[Jean Thibodeau]

[David Lewis Smith]

I fight insurgents; I have better armor, better vehicles better weapons. They attack from ambush, use IEDs and a pretty effective information campaign
So, if you have half trained, motivated, cold, hungry ‘peasants’, two of them might pop a few arrow shots at the knight and run. The Knight gives chase and falls in to a tiger pit horse and all, is knocked from his horse with the neck high rope trick or hit with a dead fall log. Gruesome but a peasant heaves a Molotov cocktail at a night in full armor (if the night is evil, locked some peasants in a building and burnt them alive it would be a perfect end for him.
A three to four foot length of half inch to three quarters inch chain. If your knight has an open face help, no armor on his elbows or knees chain is nasty. It can swing around shields or a weapon and still hit the target. Chain to the face would destroy a knights ability to fight.
Threshing flails for grain, a small pick for rock, hammer, any number of tools.
Somebody once said that war was dirty nasty business and General Lee said that it was a good thing that war is so terrible least we learn to love it too much. When the underdog has to fight the better equipped and trained the underdog must use everything at his disposal. Perhaps Lancelot even in his fallen state would not be un-chivalrous so the chain comes to mind for him, he is without armor or the tools of war afforded nobility, but a chain or stout club in the hands of ‘the brightest and best of us’ would be a terrible weapon to face.

[R Ashby]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[R Ashby]

I'll have a look Jean- it's a perfect resource.

[William P]

i thought the purpose of the godendag was it was used in something of a phalanx, the spike made it hard for enemies to simply charge them, and the fact it was a club allowed them to hit them close quartrs

note that some of the nastiest weapons in japan is the otsuchi i.e a BIG oak mallet, the kanabo (alot like the godendag, its a long tapering wooden club with a heap of iron studs, there are one handed verisions, i mean a tree branch with some long nails jammed in so that both ends of the nail are sticking out of the piece of wood,

'in ww1 we see just how lethal a sharpened shovel could be,

thye flail is a good idea, all you would need to do would be maybe add bands of iron to the threshing head of the 2 handed flail to make it more durable for one,. and 2, along with naail heads, give it more spikey bits. manning imperial has one abit like that,
google manning imperial.com

although may i point out that the knights had flails as well. different flails but still nasty

as for chains. look at it this way the reason the kusarigama was so nasty was because of the long weighted chain, no matter what part hits you itll still hurt. plus it can trap opponents,

that said, the big long chains we see in modern times would NOT have been common especially not for the access of a peasent.
http://manningimperial.com/item.php?item_id=4...mp;c_id=58 this weapon described as 'basic pole hammer' is very intruiging and doesnt seem impossible for a local blacksmith to make.
http://manningimperial.com/item.php?item_id=4...mp;c_id=58 this is technically a military flail but a agricultural flail wouldnt be that different except with maybe a rope not a chain, and no metal bits.
http://manningimperial.com/item.php?item_id=4...mp;c_id=58

by the way, for the peasent.. does he ONLY have modified farm tools or does he maybe have limited access to some of the cheaper military issue weapons, like maybe a 1 handed axe, dagger, spear, or even a falchion or mace? depending on how expensive these might be. to the common man on the street

by the way by peasent, do you mean that as a term to mean all commoners who arnt also soldiers, or otherwise versed in fighting methods.
or do you mean something abit higher than serfs but still purely farmers

[R Ashby]

Maybe I should say commoner over peasant, though a serf's weapon would be ideal, from a symbolic standpoint.

[David Lewis Smith]

Stupid Auto spell check, turning Knight in to night.

[David Lewis Smith]

Check here, it is the Klingbiel Collection of medieval weapons,
http://www.pba-auctions.com/html/index.jsp?id=11675

its on acution but there are photos of all sorts of weapons

[Randall Moffett]

William,

Not likely. How could a 3 foot stick with maybe a 6 inch spike keep cavalry away? You'd be dead by the lance before the spike got near the knight or the horse. Besides most of the period accounts indicate large numbers of spearmen in the Low Countries during this period so we can safely assume this was theur system, crossbows, spears and godendags. They later add large and small; artillery but seems more of a harrying tactics.

As I said earlier, all these weapons have uses but almost no weapon class/type was able to be the stand alone battle winner.

