Weapons!

[Frug]

Sometimes, Rail, you weird me out.

[Drake]

Ok, question for Rail or anyone else that might be able to answer. Do you know of any sites or books that would function kind of like a encyclopedia of weapons? I'm not talking guns, cannons, planes, and such, I'm talking about bladed and bashing weapons, the kind we deal with here.

[Sir Karsimir]

Sure Drake.

Here is the Wikipedia list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_weapons

And this is ARMA, a glorious site, although mostly balanced towards swords. http://www.thearma.org/essays.htm

The man knows his stuff.
Rail did you ever take martial arts where swords were involved?
If your lucky enough to find a traditional study you will learn much about weapons and the practicality in which they went from tools to weapons. Depends on your point of view if you think hunting consists of tools or weapons. Food-tools, Sport-weapons.
Just my opinion.

Partially. Once I was part of a medieval reenactment troupe, and have since studied (from books and practice, not formal instruction) the Johannes Liechtenauer German School of Swordsmanship. I actually left the reenactment troupe because it stopped feeling like medieval combat and started feeling like tag with sticks. EG: There was a rule against head-strikes, so one girl kept deliberately putting her head in the path of blows to gain an advantage. Second example: No force behind blows & only torso hits count meant that the only practical weapon was a dagger.

I am a huge fan of Western martial arts, the elegance of movement, sophistication and effectiveness is easily on par with that of the East. Medieval knights were taught something much like MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) or Greek Pankration. The belief that Western fighters were somehow crude or unskilled is just silly - any culture with as much warfare as feudal Europe had to develop very advanced combat methods.

PS: Correction in my last post. There is one factor which causes blood to stick to the blade. Cold steel. Have you ever had your hand stick to ice? That is caused by the moisture in your hand being semi-frozen by the cold, and joining the block of ice. Metal is such a good conductor that it rapidly channels the heat out of your body, which is why it always feels so cold, so produces a similar effect.

This is what makes being stabbed really unpleasant, because the moisture rapidly cooling from the metal causes your organs to stick to the blade.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Ooh, I can contribute! I have a friend who grew up in the very, very Projects area of Atlanta, and he has confirmed from thorough experience that getting stabbed hurts MUCH more than getting shot.

[Devon]

I live about 2 hours from atlanta, have to go there for training alot. Yeah there are some areas that are blacklisted by the military... we had one of our sailors get stabbed there too. Small world. Bad small world.

[Drake]

Thanks for those sites Rail, they're great.

Now, for the pain of being stabbed, I can't contribute on the being shot side, but I can tell you that a razor sharp kama blade to the thigh hurts like all things unholy. Just a small cliff not for you folks, never practice a new kata with a fully functioning weapon.

Also, I recently checked out the Cold Steel company's site, and they now make swords, and I aint talkin' those $40 hang-it-on-the-wall decorative kind. If anyone wants to take a look the site is http://www.coldsteel.com

[Jenica Sabiny]

My martial arts instructor actually said the exact same thing. He's been both shot and stabbed, and has said many times that he will take being shot 50 times over being stabbed any day because the pain is unbelievable.

The man is a 9th level black belt with muscles hardened through 25+ years of extreme martial arts training (no pads of any kind when he trained, he calls it the old-school method) and uses 300 pound force hand grips to keep his grip deadly so that he can tear chunks of your flesh off. He can't feel you punch him at all unless you're using a metal bat to do the punching. He regularly talks about pain as though it's a lover. And he balks at the thought of being stabbed. I think I'll fight as much as possible to avoid being stabbed.

[Metarie]

I am from Atlanta and have never been stabbed.

Just for the record.

[Sir Karsimir]

If people want an idea of how Aorle fights, this is a lovely resource.

http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Ringeck.htm

Covers longsword held two-handed and wrestling.

[Quinn]

Lovely lovely weapons.

This is probably my first RP character with no weapons, and I do kind of miss the scrapes. Though, true to Quinn's type, I'm a rapier and dagger or swashbuckling girl myself.

