The batleth supposedly started off as horns before they made them out of metal

very fitting for the culture when you look at it that way

Appropriate considering that batleth looks like oversized deer-horn knife from China

Just came here to type this, but you beat me to it. I wonder if the appropriate way to Bat'leth is to ram into, and throw yourself onto your opponent, and finish with a dagger? I believe most Klingons also had a side blade.

@@SolemnlySquid a three pointed dagger called the Dk'Tagh is pretty standard, it had a button activator to flare out smaller blades from the guard. but Klingons weren't opposed to different knife varieties and carried smaller less robust blades regularly.

traditional klingon weaponry and their heavily specific uses/rituals give me life

Not exactly. Deathly duels also serve to eliminate the weak. And apparently there is no shortage of Klingons. This is almost how and why they move ranks.

When Worf kills Duras he uses a Batleth but Duras uses what looks like a scimitar or tulwar.

I've long held the idea that they were designed to be difficult to use. Why? Because that would greater demonstrate the skill and prowess of anyone who mastered their use. Also, until the TNG-era, the idea that anyone would take one into actual battle was seen as ridiculous, as it's not a battlefield weapon. It is meant for dueling against someone else using one. But, some Klingons started using them in actual battles because of the honor associated with using them and the trend rapidly spread throughout the Empire.

In the books it is revealed that the bat'leth was redesigned specifically to fight the hur'q - an alien race that conquered them hundreds of year ago. Modern klingons keep the same design to honor those warriors who drove the hur'q from Kronos and saved the empire.

It's unfortunate that HEMA practitioners are so rigid and unable to think outside what they know. Almost as disappointing as the people who believe everything they say as gospel.

I'd be interested in seeing a longsword vs bat'leth fight within the confines of a navy ship interior. As "realistically" that would be the kind of setting in which a bat'leth would see most of its actual combat use. Boarding another ship. Most HEMA events that i've seen took place in the open air. No real danger of hitting the ceiling, never mind a wall mounted console made of the finest explodium that the federation has to offer.

@@fermitupoupon1754 *console explodes when someone bangs their hand on it in frustration*

@@fermitupoupon1754 Or maybe a one handed sword or other shorter weapon? Would be interesting to see how it fares against other weapons also built for the environment it's used in. Could still be a useful tool to be honest, cause while shorter weapons exchange reach for control, the bat'leth can at will swap the two, gaining reach and losing control, and easily swap back. Not that it's the only weapon that can do so, a dane axe for example (maybe a tad shorter) but idk it seems like it has the possibility to excel.

in the end it seems the main issue of the design is that the shape makes it very prone to twisting on impact (especially when defended) in a way that screws up the edge alignment.

Kahless was pre space travel. It was in corridors in fortifications that the weapon was used

@@toomanyaccounts It does seem to be very well-designed for close-quarters battles in restricted conditions, rather than an open-battlefield weapon.

@@toomanyaccounts To Add to that: Specifically Armoured fighting in corridors I think is where it is optimised, unarmoured a rapier-type would probably be better.

@@Scuzzlebutt142 the klingons tend to have leather armor or heavy cloth and a rapier is a tad light when fighting Klingons whose superior strength and robust bodies would likely break the rapier.

@@toomanyaccounts Don't underestimate the rapier. The Rapier is still a sword and breaking it would not only require a lot of strength but also a good bind so you can apply that strenght to break the rapier. That's very unlikely. Unless you were talking about simply bending the rapier by attacking it with such force that parrying the Bat'leth would result in deforming the rapier. But my guess is that the hand of the one holding the rapier would break before the blade bends in any significant way. Of course there is also the possibility that people don't talk about a rapier but an epee, which is made for thrusting only and therefore has a very thin "blade" without an actual blade. That thing is quite thin, but I think it's not a real weapon of war and more of a sports or duel thing.

Good, I'm not the only one.

"Goat butts against hedge and his horns become entangled." - Egg Shen (Big Trouble in Little China)

EXACTLY!

agreed.

That might also explain how Klingon's got those thick bumpy foreheads in the first place hehe! :P

They're also good for reaching over and around shields.

I'm not sure about piercing skulls, the design looks a lot like a weapon of attrition in many ways where you could get a quick kill, but a lot of fights are more of bleeding each other out with cuts and gouges...which makes sense considering the redundancies and other things that klingons have that make them hard to take down.

Strike the 3rd percipatal lobe. Death is instantaneous

Or a stab to the gut (I don't remember how many Klingons where killed this way during DS9 🙄)

Now that I think about it wow it fits that category perfectly

In Skalls first video on the Bat'leth years back, he talked about the Lore, and that was Basically the purpose of the Bat'leth. A weapon that would Take attention away from Klingons' Natural Strength, and force them to work on Technique.

SILENCE WORMS!

