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Fascinating thread. I've been an active member of a HEMA group for the better part of a decade so I can comment on the actual techniques involved with murdering someone with a medieval weapon if anyone is interested. I was going to comment on half-swording and the murder-stroke but thisRailtus posted:An example here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi757-7XD94 pretty much sums it up.
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Feb 6, 2013 04:28
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:25 |
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I'll comment on the George Silver thing. After practicing HEMA for around a decade I'll say that a 5-7 foot staff weapon can generally beat a sword if you use it like a spear (both hands close to one end) to take advantage of length and will generally beat longer weapons if you use it like a half-staff (hands around the the middle like the classic Robin Hood style quarter-staff) to get inside the reach of the longer weapon with the advantage of leverage. There are specific techniques designed for those respective scenarios with each weapon. Of course a more skilled fighter is going to win against a lesser skilled fighter regardless, but with all things being equal (and they never are) a staff weapon is the most versatile. Don't know if that is helpful or only repeating what other people said. I'm only speaking from personal experience as I have only a passing familiarity with the historical HEMA Masters.
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Feb 15, 2013 21:07
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AlphaDog posted:Edit: Wasn't one of the functions of the Zweihander to chop through pike shafts? I swear I read that somewhere but I can't find a reference now. I read that too and could never find a source. I think in practice a formation of mercenaries armed with Zweihanders was intended to break another formation armed with pikes. In the primary guard for a Zwiehander vs polarm one holds the sword with one hand right above the pommel as usual for the two handed sword, but the other hands is essentially backwards (right thumb pointed towards the left hand) between the primary and secondary crossguards. Hell, its hards to explain to so I'll let this gentleman from the ARMA show you.  Anyway this gives you a tremendous leverage advantage and I don't see why a highly trained group of armored guys couldn't smash a formation of a weapon who's primary technique is thrusting.
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Feb 16, 2013 17:09
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Beaumains posted:I used to lurk the ARMA forums. What are some other sites that are good resources for info and forum discussions? I don't want to blanket all ARMA members as pretentious asses, but their director, John Clements, has a "with us or against us" philosophy with other HEMA groups. Where other groups I am aware of/ part of have no problem pooling their knowledge or working together, John flat-out won't work with any group that doesn't become an ARMA-subsidiary. Edit: you may like SwordForum.com Poldarn fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Apr 5, 2013 |
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Apr 5, 2013 04:29
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EvanSchenck posted:This doesn't address the question of why we do not see fechtbucher recommending flying tackles, or accounts of tourneys or battles where dudes body checking eachother played a major role. It probably happened commonly after battles, as the losing side gave up fighting and fled for their lives, but if it had any utility against an enemy who was actually resisting, we would expect to see it attested in the documents. Which, again, it isn't. I'd argue the fechbucher mostly showed techniques aimed at intermediate level students or were used by the author or student as memory tips and left out the incredibly basic techniques. Body slamming a dude not looking to you is as basic a move as there is.
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Aug 1, 2013 19:44
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A strange question popped into my head the other day while I was reading about sieges. After boiling oil gets poured on some poor bastards, what is the method used to clean up the...mess?
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Aug 19, 2013 06:44
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I mean like how do they get the now cooled oil and liquified body parts off of the ground? Do they scrape it or sawdust or what? I think it's safe to assume that some peasant will be doing that work regardless of what method they use.
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Aug 19, 2013 12:01
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veekie posted:Wouldn't you just kind of get a fried state? The body contains a lot of water to boil off before much else can happen, and the victim is long dead before that. No sense heating it up THAT much. Dead is dead. Fair enough, I didn't think of exactly how the oil would kill people. So anyway, the attackers have been deep fat fried and the defenders need to sally out that gateway. Are they going to be slip and sliding all over the place or am I exaggerating how much of a mess the oil itself is going to make?
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Aug 19, 2013 12:31
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Question re zweihanders and poleaxes: I'm under the impression both were personal and formation weapons for elite soldiers, either mercenaries or regulars. Is there a way to summarize the different roles of the two? I'm aware of zweihanders being used to penetrate pike squares but I'm not sure of anything else.
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May 21, 2016 16:23
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:25 |
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Can someone expand on the role of the blacksmith in medieval societies? I was watching Vikings and got to the part where they executed the blacksmith, which strikes me as weird because it was such a valuable trade. I don't think a blacksmith would be immune to punishment but I've got some notion in my head that it would have been handled differently.
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Oct 16, 2016 19:03
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