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WoodrowSkillson posted:There are stories of the heavy wool greatcoats the russians wore in the crimean war stopping sword thrusts. From what I've read this was more about stopping sabre slashes than sword thrusts, which makes a lot more sense really. Probably would at least slow a thrust, if not kick it off in weird directions, but definitely presents a bugger of a target to a glancing sabre blow.
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Jan 17, 2017 23:02
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Matt Easton keeps saying it was sword thrusts, because the Brits were making the swords too bendy. 
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Jan 17, 2017 23:08
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lenoon posted:From what I've read this was more about stopping sabre slashes than sword thrusts, which makes a lot more sense really. Probably would at least slow a thrust, if not kick it off in weird directions, but definitely presents a bugger of a target to a glancing sabre blow. Especially if you are cutting from the wrist without solid structure. I remember we had a cool post a while back about British officers duelling locals in India and the different cutting techniques leading to very different outcomes upon contact.
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Jan 17, 2017 23:09
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P-Mack posted:Especially if you are cutting from the wrist without solid structure. I remember we had a cool post a while back about British officers duelling locals in India and the different cutting techniques leading to very different outcomes upon contact. Yeah, that was mine. Clothing also presented some issues to British soldiers in India. Quite a few Indian soldiers would wear quilted cotton jackets (sort of like a gambeson, I guess) and there's a lot of complaints about how hard they are to cut/stab through. There's also some issues with turbans/head wraps deflecting blows aimed at the head.
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Jan 17, 2017 23:19
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steinrokkan posted:Don't take this guy too seriously, his research basically consists of "what sounds like common sense to me, a LARPer?" Berserkers did exist in that there certainly existed weird warrior bands of Norse origin that performed their battle rituals and fought independently from others, they were even written about as part of the Varyag guard. At least in that video he mentions by name a guy that did his PhD on berserkers and gets some saga quotes from him. There's also the theory that the berserkers got hopped up on drugs (mushrooms, maybe weed, who knows) which put them into some sort of battle fury. I guess I'm skeptical of that because any psychological benefits would be outweighed by loving up your perception, sense of balance, etc.
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Jan 17, 2017 23:55
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Pellisworth posted:At least in that video he mentions by name a guy that did his PhD on berserkers and gets some saga quotes from him. Doc Ellis pitched a no hitter while tripping on lsd.
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Jan 18, 2017 00:45
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I know that in the Americas, lots of conquistadors abandoned their metal breastplates in favor of the natives' cloth armor, which was apparently pretty effective. Can't remember if that was in 1491 or Last Days of the Inca, but both are really great books anyone interested in precolombian and immediately postcolombian america should read.
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Jan 18, 2017 01:08
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Pellisworth posted:At least in that video he mentions by name a guy that did his PhD on berserkers and gets some saga quotes from him. I mean, a lot of history has plenty of cases of people not doing terribly optimal things because they weren't thinking of warfare in a purely "how efficiently can I murderize every other fucker on the field" sense. There's a lot of historical warfare that's probably got a lot more to do with satisfying cultural obligations than necessarily winning wars.
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Jan 18, 2017 01:35
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FishFood posted:I know that in the Americas, lots of conquistadors abandoned their metal breastplates in favor of the natives' cloth armor, which was apparently pretty effective. Can't remember if that was in 1491 or Last Days of the Inca, but both are really great books anyone interested in precolombian and immediately postcolombian america should read. That makes sense because Incan weaponry involved lots of clubs and maces, so padding would be more important than penetration resistance.
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Jan 18, 2017 01:42
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lenoon posted:From what I've read this was more about stopping sabre slashes than sword thrusts, which makes a lot more sense really. Probably would at least slow a thrust, if not kick it off in weird directions, but definitely presents a bugger of a target to a glancing sabre blow. Yeah. That kind of protective clothing isn't going to stop a high-powered rifle shot aimed square at your chest, but it does wonders deflecting glancing blows and shrapnel and ricochets that might otherwise do some minor if appreciable damage.
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Jan 18, 2017 03:16
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Grenrow posted:Yeah, that was mine. Clothing also presented some issues to British soldiers in India. Quite a few Indian soldiers would wear quilted cotton jackets (sort of like a gambeson, I guess) and there's a lot of complaints about how hard they are to cut/stab through. There's also some issues with turbans/head wraps deflecting blows aimed at the head. It certainly helps when you keep your sword in a metal scabbard so you're actually wielding a thin steel club.
