Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk X

[zorenathres]

I guess my main question about true two-handers (claymore, montante, etc.) is if they were inferior to polearms, and they were more expensive to produce, and they were to long to be side arms or comfortably carried in civilian life, why did two-handed swords continue to be produced for hundreds of years?

heavy two-handed swords like the claymore were never designed for cutting or slashing, they were designed to crush the bones of armored foes (see full plate), who could not be harmed by smaller/ lighter weapons. if you look at IRL fighting styles from then, they used the claymore in many ways (the main swings for armored foes, hilt/ half strikes for up close, & they would hold the sword like a spear to pierce heavily armored opponents once they were knocked to the ground).

which is why i find it confusing that greatswords are slashing weapons in the manual

[Spiryt]

heavy two-handed swords like the claymore were never designed for cutting or slashing, they were designed to crush the bones of armored foes (see full plate), who could not be harmed by smaller/ lighter weapons. if you look at IRL fighting styles from then, they used the claymore in many ways (the main swings for armored foes, hilt/ half strikes for up close, & they would hold the sword like a spear to pierce heavily armored opponents once they were knocked to the ground).

which is why i find it confusing that greatswords are slashing weapons in the manual

They had edges, they mostly had cutting optimized geometries, they weren't usually used against fully armoured opponents, and so on...

Many claymores, especially earlier ones wouldn't be really very useful in halfswording, due to spatulate points and very broad blades.


Swords used mainly, or at all to break bones by impact is weirdly persevering myth, but a myth still.

Slashing greatswords are all right, although 'in reality' most of them should have thrusting option as well, and some were mainly thrusting too.

[Conners]

Not everyone wears plate armour, so the swords are fine for slashing a good number of people (of course, mail with padding would take a lot of the punch out of it, still).

[Yora]

Some once posted a demonstration that compared sword against slightly dried up pig skin against the same pig with chainmail without padding. Even that made a huge difference and with soft living skin versus chainmail with padding, it should be even bigger.

[Conners]

Most of the punch would be in blunt-trauma, with large swords against mail (most of the punch is taken out).

How do you mean, by dried up pig skin?

[Spiryt]

It was me, and pigs and other animals quite inevitably dry after slaughtering, if you remove entrails etc. Changing properties and all.

I would guess that remedy would be weapon test against freshly slaughtered, warm and completely 'unaltered' pig, but it doesn't seem that many people are willing to enjoy the smell and the rest of the bouquet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juIw20z5p0c

Axe pretty much cuts carcass in half without that much effort, while even completely "Conan style" worn mail stops the cutting entirely.

So while there are some historical sources about mail being 'slashed open" it doesn't really seem very feasible.

As far as blunt trauma goes, broken collarbone or even hurt neck bones are survivable, while two pounds of axe in lungs probably not really.

[zorenathres]

so where did that myth start? i am curious since i seem to be misinformed, i guess it made sense to me... but using the swords point as a spear is still accurate yes? i always thought about giving certain weapons the option to choose between slashing/ piercing etc... like the warhammer with the spike/ pick on the reverse side for piercing armor.

[Fortinbras]

The comparisson here would be like saying that anti-tank guns are worse then normal artillery for shooting at infantry and completely ignoring what else you could do with the anti-tank guns that the regular artillery would have trouble with.

Not that current day anti-tank guns are really used since they got replaced by tow's and such but I am sure you understand what I mean.

Fair enough, but anti-tank guns are very clearly for destroying tanks.

The two uses for a two-hander that I have seen proposed are a) Cutting through a polearm formation and/or b) Cutting the legs off horses. Both of these are very, as someone on here mentioned, quite dubious. So, what were these swords designed for.

As for being inferior to polearms, a number of people, most notably George Silver, say that in a man to man fight, a man with a quarterstaff or axe or halberd would have an advantage over a swordsmen.

[Spiryt]

so where did that myth start? i am curious since i seem to be misinformed, i guess it made sense to me... but using the swords point as a spear is still accurate yes? i always thought about giving certain weapons the option to choose between slashing/ piercing etc... like the warhammer with the spike/ pick on the reverse side for piercing armor.

