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Yora
2011-03-29, 06:11 AM
From the last thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168432):

This thread is a resource for getting information about real life weapons and armor. Normally this thread would be in Friendly Banter, but the concept has always been that the information is for RPG players and DMs so they can use it to make their games better.

As far as I can tell, the previous threads don't exist any more, except Version V (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80863) and Version VI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124683). This is Version VII.

A few rules for this thread:
This thread is for asking questions about how weapons and armor really work. As such, it's not going to include game rule statistics. If you have such a question, especially if it stems from an answer or question in this thread, feel free to start a new thread and include a link back to here. If you do ask a rule question here, you'll be asked to move it elsewhere, and then we'll be happy to help out with it.
Any weapon or time period is open for questions. Medieval and ancient warfare questions seem to predominate, but since there are many games set in other periods as well, feel free to ask about any weapon. This includes futuristic ones - but be aware that these will be likely assessed according to their real life feasibility. Thus, phasers, for example, will be talked about in real-world science and physics terms rather than the Star Trek canon. If you want to discuss a fictional weapon from a particular source according to the canonical explanation, please start a new thread for it. :smallwink:
Please try to cite your claims if possible. If you know of a citation for a particular piece of information, please include it. However, everyone should be aware that sometimes even the experts don't agree, so it's quite possible to have two conflicting answers to the same question. This isn't a problem; the asker of the question can examine the information and decide which side to go with. The purpose of the thread is to provide as much information as possible. Debates are fine, but be sure to keep it a friendly debate (even if the experts can't!).
No modern real-world political discussion. As the great Carl von Clausevitz once said, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means," so poltics and war are heavily intertwined. However, politics are a big hot-button issue and one banned on these boards, so avoid political analysis if at all possible (this thread is primarily about military hardware). There's more leeway on this for anything prior to about 1800, but be very careful with all of it, and anything past 1900 is surely not open for analysis. (I know these are arbitrary dates, but any dates would be, and I feel these ones are reasonable.)
No graphic descriptions. War is violent, dirty, and horrific, and anyone discussing it should be keenly aware of that. However, on this board graphic descriptions of violence (or sexuality) are not allowed, so please avoid them.

With that done, have at, and enjoy yourselves!
Thread V (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80863)
Thread VI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124683)
Thread VII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168432)

Yora
2011-03-29, 06:14 AM
Now my first question for this thread:
What rifles are those in this picture (http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-172370-galleryV9-kssf.jpg)?
While many of the components seem familiar, I have no idea what models those rifles are. It's supposed to be German Army snipers in Afghanistan.

Anima
2011-03-29, 08:49 AM
Probably a HK G3ZF (http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Bundeswehr_sniper_in_Chahar_ Darreh.jpg&filetimestamp=20101108210611).

Yora
2011-03-29, 09:00 AM
Yeah, that seems to be the one. The stock reminded me a lot of the first one for the MP5.
Didn't recognize it under the new rails they put on everything these days, and all the attachments.

Kalaska'Agathas
2011-03-29, 01:48 PM
There also appear to be a pair of Accuracy International rifles (probably Arctic Warfare Magnums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_International_AWM)) in the background. And by a pair I mean five. Though I didn't know the Bundeswehr were still using their G3s - I thought everyone had a fancy new G36 - so at first I thought this might have been Norwegians, except the camouflage they're wearing is definitely Wüstentarn, not the Norwegian pattern stuff.

Yora
2011-03-29, 02:02 PM
German news report about the armed forces are usually not very good, but so far I don't think there are many cases in which foreign soldiers were used as stand-ins for ours. :smallbiggrin:

G36 are 5.56mm assault rifles, much like the american M16 (but much better and more advanced :smalltongue:). The G3 is an old style battle rifle using the 7.62 cartridge that has a lot more power and range.
In the 60s and 70s, it turned out that combat in modern environments almost never took place at ranges that require the 7.62mm cartridge, and using the smaller 5.56mm is more than enough. Smaller cartridges mean less weight and smaller rifles, which more importantly means less weight, so you can carry more rounds for the same weight. I think the German Army used the G3 until 1997, at a time when no other modern army was still using 7.62mm rifles as primary weapons for the troops.

However, if you want to shot at long ranges with high precision, 7.62mm ammunition performs much better, so several rifles that are generally obsolete, are still being used as sniper rifles. Just put a scope on top and a bipod under the barrel, and you got yourself a sniper rifle. The US Army uses the ancient M14 rifles from the late 50s in the same role.

And yes, those in the background are AWMs. A german arms manufacturer has a licensing deal with Accuracy International to build several rifles under a different name for the German Army.

However, something that confuses me is that rusty metal plate that seems to be boleted to the G3 in the foreground. What's that for? :smallconfused:

Kalaska'Agathas
2011-03-29, 02:24 PM
German news report about the armed forces are usually not very good, but so far I don't think there are many cases in which foreign soldiers were used as stand-ins for ours. :smallbiggrin:
This may be true, but I don't read German and you only posted the photo, so based on the weapons in the photo, my initial reaction was "Norwegians" as they still have their G3 rifles in general use, but then I looked at the soldiers in question, noticed the Wüstentarn, and decided they were in fact Germans.


G36 are 5.56mm assault rifles, much like the american M16 (but much better and more advanced :smalltongue:).
The G36's operating system is based primarily on the American AR-18, which was designed a scant six years after the M16, so I don't know how much more advanced it is, at least mechanically. It does use more modern materials than most M16 derivatives, but the optic sight issued with the G36 is significantly worse than the standard issue optic sights issued to the M16/M4 (i.e. Trijicon ACOG).


The G3 is an old style battle rifle using the 7.62 cartridge that has a lot more power and range.
In the 60s and 70s, it turned out that combat in modern environments almost never took place at ranges that require the 7.62mm cartridge, and using the smaller 5.56mm is more than enough. Smaller cartridges mean less weight and smaller rifles, which more importantly means less weight, so you can carry more rounds for the same weight. I think the German Army used the G3 until 1997, at a time when no other modern army was still using 7.62mm rifles as primary weapons for the troops.

However, if you want to shot at long ranges with high precision, 7.62mm ammunition performs much better, so several rifles that are generally obsolete, are still being used as sniper rifles. Just put a scope on top and a bipod under the barrel, and you got yourself a sniper rifle. The US Army uses the ancient M14 rifles from the late 50s in the same role.
Yes, I'm quite aware of the "Modern Combat occurs at 300 meters or less" assumption, which has proved quite wrong in the mountains of Afghanistan. Also, I'm pretty sure the Norwegians and several other militaries were still issuing Battle Rifles as their standard arm post 1997.


And yes, those in the background are AWMs. A german arms manufacturer has a licensing deal with Accuracy International to build several rifles under a different name for the German Army.
Cool, which manufacturer?


However, something that confuses me is that rusty metal plate that seems to be boleted to the G3 in the foreground. What's that for? :smallconfused:
Given it's proximity to the scope on the G3, I suspect it's a mounting point for Night Vision Optics of the sort which fit in front of your daylight scope, allowing you to retain zero while having the flexibility of day/night scopes.

vikingofdoom
2011-03-29, 02:45 PM
Just out of curiosity, how accurate is Robert Jordan's description of the various weapons in the WoT series (most notably his description of the various types of bows/crossbows)? Thanks in advance.

Spiryt
2011-03-29, 02:52 PM
Just out of curiosity, how accurate is Robert Jordan's description of the various weapons in the WoT series (most notably his description of the various types of bows/crossbows)? Thanks in advance.

Maybe some short quote/description?

Can't say I can have access to WoT, especially in original at hand.

Yora
2011-03-29, 02:55 PM
The G36's operating system is based primarily on the American AR-18, which was designed a scant six years after the M16, so I don't know how much more advanced it is, at least mechanically. It does use more modern materials than most M16 derivatives, but the optic sight issued with the G36 is significantly worse than the standard issue optic sights issued to the M16/M4 (i.e. Trijicon ACOG).
Most small arms havn't changed much for a very long time. The M1911 just got past it's 100th birthday and the BMG is close to that.

Cool, which manufacturer?
Wikipedia says Metallwerk Elisenhütte Nassau, but I never heard of it before.

druid91
2011-03-29, 02:58 PM
Actually I have a question... I have come across something on Tvtropes... namely that scythes were used as dueling weapons at some point, as well as combat weapons for their unpredictability.

Does anyone know if this is true?

Spiryt
2011-03-29, 03:03 PM
Actually I have a question... I have come across something on Tvtropes... namely that scythes were used as dueling weapons at some point, as well as combat weapons for their unpredictability.

Does anyone know if this is true?

Partially.

They probably were used in duels, or at least some manuals suggest so.

They weren't however being used because of any particular advantages, but because duel is duel - many other crazy and impractical weapons were being used in duels - as long as opponent had the very same weapon this wasn't a problem after all.


http://images.wikia.com/mk/images/c/cd/Scythe.png

http://www.kampaibudokai.org/DragonPreservationSociety/Talhoffer_files/talhoffer16.jpg

Fhaolan
2011-03-29, 04:43 PM
Actually I have a question... I have come across something on Tvtropes... namely that scythes were used as dueling weapons at some point, as well as combat weapons for their unpredictability.

Does anyone know if this is true?

There was a tendency to set up duels with strange criteria and impractical weapons, just for the giggles in some cases. There really wasn't anymore rationality behind it than that. Hobbling one leg of both combatants, putting blinders on them so that they can only see to either side and not straight ahead, etc. Handing them scythes because that's what happened to be handy fits right in.

Yora
2011-03-29, 04:48 PM
While scythes were used quite sucesfully in warfare, especcially in eastern europe, they were usually modified to have the blade mounted straight on the shaft like a spear or glaive. Not an an angle as used as a farming tool.

Fhaolan
2011-03-29, 05:08 PM
While scythes were used quite sucesfully in warfare, especcially in eastern europe, they were usually modified to have the blade mounted straight on the shaft like a spear or glaive. Not an an angle as used as a farming tool.

People who get hung up on weapon nomenclature have a tendencies to call them 'fauchards' or something similar at that point, although that's also pretty much what a falx is as well with a shorter handle. :smallsmile:

Eldan
2011-03-30, 05:33 AM
Heh. Dueling weapons. There's an anecdote I found somewhere:

A Swiss mercenary leader was challenged to a duel. When asked what weapons he preferred, he said "Units of soldiers". :smalltongue:

Autolykos
2011-03-30, 09:51 AM
Our group has that running joke to say "cyanide pills" when asked to choose a weapon.

HenryHankovitch
2011-03-30, 11:21 AM
There was a tendency to set up duels with strange criteria and impractical weapons, just for the giggles in some cases. There really wasn't anymore rationality behind it than that. Hobbling one leg of both combatants, putting blinders on them so that they can only see to either side and not straight ahead, etc. Handing them scythes because that's what happened to be handy fits right in.

As I understand it, there is basically one known manual that happens to illustrate fighting techniques with scythes in it. Some might interpret this as "people totally fought with agricultural scythes back then"; my own view is that the art of trolling dates back to before the 16th century.

It's like those gunsmiths that made pistol-axes and such--more of an outlandish, attention-grabbing thing meant to draw attention to yourself than something meant to see serious use.

Fhaolan
2011-03-30, 12:04 PM
As I understand it, there is basically one known manual that happens to illustrate fighting techniques with scythes in it. Some might interpret this as "people totally fought with agricultural scythes back then"; my own view is that the art of trolling dates back to before the 16th century.

It's like those gunsmiths that made pistol-axes and such--more of an outlandish, attention-grabbing thing meant to draw attention to yourself than something meant to see serious use.

According to some historical records, judicial duels (specifcially judicial ones, where some 'judge' commands people to duel to resolve whatever the issue is), were especially prone to the 'get silly with it' school of thought. Basically bored officials setting up semi-random criteria for the duel more to entertain the audience than actually resolve the case.

Shademan
2011-03-30, 12:07 PM
According to some historical records, judicial duels (specifcially judicial ones, where some 'judge' commands people to duel to resolve whatever the issue is), were especially prone to the 'get silly with it' school of thought. Basically bored officials setting up semi-random criteria for the duel more to entertain the audience than actually resolve the case.

"I say, heinrich! what if, no hear me out, what if we put one of them in a hole and give the other a rock in a bedhseet?"

being a judge back then must've been so fun...

Hades
2011-03-30, 12:12 PM
For those who haven't seen it, here (http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/File:CGM_1507_49v.jpg)* is an example of what Shademan is talking about - it shows up in a bunch of different places, the Talhoffer version is also pretty famous.


*Link goes to the Wiktenauer HEMA wiki.

Spiryt
2011-03-30, 02:21 PM
I can't really check it thoroughly right, now, but I'm pretty damn sure that one person is actually halfway buried in the ground.

And that was one of the two? (or more) possibilities when man was supposed to fight a woman. Other than finding some man to fight in the lady's name, obviously.

As you can see on pic Hades provided, the right text starts with "Die Frau(e) muss"...

So in this case it was not just for stuff and giggles. :smallwink:

Hades
2011-03-30, 02:29 PM
Here's (http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Paulus_Kal#Duel_Between_Man_and_Woman) the relevant text transcribed (the image I linked earlier is from Paulus Kal), as well as a translation into English. Note that you may need to scroll down to the Duel Between a Man and a Woman section, and click 'Show'.

And here (http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Talhoffer#Duel_Between_a_Man_and_a_Woman) is the Talhoffer version of it.

And yeah, the man in each case is definitely in a hole in the ground. Relatively recently National Geographic I think did a special on one of the Talhoffer fechtbuchs, and they had a little re-enactment of the sequence.

The last I heard, nobody seems quite sure whether this type of duel happened often, or whether it happened once and was so strange that everybody decided to put it in their books.

Yora
2011-03-30, 02:54 PM
As you can see on pic Hades provided, the right text starts with "Die Frau(e) muss"...

So in this case it was not just for stuff and giggles. :smallwink:
If you can decipher it, I can translate it. And though I can read those letters in print, that handwriting is beyond me.

Ah, found said transcription:

Yes, it actually says he is burried. But I think the word used could also mean "dug in", in that he's just standing in a hole. The word "Grube" describes an open hole as shown in the picture, and the english translation claims that it's stated that he might "walk a bit". The german line is very outdated German, so I'm not completely sure about the accuracy, but it might fit.

Not that any of it makes any sense. :smallbiggrin:

Spiryt
2011-03-30, 03:19 PM
Yeah, I guess it makes sense.

Thinking about it, being actually buried tightly in the ground would be to severe handicap for any form of fight.

Autolykos
2011-03-30, 03:56 PM
Yeah, I guess it makes sense.

Thinking about it, being actually buried tightly in the ground would be to severe handicap for any form of fight.
Yep. She'd only need to walk behind the guy and give him a good whacking. That would totally take the fun out of the whole thing.

Eldan
2011-03-30, 03:59 PM
Whjat's he armed with? Just a stick?

Dienekes
2011-03-31, 07:41 AM
Whjat's he armed with? Just a stick?

If memory serves, in Talhoffer's they get what looks like a decently sized club

Spiryt
2011-04-15, 01:21 PM
Weird to see this thread staying silent for that long... :smallwink:

And anyway, somewhat specific question:

Oakeshott, and in result most people, call XX and XXa swords as "14th to 15th century (http://www.albion-swords.com/articles/oakeshott-typology.htm)". Yet most of them I was able to see, were generally late, or even actually distinctly Renaissance weapons.

Anyone have some examples of earlier ones?

In general, this would be question about some good place in the Net (or sum books) with authentic swords descriptions.:smallwink:

Telok
2011-04-15, 10:31 PM
Will modern firearms work in a vacuum? Specifically in orbit or on the moon, both on the light and dark sides.

This has bothered me for a couple of years now since I ran a Traveller game. Then I just ruled 'no' because with the gyrojet pistols, rocket rounds for shotguns, and lasers the players had enough alternatives.

The discussion centred mainly around whether the powder would work in a true vacuum (probably), and how well the mechanisms would withstand the temperature extremes of the environment.

tordirycgoyust
2011-04-16, 12:03 AM
I'd say yes, though the ammo would have to be modified so that the vacuum wouldn't suck all the air out of the cartridge (iirc this can be accomplished with, say, some varnish). Also there would likely be a different amount of pressure in the chamber than in atmo, this in addition to temperature problems, would necessitate a different gun.
In game terms I would have two versions of each gun: one for vacuum, one for atmo and safely usable only in their respective environs (otherwise identical stats).

Norsesmithy
2011-04-16, 01:26 AM
There is no question that the powder will burn without the oxygen content of the air in the case, the question is if the pressure differential between the 14 PSI or so in the case and the 0 PSI outside the case would dislodge a bullet or primer, and for that we've actually tested, and the answer, for military ammo with crimped primer pockets, is no. So ammo WILL work in space.

But the problem is that space plays hell on lubricants and exposed metal parts.

But, those are fairly simple problems who's solutions have been developed for other purposes already, so it's merely a question of applying knowledge we already have to the maintenance of firearms, and that's pretty simple.

So I will say, without reservation, that you can have guns in space.

Yora
2011-04-16, 05:58 AM
Doesn't the poweder in the cartridge already include an oxidizer (oxidator? :smalleek:)?

When used for more than a few shots, heat might also become a problem. Guns heat up under normal conditions. When insulated by a vacuum they would become really hot very soon.

Norsesmithy
2011-04-16, 01:10 PM
Yes, powder is self oxidizing

They won't heat up all that much faster than they do under "normal" conditions, because they loose most of their heat radiantly anyways, and via the little brass casings functioning as disposable heat sinks, and the escape of the hot propellant gases, which, if anything, would happen faster.

Further, it would be easy to modify their designs to improve heat dispersion or to add things like water jackets or more heat sinks.

Fortinbras
2011-04-17, 01:43 AM
As for the guy in the hole, I think one way to win in that sort of duel was to pull your opponent into the hole (if you were in the hole) or drag the person out of this hole (if you were outside).

Autolykos
2011-04-17, 04:23 AM
Also note, that the pressure the chamber has to withstand is already pretty high. An additional bar of pressure difference shouldn't have too much effect. Like Norsesmithy said, heat should also be no problem (except maybe for some machine guns that rely on air or water cooling, or for some guns using caseless ammo).
Cosmic radiation may destroy the crystal structure of metals over time, making it weak and/or brittle, but that's a long term problem. Also, it does much worse things to the person carrying the gun, so as long as you keep your gun with you that shouldn't cause much trouble either.
So, realistically speaking, most guns should work fine under space conditions as long as you treat them right.
You might also have trouble with some feeding mechanisms, but usually this just means that you have to repeat manually.
On a side note, GURPS rules (Ultra-Tech 4e IIRC) say that most old guns work fine in space, and all others (the GM has the final say) need to be "space-proofed" for a relatively small cost before they can safely be used. Firearms built after space travel becomes common should always be fine.

EDIT: The lack of gravity might actually cause more problems than the lack of atmosphere. Using automatic weapons while drifting along in space would generate quite a bit of thrust and could send you spinning, depending on how you hold the gun.

fusilier
2011-04-17, 05:36 AM
We went over the issue of guns in space in a previous version of this thread. As others have already pointed out, the oxygen used in the combustion of smokeless powders (and gunpowder for that matter), is contained within the powder itself, it's not in the air. There clearly isn't enough air in a cartridge, and guns are clearly not designed with air intake manifolds. :-)

As for GURPS claiming that most old guns would work in space, probably weapons like bolt-action rifles, and revolvers, due to their simplicity and manual operation, would work fine. Recoil-operated and gas-operated automatic or semi-automatic weapons, might need to be tuned to work in vacuum. I have heard of some machine guns needing to be tweaked at high-altitudes for reliable firing -- although obviously not all. However, I think there's a potential problem with Vacuum lock(?) on various moving parts, that might be the real detriment to firing auto weapons in space.

Yora, might be on to something with the heat. I don't know how quickly a barrel would radiate its heat out. I know that some "what if" laser satellite designs involve very large radiators to remove heat.

Lots of bizarre problems have to be considered when using something like a gun in vacuum. Although, the one that most people think of is not actually a problem (i.e there's no oxygen in space so gunpowder won't work).

tordirycgoyust
2011-04-18, 02:36 AM
My bad it seems.

Consolation prize: invoking this (http://xkcd.com/386/) seems to have helped get the thread back on its feet.:smallbiggrin:

Eorran
2011-04-18, 09:24 AM
We went over the issue of guns in space in a previous version of this thread. As others have already pointed out, the oxygen used in the combustion of smokeless powders (and gunpowder for that matter), is contained within the powder itself, it's not in the air. There clearly isn't enough air in a cartridge, and guns are clearly not designed with air intake manifolds.

Man, now I find myself wishing for a gun that did have an air intake. That way you could mount a turbocharger on it.
Maybe a nitrous port?:smallbiggrin:

fusilier
2011-04-18, 11:05 AM
Man, now I find myself wishing for a gun that did have an air intake. That way you could mount a turbocharger on it.
Maybe a nitrous port?:smallbiggrin:

I think there have been some methane powered cannons, so an air intake on a gun of some sort isn't entirely unreasonable. ;-)

Eldan
2011-04-18, 03:15 PM
More questions from the Eldan school of unlikely armour!

This one, spefically, from the Baroque cycle by Neal Stephenson, where a character (I almost wrote player :smallbiggrin:) uses gold bars against musket balls. Now, while this does sound remotely plausible to me (that's quite a thick bit of metal here), gold is pretty soft as far as metals go.

What does the playground think? 1680s musket vs. gold bar. Let's assume 12 kg gold bar, the Good Delivery standard today (no exact size given in the book), which should be 25-45mm of gold. Let's assume the upper end, so 45 mm, or about 1.8 inches.

What would a musket ball do to that? What about a modern bullet?

Spiryt
2011-04-18, 03:23 PM
More questions from the Eldan school of unlikely armour!

This one, spefically, from the Baroque cycle by Neal Stephenson, where a character (I almost wrote player :smallbiggrin:) uses gold bars against musket balls. Now, while this does sound remotely plausible to me (that's quite a thick bit of metal here), gold is pretty soft as far as metals go.

What does the playground think? 1680s musket vs. gold bar. Let's assume 12 kg gold bar, the Good Delivery standard today (no exact size given in the book), which should be 25-45mm of gold. Let's assume the upper end, so 45 mm, or about 1.8 inches.

