Some thoughts from staff work this weekend

[david welch]

In a discussion I had earlier today, I was talking about the staff work we did this weekend.

We worked mostly on the guards and strikes. Eventually we got around to doing "test cutting" on a milk jug filled with water. We placed the jug on the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket that had been placed upside down over my padded pell, so it was about at head height. Remember, we were out in the sun and the plastic the bucket was made of was hot and soft, not brittle at all.

We were swinging with the Meyer swing where you slip your front hand, and make a big one handed swing all the way around and hit them in the temple. And we were using 1 1/2" round 8 foot long pine staffs.

The first swing missed the jug and hit the bucket. Not only did it break the front of the bucket, but somehow the force made it all the way through and broke the back of the bucket also.

The next one hit the water jug and ruptured it, but instead of the splash we were expecting, the hit turned the water into a very fine spray and mist that I have only seen from using them as a target for a high powered rifle.

The one thing I can tell you about this is I never, ever want to be hit with one.

In trying to figure out what we are dealing with, I have an 8' pole at arms length. I can reach something 11' away like that. I also figure that twirling it around probably pulls me at least 1' off my center. so that gives me a radius of 12'. That means the circumference the staff is spinning is about 75'.

From the start of my spin to the end would be figuring in acceleration and I don't want to do that, so at the end I spun it around 2 more times at what was the best attempt at a constant speed I could manage. They averaged about 2 times a second.

So... on impact the staff is going 150' per second, 9000' per minute, or 102 miles per hour.

Out of curiosity, I decided to make a comparison. I got these two off an on line ballistics chart:

A 180 gr 30-06 at 2600 fps has 2701 ft/lbs per second kinetic energy ( force of impact. )

A 125 grain .357 at 1450 fps has 583 ft/lbs per second KE


A 3 pound staff at 150 fps has 105 ft/lbs per second KE

Now, I also got:

A rough guide for hunting effectiveness based on kinetic energy (this is an archery chart) is:

Kinetic Energy Hunting Usage
< 25 ft. lbs. Small game
25 - 41 ft. lbs. Medium Game (deer, antelope, etc.)
42 - 65 ft. lbs. Large Game (elk, black bear, wild boar, etc.)
> 66 ft. lbs. Toughest Game (cape buffalo, grizzly, etc.)

...

Kinetic energy is often used as the standard for projectile effectiveness, but a baseball (5.12 ounces moving at 95 mph) has 87 foot pounds of kinetic energy. It actually strikes harder than an atlatl dart, but I can't really see hunting a bison with a fast ball. While kinetic energy determines how hard an object strikes, it doesn't determine how far it penetrates. That is where momentum comes in.



A 125 grain .357 at 1450 fps has .80 slug feet per second momentum (penetration)

A 180 gr 30-06 at 2600 fps has 2.08 slug feet per second momentum

A 3 pound staff at 150 fps has 6.98 slug feet per second momentum


I read once that Cold Steel President Lynn Thompson said he saw a spear knock a man off his feet in Africa. At 5 lbs and 37fps thats 5.75 slug-feet/second.


Now, I still haven't decided what all this tells me about a staff. And I am not completely sure you can calculate a rotating staff the same way you figure out linear force. I just still know I don't want to be hit with one.

[Dan Urbach]

Very interesting observations and calculations. I agree the penetration would not be much but the impact would be uhm...
attention getting. I was interested in your mention of atlatl darts. is this an area you have experience ? I have constructed a couple and found them to be interesting. Is there a historical record of such or had they died ( I think so ) in Europe by this time ? I understand that the Spanish encountered them in South America ( and also understand that they found them to penetrate breast plates )

Also .. and I am lacking the physics theory here to prove this .. but I was Told by a HS physics teacher that if you take two balls with equall mass and equall velocity... one made of rubber and one made of steel, and impact them against something .. the rubber one transfers more energy to the target. ( this seems wrong to me because there is energy left over to bounce the rubber one farther ) Has to do with the " double force " of the rubber ball .. once on impact and then again when the ball rebounds off the target. technicly it has to do with calculations involving the co eficient of restitution (sp?) This same thing is said to make a two piece atlatl dart more effective ( the shaft rebounds and comes loose from the head .. at least that is a theory by one archeologist )

All of this seems a little off topic I realize .. but has any one considered the restitution factor between say a waster and a steel ? or possibly the effect this would have on a staff of various compositions ( ie: hard or soft wood ? )

[Stacy Clifford]

Wow, I knew these moves were scary, but that definitely puts some perspective on it. Great work, David. It's hard for me to tell if your calculations are factoring in the added motion of footwork or not, and don't forget that Meyer tells you to give extra propulsion to the throw with your loose hand as you release. You're only supposed to go around once and strike on the first pass, so it needs the extra push you would otherwise get from an extra revolution or two.

That said, if you think the horizontal strike to the temple is nasty, try Meyer's other version, which comes around over the top for a vertical strike! <img src="/forum/images/icons/shocked.gif" alt="" /> !!!!!

[david welch]

Dan:

I have made atlatl darts in the past, but decided that I would never be coordinated enough to use one to actually hit a target, so I abandoned the idea. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Stacy:
The double wheel was just a way to help me guesstimate the speed of impact.

The math is straight 3 lb staff at 150 fps. I didn't add in force you would gain from a passing step, or any of the extra force that would drive the staff through the impact from your arm or rotation of your body. Also, we don't have a lot of experiance swinging a staff and I am sure practice would increase the speed quite a bit.

