Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Basket hilt swords are also very defensive though for slightly different reasons, and they are more offensive than sabers largely due to the enhanced hand protection + strait blade.
I don’t actually know, but it may be down to covering more space or more angles. I does seem to be a thing though, you’ll notice as soon as you start sparring with sabers, particularly extra curvy ones.
In our club I’ve noticed a given bout with a longsword takes between about 5-30 seconds, maybe up to two minutes if both fighters are good and being very cautious.
A rapier (alone) match is about the same.
Rapier with dagger is about double a longsword.
Sword and buckler is about the same as rapier with dagger.
Messer fights are also about the same.
Bouts with sabers tend to go from the usual 5 seconds to about two minutes, I’ve seen them go as long as ten minutes, with multiple short bouts of exchanges followed by circling.
This is in part because a saber is better at defending with than it is at attacking, a fight with a saber vs. a longsword won’t last so long for example. But sabers do seem to parry well…
The difference between Tods 40 mps crossbows and Andreas Bichlers 70 mps crossbows is that Bichler spent most of his time researching ancient techniques and antique weapons, while Tod has just made what he could make and started having fun with it. It is not a difference between steel prod crossbows and horn prod. There is no historical evidence (at least that I’ve been able to find to date, and I have looked) to suggest that there was any substantial difference between the two types, in fact the steel prod weapons largely took over and they wouldn’t have adopted them if they had been inferior weapons.
Nothing wrong with making things and playing around with them, but we should not use that as the basis to close the door on learning about actual history or the performance of historical artifacts.
Well written post, but we are at odds here my friend.
“So, I would look at it this way: Tod is acting as an empirical scientist in this matter (and there is no shame in that). It’s a rough experiment, but enough to start forming opinions from.”
See, I really don’t agree. What Tod is in fact doing is very similar to the very early cutting and fencing tests with “medieval” swords 20-30 years ago, when what was meant by a medieval sword was a five lb re-enactment blunt made of questionable steel with the balance of a ball-pine hammer, or shooting modern compound bows at armor made of sheet metal. This is an exaggeration to make the point – but it’s not all that different in my eyes from the “Empirical” experiment that the flat earth guy did with a steam powered rocket to prove the earth was flat. Was it an experiment? In a sense, yes. Does it tell us anything about the shape of the planet? No.
Obviously I’m not calling Tod a Flat Earther – or anything like one. I like Tod. He makes beautiful artifacts. I know he doesn’t have a crazy agenda. And yes he does experiments. But you need three things to do a proper experiment – skill to make whatever you are testing, time and space and inclination to run your test (including instruments to measure it), and some kind of grounding in the context sufficient to have a starting point. It’s this third part that Tod lacks. Not because he doesn’t have a history degree or isn’t smart enough. I and many good researchers I know lack a history degree. And I know Tod is plenty smart, he might be smarter than me for all I know. But it’s because, quite ironically since he obviously loves the kit, he’s just not interested in that aspect of it. He has essentially accepted most of the late 20th Century tropes about the medieval world (ala filthy medieval cavemen), and buys into the shorthand of the type you would see in a typical BBC or (dating myself here) History Channel documentary. And that isn’t going to get you there when it comes to medieval anything.
When I mentioned Peter Johnsson, I’m not specifically referring to his geometrical design theories*, I was referring to his pointing out or popularizing the notion that most swords made in Europe between roughly 1200 – 1600, were not in fact like ‘sharpened crowbars’, and were not metallurgically inferior because some parts of the blade were measurably harder or softer than others; but rather that for reasons we do not entirely understand**, even though they were quite capable of producing large pieces of homogeneous steel of uniform properties***, they seem to have almost never made swords out of homogeneous metal. Rather, the sword blades were made from pieces of various different ferrous alloys – some hard, some tough, some soft, combined together for different purposes, in a manner similar to early pattern welding, which varied in the precise details depending on the type of sword it was.
Peter showed us that a real actual medieval sword was, in effect, much more ‘like an airplane wing’ than ‘like a sharpened crowbar’. You really get this feeling if you ever handle a 15th or 16th century antique (or older).
I suspect part of the mystery of the performance of steel crossbow prods may be down to a non-homogeneous design. Or it could also be geometry to some extent too of course.
By the way I think modern steel IS better than late medieval or early modern steel for purposes like making drill bits, washing machines, rebar and i-beams. I do NOT think it’s better than late medieval steel for making swords or body armor. This is why all the really serious top smiths smelt their own iron, just like they did in that Nova documentary.
