Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXV

[ExLibrisMortis]

It is possible, I suppose, that the massacre was a punishment, intended to wipe out the settlement; that might explain why the jewellery wasn't looted (tainted by the crime) and the settlement abandoned (also tainted), plus perhaps the weapons (disarmed, for safety or as symbol). I don't know how realistic such a punitive massacre might be, though, given the local customs of the time.

[snowblizz]

My interpretation of the «*Demography of the massacred*» (p.431) is that every age group include what you rightly call menfolk, i.e. adult warriors. I may be mistaken but only a few remains are explicitly described and they are chosen in my opinion to put the emphasis on the slaughter. I don’t think it is representative of the demographic of the remains found .
Of course, 26 peoples is a little sample but i’m sure a lack of male adult would have been mentioned. The lack of women is clearly stated.

I got the feeling out of the article that it was mostly old and young, and no women. I read it here at work so I'll admit I skimmed a bit. None of the descriptions seem to say anything about what I'd say were warriors. Swedish wikipage does mention adult males, so maybe I've missed it. The issue to me is if there were warriors where are the weapons.

We agree on the value of women. Sorry if that sound awfull, i mean of course that in such a situation women could be treated as valuables commodities. My opinion is also at this point that they were taken away. But i don’t think a slavers raid explain the known circumstances.

Even if the killers had limited time, the jewellery, and some pieces are fairly precious, were not hidden but worn by the massacred. I won’t dwell on the economics of slavery but i’m sure that capturing a living human being take more time and effort than securing a gilded brooche on a corpse. I won‘t sound offending but i could also argue about the economics of taking a child to slavery. In an even more cynical tone, i‘m wondering what it means if someone took the time to kill the babies. It make sense only if you wish to annihiliate a population.

Did they kill the babies or is that just a consequence of noone being left alive? Live captives are way more valuable than jewellry. On the Swedish wikipedia page they talk about hidden jewellry caches as well so much of the wealth was not "in the open". I'm just saying it's possible in the rush to raid a palce, and clearly it's not been systematically looted, you can miss some items of value, humans are harder to accidentally miss. They can also "take direction" so you can order them to gather in the square e.g. instead of having to physically drag them everywhere. Self-moving loot. Children were enslaved too, but usually IIRC you prefer adults, young adults are best as they come at their healthiest, pre-trained, ready-to-go and you get maximal time out of them. In the lightning raid scenario I posited children are more of a burden as you can't expect them to "behave".
A slave raid can definitley fit the known circumstances. It is probably not the *best* explanation, which is why it's not the one posited in the article.

Even the fact that meat was found in the houses sound strange in the case of a raiding party.
In any case a raiding party has little incentive to perform a massacre. They will of course kill some peoples but their main goal is the wealth.
More digging may clear this point, offering a better distribution of the demography of the town.

On the lack of weapon, i understand the place s being of military value. Even with your Interpretation of the demography, I cannot imagine that no warrior was left behind and that no weapon was in stock. Metal detection seem to confirm their rarity and the point remain unclear.

But the main argument is that the place seem frozen in time. I think it is the biggest clue of a total destruction of the society that lived here.
Even if the menfolk were away, they would have done something about the deads as soon as they were back. Im unifamiliar with the funerary rites of the time but i‘m sure you would not let your family rot.

Cremation was stated in the article as the main burial form.

Ok, i can see desesperate warriors swearing not to bury their deads before taking revenge. You can’t escape the years of Roleplaying...

"My" scenario includes the posit that the "menfolk" are away, likely dead. And not returning. Ooo, Roman connection, they are all off fighting for Rome!
My elaborate scenario is therefore that the warriors wnet away to raid some place and got killed there. Their victims came back to punish them. (This could in fact easily be a "local politics" scenario too, I just find the overseas one more poetic).

I think the state of the place could point to something more akin to a political conflict. If the extent of the massacre is proved, his intentionality is more plausible.
You need some reasons to plan a massacre. It this case it erased a relatively prosperous city. I would really like to know more about the region at the time and other comparable places.

Not a city. A fortification. A castle essentially. Wiki about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandby_borg

It is by all accounts rather unique. Normal practice for such places were that you gathered there when threatened. This does seem a bit more akin to a town that the traditional ringforts. They mention that the peoples here had strong ties to the Roman empire, a lot of Roman finds have been found on Öland (compared to other parts of Sweden).

Interestingly local tradition suggests something bad happened and it was a place to avoid, which partly is why it's been left alone.

In any case, such a discovery is great: it let use discuss some very epic and evocative stories. In the meantime the archeologist will certainly learn a lot about the daily life of the place.

It's especially noteworthy because the timeperiod haven't left much similar evidence due to cremation.

I'll say the "political" answer also works, but they already pitched that in the article. So why would I do that.

My main problem is the lack of weapons, because no one would be so thorough in looting weapons and leave valuable stuff around. So I'm honestly trying to reconcile the idea of where the warriors were. Now only what 1% of the site was excavated. Also if it was a more local thing I'd think it'd have left more local traces.

[rrgg]

Chinese did have stirrup before belt-hook - particularly popular during Song Dynasty. Also, the earliest finds of repeating crossbow dates to Warring States.

BTW I was also in that forum.

