Definitely didn't expect you to react to one of my videos, but I appreciate it. Thanks for the shoutout! I like that you said "nah" at the exact same time that I did in the video. :D There's always someone saying "strength tho... what if you STRONK?". Yeah, the stronger you are the more you can handle... to a point. There's a size and weight that's too much for anyone to handle effectively. Awkwardly hoisting and dropping it an oversized metal bar ≠ sword fighting. A spear or polearm would have a major advantage against an oversized sword, for sure.

It's cute seeing Asmongold watch his older brother's content.

Asmon watching Skallagrim ... this is new

For reference 21:15 The giant Japanese sword Asmon is referring to was indeed enormous; but it was never made for combat, it was made to demonstrate the swordsmith’s mastery of sword making.

Skallagrim has been at it for a long time through thick and thin. Glad to see him get some attention.

You can find very old castles in France and other countries in Europe and you would be suprised the amount of doors you would bump your head on if you're 5'6 feet tall

Always fun seeing Asmon react to someone I've been subscribed to for years.

Heck, I think you forgot to mention that even IN berserk they say the Dragonslayer is way too big, so big that it's basically not a sword, just a hunk of metal with a hilt

Just one of many things, I love about Monster Hunter, the recovery time on the great sword is realistic. Whenever you swing, you risk reducing half of your max hp

One MAJOR issue they didn't mention at all - was that you had to CARRY the weapon everywhere. In medieval times - getting to the battlefield would take several days, compared to the battle itself lasting a fraction of that time. So having a light spear that does the job just fine compared to some super-heavy chunk of steel... yeah. Even if you had the strength to actually swing it & the right technique -> you'd have to carry that thing for days and back... Even if you put it on a Horse Cart - how many people in the army would realistically wield such a weapon? One cart filled with spears would supply more soldiers than a cart of these giant swords. They are AWESOME though - let's be honest. It's always cool to see it in anime.

You can make it work with a superhuman amount of strength, but if you have that strength, almost any other weapon will be much better in use with it.

No matter how _strong_ you are, the greater the relative weight of the sword in comparison to your own bodyweight, the more it will pull you when you swing it. Think of it this way. No matter how strong a 200 pound person is, they won't be able to pull a weak 300 pound person towards them. They will pull themselves to the heavier person. The heavier the weapon, the more it'll pull you with it when you swing it. And just as I'm typing this, Skall covers it in his vid

Kinda why i like monster hunters depiction of a great sword. Its slow and heavy. Like the character uses the weight of the weapon to do the damage vs the persons strength

The obivous point why spears are better then swords is range the simple fact of I can hit you before you hit me is a big advantage and especially if you factor in shields and then look at how the romans used that combination in multiple of their most successful military maneuvers.

The crossover i never think i needed. Even mouse has already watched skalagrim at this point, now they need to go further. Metatron and Schola Gladiatora need attention too. Shad back scabbard is also a classic

Asmond's knowledge of swords makes me happy.

speaking as someone who almost got hit in the face from a trainer spear last tuesday, if i hadn't dodged in time, yes, spears are op and i would have either have a black eye or broken tooth today. also hella fun to practice and spar with spears. with protective equipment.

If you have the opportunity to go to see actual medieval buildings in Europe, you'll see that all the doorways and other aspects of them are tiny. Nutrition is a huge height indicator. Hence why there is a huge height difference, for example, between new generation of Koreans and their grandparents and also North Koreans.

Swords has almost always been a backup weapon. That is like how modern soldiers often carry a pistol at the hip. They are not supposed to fight battles with those pistols.

skallegrim deserves more recognition, glad to see asmond watching this one

Funny thing about "just have enough muscle" argument is - if a person, lets say "Guts" for inspiration, would use normal sword with his strenght, he would still be more effective then wasting all that strenght on the anime blade.