Medieval steel does have some deficiencies, such as a higher slag content, but the prevalence of that particular problem has been exaggerated, and the other issues with modern steel and head treatments played down.
you make mention of how people in the past were a lot different from us in many regards. I disagree. I feel their understanding of things were different, and because our understanding of things have changed, we instead do not understand them. But, craftsmen were still craftsmen, politicians were still politicians, farmers and scientists and killers the same.
Again I disagree here though the distinction is subtle. The people, physiologically, are obviously the same. But the culture is very different. Even today, a farmer in France, Tuscany or Germany and a farmer in Mississippi or Louisiana are not the same. I know because I’ve met plenty of both. A craftsmen in say, 15th Century Florence or Augsburg is about as different from a craftsman today as a Home Depot machete is from the (original) Brescia Spadona. I don’t think it’s the same for the politicians, scientists or killers either, not by a long shot. There have been vast cultural changes in the last 500 years. I’d be prepared to discuss that in another thread.
* Which by the way if you listen to his lectures or read his articles, he does not actually claim were the basis of all swords – he finds the pattern in swords from a relatively narrow range of time and place).
** and his theories about geometry are basically an attempt to speculate as to one set of reasons for this and some other factors of sword design from this era
*** We know this because we have found billets of such in large quantities dating from this era – I myself have seen a literal raft of medieval iron billets (which were tested and proved to be of uniform quality) on display at the Lateneum museum in Switzerland which are more than 2m long.
The problem isn’t with the science behind the modern engineering mind you, it’s that they tend to oversimplify the characteristics of pre-industrial artifacts and make a lot of assumptions about how thing like weapons work. Hence the myth of the ‘sharpened crowbar’ and the confident descriptions of medieval and early modern steel as inferior to modern even mild steel, which is ludicrous. It wasn’t until we had guys like Peter Johnsson taking a deep dive into how the blades were made that this (very confidently asserted) narrative began to unravel.
Yeah I’ve been debating that with him for years. There is zero evidence, at least that I have seen, that steel prod crossbows performed in a manner in any way inferior to composite prod crossbows historically. To the contrary, the steel prod weapons seemed to perform a bit better except in extreme cold, for which the composite prod weapons were preferred.
There is an assumption, which Tod embraces, that people in the medieval period routinely made dumb decisions based on fashion or politics. I think it’s rubbish.
The theory that steel prod weapons are inferior to horn or composite prod weapons has actually arisen just in the last few years, and only, IMO, because Andreas Bichler and maybe two other people have started to be able to make composite prod weapons which are starting to approach the historically reported performance. And shoot 40% better than Tods weapons.
This is the problem. Tod is a tinkerer. He is not a historian. He doesn’t make any real effort to emulate historical methods or practices. He does very little research. And yet he’s becoming influential on the nerds. Good for him, his videos are fun. But they ain’t science by a long shot. Especially when it comes to crossbows, his weapons only perform at about half of the historical standard.
Keep in mind that the actual historically described characteristics of medieval swords and armor have been explained away as rubbish by engineers for years, until testing proved the historical sources to be correct. The most recent example of this was in Nova’s “Secrets of the shining knight” show where they made a high quality 16th century [plate armor] harness from scratch and it proved capable of resisting a musket ball from 20 feet. Numerous engineering types, even some who should have known better, have claimed that medieval armor couldn’t withstand firearms, let alone muskets, for the last 20 years that I’ve been following this, in spite of the historical evidence.
Yes all true, sabers are also quite good on defense, and are also easier to handle on horseback I suspect. I guess it was a variety of factors that led to their rise in popularty.
Hahahahaha…. I saw you had replied and i was worried you were going to write a crushing refutation of my ‘common sense’ post…
I saw that too, and I really like Leo (Todd) and makes some magnificent replicas (I would love to get one of his bauernwehr in particular) but I’m quite suspicious of his youtube tests, particularly because his crossbows aren’t very historically accurate.
This particular test is ok since it’s really more about comparing the bolts, so regardless of how poorly his replica crossbow performs, the relative performance of the various types of bolts is still informative.
Basically he’s a very good tinkerer and a competent bladesmith, but his analysis of period weapons is perfunctory, and he tends to buy into alot of the old tropes about the middle ages and medieval technology, so many of his tests are kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this one for example he notes that the ranges he is getting are way below what is to be expected. Too many people assume these tests are representative of the real thing.