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Jan 18, 2017 03:28
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Yeah. That kind of protective clothing isn't going to stop a high-powered rifle shot aimed square at your chest, but it does wonders deflecting glancing blows and shrapnel and ricochets that might otherwise do some minor if appreciable damage. Supposedly the quilted jackets the Chinese wore in the Korean War were enough to stop US .30 carbine rounds.
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Jan 18, 2017 03:49
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Siivola posted:Matt Easton keeps saying it was sword thrusts, because the Brits were making the swords too bendy. Yeah the sword quality for those swords was embarassingly dubious.
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Jan 18, 2017 04:02
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SimonCat posted:Supposedly the quilted jackets the Chinese wore in the Korean War were enough to stop US .30 carbine rounds. This one I don't actually believe. I think it's much more likely that American soldiers were just missing or not getting good shots off in the panic of combat, then blamed their equipment later on.
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Jan 18, 2017 04:02
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SimonCat posted:Supposedly the quilted jackets the Chinese wore in the Korean War were enough to stop US .30 carbine rounds. Lol no. Keep in mind .30 carbine is about as powerful as .357 magnum. It will kill you just fine unless you're wearing a proper kevlar vest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQHjuMvtIbw&t=405s
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Jan 18, 2017 04:06
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Grenrow posted:This one I don't actually believe. I think it's much more likely that American soldiers were just missing or not getting good shots off in the panic of combat, then blamed their equipment later on. The Box O' Truth is a great website for testing what different weapons and cartridges do in certain situations, especially testing out myths. They tested that myth as well and determined that even 8 layers of frozen towels (stiff as a board) were insufficient to stop an M1 Carbine at 45 yards; the round had enough force to theoretically go straight through the aforementioned Chinese soldier. Likewise, a 1911 at 15 feet penetrated just the same. One reason is likely that people who are shot in real life don't look like they do in movies. People shot on film tend to dramatically collapse, often throwing their limbs out as they crash to the ground. In real life, it's common for people to even take multiple hits from a fairly powerful weapon and keep running and shooting as long as they can overcome the pain (adrenaline helps) and don't suffer any nervous system damage. Even today, soldiers using M4s and M16s are taught to fire multiple rounds at a target to make sure they go down instead of just shooting once and wondering why they didn't die instantly.
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Jan 18, 2017 04:23
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If there was ever an instance of a Chinese soldier picking a spent .30-06 or .30 carbine round out of their jacket what happened was that either the bullet was almost out of energy when it hit the dude's jacket or it was a ricochet that had just enough residual momentum to puncture cloth but not enough to do any other damage and their thick jacket made little or no difference. Of course, expecting someone to process that information correctly in the heat of the moment is a pretty tall order, which is why these stories exist despite their obvious mathematical and physical absurdity. There's plenty of instances of this sort of thing happening, the most obvious one being that Admiral Kimmel got hit by a spent round that hit his chest and then fell to the floor during the attack on Pearl Harbor without causing as much as a blister. Because he was watching the Pacific Fleet and his career go up in flames at the time, his reaction was to tell his aide it would've been a mercy if the bullet had killed him. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 05:21
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Grenrow posted:This one I don't actually believe. I think it's much more likely that American soldiers were just missing or not getting good shots off in the panic of combat, then blamed their equipment later on. Yeah. Soldiers constantly talk about how ineffectual their weapons are because they were shooting at a guy at some close range and he kept coming. Same thing in Somalia: "I shot him repeatedly with my M4 and he kept coming." No, you missed because if you'd hit his insides would have been jelly. Vincent Van Goatse posted:If there was ever an instance of a Chinese soldier picking a spent .30-06 or .30 carbine round out of their jacket what happened was that either the bullet was almost out of energy when it hit the dude's jacket or it was a ricochet that had just enough residual momentum to puncture cloth but not enough to do any other damage and their thick jacket made little or no difference. Same thing with "this bible|pack of cigarettes|St. Christopher's medal stopped the sniper's bullet that would have killed me." "Hand of God, that Bible stopped a bullet that would have ruined that fucker's heart. And had he had another Bible in front of his face, that man would still be alive today." Phanatic fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 05:39
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A folded ninety-minute speech and a glasses case, for example.
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Jan 18, 2017 05:40
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The bullet still went in Teddy Roosevelt, he just didn't let the doctors try to take it out. I guess there's not going to be any anecdotes of the time that a bullet went into you and you bled to death and died.
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Jan 18, 2017 05:44
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SlothfulCobra posted:The bullet still went in Teddy Roosevelt, he just didn't let the doctors try to take it out. The fact that he didn't pick the round out of his composite skin-muscle coat doesn't change anything!
