Real Western Sword Combat

[Azimaith]

Originally posted by Elif Godson: Going on 20 or so years in the martial arts and thankfully I have never had to use any of my training in actual combat, I have studied styles ranging from Wushu to American Kickboxing, Judo and Jui Jitsu with a splash of Kendo. Some instructors were fly by nights and some were the real deal. In todays market so to speak you will find a lot of posers and people saying that they were grand champions of this and that and unfortunatly there is no real way to prove this except through trial and error. There are few sources out there that keep track of who got what rank from whom and how or where and so the populace is at the mercy of the instructors, sometimes painfully. Some of the fee's that are charged are outragous in many cases, spending 80 to 200 $ a month for a few hours a week is ludicrus if you ask me. As for fencing I have never used a foil or rapier and by most looks of it it is in depth for sparring and martial use. In Kend, the way I learned we would use sweeps and pretty much the whole body subject to attack, even the throat I have come home with bruises there and been unable to talk from certain blows and yes I was wearing protection. Sensei would somtimes jam his shinai there and pole vault us backwards or pin us to the wall for punishment if we used poor technique and you would never see it coming. I always enjoyed myself and that is my reason for doing the martial arts I am not in top shape anymore but still enjoy myself. I think that is why soccer mom's do tai bo cardio karate as well as tae kwon do for the comraderie and as was metioned before for the security of it. Most people will go there whole lives without ever having to lift a finger in self defense and then there are those who seek it out or are put in untimely situations, martial arts is for everyone either inquisitive or die hard. Enjoy it, it is there for the taking. I think I went a bit off topic:ponder1:

Don't get my wrong, I've nothing against kendo, and I never said it was a babies art, its most definately gonna hurt when you get nailed with a shinai, I know cause Its happened to me, but as I was saying you still have restricted body targets in many of them, thats the sport version I believe, there are two versions right?

[Azimaith]

Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: I've made a point of this once before. The asian martial arts portrayed in movies and television have completely skewed everyones view. A well trained European knght in full armor was a formidable opponent! Full steel plate was not anywhere near as heavy as many think. Full nobleman quality battle rattle with weapon and full shield was about 75 lbs. of distributed weight. The woven cloth and laquered wood of the samurai was not exactly feather weight either, although it was lighter. The Katana is designed to deliver broad contact slashing attacks with it's curved blade. Ideal for unarmored or lightly armored opponents. Not so good when used against a material of nearly the same hardness. In truth, the long sword wasn't all that great for this either. A broad sword, being shorter and heavier works a little better. Concentrating the force of the blow on a smaller area and not relying on razor sharpness is more effective under these circumstances. That's when you started seeing weapons like the flanged/spiked mace and the war hammer/pick start coming back into fashion. Weapons and armor are designed to overcome a certain type of threat in the most effective and economic way. That doesn't necessarily make one warrior any better than another, given their individual circumstances. But one thing we can say for sure. Steel provides a more sure barrier against steel than wood and cloth.

Yep its true, movies have alot to do with the demise of asian martial arts, you know theres something wrong when the forums for martial arts you go to have posts like: How can I dodge bullets like Neo!? Such decay is painful to see. Naturally a fully armored plate armor clad warrior would be quite formidable, in full gear for plate armor it would be pretty standard to have: the armor itself, a longsword or possibly an estoc, mace, or maybe a poleaxe. Shields weren't used with plate armor as the armor itself provided enough protection already and the fighters preferred mobility and the power of two hands to shield protection. Truth be told, the katana has a superior cutting edge to the longsword, this is naturally because its curved as you said and therefore can deliver huge cuts, however, it lacks nearly and sembelence of a good thrust so its fairly balanced I would say. The broadsword was actually a basket hilted sword used in one hand, its folly to believe you can cut through plate armor, its just simply won't work with a sword, instead you need to attack vulnerable areas with a sword like the armpit, you simply have better aim with the two handed longsword than the one handed broadsword. In truth the first armor piercing weapons were clubs, though they always seemed like a really crude weapon they go through armor like nothing, there are accounts of knights being still fully armorered but beaten into a pulp inside their mail or plate.

