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

[snowblizz]

I assume that either means whatever incendiary materials they had available weren't really that good at setting enemy ships on fire, or it means that the fire weapons they had were so dangerous that medieval sailors were almost never willing to risk actually using them in combat.

Also also, Gallogliach made a post a couple pages ago about central european waterways being used to quickly move around and position heavy artillery, which got me thinking about some of these illustrations. When attacking a town or castle close to a body of water. Could the water be used as a convenient way to move tall "siege towers" into position for shooting down at the enemy defenders?

It's probably possible to do something like that yes.

Wouldn't surprise me if that's from something depicting the Venetian and Genoese attack on Constantinople during the...fourth? crusade. The one with "good" intentions (on part of the participants, not the greedy italian merchants, who ofc continued to do well despite the loss of the holy land) that turned into pillaging material wealth, arguably breaking the back of what should have been the most powerful Latin ally in the middle east if you truly wanted to capture and hold the holy lands. Things like that always bring back into focus this whole "good intentions" thing for me, and "shooting one's own foot".

They effectively used ships as siegetowers raising ladders and such from them to assualt the walls.


Fire at sea is considered one of the absolute worst things that can befall a ship. Since most medieval naval combat was essentially closecombat fireweapons are as dangerous to yourself as the enemy really. Even the fireships were used with caution because if the wind turned after releasing them they might actually come back towards you.

Fireships are also funny in that they can be effective even though they might not actually set the enemy afire that much. English fireships broke up the Spanish Armada's formation and many captains cut their anchors to escape the immediate danger. An action that came back to haunt them when the storm hit. If the ships had anchors they could have much more easily rode out the storm and 1588 would be the year of the Spanish setback that didn't save England in the long run. Queen Isabella Dos would be on your 5 peso bills. ;)

I'm willing to bet on the "couldn't use fireweapons reliably in a way that didn't endanger themselves too".

Thanks Galloglaich that's was mostly what I thought. I already knew of those bended tree and I may not have been as clear as I thought but I meant exactly something like that for bows and crossbows.
I understand the provenance of specific wood, but were they worked before, bended like those trees? Have we some sources on those potential technics?

And the logical following question: what advantage could one expect? How would you do something like that? Is it possible that it make for the difference between the historical weapons and the reconstitutions?

You don't want bent wood for bows really. Unless making a recurve bow I guess, since any pre-bend cost you power. A recurve is basically under tension even in the rest position. Something I wish 10 year old me had understood. Instead of using branches that already looked like a bow and put a straight piece of string between.
Longbows are pretty straight or have ever so slight a bend "fowards" unstrung.

The reason you do this ofc is so you can get "unnatural" shapes where the fibres follow the whole length of the piece for extra strength. Ye Olde Shipbuilderes would go out into the royal oak forests with cutouts of the shapes they needed and compare them to the trees in the forset to find particularly strong parts. Different parts of trees have different properties. So the place where a tree branch grows is a naturally tough part. This summer tried splitting a birch log with many small branches growing out all round and nearly kileld myself trying to. It's very very resilient to splitting.

Those bent trees would yield parts making the side of ships/boats much stronger than you were to shape and join 2 or more pieces from straigth lumber to get the shape. And even if you had an oak large enough you could just saw a piece like that out of it invariably you have "cut" fibres in it, instead of grain going all along the piece like a naturally grown shape has.

It probably mattered a whole lot what kind of wood they used in the construction, hence famously yew longbows, and IIRC you cut the stave so you have essentially 2 different parts of wood on it with slightly different properties one part is flexible other resists compression. That's why composits tend to be used as you can combine properties one single material might not be able to provide. Duno if recreators consider it, one would hope so.

If literally asking how you do it, tie a sapling down with wire and keep monitoring it. You can shape plants quite a lot if you know how and have patience. When you grow apples (professionall) you don't let it turn into a big tree like those standing in the garden, it's a a rather pathetic looking thing held up by wire and supports, but with large fruit as it's not wasting energy on making limbs that can actually carry apples.

[Epimethee]

That death and torture was described by Niketas Choniates in extremely gory details, and then retold (almost verbatim) by Umberto Eco in a famously disturbing passage of Baudolino. I was frankly a bit concerned that it made you laugh. But then I followed your link, and okay, that particular quote is very tame. You may not be a maniac after all.

