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HEY GAL posted:I don't know anything about the rest of your post, but unlike the rest of Europe the condottieri made use of two fighting seasons so they could avoid midsummer. Yeah, Italy gets really hot, however that didn't stop the Italians from wearing metal armor in war, even though as you say they avoided fighting during the height of summer. I don't really get why the Middle East should be so different in that regard when the populated regions mostly are more of a mediterranean climate than scorching desert, and i most cases it wasn't that different. They did not develop the full plate armor that started appearing in Europe from the mid 14th century onwards, though this is mostly due to the developments in warfare and metallurgy in Europe rather than the Middle East being too hot for armor. What IS true is that the Middle East is pretty poor in terms of iron, so they mostly had to import the ore for use in weapons and armor, especially from India which was said to have really high quality iron (I think Damascus steel was made from Indian iron). I seem to remember reading that there was also still some use of bronze in weapons and armor, though not that widespread and when it did occur mostly in stuff like mace heads, bands on helmets and cuirasses and rigid protection for legs and arms. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 22:55
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Nektu posted:Well, controllable in the way that you will not suddenly get splatted by an arty shell or a bomb. However I dont think that defeating multiple oppoents (even if they are less skilled individually) is as simple as you imagine it to be if they work together. Once someone with a weapon gets in your blind spot, you are really, really close to the graveyard. Formation fighting was a big thing for a very good reason: someone who is alone and without support dies really quickly. I don't agree, I believe it's entirely possible. We have done several group-fighting type of drills and warmup games in judo and combat sambo which illustrate it. One is where the defender stand is the middle of the tatami and four more guys are each stationed in the corners of the mat. The gol for the defender is to get out of the tatami, the other dudes are supposed to dogpile him and pin him down. On start, you gotta run like a motherfucker, but you are gonna get caught, so the trick is to turn against the first opponent that reaches you and move him in the way of the other opponents, get a good stance and ice the situaton with your grip with the opponent you caught while simulatiously moving out of the area. If you hosed up with the grip-fighting with the first guy you usually got caught and if you were too slow with any of the stages in the process you got caught, so you needed a bit of luck, but with practice you got considerably better at it and started to succeed more than fail. Other game is a one where all the practitioners are given a piece of red cloth to put in their belts, everybody goes to the middle, touches hands and on it's free for all where you try to catch as many red pieces of clotch from your friends as you can and you also win by pushing others outside the mat. It's a game of course - and a kid's game at that - but emphasized moving and grip fighting. The third was done with a class of bouncers and cops where two people are bouncers and two other people are drunk assholes where one of the drunks (you don't know which one) is gonna get violent and the other is just an irritating prick who gets in the way of everything but is not dangerous and jesus gently caress was it hard with the guy who had played rugby for many years on the other side: two people had their hands full on restraining him and most of the time the other guy couldn't get to help him because he moved so amazingly well and he always pulled your partner or his own team mate on the way. Point is that it's true that fighting against guys who actually know how to function as a group is hardest thing in the world but throwing a serious wrench in their plans is entirely possible too: you need to be observant enough to know when things are going sour and you need to get the iniative because you are late then you really are but if you get ahead of the curve and move according to the opponents positions, you have a fighting chance. You need to have practiced wrestling in order to get free from the opponents grips, to keep your balance if they try to take you down and to throw them if they represent you with and opportunity to do so, you need to be good at striking - or swordplay/other weapons in this case - in order to gauge the distances correctly, to parry and evade and to strike back and lastly you need to be good at moving the right way when several people are rushing towards you and/or trying to surround you which you today would probably get from any team ball game, like football, rugby or basketball. It needs to go perfectly on the first try, though, because if you stumble at any point it's highly possible you get hit and surrounded. This is why I said how fighting several unskilled or less skilled opponents would be possible, because with unskilled people, they are much more full of openings, are unbalanced and overextend themselves when attacking and moving, giving you possibilities for throws and counters, are easier to