Medieval Weapons

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Surely the answer is greek fire!...
"Thucydides mentions that in the siege of Delium in 424 BC a long tube on wheels was used which blew flames forward using a large bellows"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire

Point and shoot, against those specific targets I would say the fear factor would be 90%+ to scare them off before you consider any actual damage if they got close enough to actually directly hit them

 

[ubersonic]

I've been much too seriously engaged in the serious business of creating the ultimate weapon by duct-taping a katana to a quarterstaff.

/gasp

Why has nobody thought of this before? You could easily fight off 100 men with chainsaws!

 

[ttaskmaster]

I'd be interested in seeing this too. There's a lot of bold claims being made in here and only backed up with words and quotes which, let's be honest, are pointless. Video evidence would be greatly appreciated.

There's one or two that I know of, but no staff is featured and they're public shows anyway which are pretty contrived in order to either look good, or merely draw crowds who want to see blokes smacking each other with sticks - Fighters carefully stalking each other while just out of range, looking for openings in each others' defence is very boring to watch!

As far as I know, bladed long weapons were more common than swords in a battlefield scenario in medieval times. Not staffs, but spears and polearms.

Far more common, yes. As mentioned, you can turn a staff into a wicked polearm with just a bit of cheapish metal and a good blacksmith, but still use it the same way.
Those who were part of the "Untrained bandes", or whatever the conscripts were called at the time, could still serve if all they had was a longstaff, though and the fact that instructors took the time to write about them suggests they were still used enough to take note of.

Swords are just the job for highly trained and well disciplined infantry fighting in units in a campaign or even a single battle against other infantry or one on one combat.

How'd you figure that?
Most line infantry carried polearms. Flodden was a perfect example.
The Royal Armoury lists 7,000 billhooks as the main weapon for Yeomen of the line, of which there were about 4,000 in the entire English Army up to the Tudor times. Thereafter bills started giving way to muskets supported by pikes.
Swords are more of a last ditch weapon, generally.

Swords are, I think, somewhat over-emphasised in modern depictions of medieval western Europe.

Very much so, but that's because they were more symbolic than anything else. It's always famous swords like Excalibur, Joyeuse, Wallace's claymore, the Manx Sword of State...

There are accounts of gangs of attackers avoiding killing people they were robbing.

There are accounts both ways, really, but most would be local lads and 'leaving town' wasn't as easy back in those days. People did die though, as shown by court records.

Seriously, have the poeple posting in this thread (over the last few days) had a straight face when they clicked the 'post reply' button'?

Not entirely, no........

Isn't that a naginata? Looks like someone beat you to it by about 600 years!

I'm sure the copyright has expired by now...

 

[Thekwango]

There's one or two that I know of, but no staff is featured and they're public shows anyway which are pretty contrived in order to either look good, or merely draw crowds who want to see blokes smacking each other with sticks - Fighters carefully stalking each other while just out of range, looking for openings in each others' defence is very boring to watch!

that may be so but I would still be interested to see some footage, especially (believe it or not) the fighters 'carefully stalking' each other - should such footage exist

 

[dowie]

I don't think 6 guys with swords would need to carefully stalk a single bloke with a stick...

 

[ttaskmaster]

that may be so but I would still be interested to see some footage, especially (believe it or not) the fighters 'carefully stalking' each other - should such footage exist

This is one I know of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sS3M__rxjQ
As mentioned, this is an old one with barely any sensible combat principles being exhibited - It was all about the hits and putting on a "dynamic show", so really illustrates NOTHING of use, IMO, except how to give the crowd what they want. We're standing in distance for much of it and even ignoring incoming attacks, as we're padded up and only concerned with getting loud hits in.

To top it off, the guys who shot this were from a nearby Backswording sporting club, and even their intro & description are utterly inaccurate. They actually describe the period-costumed group that followed our demo.

We saw a lot of cameras every time, so someone out there must have filmed the better demos, but I've yet to find much. I really want to find the year we used a fully armoured opponent in plate steel.

By comparison, these guys are really worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvmWPNyZtLaFDRRX4vOc9_w

This is a reasonable one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWHsrW_eGe8
What you're seeing is (in order):
Drills designed to build speed and accuracy, as well as strengthening your wards
Work on energy redirection (for instances when they do manage to block your strike)
Use of techniques to defend your space, which is only partly choreographed and does hurt when you get it wrong.
Finally a slowed down sequence with cudgels that practices a few of the common wards.

Most of these wards only work with force behind them and coming at them, so what you're seeing is about half-power strikes with reasonably solid waxwood staves.

 

[Thekwango]

snip

thanks for that, I will get a look after work

 

[Thekwango]

This is one I know of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sS3M__rxjQ
As mentioned, this is an old one with barely any sensible combat principles being exhibited - It was all about the hits and putting on a "dynamic show", so really illustrates NOTHING of use, IMO, except how to give the crowd what they want. We're standing in distance for much of it and even ignoring incoming attacks, as we're padded up and only concerned with getting loud hits in.

yea that was a bit difficult to watch, didn't appear to be much, or any, in the way of technique/training/skill - also maybe I missed it as I just gave a it a quick look over but I didn't see any 'staff' work in that video, it was all swords play?

 

[ttaskmaster]

yea that was a bit difficult to watch, didn't appear to be much, or any, in the way of technique/training/skill

Exactly my point.
We always do technique set-pieces, demonstrate some scenarios and have some less-scripted/ungoverned displays, with some proper sparring, but they're usually done first and they got fewer and fewer every year, as people really only paid attention when the outright bashing started. That's why we switched to this crap. That's also why I want to find videos from people who might have gotten the better stuff and why I linked to the other videos.

also maybe I missed it as I just gave a it a quick look over but I didn't see any 'staff' work in that video, it was all swords play?

