Novelist here. Need some pointers, please.

[Stacy Clifford]

Yes, good point. Mongolians and other steppe cultures, along with American plains tribes, had a large supply of animal horn and sinew and a lot smaller supply of wood, and all of them used shorter bows (which conveniently worked out on horseback). England and eastern North America were much more forested and longer bows were the norm in both places.

[nathan featherstone]

so what sort of weaponry do you intend your character to carry?

[Eli Freysson]

so what sort of weaponry do you intend your character to carry?

Well, I'm writing multiple stories with various main characters. And minor characters and scumbag bandits use all kinds of clubs, axes, spears and whatnot.

Note that due to a backstory detail, I have most swords in my world designed to be light enough to use in one hand, but the hilt is long enough to grip with both hands.

*Mikael starts out with a scramaseax, but gets what is basically an arming sword (he is trained in both).

*Kody has a falchion, and an axe that he mostly uses for throwing (to maim or distract an enemy just before closing in with the sword.)

*Millie is the one with the huge zweihander (magical and specifically intended to kill giants; it IS a fantasy after all). She also has a hand-and-a-half sword for situations the zweihander doesn't fit into.

*Jeivar uses a battle axe and carries a bunch of fighting knives that he mostly uses for throwing. Yes, I know a throw knife isn't likely to kill, but like Kody he mostly does it to injure and weaken an enemy. And he HAS been practicing for thirty years.

*Serdra and Katja (master and apprentice) are a bit tricky, since they train to be highly flexible warriors. They learn to use spears, bows, different kinds of swords and knives, but hand-and-a-half swords suit their needs best, with battle axes coming in second. I also want to throw in a naginata-like polearm.

*Verana has a relatively small arming sword intended for stealth missions, shuriken, and is trained with a light spear.

*Pretty much EVERYONE has a knife for backup.

[nathan featherstone]

so technology is reasonably advanced then as zweihanders are not simple things to make even if magical etc.
also was thinking the advice of schools like mair might be good to look at he ahd what were basically core weapons from which the others were easliy adjustable eg the staff was one from this the spear halberd etc was just an extension of that weapon. just an idea which might be useful for you to look into. also the choice of knife being carried is fairly central to what armour is being worn certain types are no use against certain armours.

[Sal Bertucci]

I also want to throw in a naginata-like polearm.

So you want a Glaive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaive

[s_taillebois]

"*Mikael starts out with a scramaseax, but gets what is basically an arming sword (he is trained in both).

*Kody has a falchion, and an axe that he mostly uses for throwing (to maim or distract an enemy just before closing in with the sword.)"

Another thing you might consider is the class implications of these weapons.
The Seax was a common weapon for virtually all classes. The falchion was often often associated with men at arms or yeomanry.

And these weapons were in use several hundred years apart, the Francisca weirdly enough came back indirectly as trade axes for the French possessions.

[Eli Freysson]

so technology is reasonably advanced then as zweihanders are not simple things to make even if magical etc.

Well, the zweihander warrior is in another series in another world, one that is still completely in the planning stages. But just so I know, but could you tell me what technology is needed to develop such a weapon?

also the choice of knife being carried is fairly central to what armour is being worn certain types are no use against certain armours.

Due to the history of warfare in my world, available armor is almost solely chainmail or hardened leather. And many have to make do with thick clothing.

Oh, and does anyone here like to think of hypothetical situations? Because I just thought of something else I should figure out:
I have a certain organisation of longsword-wielding warriors that frequently get into fights with demons: 8 foot tall, roughly man-shaped monstrosities with huge claws.
The idea is that the monsters are too strong for humans to try to parry their lunges and swipes, so the warriors need to be light on their feet and dodge incoming attacks and respond with powerful slashes, since minor wounds don’t do any real damage to the beasties.

I don’t need a detailed 50-page paper on this, but there’s a scene where a warrior demonstrates the fighting style to a trainee so I need to know how the basic stance and footwork might look.

Oh, and thanks for all the comments and help I’ve gotten so far. Much appreciated.

[Stacy Clifford]

Oh, and does anyone here like to think of hypothetical situations? Because I just thought of something else I should figure out:
I have a certain organisation of longsword-wielding warriors that frequently get into fights with demons: 8 foot tall, roughly man-shaped monstrosities with huge claws.
The idea is that the monsters are too strong for humans to try to parry their lunges and swipes, so the warriors need to be light on their feet and dodge incoming attacks and respond with powerful slashes, since minor wounds don’t do any real damage to the beasties.