Yeah, I was aware of others descriptions but this one is really shaped like a fabliau with peoples that discuss the best way to make him suffer, but no one find a satisfactory solution till a wise man come and find the answer, and then the choice of words in the French original are really more grotesque than impressive.
As much as it contain pertinent historical informations, it is also a great look at how medieval chronicles would use literary tropes to explain history, here the fabliau.



Then to fire and ships, yeah snowbliss that's mostly the discussion we have with rrgg: how often would fire be used, in which circumstances, and how you account for the dangers to your own fleet.

The thing about fireships is that they were mostly used to attack anchored fleets, as your description suggest. On open sea, they would be mostly inefficient as they would not be able to change course.

Clari was actually a member of the fourth crusade, but I'm not yet on the description of the siege of Constantinople. The text is relatively short but the language is really archaic so I tend to read only a few pages every days.
As soon as I get to that point I will let you know.

Then on bows: no snowbliss, I was not thinking so literally. A huge part of my family produce wine and I was more often than not in the fields, so I saw the cut and shaping first-hand.

But I thank you for the precisions, again, that's mostly what I was thinking, but less precisely as the question never really occurred to me. I think it may be theoretically possible to shape this slight bend "forward" but I understand also with your explanations that it may not be as worth the effort as for shipbuilding.
Still, it may be useful the next time I describe some bow building fantasy peoples! Nice!

[heavyfuel]

Friend is starting a Pirate campaign that takes place with technology equivalent to our real world 16th century.

My starting idea was to have my character be a Greek sailor, wielding a Gladius. However, upon looking it up on Wikipedia, I discovered/remembered that Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time.

Was the Gladius still in use, or had it already been replaced by a more "modern" sword? If so, what would've been the melee weapon of choice for an Ottoman mariner?

Thanks!

[Mike_G]

Friend is starting a Pirate campaign that takes place with technology equivalent to our real world 16th century.

My starting idea was to have my character be a Greek sailor, wielding a Gladius. However, upon looking it up on Wikipedia, I discovered/remembered that Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time.

Was the Gladius still in use, or had it already been replaced by a more "modern" sword? If so, what would've been the melee weapon of choice for an Ottoman mariner?

Thanks!

The Gladius wasn't really in use as a major military weapon in the 16th century as such, but similar length and weight swords would be easy to find. Especially on board a ship, something short-ish for use in close quarters would seem pretty smart. Something like a Katzbalger or a hanger or a Messer rather than a big rapier or broadsword. I can see sailors preferring a short, versatile cut and thrust sword. The classic Hollywood pirate cutlass is later.

I'll be honest and admit I have no idea what the Ottomans were using for swords at that time, but I'd be stunned if some of them didn't have a short cut and thrust blade.

[Deffers]

Thank you that's very helpful.

So a stout pine board with a kind of paste of broken glass, iron filings, sinew and bone-meal, covered with layers of rawhide. Interesting bullet-proofing materials.

Then of course decorated with red paint and gold leaf since medieval artisans decorated everything.

G

Fascinatingly, I'm actually quite surprised at that materials list. I'd like to add a consideration here-- it could be that the rawhide was boiled into something that could serve as a matrix for either the broken glass or the iron filings. Something similar could be the case with the sinew or the bone-meal. This may be a wildly different use case but I know that the traditional way to make ink sticks is to boil down rawhide and then pour soot in it. The result has an impressive Rockwell C hardness-- I'd imagine finely (or not so finely) ground glass would be more performant, not unlike how you can resin together a fiberglass welding blanket to make something that will withstand handgun bullets and shotgun slugs. Similarly, in modern times you can buy epoxy resin that has iron fillings included in it, typically designed to make a stronger weld. It could be that they used this along with their glue for the same purpose. For defensive purposes, arrangement of layers can also produce additional protection. It could be that their glass and iron-reinforced layers would lie closest to the front to create what is known as a break surface-- a surface in the armor layer designed to deform the projectile. By blunting it, the projectile has a larger surface area where it impacts progressive layers. The softer layers then would be there to distribute impact. Typically, we see this in body armor, since that helps the human not die from blunt trauma, but it could be a principle applied here for the purposes of making sure the pavise is strong enough to withstand multiple hits without suffering catastrophic failure like falling apart. If a shield you're holding suddenly loses its bottom half due to crack propagation, you're in big trouble.

