Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk X

[Trekkin]

Here's one from Eclipse Phase that's been the subject of some debate among my group (and, earlier, on EP's forums):

Canonically, EP personal guns are either chemical or use superconducting railgun technology. I've heard it speculated that, given the same superconductors, quench guns would be better, but I'm wondering at the differences in terms of efficiency and maximum speed/acceleration.

We reached a rough back-of-the-envelope consensus that railguns make better handguns and quench guns make better mass drivers, but the physics behind that weren't ever clearly established, so I'm left trying to figure out how the exigencies of personal weapon design mesh with the restraints on the electromagnetic physics behind coil- and rail- guns, and how scale affects them.

Basically, which technology makes the better electromagnetic launcher: superconducting rails, or superconducting coils? And because of which physics?

[Spiryt]

Simply being very powerful might be enough, where you can cause them some broken ribs and mild internal bleeding with one solid hit (even most tough guys won't want to continue with that)? Other than that, breaking/dislocating a limb is probably a very efficient way of removing someone from the fight?

It doesn't need to cause any internal bleeding or break a rib, efficient strikes to the body (particularly liver) just cause huge shock and pain, change in circulation etc.

For enough time to run away or 'finish off' opponent.

Similarly with strike to the throat causing violent reaction and problems, strikes to the head causing obvious problems from dizzyness to full concussion and KO.

Strikes to the testicles are paralyzing as well, cause they're basically organs that are not fully internal.

And so on. Tonnes of ways to hit someone and take him out.

The problem is if one can do it against resisting target.

Being powerful isn't really required either, neither isn't enough in most cases, if someone can't strike with proper technique or accuracy.


And breaking a limb is surely a good way, doesn't seem like "without crippling" though.

[Conners]

Temporary crippling is OK (though, if you did it wrong, they could see some long-term problems).

Needless to say, incapacitating without killing is probably harder than all-out attacking (which may very well result in death). Of course, these days, people can survive surprising injuries.

[Spiryt]

Needless to say, incapacitating without killing is probably harder than all-out attacking (which may very well result in death). Of course, these days, people can survive surprising injuries.

I think it really depends on situation.... But don't really think so.

In case of Mike Tyson punching some 110 pound person, perhaps, but without extremes, it's hard to kill somebody without specifically trying.

One punches/slams someone to the ground. - and doesn't have to stomp his head against pavement, which can easily result in death.

Most easily fatal would be probably some wrestler/judoka doing full body weight throw on pavement or other hard, artificial surface.

But that again probably constitutes as "trying to", or at least going to far due to adrenaline - because it's not really that easy to do those "by accident".

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[Galloglaich]

A sucker punch, or almost any good punch in the head to somebody who has no idea how to fight, can often knock people out, from what I've seen. I think 90% of the knock outs I've ever seen were sucker punches.

Punching people when who have some experience of fighting who know they are in a fight, it seems to be much harder to knock them out, though you do see it happen even in UFC and so on, guy gets hit in the right place in his jaw, lights out. But that usually happens when a guy is trying to hit the other guy.

G

[Conners]

Anyone know some impressive examples of unarmed people taking on multiple opponents, in reality?




PS: Anyone tried War of the Roses yet?

[Yora]

Punching people when who have some experience of fighting who know they are in a fight, it seems to be much harder to knock them out, though you do see it happen even in UFC and so on, guy gets hit in the right place in his jaw, lights out. But that usually happens when a guy is trying to hit the other guy.

And at least once both hit at the same time and both dropped.

[Spiryt]

And at least once both hit at the same time and both dropped.

My favorite part of it is always the referee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-gwFNGo764

"OK, what had just happened?"

Anyone know some impressive examples of unarmed people taking on multiple opponents, in reality?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQiQsgSQ1A

I hope beating up some minor hobos for hitting your girl will be enough, at least.

[gkathellar]

A sucker punch, or almost any good punch in the head to somebody who has no idea how to fight, can often knock people out, from what I've seen. I think 90% of the knock outs I've ever seen were sucker punches.

Punching people when who have some experience of fighting who know they are in a fight, it seems to be much harder to knock them out, though you do see it happen even in UFC and so on, guy gets hit in the right place in his jaw, lights out. But that usually happens when a guy is trying to hit the other guy.

G

As you say, a lot of the major "knock-out blows," such as hits to the jaw and solar plexus, don't work well against someone who knows they are fighting and has tightened their body accordingly. The jaw, for example, works because if it's loose, it strikes the temple with the force of a lever. Set your jaw muscles and this doesn't happen. Usually when you see someone go down to a hit like this in boxing or MMA, it's because they're exhausted and weakened from previous hits, and can no longer keep their body in the position to defend its weak spots.