[Thoran]

The other thing people don't realize is that all plate was not created equal. Heavy Plate is most often what people think of when they're talking about PM armor. This type of plate was exclusively used by Mounted Knights to my knowledge, and was too heavy for easy dismounted use (there ARE accounts of knights being de-horsed and not being able to regain their feet without help). These guys were the tanks of their day... charging around on HUGE armored horses, but not real nimble or manuverable. Visibility STUNK in those big helmets too, meaning they were not particuarly formidable once on the ground.

There's other varieties of Plate that would have been used on the ground, providing varying amounts of protection, some of those variants would have been quite formidable against a light armored and bladed Samurai. While the Samurai blade is a thing of beauty and an impressive piece of technology, there were blades used in the west that were IMO their equal in craftsmanship. Damascus steel comes to mind, although they were from the Islamic world... in fact I believe that Islam gets short shrift when it comes to discussions of classic weapons and armor. It seems we all get caught up in discussing Asian and Western contributions and forget that Islam fielded some of the most formidable armies on the planet... often armed using superior technology in comparison to their opponents.

[Sir Kenyth]

Originally posted by Thoran: The other thing people don't realize is that all plate was not created equal. Heavy Plate is most often what people think of when they're talking about PM armor. This type of plate was exclusively used by Mounted Knights to my knowledge, and was too heavy for easy dismounted use (there ARE accounts of knights being de-horsed and not being able to regain their feet without help). These guys were the tanks of their day... charging around on HUGE armored horses, but not real nimble or manuverable. Visibility STUNK in those big helmets too, meaning they were not particuarly formidable once on the ground. There's other varieties of Plate that would have been used on the ground, providing varying amounts of protection, some of those variants would have been quite formidable against a light armored and bladed Samurai. While the Samurai blade is a thing of beauty and an impressive piece of technology, there were blades used in the west that were IMO their equal in craftsmanship. Damascus steel comes to mind, although they were from the Islamic world... in fact I believe that Islam gets short shrift when it comes to discussions of classic weapons and armor. It seems we all get caught up in discussing Asian and Western contributions and forget that Islam fielded some of the most formidable armies on the planet... often armed using superior technology in comparison to their opponents.

Here's a point that's widely argued. Whether plate armor was extremely heavy. Mostly because there are so few surviving specimens. The surviving specimens also tend to be decorative display/ceremony suits and may not even have been designed for real combat. It's possible that the first iron plate suits were too heavy, but carbon steel is a different story. Historians have recreated suits and done backflips and handstands in them. The weight of such suits is well distributed and the parts are fitted. Like you said before though, all suits were not created equal and only the wealthy had them. Peasant footmen often wore chain shirts, leather, heavy cloth, or no armor at all. Ranged weapons were always the deciding factors of battle. Bowmen protected by pikemen were economical and effective against hand weapons. Light calvary equipped with composite shortbows were deadly and quick! Once effective armor piercing ranged weapons were developed, armors kind of faded away.

I've heard before that the Islamic armies were very formidable. I'd always assumed it was because of superior organization. I'm not familiar with their technological acheivements. Were they the first to develop the composite bow?

[Thoran]

Well one of the more interesting contributions of Islam to military science is the refining of the gunpowder formula into a useful explosive. There's ample evidence that gunpowder was used as an explosive as early as the crusades... and was key to arab victories.

Another technology is Damascus Steel... a very strong composition that we still can't figure out how they manufactured, it made blades of exceeding high strength and durability by alternating hard and soft steel. This banding was visible and resulted in blades of amazing beauty.

Not sure about archery... would have to dig around on the net to find info.

[Azimaith]

First off, it depends on what you consider plate armor, plate mail was not what you'd imagine mostlikely, plate mail in my lexicon refers to the midstage between fully articulate plate armor and mail armor, this is when pieces like plastrons and curiass's were used as protection from the longbow, against which mail armor was simply insufficient. I've never heard of "heavy plate" perse, naturally since manufacting lines and such were not invented yet each suit was custom fit and some could be different weights and thickness dependant on the strength of whom is was made for. The sights of the greathelm as I assume your refering to do indeed stink, but its far better than an arrow through the skull. Damascus steel wasn't anything special as people make it out to be, after the victories in the crusades against the islamic defenders damascus steel was the best steel available in the area, not that other irons could't be alloyed into good steel as well. More distinctly damascus steel is not set apart by its quality as much as its intriguing markings. A sword forged of damascus steel would look somewhat like watered or wootz steel, in laymans terms it would have an oil slick like design in the metal just from the steel itself. That is one thing that made damascus steel very popular and famous. Islam's armies were indeed good but still, they fought a different kind of warfare, they were skirmishers, horse archers and light infantry men, nothing like the heavily armored western knights in pretty much every crusade, this could be an explanation why they lost a great deal of land.

