[quote="Douglas Huxtable"]

Quote:

The whole warhammer idea i think was suggest by Chad, correct me if im wrong, we agreed that to make the scenario more plausable we should add an armour-piercing weapon to the the assassins arsenal or he would have no chance against a fully harnessed knight.

No that would be me, ME ME ME. :p :lol: :cool:

Quote:

" Maybe your assassin would be better armed with a warhammer as blow or blows with this could make a serious " dent " in any armour and compensate for the lack of armour of the assassin. "

Stickgun, the medieval bazooka.

Wonder if those ever got used for this little scenario we cooked up.

M.

Sorry Jean, :D

I didnt know medieval bazookas existed....... :D :p lol

I don't know. the hand gun would be good for this. Too noisy and too inaccurate to kill a knight in full armour unless the knight was blind and deaf and fairly close. With handguns of the stick gun variety you hold it over the shoulder, which is hard to aim but generally or at waist level.... even worse. the noise... need not be discussed. Anyone for a mile would hear it at least.

He'd need a nice steel bowed high poundage crossbow. Accurate to a fair distance quiet and much more compact.

Williams lists the handgun of this type as 250-500 joules of initial energy
Liebel puts a good one foot crossbow at initial energy at 391 or so joules.

My guess is that the crossbow would be a perfect weapon for aim and sniping. If you miss.... you have time to run away.

RPM

For the record I think the idea of an unarmored 'Assassin' taking on an armored knight in an open battlefield is ridiculous. Highly unlikely. As other folks here mentioned, knights had their own martial arts and were anything but clumsy or slow. If the 'Assasin' had a shorter weapon he'd be in even more trouble, but the bottom line is, as long as he was in range to hit the knight, he himself would be in range to be hit and it would be extremely easy for the knight to wound him, even making a 'sacrifice' attack since if he himself was hit it would be very unlikely to penetrate armor, unless it was some very formidable weapon like a poll-axe or a halberd.

In fact I'd go a step further and say that an armed but unarmored 'assassin', with or without gymnastic ability, would face almost certain death in a fight with an unarmed but armored knight, particularly in plate harness. Try wrestling with a guy in harness some time maybe you'll see what I mean.

A crossbow would be a better option, and indeed bandits and thieves (and very likely assassins) used crossbows to ambush travellers and other people quite a bit in Italy apparently, which is what lead to the repeated papal edicts against using Crossbows against fellow Christians. But you would have to be very close and / or an excellent shot to penetrate or bypass armor, and on a battlefield all kinds of other people would have guns or crossbows, so getting away would be tough. Historically poison was very commonly used, again particularly in Italy, as were mob tactics as others have pointed out in this thread. The ideal situatoin would be to poison a guy, and then jump him while he's on the toilet with his pants down, sick and unarmed, with three friends to help you get the job done. This is the way assasinations were typically done. The goal is to kill the guy not prove how tough you are.

As for Assanination being moral or immoral, that depends on who is being assasinated. But few political leaders in the period were saintly, in fact the vast majority were very much to the contrary. So if a lord burns your town down and is holding your family hostage, and you assassinate him through some devious means since his army outnumbers you 100 to 1, does that make you evil? It's also interesting to contrast the tactic of the Hashishim, killing the leaders of enemy forces, vs. modern terrorists who kill large numbers of civillians more often than anything else, and never get the guy(s) in charge. Draw your own conclusions on that.

The thread is interesting but the scenarios are indeed strait out of a video game or a comic book and the effort is quit clearly to try to rationalize the possibility of the computer game asssasin. It looks like a good game but the "super killer" is modern mythology about as realistic as the tales of supernatural werewolves and demons of the Medieval age. That said there are definitely characters who stand out as being bad boys, very very tough. Read about Cesare Borgia. undoubtedly he assasinated people, also had people killed fought in wars and killed people with his bare hands. He also hunted boar on foot with a sword, which business associates found suitibaly impressive. and not to mention more than a little scary.

There were plenty of figures like that in history, master duelists like La Maupin, seemingly unstoppable killers like Egil Skallgrimson, Sir John Hawkwood, or even somebody like Hernan Cortez, but though often devious and certainly ruthless, these tended to be the look you in the eye 'chest-stabber' types rather than the myth of some super Ninja or Hannibal Lector sneaking around killing everyone before they even knew what hit them.

Jean

Jean Henri, Not Thidobeau thought I should add :p
I dont know if you have read the whole thread through but I have said the whole way through, the fact it is ridiculous in this thread, is besides the point, the point is trying to gather peoples opinions on 'What if' rather than 'No it would never happen'.
Its fun and we've also had alot of interesting and VERY historical/plausable/sane or whatever points.
But thanks for posting your opinion never the less.

There is a nice article on Fabris the Assassin at the ARMA web site. I did not review all 5 pages of this post, but think I remember enough to add this without fear of repeating.
http://www.thearma.org/essays/Fabris_the_Assassin.htm

Thanks Jean Henri,
I agree with you its a very interesting topic, hope my message above didnt seem to stern above either, was just meant to point out a couple of things.
I would love to learn more about historical assassins too and many of the links/info people have posted this thread has been very interesting especially the assassin sects (thanks to whoever posted that).

