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Randall Moffett
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 Posted: Sat 07 Mar, 2015 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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Jean,
I am not sure anyone is saying BFT from swords is doing this that in the last posts.... The point that is being made is there are other weapons that are largely geared up for BFT.
RPM
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Benjamin H. Abbott
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| Posted: Sat 07 Mar, 2015 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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Using bohurt fights to claim blows don't stun through armor strikes me as curious, given as those contest feature endless blows against armor - including with single-handed swords. What are they doing if not trying to knock their foes out or down? Bohurt fights perhaps show that it's difficult to incapacitate via blows to armor, but they certainly don't show that it's only the stuff of legend.
Numerous historical sources feature blows to armor. Once again, consider El Victorial. You can read a partial English translation here. Notice Pero Niño's contest with Gomez Domao on page 15 that ends with the former splitting the latter's shield, helmet, and skull after an extended exchange of blows to the head. In Gutierre Díez de Games's account, armor generally works but sometimes fails, and striking great blows is what a knight's supposed to do. The fighting Díez de Games described significantly resembles bohurt, albeit with thrusts in addition to mighty strokes.
It's also worth noting that bohurt/HMB weapons have rounded edges and thus are fundamentally different from historical battlefield weapons.
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Sat 07 Mar, 2015 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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@Randal, I was referring to the OP and the poster who started the thread (and who seems to have disappeared from it)
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | Using bohurt fights to claim blows don't stun through armor strikes me as curious, given as those contest feature endless blows against armor - including with single-handed swords. What are they doing if not trying to knock their foes out or down? Bohurt fights perhaps show that it's difficult to incapacitate via blows to armor, but they certainly don't show that it's only the stuff of legend. |
No offense Benjamin but have you ever actually watched those videos? 90% of the time they just push the other guy down because striking with the sword is so ineffective. The strikes which do seem to sometimes knock people down (usually just for a second, but that is all it takes to knock them out of the game) are with shields or pollaxes, typically.
All you have to do to win a 'bohurt' match is knock the other guys down, usually, and that is kind of the let down of the whole thing.
| Quote: |
Numerous historical sources feature blows to armor. Once again, consider El Victorial. You can read a partial English translation here. Notice Pero Niño's contest with Gomez Domao on page 15 that ends with the former splitting the latter's shield, helmet, and skull after an extended exchange of blows to the head. In Gutierre Díez de Games's account, armor generally works but sometimes fails, and striking great blows is what a knight's supposed to do. The fighting Díez de Games described significantly resembles bohurt, albeit with thrusts in addition to mighty strokes. |
I'd be a lot more impressed with legal records of such incidents or personal letters describing them than claims in Feudal autobiographies or the aggrandizing descriptions of sycophantic courtiers. I've read dozens of legal records of violent incidents, formal and informal duels, brawls and fights of all kinds from the medieval and Early Modern periods, and I've never encountered a claim of plate armor being cut through by a sword (or anyone being crushed to death through a helmet for that matter).
I'm sure it was possible for some bad armor to fail somewhere in Europe across 300 or 400 years, but my point is, if it was really so easy to bash through armor and cave in somebodies skull, the thousands of bohurt matches which take place every year in 11 or 12 countries would probably be banned by now due to fatalities.
Jean
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Benjamin H. Abbott
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| Posted: Sat 07 Mar, 2015 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | No offense Benjamin but have you ever actually watched those videos? 90% of the time they just push the other guy down because striking with the sword is so ineffective. The strikes which do seem to sometimes knock people down (usually just for a second, but that is all it takes to knock them out of the game) are with shields or pollaxes, typically. |
Yes, I've watched quite a few. The headlong rush seems to be the most common technique, but I always see plenty of single-handed sword strokes to the head as well. Why do they bother with these at all if they don't do anything? I'm guessing they do something.
| Quote: | | I'd be a lot more impressed with legal records of such incidents or personal letters describing them than claims in Feudal autobiographies or the aggrandizing descriptions of sycophantic courtiers. |
Sir Kenelm Digby's account of the 1623 street fight he was in includes a (presumably) single-handed sword blow against a helmet that stunned the victim even though the sword broke. Sir John Smythe's instructions for pikers at the end of the sixteenth century include a blow and thrust at opposing pikers faces, which would have most likely been well-protected by their helmets.
