|
Post by mcapanelli on Mar 17, 2019 19:09:23 GMT
I know you say two sword wielders, but my first impulse was "BILL HOOK" because that's what they were for - peasant levies needing to kill mounted & heavily armored knights. A pole arm gives you reach and leverage sufficent to overcome the advantage of the armor. Pin with the pole ax and end with a (censored)s dagger. Wash the blood off the armor and sell it with the rest of the loot :) That was my first thought as well. Why use a sword when there were purpose built weapons for combating armor. Even the armored combatants wouldn't use the sword as their primary weapon. For the sake of the OP though, we have to play along........... Forget about running around him and tiring him out. The modern equivalent would be fighting a marine in his full kit. You have to keep in mind that the armor was most likely made for the wearer, so it wold fit extremely well, and they would have trained in it in a way we just can't in our modern world. It's the same as running around that marine and trying to close once you think he's tired out. Give it a try and let me know how that works out.
Grappling would literally be the end of you. My memories shaky so I'm not sure which Fechtbuch said it or how it was said exactly, but it said that if your opponent isn't armored that you can just cut away without worry (paraphrased of course). So a no go there. You could fight in half sword, which is meant fort Harnischfechten, but there's that "cut away" thing to contend with, so you'll probably die because your opponent won't be in half sword and will be able to use full cuts against you. Also, the Mortshlage isn't the easiest thing to land with even odds, so you'd also most likely get yourself killed there too. So, what does that leave us with? Having some experience in historical fencing, and against armored opponents, I'd say the only chance you'd have, besides trying to run (which won't work the way you think) is to keep in Langanort, Ochs, or Alber and go for the thrust in the gaps by the joints. The problem there is that your point doesn't present the same kind of threat as it would in Blousefecthen because a thrust won't penetrate deep enough to cause a mortal wound, if it penertrates at all. So all in all, I'd say you'd be pretty buggered. There's a reason why they invented the Bill (and other similar weapons), and why the later Fechtbuchs tell you to fear it. It was invented because armored knights were basically walking tanks and they needed something new and innovative to even the odds for infantry men fighting armored and mounted Calvary.
|
|
|
Post by elbrittania39 on Mar 17, 2019 19:19:02 GMT
I know you say two sword wielders, but my first impulse was "BILL HOOK" because that's what they were for - peasant levies needing to kill mounted & heavily armored knights. A pole arm gives you reach and leverage sufficent to overcome the advantage of the armor. Pin with the pole ax and end with a (censored)s dagger. Wash the blood off the armor and sell it with the rest of the loot That was my first thought as well. Why use a sword when there were purpose built weapons for combating armor. Even the armored combatants wouldn't use the sword as their primary weapon. For the sake of the OP though, we have to play along........... Forget about running around him and tiring him out. The modern equivalent would be fighting a marine in his full kit. You have to keep in mind that the armor was most likely made for the wearer, so it wold fit extremely well, and they would have trained in it in a way we just can't in our modern world. It's the same as running around that marine and trying to close once you think he's tired out. Give it a try and let me know how that works out.
Grappling would literally be the end of you. My memories shaky so I'm not sure which Fechtbuch said it or how it was said exactly, but it said that if your opponent isn't armored that you can just cut away without worry (paraphrased of course). So a no go there. You could fight in half sword, which is meant fort Harnischfechten, but there's that "cut away" thing to contend with, so you'll probably die because your opponent won't be in half sword and will be able to use full cuts against you. Also, the Mortshlage isn't the easiest thing to land with even odds, so you'd also most likely get yourself killed there too. So, what does that leave us with? Having some experience in historical fencing, and against armored opponents, I'd say the only chance you'd have, besides trying to run (which won't work the way you think) is to keep in Langanort, Ochs, or Alber and go for the thrust in the gaps by the joints. The problem there is that your point doesn't present the same kind of threat as it would in Blousefecthen because a thrust won't penetrate deep enough to cause a mortal wound, if it penertrates at all. So all in all, I'd say you'd be pretty buggered. There's a reason why they invented the Bill (and other similar weapons), and why the later Fechtbuchs tell you to fear it. It was invented because armored knights were basically walking tanks and they needed something new and innovative to even the odds for infantry men fighting armored and mounted Calvary. I completely understand that swords were not the "best case scenario" weapon to use against an armored opponent. However, I think in the chaos of a battlefield situation, you don't have everything play out perfectly. Maybe your horse dies under you, maybe your polearm shatters, maybe you run out of arrows, etc. So while I never think anyone without armor would intentionally choose a sword to fight an armored opponent, I have no doubt that there were plenty of historical scenarios where soldiers had to make do with what they had for the moment. And if you lost your primary weapon, odds are you were making do with that sword hanging on your belt, thats what it was there for after all.
