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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court:
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Jul 26, 2015 13:25
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10 Beers posted:Anyone have experience with the Cold Steel polypropylene wasters? I was thinking about getting one or two, but thought I'd check around first. The wasters are ok for basic drills and that's about it. They're the cheapest wasters on the market (that I know of) and they're virtually indestructible.
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Jul 27, 2015 01:48
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This is a bit sidelining the topic, but does anyone know any good sources on medieval/Renaissance Italian governments? Specifically monarchies like the Duchy of Milan.
BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 16:00
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Horrible music, but the stuff is enjoyable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AepYM508eg
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Jul 29, 2015 18:52
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:This is a bit sidelining the topic, but does anyone know any good sources on medieval/Renaissance Italian governments? Specifically monarchies like the Duchy of Milan. There is a very wide variety. Do you want something that compares or monographs?
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Jul 29, 2015 18:57
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Obdicut posted:There is a very wide variety. Do you want something that compares or monographs? Both would probably be good - I'd like something that outlines how government was structured and how they functioned. Listings and explanations of government offices and departments would be nice. The bureaucracy, the development of absolutism, and the patronage of learning would be interesting topics. e: And they should be easily accessible (physically speaking), whether books or journals. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 19:15
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quote is not edit
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Jul 29, 2015 19:27
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Can you read Italian?
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Jul 29, 2015 19:32
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Obdicut posted:Can you read Italian? No.
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Jul 29, 2015 19:40
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Question for the armor experts here. I've recently look at some articles about islamic armor and wondered about the lack of mentioning cloth armor worn underneath (or over). This seems quite counterintuitive to what I learned so far about how well this combo works. I can't pick up Elgood's Islamic arms and armor atm, does anyone know something more specific? Somebody suggested that mail worn without padding wouldn't be so unusual, pointing to this image from the Maciejowski bible, supposedly the guy taking off his mail on the right should bring across the point. Green socks right next to him wears the same type of cloth armor underneath the mail that blueshirt to the right carries away. Don't find that all especially representative for the point. 
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Jul 30, 2015 12:39
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:This is a bit sidelining the topic, but does anyone know any good sources on medieval/Renaissance Italian governments? Specifically monarchies like the Duchy of Milan. Do you mean primary?
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Jul 30, 2015 14:42
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JaucheCharly posted:Question for the armor experts here. I've recently look at some articles about islamic armor and wondered about the lack of mentioning cloth armor worn underneath (or over). This seems quite counterintuitive to what I learned so far about how well this combo works. I have never heard of islamic armour being worn without padding, and can think of at least one type of armour, the kazaghand, that is generally associated with Islamic regions and by definition has a padding component. Aside from the fact that one image in the Maciejowski is not particularly representative, whoever is interpreting that image is sorely mistaken. That guy is not taking off armour but putting it on. You don't take mail off standing up, because then you're fighting gravity in a confined position, which sucks. This is what taking mail off looks like, from the same dang source: 
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Jul 30, 2015 15:03
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:This is a bit sidelining the topic, but does anyone know any good sources on medieval/Renaissance Italian governments? Specifically monarchies like the Duchy of Milan. You could try 'Communes and Despots: The City State in Late-Medieval Italy' by Jones, but it's in the transactions of the royal historical society.
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Jul 30, 2015 15:19
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JaucheCharly posted:Horrible music, but the stuff is enjoyable: That's my hometown! I always recommend the place to people who visit, but haven't been there in ages. I remember some of the tours letting you try on some of the armor to demonstrate that it's really not that heavy and cumbersome as depicted in popular culture.
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Jul 30, 2015 16:06
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Cue gruesome cracking of the glue, fear of the bow exploding and knocking out your teeth. Looks weird, but it's ok.  Left limb is not aligned. Back to heat treatment. 
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Jul 30, 2015 18:15
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JaucheCharly posted:Cue gruesome cracking of the glue, fear of the bow exploding and knocking out your teeth. That will be so badass. When will you have the finished product? When will you post a video firing it?