| Quote: | | I've read dozens of legal records of violent incidents, formal and informal duels, brawls and fights of all kinds from the medieval and Early Modern periods, and I've never encountered a claim of plate armor being cut through by a sword (or anyone being crushed to death through a helmet for that matter). |
I've read probably dozens of accounts of swords cutting through metal helmets ranging from antiquity to the late nineteenth century, though primarily in the context of cavalry combat. And of course helmets differ! Earlier I posted the case of the WWII U.S. soldier who was knocked out by a single katana-plus-scabbard blow to the helmet. Light ancient/medieval/Renaissance helmets weren't much thicker.
| Quote: | | I'm sure it was possible for some bad armor to fail somewhere in Europe across 300 or 400 years, but my point is, if it was really so easy to bash through armor and cave in somebodies skull, the thousands of bohurt matches which take place every year in 11 or 12 countries would probably be banned by now due to fatalities. |
They're specifically designed so that doesn't happen: good armor, rounded weapon edges, refs who intervene if needed, banned moves, etc. But bohurt/HMB folks do get stunned, staggered, and temporary incapacitated in the videos I've watched and the accounts I've read.
Also, as far as HEMA tournaments go, a feder isn't the same as a stiff battlefield longsword.
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Bartek Strojek
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| Posted: Sun 08 Mar, 2015 3:15 am Post subject: |
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| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
Yes, I've watched quite a few. The headlong rush seems to be the most common technique, but I always see plenty of single-handed sword strokes to the head as well. Why do they bother with these at all if they don't do anything? I'm guessing they do something.
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I would agree that some blows indeed land well enough to cause 'damage', but we must remember that blow doesn't have to be actually damaging to 'do something'.
Engaging, binding, disorienting, and generally controlling your opponent can easily be more important.
Just how for boxers usage of a jab for control, feeling the distance and so on is most important thing.
Theoretically someone pumped and confident enough can just try to ignore them, knowing that they won't harm him much but in practice humans rarely can work this way.
| Quote: | | which would have most likely been well-protected by their helmets. |
I would think that majority of them would have open or mostly open helmets, actually?
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T. Kew
Location: London, UK Joined: 21 Apr 2012
Posts: 256
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| Posted: Sun 08 Mar, 2015 3:49 am Post subject: |
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| Bartek Strojek wrote: |
| Quote: | | which would have most likely been well-protected by their helmets. |
I would think that majority of them would have open or mostly open helmets, actually? |
Quite. The classic English pikers helmet is an open-faced burgonet or similar, at the heaviest. A blow to the face would have reasonable odds of potentially catching a brim, but thrusts to the face should be viciously effective.
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Benjamin H. Abbott
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| Posted: Sun 08 Mar, 2015 5:51 am Post subject: |
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Managing to hit somebody wearing even a morion in the face with a cut would be a good trick. Certainly possible, but those helmets were specifically designed to protect the face from cuts, as Sir John Smythe himself wrote. Thrusting to the face is nearly always a good bet. (Fourquevaux wanted pikers to wear a helmet with a the sight almost closed, presumably to reduce the odds of this technique working.) Smythe's blow-and-thrust technique for pikers isn't completely clear. It's possible it was a cut that turns into a thrust. It also could have included a blow designed to stun or distract, as the next technique was stabbing with the dagger in the left hand under the opposing piker's armor. Smythe complained that hard-tempered rapiers couldn't hold up to blows against armor, so that suggests he considered blows against armor a common occurrence at the least.
Another point of evidence in favor of the notion that striking helmets with swords was effective is the prevalence of upraised swords in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Swiss and German depictions of infantry combat. From what I've seen, thrusts rarely appear in such artwork. While this could all be nonsense, I doubt it. Folks didn't necessarily use the same techniques in judicial duels and on the battlefield. (And of course most infantry weren't the kind of folks who'd fight judicial duels in full armor.)
Last edited by Benjamin H. Abbott on Sun 08 Mar, 2015 12:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Vincent Le Chevalier
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| Posted: Sun 08 Mar, 2015 11:36 am Post subject: |
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| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | Also, as far as HEMA tournaments go, a feder isn't the same as a stiff battlefield longsword. |
Yeah I don't really see the HEMA tournaments as a real source of information on the topic of armoured fighting. As far as I reckon, swords like the Albion Meyer for example, supposedly really close to sharp swords, are not used in these any longer, in part because they hit too hard. Besides, rules obviously do not encourage knocking the opponent down with the sword or otherwise, which means that nobody trains for that. With people actively training towards that goal, the outcome would probably be different.