So are you the same wolflance as the one from the Historium forums? If so I think we may have gotten involved in sort of a proxy argument a few months ago. Something about Manchu cavalry, Sarhu, and pikemen. :x

I still find that a pretty fascinating subject though, the idea that europeans in the 16th century saw pikes as an extremely strong counter against horsemen, while military leaders in china at the same time instead saw the pike as primarily an anti-infantry weapon that was unable to stop a determined cavalry attack. It just goes to show that what we often assume to be universal "rules" when in comes to historic warfare can be heavily influenced by differences in local conditions and local culture and perhaps aren't even fundamental truths in the first place.

[The Jack]

So were chinese crossbows better, given the limb difference?


Now, don't get me wrong, repeating crossbows were garbage weapons unless you poisoned them and fired at clusters of unarmoured peasants, but it just seems a little strange that european crossbows evolved so much and were outperformed by chinese counterparts.

That said the ergonomics of chinese crossbows don't look as pleasant.

[Yora]

I am working on a book and want to make fight scenes rare and frightening, so I'd like to be able to make educated guesses about plausible effects of injuries by spears, arrows, and knives.
I believe unless it's to the throat, knife cuts are not immediately lethal or incapacitating and are comparatively easy to treat. So I guess it really comes down to stab wounds.

Which areas are most likely to kill or incapacitate quickly (and what actually constitutes quick in this context?), and what places would allow a person to continue fighting for a good while but still leave only a slim chance to survive? Anyone have any info on that?
I think spear wounds would obviously be considerably larger and therefore quicker, but I would assume there wouldn't be much difference between a knife and an arrow.

I'd also accept references from boar hunting. Humans and pigs are remarkably similar when it comes to circulation.

[awa]

a gut wound is a classic slow death

[The Jack]

Combat

Stabbing is generally better than slashing, especially with even light armour (padded cloth would protect against most cuts).

I know you didn't ask for this, but Heavy weapons with blunt force were awesome, and can happily break bones and cause internal injuries, but you could probably keep fighting so long as you don't get an exceptionally clean hit to you. In later armour you could knock perhaps knock someone over or send shock through their helmet and it'd make nice drama, but they'd probably be alright unless the attacker was goliath. Clubs were quite popular weapons when metal was scarce and they're somewhat underated.



With spears, you can go for draw cuts if you can't get a good stab, and they can be really nasty against unarmed opponents, but You'd survive a few draw cuts if you don't hit anything too nasty.

When people are heavily armoured, combat centers around trying to either get things in the gaps, or getting a big hit with a blunt/spike/stab weapon (the latter much less good against later armours). When people started to use shields less, this involved more wrestling daggers into eachother. Common choices for dagger insertion
Neck (which was armoured but usually less so)
Visor (or face, if it's open) My personal favourite. It's not really a shock that the english lost a king to an arrow in the eye: you can't properly armour the eye.
Armpit
Inner thigh (not that you should be near it, really)
Gaps in joints. This is the survivable choice, though I'm not sure you'll be fighting much after.


Arrows involve luck. If you were lucky, you might hit less thick parts of plate armour or chance to hit something unarmoured. Except the eyes and the joints however, the more vital parts were not the less armoured parts.

A big thing with spears/arrows is that, well, armour is usually still protective even when it fails. If you manage to shoot an arrow through mail and the gambeson behind it, it's could be abbrasive to the skin, an inch or so in and not hitting vitals, a terminal death that won't take you out of the fight, or it could be stopped by your back plate and you'll be very dead (unlikely).
Range, Angle of impact, strength of the bow, shape of the arrow.

A man can survive bullets, pencils and iron bars shot through the brain. Apparently some people don't even notice the pencils. I doubt it'd work for a broadhead though.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Got a question about the landsknechts: everyone here's likely familiar with their weapons of choice (pikes, pollaxes/halberds, arquebuses and the infamous zweihander), as well as their flamboyant, cobbled-together fashion sense, but what kind of ARMOR did they actually wear? The article on Wikipedia doesn't go into much detail apart from describing the dopplesoldner as an "armored swordsman," and the woodcut pictures in the article just depict the puffed-and-slashed shirts they were famous for.

[wolflance]

Got a question about the landsknechts: everyone here's likely familiar with their weapons of choice (pikes, pollaxes/halberds, arquebuses and the infamous zweihander), as well as their flamboyant, cobbled-together fashion sense, but what kind of ARMOR did they actually wear? The article on Wikipedia doesn't go into much detail apart from describing the dopplesoldner as an "armored swordsman," and the woodcut pictures in the article just depict the puffed-and-slashed shirts they were famous for.

For poorer landsknechts, "bishop's mantle" which is basically a chainmail poncho, was quite common. Better off landsknechts would use breastplate, pikeman's corsetlet, and other munition-grade plate armors, sometimes along with the aforementioned chainmail poncho.

I don't know whether their "leder wams" count as armor or not...

[Haighus]

I am working on a book and want to make fight scenes rare and frightening, so I'd like to be able to make educated guesses about plausible effects of injuries by spears, arrows, and knives.
I believe unless it's to the throat, knife cuts are not immediately lethal or incapacitating and are comparatively easy to treat. So I guess it really comes down to stab wounds.