The kind of crossover you'd never expect but need in your life after its happened

Actually saw the video of the Giant Sword Channel where he tries to explain why giant swords are practical, he literally only used it on a bucket by lifting it and letting it fall; that was literally his whole argument, and he even began to berate people in the comments who were pointing that out...

Huge Skallagrim OG Fan here, so nice to see him get some publicity! He deserves it all

The final advancements in melee technology (before guns just dunked on everything) were spears effectively. the halibert, and bayonettes. they're both long pokers made with as little metal as possible, which worked great for the few situations melee combat mattered.

The zweihander was used as much for stabbing as anything. Grab the first (blunt) part of the blade with one hand, the hilt with another and it's basically a short, metal spear. There's also a historical technique where you grab the sharp end in your (metal) gauntlets and whack the other guy with the hilt to use it as a mace.

To the people who question the availability of the amount of food it would take to get body-builder levels of swole back in the ancient/medieval ages: there's many reasons why people didn't have access to 10,000 calories a day. In England, and some other kingdoms, peasants weren't allowed to hunt game, because it was reserved for nobility. The bulk of any ancient/medieval army was peasantry, and they struggled to get enough calories to survive, and didn't have access to the sheer calories, let alone the abundance of protein required to build huge muscle mass. Hence, no 100 lbs swords.

Asmon should do a tier list of medieval weapons

Halberds even better. Most of the polearms really. Spears were far easier to wield effectively, and a fraction of the cost and time to make.

Your point about sledgehammers and splitting wood is great! especially for sledgehammers. Let the mass do the work! Lift if let it drop with a tiny bit of extra force input but don't slam it like crazy. I have split 1 meter long logs with 1 or two wedges ,probably hundrets of them over the time. When you smack the wedge like a maniac, you only deform the wood around it, because your massiv amount of energy HAS to go SOMEWHERE. It either gets used up as energy while squishing the wood around the wedge or as a kick back into the handle and from there into your hands witch tires you even more/hurts your wrists in the long run. You need to give wood some time to react to the stresses you create in the log. You can hear them crack for several seconds after each hit. I would say 90% of the work slitting wood is lifting the sledgehammer. Not the swinging part.

Real swords feel like really long chefs knives, they're super light. The super big ones in animation and games are obviously just to look cool, a knife doesn't do more damage just because its more massive past the size of a normal sword.

In the most northern Dutch province of Friesland around 1515 the Saxon burned down the house of one Pier Gerlofs Donia aka Grutte Pier (big Pier). Big Pier was a Dutch giant of 2 meters 13 (almost 7 foot) he carried a 6.6 kg (14.5 pound) long sword called a Biedenhänder trans. "both-hander" or Zweihänder. He went on a rampage... And it's not folkore but recorded history. The sword is in a museum now.

Finally, asmon reacting to a skallagrim video, next try shadiversity pls

imagine having to shapen the blade everytime you drag it on the ground or slam it on the ground, or even using it in close/tight spaces

"What food did they not have?" POTATOES. Potatoes coming over to Europe had an insane impact on nutrient availability and just making people bigger because they weren't starving.

They made the swords bigger the wrong way. You make them LONGER until they qualify as artillery. Then suddenly there's a 120ft tall blade falling down on your troops. 😎

I'm glad Asmon mentions you have to take into account the weight of the hilt because they add a good bit of weight to the sword. I have watched the Berserker anime and the one with Guts with the mercenaries when they weren't fighting an enemy he was off on his own constantly lifting his sword up off the ground and dropping it, it took me a bit to understand why he was doing that then I realized it was a type of exercise like lifting weights keeping his muscles built up so he could lift his sword in battle. In Elden Ring your character puts their whole weight & strength into swinging a greatsword or colossal sword & it drains the stamina bar fast. A viking historian said she has seen the skeletons of vikings and what they were buried with swords, jewelry etc. & they weren't bigger than most people today . She said if people got their asses kicked they would have to come up with some excuse why they lost like vikings are giants. There are sometimes freak of natures like Andre the Giant that are just genetically going to grow to be huge . The Goliath from the Bible was just taller than everyone else so people called him a giant.