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Jan 18, 2017 05:45
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Ah man that video I posted is fine but this one is even better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QgXuhv7-54
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Jan 18, 2017 05:48
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Siivola posted:Matt Easton keeps saying it was sword thrusts, because the Brits were making the swords too bendy. I think Richard Holmes said that there was a massive debate in British Cavalry about whether a foreswing or a backswing or thrust was best and they couldn't quite work out why they were doing so badly and it seems the real reason was they were all incredibly lazy and didn't ever bother to sharpen their swords.
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Jan 18, 2017 09:50
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Pfft, why would you need a sharp sword. The flash of cold British steel is enough to send the buggers scarpering for their heathen temples. I think I just did myself an injury putting that much British dismissiveness into a single sentence.
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Jan 18, 2017 10:46
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Speaking of unsharpened sabres, I once read something about cavalrymen in the American Civil War purposely leaving their sabres unsharpened. Some said it was because an unsharpened weapon was less likely to get stuck in an enemy, others put it on some sense of chivalry because that'd be less "brutal" than a sharpened sabre. Supposedly there was even a minor diplomatic incident where some unit sharpened their sabres and everybody called them out for it. Now, I've been doing some googling around, and to me the most likely explanation would be that it was just soldiers not bothering to gently caress around with their bordering-on-redundant sabres when they'd mostly be using carbines or pistols anyways. But I haven't really found any actual firm sources either way, so if anybody here knows and could elaborate more that'd be great.
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Jan 18, 2017 11:36
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Ah man that video I posted is fine but this one is even better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QgXuhv7-54 I saw that it was a black and white army video about WW2 guns and their "effects" and I thought it was going to be "That Video."
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Jan 18, 2017 12:28
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Alchenar posted:I think Richard Holmes said that there was a massive debate in British Cavalry about whether a foreswing or a backswing or thrust was best and they couldn't quite work out why they were doing so badly and it seems the real reason was they were all incredibly lazy and didn't ever bother to sharpen their swords. Well, it's not necessarily that they were all lazy. They didn't sharpen their swords until they were actually going to go on a campaign. If you're going to India to fight, there's no point in sharpening your sword until you're close to action because it's just going to get banged around in the scabbard anyways. You'll see references to a sword being "service sharpened" sometimes in preparation for actually going to fight. Undoubtedly there were plenty of lazy officers/troopers who were idiots and didn't bother even then, but there's also some descriptions of British cavalrymen sharpening their sabers between every engagement during the Mutiny. Later on, there's some experimentation with scabbards to use wooden linings in the metal ones or leather scabbards for Indian service.
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Jan 18, 2017 12:36
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Pellisworth posted:At least in that video he mentions by name a guy that did his PhD on berserkers and gets some saga quotes from him. While the red fly agaric is often pitched as a potential drug, we know the vikings also used psilocybe semilanceata( liberty caps), which apart from messing with your head increase reflexes. LSD, itself nearly chemically similar to the semilanceatas active ingredient, was used to dope boxers with in the 30s for the same reason. We'll never know, but it's fun speculating. Also, keep in mind that the vikings had shamans. It stands to reason that they either knew how to develop a battle rage on their own or the shamans taught them.
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Jan 18, 2017 13:53
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Job number 1 before a major engagement or a cavalry patrol or anything, really, in the Napoleonic wars was for everyone from officers to enlisted to sharpen the gently caress out of every poking/slashing object they had. Blades dull very fast with even light use (D&C type stuff) but especially if you're using them for chopping firewood and the like.
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Jan 18, 2017 14:02
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Perestroika posted:Speaking of unsharpened sabres, I once read something about cavalrymen in the American Civil War purposely leaving their sabres unsharpened. Some said it was because an unsharpened weapon was less likely to get stuck in an enemy, others put it on some sense of chivalry because that'd be less "brutal" than a sharpened sabre. Supposedly there was even a minor diplomatic incident where some unit sharpened their sabres and everybody called them out for it. I suspect this is a misunderstanding. There's various degrees of sharpness and sharpening. There's a tradeoff between sharpness and durability - after all sharpening inherently removes material. Not to mention it takes time and effort to maintain.
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Jan 18, 2017 14:27
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So I was running my RPG campaign last night. My group of 17th century English Royalists after much adventure found themselves in a Star Trek style Holodeck forced to play a cliched 1950's Science Fiction adventure. It's a. Long. Story. Anyway they foung themselves being strafed by a Mig-15. One player objected to the accuracy of it's strafing runs, saying I was being far to generous with the threat. We had a brief (good natured) argument over it befor getting on with the game. He maintained such a plane, strafing a small group of targets would be wildly inaccurate. I thought while not pinpoint accurate, such an attack would be a dangerous threat. So how dangerous were Korean, and Indeed WW2 era planes when making gun attacks on troops. Could they target accurately, or just spray the area?
