Would You Throw Your Tomahawk?

[zippyfusenet]

I play a lot of wargames set on the North American frontier in the flintlock era, and dabble in several sets of rules. Some rules allow Indians, Rangers and some other non-regular troops, when charging into melee, to throw their tomahawks at the foe as an additional attack. This adds some punch to their attack, which may be a good thing, but I doubt whether the tactic makes sense. I'm about to disallow it on my game table. While I'm thinking it over, I'll ask for your input.

My thought is: The belt-axe or warclub tomahawk is the owner's primary melee weapon. Few people would carry more than one. So, if you throw away your primary weapon as you charge in to contact, what will you fight with once you've closed to bad-breath range? A belt knife offers a last chance of defense, but lacks the range and impact of a tomahawk. Hainna?

I suspect the rule comes from the overlap between the wargaming and living history hobbies. Quite a few hobbyists do both. I know that buckskinners love to throw their tomahawks. At any Rendezvous or Ren Faire around here, you'll find a log set on end, and a few beardy guys chunking their 'hawks at it.

I expect that real frontiersmen and Indians did the same. Hitting a target with a thrown missile is one of those primordial human acts, like singing and dancing, that goes back to the paleolithic, and distinguishes homo double-sap from our large primate relatives. It's inherently satisfying; we do it just to pass the time. Today we toss darts at a board, or throw a ball back and forth. In past times, a thrown rock could pick off a rabbit or squirrel for the stew pot. The wooden warclub often doubled as a throw-stick for hunting. There were good, practical reasons to hit a target with a thrown hatchet, to practice and develop skill.

It could even be a military tactic. If you want to silently take out a sentry, but don't want to grapple him commando-style and don't have a bow handy, a thrown hatchet to the back of the skull should get the job done. But when running to close with a dangerous, alert, hostile foe? I think I'd hold onto my 'hawk.

Now, I admit, I've never done such in real life; my ideas are based on reading comic books and on pure reason. So I'm asking around. What do you think?

[Captain Blood]

Interesting question. It's always seemed a bit suspect to me. I'm sure tomahawks were sometimes thrown - but the notion of serried ranks of charging Indians or rangers, all lobbing their primary melee weapon away into the opposing force like a bunch of Roman legionaries hurling their pila just before contact, has always struck me as extremely fanciful and unlikely. Let's face it, the Romans chucked their pila and then drew their swords to engage. If you've thrown your tomahawk away in the hope of doing some damage, what do you then do as you plough into a clinch with the enemy? I'd disallow it too. Think it's a classic example of wargames rule-it is, where something that may have happened sometimes gets elevated to a super-weapon capability...

[Steve F]

I tend to find that what I think I would do in a given circumstance, however rational it seems, is a poor guide to what people in those circumstances actually did.  What do the primary sources say?

[zippyfusenet]

Good point about the primary sources. I've read a few, and never seen any description of Indians, Rangers or anyone charging behind a volley of flung tomahawks. Has  anybody read the like?

[Stecal]

How are you going to chop firewood if you throw away your axe?  The hand axe most light infantry carried was a camp tool, not balanced for throwing.

[oabee]

Excellent points, all.

Although I have read extensively in secondary sources on the entire eastern conflict between Europeans and American Indians, from first contact through the War of 1812, I have not plowed through the primary sources. So I am in no ways an expert. But I have no recollection of accounts of units throwing their 'hawks before charging!

Perhaps allow casualties to be taken by the "missile" attack, but then the attackers sans tomahawk should suffer penalties in melee.

[DoctorPete]

Among the buckskinners and reinactors I know the idea of throwing a knife or tomahawk is for sport, not practice for battle.  The accounts I have read on the wilderness actions of the old Northwest (Ohio, Indiana territory) during the AWI and later never mention throwing bladed weapons in combat.  A missed throw in the forest means your weapons may be lost to you permanently, stuck under a pile of leaves or in the brush.  (They ain't boomerangs!)

[Driscoles]

I would not throw away my weapon voluntarily!
Iam with Doc Pete!