I don’t need a detailed 50-page paper on this, but there’s a scene where a warrior demonstrates the fighting style to a trainee so I need to know how the basic stance and footwork might look.

Stances and footwork should look just like all the stuff you already see us doing in the articles and videos on this site. The masters all emphasized quickness and agility of foot, which when used properly allows you to make strong attacks without sacrificing balance for power. There are very few, if any, hard static defensive parries in the manuals where force directly opposes force. Parries are made by deflecting blows and thrusts offline, not stopping them cold. The same principles can (and were) used both armed and unarmed. Also consider that if you have a sharp steel weapon, there's no need to "parry" a giant clawed hand with your flat when you can counterattack it with your edge and cut that hand (or fingers, arm, etc.) off or severely disable it. Maintaining range against the opponent to prevent grappling (where possible) makes this relatively simple.

[nathan featherstone]

well the zweihander is in essence a big sword there is a good section on them here im sure stacy knows of it?
it is not possible to make a giant sword easily it will either be too heavy or brittle or bend when used. so the blade geometry is very complex to make it light enough as well as flexible enough so it does not break.
so whoever makes it will have to have excellent knowledge of metalurgy and the knowledge to make large pieces of steel which therefore implies armour and springs which implies crossbows locks etc.
as for the monster thing i always think about that idea what makes more sense lets say the monster is coming at you with claws in an open hand strike it would be easiest to cut through the hand and into the arm as it comes forward.
it is kind of like a boar concept these spears with the wings were desinged to stop a boar running up the spear once stabbed as it was not always an instant death so sometimes the wings were sharpened so the boar would cut itself open as it moved forwards. just a thought on that.
http://www.kingofswords.com/images/resi ... &width=300

[LafayetteCCurtis]

all i will say is if your looking at something like a hunnic short bow i have seen 12 arrows shot in 20 seconds with one. thats due to a special way of gripping the arrows mind you.

(snip)

click on the vid and go to two minutes in you will see a good example of speed shooting with a short bow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yorHswh ... re=related

Unfortunately, Kassai Lajos's methods were originally based on modern sport archery with a three-fingered Mediterranean draw, so they're not very representative of what was actually used by the Huns (who presumably used the thumb draw like most other Central Asian horse archers). There's a different set of historically attested (in the anonymous "Arab Archery" manual translated by Faris & Elmer) rapid-shooting techniques based on the thumb draw, and my amateur attempts at putting these methods to practice can be seen here. Note that the technique I demonstrated wasn't perfect--with hindsight, I can see that my "clench" was a little too tight and my anchor was awkward, but then fiction usually doesn't have to go into that much detail. These techniques can be very fast indeed--Taybugha al-Ashrafi's 13th-century manual states that a fast shooter should be able to loose his third arrow as he sees the dust rising from the first arrow's strike on the target. The translators' calculation estimate that the arrow would take one and a quarter seconds to travel, so to be safe they posited a rate of shooting equal to two arrows in every one-and-a-half seconds. At this speed the five arrows in the "tunnel" method would all be gone in less than four seconds and picking up another five wouldn't be much trouble from a closed quiver that holds its arrows point-up. It'd probably be impossible to sustain such a rate of shooting for more than half a minute, though. Even fifteen seconds would probably be pushing it!

as for effective range depends on the draw and arrow type the furthest i have heard of a short Turkish bow shoot was 800 yards likely less than this and by no means accurate. but this was with hollow bone arrows. it all depends on the bow the target the archer and the arrow being used. bows are hugely complex.

Quite true. The impressive distances achieved by Turkish flight archers were made with specialized flight arrows shot out of specialized flight bows, both of which are quite light and fragile--exactly the kind of stuff you wouldn't want to carry on the battlefield. Still, in military campaigns, it was not uncommon for Central Asian and Middle Eastern archers to carry a mix of heavy arrows for killing shots at the horse archer's ideal (read: very short) shooting range and light arrows for harassment at much longer ranges. It should be noted that the light arrows absorbed the bow's energy less efficiently and were often ineffective at the end of their trajectory. Accounts of the Crusades had the Crusaders' crossbowmen preventing Muslim horse-archers from getting close in to shoot at their preferred range, and the harassing shots they had to loose from longer ranges (beyond easy reach of the crossbow) often stuck on the padding beneath the Europeans' mail without doing serious damage to the person beneath.

also i beg you dont give the character a quiver they are no use on a battlefield or for running with as the arrows fall out give them and arrow bag its something that drives me nuts in novels lol.

