very scary looking mace which has brought the term 'discussion' back into the mainstream here.

I must say that my initial reaction to this profusely spiked sphere mace was as with others, not necessarily a combat weapon but more parade or ceremonial. In searching online, I found the khanda hilt form of one of these on the Oriental Arms site (the one with blue background in the photos). In this it is described as Rajasthan, 18th c., and in many years of experience with Artzi, his descriptions are typically pretty reliable,so that seemed a good benchmark.

Estcrh showed a perfectly supported rebuttal to indicate that these were indeed probably quite combat useful, and the suggestion of the spikes preventing deflection off armour seemed reasonably plausible. I think Emanuel added a most valid view concerning the dissipation of penetrating force with more spikes, which are dynamics often not considered in looking at many weapon forms.

At this point, I am inclined to reconsider this may well be a combat form of mace, however, the rather open means of holding this with simple bulbs on the haft rather than the more substantial sword hilt or more pronounced hand stops remains suggestive of a more votive piece.
Many weapon forms were somewhat vestigially produced for use in temple ceremonies and processional instances.

The main purpose of the mace as I understand it is to crush and compromise armour, either to render the wearer immobile or unable to defend himself, and often to break or open the armour to gain an opening for stabbing. Clearly this would apply to plate type armour, but in India, oftenwe would be looking at mail or heavily padded cloth protection. With mail there would be a distinct threat of this becoming lodged, as well as with cloth. This returns to the case of losing the use of the mace by its being lodged in the victim, but does not preclude the concept of its use in combat. In the case of most of these warriors, they were of course armed with numerous weapons, and arms are often 'staged' in battle situations .

In many cases 'shock' action initiated attack, and often the weapons used in this opening action were often discarded as combatants moved to their secondary weapons. I would think that a line of infantry warriors charging forward with these horrifying spheres would create a most disheartening effect on their opponents.

Fascinating piece Brian!

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

The main purpose of the mace as I understand it is to crush and compromise armour, either to render the wearer immobile or unable to defend himself, and often to break or open the armour to gain an opening for stabbing. Clearly this would apply to plate type armour, but in India, often we would be looking at mail or heavily padded cloth protection. With mail there would be a distinct threat of this becoming lodged, as well as with cloth.

A mace could also give you a concussion right through armor without having to damage the armor and in the case of mail and cloth armor bones could be broken. One of the reaons you see such a wide variety of weapons in India is the wide variety of armor that warriors would be facing depending on their opponent. From cloth based armor such as peti (quilted armor) and chilta hazar masha (coat of a thousand nails), mail armor, mail and plate armor and plate armor. Weapons had to be chosen based on what type of armor your enemy would be wearing, weapons were designed to circumvent the particular strength of each type of armor, it was a vicious circle.

[kronckew]

the vicious circle continues in military armoured vehicles and infantry anti-tank weapons. a never ending circle indeed.

the oddities are that occasionally the past comes back.

the last recorded instance of an english longbow killing an enemy during a declared war was in ww2. it was a german sergeant sentry, who may have been wearing a MP's steel gorget as a badge of office., which might count as an ancient anti-armour weapon defeating an ancient form of armour.

col. 'mad jack' churchill (apparently no relation to wsc) not only carried and effectively used his longbow (it was him above). but carried his claymore into battle. he was known to say that no officer should go into battle without his sword. he also had a playing piper accompany him as he charged into battle.

, “Mad Jack,” as he came to be known, survived multiple explosions, escaped a couple of POW camps, captured more than 40 Germans at sword point in just one raid, and in 1940 scored the last recorded longbow kill in history. he said after the war “If it wasn’t for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another ten years.”