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Taerkar posted:But yeah, blame video games and D&D for the whole "Weapons are Heavy" and "Lumbering around in heavy armor" D&D in particular has had some pretty absurd notions about how much things weigh and how much space they take up - and they set the tone for subsequent generations of gamers. A D&D fighter carrying their armor, weapons, and basic equipment is probably going to be loaded with a nominal 140 lbs of gear (at least half of which will be their armor), which is rather ridiculous. It's pretty much to be expected when you figure that their lists were made by nerds back in the 1970s, but it's still quite eye-rolling. It's essentially a game contrivance that has taken on a life of its own as an urban legend - much like the idea that machine-guns are inaccurate or that shotguns have a short range.
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May 22, 2015 14:45
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Taerkar posted:But yeah, blame video games and D&D for the whole "Weapons are Heavy" and "Lumbering around in heavy armor" I actually did a check on that, and found that while two-handed swords were rated at 15-25 lbs up to AD&D 2nd Edition (1989), later editions have them much lighter: 8 lbs in 3rd Edition (2000) and 4th Edition, and even 6 lbs in the latest incarnation. You're right though that their perceived heaviness during the 80s and earlier probably contributed to the misconception, even if they updated it later on. "Lumbering around in heavy armor" though is a trope that still persists.
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May 22, 2015 14:48
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Fangz posted:I'm a big fan of Mark Easton's videos. If I remember right, curved weapons distribute force better downwards along the curve, so they cut better. This works just in one direction, though. Because of this, curved weapons tend to be just one-edged. Two edges aren't really doing it if one of them is really lovely at cutting things.
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May 22, 2015 14:49
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Fangz posted:I'm a big fan of Increases the amount of blade that can be applied to the target in the same motion. It means you have a longer cutting surface on one side of the sword then the other, and it facilitates the cutting action of pulling the blade across the target. It also focuses the force onto a smaller initial impact area when you swing it at someone, since a straight blade would hit with more of the blade since its a straight line. And then it often also means the others side is totally dull, which means you can distribute the metal to allow for a very shallow angle towards the edge which makes the blade more easily sharpened and means less blade has to be pushed through the target
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May 22, 2015 14:52
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Libluini posted:If I remember right, curved weapons distribute force better downwards along the curve, so they cut better. This works just in one direction, though. Because of this, curved weapons tend to be just one-edged. Two edges aren't really doing it if one of them is really lovely at cutting things. I just rewatched The 13th Warrior, and there's that scene where ibn Fadlan is handed a sword and he trims it down into what looks like a scimitar. Does the curvature of the blade have anything to do with how easier it was supposedly to handle, or just the fact that it was smaller/lighter, or was it entirely BS?
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May 22, 2015 14:53
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You know how a guillotine's blade is diagonal and some razors have a twist to their blade? The less blade is in contact with whatever is to be cut at any given time, the greater the concentration of force in that area. It's the same principle as stabbing vs. hacking, basically - it also guides the movement of the arm to make slashing motions more natural. Also I've heard that it's easier to balance curved blades, but I have no idea how true that is.
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May 22, 2015 14:57
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just rewatched The 13th Warrior, and there's that scene where ibn Fadlan is handed a sword and he trims it down into what looks like a scimitar. Does the curvature of the blade have anything to do with how easier it was supposedly to handle, or just the fact that it was smaller/lighter, or was it entirely BS? That was probably more because ibn Fadlan had fought with curved weapons like scimitars all his life. Changing to another type of sword would need lots of training and would probably still kill him with a bad reflex at the worst possible moment.
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May 22, 2015 14:57
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The "pound" in this case was the Chinese jin so the weight was actually even worse, about 5.4 kg. Note that these swords were designed for slaying demons, so numerology would naturally take precedence over ergonomics when determining dimensions. I also doubt the horseshoe-repairing village blacksmith gave a poo poo about proper heat treatment or whatever for an already useless sword. So it's a shame this got lost to history instead of ending up in a museum as the platonic ideal of a lovely sword.
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May 22, 2015 14:58
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P-Mack posted:The "pound" in this case was the Chinese jin so the weight was actually even worse, about 5.4 kg. Note that these swords were designed for slaying demons, so numerology would naturally take precedence over ergonomics when determining dimensions. Make a life-size version of one of the swords from WoW's panda expansion, call it an "artist's conception."
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May 22, 2015 15:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just rewatched The 13th Warrior, and there's that scene where ibn Fadlan is handed a sword and he trims it down into what looks like a scimitar. Does the curvature of the blade have anything to do with how easier it was supposedly to handle, or just the fact that it was smaller/lighter, or was it entirely BS? In general curved swords tend to be slightly more balanced away from the hand since that makes them better for swinging at people, and straight swords are more often used for stabbing so the balance is close to the hand. The scene is the movie is half him just customizing it to be what he is used too, and half the myth that vikings were swinging around really heavy and crude swords.