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Jan 18, 2017 14:31
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The saber up until the late 19th century was the primary weapon after all, even the most lovely Cardigan level trooper would at least ensure it could maim before going out on patrol. I feel the design of the pre-Crimean War cavalry swords just lacked quality control due to the lack of fighting a serious mainland war in Europe since Napoleon. When I think of the word stagnation I think of the pre-Crimean War British Army sadly.
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Jan 18, 2017 14:34
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Deptfordx posted:So how dangerous were Korean, and Indeed WW2 era planes when making gun attacks on troops. Could they target accurately, or just spray the area? Kinda hard to say, since ground attack duties were handed off to straight-winged fighters when the Mig-15 took the stage. Anyway, on even a short strafe you got two 23mm guns able to pour out 850 rpm and a 37mm gun that can do 400 rpm, so it's safe to say that it could reasonable hit at least one or two men in a non-dispersed formation. fake edit: NOT a weapon sperg, I'm just kind of guessing based on available data.
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Jan 18, 2017 14:43
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Deptfordx posted:Could they target accurately, or just spray the area? Yes. That isn't entirely a joke. There's an inherent area-attack to such weapons (more so for the WWII prop-jobs with wing-mounted guns) due to the mounting, speed of the plane, and other factors that varied from aircraft to aircraft - the Mig-15, for example, had a wide spread because the starboard 37mm cannon had a lower muzzle velocity than the two 23mm guns on the port side, making it hard to get all three rounds on target. The area of effect, however, was rather small (unless, of course, you did things like playing with the rudder to widen it) and effectively gives it a "shotgun" effect making hits easier. By the middle of WWII destroying a locomotive was a trivial task, and shooting up supply trucks, barges, and staff cars was routine. Let me reiterate that - a car just like the one you drive to work in the morning was not a particularly hard target for strafing aircraft to hit. That is still a bigger target than a man, but not a bigger target than your typical adventuring party (if clumped up). More importantly, someone that takes a direct hit from any of a Mig-17s three cannon would probably be labeled unlucky if he lived.
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Jan 18, 2017 14:48
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Deptfordx posted:So how dangerous were Korean, and Indeed WW2 era planes when making gun attacks on troops. Could they target accurately, or just spray the area? The guns are accurate to a plane shaped object out to a couple of hundred meters. How effective his strafing run is going to be depends upon the time he has to identify the target and whether he's in contact with a land air observer describing the target to him. If he hasaid time to do a couple of flybys and has an observer, he'll gently caress you up first pass. If he's all by himself there's no reason he'd even see your guys.
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Jan 18, 2017 14:48
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Deptfordx posted:So how dangerous were Korean, and Indeed WW2 era planes when making gun attacks on troops. Could they target accurately, or just spray the area? Well look at gun cam footage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FwahsQqrXM Seems pretty accurate to me.
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Jan 18, 2017 14:52
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As far as I can tell from accounts of losses, strafing is a very unpleasant psychological experience for those on the receiving end, but is more likely to get results via terror, noise and dust rather than direct injury or disablement of people and vehicles. It looks way more impressive from the air than it actually is.
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Jan 18, 2017 15:15
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:As far as I can tell from accounts of losses, strafing is a very unpleasant psychological experience for those on the receiving end, but is more likely to get results via terror, noise and dust rather than direct injury or disablement of people and vehicles. It looks way more impressive from the air than it actually is. a10gunrun.txt
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Jan 18, 2017 15:39
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Deptfordx posted:So how dangerous were Korean, and Indeed WW2 era planes when making gun attacks on troops. Could they target accurately, or just spray the area? Yes.  More seriiously, late WW2 planes had a pretty serious number of guns too. And they had to be accurate enough to shoot down other planes so, if they know the target area, they would probably be able to hit it quite accurately. The difficulty is more about being able to see little infantrymen on the ground because enemy planes stand out a lot more. Gunfighting in planes tends to be geared around putting massive amounts of lead downrange and also being quite accurate because it's difficult to hit a moving target by pointing your plane at it but also you want to be able to at least try to aim. Plane guns basically project a narrow cone of murder out in front of them and anything in it is going to have a really bad time even if it doesn't die. They're massive overkill, basically. The tradeoff is generally that their ammunition supply is measured in seconds. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 16:13
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OwlFancier posted:Yes. Some world war 2 airplanes had enough .50 cals on them to machine gun merchant ships to death.
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