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hamishspence
2012-03-31, 06:20 AM
New thread:


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 and Version VI. This is Version IX. Version X

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.
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)
Thread VIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192911)
Thread IX (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217159)

Mathis
2012-03-31, 07:56 AM
So, to kick us off I have a few questions. Do we know much about how long swords stayed with a person? Would a professional soldier carry a sword his entire carreer if it didn't break before he died? If a whetstone is applied to a sword that is often in use, how much of the sword would shave off after several years or decades?

Yora
2012-03-31, 10:14 AM
The quality of the material would certainly made an impact. If it holds the edge better, you need less sharpening. Also I assume that you get smaller nicks when hitting something hard, which would need less grinding to get them out. This should increase the life time quite substentially.

Roxxy
2012-03-31, 11:21 AM
About how early was artillery that could arc a shot instead of using direct fire invented? How early did it become the standard of the battlefield?

Mike_G
2012-03-31, 11:35 AM
About how early was artillery that could arc a shot instead of using direct fire invented? How early did it become the standard of the battlefield?

All projectile motion is arced. Every damn bit of it. With enough training, crews can do indirect fire with a machine gun.

Indirect fire was well known before artillery. Archers and siege engineers used it back as far as we have records. So I'm sure early artillerymen were able to do it.

As far as indirect fire becoming "standard," that's late. Like WWI late, where most artillery is located well behind the lines and fires at a co-ordinate rather than by the crew aiming at a point target. Through the 19th century most battlefield guns, or field artillery were fired directly at enemy formations, although siege mortars existed very very early on.

The big limiter on effective indirect fire is not the gun, it's communication between the artillery crew and the artillery spotter.

Yora
2012-03-31, 11:58 AM
Id even say that indirect fire was around long before directed fire. To aim a weapon by looking down the barrel and pointing it at the target you need projectiles at very high velocities. Catapults and trebuchets would fire in a very distinctive arc and as said, even with a bow or thrown spear, you have to fire or throw in an arc unless you are at point blank range tothe target.

If you can see the target you are aiming at or not, mostly depends on high its cover is. But to point the weapon directly at the target, you would have to be either very close or fire at very high velocity.

Straybow
2012-03-31, 01:28 PM
Id even say that indirect fire was around long before directed fire. To aim a weapon by looking down the barrel and pointing it at the target you need projectiles at very high velocities. Catapults and trebuchets would fire in a very distinctive arc and as said, even with a bow or thrown spear, you have to fire or throw in an arc unless you are at point blank range tothe target.

If you can see the target you are aiming at or not, mostly depends on high its cover is. But to point the weapon directly at the target, you would have to be either very close or fire at very high velocity. Direct trajectory (the term "fire" didn't come into parlance until the musket was a dominant armament) just means the arc is not very high compared with the distance to the target, and the angle of incidence at the target is more horizontal than vertical. The release mechanism on a trebuchet typically limits launch trajectory to about 30°, which is a fairly flat trajectory.

While most artillery fire today is directed at targets not visible to the gunners, a gun firing at a target 10 miles away might only arc 2-3 miles high and hit the target at a comparatively shallow angle of incidence. Many artillery guns cannot be elevated much more than 40°, which is near the angle of maximum range. Mortars arc higher than the distance to target and typically cannot be depressed lower than about 40°. A howitzer will fire through the full range of direct and indirect fire and elevation angles.

Traab
2012-03-31, 02:58 PM
I vote the thread title should include, "But Deadliest Warriors Said!"

GraaEminense
2012-03-31, 07:26 PM
Actually that isn't true. It's amazing to me the myths that persist about the Middle Ages. They were mass producing all kinds of weapons and armor by the 14th Century. The Arsenal at Venice was producing thousands of guns per year by the 15th C with basically all the technology of a modern factory, interchangable parts, an assembly-line, automation etc. Automated production (based on hydro power) was widespread throughout Europe by that time.
Point taken. My previous statement also carried a strong North-Western European bias where I would expect the situation to be different than in the Mediterranean trade cities, though I might well be wrong there as well.

On that note: I was under the impression that one of the limitations of early gunpowder weapons was the availability of gunpowder -the ability to make it in quantity, to store it and to transport it, and the availability of salpeter.
Can anyone enlighten me as to whether or not I am embarrasingly mistaken?

Straybow
2012-03-31, 11:04 PM
Well, one can bet that misfires due to moisture would've been common, and exploding weapons due to material flaws less rare than desired. Now, how expensive the guns were, and the powder... that would be another factor against widespread early use.

fusilier
2012-04-01, 12:17 AM
Point taken. My previous statement also carried a strong North-Western European bias where I would expect the situation to be different than in the Mediterranean trade cities, though I might well be wrong there as well.

On that note: I was under the impression that one of the limitations of early gunpowder weapons was the availability of gunpowder -the ability to make it in quantity, to store it and to transport it, and the availability of salpeter.
Can anyone enlighten me as to whether or not I am embarrasingly mistaken?


Gunpowder was rather expensive -- the price falling during the second half of the 1400s (I think, it was discussed in detail on an earlier incarnation of this topic). Early powders used calcium nitrate which is hydrophillic (?). Dry compounded gunpowder seperates when transported so mixing in the field was common.

Telok
2012-04-01, 01:43 AM
A quick wikipedia search on mortars delivers this


Mortars have existed for hundreds of years, first seeing use in siege warfare. Many historians claim that the first mortars were used at the 1453 siege of Constantinople. A European account of the Siege of Belgrade (1456) by Giovanni da Tagliacozzo credits the Ottoman Turks for using seven mortars that fired "stone shots one Italian mile high".[3] The speed of these was apparently slow enough that casualties could be avoided by posting observers that gave warning of their trajectories.[4]

Found here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coehorn_mortar#History).

Galloglaich
2012-04-01, 09:51 AM
Point taken. My previous statement also carried a strong North-Western European bias where I would expect the situation to be different than in the Mediterranean trade cities, though I might well be wrong there as well.

France and England are a little behind the rest of Europe technologically through most of the Medieval period, though there are some exceptions. The most important art / technology / production centers in order of importance are the cities of Northern Italy (Florence, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Brescia, Padua, and so on), the cities of Flanders and the Low Countries (Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Liege, The Hague, Amsterdam and so on in what is today Belgium and Holland), the North-German Hanse cities (esp. Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck), the central German Rhine and Swabian cities (Cologne, Strassbourg, and Augsburg), the Catalan cities (Barcelona and Valencia), and the Baltic north/central European cities of Prussia, Poland, Northern Hungary and Bohemia (Danzig, Krakow and Prague being most important).

So a lot of important industries were dominated by a few of these towns. For example, almost all the top quality armor used in Medieval Europe from the 14th Century onward (the era of plate armor) was made in three cities: Milan, Brescia, and Augsburg in Swabia (Germany - then part of the Holy Roman Empire). This continued from the 14th C through the early 16th.

Some of the English towns were part of the Hanseatic league, York and London were pretty sophisticated in certain ways... and they had Oxford and Cambridge Universities... Paris was also a hugely important University. Generally speaking though France and England were much more rural and Feudal, with strong Monarchies, and as a result they lacked the economic and technological dynamism of the Italian and Central European city-states.



On that note: I was under the impression that one of the limitations of early gunpowder weapons was the availability of gunpowder -the ability to make it in quantity, to store it and to transport it, and the availability of salpeter.
Can anyone enlighten me as to whether or not I am embarrasingly mistaken?

No reason to be embarassed to ask questions, and sorry for my snarky tone earlier. I get grumpy about some persistent cliches but shouldn't be a jerk about it! I apologize.

The gunpowder question is quite valid. So gunpowder appeared in Europe in the mid-13th Century, first published in cypher form by the English Monk Roger Bacon. Early gunpowder was a mysterious alchemical substance equally intended for use as a flame-weapon as a propellant of bullets or arrows. It gradually got better and more useful, with numerous innovations. The (arguably) most important one took place around the mid-15th Century when they invented corned powder.

Until that point, the powder would tend to seperate out as you moved around, and could change it's composition over time. Corned powder was made of consistent kernels which retained their composition and size, different sizes being ideal for different weapons. This allowed them to make all their powder long before battle (instead of making it with mortar and pestle on the battlefield!) and quickly led to the use of cartridges, in the form of little bags of pre-measured powder (exactly the amount for one shot), primer, and a bullet.

From that point it's basically pretty good until you get to smokeless powder Centuries later. This is why most historians call the period from 1500 AD the 'Early Modern Era' because technologically, in war, they had almost all the same stuff they had centuries later. In fact in some cases they had reached the high-water mark in the 15th or early 16th Century on some stuff they wouldn't do as well for a long time to come. Like armor, or early field-guns such as those used by the Czechs, which arguably were not really improved upon until Gustavus Adolphus in the 17th Century.

G

GraaEminense
2012-04-01, 11:28 AM
That's pretty much as I expected -though I did not know corned powder was around as early as 1450. Supply must have increased with demand, but was there actually problems getting enough of the stuff?


No reason to be embarassed to ask questions, and sorry for my snarky tone earlier. I get grumpy about some persistent cliches but shouldn't be a jerk about it! I apologize.
No offence taken. I'll admit to a slightly hurt pride, but that's what you get when you make statements without getting your facts straight.

a_humble_lich
2012-04-01, 01:06 PM
France and England are a little behind the rest of Europe technologically through most of the Medieval period, though there are some exceptions. The most important art / technology / production centers in order of importance are the cities of Northern Italy (Florence, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Brescia, Padua, and so on), the cities of Flanders and the Low Countries (Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Liege, The Hague, Amsterdam and so on in what is today Belgium and Holland), the North-German Hanse cities (esp. Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck), the central German Rhine and Swabian cities (Cologne, Strassbourg, and Augsburg), the Catalan cities (Barcelona and Valencia), and the Baltic north/central European cities of Prussia, Poland, Northern Hungary and Bohemia (Danzig, Krakow and Prague being most important).


I am surprised that you left Constantinople off that list. I had thought in the Early Medieval period the Byzantines were one of the most important centers of art/technology in Europe. Of course, after the 4th crusade they had problems.

Diamondeye
2012-04-02, 02:36 AM
Ahh, indirect fire. My favorite topic. :smallbiggrin:

Ok, what has already been stated is fairly accurate. All fire is indirect in the sense that it arcs at least a little bit. There's no way around that unless you're using a laser weapon. Missiles or guided projectiles that glide might technically be an exception as well, but they have to generate lift somehow or they'll arc like anything else.

Indirect fire really means any time the weapon being employed is being aimed by someone other than the operator; an observer of some sort. Indirect fire, in that sense, came about one it was possible to send target information from an observer to a gun quickly enough to make shooting like this practical. Essentially, when the first field telephones appeared.

Indirect fire requires indirect lay. Basically, what this means is that you establish the gun's position, direction of aim (azimuth) and altitude relative to some known point on earth. The target is then located relative to that same known point. That requires some sort of accurate mapping system including a projection, sphereoid and all kinds of other highly technical details. You establish the known point you're going to fire off of ideally by having it surveyed in. The more accurately the gun is laid and the point is known, the more accurate your fire will be. With very modern systems like Paladin, GPS and inertial navigation can be used as well, but you still want to start from a surveyed point.

Indirect fire is not simply shooting in an arc to bring a projectile down on top of an enemy or because you have to shoot in an arc to get your projectile there. That's direct fire, just a more difficult, complicated version of it. When discussing, say, WWII naval battles, we never say that 2 battleships engaged each other with indirect fire. The 2 ships each directly located, aimed, and fired at their enemy once the engagement actually commenced, using either visual means or radar. Their fire was not generally directed at the enemy ship by an outside observer. On the other hand, an observer might very well direct ships firing at shore targets, making it indirect even though the ballistic performance of the projectile was similar in both situations.

Yora
2012-04-02, 04:28 AM
Yet even when the observer says "shot 200 meter behind that ridge", it's still the gunners at the ship who aim the weapons at a spot they can not see.

Which is the same thing with a mortar.

No brains
2012-04-02, 10:21 AM
Bow question:

I've learned that the flexibility of the arms of a bow are where most of the kinetic energy is supposed to come from, but what about the elasticity of the string?

Is it better to use a string that would stretch to give a little extra power, or is it preferable to use a string that will not stretch to lower the variability of a shot?

Also, in plain fantasy silliness, could a giant use a bow that was strung by a chain? Do chains have the qualities of a good bowstring? I imagine not...

Ashtagon
2012-04-02, 10:32 AM
It is quite routine for a bowstring to break due to wear and tear from normal use. (my old archery group of about 15 archers saw one string break every 4-6 meets). An archer would have carried around spare strings.

I would imagine that a non-elastic string would be better. An elastic string would stretch over time, causing the archer to misjudge the amount of draw effort put into each shot.

A chain could be used as a "string" for a sufficiently large arrow -- say, one that had a shaft about a foot wide (assuming links about an inch wide). Giant bows would be more likely to be strung with thin rope.

Spiryt
2012-04-02, 12:54 PM
Bow question:

I've learned that the flexibility of the arms of a bow are where most of the kinetic energy is supposed to come from, but what about the elasticity of the string?

Is it better to use a string that would stretch to give a little extra power, or is it preferable to use a string that will not stretch to lower the variability of a shot?

Also, in plain fantasy silliness, could a giant use a bow that was strung by a chain? Do chains have the qualities of a good bowstring? I imagine not...

Stretching string will not give any power at all, in fact it will rob bow out of energy, as some energy is required for stretching the string, obviously.

Lack of stretchability is one of most desired qualities of good string, of course it's often hard to balance with resilience - if string won't snap, it usually must stretch a tiny little bit at least.

As far as chain goes, I can't imagine how should it work.

Aside from problems with achieving any sort of good tension with chain, after release every link would obviously move a bit in random direction, making it all pointless.

Adding the fact that metal chain would be obviously terribly heavy for string... Bad idea in general.

Illieas
2012-04-02, 12:57 PM
Bow question:

I've learned that the flexibility of the arms of a bow are where most of the kinetic energy is supposed to come from, but what about the elasticity of the string?

Is it better to use a string that would stretch to give a little extra power, or is it preferable to use a string that will not stretch to lower the variability of a shot?

Also, in plain fantasy silliness, could a giant use a bow that was strung by a chain? Do chains have the qualities of a good bowstring? I imagine not...

No a more ragid string is necessary for even distribution which effects aim. Also a elastic string will actually weaken the bow since in the default state the arms are still pulling the string taut. over time the string will grow longer and require more pulling distance in order to gain the same amount of energy as using a more rigid string.


while a chain could work the problem is again distribution of energy between the links. the bow would shoot wildly. depnding on the size of links it could also potentially be a problem with notching as well since ther are will be variable widths of the chain depedning on where you place your arrow. For practicality a chain used a on ballista would probably be better to stabalize trajectory.

you can use metal wire as a bowstring which is better but the problem then become flaying your skin off the bow holding arm

Spiryt
2012-04-02, 01:18 PM
Metal wire is bad idea, as it's obviously again - heavy, stiff, and under rapid and repeating stresses, metal fatigues way faster than linen, silk, hemp or any other appropriate non synthetic material.

And effects of metal wire string failing can be pretty nasty indeed.

And if it's shaped/massive enough to hold inact, it will quite obviously bite into bow arms instead.

DrewID
2012-04-02, 01:44 PM
When you release a bow, a significant portion of the stored energy goes to rapidly moving the bow arms forward. They move a shorter distance than the arrow (the ends move about half as far, and the grip essentially does not move), but they weigh a good deal more. Adding additional mass that had to be moved forward (a chain, frex) would take away more of the energy from the arrow.

DrewID

Thiel
2012-04-02, 04:08 PM
When discussing, say, WWII naval battles, we never say that 2 battleships engaged each other with indirect fire. The 2 ships each directly located, aimed, and fired at their enemy once the engagement actually commenced, using either visual means or radar. Their fire was not generally directed at the enemy ship by an outside observer. On the other hand, an observer might very well direct ships firing at shore targets, making it indirect even though the ballistic performance of the projectile was similar in both situations.

Actually, indirect ship-to-ship fire was practised by the USN at least, though I'm unsure if it was ever used in action. Anyway, that's part of the reason why the US liked floatplanes so much and kept them in service until the early fifties.

fusilier
2012-04-02, 06:10 PM
Actually, indirect ship-to-ship fire was practised by the USN at least, though I'm unsure if it was ever used in action. Anyway, that's part of the reason why the US liked floatplanes so much and kept them in service until the early fifties.

I think that "theory" was pretty common, and most battleships carried floatplanes to be used both as scouts and artillery spotters. But I don't think it was ever actually used in battle.

rrgg
2012-04-02, 07:04 PM
Bow question:

I've learned that the flexibility of the arms of a bow are where most of the kinetic energy is supposed to come from, but what about the elasticity of the string?

Is it better to use a string that would stretch to give a little extra power, or is it preferable to use a string that will not stretch to lower the variability of a shot?

Also, in plain fantasy silliness, could a giant use a bow that was strung by a chain? Do chains have the qualities of a good bowstring? I imagine not...

As mentioned the biggest issue would probably be the weight. The energy produced when a bow is released has to be split based on the relative masses of the bow arms, the string, and projectile. If the first two weigh more then you have less energy transferred to the arrow.

Additionally, I don't think there was ever a need for ballistas and the like to ever use chain as a substitute.

warty goblin
2012-04-02, 10:34 PM
You also might lose a significant amount of energy to friction between the links of the chain, particularly if it was poorly lubricated.

No brains
2012-04-02, 11:02 PM
Thanks for all the bow info! I actually asked because I recently taught my sister how to draw archers and I told her that the bow should deform from its original shape but should not stretch, especially in the string. Good to know I wasn't full of it!:smallbiggrin:

I didn't anticipate the chain bow getting so much attention.:smallsmile: Maybe I'll just say it works by magic, just like all those perfectly flat-sided, ragged-edge, fantasy swords. :smallcool:

huttj509
2012-04-03, 04:08 AM
Thanks for all the bow info! I actually asked because I recently taught my sister how to draw archers and I told her that the bow should deform from its original shape but should not stretch, especially in the string. Good to know I wasn't full of it!:smallbiggrin:

I didn't anticipate the chain bow getting so much attention.:smallsmile: Maybe I'll just say it works by magic, just like all those perfectly flat-sided, ragged-edge, fantasy swords. :smallcool:

As a practical demonstration of a similar concept, take a belt and hold one end in each hand, can hold a bit in from the ends if it's more comfortable. The belt now droops downwards, and something could be set in the middle, resting on the belt.

Next, make sure there's nothing breakable above you.

Now give the ends a sharp tug sideways, away from each other. The object in the middle of the belt goes flying into the air.

Now dodge as it comes back down.

A similar example is if you double the belt over, move your hands in so the 2 belt strands bend away from each other, than pull the hands apart quickly creating a loud snapping sound as the ends quickly slap into each other.

In a bow, the bow itself does the pulling of the ends of the string as it regains its shape, acting as your hands did in the above example. A contrasting example is a slingshot, where the 'string' does the stretching, and regains its shape quickly. It seems like combining the two would work well, but it really doesn't.

Note in both situations the goal is to store energy over time (either by flexing the bow, pr stretching the slingshot band), which is then released quickly as it springs back into shape.

Now if you pull the string back a given amount on a bow, a rigid string will bend the bow more than a stretchy string. Why? Because the bow's pulling against the string, so if it can stretch easily to allow the bow to retain its shape, it will. You're losing flex in the bow, and not gaining anything besides stretch in the elastic.

If you pull with the same FORCE, you need to pull the string farther if it's stretchy. I'm actually not sure how the combination in this case would affect the arrow speed, but it would definitely depend on the particular properties of the bow and stretchy string (bungee cord? Underwear elastic? That sort of thing).

Given that you can only pull a bowstring back so far, the elastic bowstring rapidly becomes impractical, even if the arrow speed at the same force of pull would work out the same.

eulmanis12
2012-04-03, 07:47 AM
I've got one question.

I know that when gunpowder became widespread castles and knights and other "standard fare" of medeval europe declined. What I'm wondering is what the interum period looked like. Were there castle sieges with both sides employing gunpowder weapons, how were the storming actions in these sieges different from the ones before gunpowder, at what point did castles fully become replaced by "modern" forts (think forts like Ft McHenry or Fort Point).

I'm trying to run a game that takes place in the transition era between medeval europe and "black powder" europe and I've got the PC's about to storm a Fort/Castle and I'm trying to make it as realistic as possible.

Deepbluediver
2012-04-03, 08:15 AM
All this talk about bows and bowstrings!

Why is dry-firing a bow so bad for it? I've read repeatedly that its not good for any bow, and a modern compound bow could be ruined in just a few shots that way. I'm curious as to what exactly goes on to make it so awful to let the bow operate without an arrow.

Spiryt
2012-04-03, 08:23 AM
"Black powder Europe" lasts at least from the end of 14th century, while Medieval generally ends at the end of 15th, depending on area, although it's obviously very abstract boundary.

Sieges in stone castles last well into the end of 17th century, powder gives huge capabilities, but stone fortress is still fortress, especially with it's own guns.

Modern forts generally begun 'full scale' in 18th century, although obviously appropriate earth works started to develop as soon as cannons and co...

So it's very broad topic, but generally in 'transitional' period - in 'real life' it would be 16th and 17th century - would still see a lot of pretty 'medieval' sieges, only with cannon, mortars, tunnels to mine and blow up the walls, and so on.


I know that when gunpowder became widespread castles and knights and other "standard fare" of medeval europe declined.

That is, as often mentioned, widespread misinterpretation.

Knights 'declined' because of social, political etc. changes, are obviously always material for books and books...

They evolved, or whatever into other forms of aristocracy, and similar groups, while heavy shock cavalry (which anyway wasn't always perfectly synonymous with 'knight') lasted very long into gunpowder still, even though
in most cases lance wasn't main weapon anymore.

Spiryt
2012-04-03, 08:28 AM
All this talk about bows and bowstrings!

Why is dry-firing a bow so bad for it? I've read repeatedly that its not good for any bow, and a modern compound bow could be ruined in just a few shots that way. I'm curious as to what exactly goes on to make it so awful to let the bow operate without an arrow.

You draw, a bow, it gathers certain amount of energy, and then you release it, but there's no arrow to receive this energy - so best part of energy is transfered into the movement of arms instead. Very quick and violent movement, of course. Pretty simple, really.

So it will be usually very ruinous for them indeed.

fusilier
2012-04-03, 11:53 PM
I've got one question.

I know that when gunpowder became widespread castles and knights and other "standard fare" of medeval europe declined. What I'm wondering is what the interum period looked like. Were there castle sieges with both sides employing gunpowder weapons, how were the storming actions in these sieges different from the ones before gunpowder, at what point did castles fully become replaced by "modern" forts (think forts like Ft McHenry or Fort Point).

I'm trying to run a game that takes place in the transition era between medeval europe and "black powder" europe and I've got the PC's about to storm a Fort/Castle and I'm trying to make it as realistic as possible.

It's kind of a broad period. For a while there cannons seem to have given an advantage to the defense. Early bombards augmented other siege engines, gradually replacing them completely. The French "burgundian" carriage was considered revolutionary, but their impact is probably exagerrated. They did allow the guns to be emplaced more quickly.

The "trace italliene" was developed by about 1530, this is basically the design that Fort McHenry followed. In the interrum there was an "artillery fort". Basically castles became shorter with thicker walls. It was common to cut down the height of a tower and fill it with earth allowing heavy cannons to be placed on it. Old castles and forts could be upgraded, although often times they might be upgraded with temporary earthworks piled against the walls. Sometimes they filled the inside of the works with earth, both to provide a platform for artillery and to reinforce the walls. However, the pressure encouraged the walls to rupture outwards.

Stone cannonballs tended to break the walls into large chunks that could be difficult to storm. New forts and updated castles could be quite formidable, but plenty of old castles would still be around. Some new artillery forts, while not built to the trace italliene design, might have very thick walls, and possibly be countermined with vents. However, they were not cut for many cannons -- typically, the attacker had an advantage in artillery, and could take a very direct approach to the walls. This was usually the case from about 1500(?) to the late 1600s.

fusilier
2012-04-04, 01:08 AM
A good example of a fort from the intermediate period is Fort de Salses, completed in 1503.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_de_Salses.

It was so well built that it impressed people over a hundred years after its completion, by which point its trace would have seemed very obsolete. Note the use of round towers on the fort -- this was popular with a lot of the early "artillery" forts. It created blind spots, however.

Knaight
2012-04-04, 01:50 AM
It's kind of a broad period. For a while there cannons seem to have given an advantage to the defense. Early bombards augmented other siege engines, gradually replacing them completely. The French "burgundian" carriage was considered revolutionary, but their impact is probably exagerrated. They did allow the guns to be emplaced more quickly.
Cannons giving an advantage to the defense is somewhat regional. If you look at the emerging Ottoman Empire, which was using gunpowder fairly early you'll see a fairly large shift towards the attack. This is arguably part of the reason Constantinople fell when it did, and this advantage on the attack never really went away.

fusilier
2012-04-04, 05:13 AM
I wanted to add a little more information taken from Michael Mallett's, Mercenaries and their Masters. The context is Italy in the first half of the 15th century:

The ponderous heavy guns could take weeks to get into position and prepare for action. Even then their rate of fire was exceptionally slow and their bombardment by no means accurate. They and their gunners had to be protected from counter-bombardment and enemy sortie. . . . It is strangely true that artillery contributed perhaps more to the defence of cities and fortresses than it did to their assault. Guns permanently mounted on the walls of a city could be supplied much more efficiently and used much more speedily and effectively than the guns of besiegers hauled up into temporary emplacements from many miles away. It was for these reasons that, as we shall see, the art of fortification changed relatively slowly in response to the new threat. What did happen quickly was that all the fortified places acquired massive collections of artillery with which to defend themselves.

He then gives several statistics:

Bologna had 35 pieces on its walls as early as 1381. Small papal fortresses like Soriano had 12 in 1449, and Ostia had 11, etc.

These wouldn't sound like "massive" amounts of artillery to someone from Vauban's era, but at the time were considered impressive.

However Mallett continues:


The slowness with which siege pieces were moved into position was balanced, however, by the speed with which a heavy gun, once ready to fire, could breach the medieval fortifications of most Italian cities and castles. Thus if a siege lasted more than a few weeks, the chances were that the besieged would then quickly be forced to sue for terms, as shortages of supplies and breaches in their walls made defence difficult.

So he appears to be stating two things:
1. That defensive artillery made it difficult to emplace besieging guns.
2. However, once those besieging guns were successfully in place, the advantage would swing to the besieger.

It should be noted that these are general observations, and individual situations would vary.

He then notes that at the siege of Zagarolo in 1439, the besiegers only expended 6 tons of powder, and at Rimini in 1469, 12 tons. Whereas the French and Venetians fired 20,000 cannonballs at Verona in 1516, and Henry VIII's army used 32 tons of powder a day(!) in siege operations in 1513 in Northern France.

