Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XI

[Yora]

How common was it, in different locations and time periods, to actually have one weapon with which one sticks throughout ones whole warrior/soldier career?

Could a sword endure 30 years of "active duty", or was it neccessary to regularly scrap bladed weapons and make new ones from the material?

[Spiryt]

So, this is two unrelated questions.

In my naive and vanished (ha!) youth, I supposed that it would be useful to (early) medieval armies to bypass shieldwalls by means of enlarged picks, used as polearms or similar. How much resemblance does this bear to reality, and what would some examples be?

Well, weapons resembling picks were certainly used a lot, especially in late Medieval/Renaissance, though not in ages/places where 'shieldwalls' were most popular.

Certainly it doesn't seem any better weapon against such formations that most, and actually attacking shield with large pick would mostly end with having no pick in your hands at best.

but compact masses of spear armed troops are also good for fending off cavalry.

Well, compact mass of spear armed infantry is good at fending off pretty much everything. How well will it do against, say, other such formation will obviously depend on comparable 'quality' of both, and many other things.

It's a perfectly viable tactic, the only issue is getting close enough to crack some heads/shields without getting shish-kebabed on the spearmen. With a 9ft spear, there's potentially 4-5 people within effective range when you try and close (and that's not including the back ranks).

Judging by pictures and descriptions, Huscarls with axes tended to be well armored. Very skilled fighters too, elite forces from definition.

9ft for one handed is a bit large as well, though we don't have that much preserved hafts.

Largest of more than 50 spear found in Lednica Lake was exactly 10.5 feet, and most certainly two handed.

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How common was it, in different locations and time periods, to actually have one weapon with which one sticks throughout ones whole warrior/soldier career?

Could a sword endure 30 years of "active duty", or was it neccessary to regularly scrap bladed weapons and make new ones from the material?

If those 30 years were actually some, even very 'light' fighting, interventions, chases, guarding etc. few times a year, I really think it would be hard to survive quite as long...

Modern replicas are used in controlled, 'peaceful' manner, without emotions of actual fight, usually don't have any actual edge, and usually don't survive more than few years.

[Galloglaich]

Such weapons are, usually, referred to as ribauldequins, they are believed to first have been used by the English in the 14th century.

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

They are basically the predecessor to the "volley gun", and volley gun is an acceptable translation for the word. The main distinction, if there is any, is that a ribauldequin was a series of very light cannon, where as a volley gun typically used a hand-firearm caliber. A distinction that's easily blurred in the 14th and 15th century . . .

--EDIT-- Organ Gun is another term used for this weapon. --EDIT--

Like so many technologies (war wagons, handguns, flails, the Czechs didn't invent them, they just made them better and more effective by integrating them into a real combined - arms force. This is one from Kutna Hora, Bohemia, circa 1430. Used in the Hussite Wars.



G

[eulmanis12]

How common was it, in different locations and time periods, to actually have one weapon with which one sticks throughout ones whole warrior/soldier career?

Could a sword endure 30 years of "active duty", or was it neccessary to regularly scrap bladed weapons and make new ones from the material?

I can't say its very likely to happen, especialy in pre industrial times, though weapons such as maces and hammers can last quite a while, they dont go dull, and for the most part dont degrade, though the handle would need replacement every so often

in more modern times it has been known to happen. The majority of the Abrams tanks used by the US army are quite old, as are aircraft such as the B52.

My neighbor served in the marines korea and saw action, he still has his colt 45 in working order and still goes out to shoot it every once in a while.

firearms such as the AK47 almost never break and many who use the AK 47 carry weapons manufactured before they were born.

during the expansion west in the 1800s it was not uncommon for indian braves to be equipped with very old firearms as they could not manufacture their own and had to rely on what they could trade for. As such the weapons were well maintained and tended to be used by multiple generations.

[kennyboyraven]

Wow! Can I just thank everyone for their input on the Crossbow scenario. I am happy I have a good grasp of the physics of the situation now. :) Once again thankyou all who have imparted their knowledge and theories. :)

[Brother Oni]

The only evidence I can think of that there were any Norman heavy foot at Hastings comes from William of Poitiers, and it is not exactly reliable. Probably there was, but it seems what the Normans chiefly did was shoot at range with arrows and ride up to throw javelins into the wall, attempting to exploit gaps with the same cavalry (or maybe a reserve).

Well that was just a general answer to 'what if two shield walls met each other'. I believe you're right in that Norman heavy foot was in limited numbers (if at all) at Hastings.

Judging by pictures and descriptions, Huscarls with axes tended to be well armored. Very skilled fighters too, elite forces from definition.