That said, you can very easily take someone down with a single blow if you hit them in the right places. A fast tap to the temple can stun and a harder tap can concuss, a shot to the throat can kill, a blow to the back of the neck or base of the skull can easily concuss or cause spinal damage, and of course any damage to the actual eyeballs can be sickeningly, nauseatingly painful. Even some body shots can be pretty disabling if correctly placed (floating ribs, bottom of the sternum). You don't see too much of that because these spots are relatively easy to defend, because most people don't aim for them on instinct, and because a well-trained fighter knows that he could aim for the throat or the eyes but probably shouldn't.

I wouldn't give too much credit to UFC-types on this — these guys are excellent sportsmen and some of them are excellent martial artists and I mean no disrespect, don't get me wrong — but MMA competitions prohibit (rightly so) a lot of techniques.

Anyone know some impressive examples of unarmed people taking on multiple opponents, in reality?

Honestly, you'll probably get a pretty accurate picture of methodology from watching aikido randori — not because they're the height of realism, but because dealing with multiple opponents involves playing keep-away well enough that you can turn it into a series of fights against single opponents. You circle away from the guy you're not presently dealing with, and deal with him as a fast as possible. As you can see ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQiQsgSQ1A

I hope beating up some minor hobos for hitting your girl will be enough, at least.

... here, where the guy is never in a situation where he's actually fighting both of the other two at once. He hits one a few times, throws him down, switches, rinse and repeat. If either had rushed him while he was busy with the other, they would have destroyed him.

Dealing with multiple opponents involves being a very good tactician, and being much much much faster, stronger and tougher than the people you're dealing with. Usually it involves hitting first (which, considering it means starting a fight with two or more people, is usually insane), or at least blindsiding the opponents so completely they never get a chance organize.

[Dienekes]

Anyone know some impressive examples of unarmed people taking on multiple opponents, in reality?

I have fought two at once before, of course they were also unarmed and it was mostly me throwing them for 20 seconds and them running away when they realized I had about 30 lbs on the both of them. So not exactly as impressive as you might have liked.

A Taekwondo instructor I met claimed to have fought 3 people against him in a bar once. Though I cannot verify it, but I know the guy as pretty honest, or at least he didn't seem prone to exaggeration.

PS: Anyone tried War of the Roses yet?

I did not get into the beta test.

[gkathellar]

A Taekwondo instructor I met claimed to have fought 3 people against him in a bar once. Though I cannot verify it, but I know the guy as pretty honest, or at least he didn't seem prone to exaggeration.

The funny thing about head kicks is that when they work, they really work.

[Spiryt]

I wouldn't give too much credit to UFC-types on this — these guys are excellent sportsmen and some of them are excellent martial artists and I mean no disrespect, don't get me wrong — but MMA competitions prohibit (rightly so) a lot of techniques.

Meh, honestly, there are still orgs that don't prohibit very much, and days of almost completely rule free events here and there with 'hardcore' stuff.

This never had really changed that much.

I also don't really get what do you mean by "credit" - the fact that MMA unified rules prohibit a lot of techniques doesn't make them any worse fighters...

There aren't in fact any other contest that allow to confront with more techniques, be it "without that and that" MMA or actually full blown Brazilian Vale-Tudo like RioHeroes.

Usually when you see someone go down to a hit like this in boxing or MMA, it's because they're exhausted and weakened from previous hits, and can no longer keep their body in the position to defend its weak spots.

There's plenty of right out shots all around, if someone's hit really clean, he's done.

... here, where the guy is never in a situation where he's actually fighting both of the other two at once. He hits one a few times, throws him down, switches, rinse and repeat. If either had rushed him while he was busy with the other, they would have destroyed him.

Obviosuly, but that's the point.

They don't look able to destroy anyone who's actually resisting at all, seeing their complete bewildering.

[Conners]

I think what gkathellar is saying, is that UFC fights won't be trained to use the most deadly techniques, which can be a problem.

I did not get into the beta test.

If you pre-order it on Steam, you get into the beta automatically.

[Spiryt]

I think what gkathellar is saying, is that UFC fights won't be trained to use the most deadly techniques, which can be a problem.

Problem in what though?

If they ever find themselves in 'real unarmed situation' they still have greatly better chances of leaving them intact than 99% of population, depending on situation.

Because adding strikes wherever, bites and gouges isn't really big philosophy.

Sometimes being track and field runner may be way better, sometimes maybe being pure wrestler, to stay on your feet when drunk mob tries to mainly trample you.

In many cases just a boxer, probably, because as mentioned, sucker punches are major cause of 'casualties'.

If one wants to watch for the rather silly purpose of 'true deadly stuff' they can search for Rio Heroes or some similar stuff on the Internet, or add "Okay, he has his back, so with punches to the back of the head he would have been done".

Anyway:

fights won't be trained to use the most deadly techniques

But they are.

The fact that sometimes they don't apply them in most easily damaging/unpleasant manner doesn't change that.

Like mentioned, biggest threat of being quickly 'deadly' would be some really hard slam - Legal in all pro MMA.