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May 22, 2015 15:01
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gradenko_2000 posted:"Lumbering around in heavy armor" though is a trope that still persists. For basically a walking tank the iron man power armour suit in the more recent Fallout games is hilariously quite light. In the Fallout Universe, this is the thing that can take on retro futurisitic main battle tanks.
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May 22, 2015 15:11
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Dejan Bimble posted:This went uncommented 'pon many many pages ago, but I would like to add that the trench warfare stalemate was broken by Ethiopia employing a ww2 style large scale armored pincer action to cut off Eritrea's trench line. It was very cool stuff. Can you provide any additional comments on the conflict? I've always been interested in Ethiopian history, but that particular war is a bit of a blank spot for me.
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May 22, 2015 15:12
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WoodrowSkillson posted:In general curved swords tend to be slightly more balanced away from the hand since that makes them better for swinging at people, and straight swords are more often used for stabbing so the balance is close to the hand. The scene is the movie is half him just customizing it to be what he is used too, and half the myth that vikings were swinging around really heavy and crude swords. in reality, of course, most vikings didn't use swords because swords were expensive and also not as good for their style of warfare as e.g. bearded axes viking swords are cool, though
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May 22, 2015 15:15
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Fangz posted:I'm a big fan of Mark Easton's videos. Certain curvatures redirect the blade's force and/or angle to do more of a certain action. A curve like a katana means it slices, but a blade hooked like a kukri means the edge is coming in perpendicular to a swing rather than oblique, so it turns a slicing motion into a more forceful chop.
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May 22, 2015 15:16
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V. Illych L. posted:viking swords are cool, though Wasn't the iron vikings used really lovely, and bad for swords in general? Or was I misinformed?
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May 22, 2015 15:27
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V. Illych L. posted:in reality, of course, most vikings didn't use swords because swords were expensive and also not as good for their style of warfare as e.g. bearded axes swords were nearly universally sidearms, secondary weapons. Obviously there are exceptions. Vikings used spears and shields a whole lot of the time, as well as bearded axes, one handed axes, etc.
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May 22, 2015 15:29
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my dad posted:Wasn't the iron vikings used really lovely, and bad for swords in general? Or was I misinformed? Yes, so they literally used the exact same process as the japanese did to make the katana. Hardened high quality steel on the edges, softer steel/iron in the center.
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May 22, 2015 15:31
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Yes, so they literally used the exact same process as the japanese did to make the katana. Hardened high quality steel on the edges, softer steel/iron in the center. Did they fold the steel 100 times? Quench it in snowmelt from Mt. Fuji? Then it wasn't similar at all. 
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May 22, 2015 16:08
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my dad posted:Wasn't the iron vikings used really lovely, and bad for swords in general? Or was I misinformed? yes, also the vikings were not very good blacksmiths they thus tended to prefer robust, simple designs because they could generally count on the man wielding the blade to be strong and proficient from ploughing fields and rowing boats all day when they weren't fighting or training for a fight. even viking nobles were farmers and fishermen as well as warriors and traders. this means that the archetypical viking sword is not particularly long, rather stout, has a good, firm grip and a limited crossguard (because you don't use the sword to block or parry outside of an emergency - that's what the shield is for). viking swords, being designed to be used both in close formations and individual combat, were thus designed to be useful both for hacking and stabbing again, though, the popular depiction of vikings as fond of axes is pretty accurate - axes require less training, less dexterity and more brute force, and they are also a better match against the unarmoured men with large wooden shields which made up most of the viking opposition. spears were also popular, but in the sagas, at least, spears are typically javelins or home-defence weapons rather than something you actually go out to war with individuals would have individual preferences, obviously - at Stanford Bridge, Harald Hardråde apparently had a berserk with a huge axe hold the bridge more or less single-handedly while he tried to organise his army. in norse mythology, Odin's weapon of choice is a spear, several gods wield magical swords and Tor has his famous warhammer. i cannot recall any gods whose preferred weapon is an axe, indicating its status as a primarily lower-class weapon
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May 22, 2015 16:14
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Holy cow. Can you get them to post here? I wanna learn more about riot tactics from the opposition. Uhh. Are you saying you're a literal fascist? 