More relevant quotes:


The crucial feature in the changes in fortifications produced by the use of gunpowder lay not in preparing walls which could withstand battery by artillery, but in using artillery to defend those walls, to hold the enemy at a distance and strike at his siegeworks. Hence it is on the bastion, the solid low tower, either round or angled, on which heavy guns could be mounted to fire outwards, that attention must be concentrated. . . .
. . .
The initial reactions of defenders to the threat of artillery were to thicken their walls and to scarp them so that the cannon shot would be deflected upwards. At the same time the cannon which soon appeared in the defences were used primarily to strengthen the crossfire from the towers and thus impede the assault. . . . Evidence of innovations of these limited types can be found going back into the fourteenth century, but at that time the pressure for change was not great enough nor the resources for dramatic rebuilding available to bring about major developments.
It was in the middle years of the fifteenth century that a number of fortresses were completely rebuilt according to new principles. The emphasis was on the small fortress rather than on extended city walls, . . . [He then rattles off a list of placenames and people] . . . All this was the work of the period between 1450 and 1494, and all the Italian states were spending heavily on fortifications.

Mallett's comments get pretty general, but he does have some other information about how sieges were conducted, and field fortifications, etc. I find sieges to be interesting, and the period you describe is a transitional one, which can make it more interesting, with many new things were being tried. It is also a period that tends to be glossed over (cannons appeared and castles gave way to the trace italienne). :-(

Somebody who appears to have written a fair amount about this time period is J. R. Hale, including some works that may be focused on this very topic, but his books don't seem to be easy to locate.

Brother Oni
2012-04-04, 05:38 AM
You draw, a bow, it gathers certain amount of energy, and then you release it, but there's no arrow to receive this energy - so best part of energy is transfered into the movement of arms instead. Very quick and violent movement, of course. Pretty simple, really.

So it will be usually very ruinous for them indeed.

Wth compound bows in particular, because you don't have the arrow guiding where you should pull the string back to, the wires can leave their grooves on the gears, thus when you release the string, you end up with a catastrophic bow failure with wires flying all over the place.

There's a couple good videos on youtube demonstating common compound bow failures and why you shouldn't dry fire a bow.

Incanur
2012-04-04, 10:26 AM
I know that when gunpowder became widespread castles and knights and other "standard fare" of medeval europe declined. What I'm wondering is what the interum period looked like.

As others have said, the transition was gradual and halting. I'm quite fond of the early sixteenth century myself. Francis I of France (http://books.google.com/books?id=zGvoIW6Y_xAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false) and the Chevalier Bayard (http://books.google.com/books?id=MJkTyHaVBLgC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=chevalier+bayard&source=bl&ots=jfq94pqrgM&sig=dKCgeZUq0xh3U5XcIyeck05eC9g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=n2R8T8X7JueWiAK7o8WqDQ&ved=0CGcQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=chevalier%20bayard&f=false) exemplified the popular ideal of the knight in shining armor. While artillery had become militarily essential in this period - at least for the siege - handheld guns remained questionable. As late as 1548, Fourquevaux recommend the bow and crossbow over the arquebus, though he acknowledged the latter could penetrate any wearable armor at close range and with a proper charge. (I just read an account from later in the sixteenth century where a point-blank shot from an arquebus or musket completely pierced the target's armor but did him no harm. He promptly impaled his assailant with a halberd.) Fourquevaux cited a siege in which the best crossbowman killed more foes than the best five or six arquebusers. The fully armored knight who wielded the heavy lance remained potent on the battlefield until the end of the sixteenth century, though it became harder and harder to justify the expense of fielding such cavalry.

Storm Bringer
2012-04-04, 11:10 AM
for a pop culture reference: the Assassins creed 2 trilolgy happens in this "transitionary" phase (the gamse timespan is very roughly 1470-1520), and while firearms are around, crossbows are more common. have a look at that for an idea of cool, intresting small scale combat form that era (and cuase it's a bloody awesome triolgy that fixed a lot of the problems with AC1).

eulmanis12
2012-04-04, 12:32 PM
All this talk about bows and bowstrings!

Why is dry-firing a bow so bad for it? I've read repeatedly that its not good for any bow, and a modern compound bow could be ruined in just a few shots that way. I'm curious as to what exactly goes on to make it so awful to let the bow operate without an arrow.

Newton's third law states: "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"

When a bow if fired with an arrow, the energy stored in the arms of the bow is transfered from potential energy in a spring(the bow arms), to kinetic energy in the arrow. If there is no arrow, the energy has nowhere to go and remains in the arms of the bow causing them to vibrate violently. In a wooden bow this is bad. In a composite bow this is worse. In a high end Carbon bow, this can easily lead to the entire bow disintegrating into a pile of dust (I have personally witnessed this happening, the dry fired bow disintegrated into a powdery substance leaving the user holding a bow handle with nothing attached to it.)

Do not dry fire a bow. Even if it does not outright destroy the bow it causes signifigantly more fatigue on the bow than firing a normal shot.

fusilier
2012-04-05, 06:35 AM
Contravallation and Circumvallation

In the recent discussion of sieges I discovered a curious contradiction. These two terms often have their meaning reversed, and it's not clear to me which is correct.

In theory when an army was besieging a town or fortification, they would often set up these two lines. According to Christopher Duffy in Siege Warfare, they would first set up the lines of circumvallation, which, according to him, faced outwards! It protected the besieging army from an enemy field army, not from the besieged. To address any sorties being attempted by the besieged, the besiegers would then set up lines of contravallation (Duffy refers to them as countervallation). Contra meaning against, and therefore it was meant that these lines were "against" the walls.

A brief aside on the order in which these lines are constructed. At first it seemed odd to me that an army would set up outward facing defensive lines first, rather than inward facing ones. But at the time, (late medieval to renaissance), it looks like the besiegers typically greatly outnumbered the besieged, and they were more concerned about a large field army attacking them while they are preparing their siege works. Either line would serve to isolate the besieged from the outside.

Wikipedia gives the opposite definitions for these lines to wit: Circumvallation faces the besieged town/fortress, and Contravallation faces outward against the country side.

Several other websites make this argument too. I've been trying to track down what it was originally (at the very least, it means we can't actually rely upon the words without further clarification from the author/speaker).

I found an entry on google books, from a book called Extreme War, by Terrence Poulos: he claims that circumvallation is perhaps the most misused term, and supports the wikipedia definition of circumvallation and contravallation. He even provides a nifty graphic to help explain it. His argument seems to be based merely upon the root meanings of the words -- which is fairly weak, as they can easily be construed in either way (against the walls or against the countryside; around the castle, or around both the attacking army and the castle).

Poulos further claims that many historical and modern authors reverse the terms, and use them incorrectly, too many to point out, but he points out one person who "got it right": John Lynn, in his book The Wars of Louis XIV: 1664-1714. He then states that "the rest of you" (authors?) are on notice, and that the readers of his book "will be watching you."

Well it turns out that John Lynn's book is also available on google books, but only in snippet view. Nevertheless a snippet turns up this partial sentence:

with complete rings of entrenchments: one facing inward toward the besieged works, the lines of contravallation; and the other facing outward to protect the attackers from attack by a relief army, the lines of circumvallation.

That appears to be exactly the opposite of what Poulos claimed . . .

Military dictionaries and glossaries were popular during the 19th century, here's one from 1802:
http://books.google.com/books?id=pixOAAAAYAAJ&dq=glossary+of+military+terms+contravallation&source=gbs_navlinks_s

The definition of Contravallation that they give conforms to Duffy (lines of Contravallation face the besieged).

Anyway, I was wondering if anybody had any other sources to cite? It almost seems like Poulos has threatened people into using his reversed definitions with a profound effect on the internet, but not on print works.

--EDIT--
An older dictionary (1723), also agreeing with Duffy:

http://books.google.com/books?id=VuYIAAAAQAAJ&dq=contravallation+circumvallation+correct+termino logy&source=gbs_navlinks_s

This website, seems to imply that perhaps "circumvallation" was a term that could be used for either line (English armies during the Civil War didn't seem to bother digging two lines):
http://www.17thcenturylifeandtimes.com/granville%20thomas.html

Hades
2012-04-05, 10:49 AM
For what it's worth, the OED says:
Circumvallation:

1. The making of a rampart or entrenchment round a place, esp. in besieging.
b.line of circumvallation: a line of earth-works consisting of a rampart and trench surrounding a besieged place or the camp of a besieging army. So wall of circumvallation, etc.
2. A rampart or entrenchment constructed round any place by way of investment or defence.

And has citations with both meanings (defenders and besiegers), the earliest mention in 1641. Most of the citations with the second meaning (besiegers setting up lines of circumvallation) appear to be later (1836, 1876), though some of the references, even the earliest (1641) are ambiguous without longer context than the quotation they give.

While for Contravallation it says:

1. A chain of redoubts and breastworks, either unconnected or united by a parapet, constructed by besiegers between their camp and the town, as a defence against sorties of the garrison.

And citations from 1678 onward with this meaning, though again a few of these citations are ambiguous, for instance: "1678, L. de Gaya's Art of War ii. 113 Circumvallation and Contravallation, is a Composition of Redoubts, little Forts, and Angles with Trenches, and Lines of Communication from one to another round a place that is beseiged."

I dunno if that's at all helpful or not, heh.

Mike_G
2012-04-05, 11:03 AM
I always thought contravallation referred to walls set up opposing the enemy fortress. Because of, y'know "contra." So facing the besieged castle/city whatever.

Circumvallation I just read as encircling the enemy, so it could refer to walls facing either way.

fusilier
2012-04-05, 12:41 PM
I always thought contravallation referred to walls set up opposing the enemy fortress. Because of, y'know "contra." So facing the besieged castle/city whatever.

Circumvallation I just read as encircling the enemy, so it could refer to walls facing either way.

This makes sense, and I think that some authors clearly used the term circumvallation to refer to either type.

@Hades: I think that is helpful as it is finding older references. I'm not sure if the terms in English are much older than the 17th century (although they obviously have latin roots of some sort). Also, it shows that from a fairly early period, contravallation and circumvallation were being lumped together as works surrounding a besieged place.

Thanks!

Straybow
2012-04-05, 12:45 PM
Contravallation and Circumvallation

Wikipedia gives the opposite definitions for these lines to wit: Circumvallation faces the besieged town/fortress, and Contravallation faces outward against the country side.

I think that is a case of widespread misunderstanding that is technically wrong. Many people who collect paychecks twice each month call it "bimonthly" paychecks, when in fact they are semimonthly. They call meetings set twice per year "biannual" when they are actually semiannual. When people want to debate it I point out that the bicentennial wasn't celebrated two hundred times a year, it was celebrated two hundred years after the founding. All those terms are related to the period of time between events, not the number of events in the base unit of time.

Circumvallation, it is noted, applies to defenders as well as beseigers. Many times a city has a series of forts or redoubts around the outskirts that together are called a circumvallation. They surround it outside the walls, which often enclosed a much smaller area than the actual urban area. When cities removed their walls as too expensive to maintain and ineffectual against cannon and the fortifications were still called circumvallations.

Hades
2012-04-05, 01:54 PM
@Hades: I think that is helpful as it is finding older references. I'm not sure if the terms in English are much older than the 17th century (although they obviously have latin roots of some sort). Also, it shows that from a fairly early period, contravallation and circumvallation were being lumped together as works surrounding a besieged place.

Thanks!

Not a problem, I always find it interesting to look up etymologies and whatnot in the OED. The oldest English reference the OED has to either of these words appears to be the 1641 reference to circumvallation, which is: "1641, Evelyn Diary: 3 Aug., At night we rode about the lines of circumvallation." This means that the diary is the oldest printed or manuscript use of the word known to the editors, so it is probable of course that it was in use before that, and that other references have been lost or remain unknown. The diary seems to be John Evelyn's Diary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Evelyn%27s_Diaryhttp://), which is linked from that wiki page.

As for etymologies:
For circumvallation, from the verb circumvallate: adapted from Latin circumvallātus past participle of circumvallāre, to surround with a rampart, from circum- + vallum (rampart).

And for contravallation: adaptation of French contrevallation, Italian contravvallazione, from Latin contra- + vallatiōn- entrenchment (from vallāre, to surround with a rampart, to entrench).

It might be interesting then to look into the early usage of the words in French, Italian, or Latin, but I don't have access to anything like that, I'm afraid - my Petit Robert unfortunately lacks both words.

fusilier
2012-04-05, 05:56 PM
Circumvallation, it is noted, applies to defenders as well as beseigers. Many times a city has a series of forts or redoubts around the outskirts that together are called a circumvallation. They surround it outside the walls, which often enclosed a much smaller area than the actual urban area. When cities removed their walls as too expensive to maintain and ineffectual against cannon and the fortifications were still called circumvallations.

There's an old book from 1849/50 that is a first person narrative of the revolutions of 1848 in Italy, and ends with the siege of Rome and the fall of the "Roman Republic". I seem to remember the descriptions being that as the besieging French kept extending their line of "contravallation" the defenders kept extending their line of "circumvallation" -- but it's been some time since I've read that book.

fusilier
2012-04-05, 05:59 PM
It might be interesting then to look into the early usage of the words in French, Italian, or Latin, but I don't have access to anything like that, I'm afraid - my Petit Robert unfortunately lacks both words.

I was thinking the same thing, but I also don't have the resources to study the terminology in other languages.

No brains
2012-04-06, 03:20 PM
Do you know how modern armors are like a ceramic plate in a big pocket?

Were/ are there any examples of metal plate armor harnessed in a similar way? Part of the benefit of metal armor is its bling factor, so I doubt it.

I do know that brigandine and lamellar-

...

Well, well, well. I answered my own question by looking in wikipedia to confirm what I knew about brigandines. Even fairly large plates were held in cloth. Not quite as big as ceramic plates, though.

Diamondeye
2012-04-07, 02:24 AM
Actually, indirect ship-to-ship fire was practised by the USN at least, though I'm unsure if it was ever used in action. Anyway, that's part of the reason why the US liked floatplanes so much and kept them in service until the early fifties.

It was theoretically possible, but during WWII, ay target that could have been hit by using a floatplane to adjust fire could also have been hit using radar fire control. In fact, most comparisons of WWII ships miss the point because they focus excessivley on armament size and armor thickness at the expense of fire control. Radar fire control was a major advantage.

I don't know if floatplane adjustment of fire was ever used in actual practice. The biggest problem with that would have been antiaircraft fire from the enemy. Also, it's much harder for an observer to adjust fire in ship-to-ship combat than for artillery on land because both the gun platform AND the target are moving, and there are few, if any, features to use to determine target location.

Spiryt
2012-04-07, 01:24 PM
Do you know how modern armors are like a ceramic plate in a big pocket?

Were/ are there any examples of metal plate armor harnessed in a similar way? Part of the benefit of metal armor is its bling factor, so I doubt it.

I do know that brigandine and lamellar-



Well, very basic coats of plates, which would come to be ancestor of both white plate armor suits and brigandines, were basically something like this.... Although examples with plates actually pocketed between two layers of textile/leather would be probably pretty rare, usually just plates riveted to textile or leather backing

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg504/scaled.php?server=504&filename=platyai0.jpg&res=landing
http://www.loricamos.vizz.pl/obrazy/sekcje/sekcja_21.jpg

Storm Bringer
2012-04-07, 02:03 PM
Do you know how modern armors are like a ceramic plate in a big pocket?

Were/ are there any examples of metal plate armor harnessed in a similar way? Part of the benefit of metal armor is its bling factor, so I doubt it.

I do know that brigandine and lamellar-

...

Well, well, well. I answered my own question by looking in wikipedia to confirm what I knew about brigandines. Even fairly large plates were held in cloth. Not quite as big as ceramic plates, though.


It is said that such cloth fronted metal armours were the souce of "studded leather", that classic garment of DnD that has almost no historical basis. people looked at statues and paintings and such, saw that they were wearing what appeared to be a "soft" garment with little studs on it when they were clearly meant to be be dressed for war (wearing helmets, swords in hand, etc), and assumed that the studs must improve the protective value of the leather without questioning how. They get points for not assuming that the people in the past were dumb, as is so often the case ("oh, it was just a fashion to go into battle with steel armour on thier aems and thin leather on thier chests. it showed thier bravery!")

then agian, i am under the impressiont that leather armour was not very common either, with the padded Gambeson being the preferred l"ight" armour.

Hazzardevil
2012-04-07, 04:52 PM
How close is the weights given for armour in the 3.5 players handbook to how they would likely have weighed in real life?

And also, why did nobody carry on using spear-guns and gun-axes during Napoleonic era warfare?

Spiryt
2012-04-07, 05:19 PM
How close is the weights given for armour in the 3.5 players handbook to how they would likely have weighed in real life?

And also, why did nobody carry on using spear-guns and gun-axes during Napoleonic era warfare?

It's pretty tricky question, as those armor types are a wee bit weirdly constructed, and there would be huge variety in actual armors. But generally they're alright.

Aside from the fact that 'studded leather' probably didn't really exist, 'splint mail' and "banded mail' represent hell knows what.

As far as second question goes, I'm not sure I get it, but...

Carrying additional weapons/gear is always a fuss and a problem, especially with something as awkward and clumsy as spear and gun....

Operating/carrying both rifle/musket and spear efficiently wouldn't really be possible, so bayonet was useful and widely used way to make gun a spear substitute.

As far as axe goes, I suppose that some soldiers could carry it, but again, in case of melee clash, they were all drilled to make it bayonet fight.

Mike_G
2012-04-07, 06:29 PM
And also, why did nobody carry on using spear-guns and gun-axes during Napoleonic era warfare?

Pretty much what Spiryt said. And it wasn't a case of "carrying on" using them. Nobody ever did for any length of time.

A bayonet is basically a "spear-gun," allowing the soldier to use his primary weapon for a projectile and melee weapon. "Axe guns" did exist as novelty weapons, but they'd be unnecessarily bulky as a musket-battleaxe, and would really be a worse melee weapon than a bayonet.

rrgg
2012-04-07, 08:40 PM
Do you know how modern armors are like a ceramic plate in a big pocket?

Were/ are there any examples of metal plate armor harnessed in a similar way? Part of the benefit of metal armor is its bling factor, so I doubt it.

I do know that brigandine and lamellar-

...

Well, well, well. I answered my own question by looking in wikipedia to confirm what I knew about brigandines. Even fairly large plates were held in cloth. Not quite as big as ceramic plates, though.

I thought steel plates are still sometimes used as an alternative to ceramics in modern body armor. Much heavier but less likely to shatter.

Beleriphon
2012-04-07, 10:35 PM
How close is the weights given for armour in the 3.5 players handbook to how they would likely have weighed in real life?

Yes and no. It depends on what you qualify as the particular armour in the PHB.

Splint mail seems to be some kind of lamellar, or an assumption and that splinted bracers and greaves could be made info something providing full body coverage. Wikipedia has a very brief article about the stuff.

Banded looks like its an extrapolation of lorica segmentata. There are some Japanese armours that look similar to the horizontal bands in D&D's banded armour. Not sure what western style armour would be similar though.

Straybow
2012-04-08, 01:19 AM
Splint mail seems to be some kind of lamellar, or an assumption and that splinted bracers and greaves could be made info something providing full body coverage. Wikipedia has a very brief article about the stuff.

Banded looks like its an extrapolation of lorica segmentata. There are some Japanese armours that look similar to the horizontal bands in D&D's banded armour. Not sure what western style armour would be similar though.
I always considered the Japanese style armor to be splinted. It is considerably clumsier and heavier than the Roman style. The SRD has splint one point worse for max Dex, armor check, and spell failure with weight 10 lb heavier than the 35 lb banded.

Beleriphon
2012-04-08, 02:23 AM
I always considered the Japanese style armor to be splinted. It is considerably clumsier and heavier than the Roman style. The SRD has splint one point worse for max Dex, armor check, and spell failure with weight 10 lb heavier than the 35 lb banded.

Ironically the Japanese armours for a long time did included splinted elements, on the shins and forearms. I'd imagine it has something to do with the fact that those parts of the body are completely inflexible.

So, splinted armour is real stuff, its just not that good for full body coverage if the historical record is to be believed.

Never mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splinted_mail

Spiryt
2012-04-08, 02:14 PM
Ironically the Japanese armours for a long time did included splinted elements, on the shins and forearms. I'd imagine it has something to do with the fact that those parts of the body are completely inflexible.

So, splinted armour is real stuff, its just not that good for full body coverage if the historical record is to be believed.

Never mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splinted_mail

Europeans in 14th century used plenty "splinted" defences on arms and legs as well, from the same reason.

http://www.wasiek-medievalman.pl/wp-content/gallery/prazone-zbrojniki-na-rece-typ-ii/zbrojniki-typ-ii-1.jpg
http://www.themcs.org/armour/knights/Germany%20Nurnberg%20Museum%20Burkhard%20von%20Ste inberg%201376%20Hildesheim%20small%201188.JPG

As far as wiki link goes, it would be nice to know who exactly calls this 'splinted', I guess.

Anyway, the things is that 'splints' or 'bands' of metal, where naturally used a lot as an armor, but those partiucular armors in 3.5 are still completely vague.

Their pictures in PH certainly don't make too much sense.

warty goblin
2012-04-08, 04:57 PM
Their pictures in PH certainly don't make too much sense.

Given some of the illustrations in the PHP they really should also have something called Belted Mail: armor made entirely out of belts and belt buckles.

No brains
2012-04-08, 05:57 PM
Given some of the illustrations in the PHP they really should also have something called Belted Mail: armor made entirely out of belts and belt buckles.

But then FFX would make even less sense! Lulu's spell failure would be ridiculous!! Guess that's why I suck at her overdrive... :P

Spiryt
2012-04-08, 06:03 PM
Given some of the illustrations in the PHP they really should also have something called Belted Mail: armor made entirely out of belts and belt buckles.

While 1d12 20x3 weapon should be called "Great Frying pan".

Still, Greataxe is somehow clear concept, while those armors not quite. :smallwink:

warty goblin
2012-04-08, 07:00 PM
While 1d12 20x3 weapon should be called "Great Frying pan".

Still, Greataxe is somehow clear concept, while those armors not quite. :smallwink:

I don't know, I can at least identify how one could wear the armors. I have no idea how a person is supposed to use that axe, let alone use it with both hands.

It's one of those things that consistently cheeses me off about so much fantasy art: they take these highly functional, beautiful weapons and make then stupid and ugly. I mind it less when there's a consistent aesthetic at work, preferably one that harmonizes with the overall tone of the work. I often even enjoy it in those cases, but so much of D&D art strikes me as a bunch of random sketches lacking both accuracy and consistent style.

Yora
2012-04-09, 04:54 AM
Take comfort that the art director for the new 5th Edition books is talking extensively with people what they want to see in the new art and why, and there seems to be a strong wish for "cool but practical" when it comes to combat equipment. His job is to decide what pieces of art are appropriate for the game and gives the directions to the artists what kind of images they want to see. And he always seemed more like a guy with a more serious approach than a fun and flashy one.
So I hope impossibly large weapons that would always get stuck and armor that is more a hazard to yourself than a protection against enemies will be seen a lot more less. :smallbiggrin:

Straybow
2012-04-09, 11:34 AM
Anyway, the things is that 'splints' or 'bands' of metal, where naturally used a lot as an armor, but those partiucular armors in 3.5 are still completely vague.

Their pictures in PH certainly don't make too much sense.


Given some of the illustrations in the PHP they really should also have something called Belted Mail: armor made entirely out of belts and belt buckles.

Ohhh, that's what studded leather is...

Another thing that doesn't make sense in most games is the complete disconnect between quantity and quality. A mail shirt w simple helmet is worth 4, then a full mail hauberk with gauntlets is only 5, and a breastplate alone w/greaves and helmet is only worth 5.

In real life, the mail shirt and cap would have very little armor value in hand weapon combat. It would protect you from some crits while your arms and legs (those things you need to attack and defend yourself) are completely unprotected and easily targeted. No fancy "called shot" mechanic is needed, any attack that could reach the body or head can just as easily reach the arms, and many attacks that can reach the arms can't reach anything else anyway.

I would have a gladiator's manica (metal shoulder and arm protection) rather than a mail shirt, any day.

Missile weapons are a different matter, for which mail shirt and cap will be more helpful.

warty goblin
2012-04-09, 12:22 PM
Ohhh, that's what studded leather is...

Another thing that doesn't make sense in most games is the complete disconnect between quantity and quality. A mail shirt w simple helmet is worth 4, then a full mail hauberk with gauntlets is only 5, and a breastplate alone w/greaves and helmet is only worth 5.

You're working with a rather small finite set, things are going to be weird.


In real life, the mail shirt and cap would have very little armor value in hand weapon combat. It would protect you from some crits while your arms and legs (those things you need to attack and defend yourself) are completely unprotected and easily targeted. No fancy "called shot" mechanic is needed, any attack that could reach the body or head can just as easily reach the arms, and many attacks that can reach the arms can't reach anything else anyway.

I find this highly dubious, since people used basically that armor for a very, very long time.

It also misses the more fundamental point which is that arms and legs are harder targets than torso and head. They're smaller, faster moving, and, particularly for legs, often hard to strike at without leaving yourself hideously vulnerable.

At least from my own sparring experience, I much more frequently take hits to the chest or upper thighs - areas covered by a chain shirt, than lower legs and arms put together. Most sparring rules disallow headshots, but this would only decrease the proportion of arm and lower leg hits, not increase them.

All fight manuals with which I'm familiar (admittedly a small number) also mostly focus on attacks to face and upper torso. Strikes to the arms do happen, but they tend to be the endstage of very particular chains of attacks and counters, not primary targets.


I would have a gladiator's manica (metal shoulder and arm protection) rather than a mail shirt, any day.
Oh hell no. If it worked worth a damn, you'd see lots of people going to war in pauldrons and skimping elsewhere. You don't, because if somebody's shoulder and arm are covered, you hit them in the stomach or chest or head. If somebody has protected those regions however, your job is a lot harder.

The arms are only an easy target if for some reason your enemy is stupid and holds them out without putting their weapon on line to attack you. Since you often want to start a fight in a contracted guard (so you can move into a reach guard and so attack) or in a forwards guard designed to set your enemy on the defensive immediately, this doesn't happen very often. Legs below the midthigh or so simply aren't good targets, you have to be too close in order to effectively attack them, and doing so forces your weapon down, leaving you open on all high lines for a most likely faster counter attack.

The head is easy though, as is the upper chest and even the abdomen isn't prohibitively low. It's quite possible to launch an attack at these regions without leaving all your lines open or requiring a ridiculously short measure, and they're easier to hit than other body parts simply by virtue of being larger and/or harder to rapidly move.

Knaight
2012-04-09, 12:41 PM
Legs below the midthigh or so simply aren't good targets, you have to be too close in order to effectively attack them, and doing so forces your weapon down, leaving you open on all high lines for a most likely faster counter attack.

This is highly weapon dependent. With most swords, this holds true, as it does with most other short weapons. With polearms, the lower leg is a reasonable easy target, and a very good one - they're more difficult to protect with shorter weapons or smaller shields, and even less powerful shots near the knee can hamper mobility; it's easy to stay out of range of limping people when you have a much longer weapon.