The biggest "unrealistic" part about MMA is attire and surrounding.

But having more 'unsafe' floor wouldn't be too good, and with clothes, and ability to grab them, fights would become to much cluster**** for average viewer, I guess.

[Dead_Jester]

The funny thing about head kicks is that when they work, they really work.

They do, but they also leave you exposed if the other person is also a trained fighter, which, unless you know the guy, you don't know. Also, in most countries, killing or seriously maiming someone, even in self defence, will get you thrown in jail; if you take some one out and have no witnesses, nothing is stopping the other guy from accusing you of assault. Indeed, many of the "best" ways to take people out involve or may result in serious or even permanent damage, so things like punching to the kidneys, striking/crushing/ripping out the windpipe, hitting to the eyes and using elbows is best kept for life or death situations, rather than your average brawl.

Now, kicks to the knees or to the inner shin (the fibula, is very easy to break, and often does so quite nastily) tend to make quick work of people while being relatively safe for both parties. Of the two, I would recommend the shin, as it heals much better, reducing the odds of accusations being held against you. Hitting to the groin also works, but it may not stop the opponent reliably.

And on the topic of fighters not being trained to kill, in my experience, most martial artist either know or regularly practice techniques that are solely dedicated to killing or permanently damaging others (things like ripping eyeballs out, elbows to the spine, etc.). Add to this that simply hitting someone in the head or the chest can sometimes result in deaths; and you can conclude that most trained fighters are physically trained to kill; whether or not they are psychologically trained to do so is another story, and entirely outside of my expertise, although I would theorize that a marginally greater proportion of them are compared to the rest of the general population.

[Spiryt]

Indeed, many of the "best" ways to take people out involve or may result in serious or even permanent damage, so things like punching to the kidneys, striking/crushing/ripping out the windpipe, hitting to the eyes and using elbows is best kept for life or death situations, rather than your average brawl.

While all of those make a lot of sense, because any violent moves about eyes or throat will be bad, even if person has no idea what he's doing, there's nothing inherently deadly about elbows.

Thai boxers in particular can take insane amount of them in a fight, obviously they're crazily conditioned to do that, and average Joe would crumble after first one, but elbow is elbow, just like punch...

Now, kicks to the knees or to the inner shin (the fibula, is very easy to break, and often does so quite nastily) tend to make quick work of people while being relatively safe for both parties. Of the two, I would recommend the shin, as it heals much better, reducing the odds of accusations being held against you.

Leg kicks by competent strikes are relatively safe, due to being quick and not that telegraphed/unbalancing, and are well documented to indeed crumble people unaccustomed to them (first time to Muay-Thai/kickboxing for example).

I've never heard about any breaking fibula though, but I guess it may sometimes happen.

One would hope nothing get's broken anyway, it can mean legal trouble, obviously, as it will heal for a while.

And on the topic of fighters not being trained to kill, in my experience, most martial artist either know or regularly practice techniques that are solely dedicated to killing or permanently damaging others (things like ripping eyeballs out, elbows to the spine, etc.). Add to this that simply hitting someone in the head or the chest can sometimes result in deaths; and you can conclude that most trained fighters are physically trained to kill; whether or not they are psychologically trained to do so is another story, and entirely outside of my expertise, although I would theorize that a marginally greater proportion of them are compared to the rest of the general population.

While going to jail for killing in self defense is IMO rubbish (without going into politics) -

the whole point is indeed that safe high speed collision with something hard, etc. killing someone requires effort, in cases, where there's usually no point, because target is immobilized/broken already - stomping, any kind of spinal cranks, strikes to the spine/back of the head - ripping eyes or any other pieces of flesh out in particular would require somebody be seriously non-resisting from whatever reason.

[gkathellar]

I also don't really get what do you mean by "credit" - the fact that MMA unified rules prohibit a lot of techniques doesn't make them any worse fighters...

My point is you can't necessarily gauge the time it takes to bring down another human being by looking at UFC. Sorry if that was unclear — I meant that one should be careful giving them too much credit as the perfect gauge of what unarmed combat looks like.

There aren't in fact any other contest that allow to confront with more techniques, be it "without that and that" MMA or actually full blown Brazilian Vale-Tudo like RioHeroes.

And that is absolutely for the best. Yes, using small joint manipulation to break all of someone's fingers and then bursting their carotid artery can be done, but it's barbaric and horrible.

There's plenty of right out shots all around, if someone's hit really clean, he's done.

Really clean hits like that almost never happen until exhaustion sets in, which is why it's pretty rare for a UFC fight to be over in thirty seconds. If you're much better than your opponent and they're surprised, maybe you can pull that off.

Obviosuly, but that's the point.

They don't look able to destroy anyone who's actually resisting at all, seeing their complete bewildering.

Again, not arguing was you: I was pointing out that your video illustrated a valuable point.