Which areas are most likely to kill or incapacitate quickly (and what actually constitutes quick in this context?), and what places would allow a person to continue fighting for a good while but still leave only a slim chance to survive? Anyone have any info on that?
I think spear wounds would obviously be considerably larger and therefore quicker, but I would assume there wouldn't be much difference between a knife and an arrow.

I'd also accept references from boar hunting. Humans and pigs are remarkably similar when it comes to circulation.

This depends a lot on the shape and size of the blade/point, and what you mean by "incapacitate".

A quick example. I gave myself a 5mm long cut on my finger last year, that caused me to loose the ability to flex the end of that finger. Without modern medicine, I would have permanently lost that function. The size of cut I received was the sort of cut that would be easily ignored on most of the body, but I cleanly severed a tendon (the right flexor digitorum profundus of my little finger).

Cuts can incapacitate unarmoured foes very quickly. A cut to just about any joint on the body has a good chance of severing tendons and rendering the joint dysfunctional. If you lose your dominant shoulder function in a fight, you are no longer anywhere near as dangerous. Such wounds are generally very survivable.

Cuts with larger weapons, like most swords, are also quite capable of lopping off limbs, which obviously incapacitates the limb very quickly, and is pretty life threatening, but still survivable.

On the other hand, thrusts are generally comparatively poor at incapacitating quickly, because they don't usually stop a fighter from functioning in the short term. This is why people killed in knife attacks are typically stabbed a large number of times, because the victim was still struggling after the first few. However, in the longer term, thrusts to the abdomen and thorax which penetrate into any of the major organs is typically fatal with pre-modern medicine (but not always, there are some accounts of duels with honestly incredible amounts of injuries on each side, yet one or both duellists survived- I vaguely remember one involving some body part being bitten off one of the duellists, and over a dozen rapier stab wounds each!).

Thrusts are also heavily affected by the blade used. If I remember correctly, the most dangerous blades are over 6"/15cm long and wide (even in a modern context). They are long enough to cause serious penetrating trauma, and the width of the blade makes the thrust much more likely to sever arteries and injure vascular organs. A blade like a gladius is actually very lethal due to its width, and wider blades will down a foe quicker. Narrow blades, like rapiers, are far more likely to not kill the opponent quickly (or at all, like in the duels I mentioned above).

Thrusts are generally also more likely to trap the blade. This is obviously an issue if the opponent is not immediately incapacitated, and double kills in rapier duels was not hugely uncommon.

Blunt trauma is generally less damaging than cuts or thrusts on unarmoured humans. A mace glancing an arm will hurt, but it is incredibly unlikely to prevent a muscle or tendon from functioning, and even a broken bone is unlikely to seriously incapacitate in the short term (and also takes a really solid hit, because humans are not fixed in place). Bear in mind that in a fight, adrenaline will help with this. Elderly folk will sometimes walk in to a GP/hospital having broken a hip, and they aren't a young, strong, adrenaline-filled fighter.

Contrast this with a sword, where even a small nick can sever a tendon and cause immediate loss of function. There is a good reason that blunt trauma weapons are only really favoured in certain contexts, mainly armoured combat and when mounted. One of the big advantages of armour is that it basically negates glancing hits, and turns most cuts and thrusts into blunt trauma, which is less dangerous (but can still be debilitating over time).

Injuries to the head and spine can incapacitate and quickly kill with all of the above methods of injury, which is why helmets are some of the most ubiquitous armour throughout history. The skull and spine are pretty well protected naturally, and pretty resistant to injury in general (although sometimes a single punch kills someone. Humans are weird like that)

Bear in mind that head injuries are highly variable in their outcome, especially if they mainly damage the cortex, which is not vital for basic life functions. In addition, injuries that break the skull often fair better than injuries which cause internal swelling and bleeding without skull fracture, because the pressure is not relieved in the latter and can even cause the brain to herniate (herniating through the foramen magna into the neck is often lethal- also called coning). Depressed skull fractures, where the bone fragments enter the cranial cavity, are generally very damaging though.

Wounds to the thorax and abdomen are unlikely to kill quickly, unless the injuries damage the heart, major arteries, liver, and spleen (these are also the incredibly messy, bloody deaths). Basically injuries along the midline in the body and under the lower ribs are most likely to cause massive haemorrhage. Other wounds will be unlikely to stop a fighter within a combat, even lung injuries. If the bowel is penetrated, it will probably kill the person through peritonitis in the next few days, but is not especially lethal without the infection. Blunt trauma is unlikely to cause any of the above, unless it is massive enough to rupture the liver, spleen or arteries, or it pushes a fractured rib into something inportant.

Muscle injuries are very unlikely to kill someone by themselves, and unless they entirely bisect the muscle, don't eliminate that much function. Muscle is some of the most damage-resistant tissue. With blunt trauma, eventually bleeding into muscles can cause compartment syndrome and cause ischaemia and death of affected areas. For example, compartment syndrome in the lower leg following bleeding can cause irreversible damage to the foot as the pressure cuts off the blood supply. Tendon injuries are similar, but as mentioned immediately incapacitating if the tendon is bisected, which is easily done. Even if partially cut, the tendon can tear in two with tension through use. Bones have to be proper smashed to prevent function in the short term, but the pain could be incapacitating. Large bone fractures can kill, but not usually within the time frame of a fight. Typically it is in a few hours to days through slowly bleeding out, and/or mechanisms like fat embolisation. Skin injuries just hurt and bleed a bit short term, unless they cover a wide surface area like burns (which causes lots if additional issues). The main risk with skin wounds is infection, which is no different to any of the other penetrating injuries.

