The Armour Archive

Read Christian's statement about hitting the basket with "force" like you would hit the hell out of a shield and then others seem to feel it was a fine tactic.

Vebrand

Vebrand wrote:Read Christian's statement about hitting the basket with "force" like you would hit the hell out of a shield and then others seem to feel it was a fine tactic.

Vebrand

Ah I missed that. Yeah, excessive shots, even to a face blocking basket hilt is bad. But, I can see the flip side rationale. If the basket is part of the sword and "powering through" someone's sword block to get a kill is acceptable, then that same should be acceptable for a thrust and basket hilt shouldn't it?

Baron Alcyoneus wrote:Personally, I don't see a problem, why should I view it any differently than hitting his shield?

And if someone does it to me 10x in a row, should I bitch about it, or recognize that I wasn't smart enough to figure out another way to keep him from poking me in the face?

Two thoughts. As long as one is not slamming the hilt into their face (see Vebrand's very cogent points) with more force than one would consider appropriate for a proper thrust to the face, then I see no problem in continuing to try and hit them in the face and continuing to hit their basket which is guarding their face.

Second, as long as the basket I'm holding in front of my face is keeping the spear from hitting my face, why would I need to figure out another way to block my face? It's working, right?

Now - completely aside from my opinion about the basket being part of the sword so not target substitution - here's why it seems like a reasonable thing, to me, to keep tagging someone in the basket, and a reasonable thing, to me, to not block with the basket:

As long as they need to keep their sword hilt in front of their face, you can be sure they are not trying to hit anyone. As long as you are holding your sword hilt in front of your face to block face thrusts, you are not going to be able to hit anyone.

Most of us, most of the time, would rather hit someone than not

Insane my issue is with the force of a thrust. It is one thing to power through a block with an edged shot and another to do it with a thrust. In throwing into a block even is the guy misses it all you do is crack him a good one on the side of the head. If you miss the thrust (especially from a 9ft spear) you get you head taken off. Trust I would rather have a slam to the side of the head any day. By slamming the basket hilt you are not saying you are trying to kill the guy but make him eat his basket hilt. So you are still slamming the guys head back and if you are targeting the basket to make a guy it eat and slam into his helm then aren't you doing it out of spite? It is not hitting the basket in the process of trying to get a good shot in this is targeting the basket over and over. I have the same issue with guy who slam the very top of a shield to make a shieldman "eat" his shield. If that shield moves to block a shot you take his head off.

I do agree with Kilkenny that a guy on that stance can't hit me and often those guys are trying to survive and not kill.

Vebrand

Vebrand wrote:Insane my issue is with the force of a thrust. It is one thing to power through a block with an edged shot and another to do it with a thrust.

Is it though? I respectfully have to disagree. Excessive force is excessive force edged side or thrust is irrelevant. Just because the chance of injury is greater with the excessive thrust does not mean the the edge strike is anymore illegal. So if it acceptable to power through with an edge strike it too should be acceptable to do so with a thrust.

Example:
I'm a spearman spearing a guy with a huge shield in a shield wall. I am targeting his lower off side corner of his shield. Every time I thrust he catches the shot with his shield, but the shield turns into his body each time. I decide to amp up my shot to blow through that corner and get the gut shot I want. Only when I amp up, he doesn't see me coming and misses the block I core sample him. Am I breaking the rules? Should I not have tried to power through with the thrust?

Example:
I am a greatswords man throwing shots at a guy with a huge shield in a shield wall. I am targeting the upper corner of his offside shield. Everytime I throw a shot he catches it with the corner, but in doing so it tables the shield. I decide to to amp up my shot and blow through the shield making it table enough to catch him in the head. Only this time he does not see me coming and does not block, I tent peg him into the ground. Am I breaking the rules? Should I have not tried to power through with the shot?

Example:
I am a spearman spearing a guy with a huge shield in a shield wall. He has his grillwork basket hilt infront of his face, looking through the bars. I am targeting the top of his shield and the basket hilt at the same time. Everytime I throw the thrust, he blocks it with the shield and hilt, but it seperates between the 2 leaving and opening. I decide to amp up the thrust to power through the created gap only this time he does not expect it and I slip past the shield and cold cock him in the grill. Am I breaking the rules? Should I not have tried to power through with the thrust?

By slamming the basket hilt you are not saying you are trying to kill the guy but make him eat his basket hilt. So you are still slamming the guys head back and if you are targeting the basket to make a guy it eat and slam into his helm then aren't you doing it out of spite? It is not hitting the basket in the process of trying to get a good shot in this is targeting the basket over and over. I have the same issue with guy who slam the very top of a shield to make a shieldman "eat" his shield. If that shield moves to block a shot you take his head off.