Only if you're talking about the English longbowmen, though--who historically didn't use quivers. On the other hand, archers (both horse and foot) in the Islamic lands made fairly extensive use of quivers; for horseback use in particular, hip quivers with the proper attachment methods wouldn't get in one's way even if the horseman had to fight with sword and lance, as otherwise we wouldn't see so many illustrations of Eastern heavy cavalrymen fighting hand-to-hand with their quivers and bowcases still hanging from their belts. It's true that quivers would have been a bit more awkward for use on foot, but then an archer didn't usually shoot on the run so he would have had at least one hand free to steady the quiver by his side if he had to move quickly from place to place. And of course there's the alternative of using a back quiver, which would have been much more practical for an infantry archer. The only inconveniences that might arise from it would be arrows tangling in your hair (but sensible archers would have worn some sort of cap, turban, or scarf to prevent this, assuming they even bothered to grow their hair long at all) and rattling when you move (which is a problem when you're part of a small group trying to sneak about but not a hindrance if you're in a big formation that's going to make a lot of noise anyhow as it moves and fights).

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Yes, good point. Mongolians and other steppe cultures, along with American plains tribes, had a large supply of animal horn and sinew and a lot smaller supply of wood, and all of them used shorter bows (which conveniently worked out on horseback). England and eastern North America were much more forested and longer bows were the norm in both places.

Not entirely true. A Central Asian composite bow didn't require that much wood or bamboo since the core and grip could be pieced out of several smaller pieces. Indeed, a Jurchen/Manchu composite bow could get pretty big--many were of an equivalent size to Western longbows (as tall as the user) and had a symmetrical design, but the Manchus didn't seem to have had any problems using these bows on horseback!

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Okay. So I could have the program itself be 3-4 years long to gain skill with weapons, and then they'd fight alongside the veterans for a while to gain real combat experience.

It depends on how you'd want to frame the training regime. Such a long training period could be plausible if the program included things like tactical lessons, war games, and "live-fire" exercises made as realistic as safety paradigms would allow. If the school didn't have any of these things, though, and focused only on weapons-handling, it might be a better idea to get the recruits out in the field after only about two years or so, putting them out on things like routine patrols and garrison duties to give them some experience without sticking them into too much danger, since too much skill-at-arms without tactical experience could make them dangerously overconfident and prone to suffering from things like surprise attacks (no amount of weapon-handling drills could teach recruits the importance of deploying security detachments). They (or the survivors, anyway) could always be brought back to training afterwards to discuss and sharpen the lessons they had learned in the field.

Of course, that's only if you really need a "full spectrum" soldier. If all you need is a supreme battlefield shock force that doesn't have to deal with outpost duties and the like (because there are other troops detailed to handle them), then weapon handling, formation drills, and long marches could theoretically be enough to make them a decently useful fighting force.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

*Serdra and Katja (master and apprentice) are a bit tricky, since they train to be highly flexible warriors. They learn to use spears, bows, different kinds of swords and knives, but hand-and-a-half swords suit their needs best, with battle axes coming in second. I also want to throw in a naginata-like polearm.

Sounds just like medieval men-at-arms minus the armour (note that "men-at-arms" historically referred to the people popularly known today as "knights," not lowly expendable soldiers). Do you know that the term "battle axe" back then in medieval and Renaissance times actually referred to the poleaxe? The poleaxe also happens to be the medieval man-at-arms' equivalent for the naginata, while his lower-class counterparts would have had the halberd. The European glaive is generally a rather lighter weapon more comparable to the Japanese yari--which usually had fairly long and broad heads with pronounced cutting edges.

Oh, and does anyone here like to think of hypothetical situations? Because I just thought of something else I should figure out:
I have a certain organisation of longsword-wielding warriors that frequently get into fights with demons: 8 foot tall, roughly man-shaped monstrosities with huge claws.
The idea is that the monsters are too strong for humans to try to parry their lunges and swipes, so the warriors need to be light on their feet and dodge incoming attacks and respond with powerful slashes, since minor wounds don’t do any real damage to the beasties.

I don’t need a detailed 50-page paper on this, but there’s a scene where a warrior demonstrates the fighting style to a trainee so I need to know how the basic stance and footwork might look.

Why would you give them all longswords, though? Against such large, powerful adversaries, it'd probably be more realistic to use a mixture of weapons. Even if you wanted to stick to only hand-to-hand weapons, the demon-hunters would probably be better served by two-man teams, one carrying a long spear or lance to stick the demon and keep it at bay while the second takes advantage of the distraction to move in for the kill with a shorter but more impactful weapon (sword, axe, hammer, whatever). This was how medieval Europeans hunted dangerous animals like the boar and also how John Hawkwood's mercenary English men-at-arms operated in Italy (based on the description that they, well, fought like men hunting boars).