[Matthew Amt]

[David Lewis Smith]

Least I forget; Caltrops. Effective against horses (so is a board with nails across a road when vehicles have inflated rubber tires) and effective against dismounted knights. They are cheap to make, a simple cross of metal with two arms bent about 90 degrees one direction and the other two bent about 90 degrees the other direction. They can be carved out of wood for that matter, the bottoms of broken bottles shard side up.
As for a knight on foot being slow, no, an unarmored ‘knight killer’ of any kind does not have a significant advantage in speed in close and personal. Even running away he might find himself sliced down from behind.
I did not read your other thread so I am not sure what the setting of your book is, so I am not sure of the ‘age’ or technology that your characters are living in. So, on that note….
The simple adage, ‘if you can’t walk you can’t fight’ holds true. A bolo could if applied at the right moment could send a armored target especially at a run face first in to the dirt to be dispatched by axes, hammers and clubs. (Sorry totally in ‘insurgent’ mode). A lasso thrown over an arm or neck could drag a mounted knight off a horse or tie up his arm or yank him off balance.
According to legend Miyamoto Musashi killed another samurai in a duel with a boat oar.
The other thing is if we look at Viking epics very few of them say that ‘Swen and Ollie were fighting, Swen stabbed Ollie in the stomach and killed him’. A good story is epic so it can step outside the bounds of ‘real’ and in to the realm the fantastic but keeping reality makes it a better story. A blacksmith would use a hammer, and many blacksmith hammers were long handled. A broken off spear haft reinforced with iron strips down the shaft would be a good weapon in the hands of a motivated and trained fighter capable of killing an armored ‘knight’. Other things to consider, one cannot spend 100% of one’s time in armor.

[David Lewis Smith]

Matt:
I grew up on farm, not farm that had our own backhoe; if you needed a hole you dug it. I am in Afghanistan right now and watch guys dig three foot ditches with shovels and picks. They don’t dig ditches for a mile or more because it’s fun, they do it because water is life. If you had to do something to live, you would do it, it’s a matter of survival. I am also a graduate of the US Army SERE course, it’s not all POW stuff you learn a lot about getting things done with minimal tools and resources. You might be surprised what you could accomplish with proper motivation and a shovel. Special Operations is about thinking outside the box, a ‘knight killer’ with every disadvantage in equipment is going to think outside the box.
On that note, a three foot wide two foot deep hole with spikes in it would kill or maim the horse and send its rider to the ground violently. It’s not that hard to camouflage either, camouflage is not just the hole it is sculpting the area around as well, blending everything together as it were. If it’s just me and I have a shovel I may not go for a full size hole that swallows knight and horse, I don’t have to dig a full size hole to accomplish my end goal. If it’s me and my compatriots Mr. Knight is going to come to a grizzly end in the bottom of a six foot hole.
I fight, I fight a lot, I like getting hit, I like hitting people. I stick fight and do some HEMA. If I got hit in the face with chain it would at least stun me for a moment, but if it hit my eye? It would destroy it. Remember this is about a story with aspects of reality. I have also dealt with real world wounds, destroy an eye or nose and person is pretty much done. Not break a nose, destroy it. A chain is not that heavy to me, it does not take a lot of force to swing and it can be used in a lot of ways. Three quarter inch chain might be a bit slow but it would be devastating, half inch, not slow and would still be devastating. I took a blow on a gauntlet once; my advice is to try to avoid doing that. So yes, it would be a good weapon and remember, to even if he catches it, I have the other end too, I have as much control as he does, its not a slap, it’s a crushing blow, it’s going to rip skin and tare flesh. Notice I said open face helm or no hard armor on elbows and knees, i.e. chainmail. Even with a gambeson kneecaps and elbows are going to be crippled . It can even be used to block or parry a sword, and if held in both hands with a foot to 18 inches between could even block an ax. (not my first choice)
Most, not all but most medieval peasants would be smaller, and weaker than a knight. Simply put they did not eat as well as the nobility or have any of the other advantages, but this is a story, its epic, now and then a peasant is going to be a great strapping lad with huge shoulders and hands like hams, and sometimes just ten guys with picks and shovels and knives to sharpen wooden stakes for my tiger pit.
Trust me Matt, if you are motivated enough you can do remarkable things.