@@datdabdoe1417 You put capital letters in the most random places...

Which makes a lot of sense given Most enemies of the Klingon empire are not CQC trained. Starfleet officers make use of some defensive martial arts & Vulcans are pacifists who rarely carry martial weapons. Most CQC oriented aliens in the Alpha quadrant often rely on brute strength like the Nausicaans. So the Klingons rarely engage well trained martial combatants.

worf was such a great character in late TNG and DS9

It's also probably pretty easy to fake being good at.

@@Crazael Choreography can make anyone fake being good at anything, as long as it is that one set of movements in that circumstance which is being done. A good actor would be better at learning a given set of movements and adapting to changes faster, but even then it is the skill of the choreographer which is more important.

And the reason is that they're extremely useful tools... I really don't think even the super special forces dudes see them as weapons *per se*

We even have combat shovels now too that are actually highly effective. ALOT of troops even still use things like tomahawks sometimes

@@sirdeakia since they see EVERYTHING as a weapon, it would probably score a little higher in usefulness than a corkscrew, but only if that corkscrew isn't part of a swiss army knife 😎

@@nicolaiveliki1409 yeah, but if push comes to shove i'm sure they're pulling out pistols hahaha

Also pretty much every rifle has the ability to put the knife on it to turn the rifle into a spear.

I could certainly see Klingon ships having more cornered hallways, to take away the advantage from ranged weapons in favor of CQC, like the trenches in both world wars.

It's lore that early spacefaring Klingon frowned on the use of ranged weapons aboard ships due to the risk of a stray shot causing explosive decompression, so they used melee weapons. I almost imagine the original version of it was longer, probably straighter, much like Skal's redesign but maybe even longer. But when they moved to ships, they got shorter and more suited to close-quarters brawls, and eventually became monolithic in construction. Forward-curving spikes formed to suit puncturing armor in near-grapples, and once ranges weapons came back into favor the design became a matter of tradition: you didn't _need_ to use one anymore so the design stopped evolving, but if you _did_ use grandpa's old weapon to take down a room full of guys with disruptors _oh boy_ did you get bragging rights. Very similar to the change from sabers to cutlass by real-world navies, and some of our own legends. Kind of like the stories of Lieutenant Colonel Jack Churchill taking a bloody greatsword into WWII, we _remember_ that kinda stuff.

This looks like fun actually

It seems perfect for closing gap in the bind. Go for a high, downward strike - let it be blocked in high bind Use the bind to redirect the lower half of the weapons downward momentum into a forward thrust at chest level under their engaged bind defence.

The binds look really complex in a very fun way. Between that and the ability of the extra prongs and double-ended nature to sneak in little pokes and cuts past an imperfect guard, these seem like they make for really intriguing sparring.

it reallt depends on the context. in a battle? sure, theyll go for hands, feet, even the crotch, but in a duel i dont think they would, since the point of a duel is to prove strength and prowess, not who can score the first cheap shot.

@@viysnjor4811 Traditional non-lethal rules for Klingon duels are for three knockdowns. A distracting injury like a hand wound would be a reasonable thing to inflict first round. If you got it in your skilled, if you take it and win your tough.

They'd look at some of our weapons and love alot of our bigger nastier weapons like Naginatas or Halberds. An they'd love anything using strength an aggression like axes. They'd underestimate maybe our weirder weapons like scythes spears an most swords or be VERY suspicious of them until they find out just HOW deadly an skilled these are in the hands of properly trained an experienced masters and they'd be surprised what some our Grandmasters can do with some of these

Try the fight where Worf kills Duras. Worf uses a Bat'leth while the honoless ptaQ fights with a Sword.

@@momokochama1844 But with what's essentially an arming sword - a useful sidearm, but not a main weapon unless you also have a shield. I think people were talking about longswords and greatswords or duelling weapons such as the shortsword or rapier.

@Darth Revan are you sure? I admit, I'm no expert with blade weapons, but Duras's sword looks more like some saber or Messer (a short one 😄). It looks a bit too short and too curved for a katana.

@@robertagu5533 scythe doesn't seem like a practical weapon to me either.

It is a lot more practical than Darth Maul's double bladed lightsabre if you think about how you actually use a staff in combat.

Thanks! Interesting idea, although I'm not sure it would really make a difference in that way. Generally the way to prevent over-extending is to keep tension on the wrist and use the forearm muscles to prevent it from collapsing under the load.

I'm more inclined to agree with the theory that the segmented grips is a byproduct of the material limitations of the original rubber props. Either that or to make it look cooler.

I’ve heard similar stories about this happening with other unorthodox weapons, and I wonder how much of it is just catching your opponent completely off guard with something they have no experience countering against.

