Research and Discussion Forums

Congratulations on the release of your new book! I'll be ordering it shortly!

Alex, I think you just drew a similar conclusion to what I was asking about, but in a different venue. What I mean is, because of the high potential for injuries inherant with getting hit off of a horse, is it possible that witnesses mistook the inability of dismounted soldiers to move well or get u...

Salvete! Recently I've been doing some reading and have come across some interesting lines in Machiavelli's Art of War. In book two, Cosimo, apparently dismissing infantry, asks Fabrizio how he would arm his cavalry, to which Fabrizio replies that he would not rely too heavily on cavalry, as "l...

but still seeing how sword and shield or maybe a big zweihander or claymore would fare against a katana would be quite interesting. Now you've gone and peaked my interest, because that would be a neat dissimilar exercise in free play, if historically inaccurate. The two-hander is by no means slow ,...

I just completed my independant study on the Two-Hander; some of the manuals I came across during research included His True Art of Defence by DiGrassi, Goliath, Paradoxes of Defence/Brief Instructions by George Silver, and the Harleian Manuscript. Some of these can be found right on this site in th...

From my own research (limited mostly to books, mind you) it seems as though the armored soldier always has had the advantage over the lightly or unarmored soldier. Right now, I'm working on the second section of my dissertation on the Two Hand Sword, which covers how the sword was used, and some inf...

Thanks for the info thus far. I do have JC's book and have checked out the essays before; good data, but I'm still scanning around. Perhaps not surprisingly the Two Hand sword makes an appearance in Benvenuto Cillini's autobiography, albeit the reference is a short one and not very useful. Still, it...

Good afternoon all, In two semesters I am starting an independant study my senior year on the true two-hand sword; my objective is to cover where it came from (how it evolved into what it was), what it was designed to fight, how it was used individually and on the pitched field, and other tactics or...

I'm located just off SU's campus myself. I'm going to be shooting for a distinction in history next semester, hopefully with a study of the true two-hand sword, but I gotta get the subject accepted first!

In my own experience, the MRL wasters haven't been of very high quality. I've had two split their crossguards on me under pretty light training situations. Trying to repair with woodglue added weight and threw the balance off, so I'd be weary of that particular line of wasters.

Very nice video, and I'm not surprised at the result. A few weeks back we test cut against a wetted industrial cardboard tube (~1/3-1/2in. thick) with a blunt Cold Steel two-hand sword. One of my friends got through a section of tube in a single cut (I had a bit tougher time). All the more ammo for ...

Hmm...just maybe... <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

Hey Craig, Funny you mention correcting the professor on sword weight...I've done it twice now; two professors on seperate occasions...I hope you are correct; if I can show the prof. a site, such as ARMA and get it pre-approved, I should be able to convince them to allow me to utilize the data. Forc...

There was something on my mind recently. In a class about Tudor and Stuart England, we were discouraged from using the Internet as a main source for research. We were given an example web page about King Charles I with some clearly inaccurate data from a non-primary, opinion-ridden site with clear f...

You make a good point about the age of encyclopedias, and the knowledge that changes them. I've got a set back at my house from the 1950's that talks about the wonders of the miracle rock known as Asbestos and all its wonderful applications. Another set, from the same publishers in the late 1970's m...