Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XII

[fusilier]

A bit more than 10lbs I think; I thought it was heavy while my daughter couldn't even hold it level.
The re-enactor was saying how they don't like doing weapon drills after they've been fired a couple times as the barrel gets too hot to hold.

Yeah, I've burned myself a couple of times, there's a reason those muskets had full stocks!

The heaviest musket I've handled was probably around fifteen pounds, and that thing was big, only a few inches shorter than I am.

Given you mentioned pikemen earlier, I assume you're part of an earlier than American Civil War era re-enactment group?

Yeah, but most of the people in the earlier group (circa 1600 Spanish) also do American Civil War. I also have a couple of pre-civil war impressions (1830s-1850s), and WW1 -- although I usually have to leave the state for that one.

[Galloglaich]

I haven't even read the thread and already I have an idea of what I'll see.

Speaking of HEMA forums, another is http://www.thearma.org/forum/

That forum is not what it used to be. The same is also true for the other major HEMA forum of yesteryear, SFI.

These days the most useful ones are probably the ones I already mentioned upthread.

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[Janus]

That forum is not what it used to be. The same is also true for the other major HEMA forum of yesteryear, SFI.

Which forum? ARMA or HEMAA?
If ARMA, I can imagine. Most of ARMA's discussion takes place in the members only E-list. As for HEMAA, I wouldn't know

[Galloglaich]

Which forum? ARMA or HEMAA?
If ARMA, I can imagine. Most of ARMA's discussion takes place in the members only E-list. As for HEMAA, I wouldn't know

Are there two E-lists now? Didn't they split into the blue shirts and the red shirts or something like that?

Anyway, I'm not commenting on the organization, (this wouldn't be the place and my opinion on that doesn't matter anyway), just the activity of the forum.

HEMAA forum is active right now and fairly open, so is WMAC I think, so are Meyer Freifechter and the blogs of a dozen or so other regional HEMA groups around North America (US, Canada and Mexico) many of which also have subforums on HEMAA, plus the various European ones I mentioned like Schola Gladiatoria. I don't really post on open HEMA forums any more personally so I'm not 100% up to speed, but that is my understanding.

Neither the ARMA forum nor SFI - HES are really active now as far as I know.

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[Galloglaich]

On an unrelated note, many many pages back (I think 2 or 3 incarnations of the thread ago, though with many of the same people), we were having a discussion about medieval war, the role of various estates in it. I had pointed out that prelates (i.e. "princes of the Church", Bishops, Archbishops, Abbots, and so on) were often war leaders and acted as knights as well as priests. I was asked at the time to provide proof. I had numerous examples of prelates acting as warlords effectively, but I couldn't find anything down into the detail level of individual conflicts from primary sources.

Fast forward months, years, however long it's been, and I'm reading Hans Delbruck right now, a major military historian of the early 20th Century. While his opinions and conclusions are not necessarily current, like some other historians of his generation he did a lot of translating and aggregation of the available documents from the period, and he cited the primary sources with excerpted transcriptions and translations. Thanks to his efforts, I can finally fulfill my promise to provide a specific example of a prelate-knight.

His chapter about the German burgher armies contains a pretty interesting description of the Battle of Oberhausbergen* in 1262, a battle between the city of Strasbourg and it's archbishop over control of the region. Among other (to me) fascinating details from the two primary sources he cites, Delbruck mentions that the Bishop Walter von Geroldseck fought as a "pious knight" and had two horses killed underneath him during the battle.

I've taken photos of four pages of the book, which include the entirety of the direct transcription of one of the two sources he used (in pages 3 and 4).

page 1

page 2

page 3

page 4

The sources also say the battle started with a personal duel between a young patrician from Strasbourg, Marcus of Eckerwersheim, and a knight in the service of the Bishop, Beckelarius. The Strasbourgers evidently invented some kind of new type of axe (though Delburck doesn't believe the sources on this), deployed some kind of pike tactics, and a small group of their marksmen were apparently able to fight off the Bishops infantry (though Delbruck doesn't believe the sources on this either).


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* also known as the Battle of Walterianum and the battle of Hausberg

[Janus]

Are there two E-lists now? Didn't they split into the blue shirts and the red shirts or something like that?

Not that I'm aware of. Haven't heard of blue shirts at all, actually.
[/off topic]

Random thought on armor and just how hot it can get-
Any chance that knights and other armored fighters would put ice or something close to their skin to cool themselves down? Or is it all too tight down there to be viable (not to mention that it may melt before you even start fighting)?