If they ever find themselves in 'real unarmed situation' they still have greatly better chances of leaving them intact than 99% of population, depending on situation.

Absolutely, and plenty of the UFC guys could do more brutal stuff if they wanted to (not all, but plenty of them). Watching fights in UFC isn't necessarily even a gauge of the fighters' own full abilities, much less of the full abilities of what one human body can do to one another.

But they are.

The fact that sometimes they don't apply them in most easily damaging/unpleasant manner doesn't change that.

Like mentioned, biggest threat of being quickly 'deadly' would be some really hard slam - Legal in all pro MMA.

The biggest "unrealistic" part about MMA is attire and surrounding.

But having more 'unsafe' floor wouldn't be too good, and with clothes, and ability to grab them, fights would become to much cluster**** for average viewer, I guess.

Again, agreed. As I stated, many of the most horrible things you can do to another person are really difficult to actually pull off and really easy to defend against in practice. It's just that looking at UFC fights does not provide an accurate gauge of their existence of viability, because the fights disallow a lot of things entirely.

And that's good. It's very good that the fights aren't more realistic, considering that we'd see a lot more concussions and broken shoulder blades and, you know, death. Which is bad. I don't know if I can stress strongly enough that I'm not advocating that UFC needs to allow a wider variety of techniques for our viewing pleasure.

They do, but they also leave you exposed if the other person is also a trained fighter, which, unless you know the guy, you don't know.

Absolutely. 99% of the time a middle-target or low-target kick is more effective, and unless you're really well trained with high kicks, you'll never spot that 1% of the time.

Also, in most countries, killing or seriously maiming someone, even in self defence, will get you thrown in jail; if you take some one out and have no witnesses, nothing is stopping the other guy from accusing you of assault.

Plus there's the part about how you should avoid ripping out someone's eyes if at all possible, just as a general point of policy.

And on the topic of fighters not being trained to kill, in my experience, most martial artist either know or regularly practice techniques that are solely dedicated to killing or permanently damaging others (things like ripping eyeballs out, elbows to the spine, etc.).

Indeed. A lot of the fancier movements you see in forms, the ones that look vaguely indecipherable at times, are things like knife-hands to the carotid, tearing off the groin, or even combos composed entirely of those kinds of things. The reason modern karate-type sparring was invented is because masters wanted students to practice the strategic elements of live combat without using full-out techniques against one another.

While all of those make a lot of sense, because any violent moves about eyes or throat will be bad, even if person has no idea what he's doing, there's nothing inherently deadly about elbows.

Thicker bones means you can apply quantities of force to a strike that would shatter a hand entirely. With considerable hand conditioning you can make up the difference, but there are also ways to generate short power with the elbow that the hand simply isn't as good for.

Obviously the hand has its own advantages: better long power, more reach, easier to use.

the whole point is indeed that safe high speed collision with something hard, etc. killing someone requires effort, in cases, where there's usually no point, because target is immobilized/broken already - stomping, any kind of spinal cranks, strikes to the spine/back of the head - ripping eyes or any other pieces of flesh out in particular would require somebody be seriously non-resisting from whatever reason.

But again, there are plenty of techniques that can maim or kill as your opening strike, in a variety of fairly obvious ways. They're not reliable due to needing a lot of power or very precise targeting or being countered by a basic guard, and most people don't go to them on instinct because no one sane uses a technique that could permanently injure their partner in live sparring. But they do exist, and they are technically the fastest way to bring someone down if they can be made to work.

[Spiryt]

And that is absolutely for the best. Yes, using small joint manipulation to break all of someone's fingers and then bursting their carotid artery can be done, but it's barbaric and horrible.

I guess, that you have to be that much in control of opponent to do that it's just much better to do something else than try to rip the arteries.

Really clean hits like that almost never happen until exhaustion sets in, which is why it's pretty rare for a UFC fight to be over in thirty seconds. If you're much better than your opponent and they're surprised, maybe you can pull that off.

It's not really that rare. If you have a guy that's much better striker than the other, he can do light out quickly, be it boxing, MMA, or bar brawl.

From like week ago in Strikeforce:

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And Jacare is BJJ legend, not really a striker.

But again, there are plenty of techniques that can maim or kill as your opening strike, in a variety of fairly obvious ways. They're not reliable due to needing a lot of power or very precise targeting or being countered by a basic guard, and most people don't go to them on instinct because no one sane uses a technique that could permanently injure their partner in live sparring. But they do exist, and they are technically the fastest way to bring someone down if they can be made to work.

I guess that one can knee someone right into the throat, or something...

Violent spinal lock to someone who is not flexible/conditioned enough from grappling would also probably be fatal.


Realistically though, big difference in physicality will be always main cause - if Vitali Klitschko punched my with all his guns he could more than certainly damage my 150 pounds neck badly.