In terms of the weapons you mention, what they do damage-wise depends on the blade/head profiles. A hewing spear will deliver devastating cuts and stab wounds, but a spear with a simple point will cause much less dramatic thrusts that are less likely to immediately incapacitate someone, and won't be able to cut. Broadhead arrows cause more immediately damaging and less survivable wounds than bodkins. Long, fat knives are more immediately lethal than stillettos.

Note that despite these general trends, sometimes people get stabbed once by a pocket knife in the gut and keel over dead after a few seconds, and others survive getting clobbered on the head by a mace. Humans don't like being textbook!

I hope that helps a bit.

[snowblizz]

Got a question about the landsknechts: everyone here's likely familiar with their weapons of choice (pikes, pollaxes/halberds, arquebuses and the infamous zweihander), as well as their flamboyant, cobbled-together fashion sense, but what kind of ARMOR did they actually wear? The article on Wikipedia doesn't go into much detail apart from describing the dopplesoldner as an "armored swordsman," and the woodcut pictures in the article just depict the puffed-and-slashed shirts they were famous for.

Anything from full plate to nothing. More likely somewhere in between. The classic image tends to be with a breatsplate (backplate optional) and tassets. The Doppelsöldeners would be more completely armoured since they are expected to be up front taking bullets even, close to how a high medieaval platearmoured man at arms would look. Pinterest is frustrating my efforts to find good pictures (as in only get google results from there and am not getting an account just to link pics).

I know G has pics he usually posts but can't rememer the artist nor find them in older threads. Did a load of woodblocks of life of a soldier from the time. Think name starts with a D. Annoying me now.

Can do an Googel image search for "landsknecht armour" and get some reasonable results to look at. www.alamy.com has various stuff but again don't want me linking (it's a stock photo source).

[Kiero]

I believe unless it's to the throat, knife cuts are not immediately lethal or incapacitating and are comparatively easy to treat. So I guess it really comes down to stab wounds.

No, as Haighus said any of the major arteries, if severed, have stopping power, not just carotid. Brachial or femoral bleeds will kill you in minutes through blood loss and shock if they're nicked and left untreated. They very rapidly incapacitating as you loose blood pressure, too.

Those are both close enough to the surface to be cut, others like the subclavial or iliac are only really accessible by a puncturing wound.

[Haighus]

No, as Haighus said any of the major arteries, if severed, have stopping power, not just carotid. Brachial or femoral bleeds will kill you in minutes through blood loss and shock if they're nicked and left untreated. They very rapidly incapacitating as you loose blood pressure, too.

Those are both close enough to the surface to be cut, others like the subclavial or iliac are only really accessible by a puncturing wound.

They are quite hard to cut with a typical knife if the person is clothed over them though. Only big knifes are good at slashing in a situation where the target is mobile and responsive. The carotid is very superficial and comparatively fixed, being close to the trunk, and rarely clothed, so it is a bit more vulnerable to a knife cut than the brachial or (especially) the femoral. The brachial would be the next easiest to damage after the carotid, but is the least dangerous with the lowest blood volume. Note I am not including the ease of defending the artery deliberately when I say easier- the carotid is going to be naturally better guarded than the brachial in a fight.

There are some interesting videos of Skallagrim slashing a mannequin wearing a thin raincoat and jumper, and it is remarkably damage resistant to a typical modern knife. Stabs work much better to penetrate clothing.

Swords and polearms and so on are obviously a completely different ball game for cutting wounds. A sharp sword can cause deep cuts with surprising ease.

[Epimethee]

I got the feeling out of the article that it was mostly old and young, and no women. I read it here at work so I'll admit I skimmed a bit. None of the descriptions seem to say anything about what I'd say were warriors. Swedish wikipage does mention adult males, so maybe I've missed it. The issue to me is if there were warriors where are the weapons.

Further down the article state that an usual battlefield has only a segment of the population and that the site contain every segment. I believe it would have been clearly stated if no active population was found. In such a case the site is far more understandable as it is easy to connect a lack of weapon with a lack of Warriors.

Did they kill the babies or is that just a consequence of noone being left alive?

Don’t know exactly. And as i understand not possible to say based on what was found. It is still an intriguing point. My english may have been confusing but i wished to raise the question, not to use unclear circumstances as an argument.

Live captives are way more valuable than jewellry.

They need more space, they need to be feed, you have to plan in advance for transportation. Anyway i think your point may be disputed case by case, as the prestige and worth of specific slaves and jewellery may vary.

On the Swedish wikipedia page they talk about hidden jewellry caches as well so much of the wealth was not "in the open". I'm just saying it's possible in the rush to raid a palce, and clearly it's not been systematically looted, you can miss some items of value, humans are harder to accidentally miss. They can also "take direction" so you can order them to gather in the square e.g. instead of having to physically drag them everywhere. Self-moving loot.