I agree with this assessment, however it's somewhat difficult to swing a two handed axe around when you have a friendly rank of spearmen in formation in front of you.
In formation (using it one handed), you tend to spend a lot of time deflecting spear thrusts since the opposing side is out of reach for you.

9ft for one handed is a bit large as well, though we don't have that much preserved hafts.

Largest of more than 50 spear found in Lednica Lake was exactly 10.5 feet, and most certainly two handed.

I didn't say anything about the spearmen in the shield wall using one handed spears (one handed spears tend to be rather short, typically around 4ft, 6ft at most).
It's perfectly possible to use a shield and a two handed spear (I've done it), but it requires the shield to have a looped strap:

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It's considerably easier to fight effectively like this with a kite shield than a round one, since your legs are left exposed.

Your grip also changes in that the spear slides in and out of your front hand much like a snooker cue (the strap where it attaches to the shield is hooked by your thumb). Alternately, you can just have a fixed grip and stab with it, but it makes staying in formation tricky.

Wow! Can I just thank everyone for their input on the Crossbow scenario. I am happy I have a good grasp of the physics of the situation now. :) Once again thankyou all who have imparted their knowledge and theories. :)

A lot of these questions can be boiled down to the simple maxim of "Being on the business end of death dealing implement = bad to varying degrees".

It's the 'varying degrees' part we tend to argue on.

[Spiryt]

It's certainly possible, I wonder how much use it saw though.

Sources like Bayeux Tapestry, and other illustrations show quite a few infantrymen (or just dismounted riders) using kite shields strapped over their shoulders, couldn't find any example of two handed spear use in such configuration.

[AMX]

Check out the weapon on the cover of the first book:
http://www.waffenbuecher.com/HiMaSch/schuy.htm

That's an Austrian flintlock grenade pistol, caliber 78mm, dated 1761.

Does anybody have an idea what sort of performance could be expected from that?
I'm primarily interested in range, compared with typical throwing ranges.

[Brother Oni]

It's certainly possible, I wonder how much use it saw though.

Sources like Bayeux Tapestry, and other illustrations show quite a few infantrymen (or just dismounted riders) using kite shields strapped over their shoulders, couldn't find any example of two handed spear use in such configuration.

True. I just found this quote from the organisation where my experience of re-enactment and western spear fighting comes from:

Spears were generally used in an over arm technique, (this can be seen in period manuscripts), which meant the prime targets were the face (particularly the eyes, the weakest part of the skull, the throat and upper chest; there being little sense in embedding the blade too permanently in your opponents shield. One big advantage of this method of using a spear is that there was no need to change the grip in order to throw it. Regia does not employ this technique during our own re-enactments for reasons of pure safety.

It also indicates that spears tended to be from 5-9ft, with 7 being the average, so I stand corrected.

Edit: That said, phalanxes used the 13-21 ft sarissa with a shield, but that's a bit out of this time period.

[Galloglaich]

Looking at how shield walls were beaten historically...

So going back to Roman times, armies would march up to within a certain distance of one another, and begin to shower each other with darts, rocks and javelins. Roman armor-piercing javelins (pila) were also very famously used to disable enemies shields by getting tangled up in them. Once one side had lost some cohesion, the other side would charge in and destroy them with spears, axes and swords. This same basic pattern continued from Roman times (and before) all the way up to the Battle of Hastings and for a generation or two afterword, depending on the specific place.

But going pretty far back, we do see examples where the shield wall was defeated.

The Huns beat the Romans by using very powerful recurve bows and shooting first high, then strait at them, (alternating) this was mainly because the Romans at that time didn't have any ranged weapons which could reach out as far.

The Sassanids and Parthians successfully used a combination of horse archers shooting (I think less powerful than the Huns) recurve bows with heavy cavalry charges by cataphracts in several battles. Carrhae is a particularly staggering example of the success of this tactic, comparable to some of the unequal victories by the Christian Crusaders in the 1st Crusade.

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

But conversely heavy Frankish infantry under Charles Martel successfuly resisted attacks by a huge army of cavalry at Poitiers / Tours

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

The Franks themselves successfully used light infantry with thrown axes (Francisca) to defeat shield walls. The axes would skip and bounce along the ground and slam into the shield, disabling or impeding it much like the pilum (the Franks also used pilum they called 'angon', though they used them both for thrusting and throwing)

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

The Visigoths famously used heavy cavalry to break Roman infantry shield walls at Adrianople, after frustrating them with a Wagon Circle. This may or may not have indicated a change in cavalry tactics from the Parthian / Sassanid Cataphract type (also used by the Romans as 'Clibinari') which, from what I've read, was a little slower and didn't use the same kind of saddle or stirrups as what we see later in Central or Western Europe.