[Mike_G]

Now, kicks to the knees or to the inner shin (the fibula, is very easy to break, and often does so quite nastily)

The fibula is the outer of the two lower leg bones. People often break it rolling an ankle. But it's not the weight bearing bone of the two. That's the tibia, which is much harder to break, and is the inner one.

[gkathellar]

I guess, that you have to be that much in control of opponent to do that it's just much better to do something else than try to rip the arteries.

Between hitting someone in the cheek and possibly not doing anything but making him mad, and hitting him in the side of the neck such that he bleeds to death inside his own skin, one option has a more guaranteed outcome. You are strongly overstating the amount of control needed for techniques of this type to work. These things are difficult in execution because they're easy to guard against, not because you need to bend your opponent over your knee to make them work I'm talking about single, well-aimed strikes to points that, if hit well, reliably cause serious injury to most opponents.

It's not really that rare. If you have a guy that's much better striker than the other, he can do light out quickly, be it boxing, MMA, or bar brawl.

From like week ago in Strikeforce:

Spoiler

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And Jacare is BJJ legend, not really a striker.

Image presented out of context is out of context. How many minutes into the fight was that, and how had it been flowing up to then? As I've said, clean knock-out blows happen, but they usually don't happen to someone who still has the strength to brace against them.

I stress the word "usually" because I have, in person, seen a karate expert land a perfect single strike to the head at the beginning of the fight like you're talking about. He knocked his opponent unconscious with a single reverse punch as the opponent glided in for a ridiculous superman punch. And I've seen this once. Ever. In anything. Supposedly "perfect" strikes are, in almost all other cases, the result of extensive physical and/or strategic setup on the part of one fighter as he softens up the other and weakens his opponent's position. Once you see a genuinely perfect hit, it's hard not to appreciate how much work goes into softening an opponent for everything that looks similar to one.

Good fighters — including the good MMA guys — go looking to create that opportunity consciously. But in almost all cases, it needs to be created, which is somewhat unlike the a punch to the throat, which will always work. In fact, you can see it in the very clip you presented, if you look carefully — the left arm of the guy who went down, had he been in control of himself, would not have been off doing nothing in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know, maybe we're talking about different things here? I'm not saying knockout blows don't happen. I'm saying they don't happen until the opponent's body and mind are worn down somewhat. That's a barrier that the more brutal kinds of striking, the kinds which MMA competitions widely disallow, don't really suffer from. A throat is a throat is a throat, and unless you're dealing with someone who's studied throat-hardening (not terribly common in today's martial arts), it'll collapse with roughly the same amount of force regardless of how winded they are.

I guess that one can knee someone right into the throat, or something...

Grab clavicle. Pull down. Shove knee into chest or throat (never the face, unless you want teeth in your knee — a luxury you don't have to worry about if you're in a sporting event with mouthguards). Rinse and repeat as necessary. Not particularly easy if you haven't trained in it, but doable.

There are a million different examples. Most are terribly difficult to execute, often because they require shots to the head at angles which are not offensively favorable. But they exist and work faster than the average blow, remains my point.

[Spiryt]

Between hitting someone in the cheek and possibly not doing anything but making him mad, and hitting him in the side of the neck such that he bleeds to death inside his own skin, one option has a more guaranteed outcome. You are strongly overstating the amount of control needed for techniques of this type to work. These things are difficult in execution because they're easy to guard against, not because you need to bend your opponent over your knee to make them work I'm talking about single, well-aimed strikes to points that, if hit well, reliably cause serious injury to most opponents.

There's a lot of talk about about things like that in some contest, particualrly some 'mystic' martial arts, but I'm honestly skeptical.

In all kind of full contact striking competitions, training, sparrings, punches, elbows, kicks, knees land hard on the throat side of the neck etc. very hard.

They're perfectly legal most of the times as well, and if they're illegal (throat strikes) they still happen by accident, being somehow unavoidable.

And one never hears about anything similar to internal bleeding from arteries in the neck...

not because you need to bend your opponent over your knee

Bending over a knee is not much of a control, but I would image that full mount could indeed give solid access to neck etc while opponent is at big disadvantage as far as defending it goes.

Image presented out of context is out of context. How many minutes into the fight was that, and how had it been flowing up to then? As I've said, clean knock-out blows happen, but they usually don't happen to someone who still has the strength to brace against them.

I stress the word "usually" because I have, in person, seen a karate expert land a perfect single strike to the head at the beginning of the fight like you're talking about. He knocked his opponent unconscious with a single reverse punch as the opponent glided in for a ridiculous superman punch. And I've seen this once. Ever. In anything. Supposedly "perfect" strikes are, in almost all other cases, the result of extensive physical and/or strategic setup on the part of one fighter as he softens up the other and weakens his opponent's position. Once you see a genuinely perfect hit, it's hard not to appreciate how much work goes into softening an opponent for everything that looks similar to one.