So even though the numbers look like a lot of force, when you take into consideration that they are low balled to begin with, and then that they are taken from the efforts of novices, I can only imagine the power generated by a skilled user would be truly impressive.

[Dan Urbach]

As I dont have any of the manuals yet, I was wondering if someone could comment on the use of "pole" weapons. can they all be weilded in this manner.. like a staff ? or do edged weapons rule out the swinging movements ( ie: does one confine themself to thrusts only with a spear ) I would think that any pole could be used as a straight staff with at least as great an effect. While it might not be the most efficient use of a spear point it might be interesting to note the results anyway. Also I am placing an order or two for source material and have a secondary interest in the traditional spear of the " german tribes " ( reported in the Roman times ) what books do people suggest for spear work ?

I know that a lot of work has been done with the sword and harness and it has largely been discovered that you need to thrust into openings and weak points. Has anyone done any work with other weapons ( such as a spear ) and are any of them effective against full harness ? I imagine that "chopping" weapons would be ( such as a pole axe and even hand axes and hammers ) though to what extent I do not know.

Thanks
Dan

[Casper Bradak]

The staff is foundational for most pole arms, including spears. There's no reason you can't strike with them.
Many manuals show the use of spears in armour, Master Ringecks is a good place for detailed info on it.
Master Ringeck said, and I highly agree, that whatever weapon you choose to fight against armour with, you should only thrust.

[Roger Soucy]

Good work David, but there are several things to take into account I think.

1) Only the farthest tip of the staff is traveling at 150 fps. As you travel up the staff toward the hands the fps decreases. Not that this has any real bearing on your calculations.

2) 3 lbs is the weight of the total staff. I don't believe that this is accurate to use in the calculations because of the way the staff strikes. When a bullet or spear strikes, all forward momentum is carried into the point of impact as it is striking on a straight line. A staff on the other hand has both a circular momentum but also pulls outward due to centrifugal (sp?) force. Thus the weight of the staff at rest has little bearing on it's weight in motion since the movement is a pivot rather than straight, one directional movement. (Actually, the weight has bearing, but requires far more complex calculations due to the nature of the movement)

3) Also, Kinetic energy does not translate to all objects in terms of how hard they hit or how much damage they do. The reason behind this is that you also must figure in the surface area that is impacting as well as the kinetic energy. This is why getting hit with an arrow, bullet, or atlatl dart is much more dangerous than with a baseball, the kinetic energy is transfered to the target at a much smaller point.

I believe your calculations would be much better used in regards to a thrust from the staff. This type of hit would carry all 3 lbs of the staffs weight behind it, be on a linear path, and much more easily measured. Also, the point of impact is slightly smaller than with the side of the staff.

However, all that said, I am not a physicist or mathmetician. I think your results with the milk jug and the bucket speak for themselves. Needless to say there is tremendous force in such a strike. What we really need is one of those striking targets they use in martial arts that register the striking force of an attack.

[Stacy Clifford]

For all practical purposes, there's no reason a spear can't be used exactly like a staff as long as the spear head isn't overly large. Actually, if you watch the movie Troy out right now, they do some smacking with the spear shafts (surprise, surprise). Once you start putting more weight at one end though, you lose some of the staff's versatility in favor of other things. You wouldn't try to do any one-handed slings with a halberd because it would be almost uncontrollable, and good edge placement would be unlikely. Most of the techniques that keep both hands on the staff, however, remain fully applicable to other pole arms with some modifications for form. Joachim Meyer teaches halberd right after staff in the same section of his manual. I've seen mention of an early 1400s manual on spear by Andres Legnitzer (in the essays section - Renaissance Martial Arts Literature), but I've never seen it. If anybody finds it, I want a copy.

As for full harness, though I have no experience with it, swords have to go for weak spots because they are unable to cut through plate armor and have a harder time punching through the hard parts with a thrust. A spear has a nice long heavy shaft propelled with both hands by your whole body, so you would expect it to have an easier time perforating armor. Polearms with back spikes, crow's beaks, hammers, and axes were basically custom made can openers with all the necessary leverage and penetrating power to ruin anybody's day.

[Laurent Marshall]

Just wondering, but where did you get your translation Meyer? I've started on the free translation at http://www.schielhau.org/Meyer.title.html thats just the long sword section, but its making me curious about the rest of it.

[david welch]

Laurent,

ARMA Knoxville is doing all our staff work right now from my notes from Stacy's staff class at Southern Knights, and the study materials he has posted in the members section.

[Jay Vail]

Stacy, you be interested to know that stories originating in the middle ages and some Icelandic sagas refer to combats where spears were used to slash as well as thrust. So it appears that the ability to use the spear not unlike a staff in some circumstances was known.

[Shane Smith]

I was wondering where the historical support for MRL's new "hewing spear" was to be found. Thanks Jay.

[JeffGentry]

Hello everyone
I was watching a show awhile back on the Discovery Channel about Extrene nartial art's and they talked about the staff as it is used in asian martial art's. They calculated the speed at the tip at about 50 mile's an hour don't know how accurate that is but sound's good. If that is concentrated in say a half inch of surface area that would be quiet abit of force to apply to say your temple think it would drop you like a stone if you weren't wearing a helmet about bash you silly if you were.

As for pole weapon's used like stave's wasn't the forest bill used to prune tree's? If that is the case it could probaly lope off an arm or leg just as easily as tree branch.IMHO

but it is interesting to see someone attempting the math to see the force's generated by a staff/pole.good job

Jeff

[Casper Bradak]

I think that's actually a very slow estimate. There are plenty of accounts of death by staff, brains scattered out and all.