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Jul 30, 2015 18:58
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Disinterested posted:You could try 'Communes and Despots: The City State in Late-Medieval Italy' by Jones, but it's in the transactions of the royal historical society. Sadly it's behind a paywall at Jstor. But I ended up finding one book that seems to fit, A Renaissance Court: Milan Under Galeazzo Maria Sforza. e: Yes, even lists of ducal officials, the most exciting part of history BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jul 30, 2015 |
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Jul 30, 2015 19:09
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One or two weeks, depending how effective the adjustments are. Could also be a month. Things might take a while, because I have no idea how strong it will be and the arrows need to match the bow (don't have arrows for such a strong bow). Judging from today and from it's weight (317g), it could be north of 70#. If I'm able to pull it, I'll make a video.
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Jul 30, 2015 19:11
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JaucheCharly posted:One or two weeks, depending how effective the adjustments are. Could also be a month. Things might take a while, because I have no idea how strong it will be and the arrows need to match the bow (don't have arrows for such a strong bow). Judging from today and from it's weight (317g), it could be north of 70#. If I'm able to pull it, I'll make a video. Sounds like you need to start doing pull-ups. Good luck
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Jul 30, 2015 20:34
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:I have never heard of islamic armour being worn without padding, and can think of at least one type of armour, the kazaghand, that is generally associated with Islamic regions and by definition has a padding component. 
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Aug 2, 2015 04:27
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Tell me everything about halberds. They have spear, axe, and hook. Is there a more useful weapon for a barely trained soldier to face any enemy with, or is it the ultimate peasant arm before gunpowder?
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Aug 2, 2015 05:08
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Pharmaskittle posted:Tell me everything about halberds. They have spear, axe, and hook. Is there a more useful weapon for a barely trained soldier to face any enemy with, or is it the ultimate peasant arm before gunpowder?
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Aug 2, 2015 12:55
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Wish my hema club did more stuff with staff weapons edit: serious moustache envy 
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Aug 2, 2015 15:14
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Pharmaskittle posted:Tell me everything about halberds. They have spear, axe, and hook. Is there a more useful weapon for a barely trained soldier to face any enemy with, or is it the ultimate peasant arm before gunpowder? Halberds belong to a category of combination polearms that also includes the bill, glaive, guisarme, voulge, and others. Arguably, percussion weapons like the lucerne hammer and others are also in that group. These weapons are usually stated as having their origin as agricultural tools, which is particularly obvious in the case of the bill, which is pretty much a modification of a hedging and pruning tool called a billhook, mounted to a pole. Here's your tool billhooks, courtesy of billhooks.co.uk (but rehosted to imgur)  and here's some weaponized bills  Obviously it has some improvements to increase its effectiveness for killing people, but it's still recognizably the same thing. The bill was considered a characteristically English weapon in a sense similar to the quarterstaff and longbow. England was actually still trying to hang on to the longbow and bill into the era of pike and shot. Had the Spanish Armada managed to get Farnese's men across the channel into England in 1588, he would have kicked the poo poo out of an army armed predominantly with longbows and bills. Anyway, that's the English version. The principle is simple and effective so there was parallel evolution in a lot of different places. The halberd was most closely associated with the Swiss, and the word specifically refers to a pole weapon with an axe, a reverse spike or fluke, and a long spike or spearhead for thrusting:  You have a weapon that can be thrust, swung with great force to crush or pierce armor, or used to hook and entangle enemies or their weapons. The sheer reach of the weapon is also important, because it gives the soldier a huge advantage against someone with a shorter weapon, like a sword, and it allows him to maintain distance to protect himself. That's a particular asset for infantry, who tend to not be nearly as well armored as knights. However, by the renaissance period knights fighting on foot tended to prefer their own version of this kind of weapon, the pollaxe, which can embrace a variety of different design features (e.g. a hammer instead of an axe, a butt-spike for thrusting while held reversed, etc.) but is mechanically very similar to the above-described weapons. It's also very debatable whether the poleaxe originated out of those polearms, or if it was just another case of parallel evolution. Not sure it matters. One of the main differences was probably in how the weapons were used, because the pollaxe was characteristically a knightly weapon, and a knight fighting on foot in full harness doesn't have the same concerns as an infantryman who will likely be wearing much less protection.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:16
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EvanSchenck posted:Had the Spanish Armada managed to get Farnese's men across the channel into England in 1588, he would have kicked the poo poo out of an army armed predominantly with longbows and bills. Now I didn't see this personally, but I know a guy who saw a block of dudes with bills fight some pikemen, and he said they did very well because once you get inside a pikeman's reach you can do a lot of damage, and then that had a sort of...disorganizing effect on the formation in general. I assume though that what would happen in large formations is that the other pikemen would use their advantage in reach to protect the dudes who are being attacked next to them (or depending on how far they were apart, just back up a whole lot). HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 19:19
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HEY GAL posted:Interestingly, though, you can loving wreck a pikeman's poo poo with a bill one-on-one. What they do is use the hook to trap the pikeshaft and pull it toward them. How effective would the English longbows been compared to the Spanish muskets? Were the English using muskets at all or were they all in on the archery at that point?
