Would electric whips be good weapons in a medieval fantasy?

Question

Whips are ancient tools that have been around for millennia. They were originally made to direct livestock and later on they were used to punish soldiers, slaves, and criminals. On the surface, a whip would seem like a great weapon for medieval combat. It has a long range, light weight, can be easily used with one hand, and is flexible allowing it to reach past shields. Whips also cannot be parried.

However, there are three good reasons why no warrior brings a whip to a battlefield as their primary weapon.

1. Unlike every other melee weapon, a whip is useless at point-blank range. A whip only deals damage if it is fully extended and hits with the tip. The rest of the whip isn't damaging and you need a lot of space in order for a full extension to happen. Other big polearms are also unwieldy at targets centimeters away but at least the wielders of those can simply step back or half-hand their weapon and get some good use out of it. No such luck for whip wielders.

2. Whips has zero penetrating capability. There is a reason why people getting whipped as punishment have their clothes taken off first. Clothing is really good at absorbing the damage done by a whip. Even the lightest and thinnest of armors would block all the damage a whip would do. A person in a coat or heavy jacket would also be immune to whips if they get hit in the torso. Heck, even a t-shirt and overshirt would block most of the pain a whip could deal. If a whip doesn't strike bare skin, it is just an annoying weapon at best instead of a debilitating one.

3. Whips just aren't efficient ways to kill people. A person can get hit with a whip 50 times and survive. They would be bleeding and in severe pain but they could still easily live. If a person was stabbed with a sword or punctured with a spear 50 times or even a dozen times, they would almost certainly be dead. You need many attacks with a whip to deal lethal damage. Your opponent won't stand still and give you many opportunities to hit them.

In my world, guards of the fountain of youth carry enchanted whips along with shields. These whips are not only reinforced to allow for swinging and disarming but also turn the whips into deadly weapons by electrocuting the targets. Electricity can make the entire non-handle part of the whip deadly, shock people through armor, and be immediately lethal to people. The one new problem would be how to prevent the guards from shocking themselves with the whips? A solution I'm thinking is have the guards be able to turn the electric enchantment on and off like a mental switch. The guards would have to electrify the whips mid-attack and be careful to turn the electricity off before the whip snaps back to them.

So how would an electric whip compare to other medieval weapons like swords, spears, maces, hammers, axes, etc. Would the whips be effective against armored knights wielding typical medieval weapons?

Answer 1

The Historic Martial Arts / Physicist Take

I practice and study medieval manuscripts detailing how to use weapons, in a hobbyist capacity. Medieval masters of weapons, like Fiori, Lichtenauer, and others wrote books/manuscripts all about how to use weapons. They were mostly for the nobility, but it provides a lot of insight to us. (Also, it ruins most fantasy games and movies. It's the curse of knowledge!)

I am also a physicist and therefore think I know more about electricity than the average bear. Both of these make me qualified to answer this, I think.

The Whip Has a Purpose

And that is to get an unarmored creature to move under threat of pain. That's it. You want your horse/ox/mule/goat/sheep to move away from the painful and loud thing without permanent harm.

Yes, whips can hurt, but you are not going to reliably break bones or kill. Certainly not in the same way that a knife, axe, or spear does. It is not a weapon of war and it is only meant to be intimidating!

Armor Considerations

Whips, in spite of the potentially loud noise, actually do little damage. Armor is meant to protect against much more force and much sharper things and was very common in the medieval period. This armor could be full plate armor, chainmail, aketon/gambeson, or even a padded jack (similar to a modern "thick winter coat"). All of these would work to negate damage from a whip.

Shields, especially large ones which were very common throughout the Medieval period, will also be very effective protection from whips. Even worse, they allow a combatant to move through a whip strike and get the whip-wielder into distance of their own weapon. This can be anything from a pavase, round center-grip shields, kite shields, scutum (technically from an earlier age), and anything larger than a buckler. Even vikings, who would frequently went without armor to maximize their mobility, carried shields!

I should note that melee combatants would frequently leave visors open, sometimes removing them entirely. This does make a vulnerability, but I am unsure how well a whip could hit this. Especially against an opponent who is not holding still and actively trying to stay either out of range or move in too close for whips to be effective.

