Axes continued in use in the eastern Europe for longer than the west but were used in the west into the 17th century. As full plate armour become fully developed twords the end of the 14th century wespons better suited to damaging/breaking it were needed. Simply put while a sword is great against soft targets you cannot cut your way through plate with it ( in fact both the Italian and German longsword schools developed techniques relying priciply on the point of the sword for dealing with armoured opponents as the edge of the sword was of limited effectiveness ). This cause the hammer, the mace and the axe to become of more importance. While an axe has a sharp cutting edge it is a small surface area, unlike the long blade of a sword, which makes it much more effective in transmitting force against a hard target as the force cannot spread out anywhere near as far on an axe blade as on that of a sword so it allowed an axe to be used against sort targets for cutting but also against hard targets as more of an impact weapon like a hammer or mace. Equipping it with a fluke or back spike which could punch a hole through plate armour and you had an effective weapon against hard targets and soft.
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