All your points are fair and clever but can be argued the other way around: peoples tend to defend themselves, to hide, to run away. They may be harder to miss but they also actively try to be overlooked. Obviously those who run away are unlikely to be found here. And more Informations are needed to offer a better understanding of the demographic of the place.
In any case i find strange that the supposed slavers did’nt even took the food. I can only wonder about the logistic of such an enterprise.

Children were enslaved too, but usually IIRC you prefer adults, young adults are best as they come at their healthiest, pre-trained, ready-to-go and you get maximal time out of them. In the lightning raid scenario I posited children are more of a burden as you can't expect them to "behave".
A slave raid can definitley fit the known circumstances. It is probably not the *best* explanation, which is why it's not the one posited in the article.

Again fair points but young adulte were specifically described among the victims here. I agree that the known circumstances point to a part of the population taken as slaves but in my opinion it does not explain all the circumstances.

Cremation was stated in the article as the main burial form.

Thank you, i missed that!

"My" scenario includes the posit that the "menfolk" are away, likely dead. And not returning. Ooo, Roman connection, they are all off fighting for Rome!
My elaborate scenario is therefore that the warriors wnet away to raid some place and got killed there. Their victims came back to punish them. (This could in fact easily be a "local politics" scenario too, I just find the overseas one more poetic).

A lot of possibilities are quite engaging. I’m not sure about the chronology but i don’t know this part of the world that much. The article seem to date the massacre after the fall of Rome but that does not rule out your scenario. I would argue that you need a set of very specific circumstances to make it work, the complete eradication in two different places of the entirety of the population. It is possible but seem far fetched. As a poetic interpretation i find it great.

Not a city. A fortification. A castle essentially. Wiki about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandby_borg

It is by all accounts rather unique. Normal practice for such places were that you gathered there when threatened. This does seem a bit more akin to a town that the traditional ringforts. They mention that the peoples here had strong ties to the Roman empire, a lot of Roman finds have been found on Öland (compared to other parts of Sweden).

I intended «*city*» more as a reflexion of the importance of the fort than of his size. The smallest city in my region count less than 700 inhabitants but is proud of the status obtained by imperial privilege. The roman Connection, as much as the wealth of the place seem to demonstrate a relatively important and well connected location. I intended to state this point, sorry for any misunderstanding.

Also the fact that the place was fortified make the lack of weapons even stranger.

Interestingly local tradition suggests something bad happened and it was a place to avoid, which partly is why it's been left alone.

Yeah! I like this part of the story! A Taste of spooky! Great for the imagination! But the use of oral tradition in history is really difficult, not impossible but difficult. For example the epic of Sundiata Keita in Mali was reassessed in light of the archeological and ethnographical Survey. an epic is obviously more widespread than local tradition so easier to work with. It is still highly contentious. So this fact is really lucky for the archeologists but i don’t know what to do with something like that. (Or i can imagine some kind of lovecraftian scenario)

I'll say the "political" answer also works, but they already pitched that in the article. So why would I do that.

Well played! I have at least two answers! First i was already seeing something like Lear or Ran, some epic clash of locals lords more or less bound by honor, family and blood in the dramatic background of the fall of Rome with plenty of strange people coming and going around... Treason, revenge, new alliances and a final and absolutely lethal confrontation... Even harder to prove than your scenario but closer to my taste and at least as much fun!

Then the case of the missing weapons and the proposed scenario of ritual motivations seemed like an interesting piece to add to the problem of the weapons in the water. I need a lot of steps to proove it but the first seem to assess the likelyness of a fort left without any weapon in stock. But more on that later.

I have another argument! I argue mainly here because the place seem mysterious and you are kind to answer with challenging points. They are two main possibilities for such a massacre: local or external forces. You choosed one, it seem fair that i stand by the other!

Yeah, for a third what if: the women were the killers all along! Such a scenario explain the missing weapons and the lack of women! The men went away fighting for Rome for so long that the women rebuilded their life and decided to kill them after their return. They had already taken care of securing their wealth and the necessary food. So they hide the weapons before striking. Also far fetched but there is an historical precedent in Hungary after WWI: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Makers_of_Nagyrév
I’m not sure this scenario should be taken seriously. But it seem also to fit the known facts.

My main problem is the lack of weapons, because no one would be so thorough in looting weapons and leave valuable stuff around. So I'm honestly trying to reconcile the idea of where the warriors were. Now only what 1% of the site was excavated. Also if it was a more local thing I'd think it'd have left more local traces.

I agree completly with you. More excavation, à better understanding of the demographic and a better inventory are needed.
I also agree with you on the main problem, the lack of weapons against the valuable stuffs. As yet, they back the number of weapons with metal detection and agree that the demographic may be corrected with further investigation.
But if i explore my interpretation of the demographic, then the possibility of a cultural meaning of this state of destruction is worth exploring. I know that a lot of archeological facts and object were titled «*ritual thingy*» for lack of a better understanding.
In this case i think there is a file and this case may be one of his pieces. It is as much guess work than whishfull thinking but i think it is worth trying.

What do you mean by the way by local traces?

[Kiero]

They are quite hard to cut with a typical knife if the person is clothed over them though. Only big knifes are good at slashing in a situation where the target is mobile and responsive. The carotid is very superficial and comparatively fixed, being close to the trunk, and rarely clothed, so it is a bit more vulnerable to a knife cut than the brachial or (especially) the femoral. The brachial would be the next easiest to damage after the carotid, but is the least dangerous with the lowest blood volume. Note I am not including the ease of defending the artery deliberately when I say easier- the carotid is going to be naturally better guarded than the brachial in a fight.

