Research and Discussion Forums

New management might help windless as will Clements involvement. In the past their products could be quite variable some being quite good others as being almost unusable. Would wonder if some of this was due to subcontracting out to smaller shops, or contracting to the same general people within the...

Additionally it would be an insult resultant from the traditions of the aristocracy. Children of the knightly class were often sent to the households of other families for training. The earliest portion would be in social graces including dancing, learning etiquette and etc. A few also valued dance ...

Ahh, I had assumed that single opponents hanging back and waiting for someone else to distract the hero was a Hollywood cliche. Now it appears to be a plausible mark of inexperienced mobs. Interesting. If they were experienced in coordinating their strikes, I suppose you would have to retreat, unle...

Quite true that swords are obsolete. However in the 20th century there were cases when archiac forms of weapons were used, despite the availability of rifles. WW-1 trench warfare would be a predominant example-for trench raids entrenchment tools were used and modified, cudgels, trench knifes (some o...

Did Jack Churchill actually kill people with his sword? As far as I can remember, he's noted for carrying a sword during amphibious assault, but the only records of him killing an enemy with a medieval weapon was when he shot a German sentry (or sergeant?) with a longbow in France. He probably did ...

M. Brazas listed a good number of reasons for the superiority of the sword over the knife. For a recent example there was an British officer named Churchill who took a broadsword into the Normady campaign and killed several unfortunate German's with that weapon (who were not wearing modern body prot...

Also a matter of cultural effect, the rapier was in its own way as much of a social marker of status as a weapon. It got to the point that rapiers as symbol got to be a nuisance, Elizabeth 1st for example dictated that rapiers could not extend beyond a certain length as these had become a nuisance i...

As M. Clifford noted many of the techniques associated with rondels did emphasize the stab/thrust. And part of the conceptual issue here is what is considered a dagger in our modern perception is often a double edged blade very suited to cutting. It was not uncommon for roundels to be entirely a thr...

Interesting for the supplementary martial attitudes such as the Saxon Mead Oath, and concepts such as the unity of a shield wall and what happens when it is broken. The Stamford bridge sequence does give some sense of the close nature of the fighting of the era and the actor playing the Viking did d...

Might also consider the closer nature of warfare of the period. A maul such as used by the yeomanry, or a warhammer (not a bec de corbin type) or etc may not have fully compromised the armor. But as noted the blow could be disorienting, or disabling even if by the means of wrecking the articulation ...

It just seems strange to me that they would ever spend the time and money to develop such a marvelously outlandish weapon, write so much on the topic, and yet never use it either for war or civilian self-defense. Very likely that it developed as a matter of class distinction in reference to duels an...

"This has made me wonder if the scythe techniques described in the manual are merely curiousities more for display or judicial duels (much like dueling with a case of rapiers or falchions) or if using the scythe techniques described in his fight book would enable someone to actually effectively...

One of the reasons the aristocracy often hated pikemen (although by the Renn, they had to use these formations) was that the pike took the dominance of the mounted knight away...especially when combined with various early firearms. "Hated" pikemen? We can hardly say that when we see that ...

"Pike: A weapon which revolutionized the rennassiance battlefield that has an incredible reach but is limited by it's length. Getting inside a pike square? Extremely difficult, but if you can manage it seems (from what I've read) that you'd be able to run amuck amongst the pikemen until they ma...

And this also brings up the reality that it was not necessary for the sword to cut through, or even into bone to have an effect. Heavy bladed weapons like Falchions were popular because even if these did not get through mail enough force could be exerted through the mail and gambesons that probable ...