The Armour Archive

Russ Mitchell

Janos,

Substitute Kilij for Shamshir. The shamshir is indeed curved so that it can slice better and longer. Still can hit hard, but the shamshir as most of us think about it is a 17th-century or later weapon designed for relatively light armour, and for use in crowds or from horseback.

Russ Mitchell

Still not working. Neither option.

Russ Mitchell

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Tim: I really want more info on heat treated steel. If it as good as so many people say, and is closer to period techniques ...--snip-- <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Check out the t...

Russ Mitchell

Christine de Pizan would be an excellent choice. Mine would be Sigismund of Luxembourg. I'd talk to him about politics, philosophy, and art, what he thinks is important in life, how he views the issue of the chalice, how he views the various nations of which he's the ruler or suzerain, what he think...

Russ Mitchell

Exactly my point, Bascot...

Russ Mitchell

Bob's historical examples were good. Of course, if you fall into the "footman stands little chance" camp, then there's another way we can look at this... just who was this duGuesclin guy anyway, what kind of wheaties did he eat for breakfast, and damn, but can I get some? (sure hope I'm remembering ...

Russ Mitchell

Actually, Egfroth, my wife said, looking at these... "you know, you can really tell when somebody's doing a good job, because you can look at them and instantly know who they're trying to portray..."

Russ Mitchell

Bad. Ass.

(Really, live steel's not all that bad. Like I've said elsewhere, we've never had anything but the absolutely most trivial injury with it... whereas with anything "safer" we all tend to wind up mangled...)

Russ Mitchell

Hrm... You two gentlemen have me, I think. Can't think of any good contra arguments.

Russ Mitchell

SCA-specific? If not... Dunno... if I really am feeling like I need something, I whistle something playful. Anything that'll keep you loose before a bout, any kind of stress is death to your wind. I spar three days a week, sometimes four, 2-minute rounds with a minute break; conserving your wind is ...

Russ Mitchell

Bob... Have you ever done this while the horseman wielded the lance in two hands? I'm just curious, as this was, for a long time, the way in which it was often wielded in East-Central and Eastern europe (old steppe custom, as well as ancient world). I'm curious whether it makes a difference in this ...

Russ Mitchell

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by SyrRhys: Read: Devries, Kelly, _Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century_. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ah, but just to be an irritating dweeb, the central tenet of Kelly's...

Russ Mitchell

Thanks, JT -- this new pattern format is much easier to deal with. The alphabetization helps, too...

Russ Mitchell

Totally depends ... Evil Bob, Syr Rhys, and Bascot all have excellent points... but it makes a huge difference if I'm armed for the 11th century, where the knight is likely to reverse-grip his lance and stab me, as opposed to armed for the 14th or 15th, when he'll have it couched on his lance-rib-th...

Russ Mitchell

I'm in the exact same situation. Most of the time, my window for armour work is an hour or two in the deep night while I'm waiting for my body to decide it's ready for bed -- way too late to be waking up the neighbors' kids across the hall with power tools. But riveting, lacing, that sort of thing.....

Russ Mitchell

[B]I've actually come to believe that Talhoffer's techniques go out of their way to be the exceptions to Liechtenauer's rules - [B] Really?? You're really convinced? WooHoo! After three years, I'm no longer a heretic! http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/bigg...

Russ Mitchell

Why do people find it so necessary that these books all be perfect that they deny the need for healthy skepticism? Rhia's offline now. **I** don't have any problem with it. I just choose to start from the assumption that they're correct in every way and...

Russ Mitchell

I don't know that I'd call that grounds for making it a different art, and, as I said above, I don't see the difference you're pointing out. I'll lay it out... don't worry about agreeing with me -- nobody else does. I'm sure I'll be vindicated eventuall...

Russ Mitchell

YIKE!! --My wife feels she must defend me, I must have been bad... http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/wink.gif -- I'm going to split my reply into two posts here, since we discuss two different things. There are good reasons why we must take these manuals at face value, and only "disprove" the source ...

Russ Mitchell

For me, it's a matter of taking the period text at its word. Ringeck says "always step with the cuts," and says why. I hold that if we don't quite get how that works, that's our fault, not his, and that if he made a point of saying it, it's because he meant it. This is not a lecture (for one thing, ...

Russ Mitchell

This is all very nice discussion, and well done. However, fortunately, in this case, we don't have to speculate. There is a publication, in English, which is essentially the bible for the Teutonic Order's equipment. Andrzej Nowakowski. Arms and Armor of the Teutonic Order's Medieval State in Prussia...

Russ Mitchell

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Nope, can't read Polish but it sounds a lot like Russian -- and might have been better served with a Cyrillic alphabet, but SS. Cyril and Methodius never got that far... <HR></BLOCKQU...

Russ Mitchell

Yes, but I said Talhoffer and Ringeck, not Talhoffer and Fiore...

Russ Mitchell

I second SyrRhys. Frankly, I think that Talhoffer and Ringeck are very different, too, but nobody agrees with me yet on that one...

Russ Mitchell

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Edric: I do not see how you can say how backwards the 13th century is backward compared to the 14th. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> In western europe, yes, the 14th century was bad. ...

Russ Mitchell

LH groups usually need a script of some sort. Because I have western european features, I'm often the schmuck who has to die. But we have never choreographed, though some of our lesser fighters do it -- they're not comfortable with the method Csaba and I use, though choreographies generally don't lo...

Russ Mitchell

Magmaforge, May I ask you to do something? PICK A SPECIALTY, AND RUN WITH IT. The WMA movement in general, as I've seen it, has gone in a rough cycle, which corresponds very well to the cycle of historical research (my bias, perhaps). 1. There are manuals out there! 2. Okay, which manuals do we have...

Russ Mitchell

Randy, I may have been mistaken, but I'd assumed he was referring to plate XXVIII in Anglo, from Scott's Liechtenauer MS. " The figure on the left assumes the overhead Vom Dach stance, while his opponent is supposed to be attacking with the Ochs stance but is hampered by having his left hand atached...

Russ Mitchell

Jump forward to the 14th and you'd land my wife almost certainly... but I can't see her wanting to mess with hopelessly-backwards 13th-century England...

Russ Mitchell

I don't want to go after AA yet... rather to let him do a refund if he can't deliver merchandise. Unlike AG, he actually has delivered merchandise to people, rather than simply playing the fraud.

But I find his lack of customer service infuriating.

Russ Mitchell

SyRhys: be very careful about Anglo as well... he does an excellent job writing about his subject, but if he is a fighter, it doesn't show.... the critique of the artist in the back of his book is dead wrong, and the hands are, in fact, NOT backwards, but exactly where they need to be to execute tha...

Russ Mitchell

Sweet! Looking at the sketch, I wonder..did this design come from seeing klappvisored pukelhelms, or was the back thingy just an artistic idea?

Russ Mitchell

I'm no expert in these armours... but I can add a little bit. Poland and Hungary were relatively unscathed by the Plague, due to a historical accident: their standards for animal husbandry separated the peasant from his livestock, rather than putting them into extreme close quarters as in Western Eu...

Russ Mitchell

I don't know whether Winterfell intended this thread to be SCA-specific. I **do** know that having that label on sca threads helps: it's kept me from shooting my mouth off where it's not relevant. I am in two living traditions, both historical, neither medieval, and therefore don't really have time ...

Russ Mitchell

I am, each and every time. The man simply has no shame, and a boatload of excuses and b.s.... he ought to be blackballed in any polite society made up of me and bucket of bilge..