That's not to say that plate armour isn't a splendid protection against swords, but you can't really use what happens in HEMA to argue for the futility of swords as impact weapons.
Regards,
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Vincent
Ensis Sub Caelo
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Sun 08 Mar, 2015 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Vincent Le Chevalier wrote: | | Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | Also, as far as HEMA tournaments go, a feder isn't the same as a stiff battlefield longsword. |
Yeah I don't really see the HEMA tournaments as a real source of information on the topic of armoured fighting. As far as I reckon, swords like the Albion Meyer for example, supposedly really close to sharp swords, are not used in these any longer, in part because they hit too hard. Besides, rules obviously do not encourage knocking the opponent down with the sword or otherwise, which means that nobody trains for that. With people actively training towards that goal, the outcome would probably be different.
That's not to say that plate armour isn't a splendid protection against swords, but you can't really use what happens in HEMA to argue for the futility of swords as impact weapons.
Regards, |
When was the last time either one of you were at a large HEMA tournament? Have you seen the weapons they are using?
They actually do use those Albion weapons you referred to, including both the Meyer and the Liechtenauer, I know of one I think last year in Scotland or northern England - I can find out if necessary- which used I think exclusively the Liechtenauer. (And guess what, nobody died or got knocked out as far as I know of)
The trend in the HEMA weapons in the last couple of years has actually been for stiffer and heavier weapons, not lighter and flimsier. Most of the ones being used right now are from Poland, Hungary and other places in Central or Eastern Europe and tend to be formidable blades. For example the ensifer 'long' at 1.6 kg which is popular in tournaments right now
http://ensifer.carbonmade.com/projects/96362#2
Yes they are designed with a kind of 'feder' idea in mind but these are nothing like the historical "feders" we know of, which I've been told are actually like the old (very floppy and light) first generation Hanwei feders.
It is a mischaracterization (hopefully not intentional) to imply that I was saying HEMA tournaments are some kind of exact corollary for armored fencing, what I was referring to was much more simple and specific: the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of blades as impact weapons. As far as the physics go, blunt sparring swords can actually be heavier than actual period sharps and also have a larger striking surface than a sharp blade does. We are also not talking about tempered steel helmets here but just fencing masks.
As for the case of a US soldier being knocked down by a katana in a sheath, if that was the incident I am thinking of, it's the 'in a sheath part' which was significant. If I remember this correctly it was a steel sheath. That makes the thing into a cudgel. I wouldn't fight in a HEMA tournament involving steel pipes, or hardwood bokken for that matter. You'd have a lot more broken bones and concussions.
That's because blunt instruments make much better tools for knocking people out and breaking their bones than blade edges do.
But that said I agree that the Bohurt videos are much more obvious and blatant evidence of this than HEMA. I mentioned HEMA because I've got personal experience of it, Bohurt I've only seen on videos.
Jean
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Vincent Le Chevalier
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 12:31 am Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | When was the last time either one of you were at a large HEMA tournament? Have you seen the weapons they are using? |
The last time must have been for the rule experiment for the Paris tournament in January, but then I don't do longsword. My overall perception of the weapons is that while they are heavy, that heaviness is located more in the hilt than it would be on actual sword. But I agree that I don't have the numbers to back that up or throw it to the bin... Yet  I must say I am a bit lost as to how longsworders select their weapons now; at one point it was the swords closest to sharp examples which were considered best, now I'm not so sure of how designs are picked.
Even then my point still stands: no one in HEMA is training to knock people down, and the rules certainly do not encourage it. We don't know what would happen if that were the goal. So yes, it shows that swords are not automatically going to wreck someone by impacts without trying, but not that you can't use them to deal some damage even through armor. It is not a meaningful experiment. As you say the Bohurt stuff is a bit more relevant.
Regards,
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Vincent
Ensis Sub Caelo
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Nat Lamb
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 12:35 am Post subject: |
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Not that familiar with Bohurt, but assuming that it is similar to BotN stuff, don't they use intentionally over-built armours with neck support under the avantails, extra think padding, over heavy plating etc? My understanding was that it was more like the armours used in melees and tournaments, not the actual battlefield stuff.
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Benjamin H. Abbott
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 6:39 am Post subject: |
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I've never sparred with HEMA-style blunts or feders myself, but I don't see how they could be remotely safe for strong thrusts unless they're more flexible than at least many longswords intended for armored combat. Many things I've read about HEMA tournaments note that feders need to be flexible for thrust safety. And the feders I've seen in HEMA videos (Swordfish, etc.) definitely look flexible. A more flexible sword doesn't have the same striking dynamics as a stiff sword, even if the weight's the same.
