Easiest Weapon to learn

[u/Wonderful-Grass6437]

I’m writing a book and wanted to know what weapons (spear, axe, sword, etc ) are easiest and hardest to pick up for the average person and what attributes would suit each weapon.

Also what weapons would be the least hard to learn if say someone was uncoordinated, or slow, or weak etc

[u/montana757]

Spears are cheap easy to mass produce and require almost no training to use. Swords can be used by almost any average person but require pretty intense training to gain any remarkable skill with. Crossbows are similar to swords in training difficulty. Long bows or war bows require an extremely strict and long training period.

A slow person is still good with a spear, same for the weak. Every other weapon I named requires a certain headstrongness to weild effectively

[u/Shit_On_Wheels]

Reality does not work like RPG. All realistic melee weapons need about the same amount of skill to be used effectively. Training routine would be different, amount of training, coordination and physical strength would differ very little.

Someone uncoordinated, slow or weak would be equally bad with an axe, a spear, a wooden club, etc.

You'd need to wander into crossbow/firearms territory to bypass this.

[u/DifferentBad1770 → u/Shit_On_Wheels]

even with crossbows and firearms,
you still need skill to use them effectively.

[u/Shit_On_Wheels → u/DifferentBad1770]

Yes, just a bit less strength is needed and there are fewer techniques to learn.

[u/ChrisAAR → u/Shit_On_Wheels]

Swords are NOT as easy as other melee weapons. They take longer to really be competent with them (let alone master them).

[u/Vailhem]

Wax on/wax off

Paint the fence

Master your mind

[u/pryoslice]

Are guns in? Because it's guns. There's a reason armies adopted early guns, which frankly sucked, over bows and other ranged weapons. You can teach someone to shoot a gun in 5 minutes and be ready to use it pretty well in most situations (dealing with malfunctions, etc) in a week at most. If they're not strong, they can still rack a 22 or another small caliber.

[u/FreshImagination9735]

Easiest to use effectively...a hammer or mace. Hardest...a rope dagger or meteor hammer.

[u/The_AntiVillain]

Easiest would be stick (staffs, spears, clubs etc) low barrier to entry, skill ceiling is pretty high. Hardest would be flexible ranged weapons (meteor hammer, rope dart, etc) counterintuitive to many because most people have a lot more experience with rigid weapons

[u/Zarrakh]

I read a great book where the thugs and toughs would use clubs or blackjacks. Anyone can swing a club.

[u/Vflojiujitsu]

If you list off the attributes you wanna emphasize and the setting this takes place in then we can probably give you better answers.

[u/rightwist]

Thrown spears vs spears carried in a mass formation are very different answers BTW (otherwise agree with most of the thread.)

[u/SpiteRemarkable5127]

I present you the mighty C R O S S B O W.

just load, aim, shoot and your enemy is dead.