Decerning intent is a pretty slippery slope. Targeting the basket hilt can cause many different reactions. Maybe the intent is to frustrate the guy into charging, or maybe it is to get him to move the basket, lift the shield to cover and then you can shoot under the shield. OR maybe it is literally nothing more than a way to stop the guys forward momentum. Everytime he takes a step he gets a mouth full of baskethilt? Just like striking the corner of a large shield to make it table.

Just because the chance of injury is greater with the excessive thrust...

I just wanted to point out that the above is simply a supposition without evidence or proof.

Sigifrith Hauknefr wrote:

Just because the chance of injury is greater with the excessive thrust...

I just wanted to point out that the above is simply a supposition without evidence or proof.

Hmm. In that case, permit me to point out that what you have said is simply a presumption. You've no evidence or proof that the original comment was made by someone who was making a supposition, only the fact that they did not present supporting documentation for the statement.

If it's your intention to dismiss the assertion that the chance of injury is greater with the thrust, then I suggest that you support the position you advocate, rather than merely making a rhetorical challenge to the statement.

Else the dog chases it's tail and no one gets anywhere.

Kilkenny wrote:Else the dog chases it's tail and no one gets anywhere.

Dog does. Seen it. He gets tired.

The SEM says...
Intentionally targeting the hand/wrist is illegal.
It doesn't matter if it is in a hockey glove, gauntlet, or basket hilt.
If the protection failed or the shot slipped into the hilt somehow it could cause serious injury and damage.
That's why we do not allow fighters to target them.

Omarad says...
Is blocking with the hilt cheesy in my opinion, yes.
Is intentionally targeting it in order to "teach someone a lesson" dangerous and beneath a chivalric fighter who values skill at arms, yes.
Have I done it myself far far in the past out of frustration at the cheesiness of the tactic, yes.
Will I do it again, no.
Will I aim for the forearm just past the wrist and just at where a legal target starts, yes.

Asbjorn Johansen wrote:Sir Omarad

If you re check this thread, I'd be curious about your take on the tactic Nissan described.

Namely, intentionally striking a basket hilt of shieldman who is using it to cover his face.

(I'm assuming the itself is not excessive, per various interpretations of excessive).

Well. If it's considered part of the weapon, could you hook it & pull it out of the way? What i mean is, as my last war was 17 years ago, can it be done feasibly.

Ormand has stated the rules. I love a SEM that communicates with people.

Insane it comes down why do we in the SCA require face thrusts to be lighter than other shots? If you tent peg someone is it so excessive that there is fear are breaking the excessive force rule? If it is then you should not be throwing that hard. With a thrust it is much easier to exceed the force rule. Even in Kingdoms that like stout thrusts, those shots are lighter than those to the side of the helm. A shot to power through a block does not always have to be excessive and trust me you can hit me hard all day long upside the head with a greatsword but I don't want that same shot force from a thrust. I will ask, should you ever throw a shot that if unblocked would be considered excessive?

I do know when they went to the touch trusts it was because a lot more injuries were being reported to the SEM at that time dealing with trusts with fiberglass spears. Nothing scientific just that the reports were coming in pointing toward people having injuries/complaints related to the spear thrust.

IvanIS it is a slippery slope. While I have seen it done and did it by accident myself you have to worry about catching the arm or twisting a wrist. I don't try and hook baskets because I see it as an as targeting an illegal area and also just seems to be an something that could lead to injury.

Vebrand

Vebrand wrote:
Insane it comes down why do we in the SCA require face thrusts to be lighter than other shots? If you tent peg someone is it so excessive that there is fear are breaking the excessive force rule? If it is then you should not be throwing that hard. With a thrust it is much easier to exceed the force rule. Even in Kingdoms that like stout thrusts, those shots are lighter than those to the side of the helm. A shot to power through a block does not always have to be excessive and trust me you can hit me hard all day long upside the head with a greatsword but I don't want that same shot force from a thrust. I will ask, should you ever throw a shot that if unblocked would be considered excessive?

Vebrand I totally understand where you are coming from. And I don't exactly disagree with it. But, what you are talking about is intent. And that is hard to judge. Also, we have force calibration for both thrusts and swings. Both have difference levels of "excessive". To me you can't have one practice (excessive power through for swing) acceptable and the other (excessive power through for thrust) not. Either the force is excessive or it's not.