I love how actually educational commentary from Asmon can be

Zweihander, Zeitgeist, Doppelganger, Blitzkrieg, Uber

If you want a giant blade with reach and versatility, just use the halberd.

Also theres the fact that people are scared shittless in battle understandably so they can and will loose their lives so having a piece to stick in your hands proped againts the ground vs cav or just poking the oposite footies not having to close the distance (also most people dont actually want to kill the oposite side so not being close to other people is amazing for littraly distancing yourself from the murder) with them is way more effective in an actuall battle.

At this point I don't even have to watch any other channel. Now Skallagrim is featured too? what's next? Demolition ranch? lmao

Knights were portrayed as thin in Medieval art.

Stamina would also be a major issue with a sword like that. I'm no expert, but lugging around a very heavy sword to war would put a burden on you even out of combat and even more fighting with it for hours on a battlefield.

A good way to overuse a heavy weapon is basically by spinning because if your going for a strike with a greatsword you can use that downwards momentum and turn your body to do another strike, instead of letting the blade hit the ground you can utilize the weapon's own weight to keep the momentum going for more spins without having to use most of your energy trying to raise the sword back up, you could get dizzy this way but there is more ways to keep a huge weapon like this going when it comes to more consecutive hits, without using too much energy.

I always like Skally's content thanks for boosting 😂

4:30 the reason the slower punches hit was because the punches took less time. Let me explain, the first 2 punches he threw had him pulling his arm and shoulder back to throw a heavier punch, the moment he started to engage his sholder mucles and started to pull his arm back, the receiver started to react, but the slower punches hit as a result of him simply skipping the "pulling back" of the arm, shortening the time it takes, and the impact. Simply put, its a faster punch with the drawback of less impact, but the amount of punches that land are vastly higher than the amount of heavy punches he would have had to of thrown for the same amount of hits.

The way I look at it is super simple: If Big ass Buster swords were usable, then people would have used them in battle, and they would be in Historical Museums. But they weren't usable, and therefore they aren't in Historical Museums.

I hope Asmongold reacts to more of Skallagrim's videos

When David killed Goliath using a sling and a stone, he went up to his fallen foe, took the giants sword, and cut off his head.

Guts didn't only train with huge swords since he was a kid. When he became a full blown adult, the guy stood at an insane height. He is literally the brick wall women talk about.

Zweihanders, Claymores, they are from a very specific era where infantry combat rules the battlefield and they became a very integral part of early pike and shot warfare. They were primarily only used by the most experienced members of a company and/or by shock troops in order to open up/soften the lines of pikes. They were not however more than 10-15 pds at the very most and were for a very specific purpose, otherwise for executions.

wait i remember i watched somewhere that bigger and heavier swords were only for training since if you manage to get used to using them, you will be able to swing a normal sword much more effective

If you're inhumanly strong then they're probably great. Imagine for instance you just had a lightsaber, but instead of the blade being normal length, it had an extra 3ft on the end.

The balance is in the middle so obviously we just need blades of azzinoth

Think my new workout will be swinging a big sword

Gotta appreciate Skallagrim reaction! This is surprise, but a welcome one for sure!

Also vikings average height was only 5'7" or so. The Jarls and Berserkers may have been as tall as 6'4" (all of the data from the Denton mass grave supports this estimate) but even that height is not considered exceptionally tall by modern standards.

The thing about a spear is that it's a useless thing you have to carry around, everyone owned one, but nobody carried one around all day considering they probably have a knife or axe or something on their belt. You would grab a spear and shield if you knew you were going into battle, not a daily accessory.

I think the Berserk logic is that you need a big sword to slay a demon, and that's it. The demons would eat other swords with their big demon mouths

Asmon watching the goat Skallagrim 😱 never knew you were a man of culture! Respect.