With that said, if someone armored their arms and legs and didn't bother with their torso, they're asking for a lunge to the abdomen or chest with basically every pole arm. This is going to be more difficult to live through than the typical lower leg or arm hit. Plus, even with pole arms, legs are a secondary target that starts showing up much more when trying to get past larger shields, and they compete with the head for this purpose.

Storm Bringer
2012-04-09, 01:04 PM
Also, don't discount the fact that a wound to the arms is more survieable than a wound to the torso.

A cut that disables an arm will leave a man crippled, but alive, whereas similar levels of damge to the chest are very likey to kill. barring infection to the wound, you can survive arm wounds up to and including amputation (which is why the medical practice of amputation began in the frist place), while a penetrating wound the the chest can cause all sorts of nasty internal injurys that can slowly kill a man without modern medical help.


in short, the reason fighters, form greek hoplites to modern soldiers, wore armour on their chests and left thier arms and legs bear is that the felt that armour over chest was worth the weight, and amour on the arms and legs was less essential (note, however, that most people who ahd access to, and could afford, practical limb armour that didn;t slow them down, choose to wear it).

Spiryt
2012-04-09, 02:54 PM
Ohhh, that's
In real life, the mail shirt and cap would have very little armor value in hand weapon combat. It would protect you from some crits while your arms and legs (those things you need to attack and defend yourself) are completely unprotected and easily targeted. No fancy "called shot" mechanic is needed, any attack that could reach the body or head can just as easily reach the arms, and many attacks that can reach the arms can't reach anything else anyway.

I would have a gladiator's manica (metal shoulder and arm protection) rather than a mail shirt, any day.

Missile weapons are a different matter, for which mail shirt and cap will be more helpful.

As mentioned, history seems to disagree in general.

Roman legionaries for simple example, fought in mail shirt (or segmentata/ some other stuff from time to time) and helmet by default and all sorts of manica and other limb protection never seemed to kick in that much.

Obviously, they had pretty damn large shield, but that's still hand weapon combat.

Leg armor generally was used by riders mostly, because it's hard on movement, obviously, and helmet or some chest protector seemed to very universally be first protecting equipment employed as soon as someone could, after shield, obviously.

warty goblin
2012-04-09, 03:32 PM
in short, the reason fighters, form greek hoplites to modern soldiers, wore armour on their chests and left thier arms and legs bear is that the felt that armour over chest was worth the weight, and amour on the arms and legs was less essential (note, however, that most people who ahd access to, and could afford, practical limb armour that didn;t slow them down, choose to wear it).

Greek Hoplites seem to have made extensive use of greaves, in addition to their torso armor and helmet. Given that they primarily fought with spears, and covered by a large, heavy shield however, this isn't surprising. As Knaight points out, the legs are a much more attractive target with a spear.

rrgg
2012-04-09, 05:43 PM
Greek Hoplites seem to have made extensive use of greaves, in addition to their torso armor and helmet. Given that they primarily fought with spears, and covered by a large, heavy shield however, this isn't surprising. As Knaight points out, the legs are a much more attractive target with a spear.

There is the issue that a shield using an argive grip can't easily reach down to protect past the knees. Or at least not nearly as well as the center grip shields used by the Romans and most everyone else.

https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS0y-OjzdiWvoH9b2Rup8s794kULCCBhP8ZEC3b-nMsBoemIdkgdw

fusilier
2012-04-09, 06:15 PM
Also, don't discount the fact that a wound to the arms is more survieable than a wound to the torso.

True, but in hand-to-hand, a wound to the arms could be disabling, preventing the wounded person from being able to effectively fight back.

rrgg
2012-04-09, 08:51 PM
Basically since the limbs move far more when walking or fighting any weight added to them is going to have a far greater drain on your energy then weight on your torso or head will (iirc there was a study a year ago that demonstrated just how much more tiring moving in a full suit of armor was compaired to the same weight in a backpack). Basically armoring the "core" primarily was a good way to add lots of protection while limiting any effects on mobility.

Also keep in mind that even during the actual battle a footsoldier would probably have way more legwork to do than actual fighting.

Knaight
2012-04-09, 09:10 PM
True, but in hand-to-hand, a wound to the arms could be disabling, preventing the wounded person from being able to effectively fight back.

Sure, which is why there is getting back and letting somebody with functional arms take your place in the line.

deuxhero
2012-04-10, 12:31 AM
How would gloves interfere (or not) with archery? Does the material (i.e., Leather vs chain) matter?

Ashtagon
2012-04-10, 04:25 AM
How would gloves interfere (or not) with archery? Does the material (i.e., Leather vs chain) matter?

With the left hand, the key was a secure grip. With the right hand, the key was having good manual dexterity for at least the thumb and first two fingers.

Many archers would wear bracers (soft leather straps covering the forearm and wrist) to protect against accidental lashing from the bowstring. These are not the same as the gamer rendition of bracers.

In any cases, any glove heavy enough to provide meaningful armour protection would also be heavy enough to significantly reduce your ability to aim.

Straybow
2012-04-10, 04:35 AM
In real life, the mail shirt and cap would have very little armor value in hand weapon combat... any attack that could reach the body or head can just as easily reach the arms... I find this highly dubious, since people used basically that armor for a very, very long time.

Roman legionaries for simple example, fought in mail shirt (or segmentata/ some other stuff from time to time) and helmet by default and all sorts of manica and other limb protection never seemed to kick in that much.

Obviously, they had pretty damn large shield, but that's still hand weapon combat.

Greek Hoplites seem to have made extensive use of greaves, in addition to their torso armor and helmet. Given that they primarily fought with spears, and covered by a large, heavy shield... But that is the whole point. The guys who wore torso armor depended on the shield as their main defense and the torso armor was the life-saver backup. These examples are also mainly military uses with men in formation, covering each other with their shields and weapons.

It also misses the more fundamental point which is that arms and legs are harder targets than torso and head. They're smaller, faster moving, and, particularly for legs, often hard to strike at without leaving yourself hideously vulnerable.

...Since you often want to start a fight in a contracted guard (so you can move into a reach guard and so attack) or in a forwards guard designed to set your enemy on the defensive immediately, this doesn't happen very often. The hand and wrist of the sword arm should be one of your best target options for an opening strike, especially if the opponent is in a forward guard as you indicate is often the case. You have to reach past the hand and wrist to reach anything else, so by definition you are less extended and less vulnerable in the attempt. Yes, he can slip and avoid the attack, but that means he is on defense and not offense at that moment. Maybe the folks you spar with don't do that much.

Second, the best defense is a good offense, and the best offense is a good defense. That is, the best way to hit your opponent is counterstrike. Let him cross the distance, block to rob his attack of all energy, and in the split second while his weapon is stopped you counter.

If he's stepped in close enough to hit you solidly, what part of his body is closest, and now stopped dead? His sword arm. If using a buckler or shield to block you can actually start swinging to strike the anticipated position of wrist before it gets there, in essence blocking and striking almost simultaneously.

His forward leg is an excellent target. You are already inside his reach, and by directing your attack low he may be unable to block with his shield or second weapon. The opponent's arm and weapon are frequently in a position that occupies the path to the head, and the body can often be warded with the shield or whatever is in the left hand. Or just the left hand, if it comes to that.

If he's sensed the trouble and started to back away as fast as your counter, his arm is still the closest thing you can reach. Or if he's pressed the attack and you stepped away in almost any direction his arm will still be a prime target. If you pass to his outside (in those situation where practical), again the forward leg is an excellent target without exposing yourself.

Oh hell no. If it worked worth a damn, you'd see lots of people going to war in pauldrons and skimping elsewhere. You don't, because if somebody's shoulder and arm are covered, you hit them in the stomach or chest or head. If somebody has protected those regions however, your job is a lot harder. No, you don't see that because folks go to war in the armor they can afford. What I said was if my choice were either mail shirt or steel manica, I'd choose the latter. If more protection were available I'd use anything I can get.

Again, going to war means you have to worry about volleys of arrows that you can't dodge or block. If you are talking single combat or the small melee like we see in an adventuring game, that is not the issue. If I'm wearing arm protection that is largely proof of anything less than a full force hit and you are not, then I can ignore the slashes at my wrist and counter directly even before the slash hits. If you go for my unprotected torso, I'll use one of the above techniques and target your unprotected arm.

BTW, when we sparred in my old study group (before I moved away) we used hand and head protection only. Padded weapons and armor teach bad habits, imo. Once good principles are ingrained then armor can be used even more effectively.

All fight manuals with which I'm familiar (admittedly a small number) also mostly focus on attacks to face and upper torso. Strikes to the arms do happen, but they tend to be the endstage of very particular chains of attacks and counters, not primary targets. Well, all the manuals I know or can google are either close quarters manuals focusing on grips and the like rather than single handed sword strikes in good measure, armored combat halfswording where the arms are protected against cuts, longsword halfswording techniques where the midblade is dull and can't cut the arms, or dueling manuals where formal technique is important rather than open field fighting. Most do cover rakes to the hands, at the least. It's common in my experience and in sparring I see on youtube.

Second, they are manuals describing an entire body of study. Some maneuvers will be quite rarely seen in practice, while a few basics will be used over and over again.

razark
2012-04-10, 08:54 AM
How would gloves interfere (or not) with archery? Does the material (i.e., Leather vs chain) matter?
When shooting, I use gloves. The hand drawing the string has a glove (or more often, a leather tab) to protect the fingers from the pressure and friction of the string. The bow hand has a glove because the arrow rests on my hand. The glove protects from friction, as well as preventing the edges of the fletch from scratching the skin as the arrow leaves.

I imagine that chain gloves might interfere with the fletch as it passes more than smooth leather.

Jay R
2012-04-10, 09:41 AM
In real life, the mail shirt and cap would have very little armor value in hand weapon combat. It would protect you from some crits while your arms and legs (those things you need to attack and defend yourself) are completely unprotected and easily targeted.

I haven't seen any reason to believe that anybody in the middle ages wore expensive mail without including at least the relatively cheap heavy-leather vambraces and rerbraces. I assume that a player who bought a chain hauberk bought the entire armor kit, not a single item.


I would have a gladiator's manica (metal shoulder and arm protection) rather than a mail shirt, any day.

Missile weapons are a different matter, for which mail shirt and cap will be more helpful.

Missile weapons are not a different matter. They are in the same battle, and they attack first. A gladiator is facing a single person, and no archers.

A guy wearing a manica to battle quite likely never gets close enough to throw a blow; the first arrow volley killed him. His buddy in mail and helm has to be hit where the armor isn't - a much harder shot.

There are descriptions of crusaders walking away from battles looking like porcupines - covered with arrows that didn't hurt them.

cucchulainnn
2012-04-10, 10:55 AM
straybow, what system did you study? who was your instructor? you said you used padded weapons was it a LARP? was it a backyard study group? if so which book did you use for your foundation? do you know the difference between single time and double time movements? what is the difference between a good parry and a bad one? do you understand foot work, distance judgement and timing? what is the difference between a hanging guard and alber? you said you studied single handed swords. did you study, silver? mc bane? hope's new method? any of the Bolognese masters? I.33? which system or was it is mix? or are you basing it off a grosse messer? do you know the difference between winding and a riposte? do you know about lines of attack and displacement? or are you talking about hand and arm sniping? gotta be honest sniping only works on the inexperienced who don't understand the basics.

now to be honest i mostly studied the german tradition. so lets try this out. i start in vom tag. which guard do you take and how would you attack me? i dare you to go for my legs. if you do geometry is on my side and you open your self up to a head shot. guess which one if fatal.

i hope i'm not being taken for being argumentative i am just trying to get where you are coming from. because so far your arguments seem to be from some one who has a little knowledge but dose not really understand what he is talking about. if i am wrong and misunderstanding what you are trying to say i look forward to being corrected.

so what evidence do you have to support your arguments other then horsing around with boffers in some ones back yard.

Storm Bringer
2012-04-10, 11:49 AM
straybow, what system did you study? who was your instructor? you said you used padded weapons was it a LARP?


not answering for him, but i must quote:


BTW, when we sparred in my old study group (before I moved away) we used hand and head protection only. Padded weapons and armor teach bad habits, imo.

emphasis mine. I read that to mean he dooes not normally use padded weaponry, as he thinks it teachs "bad habits" (i.e. you start doing things that make sense only with padded weaponry, and not with "real" swords)

cucchulainnn
2012-04-10, 12:14 PM
ahh you are right storm bringer, and i apologize. as i do not intend to misrepresent Straybow. Straybow i apologize if asking if you are part of a larp was insulting. it was not intended as so. although from my understanding in europe larps are held in much higher regard then here in the states.

i do have a follow up statement and question.

just to clarify i am not saying that attacking arms and legs are impossible. just that it is not the best choice except when fighting inexperienced fighters. don't take my word on this. ask people with far more experience then i have. go to armour archive and ask, or Schola Gladiatoria or hammborg, or even the fighters that participate in battle of nations.

once again who is your instructor, which organization are you affiliated with. i am familiar with most of the groups in the continental north america. i would like to ask your instructor if you are representing the material correctly or misunderstanding it. i will gladly post the text of the response on this forum. if not the us or canada i can contact matt easton or roland (if you don't recognize either of those name, that tells me every thing i need to know about your knowledge) for the contact information. I would like to find out if it is a matter of misunderstanding what you are trying to say. This is always a possiblilty. You are obvisouly intelligent and it is possible we misunderstanding you, either through poor descriptions or language barriers or stupidity on my part. It has been known to happen; I am not the sharpest tool in the shed.

have you been to any of the conferences or competitions. if so when and where is it possible we have met.

i apologize if any of this is coming off as rude. i am honestly curious about learning a new technique.

so please let me know what techniques you would use. i look forward to learning something new. be as descriptive as possible.

thank you


Jay R look up jack chains. i believe they where fairly commonly used in conjunction with gambesons. a friend of mine did a test a few years ago and a twenty layer gambeson was surprisingly difficult to cut. i'll see if i can find the tread he made on it over at my armoury.

Spiryt
2012-04-10, 12:15 PM
Fair amount of art seems to show archers with bare hands, even though they're otherwise rather substantially armored, including whole arms, save hands, covered in mail or other armor.


http://www.thearma.org/arttalk/SiegeFrench14th_copy.JPG

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/static/miniatures/original/71-5.jpg

http://www.histoire-fr.com/images/prise_caen_henri_V_froissart.gif

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/static/miniatures/original/234-18.jpg


On the other hand, one can also rather easily find depictions of bowmen, who appear to wear something that very clearly looks like bulky, hourglass gauntlets.

So assuming certain percentage or some kind of randomness among those depictions, aside from actual observations, it quite probably depended on preference and situation a lot.


I haven't seen any reason to believe that anybody in the middle ages wore expensive mail without including at least the relatively cheap heavy-leather vambraces and rerbraces. I assume that a player who bought a chain hauberk bought the entire armor kit, not a single item.


Well, we doesn't have any real evidence of leather vamraces etc. in general, as far as middle ages go.

Although someone who could only affor a short hauberk only, would indeed probably still be at least able/willing to cover his arms in some sort of quilted/layered cloth.

Yora
2012-04-10, 12:47 PM
Interestingly, the crosbowmen in the same pictures do wear gauntlets. So it's definitly something the artists were really paying attention to.

Autolykos
2012-04-10, 12:47 PM
although from my understanding in europe larps are held in much higher regard then here in the states. You have even lower regard for LARP? How is that possible?
While a lot of quite knowledgeable people are participating in LARP round here, none of them seriously believes it is a good representation of actual combat. LARP rules are designed to prevent injuries and forbid most dangerous (read: effective) techniques anyway. In most systems I know, it is practically impossible to use most polearms in a way that would be effective with the real thing, for example - actually, clubs, short axes and hacking swords are the only weapons that seem to work somewhat reliably with plausible-looking techniques (but that might just be my impression because of my Escrima background...).

Yora
2012-04-10, 12:51 PM
LARPers are the very bottom end of the Roleplaying hierarchy. I think everyone but themselves think it's silly.

Spiryt
2012-04-10, 01:02 PM
Interestingly, the crosbowmen in the same pictures do wear gauntlets. So it's definitly something the artists were really paying attention to.

There's quite a lot of crossbowmen without them as well.

By 'common sense' crossbow doesn't require that ' nimble' fingers, as you doesn't have to control arrow and string at the same time, releasing it manually.

You draw the string using some lever, and place the bolt, only being careful, so everything is set nice and straight.

But that's just speculation, obviously.

Aux-Ash
2012-04-10, 01:02 PM
LARPers are actually quite respected here in Sweden. Some of the largest non-sport hobby groups are LARPers (with memberships in the thousands) and frequently they qualify for grants from local communities or even the goverment.
That said... they do not pretend to teach anything close to real combat and stresses this quite fervently.

GraaEminense
2012-04-10, 01:06 PM
LARPers are the very bottom end of the Roleplaying hierarchy. I think everyone but themselves think it's silly.
Let me guess, you think LARP necessarily equals padded swords, latex ears and people shouting "Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!", am I right? :smalltongue:

fusilier
2012-04-10, 05:07 PM
Sure, which is why there is getting back and letting somebody with functional arms take your place in the line.

Ah, but that depends upon the combat -- certainly in a Gladiatorial combat or duel, that wouldn't be possible. Even in a battle line, it can't be guaranteed that your comrades will be able to cover you so that you can retreat.

Spiryt
2012-04-10, 05:35 PM
Ah, but that depends upon the combat -- certainly in a Gladiatorial combat or duel, that wouldn't be possible. Even in a battle line, it can't be guaranteed that your comrades will be able to cover you so that you can retreat.

Even in duel (gladiatorial combat is rather special case) you can always try to run for the hell of it, and getting your gut or throat skewered will be much more likely to ruin this chance than skewered arm though.

Knaight
2012-04-10, 06:59 PM
Ah, but that depends upon the combat -- certainly in a Gladiatorial combat or duel, that wouldn't be possible. Even in a battle line, it can't be guaranteed that your comrades will be able to cover you so that you can retreat.

True, but even if you can only flee sometimes after taking an arm hit it is significantly better than taking a solid hit to the torso and not being able to flee at all.

huttj509
2012-04-10, 08:21 PM
LARPers are the very bottom end of the Roleplaying hierarchy. I think everyone but themselves think it's silly.

I'm sure they think it's silly too.

They just don't care that it's silly, because it's fun.

What's wrong with being a bit silly every once in a while?

Matthew
2012-04-10, 09:02 PM
There's quite a lot of crossbowmen without them as well.

By 'common sense' crossbow doesn't require that ' nimble' fingers, as you doesn't have to control arrow and string at the same time, releasing it manually.

You draw the string using some lever, and place the bolt, only being careful, so everything is set nice and straight.

But that's just speculation, obviously.

Dude carrying the axe has one bare hand as well. Very interesting illustration. Still, I think the general conclusion stands that gloves make it potentially harder to manipulate weaponry. I would be interested in any examples of armoured gauntlets that did not interfere with manual dexterity, though.

fusilier
2012-04-10, 09:23 PM
True, but even if you can only flee sometimes after taking an arm hit it is significantly better than taking a solid hit to the torso and not being able to flee at all.

I'll let those with more experience weigh in, but I was under the impression that disengaging from hand-to-hand combat is difficult, without some comrade to cover you. I would imagine that if your primary weapon arm is injured it would become even more difficult. Running involves turning your back, and hoping that you're faster than your opponent (or he doesn't bother to chase).

fusilier
2012-04-10, 09:27 PM
Dude carrying the axe has one bare hand as well. Very interesting illustration. Still, I think the general conclusion stands that gloves make it potentially harder to manipulate weaponry. I would be interested in any examples of armoured gauntlets that did not interfere with manual dexterity, though.

Matchlock arquebusiers and musketeers were specifically directed to not wear gloves -- they didn't want to be fumbling the match. Strangely reenactors are often instructed to wear gloves, so as not to burn their fingers! I don't use gloves with my matchlock, but it's hard for me to find gloves that fit properly.

rrgg
2012-04-10, 10:51 PM
I'll let those with more experience weigh in, but I was under the impression that disengaging from hand-to-hand combat is difficult, without some comrade to cover you. I would imagine that if your primary weapon arm is injured it would become even more difficult. Running involves turning your back, and hoping that you're faster than your opponent (or he doesn't bother to chase).

This is more a psychology debate that has to do with the fact that the goal of combat isn't necessarily about killing. Roman Gadiator matches were rarely to the death since owners didn't want to lose their investments (and probably one of the reasons their armor was designed to avoid potentially crippling limb injuries). In duels if your opponent has clearly been defeated or is running off then you've defended your honor, you've proven you were the better man so there generally isn't much reason to finish your opponent off.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the "most casualties are people being stabbed in the back as they flee" theory. A person in flight is still dangerous, from the perspective of a warrior who is concerned about staying alive do you hold your ground and accept victory or do you give chase and risk some lucky strike ending it all?

Raum
2012-04-10, 11:03 PM
This is more a psychology debate...I think it's a bit more than psychology. Not that people got stabbed in the back while running - I do agree that's probably not all that common, at least not in eras when taking prisoners was acceptable. However, if your formation loses its cohesion while your opponent's is still intact and attacking you will have a "bad day".

Once a formation is broken it becomes a matter of two or more vs one - you no longer have buddies at your sides. It also opens the door for heavy cavalry. The cohesive force has to exploit their advantage to prevent units from reforming...to make them run. That's when a significant percentage of casualties are inflicted.

GraaEminense
2012-04-11, 07:45 AM
For what it's worth (limited, I know), my experience with (competitive, non-staged) reenactment combat is that ...

1) it's bloody difficult to disengage successfully unless you are winning (which means you have a numerical advantage -mates to cover you- or a psychological advantage -the enemy is not prepared to give chase- or both).

2) because we're not using sharp weapons, we don't generally break and run. However, I have learned to identify the 'break point' -the point where one side would have broken were we actually fighting. Unless there is a flanking attack, it generally occurs just after one side loses formation and the enemy manages to exploit this successfully. This means getting a series of two (or more) on one, blindsiding or just engaging unready opponents as chaos erupts. If successful, this causes massive casualties to few in return and is near-impossible to recover from. At this point dropping your weapon and running is your best chance, but of course we don't actually do that.

The chaos just after lines are broken is where most get killed. Chasing someone who runs full tilt is not attractive, because you have to do the same and so if he turns on you, you have lost your tactical advantage. Unless you are cavalry, of course, and can run him down without losing combat-readiness.

Not saying I'm an expert in combat psychology, just my 0.05$ from slightly relevant experience.

Maclav
2012-04-11, 08:08 AM
I would be interested in any examples of armoured gauntlets that did not interfere with manual dexterity, though.

All gloves and gauntlets of course interfere somewhat with dexterity. Properly fit, properly made gauntlets are incredibly light, even delicate feeling and don't actually weight that much or hinder finger or hand movement much at all. They were designed to do their job with the absolute minimum impact to the wearer (just like all armour).

However most gauntlet recreations are heavy, clunky garbage that the wearer is constantly fighting against (again, just like most recreation armour!).

gkathellar
2012-04-11, 08:22 AM
All gloves and gauntlets of course interfere somewhat with dexterity. Properly fit, properly made gauntlets are incredibly light, even delicate feeling and don't actually weight that much or hinder finger or hand movement much at all. They were designed to do their job with the absolute minimum impact to the wearer (just like all armour).

Seconding this, there's also the reality that beyond a certain point, fine dexterity with your fingers doesn't help you with most melee weapon manipulation. So long as you can manage a solid grip, good wrist movement and position your fingers for both thrusts and chops, you should be pretty much okay.

eulmanis12
2012-04-11, 10:02 PM
I would be interested in any examples of armoured gauntlets that did not interfere with manual dexterity, though.

So would just about everyone who fought in the middle ages. If you wear gloves, it will interfere with your manual dexterity to some degree. This will vary depending on the gloves but it will always be there. The key is finding the right balance between protection and dexterity. If you're swinging a mace, you don't need the same level of manual dexterity as the guy with the longbow, so you would wear armored gauntlets, while he would wear either no gloves, or well broken in leather gloves.

Hawkfrost000
2012-04-12, 02:13 AM
So would just about everyone who fought in the middle ages. If you wear gloves, it will interfere with your manual dexterity to some degree. This will vary depending on the gloves but it will always be there. The key is finding the right balance between protection and dexterity. If you're swinging a mace, you don't need the same level of manual dexterity as the guy with the longbow, so you would wear armored gauntlets, while he would wear either no gloves, or well broken in leather gloves.

When fighting with rapier and sidesword (my preferred weapons) as well as longsword. I wear a pair of fairly worn leather gloves, i actually prefer the gloves to bear hands, especially with the wire wrapped hilt that is common on rapiers.

Its gives me less "dexterity" but a better grip.

DM

Galloglaich
2012-04-12, 12:50 PM
I lost track of this thread since we started the new one! Missed it!

Couple of points on a few things that were pretty well covered in the thread so far..

Cannons vs. fortifications. I think you have to be careful saying that cannons made warfare favor the offense. The defenses went down right away in some places first facing cannon, but held up very well in others, well before they reformed their fortifications to trace Itallienne or "artillery fort" standards. Many forts which had proven unbreakable for centuries did go down in a matter of hours or minutes, it's true. But many others proved unbreakable, especially some of the larger cities.

I think the main political effect was really in the countryside, the robber knights and smaller barons and lords who had old castles in good positions but didn't have a lot of money or a lot of artisans who could make guns for them, got wiped out, which led to an increasing scaling up of the power of Kings and Princes in a lot of places, and the gradual diminution of the power of the lower aristocracy; but the towns which had a lot of money and were resourceful seemed to be great at defense. Several of the major Hanse towns for example seem to have been impregnable.

Not all the towns could hold up though, it must also mean something about the layout of the land and the fortifications... how easy it was to get cannons in position outside of the town perhaps. How easy it is to move them around inside the town. How good the defenders are at creative pyrotechnics and other tricks of siege warfare. How warlike the townfolk were. How well the approaches were covered. There were a lot of limitations to the early cannon, the really big ones capable of knocking down walls used to heat up so much they couldn't fire them sometimes more than 2 or 3 times a day.

As for the old mail shirt and helmet... I think the most likely place to get hit is the head, which is why the helmet is the most common type of armor. People still think mail doesn't work but it's very good armor. Not just to protect you against some crits! If you are talking about pre 1300AD the shield is the first line of defense and protects pretty well. Most casualties on the battlefield are actually going to be from some kind of missiles: rocks, darts, slingstones, javelins, spears, arrows, crossbow bolts, bullets...

But the arms and hands are vulnerable especially in close-in shock warfare. Troops which expect to do sustained hand to hand fighting tended to have more armor... with the tradeoff of what they can carry. But even early on you see the Cataphractii and Clibinarii wearing a lot of armor. You also see this in the Viking Age, throughout the Medieval era including quite a bit with infantry.