line in the way of each other and overall are just sloppy. With good opponents, you would need a huge iniative and a big old cup full of luck. Even our games were already dangerous, I knocked out our coach out cold with my elbow when he grabbed my back and I turned to face him with arms raised and dogpiling and leads to broken bones fast. Actually fighting with a group would be extremely dangerous, nobody's denying that. Check out Hip Show, russian 2 vs 2 MMA in an 3D environment. In the case of one contestant being knocked out, the other one of the team remains to face the both opponents of the other team and unless he by the grace of god gets a perfect opening to a knockout strike leaving him to deal with the other one, he is royally boned. However, if the opposing team would consist of a one good/mediocore fighter and one white belt novice, he could brush the other away very easily to deal with the more challenging one. I would not face Fedor Emalianenko with even five of my judo/sambo buddies. Skill does matter. With weapons, the risk of a lethal strike is much much higher so the opponents would need to very sure of their opening to just rush in blindly. You can take a punch or two but not many stabbing wounds. There are many samurai movies where the hero stands in the middle of opponents with a knife/sword and nobody wants to go in first to get stabbed and he always turns towards anybody who moves with his weapon out. As stated before in this thread, there are no guarantees of an instantly killing strike, so even if you get an opening, you'd also need to get away after your succesful hit or control him via grappling after it. If the defender is really good fighter, you think twice before trying anything. Dominationg several weaker opponents should be possible. Nektu posted:I say an old kenjutsu (japanese fencing) video from the 1930s somewhere on youtube once (Ill try to find the link). And it did not make sense to me at all. There where 4 or 5 studends. They all rushed into the fighting area and started a complete free-for-all - they just hacked left and right as fast as they could. Once someone was hit, he would leave, and the next student rushed in and started hacking. I watched the video and everybody is defending and parrying all the time. It's kind of like watching boxing the first time in your life, it just looks like two dudes are just standing in front of each other and punching until one drops if drops, but in reality both guys are gauging distance, using feints, combinations and strategies and once your knowledge and eye gets better, you learn to see what is truly going on. Same with this video. If you don't have the knowledge and yey for it, it's just a bunch of dudes flailing sticks at each other. You can realistically engage only one opponent at a time, so you fight him while trying your best to be aware what's going on around you, you get your hit which counts as an win/kill in this drill and you search for the next opponent in the field. If an opponent on your left is too focused or showing his side or back against you when fighting his own opponent, it's an easy target for you. You hit him, get your win/kill nad look for the next oponent until your luck/skill runs out or there are no more opponents. Not counting cavalry and whatnot in the battlefield, I don't see how real fighting would differ from this drill. This is a true TR;DL post but I wanted to explain myself well enough.
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Oct 16, 2014 23:25
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Randarkman posted:Also people seem to have the misconception that the Middle East is all scorching desert, which is simply not true, especially of the areas of greatest action during the Crusades which would be modern day Lebanon, Palestine and Israel, much of this area has a mediterranean climate not really that different from Italy, Spain, Turkey or Greece, yet no one really bats an eyelid at Italians going into battle in full armor or Byzantine cataphracts. I live a short walk away from the Baltic, Spain and Greece are basically scorching desert by my standards  Thanks for the informative post, cleared up a bunch of incorrect stereotypical notions I had!
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Oct 16, 2014 23:40
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ManOfTheYear posted:This is a true TR;DL post but I wanted to explain myself well enough. Too rong; didn't lead?
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Oct 16, 2014 23:43
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my dad posted:Too rong; didn't lead? I write a zillion words and people usually skip to the end and then I make a typo. I'm not very good at this.
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Oct 16, 2014 23:58
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I'm always reminded of how the Romans beat (and were defeated by) the numerically superior Germans or Gauls: Organization. The Roman military machine was amazing, and it's emphasis on fighting as a block of soldiers rather than a bunch of dudes gave them superior defense. One random Roman soldier would probably lose to one random German, because the German soldier would be from a warrior caste and trained from birth; but a hundred random Roman soldiers could operate together even in the absence of prior association in a way the Germans never could.