What would a musket ball do to that? What about a modern bullet?

12kg of gold is a hefty piece, and I would definitely see it stopping some bullets, especially that it's soft, so impact would probably reshape it significantly instead of interacting with 'wearer' chest.

Not much more can be said, I think, and both "musket ball" and especially "modern bullet" are completely imprecise.

0.22 LR shoot from some pistol barrel wouldn't probably even cause big deformation, while 0.50 from Barrett M82 or similar high power rifle would most certainly blow right trough it.

Norsesmithy
2011-04-18, 04:51 PM
Soft metals part like butter when struck by modern high velocity bullets with strong jackets.

.223 will easily burn though an inch of mild steel, never mind gold.

A softer lead projectile at a lower velocity will probably not penetrate so easily, gold is extremely malleable so you don't have to worry about spalling, and 14 kg is is enough mass that the introduction of the musket ball probably won't even really impart all that much force to the wearer, but in the end, you are creating a suit of armor that won't protect you from anything a proofed cuirass wouldn't, and is much much heavier.

randomhero00
2011-04-18, 05:36 PM
Has anyone ever historically used shoulder guards? If so what were the closest too? Football pads for instance? Also would they use a lighter material?

I'm in the SCA. My mentor told me shoulder pads just tend to slow us down and they aren't useful almost at all.

I'm thinking they must have had need somewhere, maybe jousting.

Shademan
2011-04-18, 06:21 PM
Has anyone ever historically used shoulder guards? If so what were the closest too? Football pads for instance? Also would they use a lighter material?

I'm in the SCA. My mentor told me shoulder pads just tend to slow us down and they aren't useful almost at all.

I'm thinking they must have had need somewhere, maybe jousting.

do you mean, like...pauldrons? or something bigger and more cumbersome?

Ogremindes
2011-04-18, 06:52 PM
do you mean, like...pauldrons? or something bigger and more cumbersome?

I assume he means something like you'd see on fantasy barbarian armour rather than part of a plate harness.

Dienekes
2011-04-18, 07:09 PM
Has anyone ever historically used shoulder guards? If so what were the closest too? Football pads for instance? Also would they use a lighter material?

I'm in the SCA. My mentor told me shoulder pads just tend to slow us down and they aren't useful almost at all.

I'm thinking they must have had need somewhere, maybe jousting.

There are paintings of Roman gladiators that used them. However since the gladiators were more about putting on a good show than having good armor they might not be the best folks to copy.

Also if I had to describe it, I'd say a single football pad looking thing. A bit higher up to protect the neck and jawline though.

Storm Bringer
2011-04-19, 12:37 AM
There are paintings of Roman gladiators that used them. However since the gladiators were more about putting on a good show than having good armor they might not be the best folks to copy.

Also if I had to describe it, I'd say a single football pad looking thing. A bit higher up to protect the neck and jawline though.

gladiator armour (such as it was) was build to prevent quick, unsatisfying kills and draw out the fight, for maximum milage.

so, it worked, but it wasn't comprohensive.

Thiel
2011-04-19, 01:28 AM
Just to be sure we're talking about the same thing, this is a pauldron.
http://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/107471132/Pauldrons.jpg
The vertical plates are there to prevent someone from hitting the gap between the helmet and the breastplate.

Spiryt
2011-04-19, 04:24 AM
Soft metals part like butter when struck by modern high velocity bullets with strong jackets.

.223 will easily burn though an inch of mild steel, never mind gold.



I find it hard to believe, as, high velocity or not, it's still very non massive projectile, it doesn't have that high momentum, and deformation in steel would devour much of energy.

Quick youtube find:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLnFuP9q1mg

Proves this : soft steel, just 1/2 inch thick not full inch, shoot with FMJ ammo at solid velocity from just 200 yards.

They bounce off, even when hitting previously struck areas, even struck seconds before.

Even if soft steel indeed parts quite easily, in this case it just didn't part quick enough to not cause bounce.

And anyway after making this hole, bullet has pretty low energy already, as it could be seen after it bounced away.

Storm Bringer
2011-04-19, 06:32 AM
I must note, as the shooter did, that the rounds used in those tests were lower velocity, "cold" loaded rounds, rather than army issue NATO spec rounds, which would proform better.

Not saying those results were wrong. just making clear the difference.

Spiryt
2011-04-19, 06:44 AM
I must note, as the shooter did, that the rounds used in those tests were lower velocity, "cold" loaded rounds, rather than army issue NATO spec rounds, which would proform better.

Not saying those results were wrong. just making clear the difference.

Dunno about cold loaded, but with data he's giving, 55 gr bullets at 3153 fps, it's pretty normal for 24 inch barrel "standard" performance that can be found in the Net.

Perhaps about maybe 100 feet and in result about 100 J of better performance tops, wouldn't really change that much.

Storm Bringer
2011-04-19, 06:56 AM
sorry, poor choice of worlds on my part.

he was using civvie ammo, rather than the NATO issue stuff. which he says is better (or at least "hotter"). (ref, 2:22-2:33)

fusilier
2011-04-19, 10:58 AM
12kg of gold is a hefty piece, and I would definitely see it stopping some bullets, especially that it's soft, so impact would probably reshape it significantly instead of interacting with 'wearer' chest.

Not much more can be said, I think, and both "musket ball" and especially "modern bullet" are completely imprecise.

0.22 LR shoot from some pistol barrel wouldn't probably even cause big deformation, while 0.50 from Barrett M82 or similar high power rifle would most certainly blow right trough it.

Musket ball is about as precise of a term as it gets for that period. Assuming a soft lead round ball, of .65-.80 caliber, I wouldn't expect that to penetrate a brick of gold. Might leave a nice dent though. Modern .50 caliber armor piercing ammo would probably punch through, but it may lose a lot of energy in the process? A brick of gold is fairly thick, and very heavy. However, I doubt anyone will ever test it. :-) Of course, the feasibility of carrying around bricks of gold to defend one's self from bullets is entirely different conversation.

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 11:56 AM
So follow up question...Why didn't they wear shoulder armor/pauldrons? Did impede movement or something?

Spiryt
2011-04-19, 12:13 PM
Musket ball is about as precise of a term as it gets for that period. Assuming a soft lead round ball, of .65-.80 caliber, I wouldn't expect that to penetrate a brick of gold. Might leave a nice dent though. Modern .50 caliber armor piercing ammo would probably punch through, but it may lose a lot of energy in the process? A brick of gold is fairly thick, and very heavy. However, I doubt anyone will ever test it. :-) Of course, the feasibility of carrying around bricks of gold to defend one's self from bullets is entirely different conversation.

I meant imprecise, because there were still even greater calibers, and many different technologies and lengths of barrels, not to mention that every shot could still be much different than another with different portions of powder. Etc.

All this makes velocities and energies different, but I agree that high caliber, high energy, relatively slow musket lead ball would probably make some kind of artistic sculpture out of gold bar, instead of completely penetrating it.


So follow up question...Why didn't they wear shoulder armor/pauldrons? Did impede movement or something?

Well, what do you exactly mean by "shoulder armor" and "they"?

In 15th century Europe, pauldrons/shoulder defenses were rather obvious part of full plate.

http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_gothic_armour.html

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 12:21 PM
Sorry, for some reason I thought I had said already. Anyway, by "they" I mean 13th century and below + all those people that didn't wear shoulder guards, such as samurai.

By shoulder pad I mean a piece of armor that would protect your shoulder. I've put on samurai armor before and for that area it protects is your upper arm, skips the shoulder, and part of the top of your shoulders.

......O.....
(----|----)
.......|......
.......|......
....../ \.....

The pair of '(' is the shoulder area that is usually left unprotected in almost all armors I've seen, except later full plate. So I'm wondering what the reason was why they wouldn't protect their shoulders? I mean they armor their forearms, but if you get hit on the shoulder you'll lose that limb.

Spiryt
2011-04-19, 12:29 PM
Sorry, for some reason I thought I had said already. Anyway, by "they" I mean 13th century and below + all those people that didn't wear shoulder guards, such as samurai.



13th century and below Europe was dominated by mail. So shoulder was obviously armored, just as the rest of the torso....

Additional protection that was appearing sometimes in those times generally went elsewhere, particularly, because shoulder is not very easy to armor comfortably with stiff armor.

Most of more advanced coat of plates appearing in late 13th century were already exhibiting some additional shoulder protection.

And I cannot unfortunately make out anything sensible out of this illustration.

Can you p[erhaps show awhat you're talking about on some period armor picture? Mark with red x, or something. :smallwink:

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 12:36 PM
Thanks for your help. I got it now.

Another question, and let me apologize now, you've probably already answered this a million times, but how do you know so much about weapons and armor?

Storm Bringer
2011-04-19, 12:43 PM
Thanks for your help. I got it now.

Another question, and let me apologize now, you've probably already answered this a million times, but how do you know so much about weapons and armor?

we`re military history nuts. it`S what we do
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

on a serious note, we are a (rather diverse) bunch of people who happen to share an intrest in this topic, who, via the wonders of the internet, have come together, in this place and others. we each seek out knowledge on that which intrests us, and dole out what we know to those who ask. we

we feed off each other, in a vicous circle of learning.:smallwink:

Spiryt
2011-04-19, 12:45 PM
Thanks for your help. I got it now.

Another question, and let me apologize now, you've probably already answered this a million times, but how do you know so much about weapons and armor?

If it's towards me, then I don't really know all that much.:smallbiggrin:

I'm pretty lazy, so what I've know, I've read on the Internet, with limited look into professional publications on the topic, "live experience" and similar stuff.

Still it's quite passable knowledge, I think. :smallwink:

Spiryt
2011-04-19, 12:48 PM
Weird to see this thread staying silent for that long... :smallwink:

And anyway, somewhat specific question:

Oakeshott, and in result most people, call XX and XXa swords as "14th to 15th century (http://www.albion-swords.com/articles/oakeshott-typology.htm)". Yet most of them I was able to see, were generally late, or even actually distinctly Renaissance weapons.

Anyone have some examples of earlier ones?

In general, this would be question about some good place in the Net (or sum books) with authentic swords descriptions.:smallwink:

Anyway, it seems that I will answer my own question, in some way. :smalltongue:


Away from period I was interested in, but some guy on MyArmoury posted this nice thread:

http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=22891 (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=22891)

If someone is interested, there may be more on zornhau, I haven't checked yet, but props to them, very interesting resource! :smallsmile:

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 12:52 PM
I've been told that some armor is made to be better vs arrows which makes it weak vs slashing or something. Or the other way around. I'm pretty sure it was samurai who had armor meant for arrows since that's the main fight for their time and place on the battleground.

Anyway, my question is, well what's the difference between armor made to deflect arrows and a normal piece? And maybe a follow up question; if samurai don't have the best armor like I thought, then who does?

Fhaolan
2011-04-19, 12:56 PM
So follow up question...Why didn't they wear shoulder armor/pauldrons? Did impede movement or something?

'They' is too vague. Shoulder armour was extremely common. Pauldron, spaulder, guardbrace, sode, etc.

There is a tendency for modern re-enactors to discard the shoulder (and other ancillary pieces) armour for two reasons.

1) Style of fighting: The rules of combat in SCA and similar groups mean that armour is to reduce bruising, broken bones and the like, not to protect vital organs/arteries from piercing or true cuts. Hits are assumed to penetrate armour to disable limbs or kills, unless the combatant 'rhinohides' and pretends to not feel the impact. Add to this the culture of macho men showing off their bruises for the girls (or guys, depending) that is common in many live-fighting groups, and armour beyond the bare minimum for the rules is discouraged by peer pressure.

2) Repro armour is usually not high quality: Affordable modern reproduction armour is rarely, if ever, fitted or strapped properly. This leads to shoulder (and arm, and leg) armour coming loose too easily, not moving with the limbs properly, snagging on other things, and simply not staying put. Added to this that modern repro armour, if it's made out of actual steel, is usually cold-rolled steel of a consistant thickness that has not been work-hardened or tempered. Due to this, it's usually much, *MUCH* heavier than actual historical pieces, and still tends to deform too easily under the kinds of impact SCA-stlye weapons do. For example, I have a custom-made 15th century Itallian white harness that cost me $5,000 or so, it is approximately half again as heavy as an actual historical suit, I can actually distort the knee and elbow articulations with my bare hands, and it *still* doesn't fit right.

Add these together, and the tendency towards picklebarrel armour, fireplace screening used for maille, and other stuff that would be considered insane in a real fight, starts to make sense.


I've been told that some armor is made to be better vs arrows which makes it weak vs slashing or something. Or the other way around. I'm pretty sure it was samurai who had armor meant for arrows since that's the main fight for their time and place on the battleground.

... :) That's an interesting assertion. I haven't heard that one before. The only reference to samurai armour specifically made to be proof against arrrows I am aware of is their use of multi-layer silk clothing under the hard armour. Silk being relatively hard to cut.


Anyway, my question is, well what's the difference between armor made to deflect arrows and a normal piece? And maybe a follow up question; if samurai don't have the best armor like I thought, then who does?

There really isn't much difference. Hard armour is usually made to deflect blows rather than trying to absorb the impact every time. There are helms (war hats) that were made to ward off arrows falling from above, and there was proofing (firing arrows, and later bullets, at armour to 'prove' they are protective) was common.

All armour is 'best' against the weapons that was common at the time the armour was designed. It's an arms race between weapons and armour throughout time. Modern guns are made to defeat modern armour, and modern armour is made to resist modern guns, so on and so forth. :smallsmile:

Storm Bringer
2011-04-19, 01:05 PM
I've been told that some armor is made to be better vs arrows which makes it weak vs slashing or something. Or the other way around. I'm pretty sure it was samurai who had armor meant for arrows since that's the main fight for their time and place on the battleground.

Anyway, my question is, well what's the difference between armor made to deflect arrows and a normal piece? And maybe a follow up question; if samurai don't have the best armor like I thought, then who does?

define "best"?

samurai wore the best armour they could get, and it served them well.

If it didn't, they would not have worn it. Case it point, english civil war soliders were known to discard thier bulky breastplates when they realised that they didn't protect against muskets and that pike clashes were uncommon, while the horsemen of that war kept their armour becuase they expected to be in melee much more often.

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 01:10 PM
Shrug, I dunno. Armor is so intricate and so hard to make I just assumed there must be like a 'Da Vinci' of armor. Kind of how the Katana is the unspoken "best" sword. Was wondering if there's an armor equivalent.

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 01:11 PM
server was delayed, got posted twice, ignore

Spiryt
2011-04-19, 01:15 PM
I've been told that some armor is made to be better vs arrows which makes it weak vs slashing or something. Or the other way around. I'm pretty sure it was samurai who had armor meant for arrows since that's the main fight for their time and place on the battleground.

Anyway, my question is, well what's the difference between armor made to deflect arrows and a normal piece? And maybe a follow up question; if samurai don't have the best armor like I thought, then who does?

I find it quite improbable, any decently made mail, plate or lammellar similar to those samurai were using, is pretty much impervious to attack we would call "slashing".

Iron or steel as relatively dense metal are generally very resistant to shearing deformations.

If you have sheet of some steel, mount it somehow so you can see the edge pointed towards you, you can cleave it if it's thin enough, but even then it's not very easy.

Obviously, in any kind of plate armor, flat of the metal is facing you, mounted on padding and body, so it's pretty much impossible to shear it in any sensible way.

Similarly with mail, you can slice some of literally hundreds of little rings a bit, or even completely, but achieving large gap in whole armor is extremely hard.

So, no matter how metal armor is made, I can't think of any specific examples that would improve it capabilities while hurting resistance to slashes.... I can be wrong though.



while the horsemen of that war kept their armour becuase they expected to be in melee much more.

And they had poor horsies to carry it, as well as probably some other horses/serfs to carry it around outisde battle. Didn't have to march in stuff, which would be pretty damn tormenting.

Eldan
2011-04-19, 01:36 PM
Of course, the feasibility of carrying around bricks of gold to defend one's self from bullets is entirely different conversation.

Eh. It was in a book, and the guy was stealing a cart full of gold bars, so...

Fhaolan
2011-04-19, 01:41 PM
Shrug, I dunno. Armor is so intricate and so hard to make I just assumed there must be like a 'Da Vinci' of armor. Kind of how the Katana is the unspoken "best" sword. Was wondering if there's an armor equivalent.

Ah.. there's a can of worms. I'll try to deflect this one a bit.

The Katana was the best sword for the work it was expected to do. It was not, in any way shape or form, the 'best' sword in the history of the world. There is no such animal as the 'best' sword.

The Japanese methods of bladesmithing and armoursmithing was created to deal with the fact that Japan, on average, is an iron-poor region. And the iron that *is* there has a high level of impurities that make good blades very difficult to produce. Because of this, really good japanese swords were usually made by true master smiths. Not because the design of the Katana was somehow superior to other swords, but because the smiths had to be very good to overcome the disadvantages they were labouring under.

Once travel to greater asia and europe opened up, many of the great swordsmiths of Japan moved to Spain and India to take advantage of the higher quality (and quantity) of steel available in those regions.

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 01:53 PM
Once travel to greater asia and europe opened up, many of the great swordsmiths of Japan moved to Spain and India to take advantage of the higher quality (and quantity) of steel available in those regions.

Interesting! So when they remade/got new blades from the better steel did they stick with the katana look? Or go like broadsword?

Yora
2011-04-19, 02:01 PM
Japanese iron is really poor quality. The katana forging process is to a great deal laid out to overcome at least some of the limitations.

Karoht
2011-04-19, 02:05 PM
I'm glad to hear that you think Katana are cool. They sure are well known and iconic.
Skill testing question for any katana fan. What is the Hamon line?

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 02:17 PM
I'm glad to hear that you think Katana are cool. They sure are well known and iconic.
Skill testing question for any katana fan. What is the Hamon line?

The wavy line that's mid-straight up the blade. Resulting from two combined metals created and then hammering thereafter.

Fhaolan
2011-04-19, 02:26 PM
Interesting! So when they remade/got new blades from the better steel did they stick with the katana look? Or go like broadsword?

Usually they stuck with the katana-style look out of tradition. Broadswords weren't in fashion anymore in Europe at that time.

One thing that throws people is the time-line disconnect between the regions. The period that most people think of as the height of the Katana in Japan (as popularized by movies), was concurrent with rapiers, sabres, and muskets in Europe. Knights in full armour would never have encountered a Samurai in full armour because there was more than just distance separating them, but a century or two as well.

Karoht
2011-04-19, 02:31 PM
The wavy line that's mid-straight up the blade. Resulting from two combined metals created and then hammering thereafter.Mostly right.

Our sword vendor was out at a trade show, and he had some showpiece katana sets with him. Which he was very clear about which were fakes and which were the real deal. He refuses to sell a sword to someone under false pretenses.

On the factory made showpiece katana's, the hamon line is uniform and applied by a pattern welder or grinder. Point of interest-they also apply the same patterning on steak knives and such. People actually think it makes the blade better for some reason.

So this girl asks our vendor, what is the wavy line for. Before he can answer (with a lengthy answer regarding the tempering process and such), someone else walks up and says something that makes me laugh to this day.

"The samurai were also avid carpenters. They used the Hamon line much like you would use a tape measure or a meter stick."
...and then the fellow launched into a discussion on why Katana were the best swords ever made, detailing stories (aka BS) where Katanas cut engine blocks and concrete like a hot knife through butter.

Really, I'm quite glad I wasn't there to witness this. I felt bad for our vendor, who had to sit through this, and remain polite. Believe me, remaining polite was the last thing he wanted to do.

Fhaolan
2011-04-19, 02:36 PM
The wavy line that's mid-straight up the blade. Resulting from two combined metals created and then hammering thereafter.

Nope. :smallsmile: Well, it is the wavy line, but it's not because of the differing metals. It's because of the temper differential. Basically it's the visual result of a tempering technique.

What you're trying to achieve is a hard edge and a soft spine (relatively hard and soft that is). The idea is to fast quench the edge while allowing the spine to slowly cool down (anneal). To do this, you encase the spine in clay and then quench. The clay acts as a heat-sink so the spine cools much faster than the edge. The fast-quench area develops crystals (called Martensite), that are hard (and brittle), while the anealed area does not (it instead has Pearlite).

a_humble_lich
2011-04-19, 02:47 PM
The wavy line that's mid-straight up the blade. Resulting from two combined metals created and then hammering thereafter.

I had thought it wasn't from two different metals being combined but that the edge was tempered differently. I'm sure there were multiple sword making techniques, but what I've seen is clay would be put around the edge of the blade when it was tempered. This would make the edge cool slower, which would make it a harder, more brittle steel. Thus you could put a fine edge on the edge, while the softer spine would give the blade more elasticity.

I mostly remember a lot of cursing after the tempering warped the blade when I helped a blacksmith friend figure out the process. :smallsmile:


Edit: And the is the exact same thing Fhaolan said. I need to type faster.

randomhero00
2011-04-19, 02:57 PM
Well the cooling does it too. But they use differing metals. Check it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katana#Forging_and_construction
(if it doesn't take you directly to it its under Forging and Construction.)


The authentic Japanese sword is made from a specialized Japanese steel called "Tamahagane"[8] which consist of combinations of hard, high carbon steel and tough, low carbon steel.[9]

Norsesmithy
2011-04-19, 04:16 PM
I find it hard to believe, as, high velocity or not, it's still very non massive projectile, it doesn't have that high momentum, and deformation in steel would devour much of energy.

Quick youtube find:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLnFuP9q1mg

Proves this : soft steel, just 1/2 inch thick not full inch, shoot with FMJ ammo at solid velocity from just 200 yards.

They bounce off, even when hitting previously struck areas, even struck seconds before.

Even if soft steel indeed parts quite easily, in this case it just didn't part quick enough to not cause bounce.

And anyway after making this hole, bullet has pretty low energy already, as it could be seen after it bounced away.
I can't watch this video because my connection makes youtube videos take way longer than I am willing to deal with, but I've got an AR-15 and it's been my experience that American Eagle or Winchester .223 will burn through a half inch thick AR 200 steel target (stands for Abrasion Resistant, this series of steels are hardened steels used in the construction of mining equipment), cut through both the "top" and "bottom" plates of a half inch thick structural steel I beam, and cut the center out of a T post (about an inch and a quarter of annealed and recycled rail road rail).

