Atlatls anyone?

toweyb · Post by **toweyb** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 9:09 am

The more I read about the atlatl the more I like it. Has anyone ever tried it in SCA combat?

<h4>"The Aztecs preferred the Atlatl as a weapon of war. We get the word "Atlatl" (pronounced at-la-tal) from their language. In fact, the Atlatl and Dart were the only weapon Cortez and his Conquistadors feared because it easily pierced Spanish armor, often sending the hapless soldier to meet his Maker. If Montezuma had not mistaken Cortez for the Feathered Serpent God Quantzaquatle, history may have been very different, with the 200 or so Spanish conquistadors being only a footnote in the history of that Nation, foolish invaders who were overwhelmed by superior firepower."</h4>

Fearghus Macildubh · Post by **Fearghus Macildubh** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 10:28 am

Well, first off, you'd have to be an aztec or inuit to use one. then there's the whole problem with blow acknowledgement inherent to thrown missile weapons in sca combat.
slainte,
fearghus

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"How long will we fight? We will fight until hell freezes
over. Then we fight on the ice."
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The rules are: pillage first, then burn.
Failure to follow the rules will lead to
summary dismissal from the raiding team.

Otto von Teich · Post by **Otto von Teich** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 11:22 am

The atlatl is indeed a great weapon,I've played with one quite a bit.It increases accuracy,and power.I dont think they could ever penetrate plate,but might pierce mail.
The thing that made them so devastating was the fact that when the obsidian or flint projectile hit plate,it would shatter into tiny needle like shards, like a hand greanade. These would pierce the neck,face and armpits,and other chinks in the armour.
Leaving nasty wounds that would later become infected....Otto
PS Spear throwers were used by many different primitive cultures all over the world,but not really appropriate for medieval Europe as Fearghus said.

Robert Clark Carruth · Wed Mar 28, 2001 11:39 am

Actually, tests have been done with atlatls that pierced car doors. I think it could have pierced plate. An atlatl generates a tremendous amount of force.

Robert

Talon Leatherwing · Post by **Talon Leatherwing** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 2:03 pm

Maybe someone should build one and test it against some plate. The atlatl and spear would be easy to build,but I have no plate with which to run the experiment. It should be tested against all the layers of armour togather that the Spanish wore,so as to get an accurate data.

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Talon

Love and Protect Thy Family,and Woe to Those Who Would Do Them Harm!

Destichado · Post by **Destichado** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 2:57 pm

Thinking of missile weapons, does the SCA allow throwing spears? Just the other night I was reading about javelin hurlers that the French used as auxuilurys in the Hundred Years War, and thought, "Wouldn't it be nice?"

I was getting visions of Achilies and Hector in breastplates and bascinets

losthelm · Post by **losthelm** » Thu Mar 29, 2001 9:14 am

Thrown spears no but javalins yes also pork chops aka axes and a few others check the new marshels book on the sca home page.
atlatls are vary acurate the local group uses standard archery targets at 15o yards also a few years ago there was a compition held were some one got hit in the head with one and it pierced there skull

Constancius · Post by **Constancius** » Thu Mar 29, 2001 10:37 am

Atlatls are an awsome weapon. You can generate a tremendous amount of power with one. And with practice you can be extremely accurate with one. I tried to make one when I was about 10 or 11, and the thing that I couldn't figure out was how to hold the spear and the launcher with the same hand. You probably need a launcher about half the legnth of you spear to do it correctly. When I was fooling aroungd with it(using two handsto operate it) I was launching sticks the entire legnth of our yard. With ease.
I could only imagine what those things could do to armour. Yikes.

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Constancius of Lincolnshire
Live and die with honor.

Patchwerk · Post by **Patchwerk** » Thu Mar 29, 2001 2:22 pm

I saw something about these on the discovery channel one. Some university was testing their effectiveness to see if they could have been used by primitive man to take down large game (mammoths, hippos etc). They set up a big plate that was designed to stop the spear, and measure how much force there was at impact. They tested the spear with and without the atlatl. Without the atlatl the spear bounced off the plate. With the atlatl, the spear went clean through. After that test, they concluded that a single hunter could have killed a mammoth by hitting it in the head and penetrating the skull.

Talon Leatherwing · Post by **Talon Leatherwing** » Thu Mar 29, 2001 2:36 pm

If I remember that test correctly,it went through the target,the plate,the sensors,and stuck halfway out the back of the haybale! And that was with obsidian tips,hand knapped and attatched with sinew and blood.

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Talon

Love and Protect Thy Family,and Woe to Those Who Would Do Them Harm!

