As a military man I always loved my knife but hated my bayonet. I also carried a spike hawk and me mate was issued a kukurie. We use what we like and I think pirates where no different

Like a handgun but deadlier and easier to hide

military knives are tools

Knives are usual tools and get used as weapons when nothing else is at hand. But you had one always with you. Axes and hatchets are most of the time tools also. The short blade military Backup weapon is the dagger. Thats something Multimedia always gets wrong, a dagger is neither a tool nor a fashion Item.

I'd even say knife or dagger can be worse then a sword for get in a grapple with no experience you are done but if grappled & they have a knife you are likely fvcked. Not every pirate carried a sword like any soldier but everyone of them had a Knife/dagger/bayonet for a reason as they are useful & on hand at any moment. If the spear was the king of the battle field till artillery then the knife/dagger is the constant of conflict. I'd even say the club is a persistent immortal for the 1st weapon made by man that refuses to go way even of the but of a rifle or piece of debris grabbed in desperation. Clubs & small blades are very dangerous yet often get no mind or attention.

Thanks for sharing !

Super interesting to learn firefighters do a lot of work on functioning 17th and 18th century warships. Never knew that before.

Not sure if you are going to see this but if fire rises, why would you go onto the roof (genuinely curious)

Which is why a cutlass - knife combination would probably work quite well. I'm not sure how useful one shot is when fighting at close quarters, but it seems to me likely, that not as useful as a short blade

Yeah this is why most axes for battle are one handed so you can use a shield in the other hand.

@@RachDarastric2 Exactly. Without a shield or steel gauntlet axe becomes a poor weapon.

@@kamilszadkowski8864 The Vikings used the same damn kind of axes. There is a reason they took shields with them. 1730s soldiers had no excuse, in this age they still had The Rotella, and The Highland Targe. Such tools may have been smaller, but they could still cover you completely when you crouch down. They were excellent protection against muskets, but fell out of style in favor of the protection against muskets simply being the ability to shoot back.

@@RachDarastric2 shields were wooden, they would not stop a musketball. a shield that would stop a shot in those times would have to be made of thick enough metal it would be impractical to wield. Shields are not passive weapons in melee, you do not hide behind it you parry with it, this is why bucklers were a practical design and the giant roman shields weren't more common. Shields fell out of style moreso during the renaissance, as armour developed to the point they were no longer nessecary for defending against arrows, and a longer two handed weapon is simply better and more agile than a shorter one handed one. once armour was made impractically heavy by guns, there was no reason for either to continue being mainstream. The highlanders had primarily melee units and so they were used to great effect, but to any modernly equipped unit they would become little more than extra weight on the march

@@Kyuschi *"shields were wooden, they would not stop a musketball"* --- Partially true. Yes, at point-blank range no shield could stop a bullet but at a longer distance and angled Scottish targes were said to on occasion stop musket bullets. Doubtful they could do that reliably but they should still be somewhat reliable against pistols. Oh, and one more thing, shields are made form various different materials, not just wood. *"Shields are not passive weapons in melee, you do not hide behind it you parry with it"* --- Once again partially correct. It obviously depends on the type of shield. Larger and/or heavier shields like pavise, Roman scutum, or a Scottish targe or a metal rotella would be obviously used more passively. Lighter shields, especially when they are small were used more actively. *"Shields fell out of style moreso during the renaissance, as armour developed to the point they were no longer nessecary for defending against arrows"* --- Once again I have to disagree. Even if armour itself offers enough protection against projectiles that doesn't mean that suddenly every soldier around can afford such armour. Also, the shield remained in quite common use in Europe even past Rennesiance. Reasons for the abandonment of shields by infantry are many but primarily come down to the use of firearms against which shields offered very limited protection. *"a longer two handed weapon is simply better and more agile than a shorter one handed one."* --- Dubious claim. It depends on the weapon and the context in which it is used. *"once armour was made impractically heavy by guns, there was no reason for either to continue being mainstream."* --- Was it made impractically heavy by guns? Could you cite some sources to support that? From what I've seen so far the weight of armours in XVI and XVII centuries remained the same or even decreased as people moved away from using full harnesses to 3/4 or half-armours. Amongst other to save weight. The reasons why armour become less common on European battlefields are numerous and far more complicated than just "muh gun make armor bad". For one armour endured in use by heavy cavalry well into XIX and even the early XX century.

Honestly a series on native groups frequently encountered by pirates would be cool, like the Miskito, Kuna, Caribs, Malagasy, and various West African and Southeast Asian natives as well

I don't see how it makes sense. If your arms are long then using a cutting-only weapon will demand even more space from you. In the case of a cutlass, you can thrust, draw, and push cut as well as simply threaten someone with the point to claim more space. You have way more options. There is a reason why boarding axes were mostly used as tools. Axe on its own is not a great weapon.

