Armour & weapon designs - a plea (part III).

[Merlkir]

 

But hard dried wood, that's in someones hand, not stationary, and the somebody doesn't try to help me? Can't see how that works.

 

Pretty much this. We tried it while drunk once. Ouch.

[Woldan]

 

 

But hard dried wood, that's in someones hand, not stationary, and the somebody doesn't try to help me? Can't see how that works.

 

Pretty much this. We tried it while drunk once. Ouch.

 

Perfect testing conditions.    

[Kubilayhan]

Do not forget that the weapons were created to deal a killing blow, not blocking. Most of the time, soldiers used their footwork to evade the attack. Take a knife and hit against a hard object about 5 mins. Now you have a piece of steel ingot in your hands. If you keep blocking throughout the whole battle your weapon would break, crack, bend... etc. It's not a shield. They say the spear is the grandfather of all weapons. We still use the same concept today with the bayonets. So we can say that it's a very basic and practical weapon, even today. 

Instead of blocking the enemy attack with the weapon, you can side step and hit the guys hand or the sides of his weapon, which causes most weapons to break or bend.

[Spiritofpower]

Yeah, in almost every type of melee combat you see that doesn't use a shield, the defensive positions are designed to deflect blows, not stop them. Because, keep in mind, even if you've got a magic invincible weapon, that's a lot of force you've gotta put a stop to. No way are you gonna pull that off very easily. Far better to redirect the blow and possibly unbalance them in the process, no?

 

Also, on the subject of poleaxes, it occurred to me that one could very easily do something like this with it:

 

 

But, y'know, with a poleaxe instead of a war scythe-thing. As in, you replace the spike at the bottom (or at the top, whichever you prefer) with a magical focus of some sort so that, for fighter/mage types, you can quickly switch to throwing around lightning or whatever when you need to.

[centurionofprix]

 

Wooden shafts are eeeasy to cut with a bladed weapon, I used to cut down small trees approx the diameter of a human wrist with ONE thrust of my machete. I think it would be rather easy to cut a pollaxe shaft with a great sword.

 

The type of wood matters, as does the fact that wood (like bone) is much easier to cut when it's alive.

 

The crucial thing, however, is that while a tree will politely wait to be cut down, one will be slain very quickly by a competent fighter with a polearm if one tries to fight his weapon. He'll evade the attempt and stick one without ever being threatened himself.

 

(As for whether it would be easier with a great sword - would it, actually? A machete has a lot of weight behind the cutting surface. A sword is usually much lighter in the blade towards the point. I'm not sure of the physics of it, but the machete might even have the advantage at cutting small trees - it's all equally hopeless against actual polearms though.)

 

 

And they also break.

 

I already broke a 5cm wide fireaxe shaft when splitting some firewood, I missed the log, did not hit it with the blade but with the shaft instead, right below the head.

Even though it has a metal protection there the shaft snapped in two. Replace the log with a blunt weapon and you'd get the same result. And thats just a two handed axe, imagine the leverage effect with a shaft three times longer with a head 50% heavier.

 

This happens, but it's because the heavy head carries a great deal of momentum while the rest of the axe is very suddenly stopped against the completely unyielding surface of the log at a single point along the shaft. The physical event of another weapon hitting the shaft of the axe when there is some give to both weapons and when the angle of the impact isn't perfectly perpendicular (which it won't be unless the other combatant co-operates to bash his weapon together with yours at the ideal angle for some reason...) simply isn't the same; the brief moment when the head of the axe wants to keep going with all its momentum while the rest of the weapon comes to a sudden dead stop, and the sudden force this exerts on the shaft, just don't occur.

 

(this description of the physics of the thing is NOT scientific, as you may have gathered, but I hope the point makes sense)

 

You also do not wield a weapon with a shaft three times longer and a head 50% heavier with overhead swings, holding it by the furthest point of the shaft.