Here's a question-- do we know if pavises were repaired after being damaged, or if they were discarded and made anew? I'd imagine sufficiently thorough damage would prompt the creation of a fresh pavise, but if they were repaired, then that's an argument in favor of my theory that rawhide was used in a boiled, viscous form rather than as solid patches. You could just pour in your rawhide-and-glass mixture into the hole along with some glue, then maybe patch over some stuff or resurface it.

[Epimethee]

It's not the same period and not the same conception, but the few pieces of organic Celtic shield found show that glue was heavily used to connect the wooden front with softer materials on the back. Those materials, fabric, leather, wool, and so on would be covered with glue.
I don't know the composition of the glue, but it may also play an important part in the solidity of the shield.


Also rrgg I was looking at the picture of the boat with a tower and I noticed, I could have done it sooner, but I noticed it was an illustration from the Romance of Alexander, a kind of retelling of the life of Alexander the Great. I read one version some 15 years ago so I don't remember all the motives, and there is quite a lot of variations between the texts.

But I think it may be a representation of the siege of Tyr.

So some informations may be useful to understand the equipment and the general look of 1250 soldiers, curated by the ornemental context. But I think the tower-boat is a more fantastical creation, some medieval artist trying to make sense of the historical sources.

Still a great illustration!

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Long time no post, but I got some worldbuilding to do for a campaign so I seek the wisdom of the Ancients.

What are the effects of cold weather on gunpowder? I've got a setting set mostly near the Arctic circle and at an 18th century level of gunpowder technology. I know dampness dooms gunpowder, but what about subzero temperatures you're likely to encounter trying to travel and fight up in Greenland or Alaska?

[Mr Beer]

My uninformed guess is that the chemical reaction may work just fine but you'll have other problems e.g.

- Freezing/warming cycles tends to attract moisture
- Deep freeze conditions may solidify powder so you can't pour it
- Metal pins may snap
- Metal barrels may be less resilient and thus more prone to catastrophic failure

So the powder itself works but you are much more likely to get ancillary issues causing malfunctions.

[Gnoman]

You're also quite likely to have trouble operating any sort of gunpoweder weapon in such temperatures. Gloved hands are poorly suited for the level of manual dexterity needed to do so, but you'll have an enormous chance of losing skin or hands if you try to go without heavy gloves in that sort of weather.


Bows and crossbows would probably suffer from this less, but the cold would probably sap their strength and/or cause them to snap instead of working. Metal swords and armor could also start getting brittle at these temperatures. From what I can find, hardened steel becomes brittle at around -30 Celsius, which isn't that cold for the area you're talking about.

[Brother Oni]

Bows and crossbows would probably suffer from this less, but the cold would probably sap their strength and/or cause them to snap instead of working.

The Inuit and various other peoples who live that far north use cable backed composite bows made of bone, horn, wood and sinew for hunting.

The performance isn't suitable for medieval warfare but still capable of killing people at distance, so would still be useful at a 18th century level technology where infantry were typically unarmoured.

[gkathellar]

Referring back to the debate about armor, and ancient vs. modern, from this article somebody posted on the codex forum I get the impression that the American Army could learn some lessons in armor ergonomics from the old artisans of Augsburg and Milan

https://www.military.com/daily-news/...ort-finds.html

G

This is something the USMC has been working around for a while by alternating an older, heavier model and a newer, lighter one depending on their needs.

I thought that the comment about cultural problems in the last few paragraphs is especially interesting, and speaks to how "scientific" approaches to warfare are often reshaped by the realities of human behavior.

Some of it goes to economies of scale, too. It takes years to develop and test a suit of body armor, at which point a lot of capital is invested in mass-production. It's harder to make significant design adjustments than it would be on the armory floor. And of course, the modern soldier is pretty thoroughly disconnected from the forces that purchase and assign their kit, so ... the entire process of critique and improvement is greatly slowed. And while manufacturers and military bureaucrats would like to think that they can scale up the amount of data and deliver a superb product to compensate, it doesn't always work out perfectly.

[Gnoman]

The Inuit and various other peoples who live that far north use cable backed composite bows made of bone, horn, wood and sinew for hunting.

