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Post by Cosmoline on Sept 15, 2019 22:18:08 GMT
Again, you haven't tried it and you haven't tested it. Thrand had good results using that odd snapping cut against mail some years ago. I'm not sold on it, but the tests were food for thought. I have no problems dropping names. I've trained with Roland with Jake Norwood next to me, and I don't recall Jake dismissing the lessons as BS. In fact every top-level HEMA fighter I've trained with has an open mind when it comes to approaches. But ultimately, Roland makes videos showing what he does. You throw out ideas and post nothing. No sparring videos, no testing results. Just claims with no support. Like how you can't fight in close measure. Any complete system will have a close measure component, because in real sparring you often have no choice. There's a huge tool kit you can deploy in close measure. Not understanding that makes me wonder what systems you have actually studied.
And if you actually understood Roland's system, you'd realize that much of what he does is at long and medium measure. Too long, in my opinion, because without full force cuts it become more difficult to clear longpoint and close. So it ends up more like rapier.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2019 22:18:59 GMT
Thanks Jordan. Strapping on bayonets not unlike the use of jack chains to act as armour. ~~~~~~~~~~
I guess what woke me up was a statement regarding weak wrists and a block away from resting on a forearm as not very tenable but regardless of fist or icepick, a longer weapon has a lot more to lever against, hence blocking with a forte. So, I guess I just don't get the blocking from blows from overhead as an issue. To me an icepick hold, or in the case of a hanging guard, an icepick hold actually stronger than having my wrist rotated in a hanging guard.
Out
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Post by Jordan Williams on Sept 15, 2019 22:25:28 GMT
I'm sorry, but I do think you need to have a good amount of muscle strength to cleave someone down the middle. You absolutely cannot cut through a wool coat, a cotton undershirt, leather belt straps, and the necessary bones and organs on wrist and extension power alone. Hell, it's hard to get through a tatami mat on a number 6 on wrist power alone. Much easier and more stable when you put your chest muscles into play. @edelweiss let me find the account, I believe it was Sir Sydney Smith teaching recruits a method.
We should define strength first. I'm not talking about wrist power but core body power. From the hips and legs. And in any case I'm not talking about cutting through clothing. Beyond a point with textiles you are better off thrusting. Which, again, should be done with the core strength not with biceps. Muscling with biceps won't help much either way.
"And I'm any case I'm not talking about cutting through clothing" You are not practicing HEMA if you ignore the context of what the techniques would face. You are larping. I have cut wool, and cotton, and meat. You need to use muscle in addition to technique (believe it or not, technique and strength are not at all exclusive!) to produce more than a superficial scratch. The account I drew from is from the book "British Swordfighters 1600 - 1945", and is an actual historical account of a fight. You cannot take it, make the people in it naked, and make it fantasy to fit your idea of fencing. No, a very small cut by its own definition cannot sever a wrist or "cut a face in half". Actually, from account of soldiers halving people's skulls, we know that it does in fact require a good amount of strength and wasn't the result of a small wrist movement. If I have a free couple hours I'll try and find the specific accounts of them, but don't count on it. A small cut is a small cut. Thrusting with the core strength - sure. But you sure as hell need to use your arm and leg muscles in coordination with them. That doesn't actually make sense to me, just a quick cut number one can be made quite quick using the bicep muscles (obviously in conjunction with other muscles such as the forearm, wrist, shoulder etc), which by the way I never actually mentioned, I'm not sure why you specially brought that up. Defining strength - why? Sounds like moving the goalposts to me.
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Post by Cosmoline on Sept 15, 2019 22:30:44 GMT
Much of the KDF focuses on blossfetchen, where the fighters were specifically and demonstrably prevented from wearing more than a simple layer of clothing. But that aside, is it your contention that you must use as much force as possible in cuts? Or that this will help cut through layers of clothing to muscle in with biceps? I would be interested in these accounts, or in any source saying we are to cut with maximum muscle power in every blow. In my experience, applying more raw power to the blow just screws up the cut more. I either have my technique right or I don't. The sword is either sharp enough or it isn't. Smashing harder doesn't make the cut better. But if there's a cutting champ who says yeah, smash as hard as you can every time, I would certainly reconsider my position. I'm bigger and stronger than most opponents, so it would be great if I could just hulk smash to victory. But it never works! I just end up getting slashed to pieces because when I apply more strength I go more slowly and am a lot easier to manipulate.