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Aug 9, 2015 20:35
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HEY GAL posted:Interestingly, though, you can loving wreck a pikeman's poo poo with a bill one-on-one. What they do is use the hook to trap the pikeshaft and pull it toward them. Somebody or other posted about this a while back. I thought it might have been you, or maybe somebody else. But apparently pike formations usually included men with halberds or similar weapons (the Germans liked to use bidenhänders) who would try to close distance and get in the enemy block, in part by trying to break the pikes. Pellisworth posted:How effective would the English longbows been compared to the Spanish muskets? Were the English using muskets at all or were they all in on the archery at that point? The English army was behind the curve in part because they hadn't yet transitioned to a standing royal army as the French and Spanish had done. They also didn't have huge piles of permanent mercenary companies for hire kicking around like the Germans and Italians. Instead, the king would simply raise an army as and when he needed it. In case of a sudden invasion he would be able to raise a militia pretty quickly. One of the effects of this is that there isn't anybody experimenting with modern tactics or procuring newfangled weapons in usefully large numbers. But the major appeal the arquebus wasn't just that it was powerful, it was that the power could be applied by a guy who spent only a short amount of time training. England still had those laws on the books that required people to practice archery, so they had a ready supply of people who could shoot longbows, which was unusual. The characteristics of a longbow compare pretty favorably to early firearms. Range, accuracy, killing power, rate of fire, etc. are all pretty good. The main technical disadvantage is the logistical issue of arrows, which are very expensive and bulky in comparison to what you feed an arquebus. But if you already have the guys who can shoot them, longbows aren't that bad. As to the bills, the short reach would have been a problem as the Spanish tercios closed in. But we aren't really talking about a huge technological disparity that would have made the English incapable of even showing up at the fight. The issue is not so much that longbows and bills suck. The English also adopted artillery pretty much as fast as everybody else. So all this isn't a huge problem. Henry VIII took an army mostly constituted from billmen and longbowmen to invade France a couple of times (1513 and 1544) and he did reasonably well against the French armies. Didn't really accomplish anything, but he didn't get his rear end kicked. Then again, the French were themselves a little slow to adapt to the pike-and-shot paradigm, and in the second invasion (1544) I think all their best guys were arrayed against the Spanish forces rather than against Henry. myarmoury has a little article about this--notably, Henry hired German pikemen and Spanish/Italian arquebusiers to fill out his ranks, so he appears to have known that a pile of billmen and bowmen wasn't going to cut the mustard. As to what I said about the Armada, it's not so much a technological shortcoming. The Spanish were going to drop the Duke of Parma and the bulk of his army in southern England. Farnese was generally regarded as the finest general of the era and his troops were hardened veterans of his campaigns in the Netherlands. The whole series of events that led up to Anglo-Spanish hostilities and the Armada campaign was due in large part to Farnese absolutely kicking the poo poo out of the Dutch and recapturing what is now Belgium. Elizabeth I only had what forces she could throw together on short notice, to defend England against the hardest army under the best captain in Europe. Despite all the above about longbows and bills and muskets and pikes, the biggest problem might have been Farnese's cavalry, which was was excellent, against the English cavalry, which was few in number and probably nowhere near continental standards. According to that article, this threat appears to have woken them up from complacency, because from the 1580s on the English get more serious about modernizing and adopting firearms.
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Aug 10, 2015 01:24
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Anyone have experience with the Hanwei swords and trainers? I know the katanas used to get pretty good reviews, but I've not researched any of them lately.