Using sword as a "spear" by grabbing the blade or ricasso is well documented, as much as something like that from Medieval/Renaissance can be documented.


Huge image warning!

Spoiler

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Manuals etc. suggest both use as additional 'stiffening' the blade during the thrust, as well as better control of the point right before the impact, help in binds and similar engagement.

And of course, ability to thrust in close quarters, when stabbing with both hands on the handle would be challenging.

It would be pretty hard to find a sword without some "piercing" ability anyway, swords have points, and even clearly cutting ones are rods of sharpened steel after all.

As far as myth about crushing swords goes - not sure, I guess that people just saw big sword, heard some myth that those "weighted 30 pounds" and assumed that they were to maul things like with hedge post.

Solid strike with sword could certainly have nasty "mace like" effect, but it was pretty much never their intended purpose.

[zorenathres]

ouch! that second pic made me cringe,

that's what i was wondering about swords in D&D, & why dont they have the piercing option in the manual? im assuming simplification.

[Storm Bringer]

ouch! that second pic made me cringe,

that's what i was wondering about swords in D&D, & why dont they have the piercing option in the manual? im assuming simplification.

"balance", and to give you a reason to use something other than a sword.

also, rapiers, which are in DnD and are piercing.

[zorenathres]

"balance", and to give you a reason to use something other than a sword.

also, rapiers, which are in DnD and are piercing.

yes, but not both piercing & slashing

[Tarinaky]

Fair enough, but anti-tank guns are very clearly for destroying tanks.

The two uses for a two-hander that I have seen proposed are a) Cutting through a polearm formation and/or b) Cutting the legs off horses. Both of these are very, as someone on here mentioned, quite dubious. So, what were these swords designed for.

As for being inferior to polearms, a number of people, most notably George Silver, say that in a man to man fight, a man with a quarterstaff or axe or halberd would have an advantage over a swordsmen.

Doesn't the extra length of a polearm give someone parrying more control over your weapon (due to moments) ?

[J.Gellert]

yes, but not both piercing & slashing

You should look at the Conan d20 RPG Swords are both piercing and slashing, and many swords can be used with finesse.

(Ideas which I have since used in my games over the years.)

[Matthew]

that's what i was wondering about swords in D&D, & why dont they have the piercing option in the manual? im assuming simplification.

Basically it started with second edition AD&D, when they decided short swords were for "piercing" and long swords for "slashing", yet daggers were for both. I suppose playability and historicity had a role in this division, but it is hard to see in quite what way. It is particularly strange because first edition AD&D was very clear about the short sword being a "cut and thrust" weapon, and the weapon type versus armour modifiers were very similar for short and long swords.

Not really a weapon question, but something I was wondering about:

How does heavy cavalry, and horses in general, fare on loose desert sand? Walking on sand dunes can be quite slow on foot, so, how much does it slow down horses?

I was playing Mount and blade and invading the desert nation with plate-clad knights, hence the question.

Good question, I have no idea as to the answer, but I recall some instances where they must have been operating on sand during the crusades. Off hand, the Middle English version of Richard Coeur de Lyon mentions sand obscuring visibility during a battle. Mount & Blade is good fun, is there a desert nation in it now?

Another good example of something similar happening would be the battle of Cynoscephalae during the second Macedonian war. The Romans were able to get into the side of the phalanx where their short swords were able to reach the enemy but the Macedonians could not respond due to the length of their pikes.

That is an interesting story about the Romans at Cynoscephalae. What is the source? I would have thought the Macedonian phalanx would be carrying swords as secondary weapons.

[kardar233]

The two uses for a two-hander that I have seen proposed are a) Cutting through a polearm formation and/or b) Cutting the legs off horses. Both of these are very, as someone on here mentioned, quite dubious. So, what were these swords designed for.

