Regarding melee weapons: Similar to what is going on with maces, fiction likes to portray war hammers as really massive - thus many actual historical war hammers are looking kinda silly in comparison.
(Of course it's not at all silly anymore when your opponent is trying to break your skull with one of these things...)
"If you can't swing it all day, you won't swing it all day"
I mean, I'm sure there were the rare glandular freaks/adrenaline fiends who could successfully use heavier hand-to-hand weapons for hours, but let's be real, those guys are why our ancestors invented ranged weapons.
I feel like the modern hammer must represent the pinnacle of hammer technology, whether for cracking skulls or driving nails (notwithstanding the nail puller on the back side which I hope would not find much use in combat...
I agree, but I think the ball peen hammer (no claw, just a fat nasty knob of steel) is prolly the winner of "mostly likely to be used to great effect during the great zombie plague of 2020"
(Of course it's not at all silly anymore when your opponent is trying to break your skull with one of these things...)
I mean, I'm sure there were the rare glandular freaks/adrenaline fiends who could successfully use heavier hand-to-hand weapons for hours, but let's be real, those guys are why our ancestors invented ranged weapons.