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Oct 17, 2014 00:14
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ManOfTheYear posted:I don't agree, I believe it's entirely possible. We have done several group-fighting type of drills and warmup games in judo and combat sambo which illustrate it. ManOfTheYear posted:Point is that it's true that fighting against guys who actually know how to function as a group is hardest thing in the world but throwing a serious wrench in their plans is entirely possible too: you need to be observant enough to know when things are going sour and you need to get the iniative because you are late then you really are but if you get ahead of the curve and move according to the opponents positions, you have a fighting chance. ManOfTheYear posted:You need to have practiced wrestling in order to get free from the opponents grips, to keep your balance if they try to take you down and to throw them if they represent you with and opportunity to do so, you need to be good at striking - or swordplay/other weapons in this case - ManOfTheYear posted:in order to gauge the distances correctly, to parry and evade and to strike back and lastly you need to be good at moving the right way when several people are rushing towards you and/or trying to surround you which you today would probably get from any team ball game, like football, rugby or basketball. That said, unarmed defense against knife attacks works too, its just a complete crapshot where the chances are very much against you and you simply will not get away unharmed. ManOfTheYear posted:With weapons, the risk of a lethal strike is much much higher so the opponents would need to very sure of their opening to just rush in blindly. You can take a punch or two but not many stabbing wounds. There are many samurai movies where the hero stands in the middle of opponents with a knife/sword and nobody wants to go in first to get stabbed and he always turns towards anybody who moves with his weapon out. That said, of course there were people who beat multiple opponents, and there were people who survived the most horrible melees. And yes, if your opponents are afraid to attack you can use that against them. But how many didn't survive similar situations? Of course the usual martial narrative concentrates on its heroes and holds them as an example for the new But I still think that going on a field were a few thousand dudes are killing each other horribly is also just a crapshot: the chances are very much against you. ManOfTheYear posted:With weapons, the risk of a lethal strike is much much higher so the opponents would need to very sure of their opening to just rush in blindly. You can take a punch or two but not many stabbing wounds.  . But its a a solid advantage for your opponents too because YOU need to be very sure that your defense is working.ManOfTheYear posted:I watched the video and everybody is defending and parrying all the time. ManOfTheYear posted:You can realistically engage only one opponent at a time, so you fight him while trying your best to be aware what's going on around you, you get your hit which counts as an win/kill in this drill and you search for the next opponent in the field. ManOfTheYear posted:However, if the opposing team would consist of a one good/mediocore fighter and one white belt novice, he could brush the other away very easily to deal with the more challenging one. I would not face Fedor Emalianenko with even five of my judo/sambo buddies. Skill does matter. The difference is: in a duel you can plan accordingly (ok, 2 attackers, ok I moved and one is now blocked by the other and I can concentrate on this one for now). In a non-duel that 3rd person that suddenly appears behind your back will stick a knife between your ribs (unless you are lucky and noone appears behind you). This is one of the big things of formation fighting: the other people in your unit protect the angles you cannot protect yourself. Nektu fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 05:51
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Quote != edit
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Oct 17, 2014 06:16
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ManOfTheYear posted:.....Dominationg several weaker opponents should be possible. Your assumptions for what you could do in combat would also apply to the other fighters. It's hardly skill-based domination if your expectation of a fight is that you need to swat somebody on the shoulder, and keep on doing that until your luck runs out. Also, that video is a mess. Those two guys that fall over each other into the middle of another duel just get back and keep swinging. Somebody gets bopped on the head by a teammate(?) and ignores it. It's about as accurate a simulation as Call of Duty.
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Oct 17, 2014 07:30
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Nektu posted:Some interesting information about "deadly" wounds though: FYI. It's good to remember that the same is true for arrows and bolts. Why hasn't anyone posted this yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeI8capzuqs&t=266s Power Khan fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 08:21
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if you cant stand medical descriptions of the effects of bladed weapons. No images or somesuch though).
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JaucheCharly posted:FYI. It's good to remember that the same is true for arrows and bolts.  Wow. That is quite the thing. Not being accustomed to hist. reenactment, I still assume this is another exaple of Russians turning poo poo up to 11, right? Edit: I mean compared to other 'safe' schools, not compared to actual history. SavageGentleman fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 16:08
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SavageGentleman posted:
After a fight everything that isn't armored will be covered with bruises. Edit: It's common to hit people, it's frowned upon to hit peoples' heads or to hit them full-strength. Czechs will do both of those things anyway though. A Czech put a war axe through a friend of mine's helmet once. Almost every pike group except Czechs will drop their points immediately before you close with your opponents, so it looks good from a distance but you're not actually aiming for people. Czechs will aim for real, so we aim for real when we fight them. I prefer this, because it's excellent practice. Edit 2: Everyone's afraid of this stuff because everyone knows what a big fuckoff spear does. What you should be worried about, though (and what most bystanders aren't, because "it's just blanks"), is being a musketeer. When poo poo happens to those dudes, it's more likely to be very bad. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 17:12
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Guildencrantz posted:I live a short walk away from the Baltic, Spain and Greece are basically scorching desert by my standards Madrid routinely gets like 40ºC in the summer.