As for being inferior to polearms, a number of people, most notably George Silver, say that in a man to man fight, a man with a quarterstaff or axe or halberd would have an advantage over a swordsmen.

Nitpick: the two (possible) uses you've mentioned are for the full-scale two-handed swords (being a student of the Italian school, I'd call them spadone). The somewhat smaller longsword (usable in one but primarily two hands, what I'm learning out of Fiore) is more of a combat and dueling weapon.

As to your second point; yeah, against the kind of reach you'll be getting with a polearm or similar you're going to have a lot of trouble. I could see getting through to one of the larger axes by taking advantage of their inertia, but a more balanced and less swingy weapon is really hard to get past.

[Brother Oni]

Mount & Blade is good fun, is there a desert nation in it now?

The sequel, Mount and Blade: Warband, has the Sarranid Sultanate as the Middle eastern/desert nation.

[Conners]

Are there any good theories on how 1950 style flying saucers could work? There are stories about hovering at speeds too slow for a flying vehicle, turning without inertia hindering them, and going at incredible speed without breaking the sound barrier.

Any good theories about how that might be possible for human engineering?

[Matthew]

The sequel, Mount and Blade: Warband, has the Sarranid Sultanate as the Middle eastern/desert nation.

Right, apparently I downloaded that from Steam at some point. We bought in during the early development of the game, so we (my wife and I) played it a bunch of times, it all starts to meld into one!

[Deadmeat.GW]

Fair enough, but anti-tank guns are very clearly for destroying tanks.

The two uses for a two-hander that I have seen proposed are a) Cutting through a polearm formation and/or b) Cutting the legs off horses. Both of these are very, as someone on here mentioned, quite dubious. So, what were these swords designed for.

As for being inferior to polearms, a number of people, most notably George Silver, say that in a man to man fight, a man with a quarterstaff or axe or halberd would have an advantage over a swordsmen.

Ignore the whole primary useage as being against pikes or horses.
That is more of romanticised description.

The real zweihanders were for melee against looser formations while wearing a farily substantial (and may I add good quality) armour.
The descriptions of the kit I saw of dopple soldners included pretty much what we would call field plate in my re-enactment society.

The back of the legs are fairly exposed but everything else is covered and as such most ranged weapons are not going to be very effective against you.

Keep in mind that in many battles the dopple soldners did not hold the Center of the lines but the flanks of other units or even the army.
So they would be facing skirmishers and cavalry quite often.
Against skirmishers dispersed formation and hack your way through, against cavalry form up in pseudo pikeblocks and change to looser formation once they have intermingled with your dopple soldners.

These weapons could be used for many different purposes which is what their strength was.

[Yora]

When talking about supersonic bullets, does it apply only to the speed of sound in air, or also to the speed of sound waves in lead?
Wouldn't "something funny" happen when you push the back end of a bullet faster than the speed of sound waves in the lead?

[Galloglaich]

Longswords were used as sidearms and were definitely used on the battlefield. They remained very popular from the 14th century through the 17th, by which time they had become gradually replaced by rapiers for a variety of reasons (mainly fashion). You can see a few dozen examples in historical artwork here:

http://hemaalliance.com/discussion/v...hp?f=20&t=2070

It was a sidearm but sidearms were very important in this period. You could think of it also as the 'personal' weapon.

The whole 'swords crushing bones' thing is easily disproven by watching 30 seconds of any "Battle of Nations" bout.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifVBhKmBCt8

Armor is very effective and swords make poor bludgeons. Even axes and pole-arms. The myth arises from the Victorian era and was spread through poorly researched books, and later reinforced by RPG games and bad documentaries it remained prevalent even in academia until Oakeshott disproved it and came out with his typology, which very gradually became the academic standard from the 60's - 80's. But that has taken a very long time to filter back out into the popular culture mainstream, which seems to really love the idea that everyone born before 1600 AD was stupid and filthy.

But they weren't, the weapons they made were in many cases, exquisite. As swordsmith Peter Johnnson put it, a sword is more like an airplane wing than a crowbar (though admittedly most swords are not hollow!)