My AR-500 steel targets don't hardly get scratched by M855 nato pressure penetrator rounds, actually don't get scratched at all by the Q3131 (Winchester) or XM193 (federal), and hardly get nicked by M3 AP .30 caliber Ball.

The M855 will transit an old Chevy small block engine block lengthwise , accounting for almost 4 inches of cast iron once you subtract the airspaces in the coolant and oil galleries and in the cylinders.

Of course this is all at 100 yards, so that might be the difference, but I suspect that his "mild steel" targets are less mild than he thinks, because .223 does perform like that against AR400 targets which are not rated for rifles, only pistols up to 44 magnum.

Spiryt
2011-04-19, 04:33 PM
My google tells me that Winchester .223 are way more powerful bullets, even though roughly similar in size compared to the ones guy in video was using, so there can be difference here.

About ~ 1700 J compared to ~ 2500 J initially - a bit more massive while still being way faster.

And different kinds of steel would obviously make all the difference, "details" can really make it different.

Anyway, in short, guy is shooting 55 gr FMJ at ~ 3150 fps, at 200 yards they hit 0.5 inch of some relatively soft steel.

They make about 0.25 inch dents, nice billows stick out of surface, so steel must be quite ductile one. Bullet bounces of then.

fusilier
2011-04-19, 06:23 PM
I meant imprecise, because there were still even greater calibers, and many different technologies and lengths of barrels, not to mention that every shot could still be much different than another with different portions of powder. Etc.

I didn't mean to say that you are wrong to bring up the imprecision of the term "musket ball", just that most stories will be something like "so-and-so was hit by a musket ball in the leg". So some inference is necessary. By 1680, I think muskets were starting to settle on the .69 - .80 range of calibers. Although, there were still larger "wall guns", and they may have used an occasional iron ball (that was apparently done sometimes in the 16th century). But I figured we could assume a "typical" musket of the period, and by the late 17th century, they were fairly standard. Like you said, variation in powder (not just quantity but quality), wadding, etc, that all complicates things too.



Originally Posted by fusilier
Of course, the feasibility of carrying around bricks of gold to defend one's self from bullets is entirely different conversation.
Eh. It was in a book, and the guy was stealing a cart full of gold bars, so...

I should have ended that line with a ;-) . I'm sure it was a situation not to take to seriously. Main thing is, a lot of people don't realize just how heavy a gold brick is. :-)

fusilier
2011-04-19, 06:32 PM
Shrug, I dunno. Armor is so intricate and so hard to make I just assumed there must be like a 'Da Vinci' of armor. Kind of how the Katana is the unspoken "best" sword. Was wondering if there's an armor equivalent.

I'm just going to throw this out there, but the "best" armor could probably be considered to be late gothic full harness (full plate-mail)? In the same sense as most people would think that the katana is the "best" sword. [Also bearing in mind what Fhaolan said on the subject.] That armor is a bit outside my main area of interest, maybe somebody else could chime in?

Maeglin_Dubh
2011-04-19, 09:53 PM
If by 'best' you mean most iconic and championed by fanboys, you might have a point. But full plate harness would be given a run for its money by Japanese armor, since samurai fanboys and katana fanboys tend to be one and the same.

As for 'best' armor, what metric would we even be using? Most effective against the weapons of its time?

Xuc Xac
2011-04-20, 12:20 AM
Kind of how the Katana is the unspoken "best" sword.

The katana is not the best sword and it is far from "unspoken".

Autolykos
2011-04-20, 04:35 AM
To be fair, the Katana was quite good at its job - slicing down unarmored peasants and providing a backup weapon for archers, spearmen and cavalry. When up against plate armor (or even well-made chainmail) I'd prefer something more pointy though.

Dienekes
2011-04-20, 06:26 AM
To be fair, the Katana was quite good at its job - slicing down unarmored peasants and providing a backup weapon for archers, spearmen and cavalry. When up against plate armor (or even well-made chainmail) I'd prefer something more pointy though.

I've always been a little amused by that response. Katana's were one of the best at cutting through unarmored individuals. Weren't all decent cutting swords good at cutting through unarmored folk? They're unarmored, it's not like there's a lot of resistance. I've seen bastard swords cut clean through a cow.

Fhaolan
2011-04-20, 08:46 AM
I've always been a little amused by that response. Katana's were one of the best at cutting through unarmored individuals. Weren't all decent cutting swords good at cutting through unarmored folk? They're unarmored, it's not like there's a lot of resistance. I've seen bastard swords cut clean through a cow.

Yup. In short a polite way of saying 'Yes, we know you're a katana fanboi. Here's something so that you don't feel like we're beating on you for it.'

However, aside from that, katanas and tachi/dachi are part of a fairly small category, as there are very few historical two-handed curved swords that are meant for combat. There were some two-handed sabres but they were rare, and there were two-handed scimitars/kilij but they were mostly for execution or ceremonial. Beyond that, you have to pull in some of the bigger bronze-age/iron-age transitional khopesh/shotel and their variants. Most of the other curved blades of that size were falx, rhomphaia, or falchion weapons with the edge on the inside of the curve.

Longswords, hand-and-a-half swords and the like *can* slash, but they are not as specialized at it as the curved blades.

Yora
2011-04-20, 08:56 AM
I have another gun question: There are lots of videoes with people shooting guns at metal or concrete. But how does wood behave when shot at?
I've seen some tests where people were shoting at 2cm thick boards lined up with gaps between them, but I think they'd behave very differently from a solid log. What if you shot into lets say a 30 cm diameter tree with different types of ammunition?

Karoht
2011-04-20, 09:36 AM
If by 'best' you mean most iconic and championed by fanboys, you might have a point. But full plate harness would be given a run for its money by Japanese armor, since samurai fanboys and katana fanboys tend to be one and the same.

As for 'best' armor, what metric would we even be using? Most effective against the weapons of its time?Most useful for carpentry, if you believe what one fanboi said at a convention regarding the Hamon line.

Conners
2011-04-20, 10:03 AM
Hmmm... I'm not sure if my question is fully relevant to the thread or not, but I might as well try. What differences can you expect between a fantasy dwarf and a human, when using various weapons (the dwarf having more concentrated, compact muscle)? This isn't a fluff question, this is a question of the science involved in the biology and weaponry.

Would the dwarf be able to make some unusual use of their stature? For example, a gun that has too much recoil to be carried around by a human, being usable by a dwarf?
Would the dwarf have an easier time with heavier weapons, or a harder time with heavier weapons? Are long weapons useful, or a problem?


Hope this post is on-topic. Questions like this always tend to bug me...

Eldan
2011-04-20, 10:05 AM
I can't really comment on that part, but I always thought that axes were really silly weapons for dwarves. I mean, why would they have them? They aren't derived from mining tools like hammers or picks, they can't be used very well in tunnels (polearms would probably work better)... why do all dwarves have them, other than general Tolkien-copying? Just to annoy elves and treants?

endoperez
2011-04-20, 10:06 AM
Yup. In short a polite way of saying 'Yes, we know you're a katana fanboi. Here's something so that you don't feel like we're beating on you for it.'

However, aside from that, katanas and tachi/dachi are part of a fairly small category, as there are very few historical two-handed curved swords that are meant for combat. There were some two-handed sabres but they were rare, and there were two-handed scimitars/kilij but they were mostly for execution or ceremonial. Beyond that, you have to pull in some of the bigger bronze-age/iron-age transitional khopesh/shotel and their variants. Most of the other curved blades of that size were falx, rhomphaia, or falchion weapons with the edge on the inside of the curve.

Longswords, hand-and-a-half swords and the like *can* slash, but they are not as specialized at it as the curved blades.

Chinese also had two-handed curved swords. Some of them were quite similar to some Japanese swords. I wouldn't be surprised if other countries in Southern and South-Eastern Asia had similar weapons.

Miao Dao (苗刀)
wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miao_dao), youtube video (http://youtu.be/P4Q27znmM2Y)

Autolykos
2011-04-20, 10:45 AM
IMO not all polearms are practical for dwarves - their shorter legs force them to hold the weapons near the end (if they want to swing it) which seriously screws up their balance. Longer polearms that are mainly used for stabbing and pulling should work fine though.
The main problem dwarves face is low mobility. They can't run very fast, and aren't known as good riders either (in most of the fantasy stories). This pretty much forces them to make sure they can outrange their enemies - so pre-gunpowder I'd expect lots of crossbowmen and field artillery (scorpions/ballistae and the like) protected with a pike- and/or shield wall (barricades and wagon forts might also work).
With gunpowder they'll again have to rely on massed cannons (and grapeshot) to make cavalry- or bayonet charges undesirable for their enemies (again with the additional requirement to outrange their enemies so they can't be forced to attack).

@Katana: Fhaolan is right. What I wanted to say is that a Katana was never meant to be used as a main weapon and performed adequately as a side arm - so there was no need to change it. I'm well aware of the fact that most European swords were just as sharp and wouldn't run into much trouble when hacking down the odd peasant - but this was AFAIR not their primary function, so the criteria are different.

Conners
2011-04-20, 11:01 AM
@Eldan: Depends on the tunnels, really. If you had tightly wound tunnels with sudden turns, with a close ceiling and walls, then carrying a polearm through the tunnel would be disastrous. Spears are probably fine as far as stabbing goes, but anything long that you need to swing probably won't work out.

BTW, how do the axes annoy the elves?



@Autolykos: Yeah, this is part of what I was wondering about. On the one hand, dwarves are pretty strong, by my reckoning of typical fantasy dwarves--mostly due to compact muscle. But on the other hand, that does look VERY unwieldy...

I see your point with dwarven mobility. Hmm... If it comes down to it, though, dwarves don't seem to rely on surface farming or such, so an army disputing with dwarves would have to attack them, wouldn't they? Of course, this poses a mighty problem if dwarves want to conquest other nations rather than defending (but then, I've never seen a story where the dwarves had a surface empire).

What I wonder also is, what kind of mounts would dwarves have, realistically speaking (pull up a fantasy creature?)?



@Katana stuff: I noticed something to do with the katana being a two-handed blade. While this was true, one of the most famous duelists of Japan, Musashi, recommended using a katana in each hand (oddly enough, he doesn't use this combination in the duels I've heard of).

On the note with curved blades, do they really cut so much better than straight ones? I've heard that it is easier to swing a proper cutting strike, with a curved blade rather than a straight one, but I thought the effect would be largely the same in skilled hands?

Eldan
2011-04-20, 11:04 AM
Well, dwarves have short, stubby, massively muscled legs. So, anything they would have to hold onto with their legs, like a horse, would be difficult.
Perhaps something they could sit on cross-legged, like a camel?

Conners
2011-04-20, 11:16 AM
Are camels rode cross-legged? I think that's more for casually muling along, rather than charging into battle.

Although, maybe we're thinking about this the wrong way. The dwarves don't necessarily need to anatomically match the animal--an elaborate harness might make a lot of beasts optional for riding. Just a question as to whether the dwarves are stuck once they're mounted (if it comes to it, the saddle could have a replaceable harness for the rider, where you cut it off with a knife when your mount dies).

Eldan
2011-04-20, 11:26 AM
Right you are... racing camels:

http://www.rajasthanvisit.com/Images/camel-race.jpg

So, that theory is off too. Anything really big would probably be off too, as that wouldn't fit into a tunnel.

Fhaolan
2011-04-20, 12:00 PM
Chinese also had two-handed curved swords. Some of them were quite similar to some Japanese swords. I wouldn't be surprised if other countries in Southern and South-Eastern Asia had similar weapons.

Miao Dao (苗刀)
wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miao_dao), youtube video (http://youtu.be/P4Q27znmM2Y)

Silly me, these skipped my mind. Still, I think my point still stands that two-handed curved swords are somewhat rare when compared to one-handed curved swords or two-handed straight swords.


@Katana stuff: I noticed something to do with the katana being a two-handed blade. While this was true, one of the most famous duelists of Japan, Musashi, recommended using a katana in each hand (oddly enough, he doesn't use this combination in the duels I've heard of).

There are also many famous duelists of Europe who recommended using a rapier in each hand. I sometimes get the impression that these people are actually attempting to some kind of psychological warfare prior to the duels, or are hoping their opponent will take them up on that recomendation knowing that it's silly, given that they never seem to be documented taking their own recommendation. :smallsmile: It's not impossible to weild a katana, rapier or even a proper longsword in either hand, but it's definately a bit awkward unless you spend a lot of time practicing the techniques.


On the note with curved blades, do they really cut so much better than straight ones? I've heard that it is easier to swing a proper cutting strike, with a curved blade rather than a straight one, but I thought the effect would be largely the same in skilled hands?

Yes, they are better at slicing, but for lots of little reasons rather than one big overwhelming reason. The curve gets you more edge for a shorter 'length', having the curve recede from direction of the swing encourages slices rather than chops, etc. However, the difference between a straight and a curved blade can easily be overwhelmed by other factors. For example, the balance point on the sword makes has far more of an impact on how the weapon behaves than the amount of curve to the blade. A falchion has a curved blade, but it's balance point is usually between the midpoint and the tip of the blade rather than towards the hilt. This makes a falchion a much 'choppier' weapon. A falcatta is also curved, but it curves inwards and then back outwards which puts the usual impact point 'ahead' of the line of the grip. This makes the weapon behave more like an hand axe than a sword.

Also the *way* you use the sword is usually more important than the actual geometry of the blade. It makes it easier if the sword's geometry is 'correct' for it's use, but it's not impossible to use it differently. You can slice with a falcatta, and you can thrust with a sabre, but that doesn't mean those weapons are 'best' for those uses. :smallsmile:

Yora
2011-04-20, 12:04 PM
While this was true, one of the most famous duelists of Japan, Musashi, recommended using a katana in each hand (oddly enough, he doesn't use this combination in the duels I've heard of).
It's a trap! :smallamused:

Another interesting thing is, that a katana is straight during most of the forging proccess and becomes curved only when cooled of and the end stage. Not completely sure about the whole proccess, but in a katana blade the edge is thin and hard, while the back is flexible and thick, which causes the steel to shrink at different degrees, giving the blade it's bend.
Not sure if there are ways to prevent that, but it seems that when using the forging process used to make a katana, you automatically end up with a curved blade. Maybe the samurai just had to learn to make the most of such a weapon when they wanted a durable blade made from japanese iron?

Fhaolan
2011-04-20, 12:15 PM
Oh, and just as a reminder to all, when looking at historical references for weapons it's easy to get tripped up by terminology.

The term 'katana' can technically be applied to *any* single edged sword, and doesn't even necessarily mean curved, or one- or two- handed versions, or even a japanese sword. Because of this, looking at historical references can get *very* weird. There are several documents where european curved sabres and straight backswords are refered to as katanas. This kind of confusion is rampant in weapon research, and makes discussions tricky. These names may apply to extremely specific weapons currently, but older documents may use the names differently or more generically.

Storm Bringer
2011-04-20, 12:31 PM
Oh, and just as a reminder to all, when looking at historical references for weapons it's easy to get tripped up by terminology.

The term 'katana' can technically be applied to *any* single edged sword, and doesn't even necessarily mean curved, or one- or two- handed versions, or even a japanese sword. Because of this, looking at historical references can get *very* weird. There are several documents where european curved sabres and straight backswords are refered to as katanas. This kind of confusion is rampant in weapon research, and makes discussions tricky. These names may apply to extremely specific weapons currently, but older documents may use the names differently or more generically.

to give a modern example of this, the word "pistol" covers a wide range of weapons with very different capabilites, design, construction and useage.

even a more specific word, like "revolver", can cover weapons that are very different. compare a big long "dirty harry" .45 cal beast to a snub nose gun with an inch long barrel.

now, at the time, words like "rapier", or "kantna" were used like "pistol" or "sword" (in fact, most just mean "sword" in a local tongue, and were adopted by the wider world to discribe the swords favoured in a given area), rather than like "revolver" or "sniper rifle".

Conners
2011-04-20, 12:56 PM
@Eldan: Well, any mount inside a tunnel seems like a pretty bad idea. For it to be useful, you need pretty big tunnels, and enough distance (or enough baggage) to make the mount worth-while (needing to cover distance very fast counts too).


@Fhaolan: Might be the case for the two-rapiers fellow--but Musashi as far as I know, only recommended this when he wrote the Book of Five Rings. At which point he was about 60. I don't know of any duels he fought past the age of 29(?), I think it was, so it'd be strange if he tried to befuddle people in this light, when the book seems pretty useful otherwise.
__ Notably, he used a bokken (wooden sword) in one of his most famous duels. It also seems that he filled it with nails, to make it somewhat like a mace. Not sure why he was using that weapon... but I'm not about to question the guy who won over 60 duels.

Funny you say, "but it's definately a bit awkward unless you spend a lot of time practicing the techniques" since that's what Musashi said. "It will be difficult at first, but all things are. Practice gives strength to drawing a bowstring, and so you must practice this." Not an exact quote.


Oh, I see now. Basically, my idea of it was right in one way--a skilled man will get similar results with different shaped swords. Still, curved swords are better for cutting, X is better for chopping, etc..

Thank you for explaining about curved swords to me :)!


@Yora: ? Japanese ore? From what I understand, it's pretty much the same as other places' ore (I remember some huge posts arguing about katanas and ore).


@Fhaolan _&_ Storm Bringer: Yes, that is something few people realize today. It's also annoying when people call "mail" "chain-mail".
There isn't one hard blueprint for the katana, throughout Japan's history--general slight variations were made over the periods.

Eldan
2011-04-20, 01:00 PM
Dwarves could ride something really flat, maybe.

My first thought was tortoises, but that's rather silly.

A giant isopod, perhaps? Those fit in caves.

Yora
2011-04-20, 01:08 PM
Problem is, that there is very few, if any, iron ore in Japan. Most iron is extracted from iron sand, which produces rather low quality steel. Lots of the special proccesses in japanese sword making have the primary purpose to keep the blade from breaking too easily. Though I don't know how much folding is used in working steel from high quality ore.

Conners
2011-04-20, 01:14 PM
@Eldan: If dwarves had really long tunnels which were too cramped for a horse/whatever, a turtle might be quite welcome. Not a fast form of travel, but if this fantasy tortoise could travel without sleep for an extended period, it surely is a luxury.


@Yora: I had heard the Japanese had/have a number of steelworks factories, with good export trade. Might have misheard (exports aren't my best subject)? Of course, anything they've gotten with modern technology is pretty hard to get back ion the feudal eras.

Eldan
2011-04-20, 01:17 PM
Yeah, but what I meant with "it fits" was that tortoises don't usually live in caves. Isopods might.

Conners
2011-04-20, 01:20 PM
Yeah, but what I meant with "it fits" was that tortoises don't usually live in caves. Isopods might. GIANT SLATERS!!!!! :smalleek:

I didn't know they were also called isopods... or that they got so frik*n huge.... They look scary when they're big.

Can imagine a giant one of those harnessed with some kind of carriage that the dwarves sit in--also can imagine it eating people in some horrendous fashion, after seeing those scary eyes and leggy-bits.....

Eldan
2011-04-20, 01:22 PM
Hmm. I've never heard the word "slater" for them. But then, English's not my first language. I've got my arthropods from entomology lectures.

Fhaolan
2011-04-20, 01:30 PM
GIANT SLATERS!!!!! :smalleek:

Let me guess, you are either in or from New Zealand? :smallsmile: I've not heard anyone call them slaters other than New Zealanders.

Yukitsu
2011-04-20, 01:38 PM
@Katana stuff: I noticed something to do with the katana being a two-handed blade. While this was true, one of the most famous duelists of Japan, Musashi, recommended using a katana in each hand (oddly enough, he doesn't use this combination in the duels I've heard of).

This is, from my recollection, a mistranslation that has been further moved along. What my understanding of the original intent is, is that he advocated that a warrior use both swords in his daisho proficiently. This was misunderstood to mean using them both at the same time.

Xuc Xac
2011-04-20, 01:54 PM
Hmmm... I'm not sure if my question is fully relevant to the thread or not, but I might as well try. What differences can you expect between a fantasy dwarf and a human, when using various weapons (the dwarf having more concentrated, compact muscle)? This isn't a fluff question, this is a question of the science involved in the biology and weaponry.

Would the dwarf be able to make some unusual use of their stature? For example, a gun that has too much recoil to be carried around by a human, being usable by a dwarf?
Would the dwarf have an easier time with heavier weapons, or a harder time with heavier weapons? Are long weapons useful, or a problem?


Scientifically speaking, the dwarves are inferior in every way as far as body mechanics are concerned. The most stable firing position for a gun is "prone". A dwarf lying on his stomach isn't going to be any more stable than a human doing the same thing. Dwarves have shorter limbs, which means less reach and less leverage due to their shorter arm span.

The only thing they might do better than humans is carrying a heavy backpack for a long march (because they don't need leverage to hang a weight on their shoulders and they have that hardy constitution), but they can't march as fast so they need that extra endurance: they need to march much longer to cover the same ground. I don't think their extra marching time will be enough to make up for their lower speed.

Dwarves work on the rule of cool, but they aren't realistically good warriors.

@Eldan: Dwarves have axes for "general Tolkien copying" as you said. That's it. Tolkien's dwarves had axes because they were derived from logging tools. The story of the creation of the dwarves explains it. They were created by the equivalent of the god of earth, who was married to the goddess of plants. When he made the dwarves to be little craftsman, she worried they would do too much logging to get wood so she asked the high god to let her make the ents to protect the forests. Then she bragged to her husband that the dwarves will have to watch out if they try to cut down any trees. He replied "nevertheless, they will still need wood". They need charcoal for forging and cooking, they need lumber for building and mining, they need wooden handles for their tools and weapons, etc.


Also the *way* you use the sword is usually more important than the actual geometry of the blade. It makes it easier if the sword's geometry is 'correct' for it's use, but it's not impossible to use it differently. You can slice with a falcatta, and you can thrust with a sabre, but that doesn't mean those weapons are 'best' for those uses. :smallsmile:

Yes, the curve of a blade often reflects how it was intended to be used. Blades meant to be swung from the shoulder have a gentler curve (because they are following a bigger circle) compared to blades meant to be swung from the elbow (which have a tighter curve to follow a much smaller circle).