@kamilszadkowski8864 on the top deck reach is critical, below decks thrusting is your only option if you use a sword. A hatchet allows for swinging with enough momentum to cut without needing much room to effectively chop. So because I have reach I have more angles for leverage producing a more effective swing, even if it's just a basic downward swing without extending the arm

@@BlueJayWaters *"below decks thrusting is your only option if you use a sword"* --- As opposed to boarding axe which only gives you swinging as an option regardless of the space available. This is actually false, just like your statement about swords but let's follow your own logic here. I can tell you've never held a sword in your life or if you did it was a very poor replica. No, you don't need more space to cut with a sword than with a hatchet (for one, cutlasses were made relatively short specifically so they can be used effectively in tight spaces). In fact, I would say that in most cases the opposite is true. If an axe is primarily used as a tool, it won't have a very sharp age or a blade geometry that allows to retain a lot of sharpness because such blade geometry usually means it would get damaged way too easily. Swords are way sharper in general. With that sharpness combined with the length of the blade, you can use draw cuts and push cuts. You literally just put the blade against someone and make a slicing motion or a pushing one. It means you can cut with a sword even at a grappling distance, something that is much harder with an axe. Finally, time to point out the biggest disadvantage of an axe of any kind. Lack of any hand guard. This, and I can't stress this enough, makes an axe a very poor weapon to go on it's one against a swordsman regardless of context. Notice how when shields fell out of use so did axes. With no shield or metal gauntlet, your hand is extremely vulnerable. It makes it extremely hard to parry any upcoming blows because even if you stop the opponent's blade on the axe's shaft it still may slide down and cut your hand. Cutlasses on the other hand had basked hilts. If you would ever try any kind of fencing HEMA or Olimpic, you would know that the hand holding the weapon is one of the easiest and most common targets. Finally, let the sources of the era speak for themselves. If you go through the sources from the Age of Sail they all almost entirely agree, regardless of the country they come from, that boarding axes make for very poor weapons.

@kamilszadkowski8864 bro, you're going too hard about a hypothetical. If we're going to play this game, first off it's 2024. Everything we do is with the benefit of hindsight. What may have been a common tactic or thought 300 years ago may not actually have been the best idea. 2nd, 99% of Earth's population today has not wielded a real sword, let alone touched one. And maybe less than 8% have even touched a "crappy replica" so talking to anyone about sword use today is quite practically irrelevant. But yes I actually have held a real officers sword, albeit made mostly for decoration with a very thin blade and not made even remotely close to the standards of the 18th century, which may have colored my experiences about my choice. And on that note, I have used hatchets, and more specifically tomahawks because I used to throw knives and axes. I never once said a boarding axe, I specifically said a tomahawk/hatchet, which is even smaller than a boarding axe according to the video's research. Now granted those are probably not made to the same degree as the 18th century, but at least I have experience with them, and even more so, I've shot black powder flintlock pistols before as well. I'll freely admit I have not reloaded one without guidance, but seeing as how I have used the weapons in question I've talked about, that's what I feel confident in. And also, I've was in the Navy, and very familiar with ships and their layouts. I've even seen the Constitution over in Boston. I can tell YOU have never been on a ship and cannot imagine how close and narrow corridors and below decks are. I did say on the top deck, a sword probably is the best weapon. But below deck, the minute angle of cutting you could get with even a non-extended arm can cut pretty well, and might take more than one, but its entirely more wieldly than a sword. A large knife like a bowie is probably the overall best weapon. Finally, back then swords were the norm for defense and fighting in those days. But I guarantee even back then it was a weapon of mass production and not every sailor was trained as an expert swordsman. It was just what was readily available. On land, pikes are the dominant weapon because even the untrained can make effective use over a sword. The sword was just the more accessible and common use weapon. Okay so an axe needs more training to utilize effectively. Fine. I'll take that tradeoff to carry a few more pistols and be more effective below decks. Oh and handguards. Well, considering everything I've been saying especially about below decks, that's probably the only real downside, but in such close quarters, I really don't think I'm trying parry or block an attack, I'm more in grabbing range. It's more of swing first strike fast, and if they have limited maneuverability, I probably have the advantage. So yeah. Don't even bother replying because I'm not going to read it. Its 2024 and we are arguing over a way of life I have more experience with, from hundreds of years ago.

paper cartridges existed and were adapted very early on by pirates especially, around the 1650s, powder horns were used simutaneously as paper cartridges but mostly if not exclusively for priming, you could either reprime from the horn of the priming powder from the cartridge misfired, or you could omit priming from the cartridge and use it only as a main charge and prime from the horn. the priming powder in horns had smaller grains making it burn quicker which made it more optimal for starting fires and causing discharge(it was also used for priming cannons), but it's not optimal for main charges, afaik it was dangerous

@@GoldandGunpowder Smart move. Putting both types in 2 separate containers are a good way to prevent injury by keeping track of which powder is which.

@@GoldandGunpowder thank you

since the priming hole/vent is usually so tight you would struggle at getting any powder through, but some were wide enough for even musket-powder(priming powder and musket powder had different grain sizes), either way any significant charge would make the gun explode, since the pressure from the explosion would have nowhere to go: keep in mind that modern guns can explode if there's just snow or dirt in the muzzles

@@GoldandGunpowder A point for Russian Winter.

nah

@@GoldandGunpowder Ah, that's alright. I think it's cool to see how many real life parallels and references the author put into his story