Good fighters — including the good MMA guys — go looking to create that opportunity consciously. But in almost all cases, it needs to be created, which is somewhat unlike the a punch to the throat, which will always work. In fact, you can see it in the very clip you presented, if you look carefully — the left arm of the guy who went down, had he been in control of himself, would not have been off doing nothing in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know, maybe we're talking about different things here? I'm not saying knockout blows don't happen. I'm saying they don't happen until the opponent's body and mind are worn down somewhat. That's a barrier that the more brutal kinds of striking, the kinds which MMA competitions widely disallow, don't really suffer from. A throat is a throat is a throat, and unless you're dealing with someone who's studied throat-hardening (not terribly common in today's martial arts), it'll collapse with roughly the same amount of force regardless of how winded they are.

It happened at 0:40 of the very first round, really first serious strike thrown.

I really don't know where you're taking here:

I'm saying they don't happen until the opponent's body and mind are worn down somewhat. That's a barrier that the more brutal kinds of striking, the kinds which MMA competitions widely disallow, don't really suffer from.

Because nothing like that is required. KO's in 30 seconds happen all the time in boxing, kickboxing, MMA, any kind of full contact striking in general.

Obviosuly, they require a lot of difference in striking skill, or dumb luck, but not any "wearing down" of mind or body.

Powerful punch lands on the jaw, it's getting twisted bad, equilibrium is completely shut off, brain is concussed or at least shaken very bad, and person's going down.

Literally right now clean KO may be happening on some local event, where there's plethora of hard hitting brawlers, but fundamental boxing defense is not exactly very common.

Similarly with any other strike, although obviously punch to the throat will shut someone down from different reason than kick to the liver.

Grab clavicle. Pull down. Shove knee into chest or throat (never the face, unless you want teeth in your knee — a luxury you don't have to worry about if you're in a sporting event with mouthguards). Rinse and repeat as necessary. Not particularly easy if you haven't trained in it, but doable.

There are a million different examples. Most are terribly difficult to execute, often because they require shots to the head at angles which are not offensively favorable. But they exist and work faster than the average blow, remains my point.

Well, again, particularly in Muay Thai, they land crazy amount of knees into the chest and other parts, that's pretty much the name of the game.

That's not really way to quickly injure somebody, with knee to the chest one would probably require significant weight difference to really damage the chest and insides.

As far as grabbing the clavicle goes, how the hell does one grab it and pulls with enough force to do anything? Even in very thin individuals, it's not exactly available....

[Conners]

A military fellow made an interesting point, once: "In the ring, those boys would beat me to a pulp. Outside of the ring, I'd rip them to shreds."

I really do think the ring fights are different than conflicts of life and death.

[Spiryt]

A military fellow made an interesting point, once: "In the ring, those boys would beat me to a pulp. Outside of the ring, I'd rip them to shreds."

.

That really depends on who "military fellow" exactly was, and was what his experience (if any, in the first place) in gravely situations, unarmed combat, physical shape etc. - but that's mostly wishful thinking.

"Military fellows" are in most cases not really special at unarmed fighting, mostly because modern combat quite obviously rarely involves unarmed combat.

Human ego is weird like that.

Biting, groin attacks, hard surfaces, etc. will without a doubt make situation very different from "not real thing" but person who's better fighter in striking, wrestling, ground control will still have massive advantage, no magic "ripping to shreds" (whatever would that be) will change that. There's absolutely nothing saying/ that 'those guys' cannot use them as well.

I really do think the ring fights are different than conflicts of life and death.

That goes without saying, as no one wants to kill anybody, and stop/referee stops fight in proper moment.

Conflicts of life and death will generally involve weapons anyway, that's out whole homo sapiens mojo.

[Autolykos]

Basically, which technology makes the better electromagnetic launcher: superconducting rails, or superconducting coils? And because of which physics?

Depends *a lot* on the details of the available technologies. In general though, coil guns will profit a lot more from using superconductors than rail guns for two simple reasons:

a) The resistance in rail guns is a lot lower already, because they only use two rather short and thick rails instead of coils with very long and thin wire. Really, rail guns don't need superconductors, which is a good thing, because:
b) In rail guns, the projectile has to get in direct contact with conducting parts, heating them in the process. And warm superconductors won't.

On scale:
Small coil guns (using superconductors) will only become a viable alternative once you find superconductors that don't need additional cooling at room temperature. Otherwise, lugging around cans of liquid nitrogen makes that weapon kinda impractical as a handgun. But once you have that, small coil guns will be a lot safer to handle because of the lower currents involved, while the currents used in a practical rail gun design will make anyone small, black and ugly. They'll also scale down a lot better.
Without room-temperature superconductors, you'll have to use rail guns for any kind of small arms. And unless you have batteries with incredibly high power density (which has it's own problems - to quote a friend: 5kF? That's not a capacitor, that's a bomb!), the rails will have to be as long as you can practically make them. Rail guns will make good rifles, but poor pistols.
Actually, energy and power density of current batteries and capacitors is the limiting factor with portable EM-weapons right now, and superconductors won't do very much about it.
On large scale, both would work. Coil guns will be more efficient, but more complex and way more expensive to build. Rail guns are a simpler technology, but you'll need to replace the rails regularly and find a way to get rid of the excess heat (unless ROF isn't a concern to you). They are also quite damaging to the projectile, which can be a Bad Thing when using explosive or rocket assisted projectiles. Both will have to be powered by a large generator (like the nuclear reactor on a ship).