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May 22, 2015 16:19
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V. Illych L. posted:again, though, the popular depiction of vikings as fond of axes is pretty accurate - axes require less training, less dexterity and more brute force, and they are also a better match against the unarmoured men with large wooden shields which made up most of the viking opposition. spears were also popular, but in the sagas, at least, spears are typically javelins or home-defence weapons rather than something you actually go out to war with This bit is something I've seen repeated fairly often (also commonly in relation to clubs or maces), but it never really made all that much sense to me. Sure, a sword offers you a whole lot of advanced options including thrusting, draw-cutting, binding, etc. that may require a fair bit of training to use effectively, but there's nothing that forces you to make use of those if you don't know how. If all you want to (or can) do is just kinda whack people with it, a sword wouldn't be any more difficult to use for that purpose than an axe. If anything I'd imagine it would be slightly easier with a sword, as it would have a better balance and easier control over the edge alignment.
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May 22, 2015 16:30
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feedmegin posted:Uhh. Are you saying you're a literal fascist? I understood it that as saying he was a policeman, but I understand if some people consider the distinction to be mostly semantic.
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May 22, 2015 16:47
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EvanSchenck posted:That bar contains enough metal for 3 or 4 longswords, depending on design. If you have a 3' sword that weighs 9 lbs. something went wrong. At this point I'm just picturing a decently thick iron bar that has had something that appears to be an edge 'worked' into it.
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May 22, 2015 17:19
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I seem to recall an argument that a lot of the confusion of the weight of arms and armor comes from all the decorative pieces hanging on walls or standing in a corner all over old European castles and houses. Things that were made for decoration and never with the intent to be used so they were the wrong proportions, too thick, poor quality metals and etc...Raenir Salazar posted:The Union from a certain point of view? In that they started enlisting black people? That would be an extreme point of view. The ACW was an immense struggle but only mildly taxed the Unions resources. The economy of the northern states actually grew rapidly during the period of the war, largely due to increasing mechanization. This was a major consideration that actually was a key point keeping the European powers out of the conflict. They all watched the northern states build an enormous army (> 2 million) and navy (from 42 to almost 700 commissioned ships!) and not suffer shortages in the economy and wanted no part of that. Shelby Foote said, "I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back. At the same time the war was going on, the Homestead act was being passed, all these marvelous inventions were going on... If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War." Murgos fucked around with this message at 18:14 on May 22, 2015 |
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May 22, 2015 17:46
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I've heard that often attributed as to why the claim that they were shorter persisted too.
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May 22, 2015 17:54
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Taerkar posted:I've heard that often attributed as to why the claim that they were shorter persisted too. My brother visited Vienna, and he tells me most of the armors in a museum he visited were really drat short, though.
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May 22, 2015 18:00
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Perestroika posted:This bit is something I've seen repeated fairly often (also commonly in relation to clubs or maces), but it never really made all that much sense to me. Sure, a sword offers you a whole lot of advanced options including thrusting, draw-cutting, binding, etc. that may require a fair bit of training to use effectively, but there's nothing that forces you to make use of those if you don't know how. If all you want to (or can) do is just kinda whack people with it, a sword wouldn't be any more difficult to use for that purpose than an axe. If anything I'd imagine it would be slightly easier with a sword, as it would have a better balance and easier control over the edge alignment. Axes have the whole "weighty hunk of metal hitting you in one spot" effect which makes them a little easier to fight with, I imagine. Even if the axe was in total the same weight as a sword of equal length, most of that weight is concentrated in the axe head so taking a hit from an axe is going to be more of a shock than from a sword.
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May 22, 2015 18:13
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I know some of us also post in the SWEU thread, but I think we'd all get a little kick out of this. I always thought of them as space muskets myself.
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May 22, 2015 19:00
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Perestroika posted:This bit is something I've seen repeated fairly often (also commonly in relation to clubs or maces), but it never really made all that much sense to me. Sure, a sword offers you a whole lot of advanced options including thrusting, draw-cutting, binding, etc. that may require a fair bit of training to use effectively, but there's nothing that forces you to make use of those if you don't know how. If all you want to (or can) do is just kinda whack people with it, a sword wouldn't be any more difficult to use for that purpose than an axe. If anything I'd imagine it would be slightly easier with a sword, as it would have a better balance and easier control over the edge alignment. a sword is slightly unwieldy in a lot of ways, because the easiest motions to make for a burly, but untrained person are wacking motions directed at someone's head, which is the worst motion to make with a straight sword and the best to make with an axe due to weight distribution and the shape of the impact edge (the axe will generally be slightly curved if it's meant for use in combat) plus, these people are familiar with how axes work on account of using them as tools - a sword is a dedicated killing-people instrument, you cut and cleave wood with an axe a lot if you're a viking-era scandinavian the thing to remember about viking warriors is that they were generally just regular dudes, but very strong and relatively healthy from their semi-tribal/semi-feudal society. vikings are either thralls used in agriculture and fishing, herses or other minor nobles who are trained from childhood and also work in agriculture and fishing or free peasants who are used to agriculture and fishing - all of these are used to navigating rough terrain and surviving a pretty harsh environment, as well as doing lots of rowing and swimming - so they're (relatively) big and strong and very used to physical work and tools, but mostly not formally trained in warfare - normally, they got their combat knowledge from direct, hands-on experience in the million skirmishes that occurred throughout this period, which would often be some dude trying to make off with your sheep and you chasing him off by lobbing a spear at him or something
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May 22, 2015 19:04
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ArchangeI posted:I understood it that as saying he was a policeman, but I understand if some people consider the distinction to be mostly semantic. Antifa = Anti-fascist. The opposition would nominally be fascists.