 

 

Mass inertia. When you just hit hard and fast enough it doesn't matter if the heavy polearm is held by someone or resting on two bricks. Also, with an overhead blow the polearm is going to hit the ground if the sword cant make it through it and the mass of the sword will still break or damage it.

No frickin way mahn. A two-handed sword weighs two and a half to six pounds, or a little more for the very large ones, and most of that weight is not near the point. It will not break a decent polearm in this fashion - more likely that the sword itself would be damaged (assuming that the person with the polearm would allow this scenario to happen in the first place).

Edited May 27, 2013 by centurionofprix

[Woldan]

The type of wood matters, as does the fact that wood (like bone) is much easier to cut when it's alive.

But wood thats alive will not snap as easily as completely dead, dry wood. And wood never really dies unless you let it rot, you still have to take care of it that it does not get too dry and loses its flexibility with oil and various other products. I repaired many WWI and WWII rifle stocks over the years, really dry wood has a tendency to split and crack on its own.

So you better not wield a polearm that has a ''dead'' wooden shaft.

The physical event of another weapon hitting the shaft of the axe when there is some give to both weapons and when the angle of the impact isn't perfectly perpendicular (which it won't be unless the other combatant co-operates to bash his weapon together with yours at the ideal angle for some reason...) simply isn't the same; the brief moment when the head of the axe wants to keep going with all its momentum while the rest of the weapon comes to a sudden dead stop, and the sudden force this exerts on the shaft, just don't occur.

You're TOTALLY underestimating mass inertia.

No frickin way mahn. A two-handed sword weighs two and a half to six pounds, or a little more for the very large ones, and most of that weight is not near the point. It will not break a decent polearm in this fashion - more likely that the sword itself would be damaged (assuming that the person with the polearm would allow this scenario to happen in the first place).

You must be joking. Said swords were able to cut off a leg in a single blow. What is a leg made off? Layers of tough muscle and 5cm wide very tough (shin) bone. Said weapon would have no problem at all to make it through a comparetively little piece of hardwood, or break it.

 

If you really think that a two handed greatsword wielded by a guy who knows what hes doing does not make it through 5cm wooden shaft with a powerful overhead blow you have probably never swung a greatsword to begin with. I did, and I tell you, a greatsword has an awful lot of force behind it, it can cut far tougher stuff than a little piece of wood.

In fact, that was the main task of the Doppelsöldner in the 30 year war, Landsknechts that had the dangerous task to engage and destroy pikemen formations and they indeed smashed and cut their pikes with their zweihänder.

 

Heck, I have a bastard sword, if I ever find a wooden shaft similar to those on polearms I'll let it hold by someone and cut it through with one hit of my sword, I promise.

Edited May 27, 2013 by Woldan

[Merlkir]

Yeah, do that. Don't forget to have the other person fight you with it. Get someone who knows how to use a polearm. Also post pictures of the hacked up bloody corpse. )

Edited May 27, 2013 by Merlkir

[Jarmo]

 

Heck, I have a bastard sword, if I ever find a wooden shaft similar to those on polearms I'll let it hold by someone and cut it through with one hit of my sword, I promise.

 

 

Do actually, and put on youtube. Start with 1 cm light spear pole and move up if that works.

I'd love to know if it can be done. I'm leaning on sceptisism but I'd love to know.

 

I have a new theory which says 2-h swordman would swipe at the pikes swaying them aside,

then quick step forwards inside the pikes practical range, followed by reverse swipe at the pikemen.

 

Chaos, mayhem, casualties, formation broken. Not necessary to break the pikes.

As for, why use zweihander instead of say, halberd, I don't know. Something.

Maybe a combination of durability and the ability to slash with all parts of the blade,

meaning you can step inside halberds range?

[centurionofprix]

  But wood thats alive will not snap as easily as completely dead, dry wood. And wood never really dies unless you let it rot, you still have to take care of it that it does not get too dry and loses its flexibility with oil and various other products. I repaired many WWI and WWII rifle stocks over the years, really dry wood has a tendency to split and crack on its own.