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Oct 17, 2014 17:31
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HEY GAL posted:Everyone's afraid of this stuff because everyone knows what a big fuckoff spear does. What you should be worried about, though (and what most bystanders aren't, because "it's just blanks"), is being a musketeer. When poo poo happens to those dudes, it's more likely to be very bad. Boom?
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Oct 17, 2014 17:36
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my dad posted:Boom?  where did my hand go
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Oct 17, 2014 17:41
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Does anyone know anything about the Towers of Bologna? They seem extremely interesting but I can't find much information about them anywhere.
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Oct 17, 2014 18:28
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Randarkman posted:Yeah, Italy gets really hot, however that didn't stop the Italians from wearing metal armor in war, even though as you say they avoided fighting during the height of summer. I don't really get why the Middle East should be so different in that regard when the populated regions mostly are more of a mediterranean climate than scorching desert, and i most cases it wasn't that different. They did not develop the full plate armor that started appearing in Europe from the mid 14th century onwards, though this is mostly due to the developments in warfare and metallurgy in Europe rather than the Middle East being too hot for armor. Have you ever been to the Mediterranean? Southern Italy is pretty hot, the Peloponese is loving hot, Crete is a nightmare in summer (check out pictures of Crete or Rhodos), Turkey is no joke either. I've been to Pergamon in July, which was pretty unpleasant. Everything is just scorched by the sun there in Summer. Libya, Egypt...you figure. All mediterranean places. They all have mountains and lush areas, but most is pretty uncomfortable in summer for anything else than swimming and hanging out in the shade. There's a reason why the people there shift their rythm of life into the evening. Iran is either cold, arid mountains, cold deserts or loving hot deserts. Like European warfare stalls in winter, you can take a wild guess when there's campaign season in the Mediterranean. If there's one place that calls me, it's Iran. Think of all the stuff that they have there, which we barely know about or have no easy access. That country was famed for it's metalworking from the Safavids on. Maybe Rodrigo can explain better why they didn't produce lots of plate, but I think it has to do with the fact that some dudes in Italy or Germany invented a procedure where they could produce larger quantities of quality steel with less effort and resources. Also, producing steel eats shitloads of wood, so basically any place around the southern mediterranean isn't an ideal place for large scale steel production. e: I found a source that attributes the increase of production of steel in Europe to the use of hydropower, in form of hammer mills and powered bellows. If you consider the problems of transporting bulky goods like iron ore and fuel over large distances by land, it's clear why Germany, Austria and northern Italy were ideal places for making large quantities of steel. You got all you need close by. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 19:08
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TropicalCoke posted:Does anyone know anything about the Towers of Bologna? They seem extremely interesting but I can't find much information about them anywhere. Towers are generally used by families in poor or constricted locations in case the local feud gets nasty and you need a place to hole up and arm your myriad cousins They were really common in Italy until better administration and the need for urban renewal meant most were torn down. Imagine you have too much money, a lot of enemies, but the only land you can use is in the middle of the city and you can't exactly buy the surrounding land because it's probably expensive and owned by somebody who doesn't like you. You build a gently caress-off tower and now nobody wants to fight you on your own turf, plus you get to wave your dick with the city's new landmark. In the case of the Maniots, the culture of vendetta killing got so bad that entire villages in the middle of nowhere are just towers because somebody was trying to kill somebody else at any given time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniots#mediaviewer/File:Vathia_Mani_Greece.jpg
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Oct 17, 2014 19:30
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JaucheCharly posted:Have you ever been to the Mediterranean? Southern Italy is pretty hot, the Peloponese is loving hot, Crete is a nightmare in summer (check out pictures of Crete or Rhodos), Turkey is no joke either. I've been to Pergamon in July, which was pretty unpleasant. Everything is just scorched by the sun there in Summer. Libya, Egypt...you figure. All mediterranean places. They all have mountains and lush areas, but most is pretty uncomfortable in summer for anything else than swimming and hanging out in the shade. There's a reason why the people there shift their rythm of life into the evening. Iran is either cold, arid mountains, cold deserts or loving hot deserts. I've actually been to the the Peloponnese (a small village that was in or really close to the Mani region, can't quite remember), during a heat wave in summer, and I've been to Syria, Jordan (where I also went into the