[Low-Tech/Basic] Pick: War Club or Pickaxe

[Blind Mapmaker]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

Consider this yoinked.

Yoink away. Predictable would be a good trait to have in an actual weapon design system, but I wouldn't know where to start pricing it.

Originally Posted by mburr0003

I might not call it cutting damage though. The adze head on a mattock could be sharpened, but it usually won't be... it might be more proper to treat it as blunt with a +1 or +2 damage over a comparably heavy axe head.
* That'd be the pick-adze combo. For an actual axe head, go with cutting, for the "tiller" option...

Unfortunately, there are no numbers for axe head weight in GURPS, though the 5 pound head on Pursuivant's Mattock should get us into the lower end of the Great Axe, call it -1 damage if cutting. I really wouldn't want to up it for crushing. Same as Great Axe would, but crushing work for me, but the Maul is certainly way heaver and only does only +1 damage.

I'd still feel better with cutting, though. Ideally there would be some blunt-narrow-edge damage type for a x 1.25 damage modifier, but let's not go there. Great Axe damage -2 cutting is a little underwhelming for a two-handed weapon, though. I guess Great Axe damage -1 cut if it's been professionally sharpened and the same in cr if it hasn't?

I'm not touching that tiller option. I thoroughly confused now and happy to know I got a couple of these sorted out. Jeez, it's starting to glaive-guisarme in my head...

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

It appears that in German, as in English, there is a lot of variation in what the terms Pickaxe (Spitzhacke/Kreuzhacke) and Mattock (Hacke) actually mean. Pre-20th century farmers and miners probably had much more precise terminology.

Sure, but if you look in actual dictionaries the Spitzhacke is always Pickaxe, the Kreuzhacke is never featured and the Hackbe becomes the hoe. (Okay, apparently it gets weirder if one goes to Austrian, but they're our Australians kind of, so that is to be expected).

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Messing around with Wikipedia and search engine image searches I found the civilian precursor of the warhammer, the Bergmannspickel (miner's pick).

That thing is featured in the article on "Keilhaue" and I translated it as a miner's pick independently of the article you found.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

For clarification, this is the tool I've spent way too much time swinging. It's very good at turning slabs of concrete into rubble, but not something I'd want to take into battle.

By comparison, a pickaxe with a lighter head (2.5 lbs/1 kg) would be a much handier weapon. Call it the difference between a Pickaxe and a Heavy Pickaxe.

That is good to know. I guess it it would not handle too differently with an axe blade, though. It is pretty dang top-heavy for sure.

Originally Posted by tbone

There's also the dolabra, a Roman-era multi-purpose entrenching tool, pickaxe, infantry weapon, and religious ritual tool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolabra

German Wiki has a nice close-up of archaeological finds of dolabrae heads. I guess that's the pickaxe minus pick - or axe-adze, though it's not completely the same. Again this makes me think that crushing isn't quite what you're looking at, when talking adze damage.

Need to think on this a bit more.