    So you better not wield a polearm that has a ''dead'' wooden shaft.

True, but properly seasoned wood is tougher than greenwood.

 

 

The physical event of another weapon hitting the shaft of the axe when there is some give to both weapons and when the angle of the impact isn't perfectly perpendicular (which it won't be unless the other combatant co-operates to bash his weapon together with yours at the ideal angle for some reason...) simply isn't the same; the brief moment when the head of the axe wants to keep going with all its momentum while the rest of the weapon comes to a sudden dead stop, and the sudden force this exerts on the shaft, just don't occur.

You're TOTALLY underestimating mass inertia.

I don't even know what "mass inertia" is! In any case, it doesn't prevent an axe from being used to fell an entire tree, for example. Again, the axe example isn't quite equivalent to combat polearms, but since it was brought up, I imagine repeated full blows to a (near) dead stop against a tree to be more strenuous in terms of impact than anything encountered in a fight.

 

You must be joking. Said swords were able to cut off a leg in a single blow. What is a leg made off? Layers of tough muscle and 5cm wide very tough (shin) bone. Said weapon would have no problem at all to make it through a comparetively little piece of hardwood, or break it.

Cutting flesh and living bone is a completely different enterprise from cutting seasoned wood. More so with seasoned wood in the hands of someone who is trying to skewer/whack you with it and not to allow their weapon to get knocked around.

 

A number of treatises on fencing with swords and polearms, written when the weapons were still used in combat, survive to this day. Many discuss fighting against polearms with swords, but I don't think there is one that presents cutting the polearm as a viable tactic. If the considerable difficulty of fighting polearms would be so easily solved, or even potentially solved in this manner, one would expect them to mention it.

 

In fact, that was the main task of the Doppelsöldner in the 30 year war, Landsknechts that had the dangerous task to engage and destroy pikemen formations and they indeed smashed and cut their pikes with their zweihänder.

The precise role of the Doppelsöldner with two-handed sword in fighting pikemen is debated (see the links below - there are even some experiments). If the aim was to cut the pikes, why do you reckon they used big zweihänders in the thick of the combat between tightly packed pike lines? A weapon more manouverable and able to pick up speed in small spaces (like the Katzbalger they also carried, incidentally) would be better for hacking at pike shafts, and would even allow them to wield shields or bucklers for protection from the pikes. That they broke the lines of pikemen rather than the actual pikes seems more plausible, and suggests some interesting uses for those hooks they put in front of the ricasso on Zweihänders and not on other swords.

 

http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=16442&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?29225-Zweihander

 

Breaking pikes (if it be possible) is a bit of an exception anyway in comparison to other polearms, because they were very long and often also tapered towards the point to make them more wieldy. It doesn't follow that you can break an eight foot quarterstaff or bill if you can break a twenty-foot pike when its wielder is stuck in place in formation.

 

Heck, I have a bastard sword, if I ever find a wooden shaft similar to those on polearms I'll let it hold by someone and cut it through with one hit of my sword, I promise.

To make the experiment more enlightening, give the staff to someone who knows how to use it and have him manouver around your blow and whack you upside the head every time you try.

 

Edit: Cunty sniping aside, as Jarmo writes, you really should go for it if you do get your hands on some seasoned ash or such, and don't mind potentially ruining your sword. But you ought to do the other experiment as well, and see how readily you can make full blows against someone holding the polearm in a combat posture, and especially one who sticks you with the weapon when you're busy trying to knock it around. The movement to go under and around an overhead blow aimed at the weapon is very small.

Edited May 28, 2013 by centurionofprix

[Woldan]

Cutting flesh and living bone is a completely different enterprise from cutting seasoned wood. More so with seasoned wood in the hands of someone who is trying to skewer/whack you with it and not to allow their weapon to get knocked around.

If you really think that weapon that can easily cut off a leg - the body part where the strongest bones in the human body are located- can't cut or damage a wooden shaft twice the thickness of your thumb......then you really have no clue about the density and strength of wood. 

