Fundamentally Wing Chun or a later addition?

The Pole form is a bit of an enigma, the stance and its actions most find difficult to rationalise using pure Wing Chun empty hand form principles, so the argument goes that it was added after the main part of the system was formulated, I don't see the anomaly, in my mind it is a perfect Wing Chun weapon once you define its use.

The weapons of Wing Chun are in my mind are a well suited combination for actual warfare, it is my view that they were designed and developed specifically for the battlefield, I am not persuaded by the Red Junk history as wars are fought mainly on the ground not water, not that I reject their influence, just that the Wing Chun pole was thought of because it was first used to punt.

Why should Wing Chun have such an unwieldy weapon as the pole? It was a question I pondered for a long time, thinking of the moves, analysing methodology, considering the simplicity, 'MY' answer came to me and it remains the way I justify the pole as a legitimate weapon in real fighting.

Simply to knock men off horseback, once they have been knocked off then they are vulnerable to the short double swords. It was some years after I began teaching this theory for justification, that one of my students told me of an exhibition at the Royal Armoury in Leeds, UK, showing how the English pikestaff was utilised, a similar ten foot weapon, except it has a hook on the end, used to remove knights from their horses.

I also remember being told many years ago that there was two pole forms, the 6,1/2, and a 3,1/2, the 3,1/2 was considered the most advanced, as it was simpler. This information just got stored in the back of my mind and did not emerge again until much later, the first pole form I was shown is from Yip Chun, the second, Yip Ching, the differences are three extra techniques in the Yip Ching version.

Analysis of these three extra moves led me to think of 'pole fighting pole' usage, this does not sit comfortably with me as why should I use my pole to fight a pole with when I have two nice pieces of sharp metal to chop my enemy up with, also even without a weapon, once past the end of the pole it is just a liability to fight with.

Apart from good muscle training and something to do instead of Chi Sau when you fancy doing something different, pole against pole exercises in my view have little credence in actual combat scenarios. Just my view.