Got a Real-World Weapon or Armor Question? Mk. VI

[Brainfart]

For the Tinker swords? None yet.

[valadil]

Do other weapon have as many forms, stances, and techniques as swords? I imagine staves have their fair share of stances, but I'm having trouble imagining an axe or mace being as versatile as a sword in the hands of someone well trained.

[Spiryt]

Why not?


Talhoffer

There's pollaxe, unfortunately drawings are not so easily available.

Some interpretations .

There were a lot works about ahlberd spears... you can find quite a lot in Net.

[endoperez]

Do other weapon have as many forms, stances, and techniques as swords? I imagine staves have their fair share of stances, but I'm having trouble imagining an axe or mace being as versatile as a sword in the hands of someone well trained.

I have no first-hand experience, but I imagine some polearms to be quite complicated. Something like a pollaxe or a halberd that can stab, cut and hook/trap the opponent's limb or weapon would be quite versatile if one knew how to do all of that. Something like how theseumbrellas are used...

A staff can be used in many ways, depending on how it's held and how long it is. It might be used as a long club, as a blunt spear, or held from the middle - and change between them rather freely. George Silver, a Brit from 1600s, claimed the British quarterstaves were more or less the ultimate weapon, but that was probably nationalism speaking.

If you are interested in how rarer weapons might be used, check out AlexTse4's youtube account. There are dozens of videos of kung fu forms with weird weapons and weapon combinations. You only see people swinging the weapons in the air, but the forms can give you some ideas.
Here are a hoe and a huge axe as examples.

[valadil]

Why not?

Most of the youtube videos I'd seen posted here focused on sword techniques. I couldn't tell if that was because most techniques were sword based or because most of this thread's interest in various techniques focused on swords. I'm not surprised that there's plenty going on with polearms, but wasn't sure what could be applied to something like a mace.

[Spiryt]

I've never seen anything with mace.

Anyway most are sword based, because good sword was obviously most common e"street"/dueling weapon.

Mace was war one, and as it was almost always single handed and short, I can imagine that from these reason there's indeed more limited number of things you can do with it.

Still certainly good ways of wielding it would be worth teaching.

They certainly have some bizarre ideas in XVIth century anyway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97neHuFfPLI

If somebody's really stubborn with idea of D&D like war scythe, (s)he certainly should take a look.

[imp_fireball]

And if that is the case, it's conformist to tell everybody they are trying to be non-conformist ;)

Wait, I don't get that logic.

Not everyone tells everyone else that they're non-conformist.

No one I've seen.

Erroneous!

[Galloglaich]

Most of the manuals (sometimes known as "fechtbucher") that we are reconstructing Medieval and Rennaissance Martial Arts from deal with Judicial Combat (13th - 16th Century) Tournament fighting, and private dueling (16th -18th Century)

So mostly it involves a certain fairly limited range of weapons which were popular for duels or judicial combat. The latter especially were focused on weapons which had a somewhat limited (at least potentially limited) lethality, because a lot of times a juducial combat would be not be fought to the death. Same with duels actually. A mace is a weapon which is not easy to give a minor wound with, it's pretty much cave in the head or break the thigh, or you missed. Mostly the training is for one guy (or occasionally, woman) with a given weapon facing another person with the same identical weapon.

But I don't think fighting with a mace or a battle-axe is any less sophisticated to be honest, I suspect the martial arts for those weapons were probably as or nearly as sophisticated as what you see with most other weapons. The exceptions are longsword and rapier which seem to have a unusual potential for sophisticated techniques.

There are some exceptions among the fechtbucher, like this newly discovered 16th Century Portuguese Montanto (greatsword) manual which apparently deals with all kinds of interesting situations like fighting on a ship or a corridor, fighting groups of people, fighting people with different weapon combinations etc.

It's also true that we as a community have probably only digested and partially understood maybe something like 40-60% of the manuals, a lot of them remain viritually untouched and it's almost certain that more exist. I know of at least two interesting ones which haven't been made widely publicized yet.