EDIT: For more details on what would be feasible in this setting, I'd need at least a rough estimate of:
- the critical temperature of commercially available superconductors
- the maximum (safe) specific energy of batteries
- the maximum (safe) specific power of capacitors while still reaching a specific energy in the order of magnitude of 1kJ/kg.

[gkathellar]

There's a lot of talk about about things like that in some contest, particualrly some 'mystic' martial arts, but I'm honestly skeptical.

In all kind of full contact striking competitions, training, sparrings, punches, elbows, kicks, knees land hard on the throat side of the neck etc. very hard.

They're perfectly legal most of the times as well, and if they're illegal (throat strikes) they still happen by accident, being somehow unavoidable.

And one never hears about anything similar to internal bleeding from arteries in the neck...

Gloved punches do not even begin to approximate the full depth of hand strikes. This is worth emphasizing — bare knuckle fighting is dramatically more likely to result in serious injury because you're slamming a bunch of limestone spurs into the other guy (which is why without hand conditioning hitting someone full force will rip open your knuckles). And in that environment, you're going to see more hammer blows, more knife and spear hands, and more targeted hits to parts of the body that don't take blows from hardened hands well.

So again, the point is that you can't necessarily use what you see in UFC and other full-contact competitions to accurately gauge things outside of those competition environments.

Bending over a knee is not much of a control, but I would image that full mount could indeed give solid access to neck etc while opponent is at big disadvantage as far as defending it goes.

"Bend your opponent over your knee" was hyperbole, yes. Full mount is one way to gain access to the neck, good timing is another, circling on top of the opponent's guard is a third, etc.

It happened at 0:40 of the very first round, really first serious strike thrown.

Huh. He dropped his guard 40 seconds into the fight against someone who wasn't a renowned striker? I guess some UFC guys do make really stupid, clumsy mistakes for no appreciable reason. Well, there's an opinion lowered.

Because nothing like that is required. KO's in 30 seconds happen all the time in boxing, kickboxing, MMA, any kind of full contact striking in general.

Obviosuly, they require a lot of difference in striking skill, or dumb luck, but not any "wearing down" of mind or body.

I haven't followed any of these with particular interest in the past two years or so, and even when I did I tended to focus on the top fighters, so maybe that's changed or I'm remembering things with rose-tinted glasses. I'll concede the point that if people drop their guards the moment they get into the tick of things, setting up a solid hit would be relatively easy.

Powerful punch lands on the jaw, it's getting twisted bad, equilibrium is completely shut off, brain is concussed or at least shaken very bad, and person's going down.

None of this happens if the person getting hit has strong neck and jaw muscles and knows and remembers how to absorb a hit.

Literally right now clean KO may be happening on some local event, where there's plethora of hard hitting brawlers, but fundamental boxing defense is not exactly very common.

Okay. Yes, fair enough, if you're up against someone who doesn't know how to defend themselves with either their hands or their body mechanics it is relatively easy to take them down with a straightforward blow as long as you have the strength for it.

As far as grabbing the clavicle goes, how the hell does one grab it and pulls with enough force to do anything? Even in very thin individuals, it's not exactly available....

Strike against the clavicle so that the hand rests on either the back of the neck or the back of the shoulder, and apply downward pressure against the bone with the forearm. If you have really absurdly strong fingers, you can do that directly to the bone with your thumb.

Biting, groin attacks, hard surfaces, etc. will without a doubt make situation very different from "not real thing" but person who's better fighter in striking, wrestling, ground control will still have massive advantage, no magic "ripping to shreds" (whatever would that be) will change that. There's absolutely nothing saying/ that 'those guys' cannot use them as well.

Yeah. Outside of a ring situation, plenty of these MMA guys would fight entirely differently to suit the lack of rules. For one thing, those who are capable of handling themselves outside of a ring (probably a lot of them) situation would adopt a more careful, more viciously opportunistic approach. It's doubtful we can judge the full extent of their abilities by what they show us in competition, since competition does not reflect the entire reality of empty-handed combat any more than sport fencing reflects the number of ways a combat-steel foil can be used to injure someone.

[Conners]

Military guy was a top instructor for US Marine training.