There are some interesting videos of Skallagrim slashing a mannequin wearing a thin raincoat and jumper, and it is remarkably damage resistant to a typical modern knife. Stabs work much better to penetrate clothing.

Swords and polearms and so on are obviously a completely different ball game for cutting wounds. A sharp sword can cause deep cuts with surprising ease.

Granted they're harder to access, but they're still exposed. If you're only wearing a t-shirt, your brachial arteries are just as available as your carotid, especially if you're reaching out towards the person with the knife. If you're wearing shorts, your femoral arteries are similarly exposed.

I'm thinking of martial arts like Silat, where those sorts of disabling cuts to the arms and legs are routine, and if you're using a kerambit rather than a regular knife, they won't be shallow nicks.

[wolflance]

So are you the same wolflance as the one from the Historium forums? If so I think we may have gotten involved in sort of a proxy argument a few months ago. Something about Manchu cavalry, Sarhu, and pikemen. :x

I still find that a pretty fascinating subject though, the idea that europeans in the 16th century saw pikes as an extremely strong counter against horsemen, while military leaders in china at the same time instead saw the pike as primarily an anti-infantry weapon that was unable to stop a determined cavalry attack. It just goes to show that what we often assume to be universal "rules" when in comes to historic warfare can be heavily influenced by differences in local conditions and local culture and perhaps aren't even fundamental truths in the first place.

Yes. I don't think there's too many wolflances lurking around the forum.

I am not really a regular there though - IMO discussions at Historum sometimes get heat up pretty fast, and I often got myself riled up in/by the atmosphere as well and join in the argument, ugh. I much prefer the more relaxed atmosphere here.

For the pikes (I only vaguely remember I had a discussion about that before, forgot almost all of the finer points though), I think both sides can agree that pikes are good DETERRENT to cavalry charge (as in preventing the cavalry from ramming into your men in the first place), the Chinese advocated using Zhanmadao and whatnot to chop down horses, and that came AFTER the charge has been "deterred" in one way or another.

So were chinese crossbows better, given the limb difference?
Now, don't get me wrong, repeating crossbows were garbage weapons unless you poisoned them and fired at clusters of unarmoured peasants, but it just seems a little strange that european crossbows evolved so much and were outperformed by chinese counterparts.

That said the ergonomics of chinese crossbows don't look as pleasant.

According to the calculations Han crossbows are better in the "pound for pound" sense, as in you get more bang for the buck.

Ergonomic wise they are okay, I personally think that the short stock and pistol grip plus trigger on Han crossbow is easier to use than the long & stick-like stock of European crossbow, and it's got a nice iron sight to go with it. The longer prod for higher powered crossbow will cause some inconvenience though.

Spanning and reloading the damned thing (you need to sit down to span high powered Chinese crossbow - stirrup or belt/hook won't cut it. They didn't have the removable windlass) is another story though...

[Yora]

No, as Haighus said any of the major arteries, if severed, have stopping power, not just carotid. Brachial or femoral bleeds will kill you in minutes through blood loss and shock if they're nicked and left untreated. They very rapidly incapacitating as you loose blood pressure, too.

Those are both close enough to the surface to be cut, others like the subclavial or iliac are only really accessible by a puncturing wound.

Where are those?

Also, is it possible to shot a person into the heard from behind with an arrow for very quick death? Or does the spine make this highly improbable?

[Kiero]

Where are those?

Also, is it possible to shot a person into the heard from behind with an arrow for very quick death? Or does the spine make this highly improbable?

Brachial artery runs from your armpit to your elbow, on the inside of your upper arm; femoral from your groin to your knee, along the inside of the thigh.

If you managed to hit the hindbrain/brain stem at the base of the skull, it's possible, though would require quite a shot. Or if you severed the vertebrae from the skull.

[Yora]

True. But sniping at the base of the skull would feel cheesy in a fantasy context.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Re: knife wounds

Just as injuries can be incapacitating without being lethal, they can be lethal without being immediately incapacitating. Especially with knives: with a prison yard rush you can stab an (unarmoured) man to the abdomen a dozen times in three seconds. He might still have enough strength to strike back, but barring readily accessible modern medicine, or D&D healing (works instantly, and patches people up now matter how serious the injury was), or truly extraordinary luck, you have effectively killed him - and you didn't go anywhere near the throat or brachial/femoral arteries, and you did it with a shiv.

Don't underestimate knives, they are terrifyingly lethal. Any bladed weapon Vs soft flesh is lethal. For advice on how to write fights, I recommend... (ta-dah!) howtofightwrite, it does what it says on the tin: "A third degree Black Belt and an Eagle Scout share their tips to help authors create realistic fight scenes and characters." Browse, search, or send them an ask. For knives in particular, see their post Knife Fighting Do’s and Dont’s. For collected resources, I have a Dagger Fighting Masterpost.

[Yora]

Yes, but again, with the exception of vulnerable arteries, it's the stabs that pose much more danger than the cuts.

Another nasty thing about knives is that because they are so small, they are hard to see and require only small movements. Once the opponents close in to effective stabbing range, it becomes hard to even see a strike coming and do anything to avoid getting hit.