Now as for plate armor weight, truth be told plate armor not as heavy as many believe, what good is armor if you can't fight in it, in full plate armor a knight could grapple, dodge, run (though it would be tiring) a fully armored knight on the ground could grab an opposing knight, wrestle him to the ground and jam a stiff bladed dagger through his visor well enough. Truth be told there were no iron suits of plate armor in western europe. (Well as armor was all custom I can't be sure of that but it was not widely made) steel was discovered during the dark ages 1100's, plate armor entered the battle field 1400 and later and was unfortunately ended by firearms. Even with compound bows and longbows, both were developed at a different times, armor wouldn't go outta style, a knight in full plate armor could charge through a hail of arrows fired from decent range (not point blank or within 100 yards) and emerge unscathed, and massed pike formations didn't occur till the renaissance in which warfare turned toward firearms. Thats when we got the true two handed greatswords of the renaissance, massive swords sometimes 6 feet long with 18 inch handles and foot long ricassos were employed to take the tops off of pikes and spears thereby turning a fierce group of pikemen into peasants with blunt sticks. And yes I believe that the islamic people were the first to use the compound bow in combat, I think there were also compounds in other parts of the world at that time too though.
And finally in damascus there was the best quality iron available for weapon craft which really made it nice and workable, low slag, and low impurities made the iron good for the smiths who at the time had no idea what the slag they were melting off was, they just knew it made it stronger. Layered blade construction is a completely different vector though, many places used layers of soft pure steel for flexibilty and higher carbon content steel for strenght all over, in the darkages they actually used wires of alternating softness and hardness, twisted them together and made a blade outta the entire twisted mass.

Now finally I sense some confusion on steel, mabye I'm wrong but better safe than sorry.

First off I think you all know this, steel is not a normal metal, you don't mine steel. Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon, differing levels of carbon make different levels of hardness and softness. Because it was harder than iron it could be used in lesser quantities for the same result which made it lighter. Now soft steel isn't bad and hard steel isn't good, both are needed in any blade, a blade must flex, if it doesn't then weld points will crack and the blade will break, therefore many blades had soft steel, of course a blade that bends isn't any better so they had to use both hard and soft steel. Many times the hard steel was like the bread of the sandwich, it kept the sword together and provided a good edge. Now since iron doesn't come pure outta the ground smelting was created. When you smelt a blade your basically melting out other elements from the metal which can cause weakness in the blade, the resulting liquid is called slag, the higher your forge temperature is the more you can get out, this is one reason why blade folding in oriental blades came about, in Japan they were not able to reach the same high forge temperatures that the western europeans achieved, you could blame it on the period of isolation but after all, we are comparing a quarter of a continent to a tiny group of islands. Because of the lower forge temperatures the japanese instead of settling for an inferior metal, folded blades over themselves and beat out impurities from the fold, then they did it again and again and again, eventually the steel came out very very strong which accounts for its legendary strength. Well, I think thats enough for now, can't wait to see the replies.

[Thoran]

Lots of good data, only a couple issues... I question is the idea that the plate worn by mounted knights was as light as proposed recently. I've read several period accounts of battle or tourney where knights were unable to stand after being knocked off their horse. Of course it's possible they just had the wind knocked out of them, but that's not how the accounts seemed to portray it. There ARE historical drawings of the tripod crane contraptions that lifted knights onto their chargers (unless the ones I've seen were forgeries, wish I had references handy)... it seems unlikely they were needed because the knights were too lazy to mount up on their own, either the range of motion afforded by the armors joints was limited or the armor was heavy.