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Post by markus313 on Sept 15, 2019 22:38:06 GMT
Cosmoline, to please your curiosity, I’m from an unarmed and stick-fighting background. Practiced after German sources for years, and always had my doubts. Re-read Silver after almost ten years of German stuff. Never looked back (while being German myself). Of course there’s something (much!) to take from the German tradition(s). But the strategy is ass-backwards, almost inhuman, so to speak (or very sporty, somehow, if you will, it gets worse with the Starbucks HEMA). Don’t know if that makes sense. Not interested in lengthy arguments. Perhaps to make people think, or re-think, if what they do is representative of combat, and how much so, yes. And for the non-testing part... It’s true, I’ve never struck mail with a sword blow. But have worn mail and spoken to people regularly training in mail.
Not really fond of quoting myself, but... "And yet period artwork shows a clear contrast between unarmored techniques for the salle and real combat."
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Post by Cosmoline on Sept 15, 2019 22:44:55 GMT
I'm not sure what "Starbucks HEMA" is. Different groups have different approaches. The more I do of this the less I'm willing to reject any of these methods out of hand. They all offer advantages and disadvantages.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Sept 15, 2019 22:53:57 GMT
Much of the KDF focuses on blossfetchen, where the fighters were specifically and demonstrably prevented from wearing more than a simple layer of clothing. But that aside, is it your contention that you must use as much force as possible in cuts? Or that this will help cut through layers of clothing to muscle in with biceps? I would be interested in these accounts, or in any source saying we are to cut with maximum muscle power in every blow. In my experience, applying more raw power to the blow just screws up the cut more. I either have my technique right or I don't. The sword is either sharp enough or it isn't. Smashing harder doesn't make the cut better. But if there's a cutting champ who says yeah, smash as hard as you can every time, I would certainly reconsider my position. I'm bigger and stronger than most opponents, so it would be great if I could just hulk smash to victory. But it never works! I just end up getting slashed to pieces because when I apply more strength I go more slowly and am a lot easier to manipulate. I don't think I have mentioned using every bit of your strength in cutting or any technique at all. And reading through my posts, unless I missed something, I didn't mention it. I put forward the idea that you do need to use muscular strength when cutting to get severe results. If you can't manage to use strength when making techniques you aren't doing something martially sound. So no, it is not and has never been my contention that you must use every bit of strength when cutting, no where did I say that or even allude to it. And yet that simple layer of clothing still cloth? And more than that, you cannot control what your opponent wears and especially for the sources I study, the clothes can range from a heavy wool winter coat over a wool uniform coat, over a cotton vest, and a cotton or muslin shirt, to a light civilian shirt.
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Post by Cosmoline on Sept 15, 2019 23:11:42 GMT
I was initially talking about thwapping at mail with an arming sword, so I think we are cross purposes. I probably got confused about who I was responding to, which wouldn't be the first time. I completely agree that controlled strength is important.
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Post by elbrittania39 on Sept 15, 2019 23:13:29 GMT
I think there is a mid point here. Obviously you dont want to strain and heave your muscles when cutting with a sword. They are sharp after all, if you wanted to crush your opponent, grab a mace or a pole ax. But also, dont over learn quick light cutting and treat the blade like a lighsaber.
I posted that video a few pages back mostly as a joke, but I think the guy that got slammed is definitely guilty of cutting too light. Those quick hops and inch long cuts are what you see in olympic sabre for a reason: they are awesome at scoring points. But what the other guy did there was more martially sound: dont blow your arm and legs on actions that would only result in minor lacerations, hit with enough authority to end the fight. Its pretty okay if you double with somebody doing those sports saber cuts if you give a forceful blow in response. You can replace your shirt and get a couple stiches. They cant replace their head.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Sept 15, 2019 23:14:29 GMT
Fite me irl lame nerds. Get gud or be fud. Yeah, in period accounts there are a ton of clues as to people making great hacking motions, even into the 19th century there are accounts of cavalry men nearly hacking others in half to the waist from the head or shoulder down, can't do that with a small motion. A good solid cut with a saber, using proper techniques, will do this. There's no need to apply lots of muscle strength. In fact it's almost always a bad idea to muscle blades when doing cutting work. You also need to be very aware of your own exposure when making large motions. That's another reason great hacking motions are usually a bad idea. Thwapping an arming sword sabre against a 19th century mail clad cavalry man?