[Fencing Frog]

I can see it happening in desperation... the last chance to kill a fleeing enemy or perhaps a desperate attempt to kill an enemy I knew I didn't have a chance against if he get in arms reach.  This might be appropriate for a skirmish game where soldiers are fighting and moving as individuals... I can't imagine a whole unit doing it as a group.

[Rob_bresnen]

Hollywood has a lot to answer for. I just watched the new magnificent seven and the Indian tosses his axe in just the way you describe.

[Captain Blood]

I played Muskets & Tomahawks at the weekend. I was the rangers. i threw my tomahawks. The indians, friendly and unfriendly, threw their tomahawks. The effect is invariably pretty devastating. Over-effective really because you can win the melee itself, but the previously incurred casualties from the pre-melee free hack of the thrown tomahawks means you will lose the encounter overall. I don't really like it, but Malamute wisely pointed out it's just a gaming mechanic to represent the additional shock of a 'savage charge'. It doesn't represent an actual, documented, practiced battle tactic. Which makes it a bit easier to swallow I suppose.
Don't know why they didn't just give Indians and rangers a savage charge bonus of some kind. But that's wargames rules designers for you. Always looking for an intriguing new angle or sexy little embellishment or fabrication to chuck into the mix and spice up their product...

[zippyfusenet]

Well, of course I threw my tomahawks too, in the game, because the rules allowed it and it was effective, and I like to win games. But I think I'm going to fiddle with the rules, strike that one out, come up with a different, more plausible way to bonus up charging Indians and Rangers.

Because...Part of the pleasure (for me, for my friends) of playing an historical wargame with well-made, accurate models, rather than playing Chutes and Ladders or My Little Pony,  is to willingly suspend my disbelief and by a theater-of-the-mind exercise, participate vicariously in the drama and thrills of an historical battle. And silly gross anachronisms in the rules, like really bad models, defeat that purpose.

[fergal]

How are you going to chop firewood if you throw away your axe?  The hand axe most light infantry carried was a camp tool, not balanced for throwing.

Tomahawk ≠ Axe
They are very different tools for very different uses.  Only someone who has never split wood would think so.  Now you could trim a few small branches away with a tomahawk, but for 'chopping' you want something heavy with a long handle to increase the speed of the axe head.

I remain convinced that most folks that write FIW rules aren't as well versed in the period as some other era rules writers.  Most rules for natives seem to be based off of movies rather than historical sources.  In a wooded area, swinging a musket with a bayonet on it is tougher than swinging the shorter tomahawk.  If I was chasing down a retreating foe, you bet I'd wing it at him if my gun were empty, but if I were charging in I'd want it in hand.

Look how many rules have bow armed natives in them.  I've never read an account of a bow and arrow being used in an engagement in the FIW.  But most rules of the era include them as an option.

Rusti

[olicana]

I have no idea about throwing tomahawks prior to closing but in a melee, given the choice of a little axe (fast as it might be) and a big heavy clubbed musket capable of shattering skull and limb, I know which I'd be using - also, as an after thought, how do you use a tomahawk in one hand whilst carrying a heavy musket in the other (surely balance would be an issue) - do you just drop it?

As for damaging your musket using it as a club well, if you win, you take his; if you lose, it doesn't matter?

[zippyfusenet]

Good points fergal. Regarding use of a musket + bayonet in the eastern woodlands...I was just thinking about Indian use of thrusting spears. (I'm looking over the Tribal rules, where spears are important, and thinking about adapting them to pre-contact North America.)

AFAI can tell, warriors in the eastern woodlands rarely carried spears around with them. The standard panoply, pre-contact, was bow + warclub. A hunter would carry these weapons wherever he went; if he was on a war expedition or defending his home, he might also have wooden or hide armor and/or a wooden or hide shield. I have read that spears *were* used by second-line combatants, old men and aggressive women, to defend the village palisade.

Further west, on the Plains, in the mountains, the lance + big hide shield combination was very common, along with bow + warclub, of course. I wonder whether the thrusting spear was just too clumsy to use in the woods.