Speculation and Worldbuilding; Earth Pony Spearfighting (with pictures!) · 3:25am Jan 27th, 2014
NOTE; this post contains headcanon, speculation, rambling, and art drawn by me. You’ve been warned.
Some of my watchers may remember this blog post, wherein I did some directionless speculation about pony combat, particularly ways to properly differentiate and individualize their weapons. While there are plenty of principles of human combat that could apply to ponies (things like cover, lines of attack, positioning, and the like often apply regardless of your fighting style), merely recycling human weapons and tactics rarely makes any sense for a quadrupedal species.
To that end, I present a blog post outlining one possible pony fighting style. This is by no means supposed to be a perfect representation of a fictional combat form (in real life, there are hundreds of thousands of distinct combat styles, each with their own historical precedents and evolutions), but rather a mental exercise exploring one of the more alien aspects of pony society--one that I feel is not given nearly as much thoughtful exploration as it deserves.
We know from the show that the three pony tribes did not engage in direct combat with each other. We see plenty of political reasons, no doubt (the food, sun, weather trichotomy especially), and ponies preferring cold war over direct combat fits in with the show’s themes.
It makes sense, then, that inter-tribe combat was a rarity even before they became best buddies. I think that this is due to the logistics as much as the politics. An earth pony fighting a pegasus in single combat has dozens of potential stalemates and tactical dead-ends. A pegasus fighting a unicorn even more so. The same can be said of all inter-tribe matchups, so I think that most pony fighting styles were centered around fighting an opponent from the same tribe.
This mirrors real-life to a degree; asymmetric warfare has traditionally given all militaries very big headaches. Martial arts are almost always tailored to fighting an opponent of the same style (partly because it’s easier to teach, and partly because historically, many fighting styles were dominant for a period of time because they were considered the best, among other reasons). This is less true now obviously, with things like MMA becoming more mainstream, but we can assume that inter-tribal politics delayed that evolution, if only briefly.
So here is a (potential) breakdown of one earth pony spear fighting school.
Equipage
Pony spears would have to be held in the mouth to have any real control over them. Since human weapons are often controlled with wrist action, the mouth and neck would be the closest pony equivalent.
The spear here is based on that idea. The handle is perpendicular to the shaft, so that a mouth grip will result in the spear pointing at the opponent and having the greatest reach possible. The handle is about 2/3rds of the way up the shaft for weight distribution, and so the pony can control it with a hoof in dire circumstances.
The handle (mouthle?) itself is a flattened hexagon; the flat surfaces make holding it in the teeth easier. Holding the spear parallel to the mouth will be the most common position (to maximize reach) so making some parts of the handle larger than others will make it more comfortable.
The tip is designed with both stabbing and parrying mind. Unlike human spears (which usually have one plane), pony spears have two planes (see figure 2). Since the static handle means they can’t reposition their spear the same way a human can (and doing so would take too long anyway), the cross shape creates more striking angles. The hooks allow you to grab and hook the enemy spear, without having yours yanked away.
We’ve already seen pony armor in the show, and it would not be much different in single combat. A web of chainmail across the stomach would help protect another weak point, and armored shoes and anklets would help provide another way to stop attacks in emergencies.
Weight would not be much of an issue, since earth ponies are magically stronger and hardier than anypony else. Cost of equipment might be, but that is a function of the setting, not the design.
Posture
Posture would be very important. Since moving your head means changing your field of view, the safest attacks can only be done in one axis (forward-backward-vertical).
There are three basic body positions in spear work;
Center, the neutral stance. This is the default standing position, because it is where ponies are most stable.
Forward, the attacking stance. Most attacks require the pony to push their body forward since, as above, that is the safest attacking angle.
Weak, the parried stance. Unlike human fighting styles (where keeping your weapons close to your body can give you more control), the closer the spear is to the pony body, the less reach and the less control they have. This position is a result having your grip thrown off by a parry or enemy action.
Positioning
As above, the best form of attack is in a forward line. This means that, like real martial arts, most opponents will start facing each other. Circling your opponent can make them more open, but it does the same to you, because of the way ponies walk.
The side one holds their spear on is a lot like handedness in baseball; the ideal matchup is same side. Because the spear partially blocks your view of an opponent, parrying to the spear side (the side it is being held on) is usually a bad idea. Therefore, if both ponies are holding their spear on the same side, they have more directions to shunt their opponent’s weapon in.
Striking/parrying
Assuming your opponent is wearing armor, knocking their weapon away is more important than attacking; causing them to lose their balance will make it easier to attack the weak points in their armor. The easiest way to disrupt their balance is by attacking their legs, but that should only be done when their posture is weak, to avoid counter attacks. This also mirrors real life to an extent; often the simplest way to deal with someone in full plate armor was to knock them down, then poke your weapon into the slots.
So, there you have it, a brief directionless rant exploration of earth pony combat. I promised to keep it under a thousand words, and I almost did. Feel free to point out things I missed, things I got wrong, things that made no sense, things I misinterpreted, things I drew poorly, or things that were interesting in the comments!
Next time (if anyone is interested?); pegasi combat.
Very good explanation of Earth Pony vs. Earth Pony spear combat. I think that there would be a functional distinction here between the more flexible (but weaker) "spear" (designed to be used as you describe in locked melee combat) and the "lance" (a longer and harness-fixed, probably side or chest-mounted weapon designed to be used in an initial charge but then broken or ditched as the fight continued). The advantage of the lance would be that the momentum of the charge would allow it to directly penetrate all but the strongest plate armor; the disadvantage is that it would basically be a one-shot weapon.
