Is realistic single combat really over as quickly as stated in these forums? The consensus seems to be that hand to hand combat took three moves at most. Was this necessarily always true? Or even the general rule?

I guess I’m thinking that this wasn’t necessarily true unless the combatants skill levels were too the extreme, because gladiatorial combat wouldn’t be that quick. It wouldn’t be that exciting to watch a fight that only lasts a few seconds. And I don’t imagine gladiatorial combat was staged or drawn out on purpose and I know the Roman mob wanted blood but I’m sure they also admired and demanded skill in their combatants.

I also would think heavily armored and highly trained knights might also take awhile to resolve combat. Need to bash open a few gaps or knock him down for the murder stroke.

Am I dead wrong for thinking this?

Travis,

I think that most of the "quick and dirty" combat being referred to is blosfechten, or fighting in shirt sleeves and mainly with swords. I would hope that armoured combat would take a bit longer.

Just from personal observation from having been to several Western Martial Arts seminars, the longest bout I saw between two masters (they probably would not consider themselves as such) lasted about five moves after blades crossed. There was of course much maneuvering prior to that, but once the blades met it was over pretty quickly. Had the combatants been in shirt sleeves, one or both would have been badly wounded or dead in a real fight.

Then there are some people out there with unbeliveable speed and reflex. These are the "gunfighters" of the art. There is a fellow from Germany by the name of Thomas Stoeppler who can hit you before you even think about moving. I saw him do this more than once in one of the classes he taught and the "victims" knew in advance what he was going to do and were primed to defend as if thier lives depended on it!

How long it may have taken could depend upon assumptions about armoured versus unarmoured combat. Nearly any kind of a cut, thrust, or even a draw slice while moving out of something is probably arguable as partially disabling in unarmoured combat. I have not tried armoured combat, but would assume wrestling could easily erupt around the time of a 3rd or 4th move with combat occurring up close.

Some really skilled opponents that did not know each other well might expend a few moves (flourishes, feints, etc.) before engaging in serious attack-counterattack. That could expend a few extra seconds. I find it pretty impressive to see good sparring today where two talented opponents actually take around 20 seconds or so before an un-biased bystander can confidently say "so and so" got the better and scored a couple of solid hit on the other. Watching people who lack serious intent (allowing for sportsmanship and reasonable restraint on vulnerable joints, etc.) is probably not appropriate. They may circle for 10 seconds at a time.

You could look at some actual period accounts of duels. Some accounts are on the ARMA web site. These seldom give me the impression of being "drawn out affairs" as far as what took place once the weapon play began.

Hey guys...

1) Can we assume gladitorial combat was rather quick as well? Most gladiators weren't that heavily armored, at least compared to medieval plate armor.

2) So would a shield dramatically increase "shirtless" combat? Instead of just sword versus sword.

Thanks for the replies.

-travis

The quicker and dirtier the better. Why linger when you can kill or neutralize and move on? Of course armor greatly increases survivabiity, and humans can sometimes fight on in spite of ghastly wounds, but the design of most weapons is to sever or crush limbs, skulls, etc.

A veteran fighter could slice your belly wide open in a second or two, if your defences were weak. That pretty much ends it right there.

Travis,
gladiatorial fights were sometimes staged and were not always to the death. Take a look at "gladiator" in wiki for more info. As far as the gore factor, there were other events, such as executions and the proverbial "Christians v. Lions" , to satisfy the crowd's bloodlust.

As always, this would depend a lot.
some fights would be very short, down to single blows. Others might be longer, if both parties are more concerned with staying alive than attacking.
It also depends a bit on the weapons. A sword and shield fight would generally be longer than a single or longsword fight.

I would say it could be longer in time for a good fight. Remember, this is not a stage fight that would have steel hitting steel over and over again. These guys would maneuver and wait for a good shot so as to save their blade damage as much as possible.
Fencing with these blades would shorten their life span and could fail at a critical time. Also, if the fighters were unmatched in skills, it would not go very long and the swords would not have a chance to "clang" on each other and make a nice movie.
I have seen what sharp blades looked like after some ID 10 T's have at it thinking that is the way they did it in the movies.
Nice blades ruined. I wanted to cry. :cry:

I think the reality is, with blossfechten longsword fights do tend to be quick, but two very skilled and evenly matched fighters with room to maneuver can have fights which go a bit longer, we have had bouts go up to ten exchanges with both fighters very much fighting "with intent". But that still isn't very long, it boils down to about maybe a minute. If people were fighting for their life with sharps ten exchanges might last as long as two or three minutes concievably, with more careful moving around etc. you also might get more exchanges.

But all that depends on how aggressive the fighters are, if even one of the two is very aggressive the fight most likely will end one way or the other in one or two exchanges.

Sword and shield fights do tend to last longer because the kit is more defensive. I find same with staves or polearms. Maybe up to ten or fifteen exchanges or more.

But the bottom line is, any unarmored fight could end in one exchange, no matter how good the fighters are, one guy can make a mistake and the other guy will exploit it. So the reality is i would guess a real Longsword fight might last anywhere from two seconds to two minutes at the very most under ideal circumstances. A sword and buckler fight might go anywhere from 2 seconds to maybe three or four minutes concievably. The average for both would probably be more like ten or fifteen seconds.

So it's really never going to take that long like in the movies or a video game, and the likelyhood of finding two evenly matched fighters is unlikely in a real life situation. Against an experienced fighter I frequently go 5 or 6 exchanges, but against a new guy it's rarely more than one. A predictably long fight is extremely unlikely.

I doubt you would get much longer with blossfechten, because a decisive throw or grapple is likely to happen before very long. But I really can't say I've never even worn period armor.

J