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Post by Jordan Williams on Sept 15, 2019 23:17:44 GMT
I think there is a mid point here. Obviously you dont want to strain and heave your muscles when cutting with a sword. They are sharp after all, if you wanted to crush your opponent, grab a mace or a pole ax. But also, dont over learn quick light cutting and treat the blade like a lighsaber. I posted that video a few pages back mostly as a joke, but I think the guy that got slammed is definitely guilty of cutting too light. Those quick hops and inch long cuts are what you see in olympic sabre for a reason: they are awesome at scoring points. But what the other guy did there was more martially sound: dont blow your arm and legs on actions that would only result in minor lacerations, hit with enough authority to end the fight. Its pretty okay if you double with somebody doing those sports saber cuts if you give a forceful blow in response. You can replace your shirt and get a couple stiches. They cant replace their head. Yeah, the run forward and sort of "death lunge" which extends into a movement past the opponent is a staple of sport fencing. You see it sometimes in the larger European hema tournaments. Sometimes those sport cuts don't even get counted by judges, but I have seen an alternative of judges ignoring a very martially sound strike in favor of a very heavy afterblow after the tempo has been spent.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Sept 15, 2019 23:20:15 GMT
Cosmoline, to please your curiosity, I’m from an unarmed and stick-fighting background. Practiced after German sources for years, and always had my doubts. Re-read Silver after almost ten years of German stuff. Never looked back (while being German myself). Of course there’s something (much!) to take from the German tradition(s). But the strategy is ass-backwards, almost inhuman, so to speak (or very sporty, somehow, if you will, it gets worse with the Starbucks HEMA). Don’t know if that makes sense. Not interested in lengthy arguments. Perhaps to make people think, or re-think, if what they do is representative of combat, and how much so, yes. And for the non-testing part... It’s true, I’ve never struck mail with a sword blow. But have worn mail and spoken to people regularly training in mail.
Not really fond of quoting myself, but... "And yet period artwork shows a clear contrast between unarmored techniques for the salle and real combat."
You don't even need to rely on period artwork to demonstrate that, we can just look at 19th century dueling sabre, and contrast it to 19th century military sabre. Leg slip on every parry, vs parry the low line and stay the leg sort of stuff. Safety vs sport, using a heavier fighting sword vs a light dueling weapon that can afford to lose time on a low to high line parry movement. Since humans haven't changed much, and we know dueling and warring called for different arms and armor, we can pretty much say that one does not equal the other.
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Post by Cosmoline on Sept 16, 2019 17:01:49 GMT
A good solid cut with a saber, using proper techniques, will do this. There's no need to apply lots of muscle strength. In fact it's almost always a bad idea to muscle blades when doing cutting work. You also need to be very aware of your own exposure when making large motions. That's another reason great hacking motions are usually a bad idea. Thwapping an arming sword sabre against a 19th century mail clad cavalry man?
Now that you mention it, there were actually mail clad people in the 19th century. Georgia, Persia and central Asia in general still used mail extensively. I wonder if there are 19th century accounts describing how to deal with it. Since we don't have true medieval accounts.
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Post by markus313 on Sept 17, 2019 7:04:37 GMT
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Post by Cosmoline on Sept 17, 2019 17:15:05 GMT
It's a good, if dated, thread. From what I've seen, the evidence breaks down this way: --Riveted mail tested in any combinations of manners is highly resistant to swung cuts from arming swords and all but impervious to draw cuts. Thrusts from the one-handed swords show varying degrees of success. --Very large two-handed swords can impact with enough force to begin do damage mail in swings, but were not contemporary with the primary age of mail armor. --Period axes including Dane axes concentrate sufficient force at a point of impact to seriously damage mail and even get through. --Period spears, with couched thrusting, throwing or "gigging" will penetrate most riveted mail. --Properly made arrows fired by a longbow or crossbow of more-than-hunting weight (over 50 lbs) will have a higher and higher chance of penetrating mail as the weight increases and head size narrows --Late medieval pole arms almost all have features that will break apart mail. Often a four-sided spike and/or compact axe head. --Arming sword simulators concentrate force over a line, and even a limited amount of padding as from an arming jacket is sufficient to absorb most of the blow They can hurt hard points where bones are near skin, and fingers. But no sources support the idea that one would simply swing with all their might in order to try to break bones with a weapon designed to cut flesh, not penetrate mail. Taken together, this suggests that the swords were not primary weapons in armored combat, in spite of some of the artistic impressions from the period. Spears, axes and similar weapons with a much greater ability to get through armor would logically have been preferred. That's not dispositive, of course. But to date nobody has demonstrated a technique with sword and board that will allow reliable mail destruction using simple *cuts* from a single handed arming sword.
