The Armour Archive

like many things in the SCA (europeans with japanese armour, pagans, helmets 100 years older than armour, kings that were kick ass warriors) it was possibly done in period, but to nowhere near the degree we see it.

-+G

It's silly, your not meant to die in tournaments. They are supposed to be tournaments of peace not gladitorial combat.

Pretty good points all around, but here's one more thought, If you take the standard of a mail shirt/gambeson/coif/skullcap as your torso and head armor then a heavy, unimpeded blow coming in would have a significant chance of putting you on the ground.

Aidan,
I think you make an excellent point. I think that falling down could be termed to represent exhaustion rather than death. Counted blows would definitely push the physical limits of fighters more than a single strike.

Brandr

Aiden: As WE don't fight to submission, but to a single counted blow, I seriously DOUBT that many fights in period "to a counted blow" would end with someone prostrated or prone. Just my concept of reality, it sure doesn't have to be yours.

they didn't? Not even in the beginning?

I could have sworn I read information about how the catholic church spoke out against tournaments because of the number of deaths and injuries that were occuring....

Not saying that it never happened,

I dislike being forced to do so because of other peoples ideas of what should happen based on a highly flawed and artifical system of rules.

Don't make me "fall down" because "you" think it looks neat.

As for a single slashing sword blow to an armoured area in the "assumed armour" being debilitating, it is _extremely_ unlikely.

[This message has been edited by Murdock (edited 12-24-2001).]

Hi Aiden,

In the begining, they were all riding horses. Yes, people got killed in early tournaments, but they were not foot combats. I haven't seen fighting on foot "in the lists" documented prior to the middle of the Hundred Years war.

MOst of the people who got themselves killed in tournaments were killed by the shock of mounted combat, ending up with a lance head in them, or splinters through the eye from a splintering lance.

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Bob R.

Mordreth!

Hail and well met brother knight. It is good to see that you have joined this company of fine fellows. I think your point is well made.

The effects of sharp and rebated swords on various types of armour and in various formats (actual battle, tournaments from different periods) is a hotly debated topic on the archive. In particular, evidence of swords actually cracking, cutting, penetrating armour as opposed to simply causing concussive damage is something we are all searching for. Many contend that swords never penetrated the armour by cut or thrust except where the armour failed due to metal fatigue or improper construction. They believe that the illustrations from the 12th and 13th centuries and onward are exagerations or based on romantic/heroic works rather than actual combats. While this belongs to other threads, anything you would care to contribute on that topic would be appreciated, especially with your background/personna as a Norman fighting in maille and cap (very close to the SCA target armour specified in the rules).

Wow, Richard- that was a very concise and astute way to present a very complicated discussion.
-V

if you not going to fall dead people, please pretty please with sugar on. Salute the victor with a big flashy style. Not the salute you would give a second lt.

Bravo, Richard -- well said.

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In Honor and Service,
Lucien Ro / Scott

Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That's all it was: just curiosity.
- Jim Morrison

Good evening Sir Richard, and my thanks for introducing me to this group.
For those of you who don't know me (most everone here) I fight SCA in Gamboised leg armor, stomacher, gambeson, hauberk, and a norman helmet with the least amount of backplate I can consider safe (due to a massive ankle injury I also wear a heavy pair of greves over a padded boot)
I think "armor" is being used as a very generic term on this site, possibly as a result of the SCA move to a Hundred years war armor standard.
You are going to be in a position to accept more damage in plate legs then you would in my gamboised cuisses. The thrust into the mid stomach that would possibly crease a coat of plates would either penetrate my hauberk, or at the least tend to double me over, and the blow to the side of the head that would land on the aventaille and steel of a bascinet is landing on the mail coif under a norman skullcap.
Wearing the armor I do I have been put onto the ground by a single heavy blow across the torso, and can only think that the effect of a steel edge connecting would have been even more devistating.
As to a blow to the head I once had Horic in my shop (Count Horic is a very powerful man, now sadly absent from the SCA due to family obligations) He wnated to try a sword blow into one of the shops mothballed helmets
(retired due to age and heavy use) We set it on a post, with padding under the bowl, he set up, and threw a combination (about three shots) into the helmet using a piece of flat stock (more surface area than a sword edge would have) and creased the helmet pretty badly.
We took the helmet off the post he looked at it and said well the effin helmet held, looked at the cracked post (oak) smiled, and said but the effin spine didn't.
I hope noone in this group has taken a full force blow into the helmet with a steel sword but I think you should consider how much damage your body really can take, and how much protection your armor would really have provided.