[warty goblin]

Not that I'm aware of. Haven't heard of blue shirts at all, actually.
[/off topic]

Random thought on armor and just how hot it can get-
Any chance that knights and other armored fighters would put ice or something close to their skin to cool themselves down? Or is it all too tight down there to be viable (not to mention that it may melt before you even start fighting)?

Where the hell are you going to find ice on a battlefield in the summer?

Even granting a ready supply of ice, I really can't see it being that popular a move. It's going to make all your padding soaking wet and more difficult and heavy to move in. Plus it probably increases the risk of rusting out your armor.

[Janus]

Where the hell are you going to find ice on a battlefield in the summer?

Even granting a ready supply of ice, I really can't see it being that popular a move. It's going to make all your padding soaking wet and more difficult and heavy to move in. Plus it probably increases the risk of rusting out your armor.

Yep, good point.
Guess that was kind of a dumb thought.

[Matthew]

Among other (to me) fascinating details from the two primary sources he cites, Delbruck mentions that the Bishop Walter von Geroldseck fought as a "pious knight" and had two horses killed underneath him during the battle.

If I remember rightly, the question at the time was whether there were any bishops who were actual knights. Plenty of sources suggest that they could fight as knights, there is even satire from the period to that effect. During the high medieval period there were priests pushing the church to make official allowances for them to wear armour and bear arms in the holy land and other dangerous places, but the canons eventually ruled against it. Still, it went on to varying degrees (my impression is that Germany in particular saw a lot of it).

[Galloglaich]

I think the point of confusion on this comes from the modern inability to grasp how decentralized both political and religious power were in the middle ages, not just in Germany but in most of Europe. So if, for example, the Pope issues a Bull banning the use of crossbows against fellow Christians, given the power and authority of the Pope, it's hard to understand how that would be more or less completely ignored.

But at any one time the Pope was typically at war with the Emperor of the HRE or the King of France or any number of other monarchs throughout Europe; cities, districts, and whole nations were routinely put under interdict, Kings and Dukes and Archbishops excommunicated for political reasons... and quite often there was more than one Pope at the same time. At one point there were three.

These prelates were powers unto themselves. 'The Church' as a monolithic entity didn't have much direct impact on an individual bishopric somewhere in Hungary or Saxony. Many of them started out as knights and won their position as a political favor or even by direct conquest. I'm not sure when exactly they would have stopped being knights, but in the case I quoted upthread, clearly this particular Bishop Walter von Geroldseck never did.

Amusingly, googling his name right now, I found that he has his very own Knight-Bishop action figure... complete with knights spurs



http://www.48specialmodels.com/e-pro...ts-detail.html

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[Galloglaich]

I have to admit, the 13th century war-bishop of Strasbourg action figure was somewhat unexpected and is in fact the most random thing I have seen on the internet in at least a week...

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[Incanur]

One Scottish archbishop and two bishops died fighting at Flodden Field 1513; presumably more clergy fought.

[Galloglaich]

There are dozens of cases like that in the HRE, the archbishop of Cologne was actually captured by the city of Cologne at the Battle of Worringen in 1262.

In Central Europe, the prelates (Bishops, Archbishops, Abbotts, even Abbesses) were also 'princes', i.e. powerful warlords. Even the 7 prince-electors of the Holy Roman Emperor, the most powerful princes in Germany, included 3 archbishops among their number (Archbishop of Cologne, Archbishop of Mainz, and Archbishop of Trier)

Nobody told these people what to do about anything, generally speaking. They made their own rules. The only thing that could change that normally is if a rival Prince, or in some cases such as those listed above, a City, would defeat them in battle.

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[Mr. Mask]

Would like to ask if any of the fellows here have opinions on stealth, and its portrayal in games. I'm attempting to design some stealth mechanics, and want to see if I have my head on straight in understanding how "stealth kills" work in reality.

I think I have a good grasp of the concept... but I don't know how to put it into words. Not sure anyone can.

[warty goblin]

Would like to ask if any of the fellows here have opinions on stealth, and its portrayal in games. I'm attempting to design some stealth mechanics, and want to see if I have my head on straight in understanding how "stealth kills" work in reality.

I think I have a good grasp of the concept... but I don't know how to put it into words. Not sure anyone can.

I strongly suspect that actually killing people without making noise is quite difficult.

- If you go for a cut throat, they'll have time to gargle, thrash and bleed everywhere. Not silent. If you miss the windpipe, they can scream. Really not silent.