That does not mean arming swords were worthless against mail. Spatulated tips suggest they would have been excellent and getting under mail, and tests with cut-thrusts and couched thrusts show some potential to damage mail. Also, armor was rarely complete in the period. And targeting the face and other exposed flesh is perfectly viable as we know from KDF. Swords in period also had things like massive Brazil nut pommels that *ABSOLUTELY CAN* break bones through padding and mail. Not to mention crossguards that could deliver serious punch injury to soft bits. It's reasonable to conclude that they had a system of harness combat in the early and high medieval that used these features.
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Post by markus313 on Sept 17, 2019 17:36:08 GMT
I find it a bit irritating that you seem to have missed the most important point to our debate, especially since I specified exactly where it can be found in this rather lengthy thread.
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Post by Cosmoline on Sept 17, 2019 18:21:49 GMT
This?
It's absolutely true. You can smash a bone through mail with a proper force concentration device such as a pole arm, axe or pommel. But an arming sword's blade is not enough. The swords are weighted opposite to an axe or mace or hammer. So the blade simply doesn't hit as hard. The blade damages by cutting, not by blunt force. It's why we can get away with simple padding and smack the crap out of each other in sparring with steel simulators. Conversely, it's why we REALLY have to watch ourselves with axe and pole-arm simulators.
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Post by Cosmoline on Sept 17, 2019 18:25:56 GMT
Also note what he said in the 2004 thread: And since then we've had a great deal of additional testing. Todd's recent excellent test, for example, showed how easily a myghty bow can punch through mail, but how the arrows shatter on plate. And testing from Thrand and others have shown that there may have been ways to use arming swords to create holes in mail using thrust variations that could be done in sparring through small openings. Not to mention the enormous amount of work done in HEMA and the sheer amount of sparring that's happened since then. Among other things, those of who've done this stuff realize how incredibly difficult it is to ever get a pure clean sword strike, let alone one with full power, on someone who's also attacking you. The same sparring reveal how *easy* it is for a spear user to get excellent thrusts on the swordsman. Again, showing that pole arms would have been the likely primary weapon for armored combat.
Some folks continue to adhere to the idea that if you just put enough force into simple arming sword cuts, you'll somehow incapacitate the opponent through mail and padding. But nothing in testing or sparring has supported this theory, so it's been largely abandoned outside a few circles such as some SCA heavy groups. This stubborn refusal to alter belief in the face of mounting evidence is a problem with speculative reconstructions, which was my original point here. And I think that's been established in this thread.
In the case of the SCA heavies, the adherence has had real-world consequences. They are only now experimenting with the steel simulators we've been using for a decade now. And the hard-wired belief that you have to hit super hard has created a warped idea of how armored combat would have occurred. Reinforcing silly ideas that arming swords were essentially blunted clubs.
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Post by markus313 on Sept 17, 2019 18:53:59 GMT
The thread I’ve linked to is specifically about swords. Nothing suggests that Eric D. Schmid excluded swords in his comment. Of course mail protected against swords, very much so. But it didn’t make you invulnerable, even not against sword strikes, if made with sufficient force.
Do you want to ignore all the support of the arguments for swords being able to injure through mail, not only by Schmid, but many other knowledgeable people in this one thread alone? Why where there many heavy one-handed cutting swords during the age of mail, some even reaching weights close to 4 pounds? Why does artwork show almost exclusively heavy overhead strikes and the most dreadful wounds (in battle), even penetrating mail (which is questionable)? Why do contemporary sources tell the same (and are backed by later accounts/sources, and many of them)? Why was it strength and vigor that was praised, not refined technique (often even on the contrary)? Why does artwork show very different stances for single play than for real combat? Ever tried I.33 in a melee? Have you ever swung a sword when riding? What do you think where the reasons for the change of arms and armor, towards more and more plate (I personally tend to think Don Howard is right stating it was mostly for social reasons)? Where does the force go when striking mail above even thick but flexible padding?
Do you want to ignore all those questions and instead fantasize about using age-of-mail cutting swords in a much later manner of Harnischfechten, for which there is no indication to be found at all, nowhere?
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Post by elbrittania39 on Sept 17, 2019 19:51:32 GMT
Also I'd like to interject people break bones in hema all the time. And in hema, not only are we not trying to injure our opponents, we are also using swords that are light and back weighted compared to historical counterparts. Our protective gear I think is at least as good at dealing with blunt force as padding and mail.
So I reject the idea you can't break bones through mail with a sword. Is it suboptimal? Of course. But possible? I sure think so.
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