Why they hell would you need a giant sword when you can use a halberd?

Grabbing the blade of the sword is a valid technique. Knights used to sometimes hold the blade and use the guard to bash in the helmets of enemy knights

Having personally watched a claymore break the fork of a moving dirtbike, yes, giant swords had a use.

Just get stronger duh

the most practical way to use a very large and heavy sword in battle is to carry a small faster weapon with it just in case you regret bringing the large sword

Asmon Junior: It is wat it is... Senior Asmon: There it is!

One example of how nutrition has changed a lot even in just recent history is that it would be impossible to make a hamburger more than 70 years ago except for maybe 2 weeks per year. Tomatoes, lettuce, onions, the stuff used in making the sauces, etc are not necessarily in season at the same time, and do not necessarily grow well in the same regions. When you make them locally you get 1-2 harvests per year and a hamburger requires them to be fresh, and hothouse farming did not exist before electricity and was not affordable until electricity became a lot cheaper. Making hamburgers year round required advances in low-cost sea shipping so that vegetables and fruits could be imported from far away without them being prohibitively expensive. Shipping costs decreased by about 90% between 1940 and 1960 because of containerization - they started putting the whole semi trailer on the ship instead of hiring people to empty a truck and fill a ship one object at a time.

Shadverstiy's titan sword is still the most practical looking giant sword I've seen.

The samurai had a weapon that predates the katana, called Odachi. The sword would measure approx. 60 in (148 in is one of the largest one used in battle) and typically used on horseback. It made it impossible to draw from a scabbard (on the waist), users would carry them on the back or hire a sword caddie.

yea humans were smaller, plus there is not enough room in a pikesquare to swing a giant sword which were the most popular form of combat for like a millenia

Elden Ring player: "Oh No! Not the BABY THRUSTING SWORD!"

Obviously swinging what is basically a refridgerator around isnt going to work. BUT if you were able to swing one of these swords around like the characters that wield them do, itd be incredibly effective.

You're absolutely spot on when it comes to nutrition. Humans have added several inches to their average height over the last couple hundred years alone, and it's all due to better nutrition. And when it comes to the conception of Vikings as tall, even modern studies have shown that if you see someone with a weapon in their hand, your fear response will make you think they're taller and stronger than how they actually are. So when it comes to a roving band of raiders who show up out of nowhere in the middle of the night that you're completely unprepared for? Yeah, people are going to tell stories about them as if they were giants, because they made them feel small and helpless by comparison.

It's like they're siblings...

People often forget that even in berserk the charater would point out how guts sword is absurd and more of a giant hunk of metal with a sword hilt than a actual sword

Hell fucking yeah Skall deserves all the views, dude is awesome.

I think it is possible that if a creative and competent fighter does a challenge like "I train only with giant swords for 1 year" he could come up with a style and a usage for this big mass of stuff that you swing around. But the sword could not weight more than 5 kilos, even when giant in size, otherwise even extreme athleticism could not cut it

The crossover we needed. I love skalla watched him for years!

How are you going to transport your big sword in medieval days if you don't have a car? That's another reason why spears were superior weapons. The wooden shaft is light.

the game "Outward" has a weapon called "Cleaver Halbert" which is basicly a functional greatsword. Check that out if you can, that might even solve the balance issue with the sword in general.

Skal is a pure legend, Shadiversity and metatron are great to watch also. The blunt section on a blade is called a ricasso.

Vikings were like 5'6" A Viking is just a nordic pirate. That's it.

There were swords this tall used in the past, but it was rare and the blade itself was never that large which cuts a lot of the weight.

I love how people make content that are for Asmongold specifically to react to.

The average height of a Viking male was about 173 cm (5 feet 7 inches), while Viking women typically stood around 157 cm (5 feet 2 inches).