And on Musashi: He recommended using two swords when outnumbered. In a one on one duel, he recommended using one sword with two hands. On the battlefield, he recommended that you use a gun. Two swords aren't always the best choice.

Spiryt
2011-04-20, 02:06 PM
I could see dwarves as grapplers with their compact statures - take down, pin down, and knife them, maul with hammer or something.

Exchanging strikes with anything that is that much more reaching than you would be tricky.

On the other hand, long pole arms would work too - even with shorter heights and arms of the wielder, thing is long enough on it's own.

If dwarves are generally "D&D like" so generally about as massive as humans while much shorter - they would most certainly have some really powerfully built joints, bones, tendons etc.

Eldan
2011-04-20, 02:13 PM
On the subject of grappling... how about dwarven unarmed martial arts? I'd think with those arms they could throw quite a punch.

Spiryt
2011-04-20, 02:45 PM
On the subject of grappling... how about dwarven unarmed martial arts? I'd think with those arms they could throw quite a punch.

Doesn't really matter, with such reach and stuff they would be screwed when striking with someone human sized.

Low kicks would land straight on their faces. :smallwink:

But with any sort of grappling, I think they could be quite potent indeed.

Assuming ridiculously massive joints etc. they could break arms and choke in ways difficult to most humans....

I guess.

EDIT: But they would need little space to throw a punch - again, it would be useful in the grapple.

Eldan
2011-04-20, 02:55 PM
Right. So, Wrestlers before boxers. Makes sense.

Elves, on the other hand...

Yora
2011-04-20, 02:57 PM
Muay Thai! :smallbiggrin:

Spiryt
2011-04-20, 03:01 PM
Right. So, Wrestlers before boxers. Makes sense.

Elves, on the other hand...

Elves and humans too. Wrestling/grappling rules, at least in our set of physics. :smallwink:

Autolykos
2011-04-20, 05:29 PM
Nitpick on Musashi: IIRC he recommended a gun for defense and a spear for offense. Too bad he hadn't heard of bayonets...

On grappling: MMA shows that while pure grappling is certainly superior to pure striking, a striker who knows how to evade being grappled can survive quite well against a grappler. Most of the successful guys nowadays know how to do both (in the beginning, however, the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guys mopped the floor with the Muay Thai guys...).

Spiryt
2011-04-20, 05:35 PM
On grappling: MMA shows that while pure grappling is certainly superior to pure striking, a striker who knows how to evade being grappled can survive quite well against a grappler. Most of the successful guys nowadays know how to do both (in the beginning, however, the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guys mopped the floor with the Muay Thai guys...).

Evading being grappled is grappling on it's own.

It was mostly joke from my part, wrestling cannot be 'superior' to boxing ... Because those are completely different things. :smallwink:

Just, as you mentioned, if all things are relatively equal, and one guy is : good striker, no idea how to grapple, and the second : good grappler, doesn't know how to punch trough a paper bag --> grappler will win 95 % of the time.

Which could be seen from first Shootos and stuff to first UFC's.

fusilier
2011-04-20, 07:21 PM
I have another gun question: There are lots of videoes with people shooting guns at metal or concrete. But how does wood behave when shot at?
I've seen some tests where people were shoting at 2cm thick boards lined up with gaps between them, but I think they'd behave very differently from a solid log. What if you shot into lets say a 30 cm diameter tree with different types of ammunition?

Logs, sand bags, gabions (wicker cylinders also filled with dirt), ******s, and fascines, are all traditional materials used to stop bullets. Machine guns can cut through trees, but it is only with volume of fire concentrated on a small area. I've seen the results of penetration tests of white pine by muskets, but don't have them in front of me at the moment. A few inches at a 100 yards, if I remember correctly.

*A "******" is a tightly wrapped bundle of sticks, in civilian usage, it is often just a bundle of kindling. (I've had to explain that term before, have no idea if it will get through the filter)

A "fascine" is a bundle of longer sticks, laid horizontally.

-------
Yeah, filters!, *sigh*. Really hard to use the correct technical term sometimes. :-(

Mike_G
2011-04-20, 07:39 PM
As a 5 foot 3 guy who has won medals in fencing and excelled in close combat in the Marines, reach doesn't matter a much as people think it does. You just need to block that first attack, then get inside his reach and gut the bugger.

A human would get the first shot fighting a dwarf, but if he missed and let a massive, strong stocky guy with a short vicious sword inside his guard, he could be screwed.

All trees are felled at ground level.

Conners
2011-04-20, 09:25 PM
Let's see, a lot of posts to read.

Musashi stuff: I'm pretty sure Musashi did mean to use a sword in each hand. He spoke about it being good for fighting a group, or taking a prisoner. There are schools of fighting devoted to katana dual-wielding today.
Notably, he did say, "If you can't cut a man down with one hand, you must use two." He really is a man of "use what works for the situation" after all.

@Xuc Xac: You're right that he didn't say to always use two sword. Can't recall him saying to use the gun for the battlefield ("when swords are crossed the gun is useless") or the single sword for duels--but could be I haven't gotten far enough in the Book of Five Rings. So far, he mentioned that holding a sword in two hands is awkward when riding horses, running over rough terrain, or running through a crowd--he also said that it was hard to swing to the right and left.

He did say that the gun was great for defending castles, though--and possibly for attack castles, even.



Dwarf Stuff: With dwarves being inferior, shouldn't there still be some advantages? A powerful, compact physique does mean, after all, that you can wear some very nice armour which would be too heavy for humans.

While dwarves have shorter legs, aren't their legs also likely to be stronger and have less weight to manage? I'm just wondering how that'd balance out.



Grappling and Fighting stuff: Dwarves certainly do seem like great grapplers. They probably don't even need the knife, a good punch from one of those wide-set fellows in the groin will probably stop anyone. Even if their target has armour, they could probably twist and break joints pretty effectively with all their concentrated force.

Main defence against a dwarf would probably be a hard sudden strike to the head, maybe...? What do you guys think a good defence against a dwarven grappler/striker would be?


Mike_G makes a valid point indeed. A lot of longsword fighting is based on locking blades with your opponent, in such a way that you can stab their face/whatever, but they can't touch your body. Reach is still a factor, but it's not too huge of one.
A bit different for unarmed fighting, but you can still block and/or grab a badly used kick/punch.



Note on MMA: Don't those guys wear protective gear (boxing gloves, headgear, etc.)? That'll change how striking works by a ton, if so.

Xuc Xac
2011-04-20, 10:22 PM
Dwarf Stuff: With dwarves being inferior, shouldn't there still be some advantages?

In a game, there should still be advantages or no one will want to play them. From a realistic biomechanical point of view, no. Being a dwarf is all disadvantages. If you want to give them some advantages to balance out the disadvantages, you need to add fantastical elements.

I suppose you could say that dwarves have their musculature arranged for strength at the cost of their precision like a chimpanzee. A little chimp is freakishly strong compared to a human twice their size, but the chimp is also quite clumsy. If a human over the age of 3 moved like a chimpanzee, you would assume he was either extremely drunk or suffering from a degenerative nervous condition. The chimp also has little endurance because they're built for lounging around in small local area instead of roaming around all day. If you want to give dwarves in a game really high strength and really low agility, that might explain why they have a reputation for drinking: they don't really drink that much, but they're always stumbling and fumbling around like drunks even when they're sober.

Conners
2011-04-20, 10:45 PM
In a game, there should still be advantages or no one will want to play them. From a realistic biomechanical point of view, no. Being a dwarf is all disadvantages. If you want to give them some advantages to balance out the disadvantages, you need to add fantastical elements.

I suppose you could say that dwarves have their musculature arranged for strength at the cost of their precision like a chimpanzee. A little chimp is freakishly strong compared to a human twice their size, but the chimp is also quite clumsy. If a human over the age of 3 moved like a chimpanzee, you would assume he was either extremely drunk or suffering from a degenerative nervous condition. The chimp also has little endurance because they're built for lounging around in small local area instead of roaming around all day. If you want to give dwarves in a game really high strength and really low agility, that might explain why they have a reputation for drinking: they don't really drink that much, but they're always stumbling and fumbling around like drunks even when they're sober. XD That's actually a pretty interesting narrative idea you've got there!

What Type of muscle do chimps have, anyway...? Black people have a type of muscle which has quick reflexes and is good for boxing, but less endurable for things like swimming, for example (unless I've heard wrong). I don't know a lot about animal muscle types (though I've heard stuff like a spider which has been made human size loses the ability to move its own bodyweight, etc.).

alexi
2011-04-21, 12:25 AM
black people have the same type of muscle as all other people...

you have been seriously misinformed.

Norsesmithy
2011-04-21, 12:48 AM
Questionable gene linking aside, different people do have differences in their muscle metabolisms or some such that make their muscles better at certain things.

Great Apes have muscle fibers that are capable of exerting much more than human force per unit of muscle mass, but humans are capable of doing much more work per unit of muscle mass due to greater endurance.

As far as Grappling vs Striking, Grappling is hyper important in the octagon where every fight is one on one, no ambushes or surprises, but in the real world, a guy who's first instinct is to wrap up his opponent and take them to pavement will probably end up with the back of his head kicked in by his opponent's friends.

With regard to "Dwarves" of the fantasy persuasion, human style strength combined with lower than human body area allows for a suit of armor just as light as a normal suit of armor, but thicker. That's really the only advantage I can think of ATM.

Storm Bringer
2011-04-21, 01:26 AM
The only thing they might do better than humans is carrying a heavy backpack for a long march (because they don't need leverage to hang a weight on their shoulders and they have that hardy constitution), but they can't march as fast so they need that extra endurance: they need to march much longer to cover the same ground. I don't think their extra marching time will be enough to make up for their lower speed.


I'd argue that extra endurance, either on the march or in battle, is a advantage, and that lower speed is a even trade for that.


the speed of an army is not really tied to the speed of the infantry, at least in pre Mechanized days. what slowed the armies down was the thier baggage train. while a human is able to walk 20 miles in a day, most armies were lucky to move 10-15 miles a day, what with having to break their large and defensible camp, organise ther order of march, set off to their new campsite (which would already have been chosen, and chosen for things like water and protection over distance form the last camp), reach it, set up a new defendable camp, etc, etc.


ergo, at the strategic level, a dwarf army is not any slower. in combat, I'd aggree that it would do better playing keep away with crossbows and a solid sheild wall.

One advantage it would have, if the "average" dwarf has better stamina than the "average" human, is in any protracted melee fight the dwarves would fair better and better as the fight goes on (or at least, not loose as much ability to tiredness)

for cavalry, i would just suggest the dwarves do what so many infantry based warriors of the past did and just hire some mercs form a horse culture.:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:


of coruse, in a modern day situation, the numbers change agian. I'd think dwarven Mechanized infantry would likey be better than most human units.....:smallsmile::smallbiggrin::smalleek:

Xuc Xac
2011-04-21, 03:39 AM
What Type of muscle do chimps have, anyway...? Black people have a type of muscle which has quick reflexes and is good for boxing, but less endurable for things like swimming, for example (unless I've heard wrong). I don't know a lot about animal muscle types (though I've heard stuff like a spider which has been made human size loses the ability to move its own bodyweight, etc.).

Actually, muscle is muscle. As far as I know, there are only two types of muscle tissue: smooth and striated. Smooth muscle is the stuff used for involuntary actions, like pushing food along your intestine. Striated muscle is the stuff you use to move. Ants are so strong for their size, because very little force is needed to move the skeleton and organs of the ant. All almost all their muscular force can be used for lifting and pulling things. With a human or anything else bigger than an ant, a larger percentage of the body is "dead weight" like bones and organs that use up some of the muscular force. You can look up the square-cube law for more information about why giants collapse under their own weight.


Questionable gene linking aside, different people do have differences in their muscle metabolisms or some such that make their muscles better at certain things.

Great Apes have muscle fibers that are capable of exerting much more than human force per unit of muscle mass, but humans are capable of doing much more work per unit of muscle mass due to greater endurance.


Yeah, the thing about black people having more strength and quickness but less endurance is a crock. If they had less endurance, they would be terrible boxers (there is a reason boxers focus so much on aerobics and endurance training). Also, the olympic long distance running events wouldn't be dominated by equatorial African countries like Kenya and Ethiopia.

As far as muscles for power vs precision, humans have their muscles arranged for precision. A human body builder can work out for years and still not be as strong as a juvenile chimpanzee who doesn't even exercise. But a chimpanzee won't be able to ride a two-wheeled bicycle or draw a circle that doesn't look like it was smeared by a two-year old kid. The chimp actually has less muscle mass, but the muscles are attached to their skeletons differently. Their muscles have much better leverage on their limbs so they can exert much more power but they don't have as much accuracy and precision (which is why a human who imitates a chimp's style of walking and handling things looks like a drunken moron).

For endurance, humans are truly incredible. Have you ever heard anyone say how humans are screwed in the wild because we're slower and weaker than everything else and we don't have fangs or claws or antlers? We don't need those things and it's not because we're smarter. As far as the rest of the animal kingdom is concerned, humans are like the T-800 from "Terminator". The only things that even comes close to our level of endurance are canines, which is why we domesticated dogs so long ago. They were the only animal that could keep up with us. I read accounts of soldiers in the Crimean War who complained about having to carry so much stuff when they were on the march because their pack mules kept dropping dead from exhaustion so the soldiers had to carry the gear that the mules had been carrying.

Most animals that break a bone will just go into shock and die. Unless the bone is completely shattered, a human can keep limping around, take things easy for a while, and eventually recover. Without medical treatment, it might heal in an odd way and leave a permanent niggling injury, but it's not a death sentence like it would be for most animals. We can't run as fast as a cheetah or a gazelle, but we can walk forever. Since the dawn of man (and even now in the present day in some parts of Africa), people hunted and killed antelope without any weapons. Any human in moderately decent shape can do it.

A human sees an antelope on the savanna in the morning, so he walks towards it. It runs away like the wind, but then it stops after a short distance because it's tired and the human is far behind it. The human keeps walking. When he gets closer, the antelope runs again. The human keeps walking. It runs again but a little slower this time. The human keeps walking. Around midday, the antelope is absolutely terrified. It's burned through all it's adrenaline and it's run as hard and as fast as it can, but the human is still coming without even looking tired. In the mid-afternoon, the antelope gives its all in one last desperate attempt to run away, then it collapses. The human keeps coming. The antelope lies on the ground and watches the human come closer and closer, but it no longer has the strength to stand. It lies there exhausted and helpless as the human walks right up to it and kneels on its chest to suffocate it. The antelope exhales its last weary breath and passes out then dies. The human tosses it over his shoulders and turns around to walk back home with dinner for the whole family.

Humans are unstoppable juggernauts. We're not the fastest or the strongest, but we can survive injuries that would be fatal to any other animal and we absolutely will not stop. And it isn't just our energy level. We're also highly resistant to poisons. In fact, we find poisons to be delicious and we use them for recreation. Chocolate, onions, garlic, and most spices are deadly to other animals, but we use them to add zest to our food. Alcohol is a deadly poison, but we drink it for fun. We consume cocaine and caffeine to feel a pleasant alertness, but other animals consume them and say "Oh, this is disgustingly bitter! Ow, my heart exploded!" We eat raw pineapple and think it's sweet and it makes our mouths feel a little tingly if we eat a lot of it. Other animals eat a raw pineapple and they start bleeding from their mouths and noses as their mucus membranes break down from the destructive enzymes in the fruit.

Humans aren't the boring species that D&D makes them out to be. We're the broken munchkin race with a d12 racial hit die and a huge Fort Save bonus.

Spiryt
2011-04-21, 03:52 AM
As far as Grappling vs Striking, Grappling is hyper important in the octagon where every fight is one on one, no ambushes or surprises, but in the real world, a guy who's first instinct is to wrap up his opponent and take them to pavement will probably end up with the back of his head kicked in by his opponent's friends.


I never get this argument.

If you're alone versus opponent and his "friends" - then you're pretty screwed no matter if you're grappling, striking or whatever. Unless you're flying and tossing fireballs, then why not.

If you have any chance in such a fight, it's because you're not alone either.

Grappling is natural form of fighting for humans, striking really isn't, and pretty much most "street fights" end on the ground or in chaotic clinch anyway, by statistics.

Hell, Gracies perfected 'their' Jiu Jitsu just because many of them were rather irascible guys living in dangerous places. :smallbiggrin:



Note on MMA: Don't those guys wear protective gear (boxing gloves, headgear, etc.)? That'll change how striking works by a ton, if so.

Today the wear small, 4 ounces gloves and mouthpiece, and that's pretty much it (save crotch protector).

In past vale tudo, first UFC's etc. events I was referring to, they weren't wearing anything, that was kinda the point.

Storm Bringer
2011-04-21, 04:39 AM
Humans are the boring species that D&D makes them out to be. We're the broken munchkin race with a d12 racial hit die and a huge Fort Save bonus.


"We poison our air and water to weed out the weak! We set off fission bombs in our only biosphere! We nailed our God to a stick! Don't **** with the human race!"


:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Yora
2011-04-21, 05:40 AM
Or as said in Star Trek on 20th century humans:
"They irradiate their planet and poison their bodies. You can sell everything to these people!"

Conners
2011-04-21, 06:42 AM
Mm, a bit surprised if there's no truth in the different muscle types between human races bit. Heard it in more than one place, you see (a boxing anime, and from a friend at college). They reckoned the reflex speed was somewhat faster, when the main character was fighting a black boxer. I guess it's just a wide-spread misconception?
This is the type of thing I heard: http://www.slate.com/id/2197721/


With striking and taking on groups... as far as swords and weapons go, one man can defeat ten men if he knows the way of strategy--according to Musashi, at least :smalltongue:.


Notably with humans and poison, some animals like rabbits(?) are pretty well immune to snake venom which would kill a human. Also, we can be born allergic to peanuts, or even water.

Spiryt
2011-04-21, 06:54 AM
"Human races" are generally wonderfully imprecise terms. We call differently pigmented people a "race" even though besides roughly similar color average guy from Kenya plains will be completely different as far as most other traits go, compared to some Bushmen, let alone Aborigine or Pygmy.

So Usain Bolt can have ridiculous running muscles, because that's how he's genetically equipped, that doesn't mean that some black guy from New York is as well....



With striking and taking on groups... as far as swords and weapons go, one man can defeat ten men if he knows the way of strategy--according to Musashi, at least

Weirder things had happened than 1 against 10 victory, but it's very very improbable, if only 10 have even the slightest idea what to do.

Yora
2011-04-21, 06:58 AM
I think it's quite possible that there are some minor differences in muscles depending on the gene pool a person is coming from, but I'd guess that it's negligible compared to how much muscles adjust to the work they have to do. The body adapts to the conditions it's exposed to and the muscles more than any other part of the body.

I think the dwarf combat discussion is quite interesting, but not the kind of question usually dealt with in this thread. What do you think about starting a new thread about speculative arms and combat in fictional settings? There are lots of things I wondered about, but don't really belong here.

I've read about a guy in india who won against 40 train robbers, killing and maiming half of them before the rest surrendered. Though if it took place inside the train, it would have been 20 1 on 1 fights in succession.

Spiryt
2011-04-21, 07:10 AM
I think it's quite possible that there are some minor differences in muscles depending on the gene pool a person is coming from, but I'd guess that it's negligible compared to how much muscles adjust to the work they have to do. The body adapts to the conditions it's exposed to and the muscles more than any other part of the body.



There are major differences. Even if I would train from the age of 4, I would never beat any records in most disciplines (I'm relatively fast, so maybe 100 sprint I could be decent at, but that's not the point).

There are few people can punch and kick with deadly force "just because", keeping it in topic. Most 'average' people must train something to really become dangerous with it, while there are plenty people who can't really grasp it, even when they train long and hard. "Pillow fists" or whatever.

Genetic predispositions have quite big meaning, whole period of childhood and growing and adaptation has certainly even bigger, but still, point stands.

Conners
2011-04-21, 07:37 AM
It gets even more complicated when you get multiple races mixing together. How many times does a race of Chinese decent need to marry with those of Caucasian or Hispanic descent before they're no longer Chinese, for example?


So Usain Bolt can have ridiculous running muscles, because that's how he's genetically equipped, that doesn't mean that some black guy from New York is as well.... Yes, not every African-American is a better runner than every Caucasian-American. However, on average, aren't African-Americans known for having more twitch-muscle fibres?

I don't know how it works on averages. For all I know, it might be that only 1% of the African-American population has more ligaments than the average Caucasian-American.



Weirder things had happened than 1 against 10 victory, but it's very very improbable, if only 10 have even the slightest idea what to do. Honestly, if they had no idea what to do, and were against a similarly-armed killer.... it would be lambs to the slaughter.


@Yora: Yes, I was wondering how on-topic the question would be in the first place. Sorry for derailing things. I'll start a thread on, "Fictional Weapons/War Discussion" Weapons and war go hand-in-hand after all.


Also, WOW O_O! What kind of weapons were involved? Was it a gun fight, a knife fight, or were they strangely unarmed? This is one of the most interesting things I've heard in some time!



@Spiryt: Yes, when you're competing in the Olympics, there probably is a hard limit that training won't get you past, when you've reached your peak and the other guy has slightly more of the right kind of muscle.

Wait, so you mean there are some people who are so genetically bad at something that they, more or less, can't do it? I guess I have heard of this sort of thing... that's why fan-fics tend to be awful to read since anyone can write them, I guess.

Yora
2011-04-21, 07:46 AM
Looked it up. He killed and injured only 11 of the robbers. It still were about 40 in total. :smallbiggrin:
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=27100

I particularly liked the part that for as long as they only took peoples money, he just kept quiet and gave them the money. Very responsible.

Conners
2011-04-21, 08:00 AM
Thank you, I look forward to the read :).

Sometimes, I do wonder as to how much people should stay quiet and not fight robbers, though... Should people do it a lot, we'd have far less robbers.


Also, I started that thread I mentioned... hope this successful thread design isn't copyrighted :smallredface:: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10828616#post10828616

Yora
2011-04-21, 08:07 AM
The first goal of a fight should always be "get out if it unharmed".

