Weapons and Warfare

Aaron
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

Post by Aaron »

Atekimogus wrote:This looked interesting and so I searched and found a bit of the episode with the spartan vs samurai on youtube and....I am the only one who found all this a bit ridiculous? The spartan for instance fought more like a guy from 300 than an actual spartan and I do doubt he was wearing a 60 pound bronze armour.

Also I am not sure if you can really measure a warrior trained to fight in a coherent unit in single combat against a samurai. But I admit I haven't seen the whole episode, so maybe I missed the more reasonable looking stuff.
I'm not sure this show ought to be considered authorative on anything, especially if this the one that airs on Spike TV.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

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Cpl Kendall wrote:I'm not sure this show ought to be considered authorative on anything, especially if this the one that airs on Spike TV.
Of course not, which is why we discuss it here. To praise their rights and destroy their very souls over their wrongs. You know, pro's and con's.
Atekimogus wrote:Well I wasn't aware of that. When thinking of highly skilled pre-gunpowder warriors one would naturally think of knights and samurai, those where mighty solo fighters altough sometimes with rather poor discipline (with numerous instances of glory-hungry knights charging to their death against orders during the 100 year war).
Knights were of a different matter. Often times, Knights were concerned with glory and honor and money. Being the first into battle meant your King would give you a far greater pay out. This is the very attitude that the Spartans stood against.
Atekimogus wrote:Thinking of spartan hoplites I would rather picture highly disciplined soldiers (not warriors) who are only really effective in their unit since the heavy armor, the overly large shield and long spear are not really designed for one on one fights.
A soldier is just a professional warrior. Someone who lives his life to fight for his country. In a one on one fight, a Spartan has a four foot round metal shield that his enemy has to get passed. He's trained his whole life to use the weapons he has. A spear in fact is a good medium reach weapon when used well. In the show, we see its effect on the human (gel) body. The fact that this man who has trained to fight hordes of enemies now only has to focus on one... This is an advantage, not disadvantage.
Atekimogus wrote:Now I am by no means an expert but to me it is like comparing one british longbowmen to one knight and asking which one is deadlier. It is pretty pointless since one unit is just not designed to fight on its own but is extremly deadly en masse.
If that long bowman starts at one hundred yards with armor piercing arrows and sticks on in the Knight's horse while at full gallop... The battle changes very quickly. Every warrior has an advantage over another. Its just not always the warrior he's fighting.
Atekimogus wrote:The hoplite fought as a phalanx and got slaughtered in melee (like the battle of pydna) so for a meaningful comparison they should deploy them in a setting they were designed to fight in, but then simulating how a 10000 men strong phalanx would have fared against a similar size samurai force is probably to much of a stretch since then you would have to factor in terrain, tactics etc. .
Those weren't Spartan's, they were lesser Greeks who were out flanked by their enemy. Head on, which is the case in a one on one battle, the Romans were unable to break the Greek formation.
Atekimogus wrote:That said, if one insists on comparing pre-gunpowder fighters one on one I am not sure I would dare to declare a clear winner, be it knight, samurai, spartan, viking etc. to much would depend on the individual imho.
You can't declare a perfect winner. One of the best things about the show is that they say that much right out. That's the very reason they do a thousand battles in their computer. The law of averages helps even everything out. Even then, they say there is a 5% margin of error.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

Post by Sionnach Glic »

Cpl Kendall wrote:
Atekimogus wrote:This looked interesting and so I searched and found a bit of the episode with the spartan vs samurai on youtube and....I am the only one who found all this a bit ridiculous? The spartan for instance fought more like a guy from 300 than an actual spartan and I do doubt he was wearing a 60 pound bronze armour.

Also I am not sure if you can really measure a warrior trained to fight in a coherent unit in single combat against a samurai. But I admit I haven't seen the whole episode, so maybe I missed the more reasonable looking stuff.
I'm not sure this show ought to be considered authorative on anything, especially if this the one that airs on Spike TV.
Given that this is the show where crack IRA terrorists take on Spetznatz troops with slingshots and flamethrowers......yeah.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

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Sionnach Glic wrote:Given that this is the show where crack IRA terrorists take on Spetznatz troops with slingshots and flamethrowers......yeah.
Can't be to far off since the IRA got itself stomped.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

Post by Mark »

It is what it is. You can't measure the paticular talent of individual warriors. Match up the gear and its effects, factor in the X factor as best you can, and go from there.

