Ancient BattleHammers

Does anybody know if there was some people from ancient ages that really used Battla Hammers like Thorgrim's?

And I mean that giant ones, I made a search through google but I can find are ones like these from medieval cavalry:

http://www.knightsedge.com/medieval-weapons/war-hammer-2607g.jpg

http://archive.liveauctioneers.com/archive4/guernseys_auction/15124/0043_1_lg.jpg


But you know what i'm talking about, I mean that THOR-like hammers. Vikings for example had that THOR hammer as a religious symbol close to the christian cross, in pendants and artwork BUT I haven't find a single evidence they used battle hammers ala marvel's Thor... Swords, axes, spears, but battle hammers?

Does anybody knows something? Were these famous battle hammers created specifically in the Dungeons&Dragons roleplaying era?

Turd, that weapon is entirely impractical, you would dislocate your arm trying to wield it in battle or just showing it off. Its entirely cumbersome and leaves your entire body exposed as you can't use a shield. Sven Ole Thorsen used only foam or rubber in the movie.

Anyhow, this weapon is an oversized mallet. Perhaps not the fantasy size of Thorgrims, but maybe farmers or peasants may of used such weapons on occasion outve necessity, much like say an axe or scythe. During the ancient world and such, its primarily a workman tool for construction workers or carpenters and the likes.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DDh5yOgfnuoC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=roman+mallet&source=web&ots=RQulQu5Q9a&sig=6KzjJffsvB1ojlqkgY5iOWbDKpE&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=11&ct=result

___________

PS

I think Thorgrim was a Gladiator too along with Valeria,lol. He wore the same spiked hat thing as Pitfighter Conan, and wore a Galerus(shoulder armour) at the mounds.

You can use it if you are very strong, but also then, you have just one shot. If it connects, your enemy is practically broken, shield or not, but if it goes wrong, it will take you an enormous amount of time to get back in position. And in this time you will be dead.
It is just a weapon of attack, you can`t defense yourself with it properly.
So basically, it is not a good choice. A weapon you can attack with, but can`t defense yourself doesn`t make much sense.
A weapon with this characteristic was the big battle axe the Saxons used sometimes.

Torian wrote:

You can use it if you are very strong, but also then, you have just one shot. If it connects, your enemy is practically broken, shield or not, but if it goes wrong, it will take you an enormous amount of time to get back in position. And in this time you will be dead.
It is just a weapon of attack, you can`t defense yourself with it properly.
So basically, it is not a good choice. A weapon you can attack with, but can`t defense yourself doesn`t make much sense.
A weapon with this characteristic was the big battle axe the Saxons used sometimes.

HAHA!

Honestly I doubt it can be used, and why would you in a real battle? Sven looked like he was having trouble and strain with the rubber one too, LOL Even on horseback as in the film, the guy wouldve fell off his horse while the weight went down with the deathstroke..heck it fell off the horse at the mounds and bounced around on the floor as it couldnt stay in its holder while just riding into battle.

Your better off using the basic work sledgehammer if your that insane or wanting a hammer instead of a sword or spear.

Ok. Then I wonder when this idea started... I saw some ancient Thor images and his hammer is not even close to Thorgrim's or even to marvel comics. Not even in the 19th century, as Thor holds a pretty small hammer, similar to a carpenter tool.

Maybe there's some symbology there. What you said Cromulus made me think about the hammer as a weapon of the working classes. Like the socialist symbol or this one from Canada

http://z.about.com/d/canadaonline/1/0/c/9/ww2ourwar.jpg

Was Thor originally a working class warrior? Lol.


Also there was a Kurosawa movie -I think it was Yojimbo- were there was a character who used a giant mallet as a weapon. He was some kind of retarded giant. Wonder if Milius took the idea from there, but more I wonder if that kind of giant mallets could have been a true historical weapon in shogun times?