But I also agree that injuries to the torso and head were more feared. Medieval and pre-industrial medicine wasn't quite as terrible as people usually assumed. You could be crippled by a cut to the arm but you had a chance of surviving. If your guts were cut open, if you lungs were punctured, if your spine was severed, if your skull was broken, you were going to die.

G

Yora
2012-04-12, 01:01 PM
I have a slightly unusual request:

I am looking for helmets that look "cool", but are also practical and don't pose a danger to the wearer. The good old "norman" helmet looks like it's one of the most basic and practical designs, but outside the circle of medieval armor buffs, they don't look cool. The spectacles added to the noseguard in "viking" helmets are a cool adition, but that's still not a lot of variation.
It also should be a kind of helmet that dates before the 13th century, as pretty much everything after that date really looks like european knight, and I am looking for ideas for less advanced fictional cultures. If it's not european or has the destinctive knight look, it's also okay. Great Helms are also very stylish, but at least to me they are very much tied to the crusades and I can't really imagine them outside that context.
Other than that, hoplite helmets have that really cool nose guard, that's also something I think looks great on a helmet.

http://www.thevikingstore.co.uk/ekmps/shops/thevikingstore1/images/larp-helmet-norman-helmet-%5B3%5D-2905-p.jpg
Norman

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/87/235186814_2b87caa5d6.jpg
Viking

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg218/scaled.php?server=218&filename=helmetlifeae9.jpg&res=landing
Hoplite

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxgc99foSf1qjlziyo1_500.jpg
Cool but retarded

So, anything springs to your mind that might be worth taking a look at?

Spiryt
2012-04-12, 02:01 PM
Seems somehow difficult, as really people's definitions of 'cool' will vary tremendously.

Also, Great Helmets are not really 'tied' to Crusades, they were used in whole Europe...

Anyway, I would look for Vendel period helmets, some helmets are incredibly detailed and decorated status symbols, but there's a lot of more 'plain' ones too.

You can check this site (http://www.nieczar.com), a lot of different fancy helmet replicas.

Zombimode
2012-04-12, 02:16 PM
Well, before the Great Helmet and its variations became popular in Europe, there was not so much variation in helm types. One of the most comon helm types, besides the simple metal skullcap, was the Spangenhelm (the german expression seem to have stuck). It wasnt so much a type, but more a construction principle. Thus the ammount of different desings is huge. No wonder: it was used throughout all of europe, the steppe, the middle east and maybe even beyond, and over a long period of time. A google picture search (http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&safe=off&q=Spangenhelm&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=VieHT5y6KpGVswa3s7XLBg&biw=1280&bih=892&sei=WieHT66wJcTLtAbM2q3bBg) should come up lots of helms in different desings.

cucchulainnn
2012-04-12, 02:27 PM
do you mean like these?

the first four are vendel, (dark age, germanic) the 2nd three are eastern european or central asian.

http://www.thorkil.ovh.org/platnerstwo/helmy/wczesne/38g.jpg

http://www.globaleffects.com/B_pages/03_ArmsArmor/Period/Vendel_A_01_hi.jpg

http://www.globaleffects.com/B_pages/03_ArmsArmor/Period/Vendel_B_01_hi.jpg

http://www.globaleffects.com/B_pages/03_ArmsArmor/Period/Vendel_B_01_hi.jpg

http://www.thorkil.ovh.org/platnerstwo/helmy/wczesne/31d.jpg

http://www.thorkil.ovh.org/platnerstwo/helmy/wczesne/36a.jpg

http://www.thorkil.ovh.org/platnerstwo/helmy/wczesne/37a.jpg

Mathis
2012-04-12, 04:22 PM
I have nothing constructive to add, but I felt like I have to say that I was just awestruck at the beauty of those helmets. Just stunned. Are they based on actual findings or has the creator/creators taken artistic freedoms in the elaborate marks?

cucchulainnn
2012-04-12, 04:27 PM
I have nothing constructive to add, but I felt like I have to say that I was just awestruck at the beauty of those helmets. Just stunned. Are they based on actual findings or has the creator/creators taken artistic freedoms in the elaborate marks?

yea, they are based on actual finds. i know it just blows your mind. i love the ones with lattice work crowns.

warty goblin
2012-04-12, 04:47 PM
yea, they are based on actual finds. i know it just blows your mind. i love the ones with lattice work crowns.

Those are gorgeous. They fill me with an urge to strip naked and tear a monster's arm off at the shoulder.

Galloglaich
2012-04-12, 05:01 PM
Yeah those are exquisite.

There are also a lot of really interesting Celtic helmets, including some really far out ones, though the replicas aren't as well developed. These are La Tene era antiques, mostly Bronze

http://www.lessing-photo.com/p2/090103/09010335.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/2804/4121249212_0bdeb70e2a.jpg

http://balkancelts.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/fig-d.jpg?w=640

http://www.muzeulbrailei.ro/en/images/arheologie/gav_01.jpg

http://www.sheshen-eceni.co.uk/images/gauls%20jockey%20cap%20dnn01.jpg

http://www.sheshen-eceni.co.uk/images/celts%20helmet%20side%20view%20dn01.jpg

http://www.me.wpi.edu/research/IMDC/IQP%20Website/ArmorPages/Antiquity/LaTene_clip_image002.jpg

These are earlier, Halstadt

http://www.lessing-photo.com/p2/070104/07010405.jpg

http://www.edgarlowen.com/b1094.jpg

http://www.lessing-photo.com/p3/070104/07010404.jpg




I think this is a roman cavalry helmet, there are lots of ones with cool / creepy face plates like that which have survived

http://www.ala-batavorum.nl/site/images/reproducties/kp_helm_repro.jpg

Knaight
2012-04-12, 05:14 PM
I'd also add some Eastern Asian helmets.
Chinese
http://img.alibaba.com/img/pb/488/388/281/281388488_681.JPG
http://image.dhgate.com/upload/200712/82/ff80808116d8081b0116ee49b3de0fde/productimg1198684724079.jpg
http://p2.la-img.com/177/8877/1705292_1_l.jpg
http://chinese-armour.freewebspace.com/images/arm9.jpg
I'd also look into Korean and Siamese helmets, though I didn't find any through a quick look.

GraaEminense
2012-04-12, 06:04 PM
What about an actual horny helmet? Scandinavian bronze age:

http://www.bornholmsmuseer.dk/helleristninger/Tro_ritualer/Viksoe_lille.jpg


Mediterranean bronze age had boar tusk helmets. All kinds of awesome.

https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSmEvFsbNCMDnSQj0_j9h9epjYHTCSwn FZc65yp2u5xAoexO8BN1Q

https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSnpkTz99LE50KhyzM3270Z56Z3rziGG zPN_792LX5a3wixuwnF

Straybow
2012-04-13, 09:39 AM
straybow, what system did you study? who was your instructor? you said you used padded weapons was it a LARP?

...i start in vom tag. ...i dare you to go for my legs.

... (if you don't recognize either of those name, that tells me every thing i need to know about your knowledge) First, I'll say stormbringer's reading is correct: we don't use padded weapons or armor. Second, on the field with choice of weapons I'd rather have a staff, and could strike at your leading leg with a foot or two reach advantage over your zweihander. Third, I would not posit that just because one is outside a perceived mainstream one has no knowledge...

I study English Martial Arts (sword/cudgel, staff, bare fist, some sword and dagger, some sword and buckler; I've been introduced to some other weapons). I was in the only American chapter organized under Terry Brown's Company of Maisters in London. The primary ancient source he leans on is Silver, although he undoubtedly combed every English source he could find that seemed to differentiate the older traditions from the newer continental stuff. He views Hope as a compromise between good, stout English swordsmanship and the smallsword of that day, and if you had to use smallsword that would be a good study. My instructor back East was Chris Myers.

I don't have any other names I can drop, sorry. We are a bit insular in that we are focused on English roots, not continental. I moved out West four years ago. Here in the North Bay Area I've met no one, and only recently made contact with a couple people some distance away whom I haven't met in person, so I'll not name them. Before that I've been tied up with marriage, church, work, baby with heart surgery, etc.

I read McBane's autobiography. I read something else claiming to be Scottish sword technique of that period. It was obviously derived from continental rapier and smallsword, modified for the heavier cutting swords the Scots prefer, and since that isn't my cup of tea I didn't make a study of it.

Similarly, I haven't studied German longsword or Italian techniques, so I don't know the names of guards or other terminology. I did leaf through a friend's reprint of something in German that had grosse messer and longsword techniques but found them to be too specific to be of general use. And I've wasted much time laughing at youtube between the rare good examples.

In sparring (naked ratan, or even light hardwood for a serious bout) we routinely adopt either hanging guard or outside guard at eye height. For a sword in two hands one might use a median guard or take the reverse stance which seems to be the high vom tag if my google fu has not failed me. In this school it would not be considered a proper "guard" since you aren't actually occupying any line of attack, just preparing to punish anybody who gets too close. The lower vom tag is even less a proper guard by that definition, just an alert ready position that keeps you from poking your fellow combatants on the field. The English might call that an open fight position.

I didn't claim that striking at the hands or wrists of an opponent in forward guard is the best attack, only that it is a good way to put your opponent on the defensive with a minimal exposure on your part. Getting your opponent off his game is part of the whole. Otherwise strikes at arms and legs are counters after blocks, as I described.

DracoDei
2012-04-14, 08:00 PM
Would there have been any particular engineering difficulty in designing a packsaddle that would work over barding? I know it would have been a complete waste in actual history, but I need to know for a D&D game if there is any reason I CAN'T have it made.

Fhaolan
2012-04-14, 09:45 PM
Would there have been any particular engineering difficulty in designing a packsaddle that would work over barding? I know it would have been a complete waste in actual history, but I need to know for a D&D game if there is any reason I CAN'T have it made.

No problem, because saddles as a rule don't go over barding at all. Barding goes around saddles. The only time I've seen this violated was once with a padded cloth barding, which basically acted as a saddlepad/blanket and the girth straps basically wove through the cloth. With leather, maille, or plate barding the stuff was attached to the saddle and to the croup, basically covering wherever the saddle *isn't*.

A pack saddle is a lot longer than a regular saddle, so the barding would need to be made specifically for this use. You would also have to spend some time training the pack horse/mule that the barding is an okay thing, and isn't going to eat the animal.

The Grue
2012-04-15, 07:33 PM
Switching gears to science fiction for a moment...

Plausible armaments for spacecraft. Missiles? Projectile weapons, even gauss or railguns, would probably be ineffective except at extreme(relative) close range, or against targets that can't manouver. Lasers would work over long distance, if not for how easy it'd be to coat a ship with some kind of reflective material. Not like stealth is a design consideration anyway.

huttj509
2012-04-15, 08:54 PM
Switching gears to science fiction for a moment...

Plausible armaments for spacecraft. Missiles? Projectile weapons, even gauss or railguns, would probably be ineffective except at extreme(relative) close range, or against targets that can't manouver. Lasers would work over long distance, if not for how easy it'd be to coat a ship with some kind of reflective material. Not like stealth is a design consideration anyway.

You'd have to have something with self-guiding capability. Dodging a beam of light is EASY at space distances, just keep changing direction. The earth is about 8 minutes away from the Sun, as far as light goes. Even 1 light-second distance (about 300,000 km) makes it hard to hit an evading target, and getting THAT close in the 3d environment of space would pretty much require knowing your target's exact route, and ambushing it somewhere it needs to pass by (such as it's start or destination).

If you look up in the sky, that's not where the sun is. It's where the sun WAS 8 minutes ago. Heck, the moon? That's right next door and it takes light 1.3 seconds or so to reach us from there.

Hawkfrost000
2012-04-15, 09:24 PM
Switching gears to science fiction for a moment...

Plausible armaments for spacecraft. Missiles? Projectile weapons, even gauss or railguns, would probably be ineffective except at extreme(relative) close range, or against targets that can't manouver. Lasers would work over long distance, if not for how easy it'd be to coat a ship with some kind of reflective material. Not like stealth is a design consideration anyway.

Missiles as primary offensive weapons, Lasers as point defense and for use at "knife fight" range.

I was always a bit uncertain about the whole stealth argument. Sure while you are making a burn you are very easy to see. But as soon as you stop actively emitting radiation the only way you can emit heat is through the radiation of the heat that is keeping your ship warm (and other basic functions) and you would be about as easy to see as a piece of rock, and easily confused for one.

'least that's what i think, anyone is welcome to prove me wrong.

Kalaska'Agathas
2012-04-15, 10:37 PM
Switching gears to science fiction for a moment...

Plausible armaments for spacecraft. Missiles? Projectile weapons, even gauss or railguns, would probably be ineffective except at extreme(relative) close range, or against targets that can't manouver. Lasers would work over long distance, if not for how easy it'd be to coat a ship with some kind of reflective material. Not like stealth is a design consideration anyway.

It seems to me that projectile weapons will be the way to go, for longer ranged combat. A railgun/RKV type weapon with guided ammunition (retrorockets or inertial systems can enable this) will be the weapon of choice, assuming something radical and new doesn't come along. Missiles may also work, though fuel would be a consideration - why carry all that fuel for initial acceleration and guidance when you can get the initial acceleration from an external system? Lasers, on the other hand, have issues - they lose coherence at great distances, if there's interstellar matter between you and your target there will be heat bloom, and lasers cannot correct their trajectory before impact.

Stealth will likely be a design factor - less so passive stealth, but active stealth (ECM, ECCM, ECCCM, plasma-stealth, etc.) will be very important, just as it is in modern air, land, and sea combat.

Knaight
2012-04-15, 10:47 PM
Switching gears to science fiction for a moment...

Plausible armaments for spacecraft. Missiles? Projectile weapons, even gauss or railguns, would probably be ineffective except at extreme(relative) close range, or against targets that can't manouver. Lasers would work over long distance, if not for how easy it'd be to coat a ship with some kind of reflective material. Not like stealth is a design consideration anyway.

Lasers are not going to work over long distances, for the simple reason that, unlike missiles, they can't change direction while propagating (among other reasons). Say that there is a laser trying to hit a circular cross section with a radius of a kilometer. At 1 light second (3*10^5 km) that needs to be accurate to 1.91*10^-4 degrees to hit at all, and that assumes deviation in only one direction. Good luck getting anything to be that accurate.

Now, lets take the laser example further. Say that the laser is being fired from a one kilometer long tube. That's an incredibly long tube, but it makes the math easier. With one end stationary, at 1 light second there's a grand total of 19cm allowed in the position of the other, assuming it is perfectly aligned on one axis. That's very precise, but should be doable. In practice, both sides would move, which reduces the likely precision.

Note that this is for one light second, and assumes a stationary target, with perfect information for their location. If something is several light minutes away, and is moving relative to the target the shot is likely a good three orders of magnitude harder. Good luck with anything linear in that context.

A missile, on the other hand, can change course. That makes them much more likely to be functional.

Hawkfrost000
2012-04-15, 10:59 PM
It seems to me that projectile weapons will be the way to go, for longer ranged combat. A railgun/RKV type weapon with guided ammunition (retrorockets or inertial systems can enable this) will be the weapon of choice, assuming something radical and new doesn't come along. Missiles may also work, though fuel would be a consideration - why carry all that fuel for initial acceleration and guidance when you can get the initial acceleration from an external system? Lasers, on the other hand, have issues - they lose coherence at great distances, if there's interstellar matter between you and your target there will be heat bloom, and lasers cannot correct their trajectory before impact.

Stealth will likely be a design factor - less so passive stealth, but active stealth (ECM, ECCM, ECCCM, plasma-stealth, etc.) will be very important, just as it is in modern air, land, and sea combat.

Thats a very good point about stealth, however i have my doubts about projectiles.

Projectiles by their nature either need to be very fast or very heavy to be useful (preferably both). If they are very fast then they need a lot (seriously a lot) of reaction mass in order to change direction. If they are very heavy then they have the same problems with directional change, but also weigh a lot, probably more than a missile of equivalent destructive power.

Also in order to properly track a target moving (relatively) freely in 3 dimensions you do need an active homing system.

So in order to beat a missile at is own game you need a bullet that can make significant course changes, automatically home in on a target and still be relatively lightweight.

Sounds like a missile. :smalltongue:

DM

warty goblin
2012-04-15, 11:39 PM
Thats a very good point about stealth, however i have my doubts about projectiles.

Projectiles by their nature either need to be very fast or very heavy to be useful (preferably both). If they are very fast then they need a lot (seriously a lot) of reaction mass in order to change direction. If they are very heavy then they have the same problems with directional change, but also weigh a lot, probably more than a missile of equivalent destructive power.

Also in order to properly track a target moving (relatively) freely in 3 dimensions you do need an active homing system.

So in order to beat a missile at is own game you need a bullet that can make significant course changes, automatically home in on a target and still be relatively lightweight.

Sounds like a missile. :smalltongue:

DM

The thing is you gain considerable fuel economy by using a gun type system to accelerate your projectile to at least near its final velocity. It seems to me that gun or missile is a false dichotomy, when a gun-fired missile gains most of the advantages of both while doing a pretty good job of covering the disadvantages.

The real puzzle with space combat is how to actually attack anything. Unless you happen to have some sort of faster than light travel, your enemy is going to get plenty of warning of your incipient attack. If you are trying to attack between solar systems your technology could be years behind that of your enemies by the time you arrive. Worse, they've had the luxury of watching your ships for all those years, getting progressively better and better intel so they can purpose build their defenses.

razark
2012-04-15, 11:45 PM
But as soon as you stop actively emitting radiation the only way you can emit heat is through the radiation of the heat that is keeping your ship warm (and other basic functions)...
Heat is one of the big problems a spaceship would face. Everything the ship does is going to create waste heat. Generating power, sending power through wires, lighting a light bulb, running life support systems, cooking food, etc. are all daily activities that will generate heat. Propulsion systems will need to dump waste heat as well. Most types of weapon systems will require massive amounts of waste heat removal. Even the rather simple ISS requires massive radiators to operate.

A spaceship could appear as a rock, but it's going to appear as a very warm rock.



Plausible armaments for spacecraft. Missiles? Projectile weapons, even gauss or railguns, would probably be ineffective except at extreme(relative) close range, or against targets that can't manouver. Lasers would work over long distance, if not for how easy it'd be to coat a ship with some kind of reflective material. Not like stealth is a design consideration anyway.
Depends on the spacecraft involved. Any combat likely to occur between spacecraft within the next couple hundred years will use missiles as the primary armament, and projectiles as the backup. Combat will be close range, and maneuverability will be extremely low. Victory will tend to go to whichever vessel makes best use of countermeasures or pulls the trigger first.

Ashtagon
2012-04-16, 12:42 AM
Switching gears to science fiction for a moment...

Plausible armaments for spacecraft. Missiles? Projectile weapons, even gauss or railguns, would probably be ineffective except at extreme(relative) close range, or against targets that can't manouver. Lasers would work over long distance, if not for how easy it'd be to coat a ship with some kind of reflective material. Not like stealth is a design consideration anyway.

A lot depends on what ranges you expect to engage the enemy, and how much spare fuel you expect to carry.

Real lasers, unlike science fiction ones, follow the inverse-square law, and so at space combat distances attenuate incredibly fast. Otoh, they are effectively impossible to dodge.

Guns and mass drivers would be the next hardest to dodge, seeing as how they effectively give off no signature to be tracked by. Otoh, Newton's law will work against the attacker her to drive them off course. Every salvo of mass driver fire will put you off course and will need correcting. Real world space craft are already something on the order of 95% fuel tank.

A side effect of the extreme volume of fuel needed is that maximum velocity and manoeuvrability will be extremely limited. Don't expect too much dodging. Stealth will be far more important. Note that it is also quite hard to detect a space craft at the dozens of miles range, unless you know exactly where to look. NASA has this luxury; hostile craft don't (and they won't have such massive sensor suites either).

Probably the most effective weapons will be either missiles armed with EMP warheads, or one-shot "guns" that decouple themselves from your ship with very weak boosters, point themselves at the right point in space, then launch high-velocity "shrapnel" rounds, simulating the effects of a small meteorite shower.

Hawkfrost000
2012-04-16, 02:20 AM
The thing is you gain considerable fuel economy by using a gun type system to accelerate your projectile to at least near its final velocity. It seems to me that gun or missile is a false dichotomy, when a gun-fired missile gains most of the advantages of both while doing a pretty good job of covering the disadvantages.

The real puzzle with space combat is how to actually attack anything. Unless you happen to have some sort of faster than light travel, your enemy is going to get plenty of warning of your incipient attack. If you are trying to attack between solar systems your technology could be years behind that of your enemies by the time you arrive. Worse, they've had the luxury of watching your ships for all those years, getting progressively better and better intel so they can purpose build their defenses.

The first wars in space will doubtless be fought between humans within our own solar system. Time will still play a part but it will be on the scale of weeks rather than years.

My concept of space battles is that they usually occur in object of or near area that you desire to control. One side holds the site and the other wants to hold it, and in doing so must remove its original controllers ability to project force onto the area.

People tend to forget that there is a huge amount of real estate in our solar system alone, thought it requires work to get at. People focus far too much on life bearing planets.

DM

huttj509
2012-04-16, 05:17 PM
People tend to forget that there is a huge amount of real estate in our solar system alone, thought it requires work to get at. People focus far too much on life bearing planets.

DM

Well, in part that's because while there's resource bearing moons/asteroids, the cost to move everything into/out of a gravity well to get it to a life bearing planet where it can be used is huge.

Unless we have orbital crafting facilities or something, the cost for any sort of regular resource transport between planets/moons isn't practical unless we find some redonculuously rare/useful Unobtanium.

Well, or if we discover some sort of gravity control so we don't need to fight the gravity wells to move anything anywhere, but that's rapidly leaving the "real world" area as far as we know.

Talakeal
2012-04-16, 06:37 PM
Well, in part that's because while there's resource bearing moons/asteroids, the cost to move everything into/out of a gravity well to get it to a life bearing planet where it can be used is huge.

Unless we have orbital crafting facilities or something, the cost for any sort of regular resource transport between planets/moons isn't practical unless we find some redonculuously rare/useful Unobtanium.

Well, or if we discover some sort of gravity control so we don't need to fight the gravity wells to move anything anywhere, but that's rapidly leaving the "real world" area as far as we know.

Energy is cheap. Once you are dealing with nuclear energy of direct matter to energy conversions escaping gravity wells is simple, and even solar energy will work if you have enough time, Remember, most moons and asteroids have very little gravity compared to planets. On many the human body could achieve escape velocity just by jumping.
If you had some sort of self replicating mining robot you could easily strip mine the solar system and have everything delivered to you in a nice neat little package. I imagine the biggest problem would be getting it down to the surface of the Earth intact, although if you have orbiting construction yards even this is a minimal problem.

fusilier
2012-04-16, 07:11 PM
The problem of hitting a moving target at long ranges is nothing new. It was a problem faced by battleship designers before WW2. The idea of a seeking missile of some sort for long range makes sense, although efficacy would depend upon how good active defenses are. The other option is large barrages to "bracket" the opponent. If that fails, attempting to get closer is always an option.

warty goblin
2012-04-16, 07:16 PM
The problem of hitting a moving target at long ranges is nothing new. It was a problem faced by battleship designers before WW2. The idea of a seeking missile of some sort for long range makes sense, although efficacy would depend upon how good active defenses are. The other option is large barrages to "bracket" the opponent. If that fails, attempting to get closer is always an option.

I'd be fairly certain bracketing volleys would be pretty much necessary anyways, along with self-guided projectiles loaded with some sort of area of effect warhead. Actually directly hitting a moving target is going to be very hard. Since space craft are probably going to be hard to armor though, smashing it up with lots of shell fragments seems quite viable. Even if lots of ball bearings isn't enough to actually destroy an enemy, all it really has to do is to batter off enough of the external systems to paralyze and cripple it.

Raum
2012-04-16, 08:05 PM
I'm not convinced hitting a moving space ship at light second ranges with computer support is significantly more difficult than hitting sailing ships with cannon at kilometer ranges. Both move in three dimensions but the space ship is actually more predictable. It's not getting tossed by the sea and has detectable exhaust which may be used to extrapolate directions. Besides, inertia still matters at macro scales (unless we're speculating beyond anything known) and it takes time to move. One second won't get you far.

I think the bigger problem with lasers is going to be attenuation and much smaller scale movement. Unless you can pack truly massive amounts of power into a laser, a minimal amount of armor combined with spin should mitigate or even prevent damage. Depends on just how much power we're talking of putting into the laser.

The Navy (was) is testing a 32 kw laser system and trying to work up to a 100 kw system (which they don't have the power for currently). Granted, they're dealing with maritime conditions which are very disruptive of lasers but I think they'd have to scale it up significantly to do damage over a light second distance even in space.

fusilier
2012-04-16, 08:16 PM
Since space craft are probably going to be hard to armor though . . .

They said the same thing about sea going craft . . . :-)

Ultimately it's up to who ever is writing the science fiction. If space craft are well armored, then they can come in close and duke it out, if their long range systems are too inaccurate, or too easily defeated by defensive systems. If space craft aren't armored, then who ever gets a hit "close enough"* first, wins. Of course, the more armored vessel may be able to risk getting closer to get a better shot.

*If you allow the use of nuclear weapons, then close enough could be quite far --at the very least to disable the ship.]

The Grue
2012-04-16, 09:32 PM
I'm not convinced hitting a moving space ship at light second ranges with computer support is significantly more difficult than hitting sailing ships with cannon at kilometer ranges.

It's a problem of scale. The Battle of the Denmark Strait (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait) is a good benchmark for engagement ranges of WW2 warships; the HMS Hood's opening volley was fired at a range of 24.2 kilometers, and her main battery of 15-inch guns had a muzzle velocity of 785 m/s. A straight-line firing solution would have a time-to-impact of about 30 seconds, which in reality would have been longer as the gun crews would have used a parabolic trajectory, but I can't be arsed to do 2D kinematics before supper so we'll assume 30 seconds. In 30 seconds a German battleship isn't going to be able to change course quickly enough to avoid being hit; it has to deal with liquid friction against the ocean compounded by its massive inertia to alter its course out of the Hood's firing solution. Also, consider the size of a German battleship(the Bismark-class was about 250m from bow to stern, or just over 1% the travel distance) relative to the distance we're working with. I have a rudimentary grasp of the mathematics involved in calculating how many degrees the Hood's guns would need to be misaligned i order to miss its target, but I bet there's someone reading this thread who could figure it out better than I.

For comparison, the US Navy is currently testing a railgun prototype (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun#Tests) that is expected to fire a 7-pound projectile at a muzzle velocity of 5800 m/s. Let's use that as a starting value for spaceship railguns. What's our engagement range? Since we're talking about interplanetary warfare, it would not be unreasonable to imagine, say, a secret fleet hidden on the far side of the moon(roughly 384,400 km from the earth's surface) mobilizing to attack a second fleet in geostationary orbit around the earth (roughly 35,786 km from the surface) at an estimated total range of 348,614 km. A salvo from our US Navy railgun would take 64,558 seconds, or 17 hours, to impact. Even assuming space battleships would be three times the size of the Bismarck, not unreasonable as space warships would have to pretty big for a variety of reasons, gives us a length of 750m bow to stern, or 1/464,818 the travel distance. Try and imagine how precisely accurate you'd need to be to hit at that distance, even assuming instantaneous travel time. Now take into account that, while our space battleships have much more mass than the Bismarck, they have a (proportionally) easier time altering course as they don't have to fight friction to do so. That, and they've got seventeen hours to veer to port and light their main engines.

