Soldato
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Sat here laughing my head off at this
Human v Chimp fight
- Thread starter Merlin5
- Start date
Brilliant, I’d forgotten about that scene!
Just no. Crocodiles on land are far slower than the typical 15mph human and have terrible stamina.
What about a chimp with a dulled blade versus an MMA fighter with a quarterstaff?
A quarterstaff? Is that like one public sector worker? I don't see how they would help.
If Watership Down taught me anything during my childhood, it's that rabbits are brutal and not to be messed with!
Corrected that last one for you
Soldato
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They seem to only be aggressive to each other, if they were aggressive to humans, the rate they breed we would be screwed and worshipping our fluffy overlords on the grassy knoll
No-one is harder than Danny Dyer, all of his acting is solid wood.
Even a love child of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris would struggle to break him
It's somewhat harder than that. You have to be able to isolate your intended prey, which requires understanding it. Some animals will group up and fight, some won't. Then you have to be able to run at a brisk jog for miles over rough ground in severe heat and be able to track the animal while doing so, which takes a fair bit of endurance and skill. When it comes to killing it, you won't know what you're going to face. You might find it's dropped dead. You might find it's incapacitated by hyperthermia or exhaustion. You might find that it's hot and tired but still very much functional and has decided it can't run away and must stand and fight. Would you fancy taking on a hefty antelope in a life or death fight armed only with a rock? In reality, you'd probably have had a crude spear. A straightish branch with a sharpened end. At all times you have to be aware of other dangers while running after your prey, such as disturbing a venomous snake or passing close enough to other animals to be perceived as a threat and/or meal to them. You may also have to defend your kill against other predators and scavengers. Lions are the most imposing example, but not the only one. For example, I certainly wouldn't care to fight a pack of hyenas over a kill.
It's not as easy or as safe as you make it out to be.
As an aside, some animals can outrun humans over distance if it's cold enough. Many canids, modern horses (though that's because humans engineered them that way using evolution as a tool). Probably ostriches, though the data isn't completely clear. Ostriches sure can run and not just short sprinting either. They might be able to outrun a human over distance in hotter conditions, too. Or maybe not. If it's cold enough, the absolute hands down winner in endurance running is sled dogs. Humans are vastly better at shedding heat, but sled dogs are vastly better at every other aspect of endurance running. Even their digestive system is optimised for endurance running.
I think a rock wouldn't do it, but a spear would. But only if the man was trained to (a) fight and (b) fight with a spear.
Spears are massively under-rated. There are very good reasons why they were the most common weapon for millenia.
Spears were used successfully in combination with a shield , to keep the enemy at a distance, almost defensive.
Think about it, your only weapon is a spear and you throw it at the enemy and miss, you are unarmed.
Not the offensive weapon of choice.
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Caporegime
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WHAT ABOUT A GORILLA IN A TANK AND A WHITE SHARK WITH FRICKIN' LAZERS ON ITS BACK ... VERSUS ... GODZILLA
Spears were very rarely used as thrown weapons. Certainly not when it was your primary weapon. Most spears would have been pretty bad as a thrown weapon because they weren't designed as one.
I have thought about it. You've thought about a spear as a thrown weapon and only a thrown weapon, so you have reached an incorrect conclusion.
One-handed spears were often used with a shield, yes. As were all one-handed weapons. 1H weapon plus shield is better than 1H weapon and an empty hand, obviously. But 2H spears were used successfully without a shield. By choice. Over a sword. Because spear beats sword in many circumstances. Reach matters a lot, as does weapon speed, and a spear can be quickly shortened if required (by changing your grip). A spear can even be used as an effective club at a push, by changing grip and using the blunt end. A spear is a very effective hand to hand weapon and was frequently an offensive weapon of choice. More often than a sword was.
EDIT:
I'd like to add something about offensive/defensive...in a fight, pretty much everything was both. You refer to a spear being used "to keep the enemy at a distance, almost defensive". That was also a major use of other weapons, especially swords. If you're fighting as a matter of life and death in hand to hand combat with weapons, your main objective is defence. You want to keep your enemy at a distance until you're making an attack and even then you should still be preprared in defence. You only attack if you think you can do so without being hit before, during or after your attack. It's not at all like sports fencing with rules that state that all that matters is who hits first. You have to hit without being hit. Even if you've inflicted a fatal wound on your enemy, they're not going to die immediately and probably won't be incapacitated immediately, so even if they're not already in the process of attacking you they will probably have time to do so. If you're not also defending, you both die. Not an ideal outcome for you. Particularly bearing in mind that before modern medicine any wound could quite easily be fatal.
Even armour, which was designed solely for defence, was also used in offence. Unarmed combat was a thing and was specifically taught as part of fighting even in fighting systems not at all associated with umarmed combat, e.g. western European systems for fighting with hand to hand weapons. Sometimes you'd be too close to use a weapon, sometimes you'd use unarmed combat to make your enemy vulnerable to your weapon. It was a necessary skill in fighting outside of formal duels and sports contests with rules that forbade it. If you're wearing good armour on your arms, your forearm becomes an effective club. If you're wearing gauntlets, your fist becomes an effective club. If you're wearing a helmet, your head becomes an effective club. In all such cases, you can use as much force as you can without any concern about injuring yourself.
So I think the offensive/defensive split for equipment is not as clear-cut as it might seem to be.
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Soldato
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A Squaddie friend of mine lost his ear in a fight with a Chimpanzee, there was three of them in a roofless 4x4 in Uganda. They bought this huge stalk of Bananas, were driving along and a Chimpanzee jumped into the vehicle, knocked out the driver with one punch, ripped my friends ear right off his head, picked up the huge heavy rack of Bananas and Jumped off carrying them. Actual true story.
There's really not a lot to like about Chimpanzees. They aren't cute by a long shot, they're aggressive, prone to throwing their own **** around...
**** Chimpanzees, all things considered.
Much like your average teenager then
Soldato
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Chimp would win hands down. The fighter would be thinking tactics and combinations, whereas the chimp would simply try to tear as many pieces off the fighter before he died.
I remember seeing this on Oprah. Absolutely awful, imagine losing your sight.
Apparently a chimp has a thicker skull, denser bones and harder muscles than humans that they won't be as damaged from a strike and the possibility of a knockout is drastically reduced.
Here's an interesting true story.
"I once knew a man named George, and during a break from a jam session I asked "Where are you working now?" He said "At a sanctuary with the chimps and orangutans that are too old or too vicious to be at the zoo".
"Sounds interesting" I said. He then remarked on how territorial they were, and that when they brought the feed into the sanctuary the chimps would throw their feces while puffing up their chests; they were egging on a fight. This is when I had to know, "What would happen if you punched a full grown chimp?"
The only thing he said was that on his first day new trainees all had to read a newspaper article concerning a past employee who bit off more than he could chew. Apparently he was one of these ghetto types, and thought he was tough.
One day while bringing in the feeding buckets, a chimp threw his feces at him and walked right up to this poor fellow. For reasons unknown, the worker threw a hay maker at the chimp's face.
Witnesses say the chimp did not dodge, but took the punch and before the man could retract his arm the chimp was biting his face and apparently removing his genitals with his hand-like feet. Workers subdued the chimp with tranquilizer guns, but the victim did not get to use his. The man later died due to loss of blood, as the sanctuary was very far from a hospital.
DO NOT fight a chimp unless you have a very good weapon, in which case an old world samurai would be a better match for a chimp, provided he gets a good slice in before the pain begin."