Another example of japanese giant mallets as a weapon:

http://www.emugamesworld.com/hammerinpres.gif

http://home8.swipnet.se/~w-85694/images/hharry.jpg

That was an old arcade I used to play "Hammering Harry"... and I think it was another example of "working class weapon" better than a true historical japanese weapon, as the main hero was as you can see a worker who got sick of the exploitation of his boss and went to kick his ass using his working tool...


Reading about the original medieval hammers, they apparently were used only by riders, who had great advantage orver walking warriors, and could smash their heads like nails without too much risk. Something similar to Thorgrim in the attack of the cimmerian village, I guess.

By the way, in some viking illustrations the vikings wearing a danish axe are almost allways also wearing a shield in the other arm.


What I really wonder is if this "barbarian battlehammers" fashion was created before or after the Milius movie... I can imagine that a lot of role playing games featured that weapon, years before the movie... Dunno...

http://www.freakygaming.com/gallery/concept_art/lord_of_the_rings_-_battle_for_middle_earth_2/dwarf_hammer.jpg

Or maybe it was marvel comics THOR who started all this shit?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2350/2183071890_d8e091d4ed.jpg






Finally I found this:

From Attica, ca 550 - 500 BC

http://www.astrologicon.org/images/stories/zodiacosimg/Dike-strikes-Adikia.jpg

Dike (justice personified) beats Adikia (injustice) with a hammer. Adikia is depicted as a tattoed barbarian woman.

I think the odds that Milius based the character on that retarded Japanese warrior is pretty high then if thats the case, I never saw that film though. Thorgrim was just a mindless dumb brute.



The name Thor and Grim should explain away the character clearly enough,lol. But he has no association with the forge, more like a troll of some kind. A proto-Thorgrim was probably the nameless Neanderthal brute mentioned in the Drafts that dies at the mounds.

*According to Wiki, Thor's Mjöllnir is sometimes referred to as an axe or club. This association may be of Hercules battle Club or the Greek Labrys(Double bladed Axe).

Both Rexor and Conan wield battle axes in the film.

In the Illiad, Ajax teh great had a mightly shield, Achilles his armour, plus Hercules' bow was prized and Perseus' sword ect. So the association of mighty weapons goes back some time and no doubt worked their way up to Vanaheim.

Of course you can`t use such a hammer while riding on a horse, and it is a bad weapon, but someone like Sven can use it.
Still he wouldn`t use it because of the reasons we posted.

And btw, actually I know how to work with a sledgehammer.

In CTD, one of the warriors in the town who was tormenting Zula was wielding a sledgehammer.

A pic of the giant retard in Kurosawa's Yojimbo; he holds the giant wood battlehammer

"the Giant Retard", haha!

yeah, that mallet looks normal and more weildable. Thorgrims was like a log.

Would be nice if Nexus6 who made a real battlehammer would tell us about his experience... Are you around, dude?

Flaming Turd wrote:

Would be nice if Nexus6 who made a real battlehammer would tell us about his experience... Are you around, dude?

Present & accounted for!

I'd be happy to tell you anything I can. Ask me some questions.

Haha- Ok. I just wanted to know If you know something about ancient historical battlehammers like the one you made -if they really existed or so-. But I would really be more interested in how you handle it, if you do. Looks like you can really work with it, don't you.

How do you feel about it, do you find it easy to use? Would you choose to use it as weapon in a fictional battle?

Flaming Turd wrote:

Haha- Ok. I just wanted to know If you know something about ancient historical battlehammers like the one you made -if they really existed or so-. But I would really be more interested in how you handle it, if you do. Looks like you can really work with it, don't you.

How do you feel about it, do you find it easy to use? Would you choose to use it as weapon in a fictional battle?

Well, I did some research out of pure curiosity, but most of my time was spent looking for Conan the Barbarian production still photos & making screen-captures from the DVD, since I was trying to make mine as SCREEN-ACCURATE as possible (& I wasn't concerned at all with historical accuracy).

