Scanning around, a significant majority of the poleaxe posts seem to actually be battleaxes (long axes included, especially the bearded ones) instead of poleaxe or halberds. So a mass update looks okay.
Though, we have several actual poleaxes and halberds and bardiches thrown in. I'm assuming we're going to move the poleaxes and halberds out later into halberd? While keeping bardiches (usually it's Fate Testarossa's) tagged battle axe moving forward?
Veradux said:
A poleaxe is essentially a halberd. In fact, there're several images tagged both that I've already cleaned up. This is because a poleaxe and halberd are painfully similar, the only real difference being whether it's a back spike or a back hammer. Such a distinction is fairly useless for tagging, especially considering a large amount of images tagged halberd are literally just spears.
Some clarifications:
They are quite a few choppy polearms with back spikes (instead of hammers) that are considered pollaxes instead of halberds. At least in museum labeling and by certain Medieval scholars. Halberds tend to have their back 'spike' pointing down like a hook (and is used such), while poleaxes have straighter and more 'substantial' spikes (used for piercing armor). Overall, it seems like the main distinction are these three:
- Length
- Poleaxes are usually shorter than the wielder's height. (It's primary use is basically like a long-hafted axe with some extra useful bits tacked on)
- Halberds are usually much longer than the wielder's height. (It's primary use it basically like a longspear for formation fighting, with some extra useful bits tacked on)
- Blade
- Poleaxes have actual axe heads. Usually mounted as multiple different parts.
- Halberds generally have a simple one-piece forged blade that looks like an angled trapezoid (e.g. post #4313825) or a wavy 'concave' shape, instead of being actual axe heads.
- Role
- Poleaxes are personal combat weapons used for anti-armor (some say developed specifically to breach plate armor). They tend to be wielded by knights and men-at-arms .
- They also tend to be more ornamental decorated as a result.
- Halberds are formation weapons. They tend to be wielded by common soldiers (and sergeants). Their main use is to combat spears and pikes, as well as cavalry. The halberd's construction (unwieldy length, plus shape of blade and spike) means its much less-suited for combating heavy armor.
- Halberds are also ceremonial weapons for bodyguard units. As such, fantasy/medieval "guards" also tend to carry halberds.
So, generally, most real-world examples can be cleanly divided into either poleaxe or halberd. The problem is that the default "Western Fantasy halberd' (named "halberd" in-universe) pretty much blurs the lines between the two, having:
- Length at wielder's height, or slightly longer.
- Actual axe heads mounted as multiple pieces.
- Used for personal combat instead of formation fighting or bodyguarding (because mooks and guards are boring while heroes are cool).
The "Japanese Western Fantasy halberd" (with Chinese and Korean examples following suit) tend to further exaggerate the 'axe' head, and/or turn the back spike/hammer into a second choppy blade, to the point that many examples are no longer halberds nor poleaxes but are straight-up battleaxes instead.
So, basically, what we should do is exactly as you suggested: shove all the halberd and poleaxe looking polearms into halberd, then move the remaining all into battle axe.
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In a certain ironic sense, most of the examples we have tagged as halberd are likely to be poleaxes instead of halberds (shorter length, actual axe head, pointy 'can-opener' spike instead of hooky 'rider-dragging' ones). But people know how to tag halberd ("choppy" polearm with an extra spear head, as how most video games use it) better than poleaxe, which gets confused for long-hafted axes all the time (because of the word "pole"). So halberd should probably be the primary tag, with poleaxe aliased to it. Or maybe we can just leave poleaxe empty as an ambiguous tag.
(The alternate spelling "pollaxe" might be less likely to be confused [with "poll" referring to the axe and/or hammer head], which may be useful for consideration in case someone decides to disambiguate between pollaxes and halberds in the future... but personally it still wouldn't be worth the effort.)
