Originally posted by: Michael
alkemyst - You have 2 decades experience of actually fighting in armor with weapons to back up your theory? The fact that you think an unarmed man has a decent chance against an armed one shows a real lack of experience. If that were the case, the serious study during the time that swords were the high technology would have been unarmed combat. 100% of the top level martial artists I've ever talked to admit that. They're confident in their training and know that their training at least gives them a chance, but the odds aren;t that good.
no need to take this personal...you do know that most martial arts are taught to fight the armed while unarmed...usually we are dealing in knife and gun or a club. Like I also said before masters of weaponry>masters of unarmed combat>most SCA practicers...you are dicing my words. What I said was a Martial Arts/Unarmed fighting master could take out the common soldier whether he was armed and armored or not.....now a professional soldier/master of swordsmanship or whatever weapon he was wielding, would have an advantage. The fact is during medieval times most soldiers were outfitted in not much and sent out like dogs to fight in the front lines and thin out the masses a little....the higher ups only came in after that fact most of the time and they were the ones with the nice weaponry and armor. Duels were about the only times the upper class ended up getting into it. There were exceptions of course.
I've met plenty of clowns in the SCA. The worst have been the ones that have some theory that karate or kung-fu or such would allow them to defeat an armored knight in single combat. Like I said, we did a demo at a full contact black-belt camp and stood there and took full force blows which did nothing other than hurt the hands, feet, and other limbs that were hitting us. It only takes one hit with a sword and the fights over. They were surprised that the way we threw blows with our swords made them much harder to block thatn they thought and were very surprised how fast our cominations of blows were. They had an image that the sword would be held in front of us when it is usually shoulder or head level and behind our shields.
K now I have no idea what black belt camp you took on...for one it's unlikely that a pairing would ever happen yet alone by a major school.
Are you talking of giving them free shots at your armor? of course they will lose targeting your plate...what about your throat, or joints or head?
Those black belts must have been clueless about the sword stuff since most martial arts teach the same 'gates' a swordsman uses and those are where attacks come from. Regardless a sword will only do damage if it hits and you keep it in your grasp. Likewise, not all sword strikes end a fight.
We did work on a few things that could be done. If a joint could be attacked with a hold or some sort of jam (knees and elbows are open to holds that lever and break or strain the area), then the fight would quickly change. The problem was getting by a shield bash and not getting hit by the sword.
It actually was a fun experience with lots of swapping of data and technic.
Again you are talking of retaining your weapon and shield....the first goal before engaging you is to remove the weapon/shield...hell get a big rock and bean you...helmets have never been created to withstand a direct hit ... they are a last resort to keep you alive. This can be verifed in any armor book about helmets....probably with the caption 'if your enemy doesn't slit your throat while knocked out, you will fight again' I will repeat this too, a helmet was never designed to withstand a direct blow other than keeping the wearer at least alive...more than likely he would be knocked out through concussion/shock/whiplash.
You'll have to define "hammer" to me. If you're talking about the ones with a flatish striking head and a spike on the other side, then I know what you're considering. Again - look at the evidence. Across Western and Eastern cultures the sword was considerd to be the weapon of choice. If the others were so good, they would have replaced it. And, yes, if I stood there like an idiot and just let you bash me, I'd have a great chance of being at least knocked out. I've actually swung that type of weapon (a real one, like I've used real swords enough times). The balance is horrible and I'd much rather have a sword. In a melee, a couple of guys with hammers to bash the guys I freeze in place with sword and shield would be great.
Any hammer, but a pike or a mace with a spike will be a good tool. I don't know what periods you are talking about either...however swords quickly stopped being edge based and more clubbing based with the advent of armor....along with other weapons better suited to pierce armor or simply smite the person inside it. You are also assuming a huge war hammer...all you need is a 3 foot or less hammer with about a 6"+ spike. Very quick attack speed.
You also have a poor understanding of why armor faded away. It wasn't arrows and bolts. Longbow men took tons of training and croosbows were slow. Armor still did a somewhat decent job against them. A combination of gunpowder weapons and pikes in the hands of people with much less training but lots more numbers did the knights in. Charging a pike wall was a disaster and bullets could pierce plate.
Michael
I mentioned pikes and also arrows and bolts. Regardless of there speed they had range. So maybe it took 10 seconds for each round to be fired....how far away can they hit you? how fast can you run over other's falling in front of you? they can also use catapults etc at range....
Guns were the last straw of armor and later swords, although swords still were used close quarters for a long time and evolved back into cutting rather than bashing weapons until quickly reloading became common.