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

In the Carolingian era, heavy cavalry was beginning to be used effectively against infantry shield walls, but not always... it depended on how aggressive the cavalry was and tough and well disciplined the infantry was.

During the Viking era the Huscarls did seem to use their axes against shield walls sometimes, but around the edges of the formation. They mostly served as bodyguards to powerful men, but in Dark Ages / Medieval combat the armies were small and the Royal or Princely bodyguard was often committed to the battle. Hastings as others mentioned upthread, could have gone either way and there seemed to be a rough parity at that point between the cavalry and the infantry. It's worth noting that a lot of the Viking successes in France and elsehwere on the Continent hinged upon doing fast raids that avoided pitched battles with the Carolingian / Frankish heavy cavalry.

I think the success rate of heavy cavalry against infantry had to do with the effectiveness of the armor of the cavalry and if the horses were armored (as well as how tough the respective cavalry and infantry were). Bows, crossbows, and later guns made the lighter plywood shields of the dark ages obsolete. Heavy Cavalry became pretty dominant for a while in Europe during the period roughly 1100 - 1300, but shields never really went away though and as we discussed upthread, seemed to come back in the later Middle Ages in the form of the pavise, and 'mini-pavise' which looks suspiciously similar to a Roman scutum, only perhaps strengthened by some composite construction to be more resistant to high-energy arrows, crossbow bolts and bullets. We also started to see the metal shields, first small iron bucklers, then larger steel ones like the rotella, though never so far as I know anything pavise-sized in iron or steel, probably because they would have been too heavy.

G

[Yora]

Does anyone here know something about military "ranks" and hierarchy in Brittain/France/Germany/Scandinavia during the 6th to 10th century?

How was military leadership structured and what special positions where there?

[Spiryt]

If anybody still cares about pavises in 16th century, I've been reading about Jan Tarnowski, and apparently he writes about use of pavises in his military works quite a lot.

http://www.digitalsilesia.eu/dlibra/...index&dirids=1

not much here, sadly, but about infantry guarding camp entrance with pavises.


Dunno if there are any English translations anywhere.

Bows, crossbows, and later guns made the lighter plywood shields of the dark ages obsolete.

Well, not all Dark Age shields were really light though. Some were more than 2cm thick...

Anyway, I'm still not sure how 'obsolete' bows could make any shield. Bows, even rather heavy ones, are obviously ancient and ubiquitous weapon, shields that wouldn't protect against them decently probably wouldn't be very practical on large scale battlefield.

[Galloglaich]

If anybody still cares about pavises in 16th century, (snip) not much here, sadly, but about infantry guarding camp entrance with pavises.

Dunno if there are any English translations anywhere.

I'm interested, but do not speak Polish...

Well, not all Dark Age shields were really light though. Some were more than 2cm thick...

I spent a lot of time at one point in my life a few years ago trying to figure out how thick shields were from the Viking era and then again later, Roman shields. The conclusion I came to was that all the extant Viking shields they knew about then (this was about 10 years ago) were in the range of 3/8 " to 1/2" thick (9.5-12mm). I think there was one scutum which was found in Egypt which was quite a bit heavier, but there was a debate at the time as to how representative that was of European Roman kit. I don't really know.

Also the shields (both Roman and Viking) were often made of light, relatively fibrous wood such as limewood, rather than heavy wood like oak. The explanation I read at the time (based on some experiments done by re-enactors) was that the light, fibrous limewood was actually better at catching and stopping or slowing arrowheads and javelin points, whereas the oak while stronger would split much easier.

As far as I know most of the shields found since then have fallen into this same range but I'd be interested to catch up on the latest sources, could you share where you heard of the 2cm one? Where was that found?

The other thing to point out regarding shields is that the 10mm thick shields I'm referring to, with their iron bosses and rawhide rims, were actually the heavier shields out there. Most of the others in use through the Classical period and "Dark Ages" (Migration Era) were very light, made of wicker or animal hide around a wooden frame. Like the Pelta or a Zulu shield.

Anyway, I'm still not sure how 'obsolete' bows could make any shield. Bows, even rather heavy ones, are obviously ancient and ubiquitous weapon, shields that wouldn't protect against them decently probably wouldn't be very practical on large scale battlefield.