The reason for crime lies not in the fact that it's so easy to do. Expecting more resistance won't keep people from commiting crime, but rather to become more brutal. If you want to fight or surrender is your choice, but you're not doing society a favor by fighting back.
I rather have muggings rise from 100 to 120 with nobody getting injured, than having them decrease to 80 with many victims left injured or dead.

Spiryt
2011-04-21, 08:08 AM
Thank you, I look forward to the read :).

Sometimes, I do wonder as to how much people should stay quiet and not fight robbers, though... Should people do it a lot, we'd have far less robbers.



This guy had ridiculous balls and and experience. And still, if he had more luck, or robbers were less freaked out and broken by the fact that somebody actually is resisting.....

Or if it wasn't in train -had it actually happened on the marketplace in small village or something, he would have no chance.

So resisting robbers is great and just thing to do - but only if you indeed actually have chance to act successfully.


It gets even more complicated when you get multiple races mixing together. How many times does a race of Chinese decent need to marry with those of Caucasian or Hispanic descent before they're no longer Chinese, for example?

I'm pretty damn certain, that there's no such things "a race of Chinese". Chinese people were pretty damn always huge in numbers, on huge territory, that went trough many different things.

I would not be surprised if there was greater genetic diversity in China than among "Hispanic" people, or whatever.

Yora
2011-04-21, 08:28 AM
For "ethnic chinese", the Han would probably what most people are thinking of. But that's still about 20% of the worlds population.
Also, ethnicity is actually a socio-cultural concept and not a genetic one. Ethnic groups split and merge constantly. The most useful definition is a group of people that identify as belonging together and being seperate from others. Today wikipedia has a page on ethnic austrians, but in the 30s and 40s, there were no seperate german and austrian ethnicities. And you won't find a Frisian claiming he has the same historic roots as a Swabian.

Xuc Xac
2011-04-21, 08:41 AM
Also, WOW O_O! What kind of weapons were involved? Was it a gun fight, a knife fight, or were they strangely unarmed? This is one of the most interesting things I've heard in some time!


He was a ghurka soldier on his way home after being discharged from the army. He sat quietly and handed over his wallet while the robbers went through the train collecting cash, cellphones, laptops, and necklaces. When the robbers started stripping an 18-year-old girl to rape her, she called out to him, "You are a soldier. Please help a sister!" So he stood up and pulled out his khukari. His left arm got cut up, so I guess the robbers had knives too.

I remember when it happened. Everyone saw the headline that said "Soldier fights 40 Dacoits, kills 11" and said "wow, no way!" Then they looked at the article that started with "A ghurka soldier..." and said "Oh, a ghurka. That makes sense." The "Humans are Warriors" trope is entirely justified by the existence of ghurkas.

KiwiQuest
2011-04-21, 08:45 AM
On muscle:

Overall, there are three types of muscles:

Cardiac: Name kinda gives this one away.

Smooth: Muscle layers around intestines, blood veins, stuff like that. The main thing about these is that they're generally not under conscious control.

Skeletal: The ones you can control, arms/legs/chest/etc. These are the ones we'll focus on now.


Now, muscle fibers (the components making up the muscle as such) also vary. We have - again - three types:

Type I: Slow twitch, these are basically "endurance" muscles. They function almost exclusively by using oxygen, and produce a relatively low output but can keep it up for some time.

Type IIa: Fast oxidative fibres. These are a bit of a mix, they produce a relatively high output for a short time, but have the capacity for some endurance too.

Type IIb: Fast twitch, works mostly without oxygen and produces a high output for a very short period of time. Sprints, heavy lifting, "explosive movement"


Everyone is born with a ratio of type I and II fibers, and that doesn't change, meaning if you're born with 70% slow twitch, you're naturally better at endurance sports than sprinting. Training will still improve your fast twitch muscles, but compared to someone more naturally inclined towards it, you will have trouble keeping up (he's using 70% of his muscles, you're using 30%). Generally, top level athletes tend to be the extremes in muscle fiber ratios, for example cross country skiers have a ridiculously high amount of slow twitch fibers, whereas sprinters will have a lot of type II fibers.
Furthermore, different muscle groups have different ratios. Legs tend to have a larger ratio of slow twitch, whereas arms and shoulders tend to have a higher ratio of fast twitch, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it, seeing as you tend to use your legs for long periods of time at low intensity and your arms for short intervals of heavy work.
This is somewhat over-simplified, but it illustrates the point.

Its true that different countries/regions have a general traits when it comes to muscle fiber ratios. Kenya has been mentioned, which is a well-known example of a region with a high ratio of slow twitch fibers. You could speculate that natural selection has played a part in this, in Kenya you'd be more succesful as a hunter if you could run down the prey after you had wounded it, in Scandinavia you'd be a crappy viking if you couldn't row a boat, etc, but that's neither here nor there.

tl:dr: Yes, there are differences in muscle types, and different regions in the world have different general traits when it comes to muscle types.

Sorry for derailing the weapon debate, movin' right along :)

Conners
2011-04-21, 10:07 AM
Ghurkas really are that legendary? They certainly sound very tough o.o!


Thank you for the detailed muscle explanation, KiwiQuest! Personally, I don't see it as derailing the thread--muscle has a lot to do with use of weapons, after all--especially when the body is used as a weapon.

averagejoe
2011-04-21, 02:27 PM
From the last thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168432):

Just a couple quick things:

1) You don't need to quote the first post. Just go ahead and create the thread.

2) Please edit the first post to contain links to the previous threads.

3) I'd appreciate it if you could PM me (or one of the other RPG's mods) when you do create a new thread, so that I can update the Q&A by RAW and Notable Threads links.

Norsesmithy
2011-04-21, 04:56 PM
The reason for crime lies not in the fact that it's so easy to do. Expecting more resistance won't keep people from commiting crime, but rather to become more brutal. If you want to fight or surrender is your choice, but you're not doing society a favor by fighting back.

This is only true if you are unable to resist effectively. The remote possibility (<10%) of (pistol) armed resistance by the chosen victim has been shown to be a more effective crime deterrent than a 50% increase in police presence, and armed citizens consistently top the list of fears in prisoner surveys.

But I digress, as such discussion strays dangerously close to political discussion.


I never get this argument.

If you're alone versus opponent and his "friends" - then you're pretty screwed no matter if you're grappling, striking or whatever. Unless you're flying and tossing fireballs, then why not.

If you have any chance in such a fight, it's because you're not alone either.

Grappling is natural form of fighting for humans, striking really isn't, and pretty much most "street fights" end on the ground or in chaotic clinch anyway, by statistics.

The reason why it's better to fight like a striker if you are in a situation where you may be outnumbered is because it's easier to disengage if you are up and striking than if you are in the clinch. And in a fight against several opponents, a trained striker has an easier time forcing opponents to keep their distance, until he can find or generate an escape route.

Not to say that learning to grapple isn't important, it is much more effective in a "fair" fight, and it's important to know how to work in the clinch and escape the clinch if necessary, but the skillset and abilities of a person who trains as a striker are more effective, IMO, at accomplishing your fist fight goal (no, it isn't to knock his block off, it's to protect yourself and GTFO).


Ghurkas really are that legendary? They certainly sound very tough o.o!

Put it this way, back in the Korean War, there was an American encampment that was on high alert, because they were having to repulse Chinese and North Korean infiltrators at all hours of the day and night.

The Ghurka Rifles were passing along the front, to get to one of the flanks, and on their way through, they went and put a chalk X on every rifle in camp, except for the 4 rifles the sentries that night were holding.

No one caught them doing it.

Matthew
2011-04-21, 06:23 PM
@Fhaolan _&_ Storm Bringer: Yes, that is something few people realize today. It's also annoying when people call "mail" "chain-mail".

Well, "chain mail" is not so bad, but "chain mail armour" is hilarious, as it basically translates to "chain armour armour" (during the nineteenth century it was pretty common to use "mail" as a substitute for "armour" and a faulty taxonomy of "mail" observed in the Bayeux Tapestry is what gives us "chain mail", "splint mail", and "banded mail")"; "mail armour", "chain armour", and "chain mail" are all passable, though the first is preferable, but for obvious reasons "mail mail" is right out. :smallbiggrin:

Shademan
2011-04-21, 10:11 PM
As a 5 foot 3 guy who has won medals in fencing and excelled in close combat in the Marines, reach doesn't matter a much as people think it does. You just need to block that first attack, then get inside his reach and gut the bugger.

A human would get the first shot fighting a dwarf, but if he missed and let a massive, strong stocky guy with a short vicious sword inside his guard, he could be screwed.

All trees are felled at ground level.

the height argument? ah i love that one
"watch out, man. he's taller than you. he'll beat you up."
then you put a shiv in his knee and suddenly it doesnt matter much.
tho' long monkey arms are really annoying, specially if their knife is longer than yours

Conners
2011-04-21, 10:39 PM
@Norsesmithy: Wow... stealthy o.o! I might've heard of them after all, if they're the ones I'm thinking of (wasn't there a story where they just snuck into a camp, and slit all the Germans'/whatevers' throats?).


@Matthew: Oh dear heck how annoying that one sounds XD. I remember reading something about the Bayeux Tapestry, I think... something about how they caused a lot of the bad namings for mail and other armours.


@Shademan: Notably, height still has advantages--generally the ability to use a really big weapon or wear thicker armour.

Shademan
2011-04-21, 11:33 PM
@Norsesmithy: Wow... stealthy o.o! I might've heard of them after all, if they're the ones I'm thinking of (wasn't there a story where they just snuck into a camp, and slit all the Germans'/whatevers' throats?).


@Matthew: Oh dear heck how annoying that one sounds XD. I remember reading something about the Bayeux Tapestry, I think... something about how they caused a lot of the bad namings for mail and other armours.


@Shademan: Notably, height still has advantages--generally the ability to use a really big weapon or wear thicker armour.

which is why you should never fight fair

Spiryt
2011-04-22, 02:35 AM
The reason why it's better to fight like a striker if you are in a situation where you may be outnumbered is because it's easier to disengage if you are up and striking than if you are in the clinch. And in a fight against several opponents, a trained striker has an easier time forcing opponents to keep their distance, until he can find or generate an escape route.

Not to say that learning to grapple isn't important, it is much more effective in a "fair" fight, and it's important to know how to work in the clinch and escape the clinch if necessary, but the skillset and abilities of a person who trains as a striker are more effective, IMO, at accomplishing your fist fight goal (no, it isn't to knock his block off, it's to protect yourself and GTFO).


I would say that putting things like that any general form of grappling becomes even more important, because one would have any at least general knowledge how avoid being tripped, run over, clinched, how to get up etc.

If one is trying to punch or kick his way out he's simply out of possibilities to protect himself and GTFO as soon as someone grabs his trunk, legs, or whatever and doesn't want to let go.

fusilier
2011-04-22, 04:13 AM
Well, "chain mail" is not so bad, but "chain mail armour" is hilarious, as it basically translates to "chain armour armour" (during the nineteenth century it was pretty common to use "mail" as a substitute for "armour" and a faulty taxonomy of "mail" observed in the Bayeux Tapestry is what gives us "chain mail", "splint mail", and "banded mail")"; "mail armour", "chain armour", and "chain mail" are all passable, though the first is preferable, but for obvious reasons "mail mail" is right out. :smallbiggrin:

What if you are posting something in a (chain) mail envelope? Wouldn't that be "mail mail"? :-)

[Now I run away to avoid the pun police]

valadil
2011-04-22, 08:28 AM
the height argument? ah i love that one
"watch out, man. he's taller than you. he'll beat you up."
then you put a shiv in his knee and suddenly it doesnt matter much.
tho' long monkey arms are really annoying, specially if their knife is longer than yours

Which brings me to a question I may have asked previously, but can't be bothered to dig up. Also there are different posters now so answers may be different.

What sort of advantage does size buy you in a fight?

I think reach is a slight advantage, all else being equal. But the shorter guy can definitely train around it. I actually think someone who is 5'3" would have less of a time with height because he's already prepared to be at the reach disadvantage than someone of average height going up against someone really tall. If you're 5'10" you probably haven't been the shorter one very often, so when it does happen you don't know what to do. That's just speculation though.

I also think weight would provide an advantage. If it didn't why would MMA, boxing, and wrestling use weight classes? Maybe a bigger opponent having the advantage really just means a heavier opponent, but the term "bigger" is ambiguous and often misinterpreted as taller?

Eldan
2011-04-22, 08:29 AM
More mass means you are more difficult to stop, and your punches hurt more. Also, more muscles and fat over vulnerable areas: large guys are effectively "padded".

Matthew
2011-04-22, 08:31 AM
What if you are posting something in a (chain) mail envelope? Wouldn't that be "mail mail"? :-)

[Now I run away to avoid the pun police]

Mailed mail that has been mailed? :smallbiggrin:

Spiryt
2011-04-22, 08:44 AM
What sort of advantage does size buy you in a fight?

I think reach is a slight advantage, all else being equal. But the shorter guy can definitely train around it. I actually think someone who is 5'3" would have less of a time with height because he's already prepared to be at the reach disadvantage than someone of average height going up against someone really tall. If you're 5'10" you probably haven't been the shorter one very often, so when it does happen you don't know what to do. That's just speculation though.

I also think weight would provide an advantage. If it didn't why would MMA, boxing, and wrestling use weight classes? Maybe a bigger opponent having the advantage really just means a heavier opponent, but the term "bigger" is ambiguous and often misinterpreted as taller?

Seriously?

Being bigger in skeleton size, muscle mass etc. means that you're likely to be stronger in all cases, no matter if it's pushing, pulling, picking up, tackling, punching, slamming, your opponent has more mass to move around, struggle with etc, etc.

You're just being able to exert greater impacts on physical world.

Shademan
2011-04-22, 08:55 AM
Which brings me to a question I may have asked previously, but can't be bothered to dig up. Also there are different posters now so answers may be different.

What sort of advantage does size buy you in a fight?

I think reach is a slight advantage, all else being equal. But the shorter guy can definitely train around it. I actually think someone who is 5'3" would have less of a time with height because he's already prepared to be at the reach disadvantage than someone of average height going up against someone really tall. If you're 5'10" you probably haven't been the shorter one very often, so when it does happen you don't know what to do. That's just speculation though.

I also think weight would provide an advantage. If it didn't why would MMA, boxing, and wrestling use weight classes? Maybe a bigger opponent having the advantage really just means a heavier opponent, but the term "bigger" is ambiguous and often misinterpreted as taller?

in yer average day to day brawling i find that it mainly just adds reach.
and every little bit of reach helps, which is why short folks gotta be devious

valadil
2011-04-22, 09:51 AM
Seriously?

Being bigger in skeleton size, muscle mass etc. means that you're likely to be stronger in all cases, no matter if it's pushing, pulling, picking up, tackling, punching, slamming, your opponent has more mass to move around, struggle with etc, etc.

You're just being able to exert greater impacts on physical world.

Yeah seriously. I'm 6'4" and about 275. People are constantly telling me that despite that they could beat me up if they felt like it. They don't actually pick fights mind you, they just like verbally asserting themselves. Other people tell me I'm a badass, even though they have no basis for saying that. I haven't been in a fight since before puberty. Basically I've heard so much misinformation and it's been reinforced for so long I can't actually sort out what's accurate on my own anymore and I need help from an outside source to set the record straight.

I'm well aware that I have more brute strength than everyone around me. I don't know how that translates in a fight and I'm not about to pick a fight just to find out. I assume that someone with training and technique could knock me over, but I don't know just how much training it takes to overcome size.

Spiryt
2011-04-22, 10:36 AM
Yeah seriously. I'm 6'4" and about 275. People are constantly telling me that despite that they could beat me up if they felt like it. They don't actually pick fights mind you, they just like verbally asserting themselves. Other people tell me I'm a badass, even though they have no basis for saying that. I haven't been in a fight since before puberty. Basically I've heard so much misinformation and it's been reinforced for so long I can't actually sort out what's accurate on my own anymore and I need help from an outside source to set the record straight.



Uh, yes, technique, skill, awareness speed etc. are all important things.

However, the sheer physical ability is terribly important too.

I rarely fought or even did anything similar in my life, yet it's pretty obvious to me how hard is to struggle with someone who's bigger, and how easily I could beat people who are weaker than me....

If I play football (soccer for Americuns. :smalltongue:) I can feel like I bounce away from somebody who's moving fast having 60 pounds on me.

People who are telling you that they could "beat you up" seem insecure and generally weird to me, although it depends on context....




I'm well aware that I have more brute strength than everyone around me. I don't know how that translates in a fight and I'm not about to pick a fight just to find out. I assume that someone with training and technique could knock me over, but I don't know just how much training it takes to overcome size.

It translates just directly.

Heavier guy moves around more mass, that is able to do more with objects around, including other people.

If one has absolutely no idea how to use his strength and mass, it can very well not translate much.

If you have no experience with fighting, and are generally not good at it, someone obviously can be 135 pound lady, and still run you over, if she knows what she's doing.

Doesn't change the fact that it would mean that in such case she would be able to absolutely devour ladies similar size to her.

You can watch this classic freakshow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey0UVew1xNc) for good example.

Kaoklai is around 80 kg, is quick, coordinated guy with actual skills and achievements in Muay Thai and kickboxing.

Hong Man Choi is pretty much guy with severe gigantism. He's slow, lumbering around, not very coordinated or agile obviously. He actually had problems with brain tumor.

His skills in any martial art are pretty much basic.

He made quite decent carrier with his enormous size.

You can watch early UFC Kimo vs Gracie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=porK0Y4BCk0)

Royce was obviously black belt in BJJ, who was submitting other guys in this days left and right.

Kimo was basically bar brawler with no sensible training or experience in netiher grappling nor anything else, and he was almost able to win just by 80 pounds of additional roided up muscles.

Many speculate that if not for his long hair, which allowed Gracie to control Kimo's head to get away from bad spot, he would lost the fight.

He was so battered that he couldn't continue to the next round anyway.

You can watch many of such things, or you can just ask smaller friend to wrestle around for fun.

I can assure you, that if he doesn't have much more clue than you have, he will end on his back in bad spot. :smallwink:

valadil
2011-04-22, 10:45 AM
I can assure you, that if he doesn't have much more clue than you have, he will end on his back in bad spot. :smallwink:

Yeah, I figured that much. All else being equal size wins. I guess I'm trying to quantify "much more clue." I mean, I figure I could probably beat someone with a single rank or two in a martial art. I would probably not beat anyone with a black belt, or if I could I'd lose all respect for their martial art. I have no idea what a year or two of martial arts would buy someone.

Spiryt
2011-04-22, 11:05 AM
Yeah, I figured that much. All else being equal size wins. I guess I'm trying to quantify "much more clue." I mean, I figure I could probably beat someone with a single rank or two in a martial art. I would probably not beat anyone with a black belt, or if I could I'd lose all respect for their martial art. I have no idea what a year or two of martial arts would buy someone.

Depends on martial art, teacher, actual guy, his predispositions, outlook, amount of work and actual effort in training, diet, age, overall fitness, mental resilience.... And thousand other things.

There's no easy answer, especially that I don't know anything about you either.

Generally, if someone of average ~ 180 pound size was doing say, folk wrestling for two years with dedication etc. I would bet on him slamming you on your head with boring regularity, if you really have no experience.

If you however was wrestling at least, say, 1 year compared to his 2, things are getting complicated.

For more details you would have to ask guys who actually train for many years, you will receive many anecdotes without doubt.

Dienekes
2011-04-22, 11:11 AM
Yeah seriously. I'm 6'4" and about 275. People are constantly telling me that despite that they could beat me up if they felt like it. They don't actually pick fights mind you, they just like verbally asserting themselves. Other people tell me I'm a badass, even though they have no basis for saying that. I haven't been in a fight since before puberty. Basically I've heard so much misinformation and it's been reinforced for so long I can't actually sort out what's accurate on my own anymore and I need help from an outside source to set the record straight.

I'm well aware that I have more brute strength than everyone around me. I don't know how that translates in a fight and I'm not about to pick a fight just to find out. I assume that someone with training and technique could knock me over, but I don't know just how much training it takes to overcome size.

I've been in a few fights (more than I'm proud of anyway), in general brute strength can carry you through if the opponent isn't well trained. To overcome brute strength it really depends on what they're training and where they're getting it. A lot of folks who claim training go to cheap dojos where they learn some funny moves, long drills, and call themselves black belts. In general this doesn't mean too much. But if you get someone who trains hard and actually knows what they're doing overcoming size in an untrained opponent is hard but do able depending on just how big of a size difference we're talking about.

randomhero00
2011-04-22, 11:52 AM
Its been answered very well already but its finally a subject I can weigh in on with personal experience!

I'm 6'2" 240 lbs. AND lanky. Reach helps a lot BUT you need to know how to use it! For instance the most important thing when you're a guy like me, is to be able to smoothly and efficiently (i.e. not fall) make space without looking or taking your gaze off your opponent. I've gotten really good at this, AND attacking as I retreat while the shorter guy tries to keep up.

Sparring in a grassy field I actually retreated and attacked as my opponent attacked and followed for about 20 yards. 20 yards I was practically sprinting backward. In that case I won that fight because he just could not get past my reach.

Weight, it can also help a lot. Basically martial arts is almost like paper rock scissors. IF you know how to use your weight and throw it around then its an advantage. IF you don't, then its a liability. Just as reach is a liability if you don't become fast enough.

So a real fight, no matter the time, period, or weaponry, basically goes like this in order of importance (except guns of course being on a different level):
Speed: does your mind and body go fast?
Technique: are your movements efficient enough to take advantage of your power?
After technique and speed they combine into:
Power: How much weight can you put behind an attack and how much speed?
Strategy
Tactics

Spiryt
2011-04-22, 12:04 PM
I
Weight, it can also help a lot. Basically martial arts is almost like paper rock scissors. IF you know how to use your weight and throw it around then its an advantage. IF you don't, then its a liability. Just as reach is a liability if you don't become fast enough.


Reach - certainly, but I can't imagine how weight as isolated thing would become liability.

Sure, big guy would be from natural reason on average (that word really doesn't mean much though:smallwink:) a bit slower, with worse endurance etc, but advantages outweigh (literally) those significantly. :smallwink:

Provided that "weight" is not ridiculously overbuilt bodybuilder type muscle, or big mass of fat, of course.