I think it requires some space to swing it around so for real cramped space i would pick a Mek'leth.

if it grants victory, they'll gladly shoot first, but they often switched to melee if the opponent was within 20 feet, because much shorter than that and ranged weapons become less effective, especially with the severe lack of anything approximating a shotgun in star trek

@@realmofrandom3696 Yeah, particularly in the tight confines of a starship or space station, it's very easy to close that gap before an enemy can bring a gun to bear. As for there not being any shotgun like weapons, it would be rather difficult to design something like that using a phaser or disruptor, judging by how they seem to operate, and gas operated weapons like what we would think of as a gun have a laundry list of problems when operated in anything outside of a planet's atmosphere. That's why even military space installations don't bother to give the crew or the station guns, because combustion is a bit weird without oxygen, if not completely impossible

@@filmandfirearms I do vaguely recall an episode of the original series where a phaser was used with a setting for a wide beam to clear an alley way, but I think that only happened once. On a separate note, firearms can operate in a vacuum to a certain degree because the propellant doesn't rely on oxygen outside of the casing to ignite, where things can get tricky is with self loading guns that are gas operated, something that doesn't rely on the excess gas to cycle the action would be better. But even then, why use a traditional gun when you can use a phaser that doesn't require bulky ammunition and is far more compact and versatile than any firearm?

@@realmofrandom3696 _"I do vaguely recall an episode of the original series where a phaser was used with a setting for a wide beam to clear an alley way, but I think that only happened once."_ More than once. Spock used it to clear a hall in _Whom Gods Destroy,_ and it was used in _Return of the Archons_ to clear the alley, and Sulu used it in _The Enemy Within_ to heat rocks. "Wide beam" phasers are used in other contexts, too, in every series. A quick google search reveals examples from Voyager and DS9.

@@filmandfirearms You clearly have no idea how gunpowder works. Guns work just fine with no ambient oxygen, the oxidiser is part of the powder. Guns work underwater, they would work just fine in space too. The lack of real guns is purely a stylistic choice, there is no logic behind it at all.

Kirk: come on Chang....put down the chicken shit disruptor....i know what you want....stick the knife in me and see what's going on in there when you twist it...... Chang: I'm not gonna shoot you between the eyes....i don't need no disruptor [tosses it aside and draws bat'leth]....I'm gonna kill you now!!!! [swings bat'leth wildly] Kirk: [a large metal pipe skewers Chang in the fight].....let off some steam Chang! Adm Kirby: did you leave any for us? Kirk: just bodies Adm Kirby: I'd like you to consider coming back.. Kirk: no chance [power station - we fight for love plays] yes I melded 2 things into one sue me....lol

I dont like water, puny humans drink that.

2 hours? You think he'd be that concise? :)

@@Skallagrim Two hours of rebuttal. The first eight hours are just him telling everyone that he's _going_ to rebut it.

@@Sableagle plus an hour-long Hello Fresh plug.

Yeah, I really noticed that as well. As they learned, their fighting style changed a lot. I wonder what it would be like if there was such a thing as a Bat'leth system, backed by a history of use and training.

So you are saying it's a Buck and a Quarterstaff...

@@paulkerr7320 Indeed, Daffy. Indeed.

A buck and a quarter quarterstaff.

Samurai used guns, and inoghts possibly too. Do you think they did not have all kind of dirty tricks, Chivalry is only against other nobles, and only really is there that if one noble might rebel, there is a code that does discentivise to join that. And that they fight each other without certain rules and maintain order, and "honor" is apealing to that really. Like knights and samurai really could do what else with common people. That homor is more a code that nobles check themselves, against nobles, like the king, and dont get stupid ideas like rebellions. So klingons are probably the perfect representation. Really honor of knights and samurai wasnt dissimilar, and very pragmatic, unless you go against nobles.

The real problem with the bat'leth is that it is inferior to a sword, axe, quarterstaff or even dagger, in their best aspects. All weapon design is a compromise. Try to produce a weapon that can do everything, and it will do everything badly. As a weapon that can cope with varied combat situations, I see the bat'leth as greatly inferior to the European Longsword. The Longsword also has a real combat provenance, rather than being a prop-maker's fantasy.

Also with an emphasis on fighting agressively, rather than defensively.

Katanas were backup weapons like arming swords...used as a last resort if you can't use your other better weapons like a polearm, bow, musket, mace, axe, or longer swords (longer longswords/claymores/greatswords, nodachis, etc).