Just saying, commoners not allowed to own swords is a myth for the most part. In some countries like mine, they were allowed to own and use whatever weapons they liked, while in others it was more specific. Free cities also often forbade the open carry and wield of most weapons, even for the rich and nobility. But the wilderness and the roads were perfectly fine. Most commoners would often sell swords and other things they looted from bodies after battle, to add to their income. Commoners wielded weapons like spears, bows, clubs (sticks), straightened scythes, axes or messers (messer means knife and often were used in place of swords were swords *were* a status symbol).

This is like comparing a Butcher Knife to a standard Kitchen knife.

Finally, baldy watches Skall; some good content for once.

Big bertha in minecraft was freaking huge and extremely useful

"vikings" were big because most other humans were 130 to 140 cm back then, so a viking at 170cm seemed like a giant lol

You do not just need super strength to use giant swords, you also need to be stupidly heavy, otherwise, swinging the sword also swing you around.

Oh dope. I've been watching this dude for yeaaarrrs.

Never been this early to a video before

“Gorillas could do it”. Everyone now picturing a silverback gorilla swinging around a greatsword as one of the scariest things ever…

I actually also googled average size of "early humans" and first site said "40,000 years ago: European males - 183 cm (6 feet). Cro-Magnon people were the first modern humans (Homo sapiens) to inhabit Europe. These hunter-gatherers lived a physically demanding lifestyle that would have required greater body strength than the average human today. Their recent African ancestry may have also affected their height, as tall, long-limbed builds are useful adaptations to the warmer African climate. 10,000 years ago: European males - 162.5cm (5 ft 4 inches). A dramatic reduction in the size of humans occurred at this time. Many scientists think that this reduction was influenced by global climatic change and the adoption of agriculture. Agricultural communities suffered from malnutrition as a result of failed crops and a more restricted diet. Furthermore, a close association with domestic livestock introduced new diseases into human populations. 600 years ago: European males - 165 cm (5 ft 5 inches). Poor diet and health were the main causes for the shorter stature at this time. Today: European males - 175 cm (5ft 9 inches). "

Damn so early that there's only 1 comment 😂

Scottish guy here. Part of the claymore that everyone forgets is that it was essentially a body guards weapon built for crowd control. It's size and weight makes it hard to use as a proper sword but is perfect for long sweeping blows that's going to keep people away. It was useful, but people need to remember that war wasn't a tournament of 1 vs 1's. The same thinking would disqualify crossbows and the initial firearms. It can be useful, but it needs to be part of unit where others are covering it's short comings. Sort of like the whole Spartan thing where they cover each other. So it could be useful but that use case is pretty far inbetween and it offers the user a lot more vulnerability than the others which is an obvious reason to not want to be the one with the big sword. Generally, I could see it's best use being in guerilla warfare which Scotland was famed for (something they used against the English, the Romans and would later evolve into the S.A.S. started by a Scottish guy that James Bond is based on). Best case scenario would be something like a 3 vs 3; if the enemy all have normal swords and your team has a claymore and two normal swords; then the claymore can aggro and crowd control all three with it's long arc swings while the 2 others intercept mistakes from the 3 that are focusing on the big sword. The whole thing about Gut's is on point and his weapon choice does reflect his character well; he sacrifices himself in order to throw that devestating weapon and if it misses he knows he's gonna try tank whatever comes. The anime big swords are still just insanely unuseful though. That's comic book shit like Daredevil's deafness giving him superpowers; pure fantasy based on a level of reality but blown way out of proportion.

The average height of people in the past was lower. But they still had the same range of heights as modern people. Sure, most would be shorter. But they still had guys who would be 6'4".

funny enough there are ways for swords to defeat spears. Historically, greatswords on the battlefield were used to break up spear and pike formations. The Landsnechts got really really good at breaking up formations like that. Also, of the swordsman has a shield of decent size (heater, kite, round, etc) the spearman tends to struggle pretty heavily. The guys over at schola gladiatoria did a test about sword vs spear at fight camp in the UK awhile back. Solo's and small groups, shields and no shields. Great video though!