That said, how the hell did the IRA make 3 kills with a slingshot???
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

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Was it that he killed someone with that or that hits from the sling were enough to cause death by another matter.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

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No clue.....just noticed that the slingshot had racked up three kills out of the thousand battles. Would a hit leading to a death count? I'd guess only a killing blow would.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

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Well, the computer fired the thing a thousand times. Not to hard to believe that ONLY three shots worked.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

Post by Aaron »

Mark wrote:It is what it is. You can't measure the paticular talent of individual warriors. Match up the gear and its effects, factor in the X factor as best you can, and go from there.

That said, how the hell did the IRA make 3 kills with a slingshot???
Infection. Use a hunting BB or a heavy stone, remember the sling was a viable weapon for thousands of years and folks hunt with slingshots today.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

Post by Vic »

Wrist rockets are no joke, screw around with one at your peril. I would like to second Kendall's point about the sling, it has killed people for thousands of years and is quite capable of doing so today.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

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Medical tubing is an evil thing when put to the wrong purpose.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

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Atekimogus wrote:Now I am by no means an expert but to me it is like comparing one british longbowmen to one knight and asking which one is deadlier. It is pretty pointless since one unit is just not designed to fight on its own but is extremly deadly en masse.
On the contrary - the two can certainly be compared one-on-one. The issue is one of what range and what era. At long range and with early mediaeval armour, the bowman would win easily. At close range, or with the best of later armour the bowman wouldn't have a hope in hell - the knight is far better in close combat, and can almost ignore the arrows. At Agincourt for example, the major effect of the archery was to whittle away those with poor-quality armour and force the rest to advance with their visors lowered, seriously hampering their vision.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

Post by Atekimogus »

Captain Seafort wrote: On the contrary - the two can certainly be compared one-on-one. The issue is one of what range and what era. At long range and with early mediaeval armour, the bowman would win easily.
I disagree. It may sound like a no brainer but at long range, I believe the max range is about 300m, a single bowman would have extreme trouble hitting a fast moving target like a charging knight. And even if he would hit, bar of a lucky shoot of course, there is a good chance the arrow would not penetrate the armour at that range.
Captain Seafort wrote: At close range, or with the best of later armour the bowman wouldn't have a hope in hell - the knight is far better in close combat, and can almost ignore the arrows.
Once again, on the contrary. At close ranges of about 30metres + the bowman suddenly becomes much more deadly. Not only is he suddenly much more likely to hit his target but his arrows will most likely penetrete all but the most sturdy quality plate. BUT I could image that a single bowman against a single knight might well loose his nerves when he sees a ton of armoured death charging him at close range.

If you find it somewhere give weapons that made britain - longbow a try. The science behind it may be a bit meh but they do use a lot of historical examples and altough since the longbow is THE british medieaval weapon I was quite surprised that they remained relativly objective about its effectivness.

That is why I think you cannot really compare them one on one. There are numerous instances where a group of archers slaugerterd a group of knights and vice versa, mostly it came down to tactics, terrain and circumstances.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

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Atekimogus wrote:I disagree. It may sound like a no brainer but at long range, I believe the max range is about 300m, a single bowman would have extreme trouble hitting a fast moving target like a charging knight. And even if he would hit, bar of a lucky shoot of course, there is a good chance the arrow would not penetrate the armour at that range.

Once again, on the contrary. At close ranges of about 30metres + the bowman suddenly becomes much more deadly. Not only is he suddenly much more likely to hit his target but his arrows will most likely penetrete all but the most sturdy quality plate. BUT I could image that a single bowman against a single knight might well loose his nerves when he sees a ton of armoured death charging him at close range.
I think you misunderstand my definitions - when I say "close range", I'm talking about a few feet, not dozens of yards, close enough for the knight's superior skill in hand-to-hand combat to tell. While an archer would have to be extraordinary lucky to get through good armour at long range, once the range came down to less than a hundred yards the knight would be in serious trouble unless he was exceptionally wealthy, and therefore well-armoured.
That is why I think you cannot really compare them one on one. There are numerous instances where a group of archers slaugerterd a group of knights and vice versa, mostly it came down to tactics, terrain and circumstances.
Indeed - at Agincourt itself we got very lucky. If it hadn't been for the rain and French stupidity Henry's army would have been wiped out.
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Re: Weapons and Warfare

Post by Mikey »

Atekimogus wrote:I believe the max range is about 300m, a single bowman would have extreme trouble hitting a fast moving target like a charging knight.
Except a knight would never charge from that range. The purpose of a knight's charge was to carry him into HTH range of an enemy combatant; and any destrier would be completely useless for that task if such a charge, with a fully-armed knight on its back, began hundreds of meeters from the target.
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