Real life experience of Combat mechanics versus conventional wisdom
This is a simple analysis of waht I call "Melee" Combat
mechanics. I am interested in how people feel these
mechanics break down, based on their personal experience. I'm
also interested in how this compares to the conventional
wisdom such as in film and other portrayals or depictions
of combat, and finally, what if any differences there appears
to be between the Fechtbooks and what people feel really
happens while sparring. Please bear with me as I'm still
not yet highly familiar with the Fechtbooks and don't know
all the terminology used by ARMA.
Combat range
I would recognize three basic combat ranges:
Clench or Grapple range, melee range, and beyond melee range
Clench range would be where both bodies are touching or within
18" or so. Obviously, short weapons have a distinct advantage
at this range. Melee range would be between Clench range and
the reach of the longest weapon. Weapon reach seems to be less
relevant at this range. Beyond melee is beyond the reach
of the longest weapon.
Furthermore, I tend to notice two important thresholds, the
first and most important is the transition from beyond melee
range into meleee range. This is where the longest weapon has
the greatest advantage. The second critical threshold seems to
be the transition from melee to clench range. A lot of death-
blows seem to fall here as well.
Reach I think few people grasp the importance of reach when starting
a melee, especially in a one on one situation. When crossing
into melee range.
In another recent thread we were recently discussing the huge
initial advantage a spear has over a single "long sword" at
this stage, I'm not sure precisely how to quantify the reach
advantage though I think any experienced fighter recognizes
that there is one, but I would say it is very significant,
maybe even doubling or tripling the chances of a hit by the
weilder of the spear at that threshold point.
From my experience though, even a slight reach advantage of
one foot or as little as six inches can also make a big
difference. I wonder how much the Fechtbooks agknowlege this,
and what contingencies, other than arming yourself differently,
are reccomended for dealing with it.
Momentum
Another thing I find interesting about melee combat, is that
there seems to be a kind of momentum to the fighting which can
swing back and forth. Rather than merely trading blows, tit
for tat, it always seems like one person dominates and attacks
repeatedly until they defeat their opponent or make a mistake,
at which point momentum may shift to the other fighter. One
used to see a fanciful portrayal of something like this in
depictions of fencing in old swashbuckling films, though
current Hollywood seems to tend to prefe the same strange my
turn / your turn binary dynamic they usually have in fist
fights.
In films though one often sees the Rambo effect, where one
fighter is beaten back to the point seemingly of almost no
return, only to suddenly draw upon some hidden reserve of
energy to turn the tables. There seems, to my experience, to
be a strange dynamic where sometimes, people loose their
ability to think on thier feet, when you start attacking and
keep it up for a certain amount of time very aggressively,
they seem to run out of ideas, energy and options. A dangerous
opponent seems in some cases to be reduced to a fairly easy
target after a steady rush of attacks, and it is a rare person
who can come back from this brink unless you yourself as the
attacker make a major mistake. It seems like, further, the
more streetwise type people who have a better chance of enduring
this. I always assumed this is why the Fechtbooks reccomend
attack always as a primary option. Has anyone else
experienced this?
Strategy
One thing I'm sure is in the Fechtbooks, is that when you
are attacking is when you are at your most vulnerable.
Something which is hard to model in sparring with wasters or
padded swords ('boffers'?) is the level of damage and / or the
intensity of a strike. I have read historical accounts of
fencers repeatedly jabbing at the extremities of dangerous
opponents, wearing them down by an attack of many light wounds
rather than going for that one killing blow. In sparring I
always found it very difficult to differentiate between a light
attack and a killing blow, all are assumed to be the latter.
I tend to instinctively prefer the aggressive attack style
anyway, and my aggressive tactics have often cost me. I'm
certain that when going for that killing blow especially, one
must be certain that the opponent has been diminished in his
or her capacity to counerattack.
Hit Location
Sometimes, when things are fairly even, one may attemt to
strike at a particular part of an opponents body, but it's
more of a general area you are attacking due to all the
random factors. For example, aiming at the head, you might
hit the shoulders, the arm, the back, the neck... On other
times however, when you have either attacked until someone
seems to have run out of steam, as it were, or if they made
a huge mistake of some kind, one suddenly knows you can hit
them precisely anywhere you want. I usually emphasise this by
symbolically cutting their throat, or tapping them several
times on the head.