What about electricity?

It depends on what path the current takes. It was common practice to wear thick cloth jackets under most metal armors, including chainmail and plate. The reasons were twofold: both for comfort (chafing!) and to provide some cushioning from impact.

This component of armor is a nearly whole-body, nonconductive barrier! So a charged whip striking an armored person is likely to not actually shock them. It is more likely to follow the metal armor (or not shock at all), due to the insulation provided by the padding.

The exception here would be if the return path for the whip's charge goes through the ground. In which case the whip wielders are going to risk electrocution, too! The whip will, I assume, build charge over time and release charge... Somehow? Maybe when the whip touches the ground, maybe with the press of a button, maybe through magic, but in any case, these measures need to withstand damage to the whip itself without shocking the user.

It could be very intimating, though. Certainly enough to give an inexperienced adventurer pause. It's a gamble, trading damage and combat effectiveness for fear and theatrics.

But the Enhancements!

Even with proposed enhancements, a whip can be countered by throwing a stick in the whip path and tangling it up. With an un-whip-like distribution of mass, this makes the whip behave in decidedly non-whip ways.

This is also ignoring the obvious counter: ranged weapons. Throwing stones, slings, javelins, and war darts can give a primarily melee combatant time to close. Nevermind the prevalent use of bows and crossbows! Some weapons were meant to be distractions for people receiving a charge!

Let's also not forget the lance. A favorite of knights, this could simply out-reach or tangled up a whip.

TL:DR No

Whips are bad weapons for doing harm, great for non lethal intimidation. Most armor negates the little damage that a whip can do. Electrifying them in introduces yet more problems, including those for the wielder. Counters are too numerous and widely available to nearly any fighter in the medieval period.

Answer 2

You're better off with a knife.

You're not focusing on the biggest deficiency of the whip: It's wind up. Imagine a musket with shorter range, a minimum range, is more difficult to aim, and is weaker than a knife, which you can only load just before you shoot.

It doesn't matter how deadly your weapon is if you never get a chance to use it. You also can't use it around your allies due to the large wind up area.

Your guards would be better off even if they were carrying knives.

Answer 3

It's effectiveness is nil if people know the weapon and have a counter. Anything from a padded outfit and gloves to just shooting them, or throwing a knife or javelin.

Even a spear would be better.

Whips aren't a fighting weapon, they're a tool for punishment, They can't parry or defend against a weapon. Miss your strike and it's all over. What you're basically talking about is how stun guns are used against unarmed civilians, not trained assassins or soldiers.

Answer 4

I love the idea of magic electric whips!

/ The one new problem would be how to prevent the guards from shocking themselves with the whips/

No! Your guards shock themselves all the time! They might prefer a truncheon or something but the whips are the only weapon you have given them. Their only other option is hand to hand but these guards mostly spend their time playing cards; they have no martial arts skills and are in pretty poor physical shape. So it is the whips, and the shocking.

Sometimes when the guard shocks himself he just screams and curses. Occasoinally a good solid shock will straighten out the legs and the shocked guard will throw himself some distance. A guard might flip around getting shocked while he tries to turn off the whip. All that is true when the whips are used offensively or on prisoners too. The other guards always think this is hilarious. Sometimes they will prank shock each other on purpose. It keeps them awake on duty for sure.

Ultimately the whips are pretty tricky but the guards have come to love them and your readers will too.

Answer 5

Ultimately, inferior

There are simply too many weaknesses to be overcome. If the whips are electrical, they can kill if and only if they make contact with the targets. If the target is using, say a wooden shield, it does not work. If the target is using a spear with a wooden half, it doesn't work. If there are multiple enemies and the attacker wraps the whip around one opponent, they're stuck dealing with them and at the mercy of anything else. If the opponent is on horseback, the whip might kill the charging horse, but the momentum will keep the horse forward. Not to mention that it won't do anything about arrows.

Electrifying the whip to improve the lethality helps, but conventional weapons have already been designed to be very, very deadly; and that's a serious hurdle to overcome.