- If you silence the hell out of a gun and shoot them in the head, they'll still thrash around a lot as the brain discharges random bits of electricity. Every time I've slaughtered a hog by shooting it in the head, it spasms for a couple of minutes afterwards, despite being very, very dead. If there's anything nearby to kick over or otherwise make a ruckus, there will probably be a ruckus. Restraining a body convulsing like this would also take massive strength, as the muscles fire off quite powerfully and without restraint. Maybe this is less of an issue with higher caliber rounds though, a .22 LR doesn't exactly make a big hole.

- Strangulation might work, but again you've got to worry about flailing limbs hitting things and making noise. Also heavy clothing such as winter gear, or throat protection would make this trick difficult (I believe London police in the nineteenth/early twentieth centuries wore thick leather neckbands precisely for this purpose). And unlike the above methods, you can't step away from a victim immediately after delivering the strike, which means there's the potential for them to injure you. Somebody with a protected neck, or even just training and presence of mind could well pull a knife and stick it into your thigh, groin, stomach or over the shoulder into your face or neck.

- I'm not sure of the effects of just beating somebody really hard over the head. Regardless of any flailing, the blow itself is not likely to be all that quiet. And again, if you don't drop them in one, they can make noise and raise an alarm.

[Mr. Mask]

Certainly. The ease and quickness of characters pulling off stealth kills in games is a source of eye rolling.

Another thing about silenced guns I don't see mentioned, is that silenced bullets make a fairly loud, distinctive cracking sound when they hit the skull. It's OK if your targets are fairly spread out, but if they're in the next room they'll definitely hear it.

With details like slitting throats quietly... yeah, not sure if you can pull that off reliably with some technique and a lot of experience, or if it's just quite random.

With concussive force: It is very random, and unreliable. Something to do with how the impact works on a micro level. Generally, you'd want to go for overkill, if you had to use blunt trauma.

[Brother Oni]

Would like to ask if any of the fellows here have opinions on stealth, and its portrayal in games. I'm attempting to design some stealth mechanics, and want to see if I have my head on straight in understanding how "stealth kills" work in reality.

Typically, sudden extreme debilitating pain is very effective in making people keel over without a sound, as the surprise stops them from crying out initially and the follow on pain causes them to lose consciousness.

Surprisingly, certain stealth kills in Assassin's Creed are actually accurate in this, as inserting a sharp piece of steel ~6 inches deep would be very effective, particularly into the brain (via the eye or the base of the skull where the spine connects) or the heart via the ribs.
Puncturing a lung would also be effective as often the goal of a stealth 'kill' is to incapacitate someone quietly rather than kill them.

I agree that stealth kills as generally depicted in media are either completely over the top (Tenchu series) or borderline ineffective as the victim would have a chance to retaliate.

- Strangulation might work, but again you've got to worry about flailing limbs hitting things and making noise. Also heavy clothing such as winter gear, or throat protection would make this trick difficult (I believe London police in the nineteenth/early twentieth centuries wore thick leather neckbands precisely for this purpose). And unlike the above methods, you can't step away from a victim immediately after delivering the strike, which means there's the potential for them to injure you. Somebody with a protected neck, or even just training and presence of mind could well pull a knife and stick it into your thigh, groin, stomach or over the shoulder into your face or neck.

A standing rear naked choke is usually quite effective combined with walking backwards which both pulls them off balance and adds their body weight to the choke.
As the article points out, when performed correctly, loss of conscious is very rapid (personal experience confirms this) so the target generally won't have time to draw a knife or otherwise sound an alarm.

About the only armour that would protect against this would be some form of rigid neck protection (padding wouldn't help), which I don't think is too common these days outside of bomb suits.

With details like slitting throats quietly... yeah, not sure if you can pull that off reliably with some technique and a lot of experience, or if it's just quite random.

Depends on the training. I vaguely remember this coming up in an earlier version of this thread and reiterating what a Royal Marine told me, you use the tip of the knife into the side of the neck, ripping out the front through all the structures in the neck (muscles, blood vessels, windpipe potentially).
Typically, you grab hold of their mouth and restrain them while they die.

[Incanur]

I think it depends on what kind of characters you're talking about. Any hero bleeding into superhuman territory shouldn't have that much trouble achieving stealth kills. In World War II, Blair Mayne supposedly knifed seventeen Axis sentries in a single night. It strikes me as plausible for fantasy hero/champion to quietly murder as many mundanes as desired. Hitting the brain stem or severing the spine makes for an instant stop. Also blood chokes.

For an alternative method, Jack Churchill supposedly captured forty-two German guards in one night by sneaking up on them and threatening them with his sword.