 

 

I imagine repeated full blows to a (near) dead stop against a tree to be more strenuous in terms of impact than anything encountered in a fight.

You are seriously saying that hitting stationary wood does more damage to a wooden shaft than a razor sharp steel blade hitting said shaft at ~70 km/h? 

 

 

If the considerable difficulty of fighting polearms would be so easily solved, or even potentially solved in this manner, you'd think they would mention it.

I don't think it was easy, probably nothing was easy when fighting in meele combat. And what book are we talking about? Just because this particular book doesn't mention this tactic doesn't mean it never existed. Different books show vastly different fighting techniques. 

 

 

I don't even know what "mass inertia" is!

Wiki: 

''Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by applied forces. Inertia comes from the Latin word, iners, meaning idle, or lazy. ''

When someone is holding a wooden shaft in his hands its more likely that a blade cuts the heavier shaft because it does not move as easily as the lighter piece of wood and offers more resistance. Its possible to cut or damage a heavy polearm even when its not resting on a solid object so that it cant move. 

 

 

A weapon more manouverable in small spaces (like the Katzbalger they also carried, incidentally) would be better for hacking at pike shafts, and would even allow them to wield shields or bucklers.

Because the Greatswords had more reach and more importantly a LOT of cutting power. Sounds perfect for this particular task. The Katzbalger was a backup weapon. 

Edited May 28, 2013 by Woldan

[Elerond]

Gimli's Bearded Axe out of Damascus steel.

 

Smith has also other nice videos where he makes weapons from different fantasy films and series, but I think this is probably best as he show how Damascus steel is made.

[Merlkir]

Pattern-welded steel, remember. There are other great videos on that subject, just look in the related videos bar.

[J.E. Sawyer]

In our lore right now, we have several grades of steel that are used in making metal armor and weapons.  The most basic is Oromi, which we describe as having a case-hardened appearance.  It is pretty bad steel and typically not used by anyone with any significant money.  Wyflan steel is common and has a pattern-welded appearance.  The "good stuff" is March steel, which has a modern steel appearance (consistent gray/silver).   There are grades above March steel also, though we aren't sure how many different variants we will actually be implementing, visually or mechanically.

 

We haven't yet discussed material variants for different material bases (leather, wood, etc.).

[Elerond]

Different steels are nice touch which is missing from many rpg game systems or they have quite minor role.

[Woldan]

In our lore right now, we have several grades of steel that are used in making metal armor and weapons.  The most basic is Oromi, which we describe as having a case-hardened appearance.  It is pretty bad steel and typically not used by anyone with any significant money.

Ah too bad its a low grade material, I have two rifles with case hardened receivers and I absolutely love the look on the steel.

There is also another way to give steel a colorful appearance without using chemicals or coatings, with heat coloring for example you can get deep blue and yellow-ish color variations depending on the composition of the metal. Looks great.

Pattern-welded steel, remember. There are other great videos on that subject, just look in the related videos bar.

Is pattern welded steel the same as Damascus steel? Edited May 28, 2013 by Woldan

[J.E. Sawyer]

Case-hardening is mostly done for surface protection.  The steel underneath is usually relatively soft.

[Lephys]

In our lore right now, we have several grades of steel that are used in making metal armor and weapons.

 

...

 

We haven't yet discussed material variants for different material bases (leather, wood, etc.).

 

Significant details, FTW!

 

*Approves violently* ... "I hope they can see this, because I'm doing it as hard as I can."

[PrimeJunta]

Is pattern welded steel the same as Damascus steel?

Nope. How it's made is still something of a mystery, although there have been somewhat successful efforts to reproduce the technique. It has to do with the crystalline structure of the steel, which requires specific impurities in the iron and very particular forging techniques. It's a mix of hard and soft crystals in a tight, "organic," swirly pattern. The hard crystals make the blade keep an edge, the softer ones give it tensile strength.