Well I guess the issue there is there are bows, and then there are bows. The assumption I'm working from is that the bows first introduced by the Huns during the invasions of Attila were more powerful than anything that the Romans had seen up to that point, and caused more severe damage including pointing up severe limitations with the scutum. After the Huns were decisively defeated in the mid-5th Century as far as I know in Europe, bows of that power were not common or used systematically by any army until the Welsh longbow began to be adapted by the English in the 12th Century (and gradually made more powerful over the course of 3 centuries, or at least that is the theory proposed by The Great Warbow) and then the Mongols re-introduced very powerful steppe bows to Europe in the 13th Century.

Whether or not the Parthian and later Sassanian bows were as powerful as those of the Huns has been a subject of a lot of debate, I'm not sure where the preponderance of evidence lies.

I know the 'warbow' thesis is also controversial, some authors argue that bows were more or less the same all over Europe and the English longbow as such wasn't really unique, others make the longbow out to be the ultimate English uber-weapon. I fall somewhere between these two positions. I know very powerful, quite long bows which we would probably consider longbows were being made in neolithic times both in the British Isles and in Scandinavia, and later in the Medieval period we see them also showing up in Burgundy, Italy and other places. But I think the English use of them was rather unique and that they were making unusually (by European standards) effective weapons by the 13th -14th Century. Weapons which a 'dark ages' type shield could not cope with.

Same for the crossbows we saw in the 11th-15th Centuries.

Certainly the Mongol recurve was also a major shock in the 13th, just as the Huns bow was to the Romans in the 5th-6th. And also in both cases apparently too much for most shields.

If you have different theories on these basic concepts I'd be glad to hear it.

G

[fusilier]

Check out the weapon on the cover of the first book:
http://www.waffenbuecher.com/HiMaSch/schuy.htm

That's an Austrian flintlock grenade pistol, caliber 78mm, dated 1761.

Does anybody have an idea what sort of performance could be expected from that?
I'm primarily interested in range, compared with typical throwing ranges.

Wow, that's cool. I have no clue as to the range -- similar weapons are sometimes referred to as "hand mortars". I don't think I've ever seen a pistol sized one before -- usually they're more like a blunderbuss in size. Sometimes they even had adaptors that fit onto the bayonet lug of a normal musket.

[Galloglaich]

Wow, that's cool. I have no clue as to the range -- similar weapons are sometimes referred to as "hand mortars". I don't think I've ever seen a pistol sized one before -- usually they're more like a blunderbuss in size. Sometimes they even had adaptors that fit onto the bayonet lug of a normal musket.

Love those things, the "Renaissance Grenade Launcher". Awesome for any RPG...

They date back to the 16th Century... apparently it took a lot of expertise and trust in whoever made the projectile since, being fuse based, it could be a little dicey if it misfired (as early firearms so often did)

They were used at least a little though, apparently one was even used in action in (what would later become ) the US, I remember some comment about 30 rounds being fired 'in earnest' in some battle against some Native Americans.

I think the main limitation was the high level of expertise required for whoever used the weapon and whoever made and prepared the ammunition.

EDIT: the Wiki says they could be shot about 80 yards, or at least one version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_mortar

G

[warty goblin]

Also the shields (both Roman and Viking) were often made of light, relatively fibrous wood such as limewood, rather than heavy wood like oak. The explanation I read at the time (based on some experiments done by re-enactors) was that the light, fibrous limewood was actually better at catching and stopping or slowing arrowheads and javelin points, whereas the oak while stronger would split much easier.

I've done a fair amount of woodworking in both oak and American basswood - which is apparently very similar European lime. Some things I've noticed:

Oak is strong across the grain - it takes a lot of force to break a length of oak. When it does break, it almost always tears apart along a grain line, the actual fibers themselves seldom break to a significant degree. Often in fact you'll have two pieces split apart, with a couple long fibers still holding them together. It can be surprisingly difficult to tear these apart, even though there's hardly wood still connecting the two pieces. If you dry it for many years , it becomes harder than you'd think possible. It's still heavy stuff though, even well dried. Even eighth inch planking is still hefty stuff, and would be pretty easy to split.

Basswood is really quite soft. It's not as soft as balsa, but it's pretty easy to cut. I've put a foot long kitchen knife through a quarter inch of the stuff cutting cross grain easily - for comparison I'd bet the same cut would bounce off of decade-dried oak without leaving more than a shallow groove. Basswood's main advantage for carving, and I assume for shield-making as well, is that it's about the most grainless wood you'll ever meet. Most of the time when carving you don't even have to pay attention to which direction the grain runs in, because it simply does not split except under quite significant torque. Even then the split won't travel far, and needs to be pretty close to the ends of the fibers.