[Matthew Amt]

[David Lewis Smith]

I think you quoted a few exceptions in toughness
and I was a bit ambiguous about where to dig a tiger pit. not on the road, off the beaten path, lure him in like

[Colt Reeves]

[Dan Howard]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[David Lewis Smith]

I did a 300 or so yard sprint down a Bagdad street in IBA (Body armor), water, weapon, gear and ammo, about 50 to 60 pounds. I don’t know how fast I was running, everything goes in to ‘combat time’ in your brain. I hate to say ‘unless you have been there you just don’t know’. Its sort of like being in an accident or such, it is sort of slow motion but really it’s your brain thinking faster. Time is weird, but I covered the distance and was able to engage in; 1 a physical altercation (nice way of saying I kicked a guy in the chest to put him down, call for a medic, and start rendering first aid on two other guys. Back then I wore my ammo on leg rigs off my belt, so its sort of like having leg armor on. The whole crappy part of it was, they were drunk and blew through the barrier we put up and meant no harm. No one died by the way. I just use that as an illustration of what a person can do. I am not trying to brag or toot my own horn, just using a personal experience to relate to what someone can do. The driver by the way spoke fairly good English and when I realized he was drunk I chewed him out and called him everything but the son of a kind and benevolent Superior Being and told him his friend was shot up because they were drinking and driving, every body lived. (don’t drink and drive it ends badly every time)
There was no real thought through the whole thing, just observations and actions based on training. Any how, a knight put in ‘combat mode’ would move and react the same way. So that is why I sort of defaulted to ‘what would an insurgent do a thousand years ago’
I don’t know how many arrows you could shot at close combat range, if I had a bow, at that range and no armor I am going to try to get away. Nothing fancy just get away. More importantly as an insurgent bowman I am going to plan carefully so I don’t engage an armored opponent at close range. Longbow archers shoot from behind shieldwalls at 100 or so yards for a reason. Heh, I have a really nice Hungarian bow, but I never shot it. If I do engage at close range it is going to be where I have the advantage, like where a road said armored guy is riding and has to go up a steep bank that horse cant/will not go up, and climbing in armor is nearly imposable, or across a wide deep trench, ditch, canal, stream, something with steep banks and soft sides and more importantly, none of his friends have bows either.
Back when I was a combat engineer we use to ‘sculpt the battle field’ by creating obstacles, and obstacle belts, we had different ways of laying them in for different effects. There were Turn obstacles to move an opposing force in a direction you wanted or to ground you wanted them in, Fix obstacles that temporary fixed an opposing force in place while they expended breaching assets and our forces engaged with heavy weapons from dug in positions and Block obstacles which did just that, blocked a path. Block took the longest to put in, and on the other side expended the maximum amount of resources, equipment and men to breach. Mostly I am talking about minefields, but there are wire obstacles, both barbed wire and concertina wire (think meter wide slinky made of barbed wire) you could do the same with vines, rope and twine. One obstical is called tangle foot that is just a ankle high grid of wire to ‘tangle you up’ see here http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/librar...907_10.htm do not skip the use of ‘explosive’ obstacles or land mines, the concept of use if not the actual mines themselves apply, by the way in 1272 the Chinese used the first explosive land mines, and some were Very complex with time delays and all sorts of nasty effects. But look at the use of obstacles rather than what they are made of. There are lots of wire, trench, fence obstacles. Pay particular attention to the section on improvised obstacles. Phony obstacles work too “They left a wagon in the road last year, when we approached they fired arrows from uphill, turn back, we will be pincushioned” you could look here http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/librar...ch3.htm#s3 on ambushes a bit more than halfway down the page and how to do basic combat patrolling as well.
It is pretty dry reading by the way, army tec manuals.

[Colt Reeves]

Hey, if you're lucky you only need one arrow. If you're unlucky... Well then the knight might want to recite some Vogon poetry before offing you.

To be fair, I am not the fastest runner in the world, nor do I accelerate very quickly. Someone who runs a lot or is closer to Aaron's physical abilities might be able to get away if a fight broke out and the odds looked bad. I play football (not hand-egg, but football) and many a player can easily juke and outrun me. Some of them could probably leave Aaron in the dust.

Of course, using Aaron as an example is not necessarily a good one. Knights would vary in physical ability, so I would expect some to be worse than him and some to be better.

Regardless, I wouldn't bet on being able to outrun a knight over a short distance. For that matter, a knight with good stamina and blessed with cool weather might be able to keep up a slow but steady pace over the long haul too.

It would also depend on what the knight has been up to lately. If he has been fighting for much of the day and is exhausted, or has just ran half a mile to get to you, he'll be slower. On the other hand, if you have been fighting or working all day in the field and you're the one that's dead tired...

/Random musing