Personally I've had a number of painful thrusts to throat when sparring with padded weapons like Lance's RSWs and a fencing mask with some throat padding. I've had my bell rung quite soundly in that kind of sparring as well; I've been stunned I'd say but never close to knocked out.
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 8:29 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Even then my point still stands: no one in HEMA is training to knock people down, and the rules certainly do not encourage it. We don't know what would happen if that were the goal. So yes, it shows that swords are not automatically going to wreck someone by impacts without trying, but not that you can't use them to deal some damage even through armor. It is not a meaningful experiment. |
I'm not sure what you mean by 'training for' ,but in most HEMA tournaments these days, knocking somebody down will get you a point. This is usually accomplished by throws, sometimes by kicks or punches, but I've also seen it done by pommel strikes. In some tournaments they stop the action after a hit but that isn't always the case, the one I was in last fall in Boston had a rule set which kept the fight going up to 3 strikes. Throws (or knocking somebody down any other way you could) will allow you to win the match easier. In fact I knocked somebody down and out of the ring to win one of my matches.
Bohurt is the type of fighting they do in Battle of the nations. It's just the name for full contact armored fighting with steel weapons, basically. The dirty little secret of Bohurt is that the sword strikes don't have much effect in the actual game, which is why if you watch it, they are usually running across the field and tackling or pushing people down, and / or striking them with shields in an attempt to knock them over. That is how you win the game. The striking with swords doesn't actually have that much to do with winning.
As for 'not trying to wreck someone by impacts', this seems nonsensical to me. Some people fight with a lot of control, but others 'swing for the fences' in any tournament I've been in.
Regarding the stiffness of feders, the more modern ones aren't stiff like an estoc and will bend a little in a thrust but they aren't anywhere near as flexible as the old Hanwei ones were. I have sharps which are much more flexible than my Regenyei. And that has very little to do with the impact of a blade-strike anyway.
J
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Bartek Strojek
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 8:41 am Post subject: |
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| Nat Lamb wrote: | | Not that familiar with Bohurt, but assuming that it is similar to BotN stuff, don't they use intentionally over-built armours with neck support under the avantails, extra think padding, over heavy plating etc? My understanding was that it was more like the armours used in melees and tournaments, not the actItual battlefield stuff. |
It really depends on person, some use some rather fictional and weird stuff, but I actually often read on how faithful and tailored reconstruction tend to protect from injuries way better than heap of textile and can.
http://freeradom.pl/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/bitwa-narodow.jpg
http://olawa24.pl/uploads/news/main/eliminacj...88_bn8.jpg
Looking above, biggest 'offender' would likely be lack of mail - no one will stab you around the plate, and stuff weighs a lot, so why?  [/quote]
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 8:58 am Post subject: |
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| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | IPersonally I've had a number of painful thrusts to throat when sparring with padded weapons like Lance's RSWs and a fencing mask with some throat padding. I've had my bell rung quite soundly in that kind of sparring as well; I've been stunned I'd say but never close to knocked out. |
I think you can get your bell rung while wearing a mask much more easily with a (correctly weighted) padded weapon like Lance's RSW than you would from even a heavy tournament feder like an ensifer or a regenyei. That is really the point I'm trying to make. Blades don't make good cudgels, and if you needed them to be, it would probably have more impact to hit with the flat.
J
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 9:11 am Post subject: |
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| Bartek Strojek wrote: | | Nat Lamb wrote: | | Not that familiar with Bohurt, but assuming that it is similar to BotN stuff, don't they use intentionally over-built armours with neck support under the avantails, extra think padding, over heavy plating etc? My understanding was that it was more like the armours used in melees and tournaments, not the actItual battlefield stuff. |
It really depends on person, some use some rather fictional and weird stuff, but I actually often read on how faithful and tailored reconstruction tend to protect from injuries way better than heap of textile and can.
http://freeradom.pl/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/bitwa-narodow.jpg
http://olawa24.pl/uploads/news/main/eliminacj...88_bn8.jpg
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My understanding is that far from overbuilding armor, they actually had to institute a maximum weight for armor used, because they found that heavier armor was leading to more injuries as well as more rapid exhaustion. I think the max (last time I looked) was somewhere around 50 lbs or in that ballpark. This makes sense for fighters too since you mainly lose by falling down, so you don't want your armor too heavy.