The performance isn't suitable for medieval warfare but still capable of killing people at distance, so would still be useful at a 18th century level technology where infantry were typically unarmoured.

Neat. The only weapons from these peoples I've ever seen were spears/harpoons, and I was under the impression that bows were not suitable for their lifestyle and/or environment.

[Brother Oni]

Referring back to the debate about armor, and ancient vs. modern, from this article somebody posted on the codex forum I get the impression that the American Army could learn some lessons in armor ergonomics from the old artisans of Augsburg and Milan

https://www.military.com/daily-news/...ort-finds.html

Possibly. The article only talks about body armour solely in terms of weight and notes that even if the weight was reduced, leadership would most likely find more crap equipment to make up for the weight saved.

I'm of the opinion that unless a new material/design/technology is found that significantly reduces the weight without reducing protection, modern body armour is going to be minute iterations of the current design.
That said, I remember reading work into the use of non-Newtonian gels and liquids for body armour (they only harden on impact), but it only seems to be for soft armours currently.
I can't find any information of it as a potential replacement for rigid and other Level III armours though.

Neat. The only weapons from these peoples I've ever seen were spears/harpoons, and I was under the impression that bows were not suitable for their lifestyle and/or environment.

Much like how the composite laminate recurves of the various Steppe peoples weren't ideal in the hotter more humid conditions of Europe (the glues tended to dissolve, causing de-lamination), these cable bows are specialised for their environment.

Some cable bow examples I've seen are essentially made with three parts like modern Olympic recurve bows, with a riser (central section where you hold the bow) and a top/bottom limb (main parts that bend), so getting a single long piece of wood wasn't required, nor was all the extensive work tillering that stave to get a longbow. I was reading that the Inuit traded seal/whale blubber for wood from more southern tribes.

[BlacKnight]

I'm wondering how much thin thrusting swords like the rapier are dependent on the metallurgic knowledge of the XVI century.
It's possible to have a setting with rapiers but not plate armor ?
Could the ancient Romans have made similar swords ?

[The Jack]

I'm wondering how much thin thrusting swords like the rapier are dependent on the metallurgic knowledge of the XVI century.
It's possible to have a setting with rapiers but not plate armor ?
Could the ancient Romans have made similar swords ?

A setting with rapiers but not plate: Guns, or another weapon with high penetration power (but probably other drawbacks to keep the rapiers useful) keep people from bothering with such extensive armouring.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I'm wondering how much thin thrusting swords like the rapier are dependent on the metallurgic knowledge of the XVI century.
It's possible to have a setting with rapiers but not plate armor ?
Could the ancient Romans have made similar swords ?

For what it's worth, we've found rapiers from the Bronze Age. Kinda. They're thin, long swords and they're rare as all get-out, but they existed.

[Max_Killjoy]

Even in the real world age with guns, rapiers, and armor that could (if well made) stop the bullets of the day, most people were not wearing bullet-stopping plate-armor around in their day to day life, or in most contexts outside of battle.

[The Jack]

Kinda makes me wish RPGs did 'light' and 'heavy armour' a matter of social acceptance.

[Knaight]

One other thing about the real world, while going around armed with a sword or some kind of large knife was very common at least in Central Europe and most of Italy, and did not necessarily raise an eyebrow, wearing armor in public was definitely much more noticeable and if you were a stranger or part of a group of strangers walking up to the gates of town in armor and /or carrying a lot of battlefield weapons ( as is so typical in RPGs and fantasy genre computer games), you would certainly be challenged on this by the town watch and almost certainly forced to remove most of your kit and leave it at the town gate or an inn while doing your business in town.

Even carrying one battlefield weapon enough could start to look sketchy. Walking around with a sword all the time is one thing, walking around with a halberd all the time is something else entirely.

[rrgg]

I think I may have had a thought about "cut vs thrust" and why many people seem to have continued to prefer short cutlasses, axes, or using muskets as clubs over a long thrusting sword. Perhaps which is better depends a lot on exactly how a particular soldier responds during a high-pressure, life or death situation. For instance, the rapier might be a much better weapon if the soldier using it is able to remain perfectly calm, but when a surge of adrenaline hits perhaps it get's easier to swing harder and faster with an axe, but much harder to keep the hands steady and put the point of a long rapier on target with any sort of precision.