I’m much more of a fan of this guy, who unfortunately is far less prolific, but whose crossbows are based on pretty deep research into extant antiques etc. Not surprisingly his weapons perform much better than Todds.
Note for example, massive 222 gram bolt shot 250m with a large siege crossbow
69 m/s with an 80 gram bolt and a smaller crossbow. I believe Todd is getting around 40 m/s which he blames on steel prods being less powerful than horn prods, but there is zero historical evidence for that.
Sadly Todd gets tens of thousands of views while almost nobody even knows about this guy Bichler who does the real deeply researched work.
Not necessarily pirates, but definitely some rowdy sailors here
Click here for more detail https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Hans_Holbein_d._J._-_Ship_with_Revelling_Sailors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
Well, I’m going to answer this with two different hats on.
First, with the hat of a purveyor of games to the general public, I’m sorry y’all had trouble with the platendeinst and the Kuhmaul shoes. As I said I think I need to go through and purge out a bunch more foreign words. Part of the reason they are in there is that I made a very useful (for me) computer program which allows me to generate characters and equipment lists, but the database is all historical stuff with historical names. I need to go through and put in generic / modern / Americanized names in there for everything but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. At this point it’s easier to just correct the stuff after it comes out, kind of like with removing the 3.5 bits.
Obviously if y’all are struggling with that, and you aren’t the only group who has brought this up, I’ll need to simplify the language somewhat.
I also think I’m going to make another pass through the skills on the PCs and remove about half of them, that should make it easier to find the ones you are looking for. And I’m going to remove about half of the minor equipment too so people don’t think they need a cart.
With my other hat on, lets call it the fencing mask of Lenny’s friend who knows all the guys in your group (pretty much) – I’d have to say, come on lads you can use a bit of common sense (rule zero for Codex). I don’t know precisely how long a quart of pickles will last you either off the top of my head. That is in there because at some point, somewhere, I ran across a price list from some medieval source which mentioned the cost of a quart of pickles.
If pressed (and I am) I would figure it out the same way you can. I know all of you guys have been grocery shopping before. I know you have all prepared dinner for yourselves. Presumably most if not all of you have been camping. My guess if you had a big jar of pickles the size of a quart jug of milk, it would be enough to live on for two or three days at least (though I bet you’d be sick of pickles) and it might ward off starvation for one person for say, a week?
I think when I was making all those PC’s I gave them enough food to last 2 or 3 days, like some bread or a small wheel of cheese or something. Or a quart of pickles. So when you are looking a list of stuff in a marketplace, just pretend you are about to go a long multi-day hike which might involve some camping and try to imagine what you might want to bring with you, given the fact that you have to carry it (assuming you might lose the cart at some point).
Also, I don’t think y’all need a cart. There is a guy in the Irish group who definitely does, but I don’t think y’all do yet.
It’s from mid-16th Century, sabers were popular, but also the guy isn’t the most detail oriented artist and a lot of his messers and falchions look like sabers and scimetars.
I don’t think they were just dealing with soft targets look at all the giant scary looking morning stars, hammers, flails etc.
Cool review, totally agree with your point in the customization of hand tools (and their handles). Some neat examples here
https://www.daegradtools.com/re-enactment-woodworking-tools-1-c.asp
Very interesting…
The way armor works, if you have say an iron tasset or an armet, which absorbs 6 damage, against a thrust or a bludgeon attack, it absorbs 6. Against a ‘chop’ attack, it absorbs double (12), and against a draw-cut it absorbs triple (18).
If you look at the armor tables in Codex or on your character sheet you’ll notice this.
Textile armor is slightly different because draw cuts can dismantle them, but all metal armor works that way.
In other words, thrusting and bludgeon attacks do the least Crit damage (d6) but have the best chance to get through armor (1x DR).
Yikes, that sounds pretty rough. Maybe I should run another session while Corey is there.
Sounds like I also need to go through and purge a bunch of those weird sounding foreign names.
The 3 gulden fine thing … I don’t know if I included this in the passage about it in Monsterberg in that section on forbidden dueling provocations, the fine for all those other violations like opening your coat, scratching sparks on the cobblestones, or drawing your sword etc. is always 3 gulden. Putting the money on the table means you are ready to pay the fine.
I’ll put in prices for saddles though when in doubt, just wing it (extrapolate from the other stuff). There is no way to include everything, but all those prices are in there partly to give you a sense of how much things cost.
Sorry it was such a rough session hope the next one is better.