Since I don't mean to make lethal fights appear in any way glorious, I am seriously considering making shanking the main cause of violent death. Followed by unseen arrows. The most effective way to kill people is when they can't fight back.

[Mike_G]

Yes, but again, with the exception of vulnerable arteries, it's the stabs that pose much more danger than the cuts.

Kinda.

Stabs are more likely to be lethal. But cuts are more likely to be quickly incapacitating. And if you get incapacitated in a fight, you are at the mercy of your enemy.

A cut on a limb can incapacitate you by severing the muscles and tendons and bone that let you use it. Probably won't kill you, but you just lost that swordfight in an instant.

A thrust to the body might very well kill you. But unless it hits something really vital, it might take some time, and during that time you may still be a danger to your enemy.

I know I've told this story before, but working as a medic in a fairly tough city, I once had to track a stabbing victim up two flights of stairs, following a blood trail, before I could treat him. The guy had been stabbed in the freaking neck, and was bleeding like a sieve. Missed his trachea and his carotid, so he had enough left in him to run pretty far. If he'd wanted to, he had more than enough energy to fight back and stab his enemy.

[Haighus]

Brachial artery runs from your armpit to your elbow, on the inside of your upper arm; femoral from your groin to your knee, along the inside of the thigh.

If you managed to hit the hindbrain/brain stem at the base of the skull, it's possible, though would require quite a shot. Or if you severed the vertebrae from the skull.

Indeed. Adding to this, they are most exposed at the joints too- so in the armpit and the crook of the elbow for brachial, and the femoral at the groin and back of the knee (where it becomes the popliteal artery). You can feel the pulses for these arteries at these points (search for a guide on feeling peripheral pulses for specific locations). These areas also have lots of juicy tendons and nerves, so are just generally very vulnerable places to cuts. The arteries between these points are reasonably well protected by muscle, very thick muscle in the thigh, but deep cuts and stabs can still reach them.

The other major arteries are the carotids, which everyone knows about in the neck; the iliac arteries, which are in the pelvis and connect to the femorals (these are deep arteries protected by the pelvis); the subclavian arteries, which lie under the clavicle/collarbone and connect to the brachial arteries- this artery is actually quite vulnerable to descending cuts and the hero movie gunshot to the shoulder (which heroes usually shrug off...) and is surrounded by some very important nerves to the arm; and the aorta, which basically is in the centre of the body (slightly to the left of midline) and loops up from the heart to descend through the abdomen just in front of the spine, and bifurcates into the iliac arteries. All the major arteries branch off the aorta, and it lies very deep and is protected by the spine and ribs from the rear. With the spine and heart also being in the midline, deep stab injuries to the midline are probably the most likely thrusts to incapacitate and kill quickly.

The liver and spleen are also very vascular and can bleed massively when wounded. They are pretty well protected by the ribs though, which is partly why stabbing up from the abdomen under the ribs is so lethal. Kidneys are very vascular too, but have inbuilt mechanisms to shut down the blood supply (to control urine production) that tend to stop them bleeding hugely after acute trauma.

[Knaight]

Kinda.

Stabs are more likely to be lethal. But cuts are more likely to be quickly incapacitating. And if you get incapacitated in a fight, you are at the mercy of your enemy.

This also gets back into how different implements leave very different stab wounds - we've gone around a few times on this thread regarding data about dueling fatalities from rapiers and small swords, where there were surprisingly few fatalities even from good stabs (paritcularly for the small swords). That doesn't necessarily hold as well for a broad headed spear.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

For poorer landsknechts, "bishop's mantle" which is basically a chainmail poncho, was quite common. Better off landsknechts would use breastplate, pikeman's corsetlet, and other munition-grade plate armors, sometimes along with the aforementioned chainmail poncho.

I don't know whether their "leder wams" count as armor or not...

Anything from full plate to nothing. More likely somewhere in between. The classic image tends to be with a breatsplate (backplate optional) and tassets. The Doppelsöldeners would be more completely armoured since they are expected to be up front taking bullets even, close to how a high medieaval platearmoured man at arms would look. Pinterest is frustrating my efforts to find good pictures (as in only get google results from there and am not getting an account just to link pics).

I know G has pics he usually posts but can't rememer the artist nor find them in older threads. Did a load of woodblocks of life of a soldier from the time. Think name starts with a D. Annoying me now.

Can do an Googel image search for "landsknecht armour" and get some reasonable results to look at. www.alamy.com has various stuff but again don't want me linking (it's a stock photo source).

These were both very helpful answers, thank you!

On a slightly different note, when were were cuir bouilli kinds of armors most common? And during that time, what were the most common "kits" of weapons someone who wore such armor would use? For instance, the common RPG and fantasy depiction of a "barbarian" is a person wearing leather armor and swinging around a two-handed sword, but judging by what amateur history research I've done, by the time such swords became commonly used, the types of people who would wield them would wear metal plate like the aforementioned landsknechts. So, in essence, what kinds of warriors actually wore "leather armor" in RPG parlance?

[wolflance]

These were both very helpful answers, thank you!