So this means the armor generally has to be good quality tempered steel so it can be thin enough, but there was a lot of tempered steel armor in the late medieval battlefield.
J
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Kel Rekuta
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 9:46 am Post subject: |
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| Vincent Le Chevalier wrote: | | Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | When was the last time either one of you were at a large HEMA tournament? Have you seen the weapons they are using? |
Even then my point still stands: no one in HEMA is training to knock people down, and the rules certainly do not encourage it. We don't know what would happen if that were the goal. So yes, it shows that swords are not automatically going to wreck someone by impacts without trying, but not that you can't use them to deal some damage even through armor. It is not a meaningful experiment. As you say the Bohurt stuff is a bit more relevant.
Regards, |
You should get out more. ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Axzea0Ws2Yk
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Kel Rekuta
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 9:53 am Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | IPersonally I've had a number of painful thrusts to throat when sparring with padded weapons like Lance's RSWs and a fencing mask with some throat padding. I've had my bell rung quite soundly in that kind of sparring as well; I've been stunned I'd say but never close to knocked out. |
I think you can get your bell rung while wearing a mask much more easily with a (correctly weighted) padded weapon like Lance's RSW than you would from even a heavy tournament feder like an ensifer or a regenyei. That is really the point I'm trying to make. Blades don't make good cudgels, and if you needed them to be, it would probably have more impact to hit with the flat.
J |
Sorry friend... hit with the flat and bend your sword. IRRC armourer Paul MacDonald did some research way back when and found the majority of blade profiles are eight times stronger edge wise than against the flat. I suspect a lot of later Franco-Belgian rules tournaments were played to strike flat as it was less likely to deal serious damage.
Otherwise, yeah, blunt flexible simulators transfer force more effectively as they don't skip off and in flex transfer joules like a dead blow mallet.
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Philip Dyer
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 10:32 am Post subject: |
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| Kel Rekuta wrote: | | Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | IPersonally I've had a number of painful thrusts to throat when sparring with padded weapons like Lance's RSWs and a fencing mask with some throat padding. I've had my bell rung quite soundly in that kind of sparring as well; I've been stunned I'd say but never close to knocked out. |
I think you can get your bell rung while wearing a mask much more easily with a (correctly weighted) padded weapon like Lance's RSW than you would from even a heavy tournament feder like an ensifer or a regenyei. That is really the point I'm trying to make. Blades don't make good cudgels, and if you needed them to be, it would probably have more impact to hit with the flat.
J |
Sorry friend... hit with the flat and bend your sword. IRRC armourer Paul MacDonald did some research way back when and found the majority of blade profiles are eight times stronger edge wise than against the flat. I suspect a lot of later Franco-Belgian rules tournaments were played to strike flat as it was less likely to deal serious damage.
Otherwise, yeah, blunt flexible simulators transfer force more effectively as they don't skip off and in flex transfer joules like a dead blow mallet. |
Or makes the blade want to fly out of your hands, or do no damage at all. Blade which were designed to be good cutter, then to very flexible in the flat and very stiff in the edge, if you plant a sword tip into the ground or grab exert pressure, it will bend along the flat, press the egdes onto the ground and try to exert pressure backward unto the edge, the sword with not bend no matter how hard you try. Also I think that the reason why the properly weighted padded weaponed worked better as a cudgel than a blunt blade is because the padding act as a grip and sticking materiel, ,mean it is less like to roll to glance and turn it your hands in a swing, and more likely to stick and transfer force. I bet if someone where to land a shot with blunt and keep it aligned for to impact keep it from turning, because the force has not dissipation ,materiel around it (padding) it would hurt a lot more. There is reasons why cudgels and batons are used as nonlethal weapons, they are lethal inefficient.Still, as far as concussion risks go, I would rather be hit by a baton or cudgel than a blunt blade or obviously,a baseball bat.bat.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Btl0cwLhs Also a great reason why you should never forget your helmet/fencing mask and a clear demonstration on unhelmeted heads in battle scenes in hollywood is ludicrous.
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Vincent Le Chevalier
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| Posted: Mon 09 Mar, 2015 10:33 am Post subject: |
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I probably should
Sorry for the unclear use of 'HEMA': I think what Jean-Henry is discussing is the 'dominant' form people train, that is unarmoured fencing with longswords. I sure don't think HEMA is only that!
Regards,
--
Vincent
Ensis Sub Caelo
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