The game is great Henri, Its definately worth going out and getting because although it sidelines on the fantasy realm of back flips and killing enemies 20 times before they fall or say 'OW' it is very realistic and Historical ive said it before but ill say it again just for the record:
The fighting is great, much more realistic than most games, the graphics.... well, turn out the lights turn the volume up and you're there.... watch out no one is watching in case you get over-excited or jump up saying 'OW' when you fall or get hit etc haha... got caught doing that too many times already -.-

:D

Let me quote from my term paper on Edward I, King of England. Specifically, his assassination of Florence V, Count of Holland and Edward's political motivations for it.

(I don't have my copy of Prestwich's "Edward I" with me at the moment, but it was done by a state-hired group of men, some of whom, I believe, were freed murderers. The alliance mentioned was a coalition of powerful noblemen, and Edward bought their military support in the early years of his war with France.)

Quote:

The point of focus here is Edward’s political reaction when the French eventually managed to make Florence V a better offer than Edward had, thus ‘buying him out’ of the alliance. Edward promptly declared a trade embargo against Holland, then had the Count kidnapped and assassinated. Prestwich notes that “it is not clear how far Edward I was involved in this…but at the very least he condoned what had happened.” It seems much more likely that while Edward was certainly too busy to organize the details of the plot, he set the basic plan up himself, especially since Florence’s son John inclined heavily toward England. Indeed, Edward promptly carried out the previously promised marriage (which had been sitting in engagement limbo for sixteen years) of his daughter Elizabeth to the newly-minted Count John. Edward was certainly clever and ruthless enough to remove Florence from power in favor of John. By having the count killed and marrying Elizabeth to John, Edward threw Holland wholeheartedly into his grand alliance.

Lafayette C Curtis Wrote:
Why the hell not? ;) If I were a real assassin, I wouldn't have done it the way Douglas's assassins would have done. I would have invited the knight to a parley or a secret conference in a secluded courtyard, lined the walls of that courtyard with dozens of men armed with handguns (and skilled in its use), and ducked into the dead ground at the same moment I gave those men the signal to fire! Wouldn't that be a good recipe for a toast knight?


:confused: Thats not really assassination, i know assassination just means the killing of an important or 'Famous' person but not in the way we were talking about it.
With regards to the way you would do it, why not just walk around looking for him with a band of thugs with hammers, attack him and club him to death? It would be more inconspicuous than the way you say you would do it.
To get straight to the point its hardly an assassination its just over-kill. whwy 'line the walls' of a courtyard with dozens of men armed with handguns when one of them could walk up to him on the street and kill him at point blank?
Its a recipe to kill someone none the less but you saying we cannot seperate the "What if" from the "never happen" 'factor' hardly portrays you wanting to enact something plausable when lining a courtyard with loads of guys with handguns, hiding behind crenelations and then shooting him repeatedly, people for miles around would hear it, destroying the purpose of luring him there in the first place, killing him with 12 men instead of one who may have to be payed wages to kill him with guns, which were expensive to fire and maintain.

Thanks for posting. :)

Firstly I didnt say it was more plausable, I said it would be pointless to line the walls of a courtyard with 12 armed men when one man could do the job.
And I dont want people to put aside the fact they know alot about historical things etc and I do not want to drift away from historic references etc, The thread was meant to be historic.... the Hasshashin sects are historic are they not?
Its abit down-heartening to be told what you have told me.... the thread was not based on the parameters of a 'Video Game' it simply ran in conjunction with the fact that content in the game interested me and i wanted to learn more about how historically plausable certain things were.
The scenario in question was just to find out more, people really dont need to get offended by the fact it may not seem 'historical', its an over-reaction.
P.S My scenario WAS NOT walking up to a man in the street and shooting with a fire-arm, it was quite different if you went back through the pages of responses to find out.

'If you look at history (and most people around here choose to do so)'-Im sorry but whats the point in this comment? Its down-putting and not constructive, very sarcastic which is not polite I may add.
Try me with constructive criticism, it works and I dont mind it, and if you read back, you will find that through the 96 replies I have had the thread has changed alot, which is what happens when the original subject in question is fulfilled/spoken about.
I dont wish to encourage the wrong spirit on the forum and have never done so, no one has done so, leading to the fact that this thread cannot be bad. Its fairly historic too even if the topic was brought about through a video game which you should try before criticising :p

No hard feelings, this post is not to provoke by the way just to answer to your post.

Douglas,
You're missing the point. You're assuming one man is preferable to more than one. History doesn't show that to have been the case. I can't think of many (if any) famous assassinations from the medieval era in Europe (that isn't a poisoning or smothering) that involved a lone, stealthy assassin. They typically involved groups of people. That is one of the best ways to insure success: numerical superiority. I'd rather hire the 12 men Lafayette proposed than one if I can afford it. One man has a 50/50 chance of success. The chances with a group of people go up. Lining the courtyard with 12 men is hardly pointless. It increases the chances of success and sends a powerful message.

One good man might be able to do the job, but I still prefer a group of good men.

