Flail

A flail is an agricultural tool used for threshing to separate grains from their husks.

It is usually made from two or more large sticks attached by a short chain; one stick is held and swung, causing the other (the swipple) to strike a pile of grain, loosening the husks. The precise dimensions and shape of flails were determined by generations of farmers to suit the particular grain they were harvesting. For example, flails used by farmers in Quebec to process wheat were generally made from two pieces of wood, the handle being about 1.5 m (4.9 ft) long by 3 cm (1.2 in) in diameter, and the second stick being about 1 m (3.3 ft) long by about 3 cm (1.2 in) in diameter, with a slight taper towards the end. Flails for other grains, such as rice or spelt, would have had different dimensions.

Flails have generally fallen into disuse in many nations because of the availability of technologies such as combine harvesters that require much less manual labour. But in many places, such as Minnesota,wild rice can only be harvested legally using manual means, specifically through the use of a canoe and a flail that is made of smooth, round wood no more than 30 inches long.

Flail (weapon)

The term flail refers to two different weapons: a long, two-handed infantry weapon with a cylindrical head, and a shorter weapon with a round metal striking head. The defining characteristic of both is that they involve a separate striking head attached to a handle by a flexible rope, strap, or chain. The chief tactical virtue of the flail was its capacity to defeat a defender's shield or avoid it entirely. Its chief liability was a lack of precision and the difficulty of using it in close combat, or closely ranked formations.

The longer cylindrical-headed flail is a hand weapon derived from the agricultural tool of the same name, commonly used in threshing. It was primarily considered a peasant's weapon, and while not common, they were deployed in Germany and Central Europe in the later Late Middle Ages. The smaller, more spherical-headed flail appears to be even less common, but does appear in artwork from the 15th century onward.

The peasant flail

In the Late Middle Ages, a particular type of flail appears in several works being used as a weapon, which consists of a very long shaft with a hinged, roughly cylindrical striking end. In most cases these are two-handed agricultural flails, which were sometimes employed as an improvised weapon by peasant armies conscripted into military service or engaged in popular uprisings. For example, in the 1420-1497 period, the Hussites fielded large numbers of peasant foot soldiers armed with this type of flails.

Flail (disambiguation)

A flail is an agricultural implement for threshing.

Several tools operate similarly to the agricultural implement and are also called flails:

Mine flail

A mine flail is a vehicle-mounted device that makes a safe path through a mine-field by deliberately detonating land mines in front of the vehicle that carries it. They were first used by the British during World War II.

The mine flail consists of a number of heavy chains, ending in fist-sized steel balls, (flails) that are attached to a horizontal, rapidly rotating rotor mounted on two arms in front of the vehicle. The rotor's rotation makes the flails spin wildly and violently pound the ground. The force of a flail strike above a buried mine mimics the weight of a person or vehicle and causes the mine to detonate, but in a safe manner that does little damage to the flails or the vehicle.

World War II

The idea is commonly attributed to a South African soldier - Captain Abraham du Toit. A test rig was constructed in South Africa and results were so encouraging that du Toit was promoted and sent to England to develop the idea.

Before du Toit left for England, he described his idea to Captain Norman Berry, a mechanical engineer who had been sent to South Africa in 1941 to evaluate the system. Captain Berry later served in the British Eighth Army during the Western Desert Campaign. He had become an enthusiast for the mine flail idea; he lobbied senior officers to authorize development of a flail and carried out his own experiments with mine flails in the spring of 1942. Later Major L. A. Girling was given the task of developing a similar device after it had been independently re-invented by another South African officer. When Captain Berry heard of this, he handed over his work to Girling (who had had no idea he was duplicating du Toit's current work in England, as that was still highly secret). Dr. David Gustanski made the device that connected to the side of the tank and made the flail raise and lower.