@@Intranetusa in war they were backups weapons, but in use katana were a duking weapon .Also they Japanese didn't use longer swords. The Odachi was rarely used and was a footman weapon not a samurai weapon

@@Intranetusa seems like what a batleth is. obviously your first weapon is likely still going to be a phaser. But we can also look at the difference between klingon and federation ships. Federation ships have wide hallways without much cover or sharp angles that allow for more comfortable transit and ranged combat. federation ships pretty much count on not being boarded and when boarded expect a gunfight. Klingon ships have relatively cramped corridors and very sharp angles as well as bulkheads for cover every now and then as well as exposed conduits. This makes it much harder to use phasers or guns since a stray shot can burst a plasma conduit effectively killing everyone (including your boarding party) in the room and the tight corridors mean that it's hard to bring multiple guns to bear. Because of this it's very easy to use melee weapons or CQC weapons like a sword or a dagger. My guess is that the Batleth is the evolved form of a halberd but suited to combat in the tight corridors of a spaceship in zero g. It's light enough to be used in one hand (by klingons), can hook onto various handholds, and allows you to control the opponent's weapon. You still need to be careful with the Batleth but it seems like the ways you can control a melee weapon with the Batleth would do it preferentially so that the weapon wouldn't go on to hit exposed subsystems or go at a 90 degree angle towards the hull. The Mekleth is similar in that it doesn't actually have any real thrusting power instead the point is barred by a flat, likely to prevent hull puncture. In other words it's very probable that the Batleth and Mekleth were in fact created when klingons first took to space and Kahless's story might actually begin around the same level of civilization depicted in The Expanse or Gundam. I can also imagine that technological development is quite slow in the Klingon Empire and details tend to get muddied after 1400 years.

@@anilin6353 In the very late era (eg. 1700s+) would katanas be duking weapons because longer swords were banned/no longer made and there weren't many battles anymore. During earlier eras of war, tachis were longer than most later katanas and are more practical than katanas too. Nodachis (and katanas) were used by both Samurai and non-Samurai. Many Japanese lords had their bodyguards equipped with nodachis as a display of strength.

Yes, can it hold up vs the mighty stick.

harvest. it was also said to be used to carve a statue of Kahless's wife. Kor was using it as examples of the ordinary uses of the sword by Kahless

Kina like a big scythe. Which would be one of our closest equivalents. Which I bet some of our weapons of melee weapon some Klingons would find MOST interesting an surprising too. Like "I tested this Human weapon an looked into it's lore an I was honored to find this Axe MOST satisfying".. or "These Humans got the idea to put a knife on the end of a rope an swing it in circles really fast before throwing it at their enemies... You wouldn't think it'd be effective or that hard but it's really quite a challenge to work with an can be deadly effective" the Vulcan said... An Quark said: "yes, yes now is there still a market for these an how much are the rare ones worth???"

@@robertagu5533 spot on

The line always struck me since the design itself seemed really well suited for harvesting wheat or sunflowers. The bat'leth would make a lot of sense if it was originally a farming tool that was used as an improvised weapon, especially given Kahless's humble origins.

Comparable human fighting could easily best it if the Human knows what they're doing an up against reasonable. Our arsenal of Human choices is ridiculous compared to just about all the Trek races combined. An MOST other races that took an interest in Human Martial Arts I would imagine would be VERY impressed with just how long it can take a Human to go from day 1 novice to Grandmaster top tier Black Belt. An that there's often MULTIPLE levels of Master, Many different fighting Arts and styles of them, they ALL suit specific niches, an ALL even specialize in unique weapons while many oddly share alot of weapons too. Even a Vulcan might find it illogical that to a Trek alien its actually pretty simple to us Humans.

Well you know that the Vulkans got a ceremonial halberd like weapon for ritual combat that looks like a staff with one end being weighted and bulbus and the other possessing a fan shaped blade?

I don't know enough Star Trek lore to really confirm or deny this, but I always had similar assumptions. I've always seen it as a weapon that is optimized to have a high skill ceiling and interesting combat strategies more than for efficiency on a battlefield. Something intended pretty specifically for duels with matched weapons. I think it's very plausible as a weapon you'd challenge a neighboring warlord with, in a context where the army you send when he chickens out would still have spears or disruptors depending on the age.

Worf literally uses it in a duel to kill another Klingon

I always thought that the purpose of the weapon was to not be great so the skill of the warrior is the most important aspect

maybe it is made of titanium-scandium alloy with steel edges brazed in

@@LaughingCrowcorp the fact that it's a duel proves my point, though. There's nothing about the shape that makes it more effective against spears than a sword, but it somehow stuck around in a time of lasers and guns. And even if you can argue that a batleth could win more duels than a sword, most militaries present and past don't actually care that much about having the best equipment. For example: many products targeted towards high end customers say they exceed mil spec, but you'll meet veterans who'll tell you mil spec simply means it's proven to be reliable enough without costing too much. The batleth fails at that

Any sort of even basicly advanced civilization that can produce good steel cost of it isnt that much to make it status symbol imho

looks at Hur'k insectoid warriors..... seems legit.

If the weapon is symmetrical, then the attack could come from any direction. If it weren't, you would know which side was more dangerous and be able to predict better just by watching it.