 

The iron used to make Damascus steel originated in India, and when the mines ran out the techniques of the smiths in Damascus stopped working and were lost. Modern metallurgists have attempted to reproduce it with variable success. (We can make better steels nowadays though, but for the day and age it was something exceptional.)

[Merlkir]

 

(We can make better steels nowadays though, but for the day and age it was something exceptional.)

 

Yes, this.

 

Damascus steel has been a legend in its time, but the magical tales spun even today about its qualities are ridiculous. PJ explained what Damascus most likely was very well.

 

Pattern welded steel on the other hand is what the guy made in the video - you take bars of different properties and weld them together in a forge, twisting and layering them to make a pattern. It used to be believed that this created a sandwich of layers with different properties, a composite material. In reality, the metal becomes more or less homogenous in features other than appearance.

 

It used to be top technology from about 400 BCE (in Europe) to 900-ish CE. It was replaced by other techniques, because it's quite a complex and difficult process and it makes swords very expensive. Smiths learnt how to make swords cheaper and just as good from homogenous steel, later even better than that.

 

Getting back to real Damascus - here's an excellent video series by a smith attempting to make wootz (and you can see it's not so easy to get it the first time. Wootz is in its properties closer to cast iron, it's difficult to hammer without breaking at first right after blooming.)

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

It really ruins the mythology of historical metallurgy but yeah, even relatively low-grade chromoly made any ol' place today is much more consistent and workable than the best stuff from ages past.  Today, we can control heat to such a precise degree and we can refine ore so well that it's pretty easy to make and shape good alloys.

 

Still, even metals of the 20th century that weren't practically available in Olden Tymes (aluminum, titanium) can't compare to good steel when it comes to making weapons and armor.  As the old timer cyclists like to say, steel is real.

[Merlkir]

A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with a friend who writes cyberpunk novels. He was wondering when we're finally going to come up with superior swords made of titanium, carbon fiber or another futuristic material. 

 

My reaction ended up a bit disappointing, but it doesn't seem like there's any need for that. Steel has pretty much an ideal combination of weight, hardness, flexibility and the ability to hold an edge. There's not much point in making swords lighter, or more bendy and harder materials are usually also more brittle. Possibly some kind of composite could be overall better, but I'm not sure how far that kind of technology is, especially considering we don't need swords very often.

 

(except for soldiers wearing "tactical" swords to combat in Afghanistan, which is apparently a thing. I was surprised to hear that.)

 

Maybe when we finally build an army of cyborgs, massive (yet light) swords for cutting up enemy cyborgs might become handy. Until then, steel is indeed real.

 

edit: I don't envy anyone who has to come up with fictional metals. :D "Well, it's just...better than steel in all aspects, you know? Magic!"

Edited May 29, 2013 by Merlkir

[centurionofprix]

Folding/pattern welding does have the advantage of spreading any impurities evenly across the blade when working with inconsistent steel, as the Japanese and early middle ages Europeans did. Incidentally, smiths from both cultures also developed means of combinging the beneficial qualities of hard but brittle and soft but resilient steels, the Japanese through differential heat treating and the Europeans by welding harder edges onto a softer spine. It's a good look on Viking swords:

 

 

 

 

(I've seen it speculated that wootz actually has the advantage of microserrations naturally forming along the edge of the blade, making it (theoretically) better at cutting light targets than ordinary steel. Whether this is true, and whether it would make any practical difference with weapons so outrageously good at carving up flesh to begin with, I don't know.)

 

It really ruins the mythology of historical metallurgy but yeah, even relatively low-grade chromoly made any ol' place today is much more consistent and workable than the best stuff from ages past.  Today, we can control heat to such a precise degree and we can refine ore so well that it's pretty easy to make and shape good alloys.

At the same time, it turns out that some surviving historical pieces compare favourably to the best of modern reproductions, if not in terms of metallurgy, then in the qualities of handling, thinness and construction. There is a mystique to the historical process yet.