Now obviously that travel time is going to shrink as our fleets move closer and closer together, to the point where you're firing at ships 300 km away and hitting within 60 seconds. No trouble there. But consider that, the whole while the railgun fleet is firing ineffectually at the fleet inbound from the moon, the moonfleet is lobbing guided, self-propelled missiles that can correct for their targets' manoeuvres and course changes. Which fleet do you think is going to be in better shape by the time they're in effective railgun range?

Knaight
2012-04-16, 09:36 PM
I'm not convinced hitting a moving space ship at light second ranges with computer support is significantly more difficult than hitting sailing ships with cannon at kilometer ranges. Both move in three dimensions but the space ship is actually more predictable. It's not getting tossed by the sea and has detectable exhaust which may be used to extrapolate directions. Besides, inertia still matters at macro scales (unless we're speculating beyond anything known) and it takes time to move. One second won't get you far.

The space ship is more predictable, but the margin for error in aiming is far, far less. I've got numbers above, which can be easily extrapolated downward for guns that aren't a kilometer long. At 10 meters, you've got all of 1.9mm variation in the location of the end of the barrel before you miss a circular cross section a kilometer in radius. Dodging isn't a problem at light second ranges unless very tiny objects are being targeted, missing is.

As for very tiny objects - a 1 meter long gun firing at a 1 meter circular cross section at 1 light second with a stationary back can move .19 nm before missing entirely. That's 190 picometers, which is relatively close to the radius of 1 iron atom (60-140 picometers depending on bonding). Tiny objects at 1 light second aren't going to need to dodge lasers, and aren't going to need to dodge projectiles that aren't able to change direction at a light second, as hitting them is basically out of the question.

In short, the level of precision needed is significantly higher in space. Even if the computer can perfectly calculate what it needs to do, doing it is going to be difficult due to the minute variations in angle it takes to completely miss.

Raum
2012-04-16, 10:26 PM
I understand what you're saying...and doubt it will be a problem in this (admittedly mythical) future. We're already manipulating single atoms, creating machines built from atoms, have solid state lasers, and NASA's ATP project is working on reducing aiming errors to sub-microradian levels.

Basically, I don't think a future with any significant space warfare will include lasers which need to be aimed mechanically. I could be wrong...but we're already moving down the road to get us there.

Edit: ATP = Acquisition, Tracking, and Pointing

Incanur
2012-04-17, 01:27 AM
X-ray lasers have the theoretical potential to be unstoppable death rays of stupendous range (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacegunconvent.php). That's the extreme end, but - barring some revolution in armor technology - lasers should dominate space combat if and when the species ever reaches such a point. Missiles are just too slow to complete with even moderately effective light-speed weapons.

The Grue
2012-04-17, 02:49 AM
Same problem as with the railguns. Accuracy, distance, course corrections, etc.

mcv
2012-04-17, 05:14 AM
My apologies for entering this discussion so late. I don't check it every day or even week, but I find this an interesting discussion.


It also misses the more fundamental point which is that arms and legs are harder targets than torso and head. They're smaller, faster moving, and, particularly for legs, often hard to strike at without leaving yourself hideously vulnerable.

At least from my own sparring experience, I much more frequently take hits to the chest or upper thighs - areas covered by a chain shirt, than lower legs and arms put together. Most sparring rules disallow headshots, but this would only decrease the proportion of arm and lower leg hits, not increase them.

All fight manuals with which I'm familiar (admittedly a small number) also mostly focus on attacks to face and upper torso. Strikes to the arms do happen, but they tend to be the endstage of very particular chains of attacks and counters, not primary targets.
I'm very interested in what kind of weapon you spar with. In longsword fighting, hands and arms are easily the most likely targets. After the obvious fencing mask, gloves are the first protection that people invest in. Much, much more vital than a body protector, though admittedly that's also because hits on the hands and arms tend to be more crippling than body hits with "safe" weapons (we use nylon for low-level sparring; people are quite a bit more heavily armoured when sparring with steel).

Are you familiar with buckler fighting? The entire purpose of a buckler is to protect your sword hand. That's the part of you that's closest to the enemy, and therefore the most vulnerable. A lot of fighting manuals show images of hands getting cut off.

Knees are also a surprisingly good target. Perhaps easier against relatively inexperienced fighters, though. I've noticed that when people retreat after an exchange, a quick lunge for their knees is very often successful.

The main reason why limbs and joints are often less armoured, is because it's incredibly hard to armour them well without losing mobility. Joints need to move. Weight on your legs slows you down. You don't need to be terribly strong to wear metal armour on your body, but metal armour on your arms is a very different story, I imagine.

Mind you, it also depends a lot on the kind of weapon you're using. Against thrusts (spears especially), I imagine the torso is by far the easiest target. Swinging weapons like words are quite effective against limbs, however. I can imagine a short sword won't have the reach to attack the legs, but hands and arms will always be a target.


The arms are only an easy target if for some reason your enemy is stupid and holds them out without putting their weapon on line to attack you.
On the contrary. If you attack and your opponent parries badly, it's very easy to accidentally hit them on the hand, even without trying. There are a lot of textbook attacks that specifically target the wrists or arms; abschnitts, for example. If you attack, you cannot help but move your arms towards your opponent. If he manages to avoid your attack, your arms will be a very likely target.


Legs below the midthigh or so simply aren't good targets, you have to be too close in order to effectively attack them, and doing so forces your weapon down, leaving you open on all high lines for a most likely faster counter attack.
The time to attack the legs is when your opponent is open. You rarely attack them as a first attack (though it's always possible that someone leaves them open, of course), but after an exchange, it's not at all unusual that he retreats with a high guard and a quick lunge for the knees (perhaps easier because he's moving backwards?) can score an easy hit. Especially effective if you happen to have long arms and legs (as I happen to have, but another, far better long limbed fighter in my group also uses that attack a lot).


The head is easy though, as is the upper chest and even the abdomen isn't prohibitively low. It's quite possible to launch an attack at these regions without leaving all your lines open or requiring a ridiculously short measure, and they're easier to hit than other body parts simply by virtue of being larger and/or harder to rapidly move.
I'm not sure, but I think a weight-bearing leg is actually harder to move than a torso.

mcv
2012-04-17, 05:49 AM
now to be honest i mostly studied the german tradition. so lets try this out. i start in vom tag. which guard do you take and how would you attack me? i dare you to go for my legs. if you do geometry is on my side and you open your self up to a head shot. guess which one if fatal.
I'm no expert, but an Unterhau followed by a hanging guard doesn't sound unreasonable against that. And Unterhau could just as easily hit your leg as your torso.

In fact, my favourite defense against an Unterhau (or maybe I should say: the only defense I know), is to stab him in the thigh from an Ochs. I believe that's even considered an unofficial Meisterhau, but don't pin me down on that.


although from my understanding in europe larps are held in much higher regard then here in the states.
Are they? My instructor calls them strap-on dildos.

Galloglaich
2012-04-17, 09:01 AM
You can defend against an unterhau aimed at your lower legs by making a sheitelhau, an unterhau aimed at your thighs or waist by making a pflug absetsen.

I agree with the general perception that people don't hit the legs that much with longswords, this is why you often see people fighting without much lower-leg protection. I don't even usually wear knee pads. That said, there is one common way that people do get the lower-legs from the onset which is a one-handed sling cut. You actually see this a lot in tournaments.

I was in a match with one guy in my pool fights at Fechtschule America this last March and got him 4 or 5 times that way. It's a risk because there is an effective counter (take one step back and sheitelhau) but the leg attack works if the other guy is concentrating too much on an attack on his upper openings and telegraphs this. People in tournaments often get nervous and make this mistake, so they are vulnerable to the attack. Of course you also have to be careful not to telegraph that you are going to make the cut, the same guy jumped over one of my cuts and cut me in mid-air one time!

And with other weapons like sword and buckler, rapier, montante you do see a lot more leg cuts.

Keep in mind also, while the German (esp. I.33) sword and buckler does use the buckler primarily to protect the sword hand, in the Bolognese school it's different, they aren't used together so much.

http://www.thearma.org/essays/m1.jpg

I agree with you though that wearing leg armor slows you down, it seems to be the first thing that gets dropped in almost any era. Late medieval infantry usually wore 'half armor' which only covered the upper body and the arms. As well as a helmet of course.

G

Fhaolan
2012-04-17, 09:19 AM
Are they? My instructor calls them strap-on dildos.

Be careful if a fighting instructor disrespects other people and their skills, no matter what those skills are. The instructor may be very good at their own skills, and even about teaching those skills to others, but disrespect can be taught as well and is something that is dangerous to pass on.

Disrespect breeds contempt, contempt breeds carelessness, and carelessness in combat will get you killed. Or defeated, in sparring/contests.

History is rife with examples of people who were so secure in their superiority that they stopped paying attention and got themselves killed because of it. Instructors should be careful about fostering that attitude, even accidentally.

Galloglaich
2012-04-17, 09:23 AM
Fair point but... come on. LARP?

http://hellinahandbasket.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/larp-geeks-in-full-costume.jpg

It's fun I'm sure, but I don't think it's even meant to be anything like 'real' combat or martial arts.

Besides, I'm not sure if it's the same group MCV trains with but I know a HEMA instructor in Holland, and he's a guy who can back up a statement like that. Even though he does look a little like techno-viking...

G

Lapak
2012-04-17, 09:29 AM
As for very tiny objects - a 1 meter long gun firing at a 1 meter circular cross section at 1 light second with a stationary back can move .19 nm before missing entirely. That's 190 picometers, which is relatively close to the radius of 1 iron atom (60-140 picometers depending on bonding). Tiny objects at 1 light second aren't going to need to dodge lasers, and aren't going to need to dodge projectiles that aren't able to change direction at a light second, as hitting them is basically out of the question.This implies that the best solution might be missile-mounted lasers. I fire a small, single-shot weapons platform at the enemy ship. Being massively smaller and more maneuverable allows it to get into a range where the enemy ship still can't effectively target it, but it can target the enemy ship. Best of both worlds!

mcv
2012-04-17, 09:31 AM
Besides, I'm not sure if it's the same group MCV trains with but I know a HEMA instructor in Holland, and he's a guy who can back up a statement like that. Even though he does look a little like techno-viking...

That sounds like Lopes alright. He's a bit of a tough/trash talker, but he really knows a lot.

Spiryt
2012-04-17, 09:33 AM
If someone would want to actually claim/whatever that he will learn/discover anything about actual fighting or stuff from LARP then he's silly indeed, but as far as LARPs as a whole go, can't really find a reason to bash it....

I've never LARP-ed, but still.

mcv
2012-04-17, 09:37 AM
You can defend against an unterhau aimed at your lower legs by making a sheitelhau,
I admit I'm not too experienced with the sheitelhau yet, but wouldn't that make you vulnerable to an abschnitt? Not that anyone every actually does those, so maybe I should give it a try.


an unterhau aimed at your thighs or waist by making a pflug absetsen.
I'm having trouble picturing this, but I'll give it a try.


Keep in mind also, while the German (esp. I.33) sword and buckler does use the buckler primarily to protect the sword hand, in the Bolognese school it's different, they aren't used together so much.
I believe you. My experience with sword and buckler is limited to one (weekend long) I.33 workshop.

mcv
2012-04-17, 09:39 AM
If someone would want to actually claim/whatever that he will learn/discover anything about actual fighting or stuff from LARP then he's silly indeed, but as far as LARPs as a whole go, can't really find a reason to bash it....

I've never LARP-ed, but still.

I've LARPed once, long ago. Wouldn't mind doing it more often if I had the time. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with sword fighting.

mcv
2012-04-17, 09:42 AM
This implies that the best solution might be missile-mounted lasers. I fire a small, single-shot weapons platform at the enemy ship. Being massively smaller and more maneuverable allows it to get into a range where the enemy ship still can't effectively target it, but it can target the enemy ship. Best of both worlds!
Didn't Footfall by Niven and Pournelle feature X-ray laser missiles?

Fhaolan
2012-04-17, 09:52 AM
Didn't Footfall by Niven and Pournelle feature X-ray laser missiles?

I believe the Honor Harrington series also has those, although I might be misrembering.

pendell
2012-04-17, 09:52 AM
With respect to the space weapons discussion, I have an alternate suggestion: kinetic weapons. Rail guns.

The problem with missiles is that 1) They require a lot of fuel to accelerate , and all the electronics etc. detract from the payload. 2) A laser point defense, while not exceptional at targeting a distant spacecraft, should do a dandy job of detonating the missile's fuel or messing up the warhead.

A hunk of iron, by contrast, is cheap. The launcher is back on the attacking spacecraft. You can afford to throw a lot more iron than missiles. Also, laser point defense is less useful because even if melted or whatever you're still dealing with a rock of iron on the same vector. It'll still make a kinetic impact with roughly the same amount of force.

Another possibility might be a hybrid -- take a chunk of mass, give it maneuvering jets and guidance for course correction, but still launch it using a mass driver. This allows us to not have to expend a tremendous percentage of the weapon's mass just accelerating it away from the attacking ship, and also makes it less vulnerable to countermeasures.

Of course, the fact that we're dealing with projectiles means that it's hard to hit a target at tactical ranges in space. The solution, then, would be to saturate the target area with a LOT of projectiles. It's not a fool proof solution, but if the target area can be narrowed down enough it should be possible to fire a swarm of projectiles with a reasonable chance of hitting the target. And when we're talking about a projectile moving at a significant fraction of C, you only need one hit to take a target out.

Call it a "meteor swarm" :).

I just don't see missiles -- at least , the kind we now use for air-to-air engagements -- as being that useful in space. It probably won't possess much in the way of fuel or warhead , which means that you're going to need to get it very close to the target to have any effect, and the fact that the target spacecraft likely has more fuel and engines means that it has plenty of time to get out of the way. Assuming it has no point defense. A missile which would be useful might be as large and expensive as a normal spacecraft!

If we develop an interplanetary society, I would not expect that we would continue to reach orbit using chemical rockets. We will be launching into orbit with magnetic accelerators or with skyhooks. I expect our weapons will leverage that same technology, and wars will be fought with mass drivers.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Galloglaich
2012-04-17, 10:06 AM
Yep, Lopes... a legendary figure in HEMA circles. Great guy once you get to know him. Are you in his group? AMEK?



I admit I'm not too experienced with the sheitelhau yet, but wouldn't that make you vulnerable to an abschnitt? Not that anyone every actually does those, so maybe I should give it a try.

It is the recommended application of the sheitelhau as a master-cut, it does work though if the defender is very fast with an abschnitt and moves off-line, he can beat it. This typically only happens if the individual making the sheitelhau telegraphs, the reach seems to give you a big advantage.



I'm having trouble picturing this, but I'll give it a try.

Ask Lopes how to do this. It's a standard defense against a mittelhau; you just displace with the pflug, and step in with a thrust to the face (if you catch the bind). It's a good way to bind, same as with the high (Ochs) absetzen. You an also displace with a hanger but it doesn't give you any advantage, the absetzen gives you control of the center and allows you to make a single-time counter if your execution is good.


I believe you. My experience with sword and buckler is limited to one (weekend long) I.33 workshop.

I've never really studied either in any depth, I have about the same level of exposure to each (a weekend). But that is my understanding.

G

mcv
2012-04-17, 10:07 AM
With respect to the space weapons discussion, I have an alternate suggestion: kinetic weapons. Rail guns.

I've been thinking about that too. Can't you create a big cloud of very fast particles that hits every location where the enemy could possibly move to in that time?

I'm not going to do the math to figure out whether that would actually work, though.

Galloglaich
2012-04-17, 10:08 AM
The problem with rail guns though is that you have to carry all the mass to eject. Lasers require no weight.

G

Lapak
2012-04-17, 10:17 AM
I believe the Honor Harrington series also has those, although I might be misrembering.Bomb-fueled X-ray lasers, yes. Those weren't carrying their own targeting systems, though; it was more of a 'get it close and them trigger the bomb to spew lasers in every direction' setup IIRC.

mcv
2012-04-17, 10:22 AM
Yep, Lopes... a legendary figure in HEMA circles. Great guy once you get to know him. Are you in his group? AMEK?
I am. Is he really that legendary? I just know him as my instructor, and I do know he's involved in lots of international stuff, but I have no idea what his actual stature is outside the Netherlands.


It is the recommended application of the sheitelhau as a master-cut, it does work though if the defender is very fast with an abschnitt and moves off-line, he can beat it. This typically only happens if the individual making the sheitelhau telegraphs, the reach seems to give you a big advantage.
Against an unterhau? I thought the sheitelhau was the meisterhau against the alber (presumably after an oberhau, but I get the impression there's some confusion about that).

But the sheitelhau is easily the meisterhau I know the least about. (I might have missed some lessons.)


Ask Lopes how to do this. It's a standard defense against a mittelhau; you just displace with the pflug,
Do you mean as a kind of close guard (or whatever it's called)?


and step in with a thrust to the face (if you catch the bind). It's a good way to bind, same as with the high (Ochs) absetzen. You an also displace with a hanger but it doesn't give you any advantage, the absetzen gives you control of the center and allows you to make a single-time counter if your execution is good.
I'll ask Lopes about it. Or maybe another instructor. (I actually think Matthys Kool is the better teacher; at least at my level. But don't tell Lopes that.)

endoperez
2012-04-17, 10:23 AM
I've been thinking about that too. Can't you create a big cloud of very fast particles that hits every location where the enemy could possibly move to in that time?

Perhaps with superior numbers and positioning. I can't imagine that happening with equal numbers. I'm not sure how far off this analogy is, but I imagine it's like painting a car red with penlights. Even if you can do it, the amount of pen lights needed might end up weighing more than the car itself...

Raum
2012-04-17, 10:29 AM
Re: Space Weapons and targeting - more info on NASA & JPL's Optical Communications work (http://lasers.jpl.nasa.gov/PAGES/about.html). Challenges:
With the aid of Sun-sensors and star-trackers, an interplanetary spacecraft can find the Earth and maintain its attitude relative to the Earth with an accuracy of a few milliradians (.02 degrees). At RF communication frequencies (S-band and X-band) this level of pointing is perfectly adequate. With optical systems, this spacecraft attitude control must be augmented with a fine-pointing mirror which removes the spacecraft vibration. To maintain this fine-pointing direction, it helps to have a reference point, or a beacon. The beacon could be a laser emanated from Earth, the Sun-illuminated Earth itself or background stars.

Currently, few lasers are powerful enough to be useful as a beacon, and introduce logistical difficulties since one has to reliably maintain this beacon. Current cost and implementation considerations direct us toward natural sources of light as beacons. Our recent work indicates that combination of star tracking and inertial sensors (accelerometer, gyro, or rate sensors) will be most suitable for acquisition, tracking and pointing (ATP) purposes. To sense the direction of the homing beacon, the remote laser-communication terminal contains a focal plane array (such as a high-rate CCD camera) to track the apparent motion of the beacon and commands the fine pointing mirror to correct for that motion. In this way, the modulated laser beam (carrying data) can be pointed with high accuracy towards the Earth. To account for the relative motion of the Earth and the spacecraft, the fine-pointing system must also calculate and implement a ‘point-ahead’ angle. Existing capabilities / testing:
To bring the promise of free-space optical communications to fruition, a long-term strategy of developing the appropriate technology, and demonstrating its capability must be followed. A laser-communication terminal consists of lasers, optics (telescope, lenses, filters…), electronics (drivers, mini-processor…), and the ATP subsystem (focal planes array, fine-pointing mirror…). Each of these components has been independently demonstrated on various space missions. Indeed, some have flown many times. The only remaining critical technology to demonstrate for deep-space optical communications is a demonstration of long-range acquisition, tracking and pointing. Ranges as high as 35,000 km (GEO orbit) were demonstrated successfully with a Japanese optical communications terminal (on the ETS 6 spacecraft) during the Ground-to-Orbit Laser Communication Demonstration (GOLD). GOLD was the first bidirectional laser communications link between the ground and a spacecraft in geostationary orbit.

The Galileo Optical Experiment (GOPEX) demonstrated the ability to point lasers precisely to objects in deep space, and to sense long-distance optical pulses. Laser beams were transmitted from JPL's Table Mountain Facility and the US Air Force's Starfire Optical Range in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Over an 8-day period, the optical beams were successfully detected by the Galileo spacecraft at ranges of up to 6 million kilometers. A downlink demonstration of optical comm ATP has not yet been attempted from deep space. For reference, one light second is a bit under 300,000 km.

I really don't think targeting at light second ranges will be an issue. We've already exceeded it from earth. The challenge now is miniaturizing the equipment needed enough to put on a space platform.

No brains
2012-04-17, 10:29 AM
With all this talk about simulated fighting, a question came back to mind:

How does a warrior train for a killing blow? How does one condition themselves to go through practiced movements with random resistance from tissue. Is it easy to cut off a limb? To behead? To bifurcate? Is it any harder or easier to thrust or stab a torso and recover to a ready state?

I'm mostly interested in the physical aspects of preparing to kill, but how did warriors of the past cope with killing other humans psychologically? Good ol' stupid hatred can't have been all there was to a mentally stable career murderer.

Spiryt
2012-04-17, 10:58 AM
With all this talk about simulated fighting, a question came back to mind:

How does a warrior train for a killing blow? How does one condition themselves to go through practiced movements with random resistance from tissue. Is it easy to cut off a limb? To behead? To bifurcate? Is it any harder or easier to thrust or stab a torso and recover to a ready state?

I'm mostly interested in the physical aspects of preparing to kill, but how did warriors of the past cope with killing other humans psychologically? Good ol' stupid hatred can't have been all there was to a mentally stable career murderer.

People were hitting dummies, strawmen, each other with blunt weapons, and this really worked, it's not much philosophy here.

Even practice on living flesh wasn't very uncommon, in most places and times fighting class(es) also tended to hunt on pretty large scale.

Mental aspect will hugely depend on dozens of things, so it's hard to answer like that.

But people in 'developed' countries are generally living in extremely 'soft' conditions.

To pretty much any person in medieval Europe, slaughtering pigs, violence, death, illness, and other nasty things would be much more common sight, and familiarity with need of defending oneself and fighting would be more common too.

Today in different parts of the world you still see people killing each other for things that are 'trivial' from our point of view, so it's not hard to imagine someone killing when adrenaline and all put him in 'fighting' mode.

Thiel
2012-04-17, 05:50 PM
I really don't think targeting at light second ranges will be an issue. We've already exceeded it from earth. The challenge now is miniaturizing the equipment needed enough to put on a space platform.
Yes, we've managed to hit a probe that was deliberately standing still with a communication laser.
The challenge is to hit a target that's moving unpredictably with a laser that has a much narrower focus (Necessary if you want a destructive result)

Raum
2012-04-17, 07:21 PM
Yes, we've managed to hit a probe that was deliberately standing still with a communication laser.Standing "still"? Not deliberately evading yes, but hardly standing still. But my point was simple, the precision needed to acquire, track, and point at a target approximately 20 light seconds away is current technology.


The challenge is to hit a target that's moving unpredictably with a laser that has a much narrower focus (Necessary if you want a destructive result)I agree with all except "unpredictability" - but I do understand your point. I simply think we have enough of a basic start to make adding the rest reasonable between now and whenever we have enough infrastructure and technology in space to fight a war.

faith
2012-04-17, 10:12 PM
So out of curiosity, has anyone thought about categorizing all of this?
and on topic: my friend was saying that a kukri(sp?) was more effect than a K-bar in combat; empty bluster or is he right?

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2012-04-17, 10:38 PM
and on topic: my friend was saying that a kukri(sp?) was more effect than a K-bar in combat; empty bluster or is he right?

Empty bluster: One cannot say that X weapon is "more effective" than Y weapon just like that, unless one is weapon is a sock that needs darning, and the other is a nuke.

Straybow
2012-04-18, 12:25 AM
Keep in mind also, while the German (esp. I.33) sword and buckler does use the buckler primarily to protect the sword hand, in the Bolognese school it's different, they aren't used together so much. The English use of the buckler is also quite unlike i33, it is used as a weapon as much as a shield. It is simply called "fighting double" if you have a dagger, buckler, or even a second sword in the off hand. I've found it difficult to mesh most of what I've seen from i33 with the English system.

Straybow
2012-04-18, 12:34 AM
Switching gears to science fiction for a moment...

Plausible armaments for spacecraft. Missiles? Projectile weapons, even gauss or railguns, would probably be ineffective except at extreme(relative) close range, or against targets that can't manouver. Lasers would work over long distance, if not for how easy it'd be to coat a ship with some kind of reflective material. Not like stealth is a design consideration anyway. So far, nobody has mentioned the dual system from the Honor Harrington series. David Weber may have picked up the idea elsewhere, I don't know for sure, but it was original to my lengthy scifi reading experience.

Use a missile that approaches the target to within a certain range, then fire a nuke-pumped x-ray laser to hit it. The target's defensive lasers don't have appreciably greater effective range. On a rare occasion you might be able to use the mini-nuke itself against the target, but it would probably have to be a soft target to get that close.

Thiel
2012-04-18, 04:47 AM
Standing "still"? Not deliberately evading yes, but hardly standing still. But my point was simple, the precision needed to acquire, track, and point at a target approximately 20 light seconds away is current technology.

I agree with all except "unpredictability" - but I do understand your point. I simply think we have enough of a basic start to make adding the rest reasonable between now and whenever we have enough infrastructure and technology in space to fight a war.

But it is unpredictable. At one light-second you're seeing me where I was a second ago and the lase will take another second to reach me. Me being me I'm not going to sit around and just let you shoot me so I'll be thrusting all over the place. Even a two second delay will be enough for you to miss by miles.
At twenty light-seconds there'll be a 40 second delay which is enough to make you miss by thousands of miles.

Knaight
2012-04-18, 04:49 AM
Me being me I'm not going to sit around and just let you shoot me so I'll be thrusting all over the place. Even a two second delay will be enough for you to miss by miles.
I don't buy this. Space combat is effectively guaranteed to take place at high speeds, but it's change in velocity we care about. As of now, spacecraft aren't able to accelerate all that quickly, and I don't see any reason to think that will change to the point where the velocity is now several miles per second different.

Yora
2012-04-18, 04:50 AM
Missiles seem the only thing that would be practical, as they can adjust their path as they get closer to the target and the target is changing position and direction.
But then, shoting down missiles as they get close with lasers or railguns would be relatively easy.

I'd say really long range engagements in space are still rather unlikely, even with super advanced targeting systems. Not as close as in most movies, but you'd still have to get close enough for your weapons to travel the distance in a reasonable amount of time.

mcv
2012-04-18, 05:05 AM
But it is unpredictable. At one light-second you're seeing me where I was a second ago and the lase will take another second to reach me. Me being me I'm not going to sit around and just let you shoot me so I'll be thrusting all over the place. Even a two second delay will be enough for you to miss by miles.
At twenty light-seconds there'll be a 40 second delay which is enough to make you miss by thousands of miles.