Personally I tend to chaulk it up to we play a semi dangerous game with a lot of variables. Shit happens and as long as you are not out there trying to hurt people, accidents will happen. That is just how the game is played.

Sir Omarad wrote:The SEM says...
Intentionally targeting the hand/wrist is illegal.
It doesn't matter if it is in a hockey glove, gauntlet, or basket hilt.
If the protection failed or the shot slipped into the hilt somehow it could cause serious injury and damage.
That's why we do not allow fighters to target them.

So, let me ask you this then. If targeting off limits areas is illegal, and intentionally putting those off limits areas in the path of a weapon is illegal, then shouldn't using a basket hilt as a transparent buckler to cover your face be considered illegal as well? At the very least it could be considered target substitution.

Irish, I agree which is why in my first post I stated I had no issue with hitting a basket but had an issue with the use of excessive force to smash a hand into a fighters grill.

Trust me I have jacked people up and been jacked up totally by accident. It happens and never had a hard feeling about it. However can't ever recall going out there and throwing a shot on purpose with the jackem-up or teach-em a lesson from excessive force mentality. Now there are some fighters I have trained that might argue with that because I kept hitting the same spot to teach them to block it but those shots were never excessive, just repeated over and over and over

Vebrand

InsaneIrish wrote:

Sir Omarad wrote:The SEM says...
Intentionally targeting the hand/wrist is illegal.
It doesn't matter if it is in a hockey glove, gauntlet, or basket hilt.
If the protection failed or the shot slipped into the hilt somehow it could cause serious injury and damage.
That's why we do not allow fighters to target them.

So, let me ask you this then. If targeting off limits areas is illegal, and intentionally putting those off limits areas in the path of a weapon is illegal, then shouldn't using a basket hilt as a transparent buckler to cover your face be considered illegal as well? At the very least it could be considered target substitution.

This logical train of thought leads only to insanity. Well... throw your hands in the air frustration. You've been warned.

Sir Omarad wrote:The SEM says...
Intentionally targeting the hand/wrist is illegal.
It doesn't matter if it is in a hockey glove, gauntlet, or basket hilt.
If the protection failed or the shot slipped into the hilt somehow it could cause serious injury and damage.
That's why we do not allow fighters to target them.

Omarad says...
Is blocking with the hilt cheesy in my opinion, yes.
Is intentionally targeting it in order to "teach someone a lesson" dangerous and beneath a chivalric fighter who values skill at arms, yes.
Have I done it myself far far in the past out of frustration at the cheesiness of the tactic, yes.
Will I do it again, no.
Will I aim for the forearm just past the wrist and just at where a legal target starts, yes.

So where does a buckler become so small that it means to hit it is targeting the hand?

For that matter, the method by which I teach shield use "Punch your hand towards their basket hilt" would be considered illegal as target substitution.

Insane it comes down why do we in the SCA require face thrusts to be lighter than other shots?

I don't know why, it doesn't make much sense, does it?. Some people think it's 'safety' and some people think it's because "we are supposed to be wearing an open face norman conical".

Why do we have an excessive force rule? Well that's easy - the idea is to prevent injury.
I am going to leave aside whether or not such a rule actually prevents injury or not - the intent is clear.

What is "excessive" force? It could be something like "no more than the minimum possible for your opponent to accept a blow" - however, I reject this as an impossible standard. Opponents are not uniform (and you might never have fought this one before), targets are not uniform, and situations/movement is not uniform.

So, we must define excessive force as "a strike that will cause injury with greater than some X probability". All strikes have *some* chance of causing injury, and generally, ones delivered with more force (all else being equal, like target area, person, level of protection, weapon) will have a greater chance.

Obviously we are willing to tolerate some non-zero chance of injury. But we are not even getting into what even constitutes and injury.

That all being said - it is obvious to anyone that swings sticks that more energy can and generally will be transfered with a strike as compared to a thrust. Furthermore all legal SCA thrusts have to "defeat" the shock absorbing padding on the end of the stick (aka "thrusting tip") which absorbs even MORE energy. There is a difference in the contact area - which means the force will be distributed differentially between a thrust and a strike, and a thrust is more likely to be in-line.

So there are lot of variables in determining which type of strike is more likely to be injurious -- and probably a tremendous amount of error in estimating these variables.

So absent actual statistical evidence on injuries and whether they were caused by thrusts or strikes or excessive blows or "regular" ones... it's totally, completely, impossible to say that it's easier to thrust excessively than strike.

Anecdotally, I have found no difference. But in my world excessive hits are essentially freak occurrences anyway.