The Montante / Zwiehander / Spada a Due Mani / Claymore class of weapons (which includes a pretty wide range of weapon sizes) were used in all the above mentioned cases, against 'loose' formations (such as in hill country like in the Scottish highlands), against horses (some of the big Japanese two-handed swords were specifically called 'horse-killing swords'), against pike-squares, and also in other cases. But the best information we have for period sources is that they were primarily used, at least in Continental Europe, for cases when 'few must fight against many'. The surviving montante manuals we have, from Spain, recommend the weapon for street skirmishes if you expect to be outnumbered. On the battlefield, orders of battle indicate that the two-handed swordsmen were used to defend banners (very important), protect cannon, as bodyguards for VIP's, to protect groups of hand-gunners and skirmishers, to attack pike squares, to attack / target VIP's, and to act as skirmishers themselves. Essentially they provided extra protection for when a formation broke up, and /or they could exploit the situation when an (enemy) formation was breaking up.

Incidentally, 'dopplesoldner' did not automatically mean two-handed swordsman. A gunner or a halberdier could also be a 'dopplesoldner'. It just meant double pay. But most two-handed swordsmen were dopplesoldner. Like the longsword, it was a weapon which required more than just a few months of training.

Speaking of which, we also know that the fencing guilds, such as the Federfecther of Prague (and elsewhere) and the Marxbruder, of Frankfurt (and elsewhere) who principally studied the longsword, were legally sanctioned to certify expert fencers as dopplesoldners. So we know a bit about how they were trained. Some of the Italian Masters also specifically show the use of Spadone or Spada a Due Mani, Marozzo and a few others. And most of the 16th Century longsword manuals show longer weapons than the 15th, presumably because they were also training to use the big 'true' two handers.

The halberdiers guild of St. Michael in Bruges also apparently trained with the longsword.

As to why the big two-handed weapons appeared, I think it's mainly due to metallurgy.

G

[zorenathres]

The whole 'swords crushing bones' thing is easily disproven by watching 30 seconds of any "Battle of Nations" bout.

great post btw, but i have a question, i watched it & have been to SCA stuff before (even participated for a little), but how does this disprove anything? (no, my friend, im not defending swords as bludgeons ) yes its full contact & yes their using medieval weapons, but as for a completely accurate portrayal of weapons from history, i dunno... i know these guys do a lot of research & make their own weapons, so they likely know more than any of us, i just find it hard to use it as a reference for what im looking for...

[Galloglaich]

This isn't SCA, those are steel weapons. They are hitting each other as hard as they can with steel weapons and nobody dies (or ...very few). That is the only thing that those videos prove.

Real swords would be similar but actually lighter and a bit thinner. So if these things can't break bones through armor, or at any rate do so rarely enough that they are able to do this as an (admittedly dangerous) sport all day long for a week, how are we expected to believe the myth that swords were meant to break bones through armor? If so they seem to be really bad at it.

As for expertize, a lot of us in this thread are personally familiar with period arms and armor, I've handled quite a few antiques personally, and I know I'm not alone here. I've been a HEMA practitioner for 12 years and I'm not alone in that either. For that matter, I've fought several full-contact, full-speed sparring matches using steel weapons wearing little more than a fencing mask and some cloth and foam padding for protection, and none of my bones broke. We have tournaments every year now in which dozens of people fight with them.

The point I've made that swords were not designed to crush people through armor also matches the commentary of all the experts that I'm aware of at any rate in the fields of fencing, swordmaking, sword history and so on.

So I'm not sure what your argument is exactly, are you saying that real antique swords would be better at cracking skulls through helmets than modern blunt replicas?

G

[Caustic Soda]

Wasn't the mordschlag (grabbing your sword by the blade and using the handguard as a hammer) mentioned earlier in one of these threads as a way to improvise bludgeoning? If so, that doesn't seem like a technique that'd make much sense if swords could already do that just by wielding them blade-forward. Or am I remembering incorrectly?