The weapons I know of which are covered include:

Longsword (four foot two-handed sword or 'bastard sword' in D&D)
Sword and buckler roughly three foot long single-handed arming sword roughly equivalent to an RPG "Longsword"
Sword and dagger
Cut-thrust sword with buckler, small shield or dagger (this is like between an arming sword and a rapier)
Greatsword Like a longsword or a DnD greatsword but a bit bigger, about 5 feet long or maybe up to six feet, callled Spada di due mani by the Italians and Montante by the Spanish and Portuguese, 16th Century. Not quite as big as a true Zwiehander.
Zweihander the true giant sized six foot+ two-handed sword. 16th Century.
Rapier this is a bigger weapon than the 'rapier' in most RPG games, typically almost four feet long with a sharp blade, rapier techniques include including case of rapiers, one of the only two-weapon fighting systems I know of in the real world, as well as rapier with dagger and rapier with buckler, and rapier with cloak.
Smallsword Three foot thrusting only weapon similar to a modern fencing foil, basically this is the weapon called a "rapier" in most RPG games and computer games.
Grosse Messer (something like a heavier machete) the manuals show single handed messers but a lot of the surviving ones from 16th century or later are two-handed "kriegsmessers".
Dussack closely related to a messer, but curved and with a knucklebow, something like a primitive cutlass. In the 15th-16th Century, sparring versions of these were made out of leather and wood or whalebone, used for training for any kind of single-edged sword, hanger, or saber.
Saber I think only in 17th - 18th Century military manuals though I could be wrong about that. Also includes backsword etc.
Poll-axe (there is a Burgundian French manual called Jeu Du La Hache which deals exclusively with this weapon, it's also a lot in Talhoffer and many other manuals) and this include halberds and bills
Dueling Club
Scythe
Special dueling shield
Sort of a dueling flail (a rock in a sock, used for women in judicial combat)
Flegel (a real military flail, two-handed)
Dagger
Spear (including Partisan, a spear-like polearm, and the awl-pike)
Unarmed (similar to jujitsu)
Staff of various sizes ranging from bo-staff sized to pike-sized

Of course many other weapons were used on the battlefield and in civilian disputes, more manuals will undoubtedly emerge, but currentlly this is what we got as far as I can remember. Anyone think of any others I missed ...?

G.

[Galloglaich]

Most of the youtube videos I'd seen posted here focused on sword techniques. I couldn't tell if that was because most techniques were sword based or because most of this thread's interest in various techniques focused on swords. I'm not surprised that there's plenty going on with polearms, but wasn't sure what could be applied to something like a mace.

I've seen some videos of 'flegel' being used, something like a two-handed flail, that is about as close to a mace as I can remember. Poll-axe also includes poll-hammer which is pretty mace-like.

G.

[Yora]

Flegel is just a regular flail.

I guess practicing with blunt weapons is a lot more dangerous than with blades. There is no edge which you can leave unsharpened and you have less precession. And I think common protective clothing doesn't protect well against blunt trauma either.

[Galloglaich]

Flegel is just a regular flail.

yes, per our previous disagreemnt on a similar subject, they are using the german term to refer to this two-handed military weapon based on the agricultural flail, invented by the Bohemians and widely used in Central Europe from the early 15th Century.

http://fr.truveo.com/video-detail/lu...cus/2469351042

here you can see some people sparring with flegel simulator against a rapier. I don't think much is known about this weapon yet IIRC there are some plates in Paulus Hector Mair about it.



The real ones are quite nasty looking, apparently they were extremely lethal but only the Bohemians (Czechs) seemed to be able to use them effectively on a large scale.

I guess practicing with blunt weapons is a lot more dangerous than with blades. There is no edge which you can leave unsharpened and you have less precession. And I think common protective clothing doesn't protect well against blunt trauma either.

yes that's true, especially with flails. Even padded ones often knock people out in my experience (people wearing helmets). And they break a lot due to the centriptal force.

G.

[Galloglaich]

I have no first-hand experience, but I imagine some polearms to be quite complicated. Something like a pollaxe or a halberd that can stab, cut and hook/trap the opponent's limb or weapon would be quite versatile if one knew how to do all of that. Something like how theseumbrellas are used...

A staff can be used in many ways, depending on how it's held and how long it is. It might be used as a long club, as a blunt spear, or held from the middle - and change between them rather freely. George Silver, a Brit from 1600s, claimed the British quarterstaves were more or less the ultimate weapon, but that was probably nationalism speaking.