desert), Israel and the West Bank, as well as southern Spain and Tuscany, so yeah I've been to the Mediterranean. Don't assume too much. My point was first that much of the populated parts of the Middle East are not deserts, but are similar in climate to European Mediterranean climates. And second that even though it gets really hot during the summer that didn't really seem to stop people from those countries wearing metal armor to battle, did it? Even if they may have have avoided fighting during the summer all together during the summer because of the heat, they still wore armor in the seasons they actually waged war in. And I think your right about the steel thing, the development of heavy steel plate armor in Europe, and that it was not developed in say the Middle East, had more (or everything) to do with technological developments, military developments (for instance the threat of crossbows, which were used quite alot in the Middle East in fact, but these were generally light, no stronger than an equivalent bow, just easier to use and aim) and the available of iron. India (which supplied much of the iron and processsed steel to Middle Eastern countries) is an example of where the climate actually is kind of against the use of metal armor, often being very humid in addition to very hot for large portions of the year. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 22:32
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JaucheCharly posted:Why hasn't anyone posted this yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeI8capzuqs&t=266s Also im quite sure that the people in that video are not actually trying to hurt each other... HEY GAL posted:Edit: It's common to hit people, it's frowned upon to hit peoples' heads or to hit them full-strength. Czechs will do both of those things anyway though. A Czech put a war axe through a friend of mine's helmet once. Almost every pike group except Czechs will drop their points immediately before you close with your opponents, so it looks good from a distance but you're not actually aiming for people. Czechs will aim for real, so we aim for real when we fight them. I prefer this, because it's excellent practice.  ok, maybe they are?HEY GAL posted:Edit 2: Everyone's afraid of this stuff because everyone knows what a big fuckoff spear does. What you should be worried about, though (and what most bystanders aren't, because "it's just blanks"), is being a musketeer. When poo poo happens to those dudes, it's more likely to be very bad.
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Oct 18, 2014 07:17
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FYI "A report of the findings of the Defence Academy warbow trials" in Arms & Armour, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2007 (you can dl it) You can see that their 1200# 15th century Genoese crossbow gives an output of around 100J, to compare that with a typical composite warbow of 125#, see this, you can fill in the data at the bottom for the average value of 243fps (74.0664 m/s) speed of the arrow and the war arrow mass of 600 grains (0.038879346kg) into the formula for kinetic energy and arrive at 106,64J Crossbows have their advantages, but they're pretty inefficient when it comes to translating stored energy into projectile speed. Threat from ranged weapons in the east is very real. At least when we talk about core troops like Sipahi, Janissaries, Mamluks and the Safavid's Turk troops. Note, I have not researched earlier periods, but the ones that I just gave are contemporaries that have several things in common, namely that the state organized training either in guilds or colleges and that there's a pretty well managed rat tail of workshops behind supplying them. Sidenote: Peter Dekker recently did some testing that compared his Manchu composite bow to a yew longbow. Peter Dekker posted:My heavy 82# Manchu bow proved its worth with a stunning 190 fps with an arrow of around 80 grams. A yew longbow of 119# got an impressive 170 fps from the same arrow but the test clearly showed the Manchu bow's potential. Both were shot by the same archer, Fairbow Nederland using the three finger draw. More detailed results will follow, and of course we will do lots more testing in the coming period. These bows were built for launching extremely heavy arrows, most of them being around the same weigthrange at around 120# and north of that. Crimean Tartar bows and hybrids between them and "typical" Ottoman bows follow a similar philosophy, but not with such extremely heavy arrows. For giggles, here's pretty heavy Crimeans Tartar bow http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2695 This bow has an output of 183,6J with the 63,9g arrow Power Khan fucked around with this message at 10:37 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 09:57
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HEY GAL posted::iamafag: Let's hang explosives around our bodies on a big old harness and then hold things in our hands that are on fire! Just in case people thought this was exaggeration, literal loss of limbs does happen. Famously, Michael Perry, the miniatures sculptor (he and his twin brother are possibly the biggest name in the hobby, or at least they were when I was still into it) was an English Civil War artillery reenactor and got his right arm completely blown off at the elbow by a misfiring cannon. You'd think that would gently caress up your career forever if you're a right-handed craftsman of tiny precise mans, but nope, he pulled a Götz von Berlichingen and is still working.  Early modern levels of badass right there. Don't know if he still does reenactment but I honestly wouldn't be surprised.