I've just applied to an East 15 stage combat course this summer, which is supposed to include various types of light weaponary. And the rule is, unless it's supposed to be a fencing match, none of those silly bendy foils with the knobs on the ends.

Hey, here's a question, O Weaponmaster, do any of those resources cover fighting with a trident/pitchfork? I mean, I realise it's essentially a funny kind of spear, but I wondered.

[Drake]

Yet another great combat/weapons site from Master Anstrun. Quite nifty it is. I even found a little manual type thing for rapier fencing, like Drake is supposed to use. http://www.thearma.org/Practice/fence.htm just in case any one decides to take a look-see.

[Sir Karsimir]

I've been neglecting my duties here.

Here I will point out where the weapon differs from the weapons I am trained in. Apply existing techniques with these thoughts in mind.

Trident/Military Fork:

This thing is a nightmare to research.

Spear techniques will work with fork weapons, but the design features favour some moves more than others.

The main merit of fork weapons is their stopping power - they do not glance off like other weapons can, an otherwise glancing thrust will cause the other tines/prongs to make direct contact with the victim. On an armoured foe this will not always be effective, but importantly keeps your weapon between you and your enemy. From here you are in a good position to push the weapon against your foe, either sinking into him or forcing him back. The original purpose of the military fork was to push cavalry from their horses.

The other merit over the spear is as a grappling weapon. A sword can be caught between the prongs/tines of the fork/trident and twisted to either trap their weapon while an ally finishes them off (most fighters in formation never see the one who kills them), or possibly disarm them with a sharp enough twist.

Main failings of the trident/fork are the broad head being easy to parry - stop one prong of the weapon and you stop the whole attack. Another is that the entire weapon faces forwards, the weapon injures with the points and nothing else. A missed thrust means your trident has gone past your foe who is now close and has the advantage - a spearman in the same situation could draw the edge of his spear on the foe to slice after a missed thrust. The forward curve of the tines also makes the trident poor for hooking shields.

Overall, fork weapons are crude versions of specialist weapons, and rendered obselete by most polearms, although obselete is not the same as useless. A spetum or ranseur has the grappling capacity from the wings, and anti-cavalry effects were achieved with halberds and bills.

Scimitar:

A scimitar is a curved sword. A curved sword favours cutting flesh, rather than stabbing into gaps between armour. There are three main attacks with swords, called the "Three Wounders", hewing, thrusting or slicing.

A curve can serve two purposes, the first is that it allows for slicing by continuing to "push" on the surface as it is drawn across it. The other effect is to allow the force to be concentrated in an even smaller area.

One reasons scimitars are said to be deadly fast is because short pulling slices work very well with scimitars and require none of the effort of a swing. In essence, the sword is no faster, it simply does more damage when using a fast technique. The same techniques can be performed with straight swords, they just wont cut as well.

Draw-cuts and slices are limited in one area. They are low-impact, and depend on the hardness of the edge to cut. Against flesh, this performs marvellously. Problems begin with armour, nearly any - even hardened textile or leather armour is enough to make slicing useless.

Very handy is that curved swords are less likely to become stuck in a foe because a pulling cut cleanly slides the weapon through the wound and free. This is very useful when fighting multiple foes.

[Jenica Sabiny]

http://www.cracked.com/article_15966_5- ... exist.html

I thought you might get a kick out of this, martial arts types. The gym kata is where I officially lost it and started laughing my ass off at work. Though all of the clips, really, are hilarious.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15819_5- ... gnity.html

This article also makes me laugh. This website and the Something Awful forums are now my internet havens for joy.

[Julen]

Clearly, Julen needs to learn Blade Song...

[Lylessa Uluki]

Clearly, Julen needs to learn Blade Song...

Yeah, he'd look great in that leather bikini.

What's with the "armour" that leaves pretty much all the skin exposed? That drives me crazy. I wear about five times as much clothing to bellydance as those chicks wore to their sword fight. Ten times if you count layers. Grrr...

But still, I was amused.