War hammer

A war hammer, also spelled warhammer, is a blunt weapon that is in essence a hammer with a long handle adapted for warfare.

Description
Based on the design of a hammer, the war hammer, as its name suggests, is a mêlée weapon with a heavy hammerhead mounted atop a long rod. The handle may be as long as that of a polearm or not quite so, but in any case, its length always far surpasses that of the short haft of a normal hammer. Although often incorporating a pick on the rear side of its head, the war hammer otherwise has no sharp edges. It inflicts injury through blunt force trauma alone, shattering bones under crushing blows or cracking skulls open. Unlike the mace, another crushing weapon, the shaft of a war hammer was conventionally carved from wood rather than forged from metal. In particular, the handles of Italian warhammers were commonly constructed from pine in the 15th and 16th centuries.

History
War hammers were in use from at least the 13th century when the Templar commander Frederick the Red favored a Lucerne hammer as his personal weapon. He would wield one to his death in 1192 at the hands of the Assassin Mentor Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad while training his knights in Limassol.

During the time of the Renaissance in Italy, the war hammer was a popular weapon of choice for mercenaries, and it saw extended service in the Italian Wars especially among heavy cavalry. By the time of the French Revolution centuries later, the war hammer was still being supplied in Parisian markets in spite of being phased out by firearms like other contemporary close combat weapons.

Trivia

 * The war hammer is an item in Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy where it can be crafted from 1 set of pine tree logs and 4 iron bars. Two war hammers, alongside two knights and two Monteriggioni war horses, is needed to train heavy cavalry units.

Appearances

 * Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines
 * Assassin's Creed II
 * Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy
 * Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
 * Assassin's Creed: Revelations
 * Assassin's Creed: Unity