[Knaight]

I think I may have had a thought about "cut vs thrust" and why many people seem to have continued to prefer short cutlasses, axes, or using muskets as clubs over a long thrusting sword. Perhaps which is better depends a lot on exactly how a particular soldier responds during a high-pressure, life or death situation. For instance, the rapier might be a much better weapon if the soldier using it is able to remain perfectly calm, but when a surge of adrenaline hits perhaps it get's easier to swing harder and faster with an axe, but much harder to keep the hands steady and put the point of a long rapier on target with any sort of precision.

That's a possibility, but there is the small matter of the continued dominance of the spear - a primarily thrusting weapon, with several varieties completely unsuited to cutting. Clearly stabbing somebody when in a high pressure life or death situation is something a lot of people are capable of.

[Mike_G]

What it actually boils down to is training. Piermarco Terminello found a document a year or two ago where a 16th Century fencing master was breaking down to the City of Florence how much it cost (and how long it took) to train somebody to use different weapons. I don't remember the exact numbers off hand but the gist of it was rapiers or longswords took about twice as long to train somebody to use as single swords or say, a bill. I think it was like 4 weeks for a sword and rotella or a bill, vs. 10 weeks for longsword or something like that.

This definitely matches my experience in HEMA. I could teach somebody to be a decent spearman or saber fencer in less than half the time it would take to teach longsword. (I'm not really qualified to teach rapier but I believe that might take even longer. It took me almost 3 years to reach even basic survival skills with a rapier).

Saber is easy to parry with, the guards are simple, the cuts are simple, and with a little practice (and some innate ability) an average relatively athletic person can pick up the basics in a few sessions. Of course that is basic saber, like 19th Century military saber, not advanced stuff. But basic saber is enough to be effective in a fight. You can continue to get better and better with a saber but you reach that basic level of competence much sooner.

By contrast, there is just a certain threshold with some weapons that it just takes more experience to be of any use with it in a fight. With a longsword, you need multiple sessions - at least a dozen to start, because you have to learn a lot more to be useful. Things you have to practice on your own. Like how to parry effectively without giving away your center, how to make passing and triangle steps, how to seek, exploit, or avoid a bind. There are a lot more guards and basic true and false-edge cuts, slices, thrusts, etc., plus the guards are much more counter-intuitive. Just how to hold the weapon in your hand as you go through true and false edge cuts and guard transitions takes some people weeks to get right.

Basic usefulness with a spear, or with 'sword and board' ala re-enactors or SCA (admittedly, not the same thing as the real granted, so take it with a grain of salt, but closer to most peoples experiences as an analogy) can be achieved in a similarly short time as saber training IMO. Show them how to hold a guard, how to do basic footwork, how not to telegraph and how to do a few basic parries and binds, how to keep their shield forward and how to cut without exposing themselves too much, and they can do some damage.

With a rapier or a longsword, you really need some significant training or else you are just useless.

G

I will agree with this pretty strongly. Longsword was a lot more complicated than sabre, and my sabre experience translated easily to any one handed cut and thrust sword. Rapier is similarly complex.

I see the advantages of longswords or rapiers, but if I had to train new recruits for my army, I'd drill them exhaustively with their muskets or pikes or bows, and the remaining time would be adequate to get them good enough with a sabre or backsword, but probably not a rapier or longsword.

[VoxRationis]

So I was asking earlier about the abysmal ratio of shots fired to casualties inflicted in the American Civil War, and I'm wondering if there are any data on that sort of statistic when it comes to bows. How many arrows would English longbowmen loose in order to inflict one casualty? What about Turkish archers, or those of any of the American tribes?

[DrewID]

My uninformed guess is that the chemical reaction may work just fine but you'll have other problems e.g.

- Freezing/warming cycles tends to attract moisture
- Deep freeze conditions may solidify powder so you can't pour it
- Metal pins may snap
- Metal barrels may be less resilient and thus more prone to catastrophic failure

So the powder itself works but you are much more likely to get ancillary issues causing malfunctions.

The three requirements for a self-sustaining fire are heat, oxygen, and fuel. Since slow-match is not a hot flame, it's possible that keeping a matchlock lit under those circumstances could be difficult. I know from experience that getting a match to light and stay lit becomes more difficult. The wheel-lock and flintlock could suffer from flint becoming brittle in sub-zero temperatures.

