How About This !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mike Haas]

I found these awesome videos on these sites. I've been wanting to do this for a long time but haven't found a place near where I live. http://scadocumentary.com/trailer.asp
http://www.jubilex.com/
This has to be the closest thing to real medieval combat out there.

[Logan Weed]

They need some form of commander...some form of...drilling in formation tactics.

[Mike Haas]

well on one of the ones in the sca documentary you can here someone shouting orders above that music. I believe it is in the open field battle or one of the other ones below.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Mike

The SCA is oriented totaly opposite of what ARMA is.

Have you looked at any of the ARMA video?

Jeff

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

No Offense, but many people are many people. If somebody wants to take part in such a big battle, where can he / she go? I've never met anybody from SCA and I noticed they aren't that accurate because of their rules, and they focus on winning from points, actually doing something that has not much to do with Martial Arts.... But how else should such a gigantic battle take part?
Not, that studiing Western martial Arts should be about such battles. In my opinion, it is still an important part in our study... We do lots of battles, noit this big of course, and I can say it's much fun and does teach you lots of things: teamwork, conquer of fear or other emotions, control, peripheric vision etc.

Szab

[Brian Hunt]

The SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) is a form of sport. They have specific rules, fight to a simulated death, act out wounds (if your hit in the arm you can't use that arm anymore, if your hit in the leg you have to fight from your knees, if your hit in the head or body you have to die), limited target areas ( no shots from the knee down, no shots to the hand), they strike to the armoured areas as if the sword will cut through the armour instead of exploiting the weaknesses of the armour, and there is no grappling. They do fight full contact, the blow must be solid to be taken, they use rattan to make their weapons. They can field more people for a battle than any other group that I am aware of. At their Esrella War Event, there can be an average of 6000 people in armour on the battle field, much of which is plastic armour. Their form of combat can teach you timing, distance, a few other basic concepts that are germane to fighting, but it is not the type of combat taught in the manuals that have been written by the fencing masters of old. There are those in the SCA who are striving to be more correct in their form of combat, as much as they are able under the umbrella of their rule set, but their rules limit what they can and cannot do. The SCA is about re-enactment of what they feel the middle ages should have been, everyone is minor nobility or better, they cover a time period range from the fall of the roman empire to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Thus you get a lot of anachronisms such as vikings and samurai mixing together, cavaliers and teutonic knights dining at the same table, etc. It can be a fun game, but in the end it is a sporting stick fight IMHO, not a true martial art, much like modern sport fencing is a sport and not a martial art. I have simliar opinions on their form of rapier combat as well. Fun sport, but the rules keep it as such, instead of a full fledged martial art.

Just my personal opinion and is not meant as an attack on the SCA, just a personal observation.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[TimSheetz]

Because of the numbers it can attract, I think that they can bring a sense of what a large mass of people and how they move would be like on a battlefield.

I wish we could get some of them to train close order drill and fight like disciplined infantry. That would be a real sight to see.

More scary to me would be about 500 ARMA guys deploying or skirmishing. Mayeb some day!

Tim

[Brian Hunt]

Some of the SCA households do practice manuvers, etc. A lot of them are just a bunch of loose individuals on the battlefield looking for a chance to be a hero. A lot of times it depends upon the social culture of the kingdom you are in whether or not they spend time practicing manuvers. I can tell from prior experience that fighting at one of their large wars is a real rush, you have no idea what it is like to be in that large of a group of people who are all fighting at the same time until you get a chance to do so.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[GaryGrzybek]

"More scary to me would be about 500 ARMA guys deploying or skirmishing"

You've got that right Tim <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

I think SCA has it's place but strays too far from my own personal goals. It would be cool to see this mass combat in person. It would certainly get my adrenaline going.

[Aaron Pynenberg]

I dig the song---coo!

[John_Clements]

I think the one thing --one thing --the Sca combat does well enough is their large scale battles, which given the scope reasonably can't really be pulled off safely any other way that I can imagine at present. They certainly look fun.

I mean, it's not like you can allow lightly or un-armored fighters or grappling there, or bring horses and realistic missile fire directly into things. There has to be practical limitations. (Which, of course, limit any understanding of real historical battle that might be gained).

JC

[jeremy pace]

You and i agree on that.... i kept wondering what a flight of cavalry would do to their flanks or a hail of arrows..... i guess we will never see it and im not sure if thats a good or bad thing.

[Craig Peters]

So John,

At the present state, would you say that a large scale ARMA battle would not be safe? If so, what would your most serious safety concerns be for such an encounter?

[Allen Johnson]

I know you asked John but I thought I'd sneak in my half cents worth. I think the biggest reason is that we really have no armor requirements. Very few people even have a gambeson, much less a suit of plate...or even partial plate. Steel helms would be a must and with the wasters we use, you could not use the cheaper bar grill kinds as the tips would pass through (on most designs). Im sure thats just one aspect- but i think an essential one.

[Shane Smith]

I have seen as many as 20-30ish ARMA guys engaged in freeplay with mixed padded weapons but it was all very freestyle skirmishing. This was at the ARMA International event in NY.One image that remains burned in my mind is John running around in no shoes with a padded halberd hewing folks down as they ran <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />