war scythe

War scythes were a popular weapon of choice and opportunity of many peasant uprisings throughout history.

Her unit was composed of roughly 280 infantry, 60 cavalry and several hundred peasants armed with war scythes.

A war scythe is a kind of improvised pole weapon, similar to a fauchard, usually created from standard scythes.

Polish peasants used war scythes during the 17th century Swedish invasion (The Deluge).

War scythes were widely used by Polish and Lithuanian peasants during revolts in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The obverse depicts a crowned Polish Eagle sitting atop a sabre crossed with a war scythe.

In addition, Lesser Poland fielded approximately 2,000 peasants armed with war scythes and pikes, as well as 11 cannons.

As a pole weapon, the war scythe is characterised by long range and powerful force (due to leverage): there are documented instances where a scythe cut through a metal helmet.

His best-known works include the monument to the Slovene peasant revolts at Ljubljana Castle featuring a group of men holding war scythes, and the Itaka series of figurative sculptures.

A war scythe is a regular scythe that has been adapted for combat use by re-attaching the blade parallel to the haft, rather than perpendicular to it, so that it looks like a bill.

Both the red cap worn by his soldiers and the homemade war scythes were later featured on the emblem of the 303rd Polish Fighter Squadron which took part in the Battle of Britain.

After a short hand-to-hand fight (the Polish unit had only two pieces of firearms and was mostly equipped with sabres, war scythes and improvised weapons), the Russian commander was killed and his unit dispersed.

Guisarmes (top) were used to great effect as thrusting and cutting weapons on long shafts whilst (above) the cultellus was used to administer the coup de grace to unhorsed knights, and the war scythe and glaive to pull the horseman from his saddle.

In this case, General Thaddeus Kosciuszko, facing a shortage of firearms and bayonets to arm landless serf partisans recruited straight from the wheat fields, had their sickles and scythes heated and straightened out into something resembling crude "war scythes".