Mordreth:

Its not a question of wether a blow from a weapon could damage the armour. if that were the case, give me what we call a "busting maul" you might call it a splitting maul, its a heavy axe like implement used to split firewood. a peasants weapon. I dont think that there is a helm, SCA or otherwise that could withstand me sitting it on a chopping block and heaving an overhand swing into it. The problem is, even with a blow of that force (or the force of your associate) the body will be moved.

-+G

Actually George, damage to armour is one of the main controversial topics we discuss on the archive and I had informed Mordreth that is a point of interest to many here. As Vitus pointed out, weapon's damage to both armour and the person inside, brings up many complicated discussions, including the separate but related debate regarding how the person inside the armour is damaged whether the armour holds up or not.

One of the biggest arguments is over whether individuals attacked by sword blows or thrusts are affected directly by the blade or tip, or if they only suffer concussive or crushing damage. Mordreth was simply addressing a portion of the many questions that come up.

All of this is further complicated by the differing types of armour; textile, leather, steel and the method of assembly, type of design. Even steel has very different protective characteristics when you compare maille to full plate or a brig for example.

Rev. George
No arguement that a splitting maul would destroy anything it hit, the point of the very informal test we did was that Horic was using a piece of flat stock with about a 1/8 -3/16 X 2 crosssection and did a good amount of damage.
And indeed your body would move under impact (either voluntarily or not) but I don't think being knocked sprawling would confer much advantage in single combat

Bump! Once again, mainly to get SyrRhys' input.

-Richard.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rev. George:
<<<[B]I dont believe that the wrap shot was ever used against an armoured opponent during the period we portray. There is some evidence that the back side of the blade was used to SLICE the back side of an opponents torso/limbs. In these cases those areas, or the entire body, are unarmoured. >>>

This has been argued interminably, but the fact remains that it's a very powerful, very fast and very effective blow. If we can think of it, they could have thought of it. I'm not one for saying "well, they *could* have done something, so we should do it", but this one seems to blatantly obvious it's not funny. After all, what's the Squinter Ringeck talks about but a back-edge blow? A wrap is nothing more than that with a one-handed sword.

<<<Using the design of a sword to justify it is shaky ground. I've seen axes for wood cutting from earlier american history with a double bladed head. you can STILL buy them. How silly would i look if i climed that lumberjacks would sometimes chop trees with the back side, swinging in an awkward circular motion???>>>

You show the weakness of your analogy yourself. If the blow is awkward, it wouldn't have been functional and it woulnd't have been used. A wrap is anything but awkward. Done correctly it's fast, powerful and very effective, especially against anyone foolish enough to rush in to grapple.

Of course none of the manuals show it; none of the manuals show sword and shield combat (as separate from sword and buckler or sword and those huge boards in Talhoffer).

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Hugh Knight
"Welcome to the Church of the Open Field: Hunt hard, kill swiftly, waste nothing, make no apologies"

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Richard Blackmoore:
[B]Bump! Once again, mainly to get SyrRhys' input.

My input is simply this: When I'm defeated, I bow to my opponent and salute him with my sword. I decline to roll on the ground with the peasants. In a melee (which is *still* a tournament, even at Pennsic!!) I will, if the circumstances require it, fall down, but only because there's no way for my fellow combtants and esteemed opponenets to know if I'm alive otherwise.

Frankly, I think the idea of rolling on the ground in single combat is both ludicrous and unnecessary, and I'm not above browbeating some marshall who calls me on it.



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Hugh Knight
"Welcome to the Church of the Open Field: Hunt hard, kill swiftly, waste nothing, make no apologies"

I have never really enjoyed falling down. At 6 feet 4 inches and 290 (often plus) pounds, it can be a bit of a jolt. I prefer to back out of the firing line and salute and acknowledge the blow if possible. If it is fall down or get pummeled...ground here I come!

As far as a 'wrap' shot, I tend to agree with Rhys in this. Duke Paul was oft wont to say that a wrap had very little killing power...then I wrapped him...he now agrees that if properly applied...the head will ring very nicely (or as he put it...rip it off). Of course he spanked me very thoroughly after that.

In practicing with a steel sword, I have been able to cut deeply enough into a two-by-four with a wrap that I would not want to get hit with it.

Back to the fall down topic...I feel it gives my opponent much more honor if I freely acknowledge his prowess in besting me publicly by declaring I yeald than to fall down. It is seeming to catch on more and more I think.