Tactics Versus Amateurs
I've seen a lot of anecdotes on here about various real-life
melee fights in the news and elsewhere. I have been in several
incidents where I had to use sticks, bats or pipes to defend
myself against similarly armed opponents. Also, when my old
group used to spar in public parks in various ghetto
neighborhoods in New Orleans, we made a point of letting anyone
who wanted to try their luck step in, put on a helmet and have
a go. This could be almost as dangerous because you never
knew when somebody was going to go apeshit after being hit,
and start punching, pull a knife out, or even a gun (in which
case we generally ran like sissies while they ranted or menaced
us!)
It was really good training though, and as one of the guys who
was usually picked to try out the people off the street, I
learned that there certain differences about fighting people
who have a little training, or fighting people who have no
training and no fighting ability, versus fighting people who
are experienced and very aggressive street fighters but are
unexpereinced with stick fighting.
The latter type people, both in real life and in sparring, do
certain recognizable things and I tended to use different
tactics against them. The main difference, is that in contrast
to both what the Fechtbooks say and what my own normal sparring
policy is, I usually intentionally let them have the
initiative and coutnerattacked. People in this situation are both
unpredictable, so that their reactions say to your attack are
different from more exprienced fighters, but under the right
circumstances they are also MORE predictable. The biggest
danger of an aggressive tactic is that people like this will
tend to strike without regard to defense, and your most likely
trouble will come from hitting them right as they hit you. That is
ok if it's a boffer, but with a bat or a pipe it might actually
indeed be "mutual death" for real.
I found it was better to wait, apparently open to attack, then
parry and counter attack. Generally i would stand with a kind
of passive guard, holding the weapon strait up, exposing my head
to attack. Streetwise amateurs are thinking aggressively, like
you would for fist fighting. They don't grasp how quickly a
pipe or a bat can disable you, and they Definately don't realise
how easy it can be to parry an attack. Parries are rare in (street)
fist fighting. They are thinking about doing the maximum possible
damage, like you do if you are trying to punch somebody into
submission, you hit in the head over and over again as hard as
you can. Again, I'm not talking about martial artists here
(though they seem to often react the same way).
As a result, they are planning to hit VERY hard, and they
usually want to go for your head. They will telegraph thier
blow, winding up like a baseball player. I have found that
a right handed person will almost always attack strait down
at your head or from their right side at your head. Their
strike is almost always so committed and so powerful, that
once you stop it, they are utterly open to an easy counterattack.
Once I saw the attack coming, (and you usually have plenty of
warning) I usually transitioned to a hanging guard I learned
from an Akido practicioner, with my right hand up, letting my
weapon hang left and down at more or less of an angle, supported
by my left arm. The nice thing about this guard is that it worked
quick and then you could transition to a two handed counter strike
strait down onto their head or collar bones very quickly. As soon
as you parry you have plenty of time to smash right down on them
as hard as you want.
Another thing to remember is, people who haven't fought with
sticks or bats before (and few have) don't have any concept of
what the reach of their weapon is, or yours. On other occasions
someone was closing on me and I could feel that the range was
perfect to strike them quickly and step back into a safe distance,
and I disabled the attacker before they even struck once. If I'm
unsure about the skill of the opponent however, I use the more
conservative tactic and await their attack.
I was once attacked by three guys, one of whom had a big iron
pipe of the kind they used to have to hold up those blinking
yellow public works lights they put up over open manholes and
such, and all I had was a full 16 oz beer can and a
political street sign I pulled out of someones lawn, which was
a light piece of plywood with some city councilmans face on
it nailed to a light pine stake, in a very clumsy overall shape.
I used the exact technique i describe above, and after blocking
an enthusiastic but predictable swing at my head, I hit one guy
on the top of his own head very hard twice before he dropped his
pipe and ran out of range, then after I lost the race to get the
pipe, i did the same to one of his friends.
I got hit only once across my back, before I had pulled the
sign out of the lawn. Once armed it seemd like I was invicible
against the pipe. The whole thing freaked them out so much all three
of them ran away, even though they could have probably rushed me
and beaten me hospital ripe which I'm sure they would have loved
to do. I even recovered one of the guys hats. I know I put some
lumps on two of their heads with what practically amounted to a
piece of clumsy balsa wood, which wasnt bad especialy since i was
drunk. Did I mention I was drunk.
I reccomend this tactic overall, whenever fighting what you might call aggressive, streetwise amateurs, but I
want to also point out he obvious: things aren't always so simple, in a situation like that, be ready for anything and don't assume anything, watch and prepare to react to what you see. Saying that I have done almost the same exact thing with boffers to Tulane football players, so called karate experts, bikers, rednecks, skinheads and all kinds of random people.
I would love to hear from anyone else who has had similar experiences, or insight into how the Fechtbooks deal with similar situations.
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