All of the historical war-hammers I found were MUCH smaller (usually designed so that it could be used one-handed almost as easy as two-handed). Every scene in the movie where Thorgrim is swinging the hammer with one hand was performed with a rubber/foam "stunt" model. I don't care how strong someone is (even Sven), it's just too cumbersome; from circumference of the handle, to the head being SO top-heavy. So, in my opinion, war-hammers like the one in the film would never have existed or been used in combat.

I can swing it around (two-handed) with no problems, but each strike leaves you horribly vulnerable while you try to recover to another "attack" position. If you actually hit an opponent with it, it would CRUSH his bones with EASE, but if you missed, I doubt you'd get a second chance against an armed opponent.

The only "real-world" combat use I could think of might be, if AFTER the battle, you walked around the battlefield using it to "finish off" any enemy soldiers that were wounded but still alive. I'd think it would be extremely demoralizing if an able enemy soldier was able to get back to his homeland, & talk about how his fallen brethren were dispatched, one-by-one, with a giant hammer.

Nexus' and Aoster's replicas are quite nice, they must weigh something like 30-40lbs right?

PS

Turd, they are selling Thorgrim's hammer:

http://www.teraasekeskus.com/tuotteet.asp?osasto=fantasia&offset=all&lan=eng

Meh, Nexus's and mine are much better.


http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=77850
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?p=865282

Which reminds me, I saw a video on youtube of a homemade Thorgrim's hammer(does it belong to either you guys?)-- it had some retards making fun it in the commenting remarks.

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

Nexus' and Aoster's replicas are quite nice, they must weigh something like 30-40lbs right?

I can't speak for Alex, but mine weighs 35 lbs.

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

PS

Turd, they are selling Thorgrim's hammer:

http://www.teraasekeskus.com/tuotteet.asp?osasto=fantasia&offset=all&lan=eng

In my opinion, Marto has a lot of balls calling ^THIS^ a "licensed replica". They should just call it "Non-specific Big Mallet".

Here's a comparison photo, showing the Marto, the Screen-used Hero, & then mine. Which one is more accurate?



I rest my case.

AOster wrote:

Meh, Nexus's and mine are much better.


http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=77850
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?p=865282

^Quoted for truth.^

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

Which reminds me, I saw a video on youtube of a homemade Thorgrim's hammer(does it belong to either you guys?)-- it had some retards making fun it in the commenting remarks.

It's mine. There is a link to it in my signature here.

And yeah, there's been a couple of idiots that have talked trash about it; but there's no accounting for stupidity, I guess.

Thanks Nexus. Marto's one looks like shit compared with yours and Aoster's Marto's helmet of Rexor didn't convice me either whan I saw it live. Looked cheesy and was way too expensive for that crappy quality.

Lol, great assholes those in the comments. Best sentence of one of them:

Quote :

lzololololololollolololololololololzox9fzmxWc K.

The Thorgrim helmet was worse than the Rexor helmet, in fact one of the regular guard helms somewhat more resembled the movie version, namely around the eyes and nose.


Thorgrim:
http://www.xyfos.com/images/Marto/M-Conan352.jpg

Guards:
http://www.armsoftheworld.com/images/MC352_0.jpg

Movie Thorgrim:

http://www.thearnoldfans.com/pictures/sven-ole03.jpg

Hey Turd, maybe Thorgrim is a serious Croquet player?

Yeah, with balls made of stone, he's a Flinstone

Well, mine is just an interpretation of a few screen shots showing a different version than Nexus's. Hence the furry handle on mine. However, with the crappy helms.... across a crowded room they would be unmistakable as Conan movie helms, but they lack snakes, rivets, and imho they are just typical of the crap Marto tries to pawn off as "replicas". Marto is pretty famous for SLO (sword like objects). Look at their regular line of "Swords" and get ready to laugh at their "historical line" of "reproductions".




Oh, and I don't have a scale to weigh mine, but its manageable....