[Spiryt]

Gloved punches do not even begin to approximate the full depth of hand strikes. This is worth emphasizing — bare knuckle fighting is dramatically more likely to result in serious injury because you're slamming a bunch of limestone spurs into the other guy (which is why without hand conditioning hitting someone full force will rip open your knuckles). And in that environment, you're going to see more hammer blows, more knife and spear hands, and more targeted hits to parts of the body that don't take blows from hardened hands well.

So again, the point is that you can't necessarily use what you see in UFC and other full-contact competitions to accurately gauge things outside of those competition environments.

That's all obvious, but again, tell me how to 'gauge' accurately things outside of competition environment?

Sport, or even more "hardcore" Vale Tudo I like to watch to, are absolutely not fully accurate in any way, it's always artificial situation.

But it's hard to impossible to find anything as better gauge of some interesting aspect.

Some traditional competitions will be even more limited usually. Thai box, karate, and so on.

Actual taped "street fights" will consist of some psycho bums gassing out quickly while bitting and pinching stuff. Rather fugly.

As far as 'hardened hands' go, then any boxer and other. will have calloused and hardened hands, majority of population not.

I heard that some martial arts "hardening" techniques by breaking them against hard objects etc. are absolutely harmful rubbish. Some people, particularly practitioners will obviously defend it like a grail, so it's difficult topic.

Huh. He dropped his guard 40 seconds into the fight against someone who wasn't a renowned striker? I guess some UFC guys do make really stupid, clumsy mistakes for no appreciable reason. Well, there's an opinion lowered.

Okay, in the first place, it was Strikeforce, not UFC. UFC is an promotion, sport is MMA.

And yes, he didn't show very good form, but vast majority of the people, and I'm talking about fighters in general, have trouble with keeping their other hands up while moving in and striking. Just not very natural instinct.

If you have 'opinion lowered' from that, then you can have high opinion mostly about some ~ top 100 level boxers of the world, who are really well drilled. And random representatives of other striking disciplines.

None of this happens if the person getting hit has strong neck and jaw muscles and knows and remembers how to absorb a hit.

That's widely and often postulated, but it's just not true. As in one cannot state 'none of this happens'. Plenty of guys with absolutely powerful, roided out necks and muscles in general, and striking experience get KO'd as well. Some of them very easily, 'chin' seems to be largely genetic.

Especially if 'strong muscles' are objectively not strong enough, because opponent is of much larger frame.

It happens often, and to good strikers, if they're opponent is just that much better this day. Muscles won't really help.

Spoiler

Show

Jerome Le Banner is mountain of a man, and experienced striker all around, at that time already Kickboxing vetera, Kyokushin black belt, ad so on, but stuff happens if you allow opponent to land such a bomb.

It would probably KTFO me trough the glove no matter how 'strong' neck I had, lol, I'm just not build to take something like that (so is not most people who are not of HW frame).

"There are no people immune to strikes, only those who haven't been hit well enough"

Bracing against hit is not always possible, if you're getting feinted and generally bested in striking, but you have written few paragraphs about it anyway.

Okay. Yes, fair enough, if you're up against someone who doesn't know how to defend themselves with either their hands or their body mechanics it is relatively easy to take them down with a straightforward blow as long as you have the strength for it.

And vast majority of population would have absolutely no more idea how to defend themselves than those guys. So equating to some of best martial artists out there, who do it seriosuly and whole time is not the best idea.

Strike against the clavicle so that the hand rests on either the back of the neck or the back of the shoulder, and apply downward pressure against the bone with the forearm. If you have really absurdly strong fingers, you can do that directly to the bone with your thumb.

That seems applicable from thai clinch, but as long as opponents resisting, he can rather easily shrug off the forearm.

What is this supposed to do in effect, anyway?

[Conners]

A lot of the breaking stone tiles and wood is faked, using a physics trick. But, it is possible to train yourself to the extent where you can break a baseball-bat or a concrete slab with your body. It's still overrated, but it's probably useful.

As for hardening hands, gkathellar may be referring to strengthening the muscles in your hands and fingers, so that you can rip things. Found out a while ago from someone that this is actually pretty common among ancient warrior traditions. That cute curled-finger look in the Tiger style of various martial arts, is because the style is about ripping (not so cute).

[Spiryt]

A lot of the breaking stone tiles and wood is faked, using a physics trick. But, it is possible to train yourself to the extent where you can break a baseball-bat or a concrete slab with your body. It's still overrated, but it's probably useful.

That's hardly has anything to do with hardening though, Just proper technique and nothing better to do.

If you smash said baseball bat/small tree/whatever, it will hurt some, if you fail to do so - serious injury is coming.

Thai boxers traditionally chop down local soft trees with low kicks, it help to build endurance, resistance etc.

And is also all over good practice in the scary, alien world where nobody had invented punching bags yet.

[Conners]

What? Technique? I don't really consider harsh physical training to be technique. It might build technique, but that's more of a happy coincidence to being tough as nuts.