It becomes a race between how much reaction mass you've got and how long your enemy can power his laser. With current technology, high speed acceleration costs enormous amounts of reaction mass. This will probably change in the future, but if it doesn't, evasive action will end up being too expensive.

Keep in mind that you don't know when your enemy will shoot. You have to evade all the time.

Autolykos
2012-04-18, 05:11 AM
But it is unpredictable. At one light-second you're seeing me where I was a second ago and the lase will take another second to reach me. Me being me I'm not going to sit around and just let you shoot me so I'll be thrusting all over the place. Even a two second delay will be enough for you to miss by miles.
At twenty light-seconds there'll be a 40 second delay which is enough to make you miss by thousands of miles.You can completely forget about lasers at distances measured in light seconds anyway. Diffraction will make the beam at least a few miles wide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_Experiment#Details) at the destination (for reasonable-sized lasers). In theory, you could counter this with phased arrays (or very, very large lasers), but we are far from having the technological means to pull this off in the visible spectrum (or even near IR). With a MASER, it might be possible though.

a_humble_lich
2012-04-18, 06:43 AM
With current technology, high speed acceleration costs enormous amounts of reaction mass. This will probably change in the future, but if it doesn't, evasive action will end up being too expensive.


I think this leads to an important point. What space combat will look like will depend greatly on what technology we will have in the future. Currently Space Combat consists of using missiles to shoot down satellites and (possibly) ballistic missiles. Future space combat will depend greatly on:

What kind of propulsion is available? Chemical rockets? Ion drives? Fission rockets? Fusion rockets?
Can space ships be armored?
How much energy is avaliable to the ship?
Do high powered lasers exist? How well can they be focused?
What is the goal of a Space Navy? Is it defending Earth from invaders or protecting space lanes to Mars?
What is the rate of fire of high powered lasers? Are they like modern chemical laser which require fuel or do they only require power?
How effective is missile defense?


Personally, I feel that combat at light second distances will be very difficult. remember a light second is about the distance to the Moon and it took the Apollo astronaughts days to get that far. I doubt any missiles or projectiles will be able to go much faster. In addition, the defending ship can be shooting at the missiles as they approach. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, it will be very hard to aim and focus lasers at those distances.

Raum
2012-04-18, 07:18 AM
But it is unpredictable. At one light-second you're seeing me where I was a second ago and the lase will take another second to reach me. Me being me I'm not going to sit around and just let you shoot me so I'll be thrusting all over the place. Even a two second delay will be enough for you to miss by miles.
At twenty light-seconds there'll be a 40 second delay which is enough to make you miss by thousands of miles.As Knaight says it's sudden deltas that matter, not raw speed. Newton's first law is going to prevent the type of jinking you can get out of an aircraft which uses atmosphere and Newton's third law is going to help you predict direction when you can detect the ejecta from the drive.

I agree, there are targeting challenges still. But they're solvable challenges.


You can completely forget about lasers at distances measured in light seconds anyway. Diffraction will make the beam at least a few miles wide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_Experiment#Details) at the destination (for reasonable-sized lasers). In theory, you could counter this with phased arrays (or very, very large lasers), but we are far from having the technological means to pull this off in the visible spectrum (or even near IR). With a MASER, it might be possible though.Yep, called this out before being distracted by the targeting argument. :smallwink:

Galloglaich
2012-04-18, 01:12 PM
I am. Is he really that legendary? I just know him as my instructor, and I do know he's involved in lots of international stuff, but I have no idea what his actual stature is outside the Netherlands.

Lopes is very well known in HEMA circles worldwide. For one thing, he travels a lot and he's a hard person to forget when you have met him.

For the others here, here is one of his matches in Sweden in 2010. Lopes is in black. Unfortunately they are sparring with those horrible rubbery rawlings simulators so it undermines the fencing a little bit, but as you can see he is pretty aggressive and fast. Not that it helps when you lose your sword!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5IrRLfQTjA&feature=relmfu

He made short work of me in the quarter finals in Houston in 2010 but I hope next time we fence I'll give him more of a challenge.

Lopes is well regarded as a fencer, I'd guess he's in the top 5% or 10% of longsword fencers worldwide. He's also well respected for his understanding of body mechanics, you should learn as much of that as you can from him.

But of course he is also at least as well known for his appearance, remarks, and antics. And for things like wearing kilts in downtown areas of major American cities and so on... Lopes is an amusing guy I like him a lot.


Against an unterhau? I thought the sheitelhau was the meisterhau against the alber (presumably after an oberhau, but I get the impression there's some confusion about that).

It is the meisterhau against the alber but it works well against low guards, including when people make attacks at your leg, whether a a sweeping cut or an unterhau at the lower opening. The body mechanics allow you to over-reach. The counter for the person doing this is to try to aim an unterhau at your hand but like I said, if you don't telegraph the Sheitel usually works.


Do you mean as a kind of close guard (or whatever it's called)?

Next time you are training, have someone aim a mittelhau at your waist or left elbow, and try displacing with a pflug. To bind, pull back a little when they make contact with your blade while stepping forward and trying to place your strong on their weak. Once you get used to that, try catching a bind and then making a thrust into their face with a passing step to your right. That is the low absetzen.



I'll ask Lopes about it. Or maybe another instructor. (I actually think Matthys Kool is the better teacher; at least at my level. But don't tell Lopes that.)

Is that Ties Kool? Try it out and let me know what they say, I'll be interested to hear.

G

Galloglaich
2012-04-18, 01:24 PM
With all this talk about simulated fighting, a question came back to mind:

How does a warrior train for a killing blow? How does one condition themselves to go through practiced movements with random resistance from tissue.

Actually I think this is a pretty good question.

We know that the Japanese were obsessed with test-cutting, they cut special straw mats (most famous type being the tatami mats) and they also cut animal and even human cadavers. We also have some Arab and Turkish fencing manuals which recommend test-cutting on cane poles and other targets.

We don't have a lot of data about how Europeans practiced cutting techniques yet. I'm not certain why that is.

As Spyrit said, this would be a period in which it was much more common for people to have experience with things like butchering animals and so on, as well as of war. But they trained intensively in fencing, so I think it's likely that they did practice cutting as well... if for no other reason than because...


Is it easy to cut off a limb? To behead? To bifurcate? Is it any harder or easier to thrust or stab a torso and recover to a ready state?

From modern experience of people involved in the HEMA scene, the answer is that it is fairly easy to sever a limb or behead say, a pig carcass, if you know what you are doing. Big if. It seems to take some practice for most people. Rather like target shooting does. Most of us practice on tatami mats like the Japanese, or we use things like pool noodles and plastic water bottles.

Cutting through a few layers of textiles covering meat and bone is a little harder and requires a higher level of skill. But still not too hard if you are skilled and have a good weapon.

However if you aren't skilled, you can cut a plastic gatorade bottle full of water with a very nice, sharp sword and it will just bounce across the yard with a dent in it. So IMO, some training does seem to be necessary.



I'm mostly interested in the physical aspects of preparing to kill, but how did warriors of the past cope with killing other humans psychologically? Good ol' stupid hatred can't have been all there was to a mentally stable career murderer.

The Medieval period, at any rate, was a bit more violent than today, or at least, it may be more accurate to say that while violent crime rates were similar as today, they were more evenly distributed and of a different character: transgressive criminal behavior wasn't as common, but violence based around issues like pride were much more common among middle and upper class people than today. So experience of violence wasn't as rare.

And as spyrit said, hunting was a popular passtime even for middle class urban dwellers.

We also know that their training was more violent. Whereas today we train with blunt swords like they did, we use fencing masks. At least some of the time they seem to have determined the winner of a (training) fight by "the red bloom", i.e. the guy who got his scalp split open and bloody lost the fight. We are too chicken for that today, and I imagine it did harden people psychologically somewhat.

Beyond that, I think it's a good question worth looking into further.

G

Yora
2012-04-18, 01:35 PM
From modern experience of people involved in the HEMA scene, the answer is that it is fairly easy to sever a limb or behead say, a pig carcass, if you know what you are doing. Big if. It seems to take some practice for most people. Rather like target shooting does. Most of us practice on tatami mats like the Japanese, or we use things like pool noodles and plastic water bottles.
But those aren't armored, trying to dodge, and also trying to kill you in turn. In an actual combat situation, there is probably almost no chance at all to carefully aim a precise chop like that.

Straybow
2012-04-18, 01:51 PM
What kind of propulsion is available? Chemical rockets? Ion drives? Fission rockets? Fusion rockets?
Can space ships be armored?
How much energy is avaliable to the ship?
Do high powered lasers exist? How well can they be focused?
What is the goal of a Space Navy? Is it defending Earth from invaders or protecting space lanes to Mars?
What is the rate of fire of high powered lasers? Are they like modern chemical laser which require fuel or do they only require power?
How effective is missile defense?


Personally, I feel that combat at light second distances will be very difficult. remember a light second is about the distance to the Moon and it took the Apollo astronaughts days to get that far. I doubt any missiles or projectiles will be able to go much faster. In addition, the defending ship can be shooting at the missiles as they approach. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, it will be very hard to aim and focus lasers at those distances. Well, transit to the moon was a ballistic trajectory, not powered flight. Fission and fusion rockets would theoretically top out at around 20k ISP due to limitations on heat transfer to reaction mass. That allows modest sustained acceleration (˝ G to 1 G) for combat inside the 1 LS range. It allows continuously powered (flip halfway and decelerate) transit at something less than Ľ G for comfortably short travel times between planets, but the reaction mass reserves are so large that combat maneuvers would require fuel tank jettison. You recover the tank if you win, and if the tank wasn't destroyed.

Note that for fusion you still have to hand-wave some comparatively small scale thermal deuterium fusion or some other implementation that currently looks impossible.

Most games rely on some form of "reactionless" drive, by which they mean no reaction mass is required. They posit various ways of using gravitational manipulation or space-time distortion to effect acceleration more efficiently than is possible for reaction-mass driven propulsion. If we hand-wave a few centuries of future science and say that is possible... well, we're no longer in the realm of real world tech, just scifi staple.

For weaponry, games usually hand-wave target and focus issues away. Broad phased arrays are the only way to keep a laser beam focused at great distances, but that doesn't look as cool as the long barrel of a naval cannon. Who wants ship armament that looks like a bank of solar panels?

Knaight
2012-04-18, 01:55 PM
AThe Medieval period, at any rate, was a bit more violent than today, or at least, it may be more accurate to say that while violent crime rates were similar as today, they were more evenly distributed and of a different character: transgressive criminal behavior wasn't as common, but violence based around issues like pride were much more common among middle and upper class people than today. So experience of violence wasn't as rare.

I'll have to dig up the source on this, but it comes down to this: there's been a gradual reduction of violence for a very long time. The medieval period was far more violent than today, the iron age more violent than the medieval period, the stone age more violent than the iron age. This also carries over to the ages in between those ages.

VeliciaL
2012-04-18, 02:21 PM
For weaponry, games usually hand-wave target and focus issues away. Broad phased arrays are the only way to keep a laser beam focused at great distances, but that doesn't look as cool as the long barrel of a naval cannon. Who wants ship armament that looks like a bank of solar panels?

Hey! Says who? :P I think a mass of solar panels focusing a laser at extreme distances sounds cool. Not all weapons need to look like phallic objects. ;)

I've dabbled a little in a game called Attack Vector: Tactical (http://www.adastragames.com/products/adastra/av.html), and one of the stated purposes of mass driver weapons is to herd enemy ships around to make them easier to hit with other weaponry. This is at comparatively close range though, not at the extreme ranges the discussion has focused on.

Spiryt
2012-04-18, 02:50 PM
But those aren't armored, trying to dodge, and also trying to kill you in turn. In an actual combat situation, there is probably almost no chance at all to carefully aim a precise chop like that.

Obviously, but still was happening from time to time. And obviously full decapitation would be usually an 'overkill' most of the times.

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/pix/skull_wound.jpg

fusilier
2012-04-18, 03:49 PM
I'll have to dig up the source on this, but it comes down to this: there's been a gradual reduction of violence for a very long time. The medieval period was far more violent than today, the iron age more violent than the medieval period, the stone age more violent than the iron age. This also carries over to the ages in between those ages.

I read something similar to this. They correlated increased education with a lower likelihood of violent death.

Decline of violence: Taming the devil within us, by Steven Parker in the journal Nature (478)

Galloglaich
2012-04-18, 04:36 PM
Yeah I'm familiar with that theory, but I think it's utter garbage. Designed to make people feel better as part of this idea of 'progress'.

Way, way more people were killed in war and civilian violence in the 17th Century than the 15th. That is just an historical fact. 100 times more Witch-burnings, 100 times more religious violence. Entire cities depopulated. But the 20th Century as the worst of all. It made the previous 500 years combined look like paradise. World War II alone eclipsed all the other wars in the previous 500 years combined I think.

The difference is more in the distribution of violence. Whereas in the Middle Ages more people in the middle and upper classes were killed by murder today it's mostly poorer people, and people in poorer countries (i.e. the Third World).

Warfare which used to be practiced by all kinds of small entities from towns to individual clans and families, is now increasingly the monopoly of the State in most of the world. But this doesn't make us any safer, to the contrary. You get much less violence for a while, but then when two powerful States go to war with each other in full scale war which seems to happen every 50 or 60 years, there is no restraint whatsoever. It's industrial scale butchery like nothing the world has seen since the Mongols, and it's gotten worse every century since the State was invented in 1648.

If a State goes haywire as we also frequently saw happen in the 20th Century, it's the same thing only turned inward upon itself. How many people did Mao kill? Caligula could only dream of such excesses.

G

Mathis
2012-04-18, 04:50 PM
Let's not forget the impact of the pre-industrial world on population here. Of course Caligula would not have access to the same amount of population numbers as Mao. But maybe you are referring the amount of civilian casualties compared to military casualties comparatively between the two, percentage wise? I do not wish to digress the discussion, just wanted to point that out.

Spiryt
2012-04-18, 04:51 PM
It certainly is rather mind blowing to form theory like that with atrocities from Red Khmers regime, trough Gulags to Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Holocaust committed in very 20th century... :smallconfused:

The fact that this violence was often very 'dehumanized' and not quite as personal as good all splitting someone's head open doesn't really make it better.

Galloglaich
2012-04-18, 04:57 PM
Mathis, I think it's not just in whole numbers, but as a percentage, Mao did far worse than Caligula... so did Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Ataturk, Franco, and so on. In the Middle Ages, for an entire city to be put to the sword did sometimes happen but it was a major event (outside of the realm of Tamarlane or Ghenghiz Khan) and it stood out, Rome in 1527, Magdeburg in 1631. These shocked the world then, and represented the limits of the excesses of how bad war could get. By contrast, I couldn't even count how many cities were destroyed in WW II.

Spyrit, exactly. I only hope we have learned our lesson, but it seems naive to think so.

G

fusilier
2012-04-18, 05:13 PM
I don't really want to get into this discussion, you can track down and read the article yourself. However, they are not talking about total deaths, they are talking about number of deaths relative to the total population (or percentage of deaths). Certainly the first half of the 20th century had a lot of deaths, but population was considerably greater than it was in 17th century. The scale of wars in the second half of the 20th century was surprisingly small.

As has been noted before there was a population increase between the 15th and 17th centuries (leading to among other things a decrease in the amount of meat in peasants' and commoners' diets). They considered not only wars, but also murder rates, although I think they acknowledged that properly calculating such statistics can be difficult.

Also, I'll need to double check the article, but the correlation could be (should be?) seen across modern societies with varying levels of education. [Standard caveat that there are always outliers and variation]

mcv
2012-04-18, 05:16 PM
Lopes is very well known in HEMA circles worldwide. For one thing, he travels a lot and he's a hard person to forget when you have met him.

For the others here, here is one of his matches in Sweden in 2010. Lopes is in black. Unfortunately they are sparring with those horrible rubbery rawlings simulators so it undermines the fencing a little bit, but as you can see he is pretty aggressive and fast. Not that it helps when you lose your sword!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5IrRLfQTjA&feature=relmfu
Aggressive, but not as technical as I'd have expected from him. Might be the nylon. But I admit I haven't seen him fight that often. Especially this year he's been almost constantly crippled by a variety of injuries.


He made short work of me in the quarter finals in Houston in 2010 but I hope next time we fence I'll give him more of a challenge.
You might have to wait a bit until he's fully recovered.


Lopes is well regarded as a fencer, I'd guess he's in the top 5% or 10% of longsword fencers worldwide.
Who exactly do you count as fencers here? There's loads and loads of beginners out there. Top 5-10% doesn't sound like very much then. But top 5-10% of people who compete in international tournaments is quite something else.


He's also well respected for his understanding of body mechanics, you should learn as much of that as you can from him.
That certainly fits my impression. Body mechanics seem to be his specialization.


Is that Ties Kool?
It is. I wasn't sure whether Ties would be a recognizable spelling of his name in English.


Try it out and let me know what they say, I'll be interested to hear.
I will. Thanks for your advice.

Mathis
2012-04-18, 05:35 PM
I suspected that might be what you meant Galloglaich, just wanted to mention it in case someone wasn't aware of what happened to population numbers after the industrialization. But I guess in this thread, most people are fairly well-educated anyway, however one never knows. I wouldn't mind reading the article, but I'm very suspicious of drawing a conclusion that links lower chance of violent death to a higher level of education, if that's the main point the article discusses. Considering all the other changes that has occured. Off the top of my head I would rather attribute such a thing to a more organized society, but the borders between those things become blurry at some point.

fusilier
2012-04-18, 05:57 PM
I suspected that might be what you meant Galloglaich, just wanted to mention it in case someone wasn't aware of what happened to population numbers after the industrialization. But I guess in this thread, most people are fairly well-educated anyway, however one never knows. I wouldn't mind reading the article, but I'm very suspicious of drawing a conclusion that links lower chance of violent death to a higher level of education, if that's the main point the article discusses. Considering all the other changes that has occured. Off the top of my head I would rather attribute such a thing to a more organized society, but the borders between those things become blurry at some point.

The article didn't quote sources or anything, but it is derived from a book by the same author, which, I would hope, would get into many of these issues in much greater depth:

The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes

fusilier
2012-04-18, 06:14 PM
One thing I would point out, is that the mass killings of the 20th century were clearly much more organized than during previous centuries.

That *may* (as I haven't looked at the data myself) skew our perception of violent deaths. Many, many American Indians were killed in combat, or killed in brutal conditions of slavery, but while there was an intention, there wasn't nearly the organization that Stalin, Hitler or Mao would have had. Which might make them difficult to compare. We have reasonably good (they still vary by a lot), but perhaps more importantly *direct*, data on how many people died during Stalin's purges, that we can link to Stalin. Whereas calculating the number of American Indians killed in an innumerable number of skirmishes and battles, died in mines or on plantations as slaves, or were intentionally infected with smallpox, can be more difficult. --EDIT-- and can't be linked to one person, or even one government --EDIT--

Mathis
2012-04-18, 06:14 PM
Hey thanks! My google-fu is weak and you have saved me much searching. I'll see if my library can get a hold of it if it doesn't already have it.

Galloglaich
2012-04-18, 06:15 PM
However, they are not talking about total deaths, they are talking about number of deaths relative to the total population (or percentage of deaths). Certainly the first half of the 20th century had a lot of deaths, but population was considerably greater than it was in 17th century.

I believe my comment stands up, relative to the overall population.


The scale of wars in the second half of the 20th century was surprisingly small.

Well, yes... the scale of civil wars in the US was surprisingly low after 1865. Cambodia has been relatively peaceful since Pol Pot was overthrown...

I think Tacitus had a name for that, 'the peace of the graveyard'

G

fusilier
2012-04-18, 06:38 PM
I believe my comment stands up, relative to the overall population.



Well, yes... the scale of civil wars in the US was surprisingly low after 1865. Cambodia has been relatively peaceful since Pol Pot was overthrown...

I think Tacitus had a name for that, 'the peace of the graveyard'

G

Heh. All I'm saying is let's not dismiss this study out of hand -- it looks like it's gotten at least some peer review.

I also think that Mathis brought up a good point, about societies becoming more organized. When you stop thinking of your neighbor or a person in the next village as "the other", and start thinking of them as your "fellow countrymen", then that perhaps leads to a decrease in violence.

One statistic they do point out in the article, is that homicide rates in Europe have dropped from around 40 in 100,000 per year in the 14th century, to 1.3 by the end of the 20th century.

rrgg
2012-04-18, 07:43 PM
With all this talk about simulated fighting, a question came back to mind:

How does a warrior train for a killing blow? How does one condition themselves to go through practiced movements with random resistance from tissue. Is it easy to cut off a limb? To behead? To bifurcate? Is it any harder or easier to thrust or stab a torso and recover to a ready state?

I'm mostly interested in the physical aspects of preparing to kill, but how did warriors of the past cope with killing other humans psychologically? Good ol' stupid hatred can't have been all there was to a mentally stable career murderer.

I'm not so sure a fear of killing is as big as an issue when you or your friends are under attack. But those who did have a problem likely just did their best to skulk like the regular cowards.

Incanur
2012-04-18, 08:25 PM
But the blow being strongly made, takes sometimes clean away the hand from the arm, has many times been seen. (Note: A blow cuts off the hand, the arm, the leg, and sometimes the head.) Again, a full blow upon the head or face with a short sharp sword, is most commonly death. A full blow upon the neck, shoulder, arm, or leg, endangers life, cuts off the veins, muscles, and sinews, perishes the bones: these wounds made by the blow, in respect of perfect healing, are the loss of limbs, or maims incurable forever.

This speaks to the kind of physical damage folks expected one-handed swords to inflict in combat. Deadly thrusts required much less force but considerable precision. For example, many people survive thrusts through the belly or lungs.

Mike_G
2012-04-18, 09:40 PM
This speaks to the kind of physical damage folks expected one-handed swords to inflict in combat. Deadly thrusts required much less force but considerable precision. For example, many people survive thrusts through the belly or lungs.


Speaking from actual experience as a medic, a bad cut will incapacitate a person, but is treatable and survivable, with possible loss of function, but survivable. A bad thrust will let a person keep on fighting right up until he falls over from blood loss, but you'll never get that guy back.

We literally had to chase a guy up two flights of stairs and forcibly treat him for the big stab wound in the side of his neck. He would absolutely have died without rapid surgery, but he was able to get away from his attacker and run up two flights. The guy who had his forearm opened up could do nothing but grip his bleeding limb and keen in agony, but we just tourniqueted him and he waited hours for an OR.

Knaight
2012-04-18, 09:58 PM
I don't really want to get into this discussion, you can track down and read the article yourself. However, they are not talking about total deaths, they are talking about number of deaths relative to the total population (or percentage of deaths). Certainly the first half of the 20th century had a lot of deaths, but population was considerably greater than it was in 17th century. The scale of wars in the second half of the 20th century was surprisingly small.

It's also worth noting that wars are not all that get included. The work I'm familiar with looks at assaults and murders, which have been drastically reduced. This isn't surprising, given that concepts like "killing people to preserve one's honor" have been on the decline for a long while, habitual low level raiding declined, so on and so forth. The observation about distribution is very much notable; modern wars (and genocides) are far larger than those in history, but habitual raiding, street violence, interfamilial violence, and similar have dropped off. Modern killing has been largely concentrated, though it is nowhere near totally concentrated.

mcv
2012-04-19, 05:11 AM
Yeah I'm familiar with that theory, but I think it's utter garbage. Designed to make people feel better as part of this idea of 'progress'.

Way, way more people were killed in war and civilian violence in the 17th Century than the 15th. That is just an historical fact. 100 times more Witch-burnings, 100 times more religious violence. Entire cities depopulated. But the 20th Century as the worst of all. It made the previous 500 years combined look like paradise. World War II alone eclipsed all the other wars in the previous 500 years combined I think.
Absolutely, but you're missing out on the context here. WW2 was one single war that dominated the entire planet. In the middle ages, there were thousands of little wars where entire towns were murdered.

A single emotional argument about the scale of WW2 does not trump actual statistics. The number of violent deaths per capita during the middle ages was far, far higher than during the 20th century. Several orders of magnitude even, I believe.

Note that absolute numbers also fail to take into account that there are a lot more people in the world now than there were during the middle ages. Back then, 10,000 people was a major city. Now it's a village.


The difference is more in the distribution of violence. Whereas in the Middle Ages more people in the middle and upper classes were killed by murder today it's mostly poorer people, and people in poorer countries (i.e. the Third World).
You don't think poor people got killed during the middle ages? They got killed in far greater numbers than the higher classes. Often, the higher classes could kill them with impunity. And did.


Warfare which used to be practiced by all kinds of small entities from towns to individual clans and families, is now increasingly the monopoly of the State in most of the world. But this doesn't make us any safer, to the contrary. You get much less violence for a while, but then when two powerful States go to war with each other in full scale war which seems to happen every 50 or 60 years, there is no restraint whatsoever. It's industrial scale butchery like nothing the world has seen since the Mongols, and it's gotten worse every century since the State was invented in 1648.
Wars are more large scale, but they're also a lot more rare. The two world wars notwithstanding, for most of the 20th century, all of Europe has been at peace, and it might well be the first century where this has been the case.


If a State goes haywire as we also frequently saw happen in the 20th Century, it's the same thing only turned inward upon itself. How many people did Mao kill? Caligula could only dream of such excesses.
Only because he had less people to work with. You have to look at deaths per capita.

a_humble_lich
2012-04-19, 06:21 AM
As far as wars go, there is an interesting (and more than slightly disturbing) table on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_ toll) listing the conflicts with the most casualties. Now with the normal caveats on the accuracy of wikipedia I found the table to be very interesting. Of the top ten in terms of total casualties (i.e. not per capita) the majority took place in China and about half took place in the middle ages. As a percentage of world population, the conflicts in the middle ages were massive. For comparison in World War II they list 1.7%-3.1% of the world's population were killed. For the An Lushan Rebellion in China in 755, they estimate 14%-15.3% of the world's population were killed. For the Mongol invasions as mush as 17.1% of the world's population were killed (on the other hand that conflict lasted two and a half centuries).

I want to do a more sophisticated analysis and look at a moving average of the data on that table.

Also, it was sobering to realize that many of the conflicts on the list I had never heard of. I need to learn more about the history of China.

Matthew
2012-04-19, 07:09 AM
I dunno, Caesar was pretty proud of his Gallic butchery and if we believe his numbers (and I am not necessarily convinced) the slaughter of millions of Gauls was effected by him and around 30,000 Romans during his conquest. Could be as high as 50% of the total population of Gaul at that time, if I remember rightly what was being said in papers ten years ago!

Ashtagon
2012-04-19, 07:26 AM
What is the difference between a staff and a quarterstaff?

Obviously, they both describe a stout wooden stick 5-6 feet in length, with little or no embellishments. But why the two names for what, is supposedly the same object?