|
|
Ouroboros
Member
Imperial, Mysterious In Amorous Array
Posts: 570
|
Post by Ouroboros on Mar 17, 2019 23:30:31 GMT
....leaving me Smokey Smokey corpse ruins smote by demon fire and brimstone salts... Or use a weighted net... Yeah right. Ok, Einstein, explain to me then how you would display the captured armor as a trophy if it's destroyed by a fire demon on lost in a ethereal realm somewhere? Honestly, don't you even think through your tactics? I hang my head in shame...for I did not consider taking a trophy of my kill, mmm? Ouro
|
|
|
Post by Timo Nieminen on Mar 18, 2019 0:15:11 GMT
Grappling would literally be the end of you. My memories shaky so I'm not sure which Fechtbuch said it or how it was said exactly, but it said that if your opponent isn't armored that you can just cut away without worry (paraphrased of c [/span]ourse). So a no go there. [/quote] You must control your armoured opponent's weapon first (which is the same advice given for unarmed vs knife (both unarmoured) where there is a similar disparity in effectiveness of attacks). Usually, this would be done by controlling the weapon arm. This is much easier with sword vs sword than if unarmed vs sword (or knife). Of course, the fun doesn't stop there - getting headbutted by a helmeted opponent is highly undesirable. Better be a good wrestler. Ceteris paribus, attempting to grapple will probably not end well, but it might be more likely to succeed than other tactics (other than running away).
|
|
Zen_Hydra
Moderator
Born with a heart full of neutrality
Posts: 2,625
|
Post by Zen_Hydra on Mar 18, 2019 16:43:19 GMT
I completely understand that swords were not the "best case scenario" weapon to use against an armored opponent. However, I think in the chaos of a battlefield situation, you don't have everything play out perfectly. Maybe your horse dies under you, maybe your polearm shatters, maybe you run out of arrows, etc. So while I never think anyone without armor would intentionally choose a sword to fight an armored opponent, I have no doubt that there were plenty of historical scenarios where soldiers had to make do with what they had for the moment. And if you lost your primary weapon, odds are you were making do with that sword hanging on your belt, thats what it was there for after all. This scenario plays out very differently on a battlefield than in a "white room" variable-controlled duel. Historically speaking, there is very little evidence of battles where units broke formation and paired off into a series of individual combats. That is pretty much a purely Hollywood notion, and undermines the whole point of having well-drilled units (and minimizing the chaos). The closest thing to that would be the pursuit of a routed enemy force (where the vast majority of combat casualties happened), and that was generally more of a slaughter, than glorious individual combat. If your horse dies under you in the midst of an enemy unit, you better hope they are willing to accept your surrender. If your polearm breaks in the main engagement, you are trained to rotate back out of the front, and either rearm or take up a supporting position until you can rearm. The unarmored, levy types had numbers as their strength. An unhorsed knight, despite superficial invulnerability, could still be pulled down and killed by a mob of peasants armed with nothing more than rocks, knives or even bare hands.
|
|
Zen_Hydra
Moderator
Born with a heart full of neutrality
Posts: 2,625
|
Post by Zen_Hydra on Mar 18, 2019 17:11:10 GMT
Forget about running around him and tiring him out. The modern equivalent would be fighting a marine in his full kit. You have to keep in mind that the armor was most likely made for the wearer, so it wold fit extremely well, and they would have trained in it in a way we just can't in our modern world. It's the same as running around that marine and trying to close once you think he's tired out. Give it a try and let me know how that works out.
An important difference between an armored knight and a modern marine is that it's easy for that marine to shrug off his ruck and run you down at top speed. The knight isn't going to doff his harness to run after you. The cost-benefit analysis is going to heavily favor the knight keeping his armor on, even if he can't outrun you by doing so. If our thought experiment doesn't limit the variable, there isn't much point in the examination. Why would assume the armored and unarmored combatants don't have parity with regards to training and physical fitness? How much more does the unarmored combatant need to be handicapped? Skill and fitness are really kind of intangible when it comes to hard quantification, because so many circumstances can alter the performance of either characteristic. The way I see it, if the combatants are of comparable skill and fitness, are using identical weapons, and significantly differing in only the wearing/not wearing of armor, then more often than not the armored combatant will prevail (results varying on uncontrolled for factors, weapons used, and manner of armor). If, however, we allow that keeping all other factors the same as above, the combatants must choose differing weapons, we open the experiment up to a comparison of the efficacy of a given weapon system against an armed and armored opponent. This is more interesting, because it allows for us to speculate whether the strengths of a billhook are sufficient to overcome an armored knight wielding an arming sword and heater shield, or an unarmored longsword wielder versus an armored combatant with a rondel dagger.