It's worth noting that basswood logs tend to be fairly easy to split because they're so light and soft. It's easy to get a deep enough penetration the wedge shaped blade of a splitting maul pulls the log apart. Since you can't really deliver the kind of swing it takes to split logs in the middle of a fight, and no reasonably heftable shield could survive it anyways, this isn't really a downside.

(Want something hard to split? Elm, and some cottonwood. Stuff's got grain running every which way. I've hit them hard as I can with a nine pound splitting maul, and the damn thing literally bounces off. You can do this repeatedly without doing any significant damage to the wood.)

[Galloglaich]

I've heard basswood is almost like balsa, I was wondering if linden was a little tougher maybe? It's a mystery to me how these shields worked. I have made some myself out of birch plywood which were very light, 3/8" inch, and have held up pretty well to beating from wood sticks and nylon fencing swords, but I kind of wonder how well they would stand up to a sharp.

Can you describe the characteristics of some other woods like birch, poplar, spruce, fir, (northern European species of) pine? I believe those were used for shields historically as well.

Ash was, of course, used for spears quite a bit. Now sadly most ash trees are dead...

EDIT: An in-depth article on Viking shields, pretty much corroborates what I was saying earlier.

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/arti...ng_shields.htm

G

[rrgg]

So, this is two unrelated questions.

In my naive and vanished (ha!) youth, I supposed that it would be useful to (early) medieval armies to bypass shieldwalls by means of enlarged picks, used as polearms or similar. How much resemblance does this bear to reality, and what would some examples be?

I don't think you'd want to use picks necessarily, or any weapon likely to get stuck in the shield. The goal doesn't have to be penetration, especially if your target is covered in thick rawhide, rather what you want to do is deliver a heavy blow capable of splintering the wood regardless and reducing the shield into a floppy mess.

Other than that it certainly seems like a valid tactic. A long, two-handed poleaxe shouldn't have too much trouble outreaching a one-handed spear held at the midpoint, and if held near the butt spearthrusts won't have much power anyways. But like any other, using weapons of weight against a shiedwall probably has its own advantages and disadvantages.

I'm interested, but do not speak Polish...



I spent a lot of time at one point in my life a few years ago trying to figure out how thick shields were from the Viking era and then again later, Roman shields. The conclusion I came to was that all the extant Viking shields they knew about then (this was about 10 years ago) were in the range of 3/8 " to 1/2" thick (9.5-12mm). I think there was one scutum which was found in Egypt which was quite a bit heavier, but there was a debate at the time as to how representative that was of European Roman kit. I don't really know.

Also the shields (both Roman and Viking) were often made of light, relatively fibrous wood such as limewood, rather than heavy wood like oak. The explanation I read at the time (based on some experiments done by re-enactors) was that the light, fibrous limewood was actually better at catching and stopping or slowing arrowheads and javelin points, whereas the oak while stronger would split much easier.

As far as I know most of the shields found since then have fallen into this same range but I'd be interested to catch up on the latest sources, could you share where you heard of the 2cm one? Where was that found?

The other thing to point out regarding shields is that the 10mm thick shields I'm referring to, with their iron bosses and rawhide rims, were actually the heavier shields out there. Most of the others in use through the Classical period and "Dark Ages" (Migration Era) were very light, made of wicker or animal hide around a wooden frame. Like the Pelta or a Zulu shield.



Well I guess the issue there is there are bows, and then there are bows. The assumption I'm working from is that the bows first introduced by the Huns during the invasions of Attila were more powerful than anything that the Romans had seen up to that point, and caused more severe damage including pointing up severe limitations with the scutum. After the Huns were decisively defeated in the mid-5th Century as far as I know in Europe, bows of that power were not common or used systematically by any army until the Welsh longbow began to be adapted by the English in the 12th Century (and gradually made more powerful over the course of 3 centuries, or at least that is the theory proposed by The Great Warbow) and then the Mongols re-introduced very powerful steppe bows to Europe in the 13th Century.

Whether or not the Parthian and later Sassanian bows were as powerful as those of the Huns has been a subject of a lot of debate, I'm not sure where the preponderance of evidence lies.

I know the 'warbow' thesis is also controversial, some authors argue that bows were more or less the same all over Europe and the English longbow as such wasn't really unique, others make the longbow out to be the ultimate English uber-weapon. I fall somewhere between these two positions. I know very powerful, quite long bows which we would probably consider longbows were being made in neolithic times both in the British Isles and in Scandinavia, and later in the Medieval period we see them also showing up in Burgundy, Italy and other places. But I think the English use of them was rather unique and that they were making unusually (by European standards) effective weapons by the 13th -14th Century. Weapons which a 'dark ages' type shield could not cope with.