HenryHankovitch
2011-04-22, 01:46 PM
Depends on martial art, teacher, actual guy, his predispositions, outlook, amount of work and actual effort in training, diet, age, overall fitness, mental resilience.... And thousand other things.

There's no easy answer, especially that I don't know anything about you either.

This is why it's always important to view different martial arts schools not as different sets of moves--which is how movies and video games and comic books have trained us to see them--but as different types of training regimen. A guy who goes to a boxing gym, does a minimal warmup, some bag-work, and shadow-boxing isn't really practicing the same martial art as the guy who goes to a boxing gym for an extensive workout plus sparring with opponents, and then goes home for a ten-mile run. They both learn the same 'techniques,' but what they're actually practicing is completely different.

Some schools teach martial arts as a hobby and a workout. Some teach them as a sport, in the most serious sense. Some--very few--teach them as a combat method for self-defense. Two years in the hobbyist belt-factory is literally incomparable with two years in the Olympic training gym or two years at McHardcheese's Mixed Martial Arts. They're all training to do different things.

Dienekes
2011-04-22, 01:54 PM
So a real fight, no matter the time, period, or weaponry, basically goes like this in order of importance (except guns of course being on a different level):
Speed: does your mind and body go fast?
Technique: are your movements efficient enough to take advantage of your power?
After technique and speed they combine into:
Power: How much weight can you put behind an attack and how much speed?
Strategy
Tactics

Hmm, an interesting list, but not one I think I agree with completely.

I think it's more:
Experience: Those who know what they're about and don't panic and let adrenaline make them do stupid mistakes have an enormous advantage in my opinion.
Endurance: I'm sort of combining two things here, the ability to last long and absorb a hit. This can be armor, shields, or just being tougher than they guy throwing the punch. Everyone will make mistakes in a fight, anything that let's them survive that mistake is a must.
Basic Technique: You need to know how to throw a punch right at least.
Speed/Power: Depending on the weapon, or more importantly if there is a weapon. In unarmed combat I'd rather be slightly stronger than my opponent than slightly faster. If weapons are being used to mitigate the power behind a blow this then speed becomes predominant.
Advanced Technique: Yes doing that spinning kick is impressive but less important than knowing where to hold your hands to protect your face.
Strategy/Tactics: Which is more important depends far too much on the situation in my opinion.

Yukitsu
2011-04-22, 04:02 PM
Reach - certainly, but I can't imagine how weight as isolated thing would become liability.

Sure, big guy would be from natural reason on average (that word really doesn't mean much though:smallwink:) a bit slower, with worse endurance etc, but advantages outweigh (literally) those significantly. :smallwink:

Provided that "weight" is not ridiculously overbuilt bodybuilder type muscle, or big mass of fat, of course.

I'm 5'7, maybe 150 or so pounds. If I get shoulder thrown, and hit the ground hard, it doesn't take much time to get back up and keep fighting.

I can shoulder throw up to a 320 pound guy. If he's taller than 6'5, the angles give me problems, so it's probably less, but I can shoulder throw fairly heavy people. If I do this to them on something like concrete, they probably aren't getting back up. Doesn't matter if they're muscle or fat, or just wearing really heavy gear, the impact can really make the impact that much worse.

That is one of my favourite moves against people with much longer reach than me. If I keep my arms close in, and they try to use that reach, I can get a lot more leverage on their arm, even if they're stronger than me.

Mike_G
2011-04-23, 12:31 PM
Size matters, and it matters more in unarmed combat. A big guy can throw a much harder punch, and take a harder punch and exert more force in a grapple than a little guy.

When you are talking weapons, training and technique matter more. It doesn't take a lot of strength to push a blade through flesh, and a big guy with a hole in his liver bleeds as fast as a little guy with a hole in his liver. Speed matters more with weapons than it does with unarmed, since a quick thrust or cut can cripple or kill you where a quick but not all that forceful punch probably won't.

One problem with comparing MMA or competition is that a lot of little guy moves are illegal, since a little guy can't make a big guy submit, but he can gouge out an eye, or crush a trachea, or get inside the big guys guard and slam his testicles up into his throat. Small fighters learn the vulnerable points to attack, since they can't just rely on force. Obviously, no professional fighter wants to risk a thumb in his eye every bout, but in a do or die moment, I won't be trading punches to the nose or submission holds with a big guy.

Reach is nice, but people seem to overvalue it. I've had numerous fights,for real and for competition, and I've never had the reach advantage, so I've learned that I have to be able to avoid or stop the first attack before I can make my own. It's not a big deal, and since I've learned short guy fighting, I don't miss reach like a tall guy fighting a taller guy for the first time might. And once you get in close, his reach becomes a disadvantage. Of course if he's much stronger and more massive, that's still bad.

Strength is a big deal. Mass is a big deal. There's a reason most fighting is weight class, not height class. Boxers, wrestlers, MMA guys are not built like marathoners or basketball players.

Incanur
2011-04-23, 12:43 PM
One problem with comparing MMA or competition is that a lot of little guy moves are illegal, since a little guy can't make a big guy submit, but he can gouge out an eye, or crush a trachea, or get inside the big guys guard and slam his testicles up into his throat.

This is a critical point. I believe there's line a line somewhere in the German historical martial tradition to that effect that bigger folks have the advantage when wrestling for fun but skill matters more when fighting in earnest.


Reach is nice, but people seem to overvalue it.

Reach matters relatively less in unarmed and armored combat, because under those circumstances folks can afford to take a hit. In an unarmored fight with sharp weapons, reach gives great odds.

Luzahn
2011-04-23, 04:32 PM
Apologies if it has been asked, but what would the approximate weights of a warhammer and a maul be? I assume it has been answered, but the current page count is a bit much to sift through.

Matthew
2011-04-23, 04:35 PM
Apologies if it has been asked, but what would the approximate weights of a warhammer and a maul be? I assume it has been answered, but the current page count is a bit much to sift through.

Anything from about a 1 lb to maybe 6 lbs at the upper limit for war hammers of various lengths [i.e. from about 12" haft to 5'+] and head configuration. A "maul" is not really a weapon, but for construction (or destruction) work, so it can be considerably heavier.

Luzahn
2011-04-23, 05:39 PM
Anything from about a 1 lb to maybe 6 lbs at the upper limit for war hammers of various lengths [i.e. from about 12" haft to 5'+] and head configuration. A "maul" is not really a weapon, but for construction (or destruction) work, so it can be considerably heavier.

Thanks. I'd assumed the maul was not a weapon, but was still interested in how it would feel as one. What would the proper martial equivalent to a heavy, two-handed, crushing weapon be?

Matthew
2011-04-23, 05:54 PM
Thanks. I'd assumed the maul was not a weapon, but was still interested in how it would feel as one. What would the proper martial equivalent to a heavy, two-handed, crushing weapon be?

Ungainly, I would imagine. :smallbiggrin:

The only real evidence for mauls being used in battle that springs to mind are a few accounts of English longbowmen making use of them, amongst other weapons, to dispatch fallen French knights. As far as I can tell there is a literary motive at work showing the rusticity of the English and the ignominy for French knights being slain in such ways. I have heard of a later account where the mauls of the longbowmen were "weaponised", but it seems to have been a sort of late period experiment.

Most pole-axes (http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_spot_poleaxe.html) show a variety of heads, with the back hammer being the most likely one for a martial crushing weapon. You could conceivably get one with two hammer heads or rounded hammers, but that would limit its usefulness. A gutenmorgan or morning star would be a good two-handed crushing weapon as well, but these are all combination weapons (spear + mace, or spear + hammer, or whatever). A hammer or mace with a long haft will basically be the same sort of thing. Some pictures:


Morning Star/Gutenmorgan

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Plle200/Arms%20and%20Armour/Photographs/Morg-3.jpg

Selection of Hammers/Maces

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Plle200/Arms%20and%20Armour/Photographs/belg46.jpg

Mace and Hammer like Pole Axe things

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Plle200/Arms%20and%20Armour/Photographs/L25.jpg

Luzahn
2011-04-23, 06:16 PM
Heh, that's an impressive arsenal. Thanks for the info.

Incanur
2011-04-23, 07:14 PM
No, the weight of the evidence shows the English intentionally used leaden mauls in battle. (Here (http://books.google.com/books?id=dL12K__XzoAC&pg=PA283&lpg=PA283&dq=%22mallets+of+lead%22+%2B+english&source=bl&ots=j9iF_fldZR&sig=myJ4p_jp-ifsEwehYvQIvQ5yeW4&hl=en&ei=5mmzTbHDN4XUgQfMsvjFCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22mallets%20of%20lead%22%20%2B%20english&f=false) is an example from 1461.) Armories even kept such weapons in stock. See here (http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2010/01/archers-mauls.html) for more details.

Matthew
2011-04-23, 07:29 PM
No, the weight of the evidence shows the English intentionally used leaden mauls in battle. (Here (http://books.google.com/books?id=dL12K__XzoAC&pg=PA283&lpg=PA283&dq=%22mallets+of+lead%22+%2B+english&source=bl&ots=j9iF_fldZR&sig=myJ4p_jp-ifsEwehYvQIvQ5yeW4&hl=en&ei=5mmzTbHDN4XUgQfMsvjFCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22mallets%20of%20lead%22%20%2B%20english&f=false) is an example from 1461.) Armories even kept such weapons in stock. See here (http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2010/01/archers-mauls.html) for more details.

A quick glance looks like the same evidence we have covered here before, with the mallet being carried for hammering in stakes, but I will look it over properly later.

Incanur
2011-04-23, 08:32 PM
A quick glance looks like the same evidence we have covered here before, with the mallet being carried for hammering in stakes, but I will look it over properly later.

Not at all. Gregory's Chronicle lists mallets of leads as the first in a series of weapons that includes bows, swords, and axes.

Seb Wiers
2011-04-23, 11:18 PM
More "Big Guy" questions; if you have a big guy character in a "realistic" fantasy game, what's a good way to gear up and train to fight? Any special martial arts moves I might want to focus on, of if you are a big guy, do you just focus on doing the basics well? (Stat wise, I'm fine and the system we are using works pretty well for the character; I'm looking for flavor bits, and maybe some inspiration for special rules.)
Bonus points if you can incorporate a tail into the mix; the character is a lizard man with Acromegaly.

Conners
2011-04-24, 06:22 AM
@Seb Wiers: Most (or all) games don't design their combat systems realistically enough that we could give advice. You'll probably want to start a thread about the question.



Something that has been nagging at me..... You know how archers need a lot of pulling strength, to draw bows (particularly big ones like the longbow)? How much does this strength effect other activities? Does it help them with swinging swords, or arm wrestling, or punching?

Matthew
2011-04-24, 06:22 AM
Not at all. Gregory's Chronicle lists mallets of leads as the first in a series of weapons that includes bows, swords, and axes.

The selection of evidence is pretty much the same as we have gone over here before. Gregory is writing sometime in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and his description of the lead mallets may be related to their weaponisation (described on the blog under Mr Brander’s manuscript) or to a mythos current at the time, or it may represent an accurate depiction of a widespread practice. If the latter, then what is the weight of the mallet or maul? Are we talking a 25 lb monster or something more along the lines of what is depicted on the tapestry of Jordain de Blaye in Paduathe (which has plenty of interesting analogues)? Even the author of the blog post concedes that the mallet is first a tool and second being used as a weapon.

The most interesting item on the list is the account of the Paris rioters that broke into the Hôtel de Ville in 1382, and I would like to know more about what 3,000 mallets were doing in an armoury, apparently the exclusive weapons to be found there. Of course, lacking the original texts it is hard to draw much in the way of conclusions!

Spiryt
2011-04-24, 06:41 AM
Something that has been nagging at me..... You know how archers need a lot of pulling strength, to draw bows (particularly big ones like the longbow)? How much does this strength effect other activities? Does it help them with swinging swords, or arm wrestling, or punching?

Pulling with your arm, back, legs, while pushing with other arm....

Definitely this required development of certain muscle and tendon static strength, to pull off technical drawing.

So wielder of mighty bow would have greater "record" in many strength exercises.

From things you listed, it would definitely affect arm wrestling. Punching or swinging sword - not really so much.

Matthew
2011-04-24, 09:18 AM
I am looking for a manuscript depiction of a "pole-hammer", which was one of those "fist-shaped" things. It used to be hosted at this address:

http://racer.kb.nl/pregvn/MIMI/MIMI_130B21/MIMI_130B21_088R_MIN.JPG

...but that now appears to be defunct. There were numerous men-at-arms with pole-arms of various sorts facing off against another group, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, I do not remember any of the manuscript specifics. If somebody downloaded it then I would be grateful if they could upload it for my benefit!

Incanur
2011-04-24, 09:32 AM
Gregory is writing sometime in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and his description of the lead mallets may be related to their weaponisation (described on the blog under Mr Brander’s manuscript) or to a mythos current at the time, or it may represent an accurate depiction of a widespread practice.

There's no indication of anything mythical or romantic about the text in question. The author previously dismissed early gunpowder weapons as impractical. Hence warriors turn to mallets of lead, bows, swords, glaives, and axes. I'm honestly baffled why folks have such an aversion to accepting leaden mauls or mallets as legitimate weapons. The weight of the evidence establishes them as such. Matthew Strickland, perhaps the foremost historian of English archery, has no compunctions against declaring the leaden maul the traditional melee weapon of English archers after Agincourt.


If the latter, then what is the weight of the mallet or maul?

I don't see any reason these weapons would any more than typical for polearms, so I'd guess five to eight pounds. Other bludgeoning weapons employed by the English in the sixteenth century and stored alongside lead mauls fall into this weight range. See Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe by John Waldman.

Matthew
2011-04-24, 10:39 AM
There's no indication of anything mythical or romantic about the text in question. The author previously dismissed early gunpowder weapons as impractical. Hence warriors turn to mallets of lead, bows, swords, glaives, and axes. I'm honestly baffled why folks have such an aversion to accepting leaden mauls or mallets as legitimate weapons. The weight of the evidence establishes them as such. Matthew Strickland, perhaps the foremost historian of English archery, has no compunctions against declaring the leaden maul the traditional melee weapon of English archers after Agincourt.

The question is about the transmission of the details. It is easy for one erroneous thing to be transmitted from one manuscript into multiple texts. That said, nobody is saying that mallets or mauls were not used, the question is mainly how effective they were and to what degree they were favoured. Given that there is no evidence for them prior to Agincourt in use by Archers, I would hazard to say Strickland is being a bit overzealous, if that is indeed what he said.



I don't see any reason these weapons would any more than typical for polearms, so I'd guess five to eight pounds. Other bludgeoning weapons employed by the English in the sixteenth century and stored alongside lead mauls fall into this weight range. See Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe by John Waldman.

Well, you see, this is probably why you are baffled. Weaponised mallets are not at all unattested, and no more implausible than any other tool converted for war. What is regularly scoffed at are excessively weighty mauls being used as effective weapons.

Spiryt
2011-04-24, 10:45 AM
Is there any place where one can see such a mallet?

From this period we already have a bloody lot of weapons preserved, so I think there would be some of those mallets here and there.

That would be interesting to see, to me it would seem as pretty weird weapon, suitable possibly to land a crushing blow to fallen foe, generally, but what do I know?

Given the plasticity and softness of lead, they would be pretty much deformed after extended use, so it's possible that they would be simply melted and used as something else though.....

Incanur
2011-04-24, 11:28 AM
Given that there is no evidence for them prior to Agincourt in use by Archers, I would hazard to say Strickland is being a bit overzealous, if that is indeed what he said.

How does the lack of evidence of use by archers before Agincourt prevent mauls from becoming the traditional melee weapon of English archers after the battle?


What is regularly scoffed at are excessively weighty mauls being used as effective weapons.

That's fair. I certainly have trouble imagining a 25lb mallet (http://books.google.com/books?id=yisOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=billefort+mallet&source=bl&ots=z3tRd7qvSU&sig=1IVBdKrPsCEgzRkc9M-aRwC5qyU&hl=en&ei=dvlkS76tHtHelAfS0ciUCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=billefort%20mallet&f=false) as worthwhile. I suspect sources that make such claims simply exaggerated for effect. You read equivalent accounts of axes too heavy for anyone but their super awesome wielder to lift, yet surviving examples consistently weigh between four and eight pounds.

valadil
2011-04-24, 11:31 AM
Something that has been nagging at me..... You know how archers need a lot of pulling strength, to draw bows (particularly big ones like the longbow)? How much does this strength effect other activities? Does it help them with swinging swords, or arm wrestling, or punching?

I've done a lot of modern archery*. Most of the pulling force comes from squeezing your shoulder blades together. This has given me reasonably strong shoulder blades. Aside from a few exercises I haven't found anything that this strength translates to. Maybe some swimming strokes?

I'm not qualified to answer if modern archery uses different pulling mechanics than period archery.

Matthew
2011-04-24, 11:41 AM
How does the lack of evidence of use by archers before Agincourt prevent mauls from becoming the traditional melee weapon of English archers after the battle?

It doesn't, I must have missed the "after".:smallwink:



That's fair. I certainly have trouble imagining a 25lb mallet (http://books.google.com/books?id=yisOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=billefort+mallet&source=bl&ots=z3tRd7qvSU&sig=1IVBdKrPsCEgzRkc9M-aRwC5qyU&hl=en&ei=dvlkS76tHtHelAfS0ciUCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=billefort%20mallet&f=false) as worthwhile. I suspect sources that make such claims simply exaggerated for effect. You read equivalent accounts of axes too heavy for anyone but their super awesome wielder to lift, yet surviving examples consistently weigh between four and eight pounds.

Exactly so. The Middle English account of Richard's lance is particularly amusing, at 21 inches in circumference.

Norsesmithy
2011-04-24, 11:54 AM
A 25 lb mallet wouldn't even be much good as a construction tool. I use a 16 lb maul to pound fence posts, and that's probably even a bit much. If I was going to equip a soldier with a hammer to do soldierly tasks (pounding stakes, etc), I think I'd have a hard enough time convincing them to CARRY an 8 lb maul everywhere they go, never mind a 16 or 25.

randomhero00
2011-04-24, 11:58 AM
Sorry I wasn't here yesterday to say this in a more timely matter. But I promise, armed or unarmed, if you're trained, speed is everything. I'm not bragging, and I do not wish to hurt anyone, but I can physically take someone down, 1 shot, guaranteed. Its a surprisingly simple move (scratch that, there are two simple moves one can do to take someone in one hit ...unless they dodge of course). I'm not talking out my backside, I have personal experience with it.

Anywayyyys, after all that my main point is between 2 trained martial artists, even unarmed, it will be settled in one strike, or one miss, counter, miss, counter strike, etc. Point is even unarmed I promise you, the first to hit means everything, and therefor speed.

Spiryt
2011-04-24, 12:05 PM
With such weight and the nature of the lead, it could be pretty decent....

You wouldn't have to put much of "yourself" into it, because the thing would be heaaavy, and with leads malleability, shock to the wrist and hands from shock on impact wouldn't be that bad.

Still, I can't even really find mallets, mauls, axes heavier than 15 pounds in tool shops easily, so 25 pounds is most certainly quite a bit exaggeration.


Anywayyyys, after all that my main point is between 2 trained martial artists, even unarmed, it will be settled in one strike, or one miss, counter, miss, counter strike, etc. Point is even unarmed I promise you, the first to hit means everything, and therefor speed.

Actually, between two trained martial artists, it usually can go quite long, the more they're close to each other in capabilities....

Matthew
2011-04-24, 12:24 PM
Is there any place where one can see such a mallet?

From this period we already have a bloody lot of weapons preserved, so I think there would be some of those mallets here and there.

That would be interesting to see, to me it would seem as pretty weird weapon, suitable possibly to land a crushing blow to fallen foe, generally, but what do I know?

Given the plasticity and softness of lead, they would be pretty much deformed after extended use, so it's possible that they would be simply melted and used as something else though...

In illustrated form definitely, here are a couple of depictions:


http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~douglasr/ftp/titanomachy/v0.1/divine-attributes_files/image066.jpg

http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/The_Icemaiden/Medieval%20Stuff/HussiteFlailandHammer.jpg

http://www.amisdesgeants.org/images/photos_diaporama/RBImage13.jpg


I have never seen any in photographs of extant pieces in collections. The "pole-hammers" in this below illumination may be stylised lucern hammers or some such thing, but also resemble the image I am looking for, which is definitely detailed.


http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Plle200/Arms%20and%20Armour/Illuminations/battle_of_the_spurs_115.jpg





Still, I can't even really find mallets, mauls, axes heavier than 15 pounds in tool shops easily, so 25 pounds is most certainly quite a bit exaggeration.

Apparently "heavy duty" sledgehammers can come in at 20 lbs or so, but that is from Wikipedia.

Here is a nice picture of some morning star/gutenmorgan type weapons:


http://www.travelblog.org/pix/shim.gif

Seb Wiers
2011-04-24, 12:27 PM
Still, I can't even really find mallets, mauls, axes heavier than 15 pounds in tool shops easily, so 25 pounds is most certainly quite a bit exaggeration.

Do a google search for "20 lb sledge" and you'll see pretty much every major hardware chain sells them. But they are sold mostly for demolition work, and such work is increasingly done with power tools / construction vehicles. The heavier hammers that historically were used in such work (I've seen antiques up to 40 lbs) just don't have a market any more, because any time you'd need one, you instead just bring in a jack-hammer / bulldozer / claw arm / wrecking ball / demolitions expert.

randomhero00
2011-04-24, 12:37 PM
Actually, between two trained martial artists, it usually can go quite long, the more they're close to each other in capabilities....

The rare time I've fought, or seen two martial artist fight it has always been fast. It sounds like you're thinking of anime, no offense. Once youre in good shape, and fighting shape, its really easy to take someone down in one hit. The only way it'd go on long is if they both kept dodging or were playing it carefully.

Spiryt
2011-04-24, 01:01 PM
The rare time I've fought, or seen two martial artist fight it has always been fast. It sounds like you're thinking of anime, no offense. Once youre in good shape, and fighting shape, its really easy to take someone down in one hit. The only way it'd go on long is if they both kept dodging or were playing it carefully.

Lol, anime.

No, I'm thinking of MMA, boxing, submission grappling, No Holds Barrel fights, Vale Tudo and others.