If you are interested in how rarer weapons might be used, check out AlexTse4's youtube account. There are dozens of videos of kung fu forms with weird weapons and weapon combinations. You only see people swinging the weapons in the air, but the forms can give you some ideas.
Here are a hoe and a huge axe as examples.

Speaking of which, don't you think it would be nice if RPGs had a way to let you actively defend as well as attack with your weapon, to use it's various ways of attacking (even a staff can thrust quite effectively) or do some of those things a halberd was designed to do like hook an enemies shield or weapon, or pull them off their feet? I never understood why this was so often ignored in RPGs. I mean they even do that stuff in the SCA...

G.

[Spiryt]

Because people go sufficiently mad with normal "rolls".

The true question is why they won't let you do that stuff in almost any video game, if you have computer/whatever to calculate all the stuff anyway.

[Hades]

Speaking of which, don't you think it would be nice if RPGs had a way to let you actively defend as well as attack with your weapon, to use it's various ways of attacking (even a staff can thrust quite effectively) or do some of those things a halberd was designed to do like hook an enemies shield or weapon, or pull them off their feet?

This is why some of us love GURPS so much...

[Galloglaich]

Because people go sufficiently mad with normal "rolls".

The true question is why they won't let you do that stuff in almost any video game, if you have computer/whatever to calculate all the stuff anyway.

I used to wonder about that a whole lot.

I think that is because programmers are lazy (I can say this because I am one) and video game combat systems are almost all based on RPG or wargame combat systems. The wargame combat systems for games like say, Advanced Squad Leader*, were much more clever and realistic than RPG combat systems ... so as a result tank games tend to be pretty accurate and therefore, fun to fight in, whereas (to me) fantasy RPG and historical RPG games always disappoint.

One of the reasons I think it's important to reform RPG combat is how much all the cliches and mistakes from RPG's seem to filter out into the broader culture, not just computer games but also films, tv shows, and even historical documentaries and silly shows like the-one-that-will-not-be-named-again-in-this-thread.

G.

*the one big flaw in ASL was being overly complex, whch computer games like Steel Panthers, Close Combat, and Combat Mission were able to hide in the background in a pretty seamless way

[Galloglaich]

This is why some of us love GURPS so much...

How does that work in GURPS? Is that ok to describe in this thread?

G.

[Hades]

How does that work in GURPS? Is that ok to describe in this thread?

G.

It's fairly off-topic here, but briefly, every action you described can be replicated without house-rules in GURPS: defenses are split into Dodge, Block, and Parry (active defense with weapon). It is perfectly possible to thrust with a staff, though it will tend to do less average damage (not counting hit locations) than a swing with it. Finally, halberds (and other weapons with various projecting bits) allow use of the Hook technique, which allows you to manipulate your opponent, his weapon, or his shield in the ways you note.

The most recent edition (4th) and it's corresponding Martial Arts supplement are very nice in this regard, and the upcoming Low-Tech supplement is written by Dan Howard, who you may be familiar with. I don't want to derail the thread too much, so if you'd like more info, feel free to shoot me a PM or we can start a different thread.

[Galloglaich]

Aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee! Dan Howard! My ultimate rival on myarmoury

I'll have to check out Gurps 4E and see how it works. Glad to hear you can do the 'hook'.

G.

[Hades]

Aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee! Dan Howard! My ultimate rival on myarmoury

Sometimes I think I'm forum-stalking him, myArmoury, SJGames Forums, SFI, heh.

I'll have to check out Gurps 4E and see how it works. Glad to hear you can do the 'hook'.

G.

Yup, all the HEMA/WMA stuff is in the Martial Arts supplement, pretty sweet. Any RPG that has the Codex Wallerstein, Capo Ferro, and Sydney Anglo in the bibliography at the back is heading in the right direction, I think.

[Galloglaich]

So HEMA goes mainstream in RPGs, I wasn't aware of all that, sounds promising.... it's about time. Ah well, I thought of it first :) Or really, Jake Norwood thought of it first and made it work with Riddle of Steel, which proved that it could work. But I helped a little with that too.

Last time I played around with GURPS combat system I thought it was kind of ... "blocky", and didn't feel very realistic, but that was almost ten years ago. Sounds like I need to have another look. What specific book should I get, GURPS 4E Martial Arts?