Same for the crossbows we saw in the 11th-15th Centuries.

Certainly the Mongol recurve was also a major shock in the 13th, just as the Huns bow was to the Romans in the 5th-6th. And also in both cases apparently too much for most shields.

If you have different theories on these basic concepts I'd be glad to hear it.

G

The argument I keep coming back to is that it's not just bows, shields and armor of any era also had to go up against all sorts of melee weapons and throwing spears that could be capable of a whole lot of damage in the right hands.

[TuggyNE]

Lots of interesting answers to my first question, thanks guys.

I don't think you'd want to use picks necessarily, or any weapon likely to get stuck in the shield. The goal doesn't have to be penetration, especially if your target is covered in thick rawhide, rather what you want to do is deliver a heavy blow capable of splintering the wood regardless and reducing the shield into a floppy mess.

Other than that it certainly seems like a valid tactic. A long, two-handed poleaxe shouldn't have too much trouble outreaching a one-handed spear held at the midpoint, and if held near the butt spearthrusts won't have much power anyways. But like any other, using weapons of weight against a shiedwall probably has its own advantages and disadvantages.

I think I may have expressed that poorly; the idea wasn't to hit the shields at all, but to go up and over and attack helmets or shoulders or whatever, literally bypassing the shields entirely as much as possible.

Edit: this would probably have to be paired with spears held fairly low in case the shieldwall was raised in unison.

[Galloglaich]

The argument I keep coming back to is that it's not just bows, shields and armor of any era also had to go up against all sorts of melee weapons and throwing spears that could be capable of a whole lot of damage in the right hands.

I think the main purpose of most shields historically was to protect against missiles. Use in hand to hand fighting was also important but secondary.

And when you use a shield in a hand to hand fight, you don't just let it sit there and somebody hack at it. You have to use the shield like a weapon itself, you meet the attack the way you would parry with a sword, you guide the strike or thrust away from you, with what the Germans call fuhlen, 'feeling'. Otherwise it's quickly going to get sliced to pieces.

Which did clearly happen to early shields. There are numerous depictions in the Viking sagas of shields being sliced to pieces, in the laws for duels (Holmgang etc.) usually the participant was allowed at least 3 shields (in some cases, another man would hold the shield for them, which is something I have trouble visualizing).

One example of a kind of 'hooked' weapon which was used effectively against shields, though I think more to just slice them up than anything else, was the Dacian Falx. The Romans had to equip their Legionaires with better arm protection (adapted from Gladiator armor) to cope with them, as so many Legionaires were getting their arms lopped off.



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

G

[Saph]

Okay, so I was scrolling through pictures of Fire Emblem characters (as a result of this question) and had a random question about the practicality of video-game armour. So naturally I thought of this thread.

How useful would the cavalry armour in the Fire Emblem series be in reality? Pictures below:

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Mostly I was curious about the hip plates. The idea behind the design seems to be that they're armouring only some parts to save on weight. (Well, okay, the real reason for the design is because it looks cool, but I was wondering if there's any historical basis for that kind of limited use of plates.)

Obviously full plate armour would give better protection if you could get it, but let's assume that option's off the table for weight/cost reasons.

[Thiel]

Well, from the looks of it, the guy won't actually be able to sit on a horse since the hip plate will bite into his torso when he spreads his legs.

[Traab]

It appears to be better designed to stop hacking weapons than stabbing weapons. There are too many gaps to protect from someone going for a thrust, but I bet you could do a solid job making sure to take any swung weapons on a plate. Also, the breastplate looks like it protects the heart and lungs, but then it leaves your entire midsection fully exposed. So great, you can avoid getting cleanly killed, you get to enjoy hours of agony with your intestines and other gut organs being pierced and stabbed instead.

[Spiryt]

Well, all good points, I just wanted to point out that there most certainly was great variety in shields, designs, weight, resistance to different kind of threats.

Here about some really thick shields finds

Shields from lime, and other soft, 'catching' woods were definitely one idea, but we had hard shields from maple (one of Birka shields) oaks, alders, or even very soft conifers like fir.

Here we have 9th century baltic shield that apparently had grass stuffed between leather and wood for additional protection.

So there were a lot of designs, not only agile, light, but flimsy 'two shots and gone' shields.

(based on some experiments done by re-enactors) was that the light, fibrous limewood was actually better at catching and stopping or slowing arrowheads and javelin points, whereas the oak while stronger would split much easier.

We had to remember that from the lack of materials/knowledge, a lot of reenacting experiments tests stuff made from sawmill planks, and other modern materials.