[Dead_Jester]

Wasn't the mordschlag (grabbing your sword by the blade and using the handguard as a hammer) mentioned earlier in one of these threads as a way to improvise bludgeoning? If so, that doesn't seem like a technique that'd make much sense if swords could already do that just by wielding them blade-forward. Or am I remembering incorrectly?

I think it's rather more because holding the sword in reverse increased the effectiveness of the sword as a bludgeon, by placing the center of mass near the impact rather than far from it and by reducing the area of impact (the guard has a smaller profile than the blade, therefore increasing the damage at a precise point). Bludgeoning someone with the blade works (you can bludgeon with anything really if you want), but it will probably be dramatically less effective than making your sword into the equivalent of an improvised warhammer (albeit, quite a long one, which may have contributed to the effectiveness of the technique, though it is more probable that the sword was not used at full extension).

[a_humble_lich]

When talking about supersonic bullets, does it apply only to the speed of sound in air, or also to the speed of sound waves in lead?
Wouldn't "something funny" happen when you push the back end of a bullet faster than the speed of sound waves in the lead?

So I was going to answer that it is just the speed of sound in air, as solids have a very high sound speed, but a little online research has proven me wrong. Apparently lead has a remarkably low sound speed (only 1160 m/s or 3800 ft/s) which is less than the speed of sound in water. And (according to Wikipedia) modern bullets can have speeds up to 1700 m/s.

As far as "something funny" happening, you would get "funny" stuff happening if you are pushing the bullet so hard that the back part of the bullet is moving supersonic before the front part starts to move. You would get a shockwave forming in the bullet and I doubt it would stay bullet shaped for long. However, bullets will accelerate to supersonic speeds over the entire length of the barrel so I wouldn't expect the acceleration to be nearly that high. Now if you were to make a gun that somehow had rifle level muzzle velocities but whose barrel was only about the length of the bullet, then you might not want to use lead for your projectiles.

As for swords being used for bashing, my thought is if that was what swords were good for then why bother making it sword shaped. A sword length bar of steel is far easier to make than a sharpened sword so there much have been a reason so much time was spent putting a good edge on a blade.

[Galloglaich]

great post btw, but i have a question, i watched it & have been to SCA stuff before (even participated for a little), but how does this disprove anything? (no, my friend, im not defending swords as bludgeons ) yes its full contact & yes their using medieval weapons, but as for a completely accurate portrayal of weapons from history, i dunno... i know these guys do a lot of research & make their own weapons, so they likely know more than any of us, i just find it hard to use it as a reference for what im looking for...

Hey I'm sorry I missed the part where you said you were not defending swords as bludgeons... I may have gone off on a tangent, I'm not certain what your point is exactly. I will acknowledge that generally speaking, Battle of Nations / Bohun is not the best most realistic resource for Medieval warfare, except in the one respect I mentioned. But it does illustrate that one point pretty effectively.

G

[zorenathres]

hey its all good, i watched that vid & looked at another US vs Poland 21 v 21 match & that was much more entertaining (at the end of the first match, a US guy is in the center of the melee with a halberd, a Polish guy charges him & the man stands his ground, knocking the Polish guy to the ground), i did see a few two handed swords as well, though the quality of the videos are not much to brag about...

the halberd guy is at 4:07

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Su_D...eature=related

anyway, this video does a better job of proving your point, the guy with the halberd stands right behind a guy & hits him hard on the head (@ 3:56), to no effect?

EDIT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS0mI...eature=related

@ 3:40 there is an example of damage to armor from two handed weapons

[Fortinbras]

How effective were swords at stabbing through mail? If they were not effective at doing this, why where they not supplanted by maces and hammers when mail became common place? Why did longswords remain popular as secondary weapons instead of being replaced by hammers and maces?

As far as the two-handed swords go, what advantages did they have over poleaxemen or hammer-and-shield men when fighting in loose formations?

Also, how effective was the murder-stroke at damaging men in "transitional" plate armor? Would a sword with sharpened quillons be at all feasible?