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Oct 18, 2014 10:57
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Guildencrantz posted:Just in case people thought this was exaggeration, literal loss of limbs does happen. Famously, Michael Perry, the miniatures sculptor (he and his twin brother are possibly the biggest name in the hobby, or at least they were when I was still into it) was an English Civil War artillery reenactor and got his right arm completely blown off at the elbow by a misfiring cannon. A friend of mine met a one handed dude: a musketeer whose powder flask went off in his hand. It was made of horn and the surgeon couldn't tell the difference between fragments of horn and fragments of bone, so instead of trying to fix it they just lopped the whole thing off. He's a fendrich now, with the short-handled one-handed kind of flag. Nektu posted:Also im quite sure that the people in that video are not actually trying to hurt each other... Edit: Tiny injuries, of course, are quite common; my right pinkie finger was ground between my own pike and one of my opponents' pikes a few times in a row a few months ago and it's been numb in places ever since. This sort of thing is expected. Edit 2: What I saw of that fight was crude and without technique, though. That's bad. quote:How common are accidents like that? The width of the leaf points and the width of the human mouth are about commensurate, and I was told this hit her right under/against the upper lip. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Oct 19, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 12:19
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JaucheCharly posted:bows and arrows Don't the crossbows shoot a slower but heavier projectile and therefore gain better penetration?
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Oct 18, 2014 12:19
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The formula for kinetic energy tells you why this isn't as efficient. Ek = ½mv² Another downside is the drawlength and the return speed that you'd need to make them efficient. With such a relatively short drawlength you'd need a lightweigth prod that needs to be able to return extremely fast to it's uncocked position (in other words, low mass of the prod and it being able to store lots of flexible energy). Mass of the string is another important factor. Both steel and composite prods are too heavy to be able to do that and there's no old material that would make the required string both significantly lighter and safer. (You really want to be on the safe side, if you have a piece of steel or composite a few cm away from your face that stores energy of about 1200#) To make them work, you need to increase mass of the bolt to a certain optimum and beyond for safety (e.g. shooting a drastically lighter bolt will result in damage or a literal explosion of your weapon, as it cannot transfer the stored energy into the projectile). I'm too lazy to search thouroughly, but this site (probably?) gives info on a comparable crossbow to the one that was mentioned before: http://www.themcs.org/weaponry/crossbows/crossbows.htm#EuropeanCrossbows "Payne-Gallwey decribes shooting a 15th century Siege bow of 3 foot 2 inches length, with a bolt 3 ounces in weight and 14 inches in length, a distance of 460 yards. At 60 yards he sent a bolt right through a deal plank 3/4 in. thick. The total weight required to draw the string of its bow 7 inches using its portable windlass was 1,200 pounds, or over half a ton." The bolt is 85g here. Maybe there's some more info on fps, drawweigth and bolt mass somewhere, but you start to see why they're inefficient (not to be mistaken with ineffective) if you need a weapon of 1200# to shoot a 85g bolt with about 100-150J. Relative ease of manufacture and training of people to use them is probably the great advantage that they have. You also don't need special resources to make them. e: The formula also tells you why more mass is better if you want to shoot something that's further away. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 13:10
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I'd like to know something about the operational side of medieval warfare. With the ancient world especially in the west we get pretty detailed ideas of the logistical machine behind the armies of empires and other larges states. How did armies function in for example the Hundred Years War? Is the idea of armies made up of seasonal levies accurate? What was their model for remuneration and retention of soldiers? Were their differences between states, and if so which system worked better, and what were the long term trends like?
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Oct 18, 2014 16:41
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JaucheCharly posted:e: The formula also tells you why more mass is better if you want to shoot something that's further away.