Before standard: " Real fights street fights work differently" occurs - most, especially brazilian VT and NHB were pretty much real, with eye gouging prohibited at most. Hell, many of them pretty much were "on street".

Even if guys are big, explosive and well trained, and therefore can strike powerfully, it's hard to land one finishing strike instantly. And then grappling's obviously involved.

Sure, if some heavy boxer is punching some random poor punk, it may happen, but we were talking about "trained" guys.


Do a google search for "20 lb sledge" and you'll see pretty much every major hardware chain sells them. But they are sold mostly for demolition work, and such work is increasingly done with power tools / construction vehicles. The heavier hammers that historically were used in such work (I've seen antiques up to 40 lbs) just don't have a market any more, because any time you'd need one, you instead just bring in a jack-hammer / bulldozer / claw arm / wrecking ball / demolitions expert.

That's why I wrote "easily".

And even in ancient times, some kind of machines for demolishing, driving stakes etc. wouldn't be so unheard of.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Roman_Pile_Driver%2C_Festung_Ehrenbreitstein%2C_Ko blenz%2C_Germany.jpg/450px-Roman_Pile_Driver%2C_Festung_Ehrenbreitstein%2C_Ko blenz%2C_Germany.jpg

randomhero00
2011-04-24, 01:29 PM
lol, I'm trying not to brag, but, MMA? Lol. They are so restrained and it is nothing like a real fight.

I'll let you in on a secret, this is not a threat, as I'd never been threatened by anyone on this board but--I can stick my fingers through someones neck. Then its game over no matter who you are. like I said, any real martial artist's; its going to be decided in 1 hit.

about 90% of dojos in american are like mcdonalds-nothing compared to the real version.

edit: I also have a question. How well did shuriken, spikes, and throwing knifes work? They seem an awful lot weaker than a bow or crossbow, and they take nearly as long to setup/throw. ...

Spiryt
2011-04-24, 01:38 PM
lol, I'm trying not to brag, but, MMA? Lol. They are so restrained and it is nothing like a real fight.

I'll let you in on a secret, this is not a threat, as I'd never been threatened by anyone on this board but--I can stick my fingers through someones neck. Then its game over no matter who you are. like I said, any real martial artist's; its going to be decided in 1 hit.

about 90% of dojos in american are like mcdonalds-nothing compared to the real version.

I'm sorry, but as I said, I was talking about pretty much 'real' fights, and only times I heard about silly stuff like that is indeed anime or some shaolin kind of tales....

I've never ever heard about something like that, I don't believe it would work against any sort of resisting target.

If you had ever did something like that, you should probably have huge troubles with law...

And if you haven't, then you can't do it. It's not something that can be done from theoriticall training, and if it was, someone would kill someone that way.



like I said, any real martial artist's; its going to be decided in 1 hit.

There were plenty "Real" martial artist on this world, and again, I've never heard about someone doing something like that.

Eye gouging, fish hooking, Ok, but this?

I'm not going to believe to anything like that, especially from standing, without controlling opponent from crucifix, or something. Maybe, maybe then, if someone wanted to be particularly bloody, or whatever.

Sorry.

AS far as my experience goes, I was punched straight to the eyeball by some ~ 200 pound looking dude, pretty much from mabush.

My vision dropped to something like - 6 in that eye for few days, yet I was never anything close to being "finished" and managed to run for the hell quite easily.

Most people on this earth can't really demolish others that easily, even after solid training, sometimes there appears folk like Tyson, who could quite naturally ruin people's well beings with one punch to the stomach.

But generally, people sticking their fingers in others necks, 100 pound girls pounding out people with one huge strike, kung fu sleeping touches etc. etc. are things that appear, like you said it, in anime.

Spiryt
2011-04-24, 01:52 PM
Now I'm pretty interested if some Playgrounder had even ever heard about something like that....

From some Krav Maga ideas, or whatever. Google's bringing Czech proverbs.

Britter
2011-04-24, 02:29 PM
edit: I also have a question. How well did shuriken, spikes, and throwing knifes work? They seem an awful lot weaker than a bow or crossbow, and they take nearly as long to setup/throw. ...

Not going to comment on the other part of your post, however regarding shuriken. The schools of shurikenjutsu still practiced in Japan use the shuriken(usually a spike version (bo shuriken), though occasionally a "throwing star" or shaken) as a technique for distraction and wounding, as opposed to a primary method of killing. If you can put a blade into a man's arm or hand, it will make it harder for them to fight, or impede the opponent from deploying his own weapon.

I have heard a story, supposedly derived from the oral lore of one such school, of a master who when confronted with an assailant armed with a spear, threw his short sword such that it became lodged in the haft of the weapon near the wielders hands, and used that moment of distraction and impediment of the weapons deployment to leap in and kill the spearman with his long sword. I can't vouch for the veracity of the story (honestly, if you could stick a sword into a spear haft with a throw, you are a much better person than I. I honestly doubt that it is possible) but the tactic makes sense to me.

Here is some video of Negishi Ryu being demoed. These guys use the bo-shuriken. At about the 3:45 mark you can see a few of the throws that could be done while holding the sword. I don't put these up to show how uber-l33t these guys are, but to show an example of a traditional school of shuriken that isn't related to the ninjutsu side of things. It seems to me that they focus on the ability to be precise and to be able to throw while moving, which fits in with my understanding of the shuriken as a weapon of distraction, best used to create openings to use in attack, defense, or retreat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fEfvrJogdk&feature=related

randomhero00
2011-04-24, 02:38 PM
Spiryt-----Sorry, my mistake mister. I have stuck my fingers through a pigs neck. Most consider that close enough to be real.


2nd, I know, and can, and have disabled someone with one hit. I'd rather not say it, but whatever, if you insist I'll tell you. Then go try it on a friend hahaha. Then hopefully you'll see wisdom and edit it out of your post with an apology.

Dienekes
2011-04-24, 05:38 PM
Spiryt-----Sorry, my mistake mister. I have stuck my fingers through a pigs neck. Most consider that close enough to be real.


2nd, I know, and can, and have disabled someone with one hit. I'd rather not say it, but whatever, if you insist I'll tell you. Then go try it on a friend hahaha. Then hopefully you'll see wisdom and edit it out of your post with an apology.

It's interesting, but you'd need to know if the pig was moving could it defend and so on. Also, there was a study once, where they placed all the martial artists they could find and told them to do their super move against one of their own trained martial artists.

Not one of them worked. Since then I've always been skeptical of folks claiming to take down someone in one hit. Sure in theory it may work, but in an actual fight against a similarly trained opponent? I'll believe it when I see it.

Also, I've seen Krav Maga folk fight, those trained pretty much to just kill things without the graceful strings of most martial arts (exaggeration prevalent of course). Their fight took six minutes, six incredibly interesting minutes, involving grappling, kicking, punching, gouging, and so on. In the end, the stronger guy won, but it was close.

That was also the best fight I've ever seen.

Yukitsu
2011-04-24, 05:47 PM
Spiryt-----Sorry, my mistake mister. I have stuck my fingers through a pigs neck. Most consider that close enough to be real.


2nd, I know, and can, and have disabled someone with one hit. I'd rather not say it, but whatever, if you insist I'll tell you. Then go try it on a friend hahaha. Then hopefully you'll see wisdom and edit it out of your post with an apology.

You're gonna have to describe it. I can break a spine encased in a torso in half, but that doesn't make it likely to work against any sort of alert combatant. Unless you're talking about catching a guy blind, but that's not impressive. No one is going to take this claim seriously without any kind of description of the technique.

Mike_G
2011-04-24, 06:17 PM
Without adding a lot of fuel to the fire here, most real fights, with the intent to disable your enemy as efficiently as possible, are over pretty quickly. Fights on the street, or the battlefield are quick and dirty. A five minute fight would be crazy long outside of competition.

That said, it's not easy to score a one shot vital hit on a trained guy who is trying not to be hit. You may have to injure or grab his arm to get it out of the way before using your Kill Bill Five Palm Exploding Heart trick or whatever.

I do think you can't really compare competition fighting to life or death fighting, simply because there are always some safety provisions, and some rules in any competitive fighting I've seen. Nobody whats to be blind or crippled or dead from competition. The safety part of the rules often changes the game and removes the vulnerabilities of certain styles. Like the "slow fat guy with a barn door sized shield" style in the SCA, that would get you killed in any real fight.

Seb Wiers
2011-04-24, 06:56 PM
Without adding a lot of fuel to the fire here, most real fights, with the intent to disable your enemy as efficiently as possible, are over pretty quickly. Fights on the street, or the battlefield are quick and dirty. A five minute fight would be crazy long outside of competition.

The purpose of most street fights is NOT usually "to disable your enemy as efficiently as possible" - that's not typical to a street fight, its more like a prison shanking.
People who engage in a street fight are usually trying to show a point of dominance without getting hurt or arrested. As such, there is typically a lot of posturing, yelling, and zero risk "attacks" that either are sucker punches, or are made from such range that they have almost no chance to connect. And then when the two parties do hit (assuming there's no weapons and only two persons involved) they often clinch up, with one using a defensive grasp to prevent the other from inflicting any damage.
Assuming there's no outside intervention, such a fight can often last several minutes, basically ending when one side is to fatigued to continue and the other gets the upper hand and does as much damage as they like / have the energy for.

Incanur
2011-04-24, 09:26 PM
The overall evidence suggests few unarmed martial artists can regularly end a fight with a single move against trained opponents. Techniques unsuitable for sparring do facilitate this, but everything I've seen about even the most brutal historical unarmed competitions suggests long contests were common. Given combatants of similar skill, the same applies to duels with edged weapons and even on the battlefield. The length and relatively low causality rates of many ancient and medieval battles demonstrate that armor and prowess made the goal of immediately disabling your opponent challenging to achieve in practice.

BayardSPSR
2011-04-24, 10:27 PM
The length and relatively low causality rates of many ancient and medieval battles demonstrate that armor and prowess made the goal of immediately disabling your opponent challenging to achieve in practice.

Not to mention that the standard practice of retreating or all-out routing when defeat became likely would preserve even the losing side to an extent.

To return to the discussion of heavy mallets - is it possible they were used for door-breaking in sieges as well as battlefield weapons? Are there any record of such usage? I think mallets are used today by SWAT teams and the like for that purpose, and it's hard to imagine a new use for any kind of hammer.

Seb Wiers
2011-04-24, 11:21 PM
SWAT teams typically use a purpose built battering ram to open doors. Its either a one man version (still an upgrade from a sledge) or vehicle mounted. I think the same would hold in the past, though I guess if you had to batter down a door, you would use what was at hand.

Conners
2011-04-25, 03:26 AM
The purpose of most street fights is NOT usually "to disable your enemy as efficiently as possible" - that's not typical to a street fight, its more like a prison shanking.
People who engage in a street fight are usually trying to show a point of dominance without getting hurt or arrested. As such, there is typically a lot of posturing, yelling, and zero risk "attacks" that either are sucker punches, or are made from such range that they have almost no chance to connect. And then when the two parties do hit (assuming there's no weapons and only two persons involved) they often clinch up, with one using a defensive grasp to prevent the other from inflicting any damage.
Assuming there's no outside intervention, such a fight can often last several minutes, basically ending when one side is to fatigued to continue and the other gets the upper hand and does as much damage as they like / have the energy for. Not sure Mike was referring to those sort of street-fights. "Fight" does exactly seem appropriate a word, since it sounds more like thrashing your arms wildly and hoping you win...


"Street Fights" in the dangerous sense, typically refer to muggings with knives (the kind where they loot your corpse). Unless they fight like total idiots (a thankfully common occurrence), you can bet on someone going down very fast... In fact, yes, they are very much in-tune with prison shankings ("prisoner" and "mugger" are just words of circumstance).

Unarmed fights of this level seem more rare to me. I have heard of a woman being raped who snapped her attacker's neck--but I don't know how long that went on for. Generally, though, humans do have a lot of weak points--and the problem with any sorts of recreational fight, is the "defensive" mentality.
The way to live when faced by would-be killers, is to think about killing/disabling your opposition (or running away, if that option is open). Stop their attacks by making them no longer a threat, quickly... because if you take "six minutes", they and their buddies are already looting your wallet and (if necessary) hiding your body.

Yes, there are plenty of stupid thugs out there--but there are also guys who make their living killing people.

Autolykos
2011-04-25, 04:26 AM
The way to live when faced by would-be killers, is to think about killing/disabling your opposition (or running away, if that option is open). Stop their attacks by making them no longer a threat, quickly... because if you take "six minutes", they and their buddies are already looting your wallet and (if necessary) hiding your body.Seconded. You don't want any prolonged fight in those circumstances. If you are chosen as a target, they believe they are likely to win (anything else would be bloody stupid). And for those street punks judging correctly when they have the advantage is a primary survival trait, so they are bound to get it right. The longer you fight against a stronger opponent, the more likely you will lose.
I think (without having any personal experience, so I'm talking off the top of my head here) the best strategy is to "block, shock and run". So, first making sure their initial attack does not hit, then quickly limiting their ability to pursue or attack again (elbow to the face or low-kick to the knee, nothing more), and then getting the hell away, preferably in the direction they came from (if they intended to chase you into an ambush). Anything more increases the risk of getting hit seriously and will give great legal trouble even if you win.

Conners
2011-04-25, 04:48 AM
Seconded. You don't want any prolonged fight in those circumstances. If you are chosen as a target, they believe they are likely to win (anything else would be bloody stupid). And for those street punks judging correctly when they have the advantage is a primary survival trait, so they are bound to get it right. The longer you fight against a stronger opponent, the more likely you will lose.
I think (without having any personal experience, so I'm talking off the top of my head here) the best strategy is to "block, shock and run". So, first making sure their initial attack does not hit, then quickly limiting their ability to pursue or attack again (elbow to the face or low-kick to the knee, nothing more), and then getting the hell away, preferably in the direction they came from (if they intended to chase you into an ambush). Anything more increases the risk of getting hit seriously and will give great legal trouble even if you win. Your advice is good (the exact striking varies on the situation and what you can pull off, of course). One of the methods of self-defence, when attacked by a knifer, can be to run past them (generally it's not expected, and the time it takes to turn and run gives them chance to catch up). This wouldn't be wise in say, a very narrow alleyway, however.

And yeah, once again, you should always run if given the option, and try to make yourself that option if it isn't available (of course, a friend with an injured leg might make things impossible...).


Thanks to Valadil and Spiryt for answering my bow-muscle question! Now, another question:

How common were which kinds of weaponry? This is extremely vague, so let's give it a bit more specifics.
If we take England and France, throughout a few hundred years. How commonly were weapons owned by general populace (non-soldiers)? Were specific weapons common, or did it vary widely based on the area? Was it common practice to carry weapons when you're walking around your village, or a town?

Probably still on the vague side, sorry to say.

Dienekes
2011-04-25, 08:53 AM
Thanks to Valadil and Spiryt for answering my bow-muscle question! Now, another question:

How common were which kinds of weaponry? This is extremely vague, so let's give it a bit more specifics.
If we take England and France, throughout a few hundred years. How commonly were weapons owned by general populace (non-soldiers)? Were specific weapons common, or did it vary widely based on the area? Was it common practice to carry weapons when you're walking around your village, or a town?

Probably still on the vague side, sorry to say.

Which few hundred years?

Without getting into exact knowledge (I don't have it) the few times I can remember that the local populations fought without government funding involved more pitch forks, clubs, and guten tags, which suggests they really didn't have a wide spread of more military weaponry.

Again, you probably need to be a bit more specific, and I don't have anything like statistics to back me up. If you get the population right after a crusade, then the homecoming soldiers would likely bring their weapons with them. Move forward a few years and they'd be sold to pay for things that were actually useful for peasants.

Conners
2011-04-25, 09:03 AM
Well, since I said a hundred years, let's use the hundred years war era for example?

One weapon in particular I wonder about, is prevalence of the quarterstaff. In one way it's a staff of wood, seems easy enough to get. In another way... how well made does one need to be to work properly in combat.

I guess longbows were common in England, since England seemed to make sure of it?



EDIT: Another question, easier to answer which comes to my mind. How tiring is it to have to carry shields long distances? Will troops strap the shields over their backs or some-such, to make them easier to bear? How fatiguing would you say they are in comparison to armour?

Matthew
2011-04-25, 10:07 AM
Well, since I said a hundred years, let's use the hundred years war era for example?

One weapon in particular I wonder about, is prevalence of the quarterstaff. In one way it's a staff of wood, seems easy enough to get. In another way... how well made does one need to be to work properly in combat.

I guess longbows were common in England, since England seemed to make sure of it?

These are hard questions to answer because there is no clear evidence, just loads of anecdotes, the assizes of arms, pictorial references and so on. It would be pretty reasonable to say that most people had some sort of knife or dagger available and a stout cudgel would be easy to obtain. The way that pole-arms developed suggests that farming tools were frequently converted to weapons of war, which in turn suggests that military weapons were not commonly available.

The assize of arms for England in the twelfth century divides by wealth grades, which is useful. A spear, helmet and padded armour seems to have been expected of the lowest infantry grade outside of archers.



EDIT: Another question, easier to answer which comes to my mind. How tiring is it to have to carry shields long distances? Will troops strap the shields over their backs or some-such, to make them easier to bear? How fatiguing would you say they are in comparison to armour?

Sure, it is 10-15 lbs of gear, best if it can be hung by a strap rather than carried by hand.

Autolykos
2011-04-25, 10:19 AM
One weapon in particular I wonder about, is prevalence of the quarterstaff. In one way it's a staff of wood, seems easy enough to get. In another way... how well made does one need to be to work properly in combat.It's a bad weapon for warfare since it totally sucks against any kind of armor and requires way too much room to be used effectively in formation. However, most people carried some kind of walking stick when traveling long distances by foot (heck, they still do). It works to defend against animals (except boars and bears...) or the occasional bandit, has some other uses, doesn't look like a weapon and is basically free. Anyone can make one (if he has access to a forest) and anyone can tell if it's good (if it doesn't break when you slam it full force against a tree, it should do the job).

Incanur
2011-04-25, 10:34 PM
Prevalence of weapons varies dramatically by time and place. Judging by fourteenth-century English coroner's rolls, dedicated weapons of war such as swords either weren't common or didn't get used terribly often for murder. On the other hand, death by staff appears regularly throughout the rolls. Swords and rapiers become standard by the sixteenth century; account of this period describe the common people of English as rather well-armed and practiced. In the middle of the century, for example, skill with sword and buckler as well as the bow was widespread.

Conners
2011-04-26, 12:46 AM
Thanks for the examples, guys. That seems to answer my question well enough--I just wondered how armed people tended to be (I guessed not much, aside from daggers and staffs--except in certain really bad areas).


I have another question, that might be more awkward to answer and is more embarrassing to ask. Generally, with women in RPGs, animes, movies, and perhaps other things... they tend to be large in a "certain area". How would this work out realistically (not that you realistically you get a lot of women like that, who are fighting)...? I'm guessing it mightn't do so well.

How much harder is it to get armour which fits? Will their swings or balance be compromised to a notable extent? Does this pose any other problems worth considering?

Eldan
2011-04-26, 02:56 AM
Well, look at modern female athletes. Like, sprinters, martial artists or gymnasts. They all tend to be rather small in the chest department.

I mean, imagine doing anything that requires precision and balance with two large, wobbly, heavy things strapped to your chest. Doesn't really work. From what I've read, chest binding was common whenever women fought.

Armour, most likely, isn't that much of a problem. Anything softer, like chainmail or padding I imagine will just bulge if it's cut a little wider. Plate would probably have to be fitted, but that has to be custom made anyway.

Yora
2011-04-26, 08:06 AM
Also plate armor does not seem to be form-fitting at all, but rather is bulged outward so weapons would glance off instead of punching through.
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_341/1228679359o4t7QR.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3002/3091860019_4630874588.jpg

http://www.epiphanydigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/antique-cuirass-breastplate.jpg
There already is quite some empty space and it probably shouldn't be a problem to make custom cuirasses that have the bulge located a bit higher than usual if neccessary.

This
http://www.videogamegirlsdb.com/gamegirl/Images/Soul_Calibur/Hilde/SCIV_hilde_portrait.jpg
is absolutely deadly. If a spear hits somewhat at center, it won't be deflected to the side and either punch through the metal or be deflected upward right at the throat.

Spiryt
2011-04-26, 08:22 AM
Any breastplate that fits too well would be bad, as well as the one that literally hangs away from the body.

Really, more discomfort would be probably caused by gambeson or similar garment inside anyway. Would have to be pretty closely fit.

Conners
2011-04-26, 08:25 AM
Yes, I see what you mean. Thank you for shedding light on the subject. Also, good point Yora makes with the way armour is usually drawn on females (when it is drawn on them, that is).


Here's an interesting question: How well do underground fortresses work? I mean, has anyone ever tried digging a fortress/whatever into the side of a mountain, and had good results? You get a lot of this in fantasy things, but I was wondering how (or if) it has been done in reality, and why it hasn't been done more.

Yora
2011-04-26, 09:10 AM
There have been numerous underground fortresses in history all over the world. And I think they don't work any different from surface fortifications. Without modern excavation equipment, digging tunnels into an underground base that allow for a large scale attack are just not feasable, but at the same time it was also a huge undertaking to penetrate any good fortress walls. And once you're dug in, it was pretty much waiting for someone else to come to save you, or for the attackers to give up and go home before you run out of supplies.
I think the primary advantage is secrecy until you get to a technological level that allows for heavy bombardment. You can throw bombs and shells on a mountain as much as you want, but with several meters of solid rock, it's almost impossible to do any real damage to the rooms inside. Cheyenne Mountain was designed to survive nuclear strikes and the Afghans are using their cave forts very effectively to this day. In other cases, they were often secret hideouts, but that works only on relatively small scale, since it's hard to remain secret if you have lots of people coming in and out.

I'd say in most cases an underground fortress is just like a surface fortress, just without being open at the top, so no throwing stuff over the walls from outside. But at the same time ventilation and waste disposal become a much bigger problem that has to be dealt with. However I havn't heard anything that underground cities and fortreses were particularly filthy, so people seem to have been able to find ways around that.

Eldan
2011-04-26, 09:16 AM
I faintly remember at least one case where someone had basically expanded an already existing cave, mainly by expanding the entrance and carving several large rooms. They used an already existing underground river for both water and waste disposal.