While in this particular applications, antique methods of acquiring planks/pieces of wood can make really staggering difference - particularly torn wood (is that right english word?).

English in the 12th Century (and gradually made more powerful over the course of 3 centuries, or at least that is the theory proposed by The Great Warbow) and then the Mongols re-introduced very powerful steppe bows to Europe in the 13th Century.

I don't disagree, but is there any evidence that Mongol bows were particularly more poweful than, say, bows of Avars, Khazars, Pechenegs, or any other of them very nice steppe people that were hoping in for visits in Europe?

One example of a kind of 'hooked' weapon which was used effectively against shields, though I think more to just slice them up than anything else, was the Dacian Falx. The Romans had to equip their Legionaires with better arm protection (adapted from Gladiator armor) to cope with them, as so many Legionaires were getting their arms lopped off.



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

G

I've heard it plenty of times, I wonder how much truth in it there is though.

In that particular experiment, effects would be very catastrophic for Dacian guy though - huge, exposing swing, just to have falx stuck, no part of legionaire actually reached.

[Yora]

Also, the shield seems to be on a fixed mount. On a legionaires arm, it would swing with the blow.

[AMX]

Love those things, the "Renaissance Grenade Launcher". Awesome for any RPG...

They date back to the 16th Century... apparently it took a lot of expertise and trust in whoever made the projectile since, being fuse based, it could be a little dicey if it misfired (as early firearms so often did)

They were used at least a little though, apparently one was even used in action in (what would later become ) the US, I remember some comment about 30 rounds being fired 'in earnest' in some battle against some Native Americans.

I think the main limitation was the high level of expertise required for whoever used the weapon and whoever made and prepared the ammunition.

EDIT: the Wiki says they could be shot about 80 yards, or at least one version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_mortar

G

Ah, "Hand Mortar" - having the right search term makes quite a difference
You can actually get replicas of some types

Seems 80 yards is typical for use as a line-thrower - grenades should go somewhat further, since a thrown line has insanely high drag...
Apparently, tennis balls can be shot up to 300 yards

[Traab]

In that particular experiment, effects would be very catastrophic for Dacian guy though - huge, exposing swing, just to have falx stuck, no part of legionaire actually reached.

Maybe not, look how far past the shield the blade is sticking. Im not sure how close to the body a legionnaire would hold his shield, but he could get caught out by that. Though the rest of what you said is spot on. You can almost see a 2 second window for the guy to get stabbed as he winds up the blow for that attack where he is so wide open you could pitch a tent in his unprotected area. Also, as Yora mentioned, that is on a fixed mount, the sheer amount of force on the downward swing would possibly take the roman way off balance, possibly removing the shield from his arm, possibly pulling him to the ground with the momentum, I dunno.

[Spiryt]

Maybe not, look how far past the shield the blade is sticking. Im not sure how close to the body a legionnaire would hold his shield, but he could get caught out by that.

In case of unarmored legionnaire, this could be possibly very harmful blow indeed, though it does seem to fall to short.

Also, as Yora mentioned, that is on a fixed mount, the sheer amount of force on the downward swing would possibly take the roman way off balance, possibly removing the shield from his arm, possibly pulling him to the ground with the momentum, I dunno.

If the falx is cutting trough, force of the impact won't be great at all - simple physics of F = m*a (in this case deceleration being slow and over time).

Aside from that, hard to see the way for such a swing at rather heavy shield to in any way outbalance the holder.

In case of some really powerful blow, I could easily see it being pulled out of his hand, I guess.

[warty goblin]

I've heard basswood is almost like balsa, I was wondering if linden was a little tougher maybe? It's a mystery to me how these shields worked. I have made some myself out of birch plywood which were very light, 3/8" inch, and have held up pretty well to beating from wood sticks and nylon fencing swords, but I kind of wonder how well they would stand up to a sharp.

Basswood is very soft, but nowhere near as soft as balsa. Balsa's so soft it actually takes a very sharp blade to cut cleanly, because otherwise the pressure just crushes it. Both are favored for woodcarving because they lack significant grain, which means you don't have to worry about splitting.

This is certainly true with basswood. I've got a chunk of it around here I just did some test hits on. The piece is about 2 1/2 inches on a side, maybe a foot long. The best striking implement I have available is a fairly heavy kitchen knife with a ten inch blade. The edge isn't razor sharp or anything, but I suspect most weapon edges weren't either. This is a knife I got as 'severance pay' when I left a commercial kitchen I used to work at, and for reference I recall loping through two or three inch chunks of beef fat with it fairly easily.