The Islamic nations did lose a lot of territory... but they conquered a lot too. The Crusades were ultimately a failure for Western Civilization, and even during the period of occupation I seem to recall that the Europeans were confined to relatively small enclaves along the coast. I've read that at least partial motivation for the crusades was a fear of growing Islamic power, especailly with the success of the Turks. Large swaths of Christendom were systematically conquered by the armies of Islam... up to and including Constantinople (although it took them quite a while to crack that nut) which I believe was in its decline at the time but a very important city nonetheless. I don't have a map in front of me but I seem to recall that during a period when European powers were confined to... well... Europe, the power of Islam extended from Gibraltar (sp?) all the way to India, north into Spain and Russia and south into Africa.

[Azimaith]

Originally posted by Thoran: Lots of good data, only a couple issues... I question is the idea that the plate worn by mounted knights was as light as proposed recently. I've read several period accounts of battle or tourney where knights were unable to stand after being knocked off their horse. Of course it's possible they just had the wind knocked out of them, but that's not how the accounts seemed to portray it. There ARE historical drawings of the tripod crane contraptions that lifted knights onto their chargers (unless the ones I've seen were forgeries, wish I had references handy)... it seems unlikely they were needed because the knights were too lazy to mount up on their own, either the range of motion afforded by the armors joints was limited or the armor was heavy. The Islamic nations did lose a lot of territory... but they conquered a lot too. The Crusades were ultimately a failure for Western Civilization, and even during the period of occupation I seem to recall that the Europeans were confined to relatively small enclaves along the coast. I've read that at least partial motivation for the crusades was a fear of growing Islamic power, especailly with the success of the Turks. Large swaths of Christendom were systematically conquered by the armies of Islam... up to and including Constantinople (although it took them quite a while to crack that nut) which I believe was in its decline at the time but a very important city nonetheless. I don't have a map in front of me but I seem to recall that during a period when European powers were confined to... well... Europe, the power of Islam extended from Gibraltar (sp?) all the way to India, north into Spain and Russia and south into Africa.

Ah but you see, jousting like fencing is a sport, you don't carry a fencing foil into a melee, you don't wear jousting armor into a battle. When you joust on a charger, there is no running on the ground, no wrestling, punching, stabbing, or binding, simply riding, and because of that the best armor you could get would keep you safe while you did it. Jousting armor weighed an arse load and was no used in combat. Once again I stress you don't use jousting armor in real battle, its only for jousting. As for knights falling off their horses on battle fields the reason why many didn't get up is because they had a ton of dead horsemeat on them, with the advent of the longbow in english warfare, they quit even shooting the mounted soldier and simply shot their horses which was just as good and much easier. Anyhow as I said, plate armor could be worn while mounted, don't expect to see a knight in Pisan, maximillian, gothic, or that godforsaken katenburst suit though, that came later when armor degenerated from functional to artistic pieces in a mad rush to try and make bullet proof plate, never happened so plate dissapeared, and the only ones made were parade armor, gaudy, innfective, godawfully heavy, and just a plain disgrace to armoring if you ask me.
The crusades are also how you look at it, they figured as far as I can tell if they could capture the major trade routes they would economically starve the islams out, unfortunately for them there were alot more muslims than christians there plus the changes in gorvernmental structure and class, morale loss and alliance changed led to the end of that. There were plenty of crusades.

[pritchke]

I believe the Babylonians were the first to develope a composite bow. While not acurate they were powerful and could shoot long distances.

[ 07-15-2003, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[Azimaith]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pritchke:
I believe the Babylonians were the first to develope a composite bow. While not acurate they were powerful and could shoot long distances. [/QUOT
Actually the compound bow was accurate enough, really weaopons never have great up or downpoints in real life though they do in rpgs. Lets take for example the spear, the spear could kill as easily as the sword, had the defense of range and shaft, plus they were easy to use, they didn't have any great glaring weaknesses, the compound bow was created from strips of wood and often bone glued one on the other like modern plywood, they packed a helluva a punch, were still very accurate, they just required alot more strength to use, this is why you don't see differing missile weapon types alive together at the same time. The compound bow was just plain better. Unlike most melee weapons they could getbetter, after all a sword didn't get get sharper or more powerful overtime, they basically fit perfectly with the current conditions of battle, there wasn't much to improve without loss, however, ranged weapons like a crossbow COULD get more accurate, longer ranged, and more powerful.