Morgan · Post by **Morgan** » Tue Apr 03, 2001 12:54 pm

I believe this has been addressed by the SCA and is illegal according to most if not all standards. I know I've read it a few places.

I doubt you'd get it to pierce period plate armour. I doubt you'd get it to pierce chain. I'd want to see tests, but if a longbow arrow won't, I don't see how a levered javeline would. That's just pure conjecture on my part, by the way. It'd hurt like a mother tho.

jagatei · Post by **jagatei** » Tue Apr 03, 2001 3:31 pm

I think the Obsidian tips had something to do with it too. In many cases obsidian can be made extremely sharp. I remember reading somewhere that some researchers are making scalpels out of it. Would it pierce plate? probably not but I dont think the spaniards wore plate. IIRC most of them took off what plate they had because of the heat.

losthelm · Post by **losthelm** » Thu Apr 05, 2001 4:25 pm

I think that they may be legal to use In combat acording to the new combat rules and regs found on the SCA home page but with archery there are some major modifications to the projectile

Fearghus Macildubh · Post by **Fearghus Macildubh** » Sat Apr 07, 2001 2:05 am

The reason that a javilin or atlatl dart will pierce where an arrow won't has something to do with the weight of the projectile and how that falls into the force=mass*velocity squared equation. I'm not a math guy so i can't remeber the specifics. there was a similar expirament conducted by a guy i worked with a few years ago. he is a browning bow company field tester "the x team" and he told me about taking a 5 gallon bucket of sand, shooting it with a rifle, maybe a .223, and the bullet was trapped in the sand. then they shoot the bucket with a bow of around 85 lb draw weight and the arrow point went thru both sides of the bucket, stopped only whne the fletching got trapped by the bucket plastic. he said it had to do with the weight of the projectile, according to the browning engineers any how.
slainte,
fearghus

------------------
"How long will we fight? We will fight until hell freezes
over. Then we fight on the ice."
----------------------------------
The rules are: pillage first, then burn.
Failure to follow the rules will lead to
summary dismissal from the raiding team.

Ideval · Post by **Ideval** » Tue Apr 10, 2001 11:43 pm

I'd like to make one for rabbit hunting. I suppose I could even knap the flint or obsidian tips myself. If I had thought of it, I would have grabbed a bunch of the obsidian arrowheads we found in Nevada on a trip. Anyhow, I read once that flint can sometimes approach an edge width of one molecule wide. That's incredible.

At the front of the "launcher," is there a simple groove where the javelin rests or is there a wooden hole to pass the javelin through?

My guess is no hole, as it might interfere with the way the javelin releases. I'll try both.

Also, how long should the launcher be compared to the javelin? Thanks,
IdÃ«val

woodwose · Post by **woodwose** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 1:54 am

I bought an atlatl (from Thunderbird Atlatl) at pennsic a couple years ago. The darts I have came with target points (I think thats what they'd be called.. just made for target practice). last summer one of my friends had a couch he was throwing out so we took it out for some target practice and I put some maille on it to see if that'd stop the dart any. The maille wasn't at all period, it was stainless steel (316L) 16 gauge 1/4" ID rings, euro 4 in 1. The dart (6 foot long dart) went right through the maille shirt and almost all the way through the couch but was stopped by some of the fletching.

maybe once I get some good flint tips I'll test it on plate.

the darts I have are 6 feet long and I've also seen 5' and 7' darts.

the throwing stick I have is pretty simple... it has a handle on one end, the end of the stick is just shaped to fit the hand a little, and there are leather thongs that the thumb and index finger go through to hold the dart while the rest of the fingers hold the handle. I've also seen another kind of launcher that has a section in front of and behind the handle that is raised up a few inches and there's a groove that the dart sits in. The other end of my stick has a sort of bur made from some kind of horn (I've also seen antler ones) set into it. The bur fits into a shallow impression in the back end of the dart. another way to do it would be to make the back end of the dart pointy and when launching, the pointy back end of the dart would fit into a slight hole where the bur is on mine. I think my launcher is about two feet long. I've heard of attaching specialy weighted stones to the throwing stick to give more power to the throw but I don't really know much about it.

I tried throwing from a kayak a few times. It's tricky judging distance cause of the rising and falling swells and drifing of the kayak and the target. I'm not into hunting but I'd love to try hunting with an atlatl some time..

oh, yep a hole (for the dart to pass through) near the handle end of the atlatl would keep the dart from releasing.

I can get pictures of mine if anyone would like to see

[This message has been edited by Dweezle (edited 04-11-2001).]