Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk X

[Mike_G]

Edited for clarity. The kind of cuts that happened in Silver's time - sometimes penetrating six inches into the head -could prove immediately lethal.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 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 (at significant cost) after which the large scale raids ceased. A much larger Mongol invasion force was defeated near Pest 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. 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]

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]

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... :)

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G

[Straybow]

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]

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 - but Pinker tends to make stuff up 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]

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 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]

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 Japan, but I'm deeply skeptical that missiles caused the most fatalities in Western Europe. The wounds from skeletons at both Visby and Towton include numerous cuts that penetrated bone.

[mcv]

"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]

(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]

Methodology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._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. 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]

Looks like the conclusion shouldn't be that the middle ages were more violent, but that the Chinese are more violent.

[Mathis]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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. The link refers only to Germany, but you find similar numbers from England and other European lands. However, there is lots of uncertainty 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.

[fusilier]

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]

What's your evidence for this? The numbers - though inconclusive - support this for medieval Japan, but I'm deeply skeptical that missiles caused the most fatalities in Western Europe. The wounds from skeletons at both Visby and Towton 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]

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.

*Asian weapons and armor are discussed and compared to European equivalents quite commonly. In fact katana myth debunking is pretty much a recurrent theme.
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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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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".