how were throwing knives ever effective in combat

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Based on my limited experience at axe throwing venues, my take is that you can only get thrown axes and knives to stick in right if you’re exactly the right distance away. This seems impractical for a combat scenario where nobody is good to stand still at exactly the right distance for you.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

They weren’t, really.

Some knife fighters might have practiced throwing their knives, but that was only ever an desperation move. It *is* possible to get fairly good at it, if you get a good idea of exactly when to throw at a charging opponent or learn how to vary the spin to match the distance, but it’s not reliable at all. Still worth trying if all you have is a knife and some big fucker is coming at you with a sword.

Throwing “knives” were popular in large parts of central Africa, but they were these great big crazy things with three or four or five blades sticking out in different directions, so you’d hit with *something* sharp no matter how it spun. Not really what most people would call a knife. [Wikipedia has a picture.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throwing_knife)

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