Essay On Pike Weapons

The Pike weapons were invented and used by European troops during the early middle Ages and were wielded by pike men deployed in close combat. The medieval pike was a pole weapon that was used extensively as a very long thrusting weapon by foot soldiers or pike men, both for a counter-measure attack against cavalry assaults and attacks by enemy foot soldiers .The pike had a wooden shaft that were between 3 and 4 meters long, it had a steel spearhead mounted on the pike that resembled a spear. It were often used as an offensive thrusting weapon against foot soldiers and cavalry. The pike weapon were constantly developed and improved during the early medieval age, and that the pike were improved by reinforcing the shaft with metal rims called langets or cheek to make it an even more effective offensive weapons against the cavalry which were mostly made up of knights.

The pike was then increased in length to not only become an extremely effective long weapon but also to become the most effective fighting weapon in the early Middle Ages to fight back against enemies, who were on horseback.

On the battlefield, pike men were often in a hedgehog formations. In the hedgehog formation, the pike men just simply stood there and held their pikes out in the direction of where the enemies were coming from, sometimes the pike men would stand in a great square or circle with the pike men facing out in all directions, so that the enemies would then have to confront a wall of bristling pike heads, and therefore couldn’t attack the formation from the sides or