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Oct 18, 2014 16:52
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Yes, since speed is squared in the formula. It's the reason why turkish, persian and mughal arrows with bodkin heads have very low and long fletching to minimize drag. The arrows are also not particularly long.   Their broadheads have higher parabolic fletching, since the head has some negative impact on the aerodynamic properties. The higher fletching also makes it stabilize faster. They look more or less like the 4" stuff that you can buy everywhere today, but without the quill.  The ones with the very short fletching are flight arrows, for sport. Moths really love feathers, so it's rare to find fletching intact.  I have not done alot of research on arrows, but the size of the broadheads that we have in local museums here is remarkable, they're relatively small, almost as if they're a compromise between bodkins and regular broadhead. Here's a collection of several types from Istanbul with large broadheads.  Here's an example for the smaller ones that are everywhere in the museums here:   Note, we have no sports and leisure equipment here. Everything was captured in war. There are prestige arrows, for important people, but most of it is regular ammo that looks more or less like the stuff on the images. Taking a guess, I'd say this is because they're meant to disable rather than kill. The Ottomans always wanted to make slaves and collect ransom. The use of these short bows and arrows that are maxed for speed are comparable as to how pistols would be used by cavalry. Infantry bows are said to have been larger, up to 54" for turkish bows. Recently I saw a discussion about the classification of bows, as people today tend to think today that they existed in cleanly seperated categories as presented by modern makers, but once you go to the museums, you will find a variety of hybrids that have attributes of the other kind, e.g. string bridges or a reflexed grip, but short like the turkish cavalry bows, or no reflex in the grip and straight limbs, but other properties that are typical for pure crimean tartar bows. The collections in Vienna and Dresden are a good example for this. We know about bows with certain kind of configuration that were used for certain tasks, war, target shooting, practice, flight, strength conditioning, piercing contests (darb), etc. It's really sophsiticated. But there's also alot of stuff that we don't know. The issue of archery tackle isn't so well researched as you might expect. When I wanted to find out how target arrows looked and how the fletching on those was shaped, man, that was a wild goose chase. From manuals we know that there was also similar material in Iran and Egypt, but go and try to find some actual equipment from that time. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 18:15
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Arglebargle III posted:I'd like to know something about the operational side of medieval warfare. With the ancient world especially in the west we get pretty detailed ideas of the logistical machine behind the armies of empires and other larges states. How did armies function in for example the Hundred Years War? Is the idea of armies made up of seasonal levies accurate? What was their model for remuneration and retention of soldiers? Were their differences between states, and if so which system worked better, and what were the long term trends like? It varied quite a lot. In the Hundred Years War, for English armies at least, regular wages were a very common thing. With the French, it might be assumed that they were relying on feudal levies or just aristocratic warfare, but I think the extent of that may be exaggerated in an effort to show a contrast between England & France. The Crusader states relied quite a bit on hired soldiers a lot too, and even the seasonal levies were often just lip service. Ian Heath suggests that the only upper limit for how long a knight could be held on a campaign was 6 months, and most agreements of service give no upper limit at all. Post HYW England, such as during the Wars of the Roses, you get large number of ‘retainers’ who were officially just servants although were in practise mercenaries (Alexander Grant). I look at German armies and the feudal obligations were very difficult to enforce, so no German Emperor would be wise to rely on seasonal levies. Mercenaries were very much a thing in late-medieval Germany and Italy as well. Overall, I would say the feudal model of seasonal levies was the way things were ‘supposed’ to work, but not the way it usually worked. I should also point out that I mostly deal with the later periods, where it seems this trend towards just hiring troops became stronger. Mercenary arrangements is a complicated subject and depends a lot by area. To my knowledge, Italian contracts were the most detailed, including compensation arrangements for lost horses or injuries and so on, negotiated by the condottorei (sp?). By contrast, landsknecht were heavily dependent on the tross or baggage train, which was at least somewhat controlled by army officials but seemed to be private businesses. A landsknecht officer might have to fix or set prices within the tross, and the soldiers had to buy their own food, rather than receiving it from the army. As a sidenote, prostitution was officially banned in the tross of the landsknecht, but they named an officer responsible for keeping order in the tross as (from memory) “hurenwebel” or “whore-sergeant.” Strangely, hired soldiers in the Crusader kingdoms, if pay was delayed, were allowed to sell off their equipment, but had to buy it back once their pay started again. It seems a strange provision to put in a contract. With English hired soldiers, many were unofficial so it’s hard to find clear contracts or agreements.