On a slightly different note, when were were cuir bouilli kinds of armors most common? And during that time, what were the most common "kits" of weapons someone who wore such armor would use? For instance, the common RPG and fantasy depiction of a "barbarian" is a person wearing leather armor and swinging around a two-handed sword, but judging by what amateur history research I've done, by the time such swords became commonly used, the types of people who would wield them would wear metal plate like the aforementioned landsknechts. So, in essence, what kinds of warriors actually wore "leather armor" in RPG parlance?

In Europe? Probably never common. Most of the time cuir bouilli was made into vambrace to protect the inside of your wrist (from archery-related injuries, like getting smacked by the bowstring).

The Morgan Bible contains illustration of poorer troops that apparently wear "cuirie", a (possibly) leather breastplate, and there are speculations that at least some early plate armor was made of leather instead of metal, particularly in Italy. But nothing concrete.

A leather body armor along with arm protections was discovered somewhere in Denmark as well (forget the name, it's not like I can speak Danish at all), but it was apparently made for teenagers, and used in training instead of real combat.

Leather armor was much more common in the East, particularly East Asia, although most leather armors should be called "rawhide" armor in truth. Rawhide is tougher and generally performs better as armor than tanned leather, boiled or not. They generally come in the form of rawhide scale armor or lamellar armor.

As far as protection goes, rawhide armor sits between iron armor and padded armor (gambeson etc), both in real life as well as in RPGs.

[Epimethee]

Still about the wounds : what would a fight intended to be the most spectacular with the less lethality Look like? I mean something akin to gladiatorial fighting. You want real blood to please the peoples but you want also a fight longer than one or two exchanges and you mainly don’t want to kill your opponent.

Where should i aim to obtain the less incapacitating wounds with the biggest Visual? I understand that the weapons and styles of the gladiators are a good starting point, but i’m sure this thread will have some deep and specific knowledge.

And by the way what about the weapons? Would some of them never fit the bill of a mock fight with real wounds? Are some technics, like thrusting, too lethal to be ever used? ( so what about a trident?)

Many thanks!

[Yora]

You want shallow cuts and fighters with a lot of meat on the bones. And fat. Gladiators were specifically put on a diet to make them chubby in addition to strong.

[Tobtor]

About the massacre:

A lot of things have already been discussed, so I will not go into every detail.

About the missing weapons: We are at the very late era for large weapon sacrifices. That is the main period is early 3rd to late 4th century, but with some in the 5th century as well. We also do have classical writings indicating the practise:

"The enemy ... destroyed everything that had fallen into their hands in an outrageous and unprecedented ritual of curses; clothes torn and thrown away ... the mens breastplates chopped into pieces ... people were hanged from trees with a cable around their neck, so that nothing fell into the hands of neither victor nor the fallen, nothing exchange and no mercy." Orosius around 400AD.

So destruction of enemy gear is a definite possibility in the period.

BUT we should remember that only a small part have been excavated. It is interesting that there are multiple male-identifications, but no females (though several young people that could not be identified). One source of this is that it is generally easier to recognize males, while more women might fall into the "indeterminable" category. As there is children (even quite young ones), we cannot assume any form of "garrison" situation either.

Now even young adult males between 18-40 does not mean "warrior". Some men would be thralls, others might simply not be warriors but farmers etc. But looking at the composition, and if that continues in further excavations, there is no indication of a group of "missing" warriors. So I think we can exclude the idea that the warriors was not at the site. But perhaps different people where killed at different places (warriors at the wall for instance), causing a bias.

But as the evidence is at present we must imagine that the entire population (at least if we assume that women was there when there is infants) was there, and that woman and weapons could have been removed after the event. Weapons for sacrifices, and as have been suggested possible women for slaves (however there is no indication of targeting young women,as there is no old women either).

[Tobtor]

About colour: It is true that "bright" blue and red is slightly more expensive than lets say green or yellow, or murky blue, and reddish-brown colours, but "slightly more expensive" is not equal "unpaiable".

Here is an example of a women from the iron age Denmark:

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It is definitely a someone belonging to the "chieftain class", but that's a class that would be represented in every mid sized village (10-12 farms).

Or an artist interpretation (based on the colours analysed) of the Huldremose woman:

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This should dispell the idea that pre-modern people wore murky browns/grey.

HOWEVER we should remember that as G says paintings and such from the medieval period is like "instagram", and we should always be aware that we shouldnt trust instagram to represent an accurate picture of peoples lives, but an idealized one. Another comparison is tv-shows, where the people typical wear clothing their characters would not be able to have in reality. So sometimes the medieval artist have likely embellished reality, making the colours more vivid/clear etc to tell a story. Also it might be the most vain people who had themselves painted once a month.

Another thing to note is that "they all wore brown/grey" is no a modern thing. Saxo (writting around 12000) writes about a battle where the "grey shirts" of the peasants was mistaken for mail-armour. Thus around 1200 he (and he grew up in a noble family with warrior father and brothers etc), considered peasants to wear grey shirts. But we do see quite a lot of paintings with them wearing green/yellow/orange etc, so how does that match? Perhaps peasant only could afford a few pieces of coloured clothing, using that for feastdays, festivals, weddings etc, while wearing more grey/brown when working (or going into battle, no point in ruining your best clothing after all).

A bit like today: some people use quite a lot of money on wedding clothing, but their everyday clothing is much simpler.