|
|
|
Post by legacyofthesword on Mar 18, 2019 17:29:42 GMT
You must control your armoured opponent's weapon first (which is the same advice given for unarmed vs knife (both unarmoured) where there is a similar disparity in effectiveness of attacks).
[/quote][/div]
In a nutshell, this entire thread could be re-framed with a different question: how to fight someone with a massive advantage over you?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 17:49:08 GMT
Pepsi
|
|
Zen_Hydra
Moderator
Born with a heart full of neutrality
Posts: 2,625
|
Post by Zen_Hydra on Mar 18, 2019 18:09:00 GMT
You must control your armoured opponent's weapon first (which is the same advice given for unarmed vs knife (both unarmoured) where there is a similar disparity in effectiveness of attacks).
[/div]
In a nutshell, this entire thread could be re-framed with a different question: how to fight someone with a massive advantage over you?
[/quote] Sure, if you want to be reductionist about it, but not all advantages have equal value. The complications of defeating an armored opponent while unarmored yourself need very different solutions than does an infantry soldier fighting a mounted cavalryman, or a person with a stick fighting an adult grey wolf. You really can't reduce all asymmetrical combat scenarios into a single set of reproducible statistical results, and even if you could the numbers would have little correlation to any specific instance (statistical resolution usually lacks that level of granularity).
|
|
|
Post by Cosmoline on Mar 18, 2019 18:39:58 GMT
I would imagine a real armored fight would look something like this. When somebody is trying to kill you for real, you don't stop or let up until the other guy stops moving- permanently. You aren't there to play games with the guy (or girl), you are there to kill him (or her) before they do the same to you. No such thing as "fair"- only success or failure. They're using very flexible spears and seem eager to discard them. Real spears and other pole-arms would be the primary weapon and only discarded if the situation called for it.
|
|
|
Post by Cosmoline on Mar 18, 2019 18:46:20 GMT
Grappling would literally be the end of you. My memories shaky so I'm not sure which Fechtbuch said it or how it was said exactly, but it said that if your opponent isn't armored that you can just cut away without worry (paraphrased of course). So a no go there. The key is to get inside his weapon. If he can get to his dagger in time, you're in trouble. But if you can get inside his sword or spear and very quickly close to grappling range, you actually have some serious advantages over his armor. His limited tactile sensation makes it difficult for him to know what you're doing, and you can use his armor against him in that sense. You need to get him pushed over preferably on his face. Well fitted armor is great stuff, but it has disadvantages in this situation. From our testing with this concept, the two choices I've seen are either make a hard block and be fast enough to get in and tackle or throw your sword at him and run away ;-) In any fight where he has a chance of using his weapon(s), he has all the advantages.
|
|
Zen_Hydra
Moderator
Born with a heart full of neutrality
Posts: 2,625
|
Post by Zen_Hydra on Mar 18, 2019 19:44:21 GMT
Have fun grappling my Hellraiser cosplay armor. While a suit like that above wouldn't be practical, it really wouldn't take much to adapt a suit of plate into something an unarmored person would regret getting intimate with.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 22:02:59 GMT
You must control your armoured opponent's weapon first (which is the same advice given for unarmed vs knife (both unarmoured) where there is a similar disparity in effectiveness of attacks).
[/div]
In a nutshell, this entire thread could be re-framed with a different question: how to fight someone with a massive advantage over you?
[/quote] By focusing on how to solve the problem, instead of fixating on how hard the problem is to solve. It's that "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me" mentality. It's cultivating a drive to take victory regardless of circumstances. You train as hard as you can with the best partners and instructors you can get in with, and work to understand as best you can what the lessons are imparting and how to leverage it. Feeling sorry for yourself because the other guy is faster, or stronger, or better armed, or better armored is not going to help at all. Figuring out what you need to do to put him in or on the ground will.
|
|
|
Post by Cosmoline on Mar 18, 2019 22:03:50 GMT
LOL Wasn't that one for bear? I think we can actually see some of the measures in late 14th and 15th cent armor, when spiked knuckles started showing up on the gauntlets.
|
|