[nathan featherstone]

yeah the thumb ring method is important to note they are much more useful as well as you can handle weapons easier with them as this video shows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTPOm9my5Hg
as for quivers closed ones are the best option yet they can still mess with the flights although the concave design of some lessons this.
as for where to wear it on the back in a quiver is pretty hard to run and move and shoot with i spent a long time trying to figure out with my friend what is the easiest way to shoot on the move. the back quiver is pretty awkward for this. as for quiver design most eastern archers shot from horseback meaning the shots were much closer so crumpled flights would have less of an overall effect on range.
as for pole weapons europe had an abundance of them from bill hooks to spears pikes axes if you can think of it there is something like it. the royal armouries in leeds would be a good visit to check them out.
and the poll axe is a great weapon being good at so many jobs and was a very common battlefield weapon due to its usefulness.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

as for quivers closed ones are the best option yet they can still mess with the flights although the concave design of some lessons this.

This isn't seen as an issue, at least not in Eastern archery where the flights (i.e. feathers) are cut long and (very) low. Moreover, the very act of drawing the arrow out of the quiver already smooths out the ruffled feather a bit as each arrow threads its way past the other shafts, and the movement used to nock without looking at the arrow (which applies to an arrow taken from any sort of quiver, not just the "closed" one) includes a phase that naturally forces the arrow between the fingers and smooths out its feathers once more. After all, natural flights are still preferred in many archery circles for the very reason that they cope with this kind of abuse much better than synthetic vanes do.

(And it's worth noting that--if I'm not mistaken--the conical arrow bags/cases used by some English longbowmen to carry their arrows on the march place the shafts point-up like Eastern closed quivers, so obviously they didn't see it as much of a problem either despite their use of taller fletching.)

as for where to wear it on the back in a quiver is pretty hard to run and move and shoot with i spent a long time trying to figure out with my friend what is the easiest way to shoot on the move. the back quiver is pretty awkward for this.

Then your experience has been very different from mine. The arrows will clatter and scrape against each other and make a hell of a noise if I try to run with a quiver on my back, but this has never presented any obstacles to my movement (except for silent movement, of course). Of course, considering the geometry, it might get a bit troublesome if I get into a swordfight, but if I was expecting that I would probably have worn a quiver with a somewhat less secure attachment--one that would bounce around if I tried to run with it, but this wouldn't matter since a quiver that loose would have been quite easy to unsling and drop before I switch to a weapon more appropriate for hand-to-hand fighting!

as for quiver design most eastern archers shot from horseback meaning the shots were much closer so crumpled flights would have less of an overall effect on range.

Not entirely. While Eastern archery pedagogy did tend to focus on horse archery at short ranges, not all Eastern archers were horse archers and even the horse archers could often be expected to dismount in some contexts. For example, the archers of the Arab Conquest (and indeed of most Islamic Near Eastern states before the arrival of the Turks in the 9th century or so) were infantry archers who could and did shoot at fairly long distances; Arab cavalry were lancers and remained so until the early 20th century. The <i>ghilman</i> and Mamluk heavy horse archers were also known to dismount and fight on foot, including with their bows. There's even some iconography depicting infantry archers with quivers (and sometimes bowcases, too) hanging from their belts, so it would be wrong to universally deny the utility of quivers for archery on foot just because we've discovered some situations where it isn't particularly practical.

Another thing to remember is that the Eastern quivers aren't arranged the same way as modern hip quivers. "Closed" quivers have their arrows pointing forward like modern ones, but the entire length of the arrow is enclosed within the body of the quiver so there's little chance of them interfering with the archer's movements if he needs to fight with a lance, sword, or mace (apart from the movements of the quiver as a whole, that is). On the other hand, Eastern "open" quivers, though they have much or most of the arrow exposed outside the bag, have the arrows poking out backwards and away from the movements that the arms or the body would usually have to make in hand-to-hand combat. One thing I noticed about these open quivers is that, if I raise my hand and deepen my stance to swing a sword or mace, the arrows tend to flatten themselves out against my back--so they stay pretty much out of the way even if I cock my arm all the way back into a Zornhut-like pose prior to a big barbarian swing. Very handy if you have to whack people's heads from horseback, and I suspect just as useful on foot.