Fhaolan
2012-04-19, 08:16 AM
What is the difference between a staff and a quarterstaff?

Obviously, they both describe a stout wooden stick 5-6 feet in length, with little or no embellishments. But why the two names for what, is supposedly the same object?

Quarterstaff as a whole word is a 19th century term. Prior to that it was a qualifier like 'quarter ash staff'. Supposedly the qualifier actually refers to the method of manufacturing, from quarterings of a trunk of a tree rather than the cheaper (and weaker) tree branch.

Another qualifier would be 'short' and 'long' according to Silver. For him, the 'short staff' was about 8 feet long, and the 'long staff' was about 12 feet long. 5-6 feet in length is more commonly from Eastern traditions, with the bo staff.

Ashtagon
2012-04-19, 08:39 AM
Quarterstaff as a whole word is a 19th century term. Prior to that it was a qualifier like 'quarter ash staff'. Supposedly the qualifier actually refers to the method of manufacturing, from quarterings of a trunk of a tree rather than the cheaper (and weaker) tree branch.

Another qualifier would be 'short' and 'long' according to Silver. For him, the 'short staff' was about 8 feet long, and the 'long staff' was about 12 feet long. 5-6 feet in length is more commonly from Eastern traditions, with the bo staff.

So, at the time it was a popular weapon in Europe, it would have been referred to as a staff or a short staff? Would the following be a reasonably accurate description?

Staff (Japan: bo; China: kon (棒)): 6-9 feet long in Western tradition (McCarthy (1883): "both hands should be 2 feet 6 inches [76 cm] apart, and the same distance from each end".) East Asian version was 5.9 feet (jo was a related weapon about 4 feet long).

Long Staff: 11-12 feet long. No equivalent weapon appears to have been described outside of Europe.

mcv
2012-04-19, 08:52 AM
So, at the time it was a popular weapon in Europe, it would have been referred to as a staff or a short staff? Would the following be a reasonably accurate description?

Staff (Japan: bo; China: kon (棒)): 6-9 feet long in Western tradition (McCarthy (1883): "both hands should be 2 feet 6 inches [76 cm] apart, and the same distance from each end".) East Asian version was 5.9 feet (jo was a related weapon about 4 feet long).

You mean the Hollywood style of staff fighting? I don't really know all that much about staff fighting, but I do know that they're often held at the end. Wikipedia says one hand at the butt and the other a foot and a half, though it also mentions that at the end of the 19th century, it was apparently held as you describe: equal distance from each end. I've also seen bo katas where they constantly switch from holding one end to holding the other end.

Straybow
2012-04-19, 09:11 AM
What is the difference between a staff and a quarterstaff?

Obviously, they both describe a stout wooden stick 5-6 feet in length, with little or no embellishments. But why the two names for what, is supposedly the same object?
In the English system, a quarterstaff is typically 8 feet, though proper length for a very short person might be about 7 feet, and 9 feet for the tall. It is called "quarter" staff because you grip it about the quarter point, like a spear. (The technique shown in Robin Hood movies is called half-staffing, but the weapon was never called a half-staff.)

A 5-6 foot staff would be called a shortstaff. A battlestaff was typically 10-12 feet, intended for use in formation. The proper length quarterstaff was judged to be the best combination of speed and reach. A shorter staff gives up reach, a battlestaff gives up speed and versatility.

Incanur
2012-04-19, 09:30 AM
Speaking from actual experience as a medic in a post-sword world

Edited for clarity. The kind of cuts that happened in Silver's time - sometimes penetrating six inches into the head -could prove immediately lethal (http://www.thearma.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23962&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=7ec777e95da7a6e3565941a1267a47bc).


The guy who had his forearm opened up could do nothing but grip his bleeding limb and keen in agony, but we just tourniqueted him and he waited hours for an OR.

To be fair, you also have cases of folks that have limbs entirely severed who remain competent and functional (http://www.blnz.com/news/2007/08/30/Mexican_drives_severed_hospital_after_hete.html).

As far Steven Pinker goes, I advise caution. While it's hard to contest the drop in killing since medieval times - the medieval German murder rate was as high as 100 per 100,000 (http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2007/04/german_murder_r.html) - but Pinker tends to make stuff up (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-dawn/201103/steven-pinkers-stinker-the-origins-war) when it comes to hunter-gatherers. There's little question that per capita violence in the form of direct butchery has decreased in recent centuries, but considerable doubt about the extreme numbers Pinker claims for so-called prehistory. As far as overall health outcomes, the archeological evidence (http://books.google.com/books/about/Health_and_the_Rise_of_Civilization.html?id=SXpGhE RTtOEC) shows hunter-gatherers had if anything longer and healthier lives than the vast majority of civilized folks until around 1850.

Galloglaich
2012-04-19, 09:57 AM
I was trying to respond earlier, but the server has been continually overloaded...


Absolutely, but you're missing out on the context here. WW2 was one single war that dominated the entire planet. In the middle ages, there were thousands of little wars where entire towns were murdered.

No, entire towns (by which I'm referring to the 10,000 people cities) were rarely wiped out in the Middle Ages by war (the Black Death of course did wipe out several cities and a good chunk of the general population in the mid 14th Century)

Context is my specialty, so I don't think I'm missing it. Knaight summarized my actual point pretty well:


"killing people to preserve one's honor" have been on the decline for a long while, habitual low level raiding declined, so on and so forth. The observation about distribution is very much notable; modern wars (and genocides) are far larger than those in history, but habitual raiding, street violence, interfamilial violence, and similar have dropped off. Modern killing has been largely concentrated,

This is what I'm suggesting, in a nutshell, to which I would add, the wars in the Modern era are far worse than any wars, crime, or other human violence experienced in the Middle Ages, at least outside of Asia.



A single emotional argument about the scale of WW2 does not trump actual statistics. The number of violent deaths per capita during the middle ages was far, far higher than during the 20th century. Several orders of magnitude even, I believe.

I disagree, in fact I would contend that the Steven Pinker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker) book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature) which others upthread have been directly or indirectly (via online review articles) referring to is actually the one making the emotional argument, a very warm and fuzzy one. But as popular as Pinkers argument has been in the press, it has received a much more lukewarm response in academia. Here for example is a review of a book by another professor with a counterpoint:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2007/0103/book/book_sempa.html

Pinker is a psychologist not an historian, and it shows in his very optimistic interpretation of the facts.

As a percentage of the world population WW II might not have matched Ghenhiz Khan or Tamarlane, but for many parts of Europe, it far exceeded anything they ever experienced West of the Vistula. If you were a citizen of Brazil or frankly, the United States, World War II wasn't a major catastrophe, but Russia lost 13% of their population, Germany 10%, Poland 17%, Lithuania 14%, Greece 10%, Romania 8%, Hungary 6% and so on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Total_deaths

And of course, I'm not referring to WW II solely, it's just the most titanic example. There were innumerable genocides and catastrophic industrial scale wars in the 20th Century, far more than in any other century, at least in the Western Hemisphere. You also have World War I, the Russian Civil War, the Korean War, the Partition of India, the Ottoman Armenian Genocide, the Ottoman Greek Genocide, the Ottoman Assyrian Genocide, the Chinese Civil war, the Guatemalan Civil War, the Soviet - Ukranian War / Genocide, the French-Algerian War, the Khmer Rouge Genocide and subsequent invasion by Vietnam, the Sinio-Vietnamese War right after that, the Japanese-Manchurian War, the Yugoslavian Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam wars (French and American), and any number of massive wars in Africa... and on and on (http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/massacre.html).

http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog42/wardeaths.jpg http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/images_4/deathspct100.jpg
I googled "war deaths by century" and got these two charts.

*China, as others pointed out, seems to go through a titanic mass slaughter every hundred years or so, but China is arguably the closest thing to a modern State most of the world had going that far back. And of course both Ghenghiz Khan and Tamarlane made quite a notch in the human population. Enough to make forests grow ... (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1350272/Genghis-Khan-killed-people-forests-grew-carbon-levels-dropped.html)

With regard to crime, you could also argue that Pinker is cherry picking certain areas of the world which are rich and sitting at the pinnacle of military and political power, while ignoring much larger parts of the world which are poorer (i.e the Third World). I can guarantee you that Kinshasa Nigeria, Juarez Mexico, or for that matter, Naples Italy are not substantially less violent today than the average Medieval Town of the 15th Century.



You don't think poor people got killed during the middle ages? They got killed in far greater numbers than the higher classes. Often, the higher classes could kill them with impunity. And did.

Of course poor people were killed, I never said otherwise. But the difference between now and then is that wealthy and middle class people killed each other frequently as well, which has now changed. Murder is very rare in the above $100,000 annual income bracket today, outside of the cocaine business.

However it is a myth that even the highest aristocracy could kill with impunity, even poor people. Many of the most powerful princes and Kings of Europe lost their lives trying to subjugate peasants in the Middle Ages, I'd be glad to cite a bunch of examples if you like.



Wars are more large scale, but they're also a lot more rare. The two world wars notwithstanding, for most of the 20th century,

See above


all of Europe has been at peace, and it might well be the first century where this has been the case.

Disagree wholeheartedly. Europe was peaceful in the second half of the 20th Century because it was A) busy recovering from the massive, unprecedented devastation of World War II, and because it was occupied by the Armies of the United States and the Soviet Union as part of the uneasy heavily armed truce which came out of that war and was known as the Cold War, reinforced by the mind-numbing threat of utter nuclear annihilation. Very shortly after the Cold War ended a very nasty ethnic civil war and genocide broke out in the Balkans, which has still not entirely been settled (Kosovo is still rather a tense place).

Historically, large wars in Europe have happened every 50-60 years since the advent of the modern State, in 1648. I hope we won't see any more of them, but I think it would be naive to assume we never will again.

G

Straybow
2012-04-19, 10:26 AM
For the Mongol invasions as much as 17.1% of the world's population were killed (on the other hand that conflict lasted two and a half centuries). Yes, that would be akin to totaling up all the casualties of European/Russian war and resulting famines/epidemics from the Napoleonic onward and calling it "European conquests," then comparing the total casualties in one throw as a percentage... See? Merely adding the wars in the list gets us up to 7.3% by comparison with the WW2 figures. And I've ignored the European and Russian conquests in Asia and Africa during the same period, those should surely be included in European conquests. Then we add in all the "internal" conflicts like Stalin's purges and genocide, the figure climbs upwards.

No, if you aren't going to break the Mongol invasions down into stages historically, do it empirically by recognizing that every time the emperor died all the generals and nobles were recalled until the new emperor was crowned and established. If that averaged once every forty years (probably too long, but I can't be arsed to look up all those silly Mongol emperors) then divide the Mongol figures into 6 tranches of 5-10 million. Now we're down to a dynastic average of 1.25%-2.85% of world pop per emperor.

Mike_G
2012-04-19, 10:33 AM
Edited for clarity. The kind of cuts that happened in Silver's time - sometimes penetrating six inches into the head -could prove immediately lethal (http://www.thearma.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23962&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=7ec777e95da7a6e3565941a1267a47bc).


I've treated people hit with machetes, table saws, driven motorcycles into wire fences.

Not trying to take anything away from swords, but don't think modern people can't get horribly maimed by somebody who doesn't know who Tahlhoffer was.




To be fair, you also have cases of folks that have limbs entirely severed who remain competent and functional (http://www.blnz.com/news/2007/08/30/Mexican_drives_severed_hospital_after_hete.html).

The plural of anecdote is not data. Yeah, any one case can be found for anything, like the guy who walked into the ER with a hunting knife in his skull. That doesn't prove that a blade burried in one's head shouldn't be immediately disabling.

And I'll admit that "**** I've seen" isn't a statistically significant sample, but I can assure you that after 12 years of dealing with trauma, the trend is that puncture wounds of the trunk are often fatal, but seldom immediately incapacitating. Even people who have been shot have been known to keep running. They bleed out later, but you can follow a lot of blood trails looking for bodies. Any trauma surgeon wiull teel you that any penetrating trauma to the core of the body, regardless of whether the patient can still walk or talk or do backflips, is a serous risk of death by bloodloss or infection. They'd rather treat a cut any day.

Cuts which expose a lot of tissue to the air hurt like crazy. Even if you don't disable a limb by severing muscle, that amount of pain and the body's normal reaction to it tend to drop people in their tracks. But cuts are less likely to penetrate deep enough to damage vital organs or bloodvessels, which are largely protected by bone. Yeah, you can cut through bone, but it takes a good hit. It's easy to stick a point in very deep and reach important stuff. So in general, you are more likely to be out of action from a cut but to survive it.

And, finally, in combat, it's easier to cut at a limb than the trunk, and easier to reach the body with a thrust.

These are broad generalities, yes. I'm sure someone will refute this with reference to some longsword maneuver in Altdeutsch taht I've never heard of than cuts bodies or pierces legs, but I've been a Marine, a nationally rated fencer, a dabbler in rapier fighting and a medic. I feel qualified to make some broadly correct statements about trauma and wounds.

mcv
2012-04-19, 10:34 AM
Yes, that would be akin to totaling up all the casualties of European/Russian war and resulting famines/epidemics from the Napoleonic onward and calling it "European conquests," then comparing the total casualties in one throw as a percentage... See? Merely adding the wars in the list gets us up to 7.3% by comparison with the WW2 figures. And I've ignored the European and Russian conquests in Asia and Africa during the same period, those should surely be included in European conquests. Then we add in all the "internal" conflicts like Stalin's purges and genocide, the figure climbs upwards.
Now you're adding up the deaths caused by a lot of different countries and comparing them to a single invader. Do you think the Mongols were the only ones fighting at that time?

Galloglaich
2012-04-19, 11:00 AM
By coincidence, I was a medic as well, in the Army, though I didn't see as much hard core trauma as Mike did. but!


I've treated people hit with machetes, table saws, driven motorcycles into wire fences.

(snip)

These are broad generalities, yes. I'm sure someone will refute this with reference to some longsword maneuver in Altdeutsch taht I've never heard of than cuts bodies or pierces legs, but I've been a Marine, a nationally rated fencer, a dabbler in rapier fighting and a medic. I feel qualified to make some broadly correct statements about trauma and wounds.

I would say you are, and your observations are valuable to the discussion.

From the historical perspective, they did have an easier time dealing with cuts. On the one hand, I think there is evidence that cuts could be more immediately disabling and / or incapacitating, but thrusts to the body or head are more likely to be fatal.

During the Medieval and into the early modern period, they used to treat wounds with strong vinegar, and with fat and salt. This seemed to be fairly effective a lot of the time, more often than you would assume. Usamah Ibn Muniqidh mentions "frankish" physicians doing the former in the 12th Century and Bernal Diaz mentions the soldiers doing the latter in the Conquest of New Spain. This is also common in anecdotes and records from Poland, notably by Jan Dlogluz.

Any wound however, which punctures the gut, or pierces the lung (causing a sucking chest wound) or the wind-pipe, or fractures the skull sufficient to let fluid or air out, or pierces the spine, was believed by most physicians to be fatal. In the military during triage we have a category called "expected", meaning someone who is probably died or likely to die, and during the high casualty conflicts like WW II and even in some cases in Vietnam, these guys go last, on the theory it's better to evacuate the guys who have a chance of living.

In the Middle Ages it was also the case that people expected to die would be given a mercy killing or left to die, and one test for this was for example, in a head wound, if they held their nose and blew, and bubbles appeared in their chest or air could be heard escaping from their skull, they were "expected". Nothing could be done.

So I think this is why helmets and body armor protecting the torso were by far the most common forms of protection worn by soldiers, militia and warriors during the pre-industrial period. Unlike in DnD books, fantasy films and video games where it's cooler to just have something on one arm like a Roman Gladiator. But Roman Gladiators are expected to die.

Victorian histories tended to exaggerate the effectiveness of the thrust over the cut, and we know from coroners records that a lot of rapier duels ended up fatal for both participants because each would stab the other. But there is no doubt it's easier to get to an internal organ with a thrust than a cut in most cases.

Both cuts and thrusts were effective ways to kill which is why both cutting and thrusting weapons remained in military use into modern times. On the battlefield, when close-in, cutting can be better simply for the reason that in a thrust you can get caught up trying to pull your blade out of somebody. They explicitly make this point in some of the Iberian Montante (two-handed sword) manuals when fighting against superior odds; however there is no doubt that in the Medieval world, by far the greatest number of battlefield casualties were caused by missiles (javelins, darts, rocks, crossbow bolts, arrows, bullets) followed by spear-thrusts or lance-thrusts, with all cutting and blunt-trauma weapons coming after. Many weapons like the halberd or the bill were designed to do both, pierce in the opening attack, cut to finish off the opponent.

G

Straybow
2012-04-19, 01:09 PM
Now you're adding up the deaths caused by a lot of different countries and comparing them to a single invader. Do you think the Mongols were the only ones fighting at that time? "The Mongols" weren't just the Mongols. As they conquered they raised fighting units from conquered peoples. They were called the Horde because their numbers were so many, obviously, but also their members so diverse. The Mongols tribes themselves were almost as diverse as the Germanic tribes that populated much of Europe. By the end of the Genghesid era they were more homogenized.

As the conquerors they were able to field a very high percentage of their able-bodied as warriors. The mounted archer corps was the elite and most of the Mongols proper were mounted archers, but the mounted archers were drawn from the whole population of Mongol and conquered horse peoples (Turks and some other groups I can't remember).

With the death of an emperor, all the leaders would return to Karakorum and fight it out (politically or literally) until a successor was in place. It was usually not a peaceful process. That's why Subudai's westward conquest stopped in 1241-2, and when his successor took over he directed his attention to the south, saving Europe. The initial conquest period was over before 1300.

The remaining 150 years wasn't one empire but four, infighting back and forth as China was lost, a civil war or two, a rebellion or two, etc. It is a huge and complicated history. Taking it all as a whole is about the same as looking at modern European conflicts as a whole, with several major actors fighting over the same pie.

Galloglaich
2012-04-19, 01:50 PM
I agree those are some good points. Neither the 'Germanic', nor 'Celtic' tribes were homogeneous, though the notion of a formed ethnicity due to a common culture is an interesting conundrum. It was the same for the Medieval "Holy Roman Empire" which as Voltaire put it so aptly was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. The Mongols in the late Medieval era actually relied on Cumanic as a trade language, apparently (Cumans being one of those other tribes, along with Kipchaks, Turkmen, Pechenegs, Slavs, Mordvins (essentially Finns), Armenians, Persians and many others..) But the 'true' Mongol members of the various Hordes were known as the 'Golden Family' and at least in theory held themselves distinct.

The only part I disagree with is this common assertion:


That's why Subudai's westward conquest stopped in 1241-2, and when his successor took over he directed his attention to the south, saving Europe. The initial conquest period was over before 1300.

I don't agree that the Mongols actually left Europe, or that Subutai's admittedly convenient departure saved Europe from a Mongol conquest. I think if Europe is really as vulnerable at that point as conventional wisdom suggests, it would have in fact been conquered by the Mongol Horde or the later Golden or Crimean Hordes which neighbored European Christendom. I have what I admit is an outlier theory on them which is in opposition to the conventional wisdom.

1) First of all, they never really left. Certain generals left, but large raids continued all through the 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries, on a comparable scale to the armies which attacked in 1241. If not, perhaps, as ably led in every case. Many of these raids were successful, but quite a few weren't, and this goes back to the original invasion. Which brings me to my second point

2) The Mongols were not at all unbeatable in Europe. In 1241, in between their very famous victories at Liegnicz and Sajo river, they suffered a serious setback in Bohemia at Klodzko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenceslaus_I_of_Bohemia#Mongol_invasion) which few historians seem to ever mention in the West, with two Tumens being badly mauled by Bohemian cavalry and leaving (never to return to Bohemia), and evidently lost some kind of battle or battles in Croatia, though documentation for this seems to be almost nonexistent. After that there were repeated Mongol raids into Poland and Hungary in 1259, 1275, 1287.

The Poles initially practiced scorched -earth tactics and evacuated towns in their path, but eventually the Poles became more bold and defeated a (one Tumen) Mongol raid in 1287 at Kraków (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_europe#Against_Poland_.281259_a nd_1287.29) (at significant cost) after which the large scale raids ceased. A much larger Mongol invasion force was defeated near Pest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_europe#Against_the_Kingdom_of_H ungary_.281280s.29) in Hungary in circa 1285, the surviving Mongol army largely annihilated by Transilvanian guerrillas on their way home. The scale and intensity of fights with the Mongols continued to increase in the East, and they famously lost major battles in the 14th Century to the Luthuanians at Blue Waters in 1362 and to their own vassals the Muscovites at Kulikovo field in 1380, where the Mongols lost 100,000 men, depending on whose figures you believe. The Genoese even financed a brief 'Crusade' in the late 14th Century in which the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas successfully led a mixed army of Cumans, Mongols, Teutonic Knights, Cossacks and various others into a major invasion of Mongol territory which lasted 3 years, though it ended in a defeat in 1399 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Vorskla_River). Nevertheless, the Lithuanian Grand Duchy continued to expand at the expense of the Golden Horde throughout the Medieval period.

For some reason that I don't understand yet, these parts always seem to left out of the story of the Mongols in Europe and in fact I never found out of most of the above until I started doing a lot of research on Central Europe in the Middle Ages.

3) I think the scale of the Mongol invasion of Latin Europe (i.e. outside of Russia) tends to be exaggerated somewhat, it was devastating largely due to hard core Mongol scorched earth invasion tactics but the scale of the defeats wasn't that much greater than the effects of numerous other wars during the same period. Some of the uprisings and reversals by the pagan Europeans in Prussia for example were comparable to the effect of the Battle of Liegnicz in the 13th C.

4) The Mongols themselves were hesitant to push further west for military reasons. They reported unusually high casualties in the battles of Leigenicz and Sajo river / Mohi for example, the Mongol commander Batu lost 30 of his personal bodyguard on the bridge at Sajo. The Mongols noted in particular that crossbows caused a lot of casualties, and they also sometimes had trouble with heavy cavalry as in Bohemia, and against strong fortifications as in Hungary and Croatia.

There is no doubt that the Mongol war-machine was far better organized than any of the European powers, that they had a much, much larger and more unified political structure, and that they had tactical methods and equipment (that excellent recurve) which were equal to or better than anything the Europeans could field. They also had a mystique of real terror which was of immense strategic significance. But they were also vulnerable and they knew it, the Europeans had tactics and capabilities that the mongols themselves were not that used to dealing with. And perhaps just as important, the terrain of Europe was not very well suited to their style of fighting. For these reasons as well as the risks of enemies in Asia, I don't think they could have conquered Europe.

G

Straybow
2012-04-19, 01:58 PM
So I think this is why helmets and body armor protecting the torso were by far the most common forms of protection worn by soldiers, militia and warriors during the pre-industrial period. Unlike in DnD books, fantasy films and video games where it's cooler to just have something on one arm like a Roman Gladiator. But Roman Gladiators are expected to die. It is an exaggeration that gladiators expected to die. It comes from the genuine record of some periods of Rome proper, but for gladiators outside those periods and outside of Rome this was not true. Now there were war captives, runaway slaves, criminals, and other undesirables (Christians, in later times) sent into the arena to die, certainly. The gladiators themselves were highly trained and valued, and some were even free men. They faced a high chance of death in the arena over a career, but many would retire to become trainers or even celebrities.

Earlier I said that I would choose the manica over mail shirt and cap, that is, if I had to choose one or the other. It stemmed from an observation of "armor class" ignoring which parts of the body are left completely unprotected. If you get past my guard I'm likely doomed anyway, so I'd rather protect my offensive capabilities, if I had to choose. The guy with the manica uses a shield to protect his body, a big one at that, unless he's the retarius. RPGs greatly undervalue the shield.

Now where the fantasy folks have it wrong is the chainmail bikini... definitely not enough protection for Red Sonja...

Galloglaich
2012-04-19, 02:20 PM
It is an exaggeration that gladiators expected to die. It comes from the genuine record of some periods of Rome proper, but for gladiators outside those periods and outside of Rome this was not true. Now there were war captives, runaway slaves, criminals, and other undesirables (Christians, in later times) sent into the arena to die, certainly. The gladiators themselves were highly trained and valued, and some were even free men. They faced a high chance of death in the arena over a career, but many would retire to become trainers or even celebrities.

This is true, fair point, but I think their armor was designed to prolong an exciting fight rather than to really protect the wearer.



Earlier I said that I would choose the manica over mail shirt and cap, that is, if I had to choose one or the other. It stemmed from an observation of "armor class" ignoring which parts of the body are left completely unprotected. If you get past my guard I'm likely doomed anyway, so I'd rather protect my offensive capabilities, if I had to choose. The guy with the manica uses a shield to protect his body, a big one at that, unless he's the retarius. RPGs greatly undervalue the shield.

Not mine :) But I see your point, as an individual in a single combat or a small unit fight perhaps this is a viable option. Outside of the arena though there seems to be an historic lack of this type of protective panoply compared to say, the mail tunic (lorica hamata, byrnie etc.).


Now where the fantasy folks have it wrong is the chainmail bikini... definitely not enough protection for Red Sonja...

Yeah but it looks so nice... :)

http://www.deviantart.com/download/117886026/Reyn__Green_Chainmail_Bikini_1_by_Utopia_Armoury.j pg

G

Straybow
2012-04-19, 02:33 PM
I agree that I've really simplified the picture, but I dint wanna do that much typing to make one point: the 250 years lumped together as "Mongol conquests" was not much more lumpable than the empire-builder wars of the modern European period.

Yes, the Mongols did take heavy casualties against the Poles and Hungarians, and that was a major dissuasive factor, but the "cooling off" period between Ogadai and Kublai played a hand, allowing the Europeans to regroup. Had Subudai been able to press on in 1242 he might have made good progress, but after six years of recovery the Hungarians in particular were ready for them.

The generals after Subudai were divided, one being Muslim opposed Hulugu's advances into the holy land. Still, the expansion period was over by 1300, and including the next 150 years in a grand total is comparable to the modern European/Russian struggles being lumped together.

fusilier
2012-04-19, 05:22 PM
As far Steven Pinker goes, I advise caution. While it's hard to contest the drop in killing since medieval times - the medieval German murder rate was as high as 100 per 100,000 (http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2007/04/german_murder_r.html) - but Pinker tends to make stuff up (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-dawn/201103/steven-pinkers-stinker-the-origins-war) when it comes to hunter-gatherers. . . .

I had my suspicions about his data for hunter-gatherers. That article is actually quite interesting, not so much in that it refutes what Pinker was stating, but that it points out that there are different kinds of societies that are referred to as "hunter-gatherer" and in some of them violence can be quite high, but it's not a universal trait. Pinker wasn't really "making stuff up" but the data he was using was potentially biased.

Interestingly, if he focused on *modern* so-called hunter-gatherer societies then the data might bear out better. But he mistook modern societies for ancient ones, and seems to have perhaps cherry-picked the results even then.