Regarding this:

I wrote:

If you look at history (and most people around here choose to do so), assassinations were often carried out with an unfair numeric advantage in favor of the assassins. It just makes so much more sense than one person in so many cases.

My point is that we can't ignore history if we want to learn. Many people on this history-based website don't want to set aside what history teaches us(myself included). History simply doesn't seem to bear out the plausibility of scenario you're proposing. History is a great teacher. If a lone stealthy man were so effective, wouldn't they have been used more often during that era than what we see? Looking at history provides us more concrete and often more useful answers than we can get with non-fact-based speculation.

One assassin walking up to someone on the streets and offing them doesn't seem as believable as you think based on the infrequency with which it has been reported. For starters, many knights and high-born folks traveled in groups, either with their own entourage or as part of someone else's. So your lone assassin is likely at a numeric disadvantage at the outset.

About the only time we see a lone assassin doing a job is something like a poisoning where you're doing it on the sly (and only one person can pour at a time anyway :) ) or a smothering, where the target is asleep, you have the advantage of surprise and infiltrating the bedroom is easier for one person. Apart from that, we see groups used almost all the time, and for good reason: your chances of success are better.

The assassin cult of the Hashshashin is supposed to be historical, but we have no proof they operated in Europe in the middle ages that I know of. They were suspected of being involved in some intrigue during the Crusades. We don't even know, though, whether they operated as lone assassins or in groups. They were largely squashed late in the 13th century as a group so they may have never met a late 14th century knight. So we're speculating about two types of people that were born of different circumstances who likely never would have met. It's going to be difficult (at best) to find a plausible scenario that will generate insightful discussion. We get into knight vs. samurai territory...

If we want to set aside history and plausibility, we might as well say that the assassin should use a transporter beam and raygun. :) But what does add to a historically-based discussion site?

Regarding your suggestion that I try the video game: I might, but I tend to spend my spare time studying history, refereeing this site, and hanging out with the family. I find history much more exciting and rewarding than video games anyway. But that's just me. :)

I'm not trying to be sarcastic or condescending, I'm just looking at your scenario and applying what I've learned to it. From what I've read about, your scenario has flaws that I personally can't get past. I can't suspend my disbelief enough to try to get you the kind of answers you're looking for.

The Hashshashin where of the " suicide bomber " mindset and were feared because they would attack with no plan or hope of escape: These wouldn't be high end high skilled killers but dangerous because they would attack when no sane person would.

According to the legends I remember reading about them was that they were drugged into sleep and taken to a simulated paradise of wine and women and then drugged again and when they woke up told that this experience was an actual taste of the real paradise they would earn eternally after they got killed doing their suicide mission !
( History does repeat doesn't it: The 72 virgins thing :p :eek: Would be funny if it wasn't so true. :evil: ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashshashin

Note that these assassins did seem to have some ethics like avoiding killing anyone not being the target: Sort of easier if the weapon of choice was a dagger, up close and very personal, instead of an explosive device ( IED ).

If anyone has any other good tales on the general subject of medieval 'special operations' I've very much like to hear them. The secret agent has always been an interisting subject, be it about sabotage, assassination, or intelligence.

Thought you might find this a bit interesting; it's about wheel-locks:

Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight, Pg 153, Line 17 wrote:

Whatever the case, by the end of the second decade of the sixteenth century, ordinances banning the use of these ideal assassin's weapons proliferated throughout Europe: in 1518 Emperor Maximilian attempted to enforce such a mandate, and in 1522 the Duke of Ferrara mentioned 'stone or dead-fire guns; in an ordinance banning the carrying of certain weapons in the streets of the city. A similar ban enforced in Venice by the Council of Ten in 1532 leaves no doubt as to the reasons behind such legislation: 'a kind of gun has been invented recently that makes fire by itself, and because they are small they are carried under the clothes so that nobody sees them.' Matchlocks reliant upon a smouldering slowmatch for ignition, where clearly not practical for such use.

M.

Interesting. Chad, I do not want to 'Set-Aside' History, I want to do the opposite of that, I love history and I too believe there is a great lot to learn from it, an infinite amount of knowledge most of which unfortunately cannot be read about or has not been recorded but.... I just wanted to find out more about medieval assassins and the methods they used, the scenario was a bit of fun for peoples opinions.
But what I may say again and I know this is my word against yours but, why hire 12 men when you could hire 1 with a good shot? Its hard to imagine a man with a gun missing from farely close range, no matter how inaccurate the guns were.
Its not that hard to shoot someone in the chest, damaging many vital organs, even if it does not kill the target instantly hes hardly going to be in good shape and will be deterred from doing what ever he was doing to annoy someone in the first place?
What stronger message could be sent out that your target has been killed? Especially if the deed was only done with one Assassin/Thug or whatever.
Imagine this; what would scare you the most:

12 men shoot dead one target, this hardly makes for a clean kill and shows no skill whatsoever if the man is simply riddled with shot.

1 man shoots dead one target, this makes the killer seem more skilled and sends out a stronger message that :"With only 1 man I can have you killed, you will not suspect a thing."
But thats my opinion. :)