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Aug 10, 2015 02:08
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EvanSchenck posted:Somebody or other posted about this a while back. I thought it might have been you, or maybe somebody else. But apparently pike formations usually included men with halberds or similar weapons (the Germans liked to use bidenhänders) who would try to close distance and get in the enemy block, in part by trying to break the pikes. Anyway, musket fire can punch through armor at the right range. Rodrigo Diaz posted some hard data on this in one of the threads a while back. I don't...think?...a bowman can do that. quote:The issue is not so much that longbows and bills suck.... The Spanish were going to drop the Duke of Parma and the bulk of his army in southern England. Farnese was generally regarded as the finest general of the era and his troops were hardened veterans of his campaigns in the Netherlands. The whole series of events that led up to Anglo-Spanish hostilities and the Armada campaign was due in large part to Farnese absolutely kicking the poo poo out of the Dutch and recapturing what is now Belgium. Elizabeth I only had what forces she could throw together on short notice, to defend England against the hardest army under the best captain in Europe.     It's grognards all the way down. 10 Beers posted:Anyone have experience with the Hanwei swords and trainers? I know the katanas used to get pretty good reviews, but I've not researched any of them lately. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Aug 10, 2015 |
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Aug 10, 2015 04:04
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10 Beers posted:Anyone have experience with the Hanwei swords and trainers? I know the katanas used to get pretty good reviews, but I've not researched any of them lately. The practical side sword is bad if you want to actually use it
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Aug 10, 2015 10:06
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Just to let you know that the British Library is asking for help deciphering a sword inscription. All the information is in the first post of this thread (with link to British Library page): http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3735540
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Aug 10, 2015 10:19
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EvanSchenck posted:Despite all the above about longbows and bills and muskets and pikes, the biggest problem might have been Farnese's cavalry, which was was excellent, against the English cavalry, which was few in number and probably nowhere near continental standards.
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Aug 10, 2015 10:28
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HEY GAL posted:cheap but bad Rabhadh posted:The practical side sword is bad if you want to actually use it Well, hell. Thanks guys. I'd like something I could use for press drills and light sparring, time to save up, I suppose!
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Aug 10, 2015 11:28
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I've seen the guard of the practical side sword get loose very quickly and deform after a few hits. You're always better off spending the extra money on a sword that'll hold up to full contact stuff.
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Aug 10, 2015 11:32
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Rabhadh posted:I've seen the guard of the practical side sword get loose very quickly and deform after a few hits. You're always better off spending the extra money on a sword that'll hold up to full contact stuff. Yeah, you're right, really. Are the ideal vendors still Albion and Arms and Armor?
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Aug 10, 2015 11:36
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HEY GAL posted:there's a long-rear end time in the early modern where english people make great soldiers as long as they're in an army that knows what it's doing but england as such consistently sucks. Why are they considered great soldiers? I can understand why English armies suck (being on a island leaves you a bit out of practice) but what qualities were English soldiers said to have?
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Aug 10, 2015 12:37
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nothing to seehere posted:Why are they considered great soldiers? I can understand why English armies suck (being on a island leaves you a bit out of practice) but what qualities were English soldiers said to have?  look at this poo poo, it's like he's talking about the price of fruit or something Edit: Italian officers are prized if you're a Hapsburg power; Italian common soldiers are freaking everywhere if you're the Spanish army but can become unreliable when the weather gets cold HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Aug 10, 2015 |
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Aug 10, 2015 12:50
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10 Beers posted:Yeah, you're right, really. Are the ideal vendors still Albion and Arms and Armor? I have seen several people use Hanwei's practical bastard sword to great effect. As mentioned before its a bit on the blade-heavy side but its quite durable and holds up well against Albion or A&A. KOA has them for sale: http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=SH2428&name=Hanwei+Practical+Bastard+Sword Its about the cheapest tool I've found that will hold up at all and isn't grossly disproportionate or unwieldy.
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Aug 10, 2015 16:06
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This weekend at fechtschule frisbee I saw a historically accurate bodkin arrow fired at full draw from a 100lb longbow bounce clean off a piece of historically accurate plate armor. Twice. The arrow even had a steel tip, rather than the more common iron tips of the time.
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Aug 17, 2015 15:20
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Verisimilidude posted:This weekend at fechtschule frisbee I saw a historically accurate bodkin arrow fired at full draw from a 100lb longbow bounce clean off a piece of historically accurate plate armor. Twice. The arrow even had a steel tip, rather than the more common iron tips of the time. But could it stop a katana???
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Aug 17, 2015 16:27
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