For this morning's test hitting, I put the wood on the lid of my trashcan, since any damage to that won't come out of my security deposit. This put the wood at just above waist height, which wasn't terribly convenient. It did however keep it stable, and minimized the damage that could occur if I missed my mark.

The first hit was across the grain, so a cut into a flat surface with no corner to bite into. The blade penetrated about 3/16ths of an inch, quite uniformly across the width of the wood. There was no evidence of splitting, and only a few splinters near one edge of the wood indicated the blade had crushed, as opposed to cut, the fibers.

The second hit was along the grain, hitting the top of the stick. The blade struck at an angle, and at its deepest penetrated perhaps 3/4ths of an inch, with the shallow portion of the cut just creasing the surface. In spite of this being a powerful blow delivered in-line with the grain, there was only superficial cracking.

I tried delivering several additional blows to the flat of the wood, running along the grain. I had a hard time getting these to stick, mostly because of the height I was swinging at. With the edge of the blade essentially parallel to the wood, the cuts were exceedingly superficial. I suspect, although did not verify, that several such blows struck at shallow angles to each other would, despite their shallow penetration, cause the surface of the wood to beging to peel away from the body, particularly where the cuts intersected. Striking with the tip at an angle to the wood's surface proved very difficult to do accurately at that height*, but the few hits I did accomplish suggested fairly deep penetration could be achieved. Particularly if the target was bigger and at a more convenient height and angle to the striker's body.


*There's now a new hole in in the steel lid of my garbage can to prove it.

Can you describe the characteristics of some other woods like birch, poplar, spruce, fir, (northern European species of) pine? I believe those were used for shields historically as well.

I've unfortunately done very little work in those. Fir, at least the kind I've used for trim boards on barns etc, splits if you look at it funny, and is fairly soft as well. On the plus side it weighs very little. American White Pine tends to be extremely soft, and splits fairly easily, I really have no idea how it compares to European varieties.

I have a Norwegian style belt knife with a haft made from burl birch (which is European, not American). I did most of the work on the handle myself, and found the wood to be quite hard, and to be fairly split resistant. I was however doing what amounted to detail carving and polishing, which obviously doesn't put very much stress on the wood. I believe this was also wood from the root ball of the tree, which can have very different properties to trunk or branch wood.

Since I had that knife out, I thought I'd try it out against my trusty basswood blank as well. This one has a blade that's about 3 1/2 inches long, maybe 3/4 inch wide, and has a very thick spine - nearly a quarter inch! The edge is ground down in a single bevel, so it basically has the edge geometry of an axe.

On the cut this did a lot more damage than I thought it would. The wide angle of the edge proved effective not only for cutting, but for crushing the wood as well. It did not penetrate as well as the kitchen knife, but made big, noticeable gouges to the other's finer cut marks. Thrusting proved ineffective, although that says probably more for my deficient technique* than it does either knife or wood.

*Being a Norwegian belt knife, it lacks any kind of cross and the haft is in fact widest in the middle of the grip, narrowing towards the butt and blade. An overeager thrust is likely to push the hand down onto the blade. I'd rather not slice any fingers to the bone this early in the morning.

Ash was, of course, used for spears quite a bit. Now sadly most ash trees are dead...

It also makes wonderful hafts for axes. I've used splitting mauls with ash shafts, and they last a couple years, despite some rough abuse - sometimes you missplace your swing and hit the log with the top of the shaft instead of the blade. Wrapped in a bit of electrical tape to cushion the blow and protect the wood fibers from splintering under impact, they survive this handily. I've even accidentally split logs doing that, just from the impact.

IIRC ash splits apart like butter when you hit the end grain though.

[Traab]

In case of unarmored legionnaire, this could be possibly very harmful blow indeed, though it does seem to fall to short.




If the falx is cutting trough, force of the impact won't be great at all - simple physics of F = m*a (in this case deceleration being slow and over time).

Aside from that, hard to see the way for such a swing at rather heavy shield to in any way outbalance the holder.

In case of some really powerful blow, I could easily see it being pulled out of his hand, I guess.

Yeah even with those minor quibbles its still a really REALLY stupid thing to try and do. I just wanted to throw out a few ways it could have some minor benefits. Also that F=m*a formula, doesnt that only apply towards things like say, a thrown projectile? I mean, that weapon still has the force of the warriors muscles behind it pushing it further. Like how a rocket still has force behind it even if its held at a dead stop, because there is still something pushing it forward. I dont know how the formula gets adjusted, its probably something like F=m*a+x where x equals the force being applied externally or something.