G.

[Hades]

So HEMA goes mainstream in RPGs, I wasn't aware of all that, sounds promising.... it's about time. Ah well, I thought of it first :) Or really, Jake Norwood thought of it first and made it work with Riddle of Steel, which proved that it could work. But I helped a little with that too.

Seeing the real thing (HEMA, I mean) start to have an impact on popular culture is pretty nifty.

Last time I played around with GURPS combat system I thought it was kind of ... "blocky", and didn't feel very realistic, but that was almost ten years ago. Sounds like I need to have another look. What specific book should I get, GURPS 4E Martial Arts?

G.

GURPS 4E Martial Arts, yup, but you'll also need the 4E Basic Set (Characters and Campaigns books) to really make sense of it, as Martial Arts is an expansion of additional options rather than a standalone book. Although you might be able to use the free GURPS Lite and Martial Arts to get at least a little bit of an idea how it works.

/thread hijack off

[Galloglaich]

There seem to be a lot of people in this forum who know a bit about HEMA, which is a big change from any RPG forum I saw even two or three years ago.

There seems to be a lot of general interest in real martial arts of all kinds and with skills and techniques of all types from long ago, survival skills back to nature skills, how to make things etc. Maybe we sense something coming ... :) Zompoc...?

/Thread hijack off

G.

[HenryHankovitch]

There seems to be a lot of general interest in real martial arts of all kinds and with skills and techniques of all types from long ago, survival skills back to nature skills, how to make things etc. Maybe we sense something coming ... :) Zompoc...?

If the zombies ever rise there will be, among the corpses, thousands of dead nerds with swords strapped to their backs.

[lsfreak]

If the zombies ever rise there will be, among the corpses, thousands of dead nerds with swordskatanas strapped to their backs.

FTFY. After all, katanas are just better

Let's not forget the nerds with guns. Also dead, because they didn't practice all that much, and couldn't hit the side of a barn with all that adrenaline. I'll probably be one of them.

[Eldan]

And the swiss nerds (me and the five others hidden somewhere where I can't find them, if they exist), hiding in one of the thousands of bunkers switzerland has.

And they said Cold war scare wasn't useful.

[Galloglaich]

I don't know about the rest of you nerds, but I can cut some mofos up with a sword. I can even hit the broadside of a barn fair to middlin'. I like adrenaline.

He's right about Switzerland though, they take civil defense for real over there. I remember hearing all about it when I was in the army in Germany in the 80's, we were all pretty jealous considering we were all utter cannon fodder (according to what the Army used to tell us).

G.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

And the swiss nerds (me and the five others hidden somewhere where I can't find them, if they exist), hiding in one of the thousands of bunkers switzerland has.

And they said Cold war scare wasn't useful.

I've always said that anyone (Even zombies. No, especially zombies.) would be unwise to invade Switzerland. A nation with such a tradition of both marksmanship and martial prowess (which other nations had their soldiers banned from warfare due to effectiveness?) is not likely to take **** from anybody.

Oh, and yes, I am also capable of cutting some people with a sword. So that makes at least two of us.

[hamishspence]

Question is- are these the kind of zombies that can infect you with Zombie Plague with one scratch of the fingernails?

If so, getting that close would be unwise.

[Eldan]

It's not really the case anymore, honestly. Currently, about 40% of young men get themselves declared unfit for service. Since "civil service", i.e. service without uniform or weapons got allowed, those numbers are skyrocketing as well. So the "one assault rifle per household" policy has been out since at least the eighties. And new houses aren't required anymore to have bomb shelters, as far as I know.

[Yora]

He's right about Switzerland though, they take civil defense for real over there. I remember hearing all about it when I was in the army in Germany in the 80's, we were all pretty jealous considering we were all utter cannon fodder (according to what the Army used to tell us).

That's the reason why we got into the NATO. Slowing the soviet invasion a bit, to give the others more time to prepare the defenses.

There seems to be a lot of general interest in real martial arts of all kinds and with skills and techniques of all types from long ago, survival skills back to nature skills, how to make things etc. Maybe we sense something coming ... :) Zompoc...?

We allready control all of the worlds electronic infrastructure and have made the common people depend on us for their survival. The next step is acquiring the skills to also be superior during the temporary shutdown phase.