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May 22, 2015 19:10
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V. Illych L. posted:the thing to remember about viking warriors is that they were generally just regular dudes, but very strong and relatively healthy from their semi-tribal/semi-feudal society. vikings are either thralls used in agriculture and fishing, herses or other minor nobles who are trained from childhood and also work in agriculture and fishing or free peasants who are used to agriculture and fishing - all of these are used to navigating rough terrain and surviving a pretty harsh environment, as well as doing lots of rowing and swimming - so they're (relatively) big and strong and very used to physical work and tools, but mostly not formally trained in warfare - normally, they got their combat knowledge from direct, hands-on experience in the million skirmishes that occurred throughout this period, which would often be some dude trying to make off with your sheep and you chasing him off by lobbing a spear at him or something Most people everywhere were agripeasants until like 1900, so why did it make the vikings extra burly? unusually good diet? genetics?
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May 22, 2015 19:12
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V. Illych L. posted:a sword is slightly unwieldy in a lot of ways, because the easiest motions to make for a burly, but untrained person are wacking motions directed at someone's head, which is the worst motion to make with a straight sword and the best to make with an axe due to weight distribution and the shape of the impact edge (the axe will generally be slightly curved if it's meant for use in combat) Yeah but, monks aside, almost friggin everyone they're raiding is either a born warrior or some similar flavor of peasant on the land. It's not like Saxon's didn't chop wood.
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May 22, 2015 19:12
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ArchangeI posted:I understood it that as saying he was a policeman, but I understand if some people consider the distinction to be mostly semantic. Dear god, no! Most people where I live side with the cops so I kinda assumed it was universal. Personally I think the guys with the signs are more in the right than the ones with the CS gas, but they aren't the established power so therefore antifa types are the opposition.
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May 22, 2015 20:03
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Murgos posted:I seem to recall an argument that a lot of the confusion of the weight of arms and armor comes from all the decorative pieces hanging on walls or standing in a corner all over old European castles and houses. Things that were made for decoration and never with the intent to be used so they were the wrong proportions, too thick, poor quality metals and etc... Yeah, it's the same poo poo you see with weapons in TV and movie productions nowadays. Weapons are gigantic and unwieldy, all fights are duels between main characters while backgrounders clang their sword together, nobody ever has any head protection. Because it looks cooler. I believe jousting armour tended to be much heavier too. You don't need to be able to move very well, and you know you're probably going to be taking a square hit from a lance, so you make drat sure you protect that one side of your body.
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May 22, 2015 20:05
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Dear god, no! Most people where I live side with the cops so I kinda assumed it was universal. Personally I think the guys with the signs are more in the right than the ones with the CS gas, but they aren't the established power so therefore antifa types are the opposition. Maybe in your county the cops don't respond to the threat of potential violence with gunfire. 
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May 22, 2015 20:10
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No I live in America but the people I live around are mostly rednecks.
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May 22, 2015 20:23
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The Vikings were probably better nourished than people in more dense populations, which would have allowed them to get bigger? I dunno. Both of those sides would have been way better nourished than early modern people though; I saw Eugene of Savoy's buff coat in a museum in Vienna and I'm about his height but my shoulders are like, a quarter again as broad. Also someone already mentioned SA on the Tom Kratmann meltdown amazon page
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May 22, 2015 20:37
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  A New Wheraboo Approaches!EDIT: Which one of you goons was it? 
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May 22, 2015 22:13
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Disinterested posted:Most people everywhere were agripeasants until like 1900, so why did it make the vikings extra burly? diet and varied exercise, i think is the consensus also they were generally more experienced in personal combat due to the exceptionally lawless conditions of scandinavia at the time
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May 22, 2015 22:15
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Klaus88 posted:
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