[warty goblin]

Depends on the training. I vaguely remember this coming up in an earlier version of this thread and reiterating what a Royal Marine told me, you use the tip of the knife into the side of the neck, ripping out the front through all the structures in the neck (muscles, blood vessels, windpipe potentially).
Typically, you grab hold of their mouth and restrain them while they die.

That's how you do it on a pig; push the point in going pretty much straight right at the angle of the jaw, and pull outwards. . A nice thin bladed knife helps too. On a pig, the jugular and windpipe are under a lot of meat and fat, so you have to go pretty deep, but I wouldn't think you'd need nearly the penetration on a person.

Of course if you off somebody like this, you aren't going to be able to hide the evidence. There's a truly impressive amount of blood, and it gets everywhere. Unless you're stabbing dudes in an abattoir, the next person along is going to notice the blood, whatever you do with the body.

[fusilier]

. . . (I believe London police in the nineteenth/early twentieth centuries wore thick leather neckbands precisely for this purpose). . . .

Yes, they wore leather neck stocks, sometimes referred to as "anti-garrote" collars. Not terribly comfortable.

There's a mention in a GURPS book (which are often crammed full of interesting things like this), about two jugulars in the throat, which can be collapsed pretty easily, and cause a loss of consciousness very quickly, as it will cut off blood flow to the brain. Likewise releasing them will cause the person to recover very quickly as well. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chokehold#Blood_choke

(I think this may also bee known as a "sleeper hold")

[Mr Beer]

I once read a very interesting book on hand to hand combat in 20th century wars, crammed full of sentry murdering anecdotes.

Apparently non-strategic night time trench raids occurred in WWI; commanders would gather up a small group of volunteers (consisting of the more aggressive soldiers) and send them out with little more than a bunch of weapons and the promise a decent ration of rum on their return. One of the guys discussed regularly led trench raids and sounded like a stone cold sociopath, he basically loved murdering people up close and personal. Makes you kind of hope he got fatally shot on the last day of the war.

Throat slitting-wise, reading non-fiction by the ex-SAS soldier Andy McNabb (who is not without controversy as a factual source), I get the impression commandos are encouraged to use a brutally enthusiastic sawing motion and not stop until the enemy is semi-decpitated rather quickly slicing once across the neck.

[Mr. Mask]

Another problem I see in stealth games, is the enemy tendency to stand right by a wall, and stare at it. Or, patrol routes in general designed to make them easy to kill while accomplishing little, generally.

This is because stealth is hard, in reality and in games. Of course, eyesight tends to be even better than it is in games, which usually have enemies who are legally blind.

Generally, if someone is looking your way, with no obstructions--unless you can come around, there's no way to sneak up to them. The best you could do is have really great camouflage, and inch forward with a stealth-crawl, which could take hours--and that's often how professionals tend to handles those situations, I'd say?


Beer: No kill like overkill.

[warty goblin]

Another problem I see in stealth games, is the enemy tendency to stand right by a wall, and stare at it. Or, patrol routes in general designed to make them easy to kill while accomplishing little, generally.

This is because stealth is hard, in reality and in games. Of course, eyesight tends to be even better than it is in games, which usually have enemies who are legally blind.

The big thing is that the AI in games never loses its cool sufficiently. I mean I'd think that after multiple patrols fail to check in on account of being dead or unconscious and stuffed into a closet, somebody's gonna get a mite suspicious and sound the alarm. But no, Bob the Guard will continue his route as per usual, never mind that he didn't rendezvous with Bill, Jack, other Bob, Steve or Tommy, like he has every night for the last three years.

Stealth, like most videogame systems is really just meant to make the player feel like an all-conquering badass, without anywhere near the difficulty of actually being an all-conquering badass.

Also, while we're having stupidly easy to neutralize AI, could we cut down on the long, tedious conversations they have before I can neutralize them? If I wanted to listen to people read off worldbuilding minutia, I'd get an audiobook of the Silmarillion.

[Mr. Mask]

The new Batman games are part of the way to simulating that. Of course, that isn't because their friend isn't reporting in, so much as Joker lets everyone know when batman has taken out a guard (their terror levels increasing as you go).

Would love to see a game where, if you take out a couple of guards then wait, the remaining ones will at first not notice, but then say, "...Hey, where's Fred?"
"He was here a minute ago..."
"Hey! Fred!"
"Where is he?"

After that, they might get suspicious and start patrolling, or might just put it to him relieving himself, or suffering from dysentery again or something.


Notably, the guard conversations are worse in Batman, where you can't kill anyone--even after hearing how they killed a family on thanksgiving for a bet.