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Oct 18, 2014 22:59
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Railtus posted:The Crusader states relied quite a bit on hired soldiers a lot too, and even the seasonal levies were often just lip service. Ian Heath suggests that the only upper limit for how long a knight could be held on a campaign was 6 months, and most agreements of service give no upper limit at all. The Crusader States also relied a great deal on the military orders for their armies, especially the Templars and Hospitalers, I think at Hattin the Templars and Hospitalers together provided about 1/4 of the army, and made up more than half of the heavy cavalry, and as the Crusader States got more and more on the defensive they became more and more dependent on the orders for actually providing the manpower for their armies. On a more general note a common theme (especially in England and France) as the Middle Ages progressed was the feudal vassals went from rendering dues to their liges in the form of military service and more and more came to render it in the form of payments, in cash, grain or material, this was actually encouraged by many kings as they would use these payments to hire professional soldiers (usaully mercenaries) and build up a full time, standing royal army, an essential prerequisite when moving towards a centralized state and away from feudalism. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 23:26
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Nektu posted:How common are accidents like that?
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Oct 19, 2014 18:18
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Always reenacting 100% close to the original. But please don't use firearms drunk.
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Oct 19, 2014 21:08
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JaucheCharly posted:Always reenacting 100% close to the original. But please don't use firearms drunk. (2) I'm not allowed to handle ammunition in Germany without a Pulverschein, which I don't have. (Step One should be to ask me "Do you believe that what you are doing, or anything associated with it, is a good idea?" and if I say yes they expel me from the country.)
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Oct 19, 2014 21:25
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HEY GAL posted:(1) I'm incredibly anal I thought sodomy would be a big no-no in medieval reenactments? Randarkman posted:The Crusader States also relied a great deal on the military orders for their armies, especially the Templars and Hospitalers, I think at Hattin the Templars and Hospitalers together provided about 1/4 of the army, and made up more than half of the heavy cavalry, and as the Crusader States got more and more on the defensive they became more and more dependent on the orders for actually providing the manpower for their armies. I know there were a lot of smaller orders. Could you [all] talk about the relationship between the bigger (hospitallers & templars) and smaller orders? Templars and Hospitallers are typically portrayed as being rivals, was there similarity between the other orders? Was there conflict over recruits, etc.? Iseeyouseemeseeyou fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Oct 19, 2014 |
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Oct 19, 2014 21:47
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:I thought sodomy would be a big no-no in medieval reenactments?
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Oct 19, 2014 22:01
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Since there's been a lot of sword-chat recently, I thought I'd ask this here. I was reading the Miracles of Sainte Foy (11th century) today and I came across a reference to a warrior (miles) defending himself with a "peasant's version of a sword." Does anyone have any idea what this is referring to? Unfortunately I only have the translation in front of me, not the Latin.
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Oct 20, 2014 02:16
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deadking posted:Since there's been a lot of sword-chat recently, I thought I'd ask this here. I was reading the Miracles of Sainte Foy (11th century) today and I came across a reference to a warrior (miles) defending himself with a "peasant's version of a sword." Does anyone have any idea what this is referring to? Unfortunately I only have the translation in front of me, not the Latin. Could be a langesmesser, which despite translating to long knife it was used in a very sword like manner, and was also considered a peasant weapon.
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Oct 20, 2014 04:20
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Maybe a messer? Messer just means knife in German but it also a term for a certain type of sword that was primarily uses by commoners because carrying a sword around outside of battle was a noble privelidge and messers, despite being swords in everything but name, were technically considered to be a knifes or daggers so this was a sort of a loophole allowing lowborn men to carry a weapon in self defence. But I think messers were only really a thing in the late medieval era and I know almost no thing about swords so Im probably wrong.
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Oct 20, 2014 04:20
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Farming tools were also reworked to serve as weapons, so you could also be looking at something that was previously a sickle.
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Oct 20, 2014 08:39
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Would a sickle blade really be something you could rework into a sword? I was under the impression that their blades were quite thin.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:18
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