Unusual Weapons in the Western Martial Arts.

[Sal Bertucci]

While I'm not sure what category it falls into, there is this strange looking weapon

It seems to be a mix between a bill and a falchion.

I want one of those SO BAD!!!!

Steve;

The handle is 3ft, and the chain is longer than three feet?

[Jonathan Newhall]

EDIT - The guy with the weird name appears to have disappeared.


Though yeah, Sal, I agree that looks pretty wicked for chopping with.

[terry brown]

Here's one I had forgotten about:
>
A flail, a trowel, weapons very good,
if fitly us'd and rightly understood;
but close engag'd, beware the useless flail;
The trowel then can terribly prevail.
>
The above is from Robert Tatersall's 'The Bricklayer's Miscellany' 1734
and was sent to me some time ago by Bethan Jenkins of the Linacre School of Defence (Dr Milo Thurston's rightly esteemed fencing school).
>
I can imagine the trowel being a pretty viscious CQC weapon.
>
Terry

[RayMcCullough]

That funny. I use to lay brick and can attest to a trowel getting sharp from use. You rarely need a brick hammer when you get good with your trowel. We would cut the aluminum wire about the thickness of a pencil with our trowel also.
Cool find.

[terry brown]

That funny. I use to lay brick and can attest to a trowel getting sharp from use. You rarely need a brick hammer when you get good with your trowel. We would cut the aluminum wire about the thickness of a pencil with our trowel also.
Cool find.

>
Know what you mean Ray, I worked in the construction trade for twenty years and many is the time I've seen builders use their trowels to halve bricks quickly and expertly. Not to mention the point of the trowel which I imagine would be very dangerous for thrusting.
>
I suppose that sometimes we get so wrapped up in 'military' type weapons that we can overlook the 'day-to-day' variety of tradesmen. I recall seeing at least one period illustration showing, for example, a fuller's bat being used for fighting (that's another one I had forgotten about).
>
Cheers,
Terry

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Archaeological trowels are often deliberately sharpened, since a sharp trowel makes it easier to handle finer details of excavation around discovered artifacts (which are often fragile) and visually enhance the boundaries between layers in the soil (when taking a stratigraphy photograph). The point is pretty sharp, too. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one.

[Michæl Bunch]

Lafayette brings up a good point about trowels. I've seen other Archaeological aids accidentally cut their hands and the hands of others on occasion with trowels. Some of the fieldworkers in Belize got their trowels disturbingly sharp given enough time to do so.

Anyway, I think the most interesting odd weapon in a manual was the hand sickle. I've been considering getting an old farming sickle some where and trying it out personally.

[Randall Pleasant]

Archaeological trowels are often deliberately sharpened, since a sharp trowel makes it easier to handle finer details of excavation around discovered artifacts (which are often fragile) and visually enhance the boundaries between layers in the soil (when taking a stratigraphy photograph). The point is pretty sharp, too. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one.

When I worked as an archaologiest I use to keep my trowel extremely sharp. Likewise, our shovels were also very sharp. Before we would take new students to the field for the first time I would demonstrate to them what a very sharp shovel could do to a small tree. Students were always injurying themselves with shovels...but not with the sharp part.

[kruesae]

See the following works of Pauls Mair:

http://mdz10.bib-bvb.de/~db/bsb00006570 ... 6&seite=49

These swords are called Fecht- or Schwertfeder. As far as I know, their were former made by used swords with grinded edges. In later days their made specially for training purposes, their are very flexible so you can train some stabbing technics with a minimum risk. We use them in our lesson.

Here a shop were you can see a picture of it:
http://www.gladiatores.de/shop/pd1197019824.htm?categoryId=5

[terry brown]

Archaeological trowels are often deliberately sharpened, since a sharp trowel makes it easier to handle finer details of excavation around discovered artifacts (which are often fragile) and visually enhance the boundaries between layers in the soil (when taking a stratigraphy photograph). The point is pretty sharp, too. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one.

When I worked as an archaologiest I use to keep my trowel extremely sharp. Likewise, our shovels were also very sharp. Before we would take new students to the field for the first time I would demonstrate to them what a very sharp shovel could do to a small tree. Students were always injurying themselves with shovels...but not with the sharp part.

>
In reference to the sharpness of shovels I recall reading (many years ago) that the SAS carried a small, folding shovel one edge of which was kept sharp so that it could double as a CQC weapon.
>
Terry

[nathan featherstone]

the us martnes use the shovel or etool as a primary cqc weapon it was even on the terrible deadliest warrior anyway one swing nearly took the head of a balistics dunny clean off that impressed me i have to say

[terry brown]

the us martnes use the shovel or etool as a primary cqc weapon it was even on the terrible deadliest warrior anyway one swing nearly took the head of a balistics dunny clean off that impressed me i have to say

>
Thanks. Clearly it is a viscious CQC weapon. I remember seeing an MS illustration showing a peasant using a spade to fight with. The type of spade illustrated had a wooden head that was lined with metal around the edge. That's a very good lineage:)
>
Terry

[Toke Krebs Niclasen]

The crime museum in Rothenburg have a large collection of polearms.
They also have an illustration of an judicial duel between man and woman.
She have a stone in her scarf used as flail, he has a wooden club one hand tied behind his back and is standing in a hole dug to his midriff.
The club have been worked on a lathe and have a lens shaped head.

[JeremyDillon]

They also have an illustration of an judicial duel between man and woman.
She have a stone in her scarf used as flail, he has a wooden club one hand tied behind his back and is standing in a hole dug to his midriff.
The club have been worked on a lathe and have a lens shaped head.

You'll see this unusual combat featured in the works of Hans Talhoffer. Weird stuff, that.

[Sal Bertucci]

That's the way they used to do marriage counseling. Then someone thought they could do better by "talking about it" .