Edited May 29, 2013 by centurionofprix

[centurionofprix]

 Cutting flesh and living bone is a completely different enterprise from cutting seasoned wood. More so with seasoned wood in the hands of someone who is trying to skewer/whack you with it and not to allow their weapon to get knocked around.

If you really think that weapon that can easily cut off a leg - the body part where the strongest bones in the human body are located- can't cut or damage a wooden shaft twice the thickness of your thumb......then you really have no clue about the density and strength of wood.

Perhaps you are underestimating the toughness of wood. One can't really draw a cut on a polearm like one does on flesh, either. The steel langets with which many polearm shafts were reinforced are also apt to mangle a sword that insists on bashing them.

 

Still, the crucial thing is that a competent person with a polearm will not simply hold the weapon there to be struck, but manouver around one's attack (to go under and around an overhead blow aimed at the weapon is a trifle) and take the opportunity to stick one from the comfort of distance while one is trying to chase their weapon.

 

A beat to push the polearm aside is possible, though still very difficult against a vigilant opponent with backwards and lateral movement at his disposal. Landing a full blow is a still different thing.

 

You are seriously saying that hitting stationary wood does more damage to a wooden shaft than a razor sharp steel blade hitting said shaft at ~70 km/h?

In terms of "blunt" impact, which you mentioned as another cause of breakage in the part to which I was replying.

I don't think it was easy, probably nothing was easy when fighting in meele combat. And what book are we talking about? Just because this particular book doesn't mention this tactic doesn't mean it never existed. Different books show vastly different fighting techniques.

Several discuss fighting against polearms with swords, but I haven't seen any that depict cutting polearms as a viable tactic. Off the top of my head, Silver talks about it, and gives a considerable advantage to a long quarterstaff/bill without mentioning cutting or breaking. Fiore and Gladiatoria have some plates on sword against spear, but no cutting or breaking the polearm with the sword is depicted AFAIK. If destroying the polearm was a potentially effective tactic, one would imagine it to be mentioned (unless you have an example?).

When someone is holding a wooden shaft in his hands its more likely that a blade cuts the heavier shaft because it does not move as easily as the lighter piece of wood and offers more resistance. Its possible to cut or damage a heavy polearm even when its not resting on a solid object so that it cant move.

Assuming the change in inertia is great enough, not caused by the presence of metal langets, and the person holds the polearm in place for a full blow to hit it in the first place.

Because the Greatswords had more reach and more importantly a LOT of cutting power. Sounds perfect for this particular task. The Katzbalger was a backup weapon.

Generating a lot of cutting power with a six foot sword in a tightly packed pike formation seems like a tricky proposal. Hacking attacks with the Katzbalger would (intuitively, FWIW) seem more suited to the task of cutting (requiring a fast movement) rather than pushing aside the pikes if that indeed was the Doppelsöldner's task. Since they chose to use the two-handed sword in that tightly packed situation, while presumably not beheading their own soldiers, not getting their swords tangled up in the pikes, and not getting skewered by the several ranks of pikemen on the other side, I imagine their job was slightly different from dealing full blows against the pikes - perhaps knocking/pushing the pikes around with the hooks on the ricasso, or attacking the flank of the pike formation where there is space for the full blows of the two-hander, or guarding the ensign as DiGrassi is quoted as writing in one of the discussions linked earlier.

Edited May 30, 2013 by centurionofprix

[Karranthain]

Really enjoying the discussion in this topic.

 

But I thought that it's high time to add some plumes to the pot :

 

 

 

[Merlkir]

Folding/pattern welding does have the advantage of spreading any impurities evenly across the blade when working with inconsistent steel, as the Japanese and early middle ages Europeans did. Incidentally, smiths from both cultures also developed means of combinging the beneficial qualities of hard but brittle and soft but resilient steels, the Japanese through differential heat treating and the Europeans by welding harder edges onto a softer spine. It's a good look on Viking swords:

 

 

 

 

 

That's a curious image to illustrate your post, you can't see the blade. :D The hilt itself is not pattern welded, that's all (silver I'd guess) inlay.