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An oath, like an arrow, can not be recalled once loosed....think well before uttering such bindings and then stand fast to them.

Remeber that SCA combat does not allow for many many very period techniques.

The standard SCA head wrap for ex would be a beautiful opening for a simple shoulder throw. Akin to performing the same technique against a roundhouse right.

A lower wrap leaves the sword arm very veunerable to a trap. In Fiore you might warp the arm with your own, and "lift the boars tooth" quite possibly breaking the elbow, but at minimum trapping the opponent in dagger range. Even a well placed trust under the visor of an armoured attacker from a sword would end the fight.

I have seen almost nothing that resembles a SCA wrap in any period illustrations. If the shot was common would'nt it be in the books?
In the SCA I use wraps as much as anyone else does. Like SCA 2 sword i do not believe they are al that period.

Rorik once told me that all the techniques we use are documentable by the laws of physics. If it delivers the requisite amount of force, it works, and they probably used it. (paraphrase)

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Murdock:
<B>Remeber that SCA combat does not allow for many many very period techniques.

The standard SCA head wrap for ex would be a beautiful opening for a simple shoulder throw. Akin to performing the same technique against a roundhouse right.

A lower wrap leaves the sword arm very veunerable to a trap. In Fiore you might warp the arm with your own, and "lift the boars tooth" quite possibly breaking the elbow, but at minimum trapping the opponent in dagger range. Even a well placed trust under the visor of an armoured attacker from a sword would end the fight.

I have seen almost nothing that resembles a SCA wrap in any period illustrations. If the shot was common would'nt it be in the books?
In the SCA I use wraps as much as anyone else does. Like SCA 2 sword i do not believe they are al that period.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are counters to *every* move on the books or off of them; showing what you could do to counter a good technqiue doesn't invalidate that technique, it just shows that techniques are almost unimportant when compared to the strategy of combat. Techniques are merely the style in which you choose to execute your plan of attack.

There's no reason whatsoever to doubt the validity of the wrap; as I said in my original post, it's much like the Squinter in Ringeck, except done with a one-handed sword.

As for not showing up in the iconography, so what? The sword and shield combat so common in the SCA had become anachronistic (where it didn't simply vanish) by the time artistic styles became truly representational, and there are no armored combat manuals from the period when sword and shield was popular, either.

It's fast, it's powerful, it's subtle (read: sneaky), and it explains why swords have two edges. It's a no-brainer.


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Hugh Knight
"Welcome to the Church of the Open Field: Hunt hard, kill swiftly, waste nothing, make no apologies"

I am with Rhys on this one.
-V

There are no sneaky knights, just subtle ones...

-Richard

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Murdock:
<B>Remeber that SCA combat does not allow for many many very period techniques.
"The standard SCA head wrap for ex would be a beautiful opening for a simple shoulder throw. Akin to performing the same technique against a roundhouse right.
A lower wrap leaves the sword arm very veunerable to a trap."
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From the two instances you are listing of the wrap leaving the attacker vulnerable I assume that your region has fallen into the modern heresy of ignoring attacks to the arm when it is exposed. If you are used to people couterstrinking at your arm the wrap becomes a very conservative economical blow,
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"I have seen almost nothing that resembles a SCA wrap in any period illustrations. If the shot was common would'nt it be in the books?"
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Absense of evidence and evidence of absense are two different things,
The manuals I have had a chance to see show single combats, my favorite time to use a back edge (greatsword/poleaxe) or wrap (sword and shield) attack is in melee combat, or in a very tight lists for single combats
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"In the SCA I use wraps as much as anyone else does. Like SCA 2 sword i do not believe they are al that period.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>"
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Just a thought medieval man was as carefull with his resources as modern man, If the back edge wasn't used why were the bulk of medieval swords double edged? It's a lot cheaper to do a single edged weapon (in terms of basic forging) than a double edged one

I always figured that if my son could figure out a wrap when he was 14 mos old, that medieval man probably could figure it out too... not to mention that the motion used in a wrap falls fairly naturally when using a mace or club.

I realized that a wrap would work fine in medieval times when my hubby (Sir Arion - Caid) caved in a hardened computer case with one using a real sword. The flat snaps at full force weren't doing nearly the damage as the wrap at full power.

-- but he is very good at wraps being an evil tall skinny lefty...

-Juliana

Theatre. Pure, simple theatre. It's fun for the audience.