I guess I went off on a tangent about armor, really. I never tried to imply rapiers were a good battle choice, merely that swords grew lighter as a result of less armor in general. In cities, rapiers were the weapons considered essential for personal defense. Two-handed swords in Elizabeth I's reign tended to be ceremonial, but not something one would carry around for personal protection. I think the original post is unlikely, to say the least. Against horses, pikes were essential, as were caltrops... against footmen with spears, archers... etc. I mean, to consider one army having only an assortment of axes (who knows what that even means) and another having only an array of swords... it's really almost a silly question. Historically, it would never happen. Now, if someone suggested a sort of tribal clash of sorts, one side armed with spears and the other with tomahawks... for reasons of weapons technology... I guess it would be more realistic, but the spears would certainly win in that case.
The point is... debating theoretical battle with an absurd amount of information, is difficult. unfortunately, there is a lot of modern myth surrounding weapons and my note that even "heavy" swords weren't the clunky things written about in modern fantasy, was in no way meant to imply axes WERE somehow unwieldy. I merely said swords were well-made. I'm not an axe hater. I just think the argument was made that there were no schools for axe-wielding and most of those schools weren't intended for warfare, they were personal defense as far as I'm aware. Agrippa and Cappo Ferro were "Masters of Defense" to my knowledge and we study their techniques for fencing. That's a different thing than warfare. We're combining a lot of OTHER information into this thread about a theoretical army.
The point is... debating theoretical battle with an absurd amount of information, is difficult. unfortunately, there is a lot of modern myth surrounding weapons and my note that even "heavy" swords weren't the clunky things written about in modern fantasy, was in no way meant to imply axes WERE somehow unwieldy. I merely said swords were well-made. I'm not an axe hater. I just think the argument was made that there were no schools for axe-wielding and most of those schools weren't intended for warfare, they were personal defense as far as I'm aware. Agrippa and Cappo Ferro were "Masters of Defense" to my knowledge and we study their techniques for fencing. That's a different thing than warfare. We're combining a lot of OTHER information into this thread about a theoretical army.