DrewID

[Mike_G]

So I was asking earlier about the abysmal ratio of shots fired to casualties inflicted in the American Civil War, and I'm wondering if there are any data on that sort of statistic when it comes to bows. How many arrows would English longbowmen loose in order to inflict one casualty? What about Turkish archers, or those of any of the American tribes?

I don't think we have records of arrow shot versus casualties. Lots of battles the records don't even agree on how many troops were there on either side, or how many casualties were inflicted. Even if we did know the total casualties of say, the French at Agincourt, how many died from arrows versus how many were killed in melee or killed afterwards when the English thought they were under threat of counter attack, we don't know. Most medieval records tell us the important casualties, but don't give hard numbers for common troops

For comparatively recent wars, like the ACW, we have detail records of ammunition from quartermaster reports, and of casualties from the war department. Medical records can also help differentiate casualties from, say artillery versus musketry, or bayonet and sabre injuries, which were a small percentage in the ACW.

Even a modern war where one side used arrows, like, say the Battle of Little Bighorn, we know how many US troopers were killed or wounded, but not how many arrows the Sioux shot, or how many men were killed by arrows versus by other means. Most forces that were still using bows didn't keep detailed records. The number of Indian losses at Little Bighorn is a matter of conjecture, pieced together from various accounts from Indians who were there, and who don't always agree.

I agree it would be interesting to know, I just don't think we have reliable sources to get that specific.

[rrgg]

It looks like Pietro Monte says something similar about skill. Those who are strong and less skilled should use a weapon which is shorter and heavier.

When a fight occurs one to one or few on few, he who is strong and has little skill should choose a short and heavy weapon, because with a short one we cannot use as much skill as if it is somewhat long. For art is easily placed in light and hardly in heavy, and he who desires to join himself to the other should choose a heavy and long one. For by turning it away a little to the sides it goes to the ground, or the weapon is directed far away before we can recover it, and then the opportunity is had to join together. Light ones are recollected at any part and continuously placed in front; if both fighters know little, a weapon-length (difference) of three or four fingers more or less is of little concern, for they always enter to strike with the middle of the sword, and with a deliberate blow. But those who embrace great art have a great advantage or security by one finger’s weapon-length. And if they throw a point without the arms being abandoned, they go back to recollect the weapon to themselves and to strike many other blows. If one person is skilled and holds a weapon which is slightly longer, while the other has had little teaching and has a weapon shorter than the enemy’s, the advantage to him who knows is great, and having art, even though a shorter weapon is taken hold of, a man can defend himself competently, especially against those who have little knowledge.

I agree the more training and experience someone has, the more likely they are to perform well with a rapier. However the caveat I want to add is that for some people much of that training can end up going out the window when put under extreme pressure. I was thinking that this might be part of the reason that 16th century military authors keep complaining about too many soldiers showing up with rapiers, or with halberds which were too long and not heavy enough. Presumably many of the soldiers who brought them had spent time practicing and sparring with these weapons before and believed themselves to be skilled, but once they got put into the thick of things they suddenly weren't quite able to perform as well as they had been doing before.

This does seem to make the frequent use of spears and pikes appear somewhat out of place. It might just be that the spear's overall advantage was so great that it still wouldn't take much skill for someone with a spear to beat a longsword. There's also the fact spears tend to be sturdier than something like a rapier, so even if the spearman couldn't hit gaps in armor he might still be able to push someone back with a powerful thrust to the shield or breastplate. One of the reasons George Silver gave the half-pike the advantage over sword and shield was that he claimed an overhead, downward blow with the staff could often crack an enemy's skull, even when he raised his shield to defend himself. There's also the fact that in a formation a spear or pike is long enough to reach past friends and let multiple soldiers better support each other.

This also fits into the subject of spear and shield, and the question of why, if reach and speed were so important, that so many soldiers would bring a 7-8 foot spear into battle if they're most often going to be depicted holding it only at the midpoint.

For among many fighting at the same time, the weapons we have are frequently thrown, and moreover weapons are taken hold of sometimes by the butt spike and sometimes by the middle. A partisan is taken now with one hand, now with both, and if with both, it should be taken hold of by the butt spike, even though the partisan is appropriate to be carried with a rotella or similar imbrazatura (something arm-borne) or shield. For then it is carried with one hand and by the middle, when the fighters are found almost joined, and many blows can be struck which we could not do with a long weapon.

