>>1190524>The "practical hatchet throwing" myth is one of the banes of my existence. GoddamnIts quite a weird aspect of old timey stories, mixed in with a dose of hollywoodism and current lumberjack memes
As a 'weapon', well it 'could' fuck someone up as the Byzantine's recorded the crazy smelly Franks in the 5th century being big fans of hurling axes prior to a charge, thus hoping to bust up the formation, get stuck in shields and occasionally people. Moving forward to the 17th century, I kind of doubt anyone was throwing axes at each other very often as they're quite a valuable weapon and losing one wouldn't be a good move unless you've got some kind of fucking crazy, freak skill with it. Well, I've not read much about them being during that period of colonisation of northern americas, though the Africans where liable to throw vaguely axe-shaped hunks of metal at each other very effectively up until about the end of the 19th century
That kind of shenanigans where put down with maxim guns and the axe throwing in a military sense ceased to be a good idea
The best and somewhat third hand descriptions of 'chuckin axes at shit' from what I've come across mostly seem to originate in the 19th century where it was practised for shits and giggles by timber getters in their tea breaks and by various wild west shows along with knife throwing and other tricks. It stuck in a lot of peoples minds (pun intended) at least amongst the older generations of folks who grew up seeing it at country shows, old moves and its still really fucking wildly popular with them. Lot of old dudes rock up to my show asking for throwing knives and hatchets, that are literally just meant to be thrown into logs, hay bales and other shit.
Hell, I tend to have to give them a disclaimer on some of my hunting knives- "don't fucking throw it at trees" (because they will otherwise!) as high carbon steel at very high HRC tends to go 'ping' and shatter... when they invitably miss and it goes into a rock