[fusilier]

The big thing is that the AI in games never loses its cool sufficiently. I mean I'd think that after multiple patrols fail to check in on account of being dead or unconscious and stuffed into a closet, somebody's gonna get a mite suspicious and sound the alarm. But no, Bob the Guard will continue his route as per usual, never mind that he didn't rendezvous with Bill, Jack, other Bob, Steve or Tommy, like he has every night for the last three years.

Right. If any sentry fails to check in, then the sergeant or officer of the guard is going to raise a general alarm and turn out the whole guard. A proper guard system is not simply a bunch of sentries at their posts -- there's officers and NCO's making rounds checking up on them, and a reserve. Also, the guard is changed from time-to-time. How much time there is between all these things varies, but if you start killing guards just before the relief shows up an alarm is going to be sounded very quickly. Observing the routines and rotations is time consuming, and I would imagine has its own risks of discovery.

[Mr. Mask]

Even without the officers, if it's just some goons hired to wait around and be killed by the hero--they would notice if their friends weren't there for an extended period.

[Brother Oni]

One of the guys discussed regularly led trench raids and sounded like a stone cold sociopath, he basically loved murdering people up close and personal. Makes you kind of hope he got fatally shot on the last day of the war.

To be honest, the army in the middle of a war is probably where you want people like that.
While he probably was a sociopath, many otherwise normal soldiers are often very enthusiastic about engaging the enemy as a result of their training, which can be mistaken for sociopathy.

An example of this would be the recent conflicts - if a US Army led convoy was hit by an ambush, they would focus on breaking through and getting clear of the area. If it were a USMC led convoy, they would generally dismount and go kill the enemy instead.

The new Batman games are part of the way to simulating that. Of course, that isn't because their friend isn't reporting in, so much as Joker lets everyone know when batman has taken out a guard (their terror levels increasing as you go).

Actually the old Syphon Filter games (at least the one I played) also mimics that to a degree. As you screw up and get spotted, the guards go to a higher and higher alert status, making them more likely to investigate suspicious noises, be more alert and more willing to open fire.

The game also upgrades their weapons and armour with each alert status upgrade, which is one way of compensating for poor AI and raising the stakes of screwing up again.

Some other non-stealth focused games handle stealth quite well - the first Ghost Recon, ARMA series and the first Deus Ex games. If you screw up and get spotted, the enemies are on high alert throughout (GR is especially annoying since their detection range is higher than the view distance without modding).
Incidentally the second Deus Ex game is an excellent example of superhuman characters performing feasible stealth kills.

I do think different AIs is a good way of demonstrating the differences between training and organisation - a bunch of recently released criminals would handle things differently compared to soldiers.

[Avilan the Grey]

Without being even remotely truly knowledgeable on the subject, I do find it good that the knowledge of european medieval hand to hand combat is increasing among people.

A few summer ago during a fair there was a serious group that demonstrated, during a 2 hour long demo, different one-on-one attacks with different weapons... It was very nice to see someone using a buckler as it should, for example, and the showcase of about 12 different dagger designs, small hand axes and so on.

I want more of that!

(Yes I know, not a question, but it seemed to be the appropiate thread for the comment anyway).

[Mr. Mask]

One thing to consider with stealth in tabletop games, is that some of it relies on the GM's knowledge of military procedure for a potential infiltration. They also have to consider how much information the NPCs have about the situation.

If they've found out some of their scouts and sentries are dead, they might mistake that as a sign that an enemy force is going to raid them (and that the force's scouts have killed their sentries and scouts). Procedure then would be to consolidate your forces, send out more scouts, and sentries, and prepare for an attack till you work out what's going on. However, if they worked out its a small group of infiltrators... procedure would be to fan out, find them, then surround, capture, and torture them for information.

I think a section which gives the GM some tips of military procedure to infiltration and sentry duty would be very helpful for making a stealth system work, for tabletop games.

[Avilan the Grey]

Stealth in computer games, unless done magically or technologically (Cloaking) tends to be unrealistic even compared to tabletop games. The biggest reason is that it is very hard to visualize what the character is actually doing; in a tabletop RPG you can together with the GM / DM decide "I'm trying to stay in the shadows, keeping out of the moonlight, and I won't leave this hiding place until the guard is distracted.

In a computer game it is much easier to just go "Poof!" he is invisible! Because... the rules says so.

Another thing of course is that "stealth" doesn't have to mean "invisible and not heard at all" it might just mean "don't draw attention to yourself". It doesn't matter if you make a sound killing someone, if that sound, in itself, isn't heard or isn't rousing suspicion. It is far more important to hide the body before someone stumbles over it, I think.