Edit: I was going to add that Humphrey Barwick mentioned the "french" style of halberd which had a lightweight head and an extra long, thin point as being very good for those with extensive training, and for defeating Landsknecht sergeants armed with large, two-handed great swords. But he says that "our common country men" should instead be armed with a short, sturdy, black bill.

I wish no Halbards into the hands of any that hath no skill to vse the same, for it is a weapon that can abide no blowes, as the Bill wil do, but yet in the hands of officers, & such as hath skill how to vse the same, it is a very good weapon, but the same must be handled delicately with the push onely, and quickly drawne backe: the cause that the French officers do vse them with such long staues and pykes, is to encounter with the Lance-knights, who do vse being Sargiants of foote-bandes, to carrie verie good long swordes or Slaugh swordes.

But for our common countrie men, not vsed to handle a halbard as aforesaid: I woulde wish him to haue a good strong black Bill wide in the socket, to receiue a strong Staffe, the heade thicke in the backe, with a strong pyke in the backe and point sharpe edged:

[Kiero]

How often were spears and polearms counter-weighted in this period?

[rrgg]

How often were spears and polearms counter-weighted in this period?

I think some people knew from their readings that the spears and pikes used by the ancients were sometimes counterweighted, but as far as I know there wasn't much interest in trying this themselves. And in some cases they use weapons which seem to be almost the opposite of counter-weighted.

The "partisan" as Monte defined it had a blade on the end like a very short, wide sword. So he was presumably talking about some kind of ox-tongued spear like the one shown being carried by the Italian infantry in this illustration of Fornovo:

Spoiler

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[Mike_G]

It looks like Pietro Monte says something similar about skill. Those who are strong and less skilled should use a weapon which is shorter and heavier.

I still say that length is overrated. Especially for shorter fighters.

I'll give up a few inches of reach for a more agile weapon any day. I'm not gonna win the reach game, so I don't play it.

It's like if you have a football team with a great running game and a lousy passing game, you don't try to win through the air. Doesn't mean you can't compete with a team with a better passing game. You just have to work to your strengths, not theirs.

I remember another fencing instructor at a place I was teaching (a very tall fencing instructor) who said the best defense is to "parry with distance." I pointed out that for me that's suicide, since a retreat may save me from getting hit, but I'm out of range for my riposte and still in danger from my taller opponent. I want to hold my ground and parry and take advantage of the fact that he closed to ram my riposte down his throat.

Which is why I become so enraged by all these treatises with their hierarchies and "perfect" weapons and so on.

[rrgg]

I still say that length is overrated. Especially for shorter fighters.

I'll give up a few inches of reach for a more agile weapon any day. I'm not gonna win the reach game, so I don't play it.

It's like if you have a football team with a great running game and a lousy passing game, you don't try to win through the air. Doesn't mean you can't compete with a team with a better passing game. You just have to work to your strengths, not theirs.

I remember another fencing instructor at a place I was teaching (a very tall fencing instructor) who said the best defense is to "parry with distance." I pointed out that for me that's suicide, since a retreat may save me from getting hit, but I'm out of range for my riposte and still in danger from my taller opponent. I want to hold my ground and parry and take advantage of the fact that he closed to ram my riposte down his throat.

Which is why I become so enraged by all these treatises with their hierarchies and "perfect" weapons and so on.

I think that's sort of what Monte was getting at though. If a fighter is more skilled then it's easier for him to demonstrate that skill with a lighter, faster weapon. It's just that there are other ways to make a weapon lighter instead of just making it shorter, for instance by making it thinner if you can do so, or with this method Monte recommends:

LIII. HOW WE CAN MAKE A SWORD LIGHTER.

In order to find the sword with which we want to fight lighter, for a few days before another, much heavier is to be frequently used, likewise the day before the conflict, a heavy stick or iron is to be used, so that the arm is exerted in discharging these heavy things and is found to be light with the lighter weapon which we offer it afterwards.

It might also make a difference whether or not the fighters are allowed to carry more than one weapon. For instance he suggests that a fighter who wishes to quickly join with the enemy should start with a weapon which is both long and heavy to get his opponent's weapon out of line, then rush in close for wrestling, dagger fighting, etc.