But don't ask me where that was. I don't really remember.

Yora
2011-04-26, 09:20 AM
Simple question: What are those guns (http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-167601-galleryV9-ltbn.jpg)?

MP5 with unusual foregrip?

Autolykos
2011-04-26, 11:07 AM
Definitely MP5, probably the US Navy version (I'm not an expert on those however).

Mike_G
2011-04-26, 11:57 AM
Simple question: What are those guns (http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-167601-galleryV9-ltbn.jpg)?

MP5 with unusual foregrip?


They look a lot like MP5s to me. Maybe they have some customized grips to accommodate the flashlight, and there is a scope of some kind on top, but the receiver, barrel and front sight definitely look like the H&K.

Norsesmithy
2011-04-26, 06:01 PM
Simple question: What are those guns (http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-167601-galleryV9-ltbn.jpg)?

MP5 with unusual foregrip?

Just MP5ks with Surefire 628 foreends (http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main.pl?pgm=co_disp&func=displ&strfnbr=6&prrfnbr=540&sesent=0,0&search_id=2720323). I note they bought the ones with the cheapest flashlight.

They've also got Eotech 552s on cheap clamp mounts.

fusilier
2011-04-26, 06:59 PM
Underground Fortresses: The Italian Front in WW1 was dotted with various underground fortresses on both sides. Some could be smashed by heavy artillery, others, like Caserma Milano on Monte Grappa, had to be bypassed.

You have to ask what the purpose of the fortress is in the first place. Against heavy artillery and bombs, a fortress buried in a mountain might make a great defense. But, if you want to project power, or your main concern are soldiers on foot (or an angry mob of peasants) storming your residence, then the tall walls of a medieval castle may be superior. Towns and cities can't really be defended by fortresses buried in mountains and need walls (unless, the town itself happens to be on top of mountain). Also, mountain strongholds may not be in a strategically important place, making them basically irrelevant -- except perhaps as fall back position to prevent total annihilation. Certainly, where a mountain or promontory was in a good location, they tended to be fortified in someway: either a fortress dug into the mountain, or a castle placed on top of it.

Yora
2011-04-27, 04:50 AM
Once again I'm puzzled by another picture from the same news site:
http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-207536-galleryV9-wprk.jpg
Yes, the text to the picture says "French fighter aircraft".
But that doesn't look like pilot gear. More like firefighter gear? :smallconfused:

Eldan
2011-04-27, 05:01 AM
Well, could be he isn't the pilot but an airport firefighter?

Thiel
2011-04-27, 05:48 AM
Once again I'm puzzled by another picture from the same news site:
http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-207536-galleryV9-wprk.jpg
Yes, the text to the picture says "French fighter aircraft".
But that doesn't look like pilot gear. More like firefighter gear? :smallconfused:

Marine Nationale Firefighting gear. If I'm not mistaken that picture is taken onboard Nuclear Aircraft Carrier Charles de Gaule.
The aircraft is a Dassault Rafale M

Underground Fortresses
Gibraltar has several examples. There's the Artillery galleries in the northern face of the Rock, build back in the 18th century to dissuade the the Spanish from invading. The combination of hight and solid rock walls made the guns virtually impregnable against return fire.

Of a more modern nature are the massive tunnel network build during WWII to house both troops and civilians in order to protect them against axis bombers and shelling. In the fifties Gibraltar had more road inside the Rock than outside it.

Thiel
2011-04-28, 02:32 AM
Hmm, I seam to have accidentally killed the thread.
Better do something about that.
Which cancelled VTOL aircraft do you think had the most potential?

Autolykos
2011-04-28, 04:20 AM
Not technically cancelled, but definitely underused and not getting its due credit: The V-22 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell-Boeing_V-22_Osprey).

Conners
2011-04-28, 09:30 AM
I have a question. Heard on some program about women being "naturally more dexterous" or something to these lines. This makes me wonder about the physical differences between men and women, in a practical sense related to fighting.

IE: With this "women being more dexterous" thing. I'm not sure if they're referring to their hands or their body in general, but would it make any difference to their combat ability? Would they be more accurate as a sniper, quicker with a dagger?

Other things I have heard of:

Women, I have heard, have greater endurance for pain. This sounds reasonable, considering they're willing to yank hairs out just to look pretty, and possibly related to bearing the pain of childbirth? If this is true, how much difference would you see it making in terms of getting cut/stabbed/bruised but keeping on going?

Men, from my understanding, have more testosterone and more muscle in certain area (was it the chest?). Now, as far as pure body-building goes, I'd give the contest to men (females aren't allowed to be boxers if they have too many masculine hormones). However, swordsmen aren't body-builders, because a lot of the muscle a body-builder has is useless(?) to swordplay.
Barring differences in size/weight, a woman that works out should be stronger than a man who doesn't, I guess? Regardless, the question is: How much difference will the lack/excess of testosterone and muscle cause (evidently, heaps in sports fighting, not much in pistol-duels)?


Those are the only immediate physical differences practically that I know of/can think of. Are there any others worth noting? I think there was something about women being able to listen better and men being able to see better... but I don't know how much that changes things.

Yora
2011-04-28, 12:46 PM
Wasn't it the other way round that men are more able to tollerate pain?
Childbirth is an exception, but during that time a woman is so completely drugged up on hormones, I wouldn't say it counts as being representative for normal pain tollerance.

Also, men have a higher water ratio to body mass. So even at the same body mass, a mans body has more water which makes it easier to reduce the effects of alchohol, making them able to tollerate higher doses.

An important difference seems to be eyesight. While the eyes themselves are probably mostly identical, I think there's a great difference how the brain interprets the visual data and puts them into an image.
Apparently men are very good at focusing on one spot with more efficient depth perception, while female brains are more capable at peripheral perception, meaning noticing things in the corner of the eyes.
However it's my personal experience that men are quite bad at noticing things that don't stand out from the background. "If it doesn't move of blinks in colored lights, it's basically invisible to a man". :smallbiggrin:

The problem here is that there's a huge difference between the average of whole populations and the individual performance of pre-selected individuals. If you look at soldiers and athletes, you ften deal with quite special cases. A somewhat well trained athlete can still outperform a lazy or even average man without much trouble.
Sex really mostly determines what you're given to work with. But what you do with that body will have a much bigger impact when it comes to comparing the individual to the total average.

WhiteHarness
2011-04-28, 06:09 PM
Women, I have heard, have greater endurance for pain.This turns out to be untrue:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/26934.php

Yukitsu
2011-04-28, 06:50 PM
This turns out to be untrue:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/26934.php

Think this is a bit harder to tell than that. Those are almost all self report studies, where men are socialized to say "no, this nail sticking through my foot doesn't hurt at all. Let us go drink beers and do risky sports things that may result in me dislocating my shoulder, on account of the nail in my foot." while women are socialized to actually ask for help, or to tell others about it. I'm not sure those studies are the best for determining the actual pain experienced, simply because pain is such a gender differentiated cultural thing. No one calls a girl a 10 year old girl a wuss if she cries when she scrapes her knee, but a 10 year old boy sure gets it.

Edit: I'd bet their general conclusion is right, but I'm guessing if we kidnapped some kids of random gender, seperated them randomly into control and non-control groups, raised all the ones in one group normally, then raised all of the others blind to their gender (they are all named "Peter" and they are all dudes, tell the nursing robot to raise them all to be dudes) the ones in the non-control group would have vastly more similar pain tolerances than the ones in the control group.

Edit edit: But that would be wrong.

Dienekes
2011-04-28, 06:56 PM
If we're allowed to use the work of a madman, Mengele did such experiments. I believe what he came up with was that men survive physical trauma better, however women survive environmental pressures better, lasting slightly but consistently longer in increased heat or below freezing than men.

Norsesmithy
2011-04-28, 07:21 PM
Think this is a bit harder to tell than that. Those are almost all self report studies, where men are socialized to say "no, this nail sticking through my foot doesn't hurt at all. Let us go drink beers and do risky sports things that may result in me dislocating my shoulder, on account of the nail in my foot." while women are socialized to actually ask for help, or to tell others about it. I'm not sure those studies are the best for determining the actual pain experienced, simply because pain is such a gender differentiated cultural thing. No one calls a girl a 10 year old girl a wuss if she cries when she scrapes her knee, but a 10 year old boy sure gets it.

Edit: I'd bet their general conclusion is right, but I'm guessing if we kidnapped some kids of random gender, seperated them randomly into control and non-control groups, raised all the ones in one group normally, then raised all of the others blind to their gender (they are all named "Peter" and they are all dudes, tell the nursing robot to raise them all to be dudes) the ones in the non-control group would have vastly more similar pain tolerances than the ones in the control group.

Edit edit: But that would be wrong.
If I remember correctly, the opposite is true, when talking about pain tests (namely ice water endurance). Without any outside rewards beyond their individual influence on the group average, women will keep their hand in a bucket of icewater for longer then men, on average. Call it reverse machismo.

But if you offer the study participant 5 bucks if they "win" (IIRC everyone got the 5 bucks), men keep their hands in the water significantly longer, because when they stand to gain something besides fame for their gender, men tend to have much higher pain tolerances. Or something like that anyways.

With regards to women as marksmen, they tend to be better at shooting precisely, because their heartbeat influences their rifle less (don't ask me how), and they generally have less baggage then men when it comes to learning to shoot precisely (not that thinking you already know everything as a greenhorn necessarily is a problem shared by very skilled marksmen of either gender), but they aren't as adept at picking out targets from a background or at hitting moving targets.

Odin the Ignoble
2011-04-29, 02:55 AM
Anybody familiar with old black powder weaponry? I've got a bunch of questions, mostly about cannons.

Roughly how long did it take to reload and fire a cannon? How much of an impact did the size of the cannon have on reload time? Roughly how much faster could a highly skilled gun crew reload then a poorly trained one?

How many shots could be fired in rapid succession before cooling became an issue? Once again was it dependent on size? What methods were used to help cool the cannon?

What was the average reload time for a musket? A pistol? And how much influence did training have on reload time?

Any input at all would be much appreciated.

Conners
2011-04-29, 03:16 AM
Well, all I can say is that with muskets, I think the British had a goal of firing "three rounds a minute" which would mean reloading and firing in 20 seconds. Supposing from t hat, most soldiers wouldn't be able to fire 3 rounds a minute and would need to practice--then, you probably got a few who could reload and fire a round in 15 seconds or whichever.

That's all assumption, don't take what I say about muskets as hard facts. Might be worth considering or googling, is all.


Recap on the gender thing. So, when it comes to sniping, women are actually worse at shooting moving targets and telling targets from the background? But, they're also more aware of their surroundings (their peripheral vision).

With men being more resistant to alcohol--would the same work against drugs, venoms, poisons...?


@Dienekes: How much is the difference, though? Like, the woman being on the ground paralysed while the man can crawl for miles? Or, one lasts a few more seconds before going into shock?


Come to think of it... how well-adapted are women to social circumstances in comparison to men, genetically? I mean, society trains women to do more society-based things, while men tend to do meat-headed things perfectly acceptably. But on a genetic level, are women better at manipulating people or hiding their emotions or some-such?

Martin Greywolf
2011-04-29, 08:06 AM
Gunpowder weaponry:
Cannons: Which cannons are we talking about? Early hussite era bombards? It really makes a lot of difference, I recall reading about a siege of a city by hussite army with big bombards that could fire only once or twice per day because they needed to be cooled (no, dumping a bucket of water on it wouldn´t work, it would explode in your face with the next shot).

British 3-rounds-a-minute: Well, they could, but from what I know, they used a rather dangerous practice of loading bullets smaller than the gun´s calibre. You fire faster, but damage the barrel more.

As for reload time of early handcannon, we have record of 56 seconds between two shots. We did not train with it (only use it for kids shows, as we reenact teutonic knights of 13th century).

Fhaolan
2011-04-29, 10:14 AM
British 3-rounds-a-minute: Well, they could, but from what I know, they used a rather dangerous practice of loading bullets smaller than the gun´s calibre. You fire faster, but damage the barrel more.

There's also the difference between military and civilian when it comes to black powder. Civilians tended to load their guns with loose powder from a horn or tin, adjusting the load on-the-fly depending on the conditions. Military started to use paper cartridges in the 16th century or so, and by the 17th pretty much every military in Europe was using them. The paper cartridge greatly speeds up loading, but you're dealing with a fixed load, and you have to have reasonably consistant guns for your troops.

Martin Greywolf
2011-04-29, 02:27 PM
Well, I stay out of women vs men debates, unless someone wants historical evidence, so...
One link that you may find interesting:
http://www.coldsiberia.org/monwomen.htm
As for europe, it was not unheard of for a woman to use a sword in civilian fight. Take for example the last play of I.33 (woman is the one on the left and manual actually gives her name, saint Walpruga):
http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/i33/65.jpg
What was never, or almost never seen were women as actual soldiers. Famous counterexample is Joan of Arc (I heard that she was actually a daughter of milita leader in her hometown).

fusilier
2011-04-29, 03:38 PM
Anybody familiar with old black powder weaponry? I've got a bunch of questions, mostly about cannons.

Roughly how long did it take to reload and fire a cannon? How much of an impact did the size of the cannon have on reload time? Roughly how much faster could a highly skilled gun crew reload then a poorly trained one?

How many shots could be fired in rapid succession before cooling became an issue? Once again was it dependent on size? What methods were used to help cool the cannon?

What was the average reload time for a musket? A pistol? And how much influence did training have on reload time?

Any input at all would be much appreciated.

As others have pointed out the kind of cannon and the time period matter, but generalizations can be made.

Three aimed shots a minute is often cited as what could be expected from a well trained infantry man with a musket. This is using paper cartridges and a flintlock or percussion lock weapon (a match lock would be much slower). In practice, 2 shots or less was more common. Nevertheless, I've personally seen someone do almost 5 shots in a minute with a percussion weapon. It's claimed that the British could get something like 6 shots a minute with flintlocks -- but that's using several unreliable tricks. Mainly not ramming the ball (spitting down the barrel), and not *priming* (the vent holes were oversized and would allow powder from the main charge to leak into the priming pan).

A single shot, muzzle-loading pistol would probably have a similar loading time. The shorter length might make it a little bit quicker, but it won't matter too much. You typically wouldn't reload such a pistol in the middle of a battle anyway. If any of the weapons are rifled, it can take significantly longer, unless using a minie-ball or equivalent (even that could add a little bit of time).

Cannons are another story. Every competition we've had, the artillerymen always beat the infantry. While there are more steps to loading a cannon, they have five people doing the work of one.

A cannon crew is typically five, regardless of the size of a cannon. More people can be helpful, but won't necessarily speed up the rate of fire. Two is the minimum number of crewmen to operate a cannon. Very large, or very small cannon may have different requirements, but only in extreme cases.

Cannons are cooled in a couple of ways. First the bore is swabbed with water between shots. This is primarily to extinguish any burning embers from the previous shot, but does serve to cool the barrel as well. The other way of cooling is just to not fire the gun for a while. I remember reading about a Russian battery in the Crimean War, that, under extreme pressure, only swabbed the bore after every fifth shot and fired so hot and so rapidly that the bronze was starting to run at the muzzles!! That's an extreme case, but it was possible to overheat the guns -- this could lead to serious safety issues, and even bent/drooping barrels, so it's usually avoided.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, sometimes a sheepskin soaked in vinegar was laid over the vent in order to aid in cooling. [Vinegar was also used to swab the bore during that time period.]

Perhaps the biggest issue with black powder cannon isn't the time it takes to reload the gun, but the fact that the cannon has to be relaid after each shot (re-aimed). Only if the enemy was very close, and aiming didn't matter could they get away without re-aiming the gun. Seacoast and naval carriages might make relaying the gun fairly simple.

Also, hurried loading tended to affect the accuracy. It was typically better to take the time and do everything carefully than to rush.

Sorry I can't give you hard numbers, but only generalizations. As for a trained vs rookie crew, I would suspect that reload times could be considerably different. Lots of practice will speed things up, and an experience master gunner with a familiar gun will do a much better job of hitting the target. In a sense, that alone will make the gun "faster" as it will require less shots to get it on target.

Generally speaking, older cannons tended to be slower to load: over time the designs got lighter, and the drill more refined. Bigger cannons tend to be slower to load: there's more cannon that has to be manhandled back into battery, and the shot is heavier, etc. Also, bigger cannons tended to use the old fashion method of using a ladle for the powder, and placing the ball in afterwards. Smaller cannons could use a cartridge that had the projectile strapped to a cloth bag of powder. (Although that didn't become common until the 18th century).

Also the differences between cannon in similar roles should not be much. I would expect a 6 pounder and 12 pounder field-gun, to reload just as fast as a 24 pounder field-howitzer. But a massive 8-inch seacoast gun, I would expect to take much longer.

Hope that helps.

fusilier
2011-04-29, 04:30 PM
Cannons:

Found some more information buried on this forum:
http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9551919888/m/1891939499

It's topic is supposed to be about guns "leaping" (an effect of how they recoiled), but it spreads off in many directions. I haven't finished reading the whole thing, and it gets into a fairly technical discussion, but some of the information you are looking for is there. For land cannons you should probably look for a copy of Gibbon's Artillery Manual, that has information like this:


To quote Gibbons: "But this rapid firing is very injurious to pieces, especially bronze guns, which heat rapidly, soften, and lose their resistance." There is a quote attributed to Napoleon explaining his reasons for a standard rate of one round per minute. "It is the rate which preserves barrels and destroys armies." At Leutzen, the French artillery fired for 9 hours at the rate of one round per gun every 3 minutes. The French Guards artillery fired for 2 hours at a rate of one round per gun every 1.5 minutes.



Hence, Gibbons (1859) also says this: "For field-guns, 30 or 40 seconds are required for the 6-pdr., and one minute for a 12-pdr. The mean rate is about one shot per minute, but when close pressed, and firing at objects not difficult to hit, two or three shots per minute can be fired."

Here, the concern is overheating. So the practical rate of fire for a cannon (especially bronze ones it seems) was mostly limited by overheating issues, rather than the theoretical maximum speed at which the cannons could be loaded and fired. This does make it difficult to research, as practical rates of fire don't represent how fast the gun can be loaded -- and it can be unclear what is being reported. I read somewhere on-line that a 9-inch naval cannon could be loaded in 40 seconds (it fires a 90 lb ball), which seems really fast, but, in practice, would it be fired as quickly as it could be loaded? Seems unlikely.

Using Gibbons information as a guideline, you can come up with some arbitrary ratios for larger/smaller guns, or older guns (Gibbons is writing just before the Civil War, the climax of muzzle-loading artillery).

[If anyone is interested, the discussion on "leaping" missed two points that have to do with the placement of the trunnions, I can fill in more information if desired]

Yukitsu
2011-04-29, 05:26 PM
Well, I stay out of women vs men debates, unless someone wants historical evidence, so...
One link that you may find interesting:
http://www.coldsiberia.org/monwomen.htm
As for europe, it was not unheard of for a woman to use a sword in civilian fight. Take for example the last play of I.33 (woman is the one on the left and manual actually gives her name, saint Walpruga):
http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/i33/65.jpg
What was never, or almost never seen were women as actual soldiers. Famous counterexample is Joan of Arc (I heard that she was actually a daughter of milita leader in her hometown).

While rare, Onna Bugeisha in Japan were women who fought in wars as samurai retainers. This would be the same as a woman being knighted and granted a high rank in the court as a vassal lord in Europe. A few famous ones stick out for killing a hole ****egob of dudes.

randomhero00
2011-04-29, 05:36 PM
Sorry, this isn't a *real* world question. But I am working on a novel, and would love feed back. How do you all think an energy/crystal system would work (in place of gunpowder)? As in the guns use energy loaded crystals but still fires lead. How quick do you think that'd go? How long to load?

So far I have the crystals able to go off multiple times. So I have a squeeze method of ammo locked in the chamber. However once one needs to reload its the standard 6, either than or they will replace the entire circular clip thing.

Martin Greywolf
2011-04-29, 06:05 PM
Killing a lot of guys is not that hard in certain situations. There was a templar grandmaster who killed over 50 saracens in one battle (or so the chronicles say, but I am willing to believe this). Since he was a grandmaster, he had so much armor on him that he was the closest thing to Ironman without being Ironman and was probably mounted.
Samurai in battles, as I was led to believe, fought as horse-archers. Not that hard to kill dozens of spera-armed peasants, but I don´t know that much about japanese warfare and tactics.

Back to the point, Joan of Arc also killed quite a few people, but since she was a puppet, she was also armored head to toe and she likely was not allowed to go where the battle was really heated. It was not that uncommon to let important nobles (firstborn sons of kings and the like) fight only weak soldiers.

Also, women as soldiers brings a whole load of problems, beginning with menstruation (a part of your army is in really cranky mood no matter what) and ending with possible pregnancy. Also, there is repopulation, and from that viewpoint, men are just so much more expendable...

Crystal guns:
This really does not belong here, try the fantasy armor and weapons thread:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196139

Yukitsu
2011-04-29, 06:45 PM
Killing a lot of guys is not that hard in certain situations. There was a templar grandmaster who killed over 50 saracens in one battle (or so the chronicles say, but I am willing to believe this). Since he was a grandmaster, he had so much armor on him that he was the closest thing to Ironman without being Ironman and was probably mounted.
Samurai in battles, as I was led to believe, fought as horse-archers. Not that hard to kill dozens of spera-armed peasants, but I don´t know that much about japanese warfare and tactics.

It was during the 1500s that this tended to happen, since so many people were at war, women would often pitch in, or be forced to defend their home from invading samurai. Due to this defensive role, their favoured weapon tended to be the halberd, which is still considered to be a more a woman's weapon. I would agree they probably used the longbow, but it's not what they are semi-famous for.

It's unlikely that these warriors wore the same degree of armour as a templar grand master, since by this period, guns had forced them to wear full suits of plate that were practically impervious to conventional weapons of the time. In Japan, gunpowder technology was around, but lacking until the late 1500s to early 1600s (after which I'd agree, practically impervious plated armour), after Oda Nobunaga began using matchlock equipped peasants in a European style. I don't suspect it would have been enough to wade into combat with reckless abandon swinging away without getting killed.