Again, I did say I hadn't yet found any staff work from those displays.

 

[Thekwango]

Again, I did say I hadn't yet found any staff work from those displays.

ah ok, it's predominantly the staff work I'd be most interested in seeing.

 

[rubberduck]

Based on my skim reading of this thread I think a man with a quarterstaff could probably defeat a fully crewed Challenger 2 tank... I could back up my claim with endless waffle and speculation but brevity is the soul of wit etc etc so I just won't bother.

 

[rubberduck]

Just watched Matt Easton's videos (all 3!) on sword vs quaterstaff... Can anyone sumarise why his views have been trashed as they seem quite logical and well thought out to me... Especially as he has experience of sparing in this area.

 

[dowie]

Just watched Matt Easton's videos (all 3!) on sword vs quaterstaff... Can anyone sumarise why his views have been trashed as they seem quite logical and well thought out to me... Especially as he has experience of sparing in this area.

I'd be interested in the same, most of what he said seemed to make sense tbh..

I do wonder if there has been a bit of romanticism about the quarterstaff among some groups who do this reenactment stuff and/or combined with the effect he described (some guy with a quarterstaff keeping three swordsmen at bay by tapping them with the staff when in reality, against real swords it isn't so realistic)

 

[Angilion]

Isn't that a naginata? Looks like someone beat you to it by about 600 years!

But they didn't have duct tape! Japanese magic + medieval European magic + modern magic is better. More than better - it's betterest!

 

[Angilion]

[..]

How'd you figure that? [..]

Rome comes to mind as an example of "highly trained and well disciplined infantry fighting in units" from pre-gun days rather more than medieval England does.

Early Roman armies had spearmen (hastati), but that was before Rome had the highly trained professional standing army it became famous for. By those days, the hastati were still called hastati but had changed to using swords because that was better.

 

[Angilion]

that may be so but I would still be interested to see some footage, especially (believe it or not) the fighters 'carefully stalking' each other - should such footage exist

You can see it with swordfighters who spar and compete in as close to a replica of medieval European fighting as is reasonably possible. It's significantly different to modern sport fencing, mainly because of a fundamental difference. In modern sport fencing, the goal is to touch your opponent before they touch you. In any sword fighting contest based on real sword fighting, the goal is to hit your opponent with your sword and not be hit by them. If you're making any attempt at replicating actual swordfighting, landing a blow a tenth of a second before theirs hits you is a bad idea. In a real fight that would probably result in both of you dying. So in a realistic replica of hand to hand weapon combat, the fighters will be trying to find or create an opportunity to hit without being hit. You'll see them doing more watching and testing each other than attacking. There are styles in which there's a lot more contact between the swords (sabre fencing, for example), but even then a lot of the time they're not directly attacking their opponent because the same idea applies - you only do that if you think you can do so without being hit.

A couple of examples:

I'd expect the same sort of thing with staves, since it would still be very important to avoid being hit, although maybe not so much because it's blunt force rather than point or edge. Even a fatal blow with point or edge probably won't immediately stop them attacking. With a blunt force weapon, a serious hit probably will. Also, a sharp weapon is still dangerous with very little force behind it. A feeble blow from someone who's already dead that's just momentum from an attack started before they died might still kill you if they're using a sharp weapon. Not so with a blunt weapon.

 

[Dis86]

But they didn't have duct tape! Japanese magic + medieval European magic + modern magic is better. More than better - it's betterest!

Ah. It's all about the tape. Fair point!

 

[Deleted member 68110]

Excellent thread. Trying to determine a scientific experiment. Where's the flaw in my thinking: two kendo practitioners (who appear very similarly armed and armoured to the guys in the first YouTube video posted) bout. One scores with any touch (our "sword fighter") and the other scores only with hits hard enough to cause blunt force trauma (our "staff fighter"). By all accounts somehow the 2nd guy should win every time.

 

[dowie]

Ah but would he win vs 6 armed with swords?

 

[Angilion]

Excellent thread. Trying to determine a scientific experiment. Where's the flaw in my thinking: two kendo practitioners (who appear very similarly armed and armoured to the guys in the first YouTube video posted) bout. One scores with any touch (our "sword fighter") and the other scores only with hits hard enough to cause blunt force trauma (our "staff fighter"). By all accounts somehow the 2nd guy should win every time.

That experiment would only work if one was armed with a sword and the other with a quarterstaff and they were equally skilled in their respective weapons. The differences between the weapons are key in a variety of ways. For example, a quarterstaff could be used to deflect an attack from a sword with one end and almost immediately counter-attack with the other end. A skilled wielder can change grip and direction surprisingly quickly and the length is such that it could even be one movement, i.e. as one end is moving away from the swordfighter, moving their sword aside, the other end is moving towards them. Looking at it the other way, a deflected blow from a sword could be rapidly changed into a cut along the staff into the wielder's hand, which is unprotected. Sword cut to the hand, fight over. A quarterstaff could easily have 3 feet of reach advantage over a sword. That's space and time to hit them before they can hit you. There are factors other than the force required to inflict serious injury or death.

I doubt if the experiment could be done accurately with people. Even "bladed" weapons that are made without any edge at all aren't entirely safe to use realistically even with armour (e.g. a thrust could still be unacceptably risky). Blunt force weapons are far worse in that respect. You can't undo that or counter it with armour to an extent that would be acceptably safe. If you make the weapon a realistic weight and weight distribution, it's too dangerous. If you don't, it's not accurate. Maybe a simulation?