This is analogous to the use of the lance in human cavalry combat. The lance was a decisive weapon if it hit, but past the initial charge was discarded in favor of sword or pistol.
One would also need some capability in a formation against the other kinds of ponies, or one's formation would simply be too vulnerable to even small contingents of other pony kindreds brought along as support. There might be a rock-paper-scissors tactical relationship here, with earth ponies being most vulnerable to pegasi (who could launch unanswered attacks from above), pegasi to unicorns (who could make ranged attacks with their horns against which the pegasi would have little protection), and unicorns to earth ponies (who if armored would be tough enough to endure magic missiles long enough to close).
Operationally, the problem is that the three kinds can't easily keep up with each other in a campaign. Pegasi are very fast but not sturdy enough to carry properly-designed (i.e. with overhead protection) positions without support from the other kinds. Earth ponies are capable of high-endurance marching, but lack the ability to conquer rough terrain through flight or magic. Unicorns are highly flexible in terms of crossing obstacles, but lack both flight and marching endurance. There are solutions to all these problems (mostly involving the creation of specialized transport procedures and cross-attachments) but they are not necessarily easy ones.
Historically, pegasi are the warriors supreme because -- before there is large-scale political organization and scientific tactics -- pegasi are the best combat generalists -- unsupported pegasi can still use superior mobility to concentrate large forces at a point of contact and hence overwhelm any other kinds of ponies in battle, since they get to pick where to fight. This advantage decreases as multi-kindred and well-organized armies appear. The analogy here with cavalry in the Dark Ages versus cavalry in the Late Middle Ages should be obvious.
Basically, the reason why strategy and tactics can't focus completely on fighting members of one's own tribe is that one can't count on this being the case -- one cannot always choose one's enemies.
Well, I certainly can't compare with Jordan's tactical analysis, but I thought this was a very interesting and well thought out bit of headcanon. Especially since you made polearms work with ponies, an impressive feat. I'd love to see more.
As for the whole earth pony vs. pegasus thing, I've actually given a bit of thought to that, and I have found a potential solution: slings. Applejack demonstrates that the necessary rotational motion is possible with the tail. Experienced slingers could, at least in theory, provide a reasonable amount of anti-air defense from less friendly pegasus raiders. Lassoes could also help at a close range, denying pegasi their greatest advantage.
Of course, this is all theoretical.
1764683 Except slings work by releasing one end at a specific moment, while keeping the other end held in place. A pony tail may have the rotational capability, but it can't differentiate between the retention cord and release cord like a human hand can.
Slingshots might work (hold the handle in the mouth, then use either a hoof or tail to fire it) as might crossbows (same method), but they would need to be shaped very differently from human ones to facilitate that. Ponies might also use an atlatl (say, wrapped around a forehoof) to push a javelin forward, while using their other foreleg to hold and aim it (possibly with another sort of bracelet construct to keep it in place), but that would require standing still so hitting something as mobile as a pegasus seems doomed to failure. The same is true of pegasi vs earth pony attacks (assuming pegasi are like bombers, moving out of the way or carrying shields wouldn't be difficult). Obviously there's lots of variations, and inter-tribe combat could be feasible, but I sort of like the idea that pony tribes didn't fight each other directly because of cold war-style politics (though of course that situation would probably not have held for their entire history).
1763497 We see jousting in the show, so I didn't feel the need to mention it. As I said, there are so many different weapons and fighting styles in real life alone that they couldn't possibly fit in a single blog post.
You are absolutely correct that inter-tribe fighting would be something to be considered; any good army would definitely consider all possibilities. But not only do I like the idea that pony tribes didn't fight each other directly because of cold war-style politics (see above, although proxy fighting might have some weird matchups anyway), you also have to consider that--for at least some portion of their history--ponies did not get along.
It's all well and good to create theoretical defenses and fighting styles, but theory rarely plays out correctly in practice. Since none of the tribes liked each other, none of them would have been able to properly train to fight the others. I'm reminded of the Soviet anti-tank dogs in World War II; Russians fit dogs with pressure explosives and trained them to run under tanks. Except, they lacked any German tanks, so when released onto the battlefield, the dogs went for the tanks they had been trained on...
The same logistical principles and problems apply to ponies, only a hundred times worse, because the ponies can't mimic each others' unique abilities. You can't really train to hit a flying target when you have no flying targets to practice on (and birds and clay pigeons wouldn't be the same size or have the same movements as pegasi). You can't really train or design armor to stop magic lasers when you can't make magic lasers yourself.
While I do like the idea of a tactical rock-paper-scissors triangle, with the ponies making a Fighter-Mage-Thief triangle, it doesn't seem like a very likely situation (assuming that Hearth's Warming Eve shows a reasonably early iteration of pony society). And even then, as you pointed out, using technology or unorthodox tactics could help mitigate a given tribes weaknesses.
Of course, in alternate universes or present day situations, all bets are off.
I really don't think that pony's could hold something as large (and more importantly long) as a spear in their mouths and have it still be a viable weapon.
4727349 Yes, unfortunately super-strength doesn't also mean super leverage-control.
The more I think about it, the more I think earth ponies would just fight like regular horses. But surely they used some sort of technology to augment their combative skills, I'm just not sure what.
4727401
I gave mine mechanical, extendable wolverine claws.