Incanur
2012-04-19, 06:27 PM
I've treated people hit with machetes, table saws, driven motorcycles into wire fences.

Only one of those things is like (is) a sword.


The plural of anecdote is not data. Yeah, any one case can be found for anything, like the guy who walked into the ER with a hunting knife in his skull. That doesn't prove that a blade burried in one's head shouldn't be immediately disabling.

Actually, lots of penetrating wounds to the brain fail to result in instant incapacitation. See The Dubious Quick Kill (http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/kill2.php) for a few more examples.


They'd rather treat a cut any day.

Again, this claim doesn't take into account that kind of cuts Silver expected. Would they also rather treat cut that penetrated three to six inches into the brain? Or one that severed the spinal chord? People with such wounds go to the morgue, not the hospital.

Incanur
2012-04-19, 10:45 PM
Any wound however, which punctures the gut, or pierces the lung (causing a sucking chest wound) or the wind-pipe, or fractures the skull sufficient to let fluid or air out, or pierces the spine, was believed by most physicians to be fatal.

If so, the evidences shows this belief to be somewhat presumptuous. We have accounts of folks who survived thrusts through the lungs and/or belly.


But there is no doubt it's easier to get to an internal organ with a thrust than a cut in most cases.

Definitely. Thrusting with a sharp weapon requires hardly any force to pierce the body from front to back, while effective cuts demand strength.


They explicitly make this point in some of the Iberian Montante (two-handed sword) manuals when fighting against superior odds; however there is no doubt that in the Medieval world, by far the greatest number of battlefield casualties were caused by missiles (javelins, darts, rocks, crossbow bolts, arrows, bullets) followed by spear-thrusts or lance-thrusts, with all cutting and blunt-trauma weapons coming after.

What's your evidence for this? The numbers - though inconclusive - support this for medieval (http://books.google.com/books?id=eyMYelZlKekC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=medieval+wound+percentage+by+weapon&source=bl&ots=mqzzyCeM39&sig=aVYAGlIb71oMctifmWPkT2pQgpc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=S9SQT8OcBuSfiQKK7-XfAg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=medieval%20wound%20percentage%20by%20weapon&f=false) Japan (http://books.google.com/books?id=YPkYMoO0ycIC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=wounds+%2B+swords+%2B+percentage+%2B+medieval&source=bl&ots=-S1WSavzf_&sig=b8Xw5owzcVtKs0CvcrcPlF6qmNc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bteQT-urJcfniALP6YWMAw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=wounds%20%2B%20swords%20%2B%20percentage%20%2B%2 0medieval&f=false), but I'm deeply skeptical that missiles caused the most fatalities in Western Europe. The wounds from skeletons at both Visby (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41780) and Towton (http://www.economist.com/node/17722650) include numerous cuts that penetrated bone.

mcv
2012-04-20, 06:08 AM
"The Mongols" weren't just the Mongols. As they conquered they raised fighting units from conquered peoples. They were called the Horde because their numbers were so many, obviously, but also their members so diverse. The Mongols tribes themselves were almost as diverse as the Germanic tribes that populated much of Europe. By the end of the Genghesid era they were more homogenized.

As the conquerors they were able to field a very high percentage of their able-bodied as warriors. The mounted archer corps was the elite and most of the Mongols proper were mounted archers, but the mounted archers were drawn from the whole population of Mongol and conquered horse peoples (Turks and some other groups I can't remember).

With the death of an emperor, all the leaders would return to Karakorum and fight it out (politically or literally) until a successor was in place. It was usually not a peaceful process. That's why Subudai's westward conquest stopped in 1241-2, and when his successor took over he directed his attention to the south, saving Europe. The initial conquest period was over before 1300.

The remaining 150 years wasn't one empire but four, infighting back and forth as China was lost, a civil war or two, a rebellion or two, etc.
So we agree it was a more violent time?

mcv
2012-04-20, 07:05 AM
(On Lopes, my HEMA instructor)

You might have to wait a bit until he's fully recovered.

Boy, am I wrong here. He just won a tournament in Mexico. He's not quite fully recovered yet, but certainly able to fight.

Ashtagon
2012-04-20, 07:41 AM
Methodology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates

Take the average value for war deaths in each listed war, and divide those deaths evenly between all the years listed for that war.

Take the population for each year in question. Interpolate as necessary to provide estimates for each year. Use the following sources from the WP article:

Population estimates use:
* 1950 to present: USA Census Bureau
* 1700-1940: Hyde
* up to 1650: McEvedy

For each year, sum up all war deaths, and calculate percentage of global population that died.

The deadliest single years were the period 755-763; 1.77% of the world population died in war in each of those years. By comparison, the period of the Mongol conquests comes out at 0.05%; the Taiping Rebellion at 0.34%; the WW1 years (numbers include the overlap for the Mexican and Russian revolutions) at 0.47%; WW2 at 0.34%. Post-WW2, the single biggest war death event would be the Korean War, at 0.03% per year.

In other words, nothing even came close to the An Lushan Rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Lushan_Rebellion). As a back-of-envelope estimate, during pre-modern times China's population was about 1/3 of the world population. And about 1/6 of the world population had just died in 8 years. China's population was literally cut in half.

Another way to examine these stats would be to compare the cumulative total over 50 years (the period of a typical long-lived person's memories in which they could be politically active). Looked at this way, an observer in 764 AD could say that 15.98% of the world's population had died in war over the last 50 years. An observer in 1291 AD (at the end of both the Crusades and the Mongol conquests) would say that a mere 2.49% had died in war over the last 50 years. The full list of "interesting times are:

* 764 AD (15.98%) End of An Lushan Rebellion
* 1291 (2.49%) End of Crusades
* 1368 (10.84%) End of Ming-Yuan war
* 1389 (13.67%) Height of Timur/Mongol conquests
* 1400 (world population reached a low point due to plague)
* 1662 (6.52%) End of Qing-Ming war; overlaps with 30 years war in Europe
* 1815 (0.51%) End of Napoleonic Wars
* 1884 (5.13%) End of Taiping Rebellion
* 1921 (2.9%) End of WW1, Mexican, and Russian revolutions
* 1945 (5.00%) End of WW2

Four of the top five were exclusively Chinese wars. This probably relates to the fact that China has historically been one of the most consistently fertile regions in the world.

mcv
2012-04-20, 08:20 AM
Looks like the conclusion shouldn't be that the middle ages were more violent, but that the Chinese are more violent.

Mathis
2012-04-20, 09:12 AM
MCV, in case you weren't joking, that's a horrible conclusion for a number of reasons, most of them forum inappropriate. Ashtagon mentioned in the final sentence, which should have been the last thing you read before you decided to post, that the high death-toll in the wars of the Chinese region were most likely linked to how fertile the soil is there. This quite obviously does not mean that the Chinese are more violent then any other group of people, but that larger armies clashed and therefore a higher death-toll was the result of those wars. We should be careful to claim that what sounds like common sense to us are actually fact, but in this case I think it's safe to assume that a higher population number would mean a higher number of deadly casualties as well. Just wanted to say that so that you may rethink your previous statement. In case it wasn't a joke.

Galloglaich
2012-04-20, 09:15 AM
Yes as I've pointed out China seems to have had enormous massacres on a fairly regular basis. China is an outlier. In fact I'd even go so far as to say that Mao's titanic massacre of the mid 20th Century was not unusual by historical standards in China.

However generally, and specifically in the context of this forum, when you are talking about the Medieval world, we are referring to Europe and the surrounding areas. That is why I listed the death-rates in WW II for various European countries, which will you notice were in the 5-15% range.

Different eras in China are usually referred to by the dynasty.

It's kind of meaningless to refer to the whole world population in a time period when across the globe you have everything from large centralized States to fragmented Feudal societies to small city-states to huge zones dominated by nomads to even vaster areas populated by stone-age hunter gatherers (of whose history we don't have any surviving records and really no idea of their actual population numbers let alone wars or crime, only very rough estimates).

With regard to war and crime in Europe, there is no doubt that the 20th Century was several orders of magnitude more violent than any time during the Medieval period which is usually the (very loosely linked) context for fantasy or historical games.

G

Galloglaich
2012-04-20, 09:23 AM
MCV, in case you weren't joking, that's a horrible conclusion for a number of reasons, most of them forum inappropriate. Ashtagon mentioned in the final sentence, which should have been the last thing you read before you decided to post, that the high death-toll in the wars of the Chinese region were most likely linked to how fertile the soil is there. This quite obviously does not mean that the Chinese are more violent then any other group of people, but that larger armies clashed and therefore a higher death-toll was the result of those wars. We should be careful to claim that what sounds like common sense to us are actually fact, but in this case I think it's safe to assume that a higher population number would mean a higher number of deadly casualties as well. Just wanted to say that so that you may rethink your previous statement. In case it wasn't a joke.

I don't think MCV was seriously suggesting that the Chinese are more violent than anyone else. It is simply an historical fact that China has had several enormously destructive civil wars in the last 2000 years, and suffered from some catastrophic invasions (i.e. by the Mongols). I'm sure there are a wide variety of theories as to why. But I also think it's a bit facile to conclude that it is simply due to fertile soil or a high population number (or density), many parts of the world have fertile soil and / or a large population density.. It's probably for a whole group of complex reasons.

G

mcv
2012-04-20, 09:30 AM
With regard to war and crime in Europe, there is no doubt that the 20th Century was several orders of magnitude more violent than any time during the Medieval period which is usually the (very loosely linked) context for fantasy or historical games.

You state that as if it's an undisputed fact, but the entire reason we're discussing this is that there's clearly quite a bit of doubt about it. Yes, the 20th century featured two massive, destructive wars, but society in general has gotten quite a bit less violent.

Just pointing out that we had the two most massive and destructive wars ever, does not prove that the average person is actually more likely to die violently in the 20th century than he was in the 15th. Or the 8th. Or the 1st.

We need actual statistics on the likelihood of violent death in those times, and those are unfortunately hard to get.

mcv
2012-04-20, 09:37 AM
I don't think MCV was seriously suggesting that the Chinese are more violent than anyone else.

Just in case it's really necessary, I'd like to assure everybody that I do not see the Chinese as bloodthirsty monsters. In fact, I'm rather surprised to learn that Chinese history has so many massacres. My impression had always been that it was quite stable, but apparently the upheaval between those periods of stability was quite extreme. Why that was, I dare not speculate.

Ashtagon
2012-04-20, 10:22 AM
Even if you compare war deaths to the local population of nations or territories actually involved, I'm fairly certain that northing will approach An Lushan. My quick estimate in my earlier post suggests the Chinese population was literally halved in those eight years. What's impressive is that society didn't dissolve after that.

The next biggest localised die-off would be the bubonic plague, in which a mere 1/3 of Europe died (and presumably similar amounts across to India).

Incanur
2012-04-20, 10:45 AM
We need actual statistics on the likelihood of violent death in those times, and those are unfortunately hard to get.

Medieval murder rates appear to have ranged from 20 to 100 per 100,000 (http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2007/04/german_murder_r.html). The link refers only to Germany, but you find similar numbers from England and other European lands (http://books.google.com/books?id=ia4Iyk8LAe8C&pg=PA114&dq=medieval+murder+rate&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZIORT5L6CfPJiQL3oJC7Aw&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=medieval%20murder%20rate&f=false). However, there is lots of uncertainty (http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2011/11/steven-pinkers-medieval-murder-rates.html) around these numbers. We don't know how many murders went unrecorded - especially in rural areas, in which some sources claim bandits run amok - and scholars dispute population statistics. I withdraw my earlier statement on the matter and embrace not knowing. :smallredface:

fusilier
2012-04-20, 03:01 PM
Just in case it's really necessary, I'd like to assure everybody that I do not see the Chinese as bloodthirsty monsters. In fact, I'm rather surprised to learn that Chinese history has so many massacres. My impression had always been that it was quite stable, but apparently the upheaval between those periods of stability was quite extreme. Why that was, I dare not speculate.

China's history is generally cyclical and can be described, roughly, as such:

-There exists a set of laws to maintain the distribution of wealth.

-There are loopholes in that set of laws and wealth is gradually concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.

-There is a tipping point and everything falls apart into bloody anarchy and civil war.

-Once China emerges from this civil war, wealth has been redistributed, and the laws maintaining the distribution are strengthen, filling some of the loopholes.

However, loopholes still exist, and wealth is gradually concentrated again -- but it takes longer. So basically the periods of stability and peace get longer between each revolution/civil war. [More recent events may have broken this trend.]

My suspicion is that most nations would show a similar pattern. However, China is unique, in that for most of its history, it's rarely been threatened by a competent external threat -- so when other nations might fall to an outsider before collapsing internally, China has usually collapsed internally before the outsiders start messing around (there are exceptions).

As to why the anarchy seems so violent I can't precisely answer. If memory serves me right, sometimes the periods of anarchy would last for 50-100 years.

rrgg
2012-04-20, 04:32 PM
What's your evidence for this? The numbers - though inconclusive - support this for medieval (http://books.google.com/books?id=eyMYelZlKekC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=medieval+wound+percentage+by+weapon&source=bl&ots=mqzzyCeM39&sig=aVYAGlIb71oMctifmWPkT2pQgpc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=S9SQT8OcBuSfiQKK7-XfAg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=medieval%20wound%20percentage%20by%20weapon&f=false) Japan (http://books.google.com/books?id=YPkYMoO0ycIC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=wounds+%2B+swords+%2B+percentage+%2B+medieval&source=bl&ots=-S1WSavzf_&sig=b8Xw5owzcVtKs0CvcrcPlF6qmNc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bteQT-urJcfniALP6YWMAw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=wounds%20%2B%20swords%20%2B%20percentage%20%2B%2 0medieval&f=false), but I'm deeply skeptical that missiles caused the most fatalities in Western Europe. The wounds from skeletons at both Visby (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41780) and Towton (http://www.economist.com/node/17722650) include numerous cuts that penetrated bone.

Wounds from pointed weapons obviously aren't going to show up as well on skeletal remains (and may possibly be misidentified if it were a strike from something like a broad, leaf bladed spear). Additionally you need to consider whether or not the cuts were delivered to already wounded enemies execution style or in a fit of rage.

Exact numbers for what caused the most casualties tend to be really iffy, but for most scenarios I don't think missiles would be that surprising. If you have a battle that drags on for half the day, then you are going to have huge numbers of missiles continuously being launched but at any given time a only very small proportion will be involved in melee combat (and even fewer actually close enough to be using swords or other cutting weapons). If the vitals were properly armored then arrows and lighter javelins were probably more likely to wound than kill outright, however some evidence suggests that the 2-5 lb throwing spears popular in the early middle ages and throughout antiquity had little trouble going clean through mail armor.

As for cutting vs thrusting, I think Silver had it right that they are both important depending on the situation. But at the same time you have to remember that survival is somewhat of a carpshoot and I don't think it would have been good practice, at all, to assume you would be completely fine after taking an arrow or a small-sword to the arm.

Raum
2012-04-20, 05:18 PM
However generally, and specifically in the context of this forum, when you are talking about the Medieval world, we are referring to Europe and the surrounding areas. Not sure I agree in general* but you brought up Mao in your first response on the subject (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13093213&postcount=184).

*Asian weapons and armor are discussed and compared to European equivalents quite commonly. In fact katana myth debunking is pretty much a recurrent theme. :smallwink:
-----
There may well be a correlation between lack of education and frequent violent death but extending that to a proximate cause is problematic. There are many factors involved. Even if it were true, I suspect education has made us so much more efficient at killing that we often make up for any drop in frequency.


Just in case it's really necessary, I'd like to assure everybody that I do not see the Chinese as bloodthirsty monsters. In fact, I'm rather surprised to learn that Chinese history has so many massacres. My impression had always been that it was quite stable, but apparently the upheaval between those periods of stability was quite extreme. Why that was, I dare not speculate.In essence, China's heartland is a large fertile plain with no natural barriers. Historically, this was a area of farmers and merchants cyclically invaded by aggressors (most notably) from Mongolia (Ghengis Khan). This heartland is about half the size of the US, has about 1/3 of the world's arable land, and is home to over a billion people.

Since the 15th century, China has attempted to control (overtly or covertly, militarily or economically) border lands to gain protection from natural barriers - mountains, deserts, or jungles (depending on direction). By imposing control over territory to the north and west China gained those barriers and controlled the territories of historical invaders. (Look up how difficult building the Burma road was for some idea of the effectiveness of those barriers.)

One of China's constant internal tensions is between landlocked interior farming areas and the coastal areas where traders, merchants, and now manufacturers interact with the world. There aren't any barriers to keep the two areas separate but they have extremely different imperatives. Managing the dynamic between the two is one of the Chinese government's biggest challenges. They need the coast for the trade but the (relatively) poor rural interior vastly outnumbers the coastal merchant class.

Mike_G
2012-04-20, 07:37 PM
Wounds from pointed weapons obviously aren't going to show up as well on skeletal remains (and may possibly be misidentified if it were a strike from something like a broad, leaf bladed spear). Additionally you need to consider whether or not the cuts were delivered to already wounded enemies execution style or in a fit of rage.

Exact numbers for what caused the most casualties tend to be really iffy, but for most scenarios I don't think missiles would be that surprising. If you have a battle that drags on for half the day, then you are going to have huge numbers of missiles continuously being launched but at any given time a only very small proportion will be involved in melee combat (and even fewer actually close enough to be using swords or other cutting weapons). If the vitals were properly armored then arrows and lighter javelins were probably more likely to wound than kill outright, however some evidence suggests that the 2-5 lb throwing spears popular in the early middle ages and throughout antiquity had little trouble going clean through mail armor.

As for cutting vs thrusting, I think Silver had it right that they are both important depending on the situation. But at the same time you have to remember that survival is somewhat of a carpshoot and I don't think it would have been good practice, at all, to assume you would be completely fine after taking an arrow or a small-sword to the arm.

Thrusts to the body can carry bacteria deep into a wound. They can damage organs or great vessels and cause internal bleeding which you won't see until it's far toe late. They can pierce any of the digestive tract and release digestive juices and bacteria laden contents somewhere between food and excrement into the body cavity and guarantee sepsis. All this can leave a man active for a short time since it wouldn't directly damage skeletal muscle he'd need to fight or expose vast numbers of nerve cells to the air, which causes incapacitating pain. There really aren't nearly as many sensory nerves deep in you body cavity as near the surface.

These are bad, hard to treat wounds that might very well kill you eventually, but might let you function for a while. Long enough to strike a blow back, at least, which is probably why there were many double fatal rapier or smallsword duels. One guy was fatally hit, but not disabled quickly enough to stop him making his own attack.

On the other hand, cuts can disable limbs by severing muscles needed to use that limb, by severing the bone, or by just exposing the nerves to the air and causing pain. All these are disabling, but survivable. Cut damage is visible from the outside. Cuts can be bound tightly and that will generally stop the bleeding, even if it's a deep cut. Cuts can be washed out to reduce the likelihood of infection. These wounds could disable but not kill.

Yes, you can cut a skull open or cut a throat or a spinal cord. You could cut the body deep enough to hit a vital organ. But that's much, much harder than getting a point into a vital organ. And if you can hit the head or neck, a thrust will be just as deadly, generally.

Plenty of people have written screeds advoctaing the cut or the thrust. Both have their champions, and both have their place, depending on the weapon and the target. I think Silver lets his bias against the Italian schools of fence make him downplay the effectiveness of the point.

It's easier to thrust through textile than cut through it, and easier to thrust through a gap in armor than cut through it. It's easier to reach a vital organ, and a thrust is harder to treat. But a cut will be more likely to take a man out of action.

No brains
2012-04-20, 09:42 PM
I seem to have accidentally derailed the thread with my little inquiry- but in the face of the new data I still have to ask how easy it is to kill someone.

In part, perhaps new missile weapons made killing easier since you didn't have bloody screams coughed into your face or sometimes even within earshot.

Psychological trauma is something that happens to humans in any era. How did some historical soldiers react to the idea of a human- a potential useful mind fading to a morbid pale right before their eyes? Was it- IS it so easy to justify doing what very few want to happen to themselves?

Mike_G
2012-04-20, 10:21 PM
It makes it easier if the guy is trying to jam a spear in you. Killing is easiest when the adrenaline is flowing. You may have trouble reconciling it later, but fear and anger can suppress higher reasoning for the moment it takes to whack someone. Even outside of warfare, most violence takes place when tempers are high, stress has built up and people do things they'd never do if they were calm. So once you are in danger, lashing out is instinct.

As far as day to day existence, we're pretty removed from death these days, in developed nations at least.

People in earlier times were likely to have seen siblings, parents or children die. Even a century ago it was common for a family to have many children and see about half make it to adulthood. They were likely to have killed their dinner. They may have seen executions, or at least floggings and other corporal punishment on public display.

We live in a sanitized world. Violence is something we see on a screen, not in our lives. We react to it differently.

huttj509
2012-04-21, 03:00 AM
Part of the issue with how easy it is to kill someone...

People are REALLY durable.

Also

People are REALLY fragile.

You're going to have anecdotal evidence of both people hanging on while looking like a shambling zombie, and also people who take one hit in the wrong place and drop.

Xuc Xac
2012-04-21, 04:31 AM
You're going to have anecdotal evidence of both people hanging on while looking like a shambling zombie, and also people who take one hit in the wrong place and drop.

In other words, the answer to "How hard is it to kill someone on a scale of 1 to 10?" is "Yes".

Knaight
2012-04-21, 05:11 AM
In other words, the answer to "How hard is it to kill someone on a scale of 1 to 10?" is "Yes".

It's more that it's a bell curve across that scale, where all of 3-7 or so actually seem at all reasonable.

Incanur
2012-04-21, 11:59 AM
Wounds from pointed weapons obviously aren't going to show up as well on skeletal remains (and may possibly be misidentified if it were a strike from something like a broad, leaf bladed spear). Additionally you need to consider whether or not the cuts were delivered to already wounded enemies execution style or in a fit of rage.

Sure, but the sheer volume of severed bones - particularly leg bones - at Visby in particular suggests that cuts mattered a lot in at least that one battle.


Exact numbers for what caused the most casualties tend to be really iffy, but for most scenarios I don't think missiles would be that surprising. If you have a battle that drags on for half the day, then you are going to have huge numbers of missiles continuously being launched but at any given time a only very small proportion will be involved in melee combat (and even fewer actually close enough to be using swords or other cutting weapons).

That's not necessarily how ancient, medieval, and Renaissance-era battles in Europe actually worked. From the Spartans to the Swiss, effective troops gained victory in close combat. Because of armor, bows and crossbows hardly ever won the field on their own. If missiles could have inflicted the majority of the causalities, the great melees you see at battles like Cannae, Towton, Flodden Field, Novara, and so on wouldn't have happened. Gunpowder weapons eventually decreased the importance of close combat, which late sixteenth-century military writers mentioned explicitly.

At Novara, the front rank of the landsknecht formation experience a death rate of roughly 97% (http://books.google.com/books?id=RtkePoWkij8C&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=novara+%2B+florange&source=bl&ots=cNS9nV0isY&sig=Q9CISQfGQ7VPBZr0Y3o89OSsRMs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=seSST-KhJsnkiALP3ZXqDw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=novara%20%2B%20florange&f=false). While they had some gunners on their side, I haven't seen any evidence of missile weapons on the Swiss side. That shows you how deadly the press could be.


But at the same time you have to remember that survival is somewhat of a carpshoot and I don't think it would have been good practice, at all, to assume you would be completely fine after taking an arrow or a small-sword to the arm.

Of course not, and Silver never would have suggested such recklessness. After all, his martial style emphasizes defense.

Morty
2012-04-21, 02:12 PM
A rather broad question to everyone: if I wanted to read some swordfighting manuals and treatises, which ones would you suggest?

No brains
2012-04-21, 04:56 PM
A rather broad question to everyone: if I wanted to read some swordfighting manuals and treatises, which ones would you suggest?

Insofar as I can tell, this book pretty good.
http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Swordsmanship-Illustrated-Methods-Techniques/dp/1581600046

I have it and I love to read it. Don't know if it's good but it seems pretty intelligently written. It includes loads of information on the composition, shape, and wielding of one and two handed swords.

Hawkfrost000
2012-04-21, 05:08 PM
A rather broad question to everyone: if I wanted to read some swordfighting manuals and treatises, which ones would you suggest?

The Art and Practice of Fencing by Ridolfo Cappo Ferro

Flower of Battle by Fiore Furlano de Civida d'Austria delli Liberi da Premariacco

those are the manuals that i study from, but they are a bit hard to read

DM

Maclav
2012-04-21, 05:59 PM
Insofar as I can tell, this book pretty good.
http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Swordsmanship-Illustrated-Methods-Techniques/dp/1581600046

It is old, dated and wrong in a hundred ways. 14 years is an eternity from a HEMA perspective. I am surprised that thing is still in print.

And remember, flat of the strong...



if I wanted to read some swordfighting manuals and treatises, which ones would you suggest?

Are you looking for interpretation or english translation of original manuscripts? Are you looking for single source, single family, or pan-european heresy? Time frame or geographical location? Pedagogical preference?
Pointy swords, cutty swords, short or long, one or two handed.. or not even swords but staff, spear, pole arm, dagger, wrestling, cane, pugalisim... In armour or out?

I could go on. Basically, you're question is entirely to broad to answer.

Lea Plath
2012-04-21, 06:02 PM
Couple of questions:

1) What did fencers use as training weapons?
2) Have cresent axes or pickaxes ever been used as a weapon by an army, a proper army, rather than just being used by a rable using anything they can get their hands on.
3)Sword canes. Slashing or stabbing and are they any good for parrying something like a long sword?

Thanks.

Spiryt
2012-04-21, 06:09 PM
Couple of questions:

1) What did fencers use as training weapons?
2) Have cresent axes or pickaxes ever been used as a weapon by an army, a proper army, rather than just being used by a rable using anything they can get their hands on.
3)Sword canes. Slashing or stabbing and are they any good for parrying something like a long sword?



1. Depends on when and where... Blunt swords, wooden wasters or specifically constructed feders would be used in Europe.

2. Any sort of dedicated army wouldn't be really using tools by definition.

There are some mentions of Roman legionaries using picks etc. in emergency, but there are always atypical situations.

I'm not sure what do you mean by "crescent axe" though.

Hawkfrost000
2012-04-21, 06:34 PM
Couple of questions:

1) What did fencers use as training weapons?
2) Have cresent axes or pickaxes ever been used as a weapon by an army, a proper army, rather than just being used by a rable using anything they can get their hands on.
3)Sword canes. Slashing or stabbing and are they any good for parrying something like a long sword?

Thanks.

1. Ridolfo recommends unsharpened rapiers helping you to understand the "true fight"

Slashing and Stabbing, i would not want to parry a Longsword unless i had a good solid crossguard.

DM

No brains
2012-04-21, 07:05 PM
It is old, dated and wrong in a hundred ways. 14 years is an eternity from a HEMA perspective. I am surprised that thing is still in print.

And remember, flat of the strong...

Do tell! I hate to think I know the wrong things. What are some of the most glaring errors/ other reasons the book is bad?