Armor training

I was discussing house rules for D&D with my brother and mentioned that I liked the LotFP rule that essentially removes weapon and armor restrictions in favor of limiting certain activities (arcane spell casting, skill use) while encumbered.  He thought it better to keep existing weapon & restrictions by class because using certain weapons*, and wearing heavy armor, actually require some training.

I used ‘class based damage’ in my Telengard campaign before, and part of the thinking there is that more martial classes just use weapons more effectively. A fighter does d8 with a mace because he’s a fighter who has been trained for war; a thief does d6 with the mace because his training is mostly in stealth and skills. So Tom suggested class-based AC, such that fighters would derive the full benefit of mail or plate while other classes got only a smaller increase in AC from the same armor, again based on the class’ training.  So maybe leather/mail/playte add a base of +1/+2/+3 to ascending AC, so while fighters and clerics add another +2 or 3, thieves and mages add nothing.  This also boosts AC for unarmored fighters, which is nice if you’d like more swashbucklers and barbarians in you basic D&D.  I’m leaning towards just leaving the armor restrictions as they are (although I’m not convinced that this is functionally different from saying thief skills can only be used if encumbrance is medium or less, and arcane spells can only be used if encumbrance is light or none…a wizard will almost certainly be better off in no armor, casting spells, and a thief would pretty dumb to forgo using skills just so he can have heavier armor…which raises the question of why bother changing armor restrictions at all…)

The discussion also reminded me of one of Plato’s dialogues, the Laches, where, right at the beginning, the characters discuss whether it is a good idea to hire a teacher of hoplomachia — “fighting in armor” according to the translation I read in college.  The idea is rejected because the Spartans have the greatest warriors and do not study hoplomachia.  One participant (Nicias) even says that the hoplomachia teachers avoid Sparta as if it were ‘sacred ground’ — the Spartans apparently would not suffer such fools.**  I think the reality is, the Spartans did a lot of training in armor, just not the specific kind ‘hoplomachia‘ the character in the dialogue was peddling — which may have been something more like ‘fencing,’ i.e. a combat sport rather than a true martial art.  Apparently hoplomachia meant the actual warrior’s skills in Homeric times but by Plato’s time meant something like ‘swordplay’ or ‘fencing’.

I have read about medieval knights wearing their armor all the time until they were strong and agile enough to vault onto a horse, or scale a wall, or even do a cartwheel in it, and seen video of re-enactors at the Leeds museum do such things; Tom also related an anecdote about a Renaissance Fair acrobat who said he wore mail under his clothes until he could perform his routine in it, and it took him three years of practice to manage it.  So what we’re really talking about is learning to compensate for the encumbrance of armor.  I think there is a way to understand the existing limitations on armor as reflecting this same reality — thieves and magic-users just don’t wear armor because it interferes with their freedom of movement which they need to function in their primary roles.  The LotFP rules make this more explicit, but leave the option to wear some armor open, much as the Unearthed Arcana rules gave thieves some leeway to wear a few heavier armor types.

I guess I should note that the rules for Rolemaster were way ahead of me on this too, as wearing armor was a skill to be developed alongside everything else (in fact, a suite of skills for different armor types!).  I never questioned those rules back in the day, and they still make sense.

So the bottom line is I have come around to accept limitations on armor use.  I might keep it tied to encumbrance, or might leave open the possibility that characters could learn to wear heavy armor, and now that I think of it, maybe fighters (and clerics) should face smaller penalties for climbing and jumping in armor, since they are trained to bear it.

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Update (since writing this post up last week):

I asked about these issues on “AncMed,” the Society of Ancients’  yahoo group, and one member gave a very interesting response, based on his re-enactment experiences:

Hi Mike

Just based on my own 15th century replica experience it’s pretty easy to wear armour straight off, the issues are usually:

a) getting it on properly in the 1st place! This is very dependent on what sort of armour it is – so I’d anticipate a lorica would be pretty straight forward, but like even a simple back & breast-plate it is helpful to have an old hand or a mate around to tighten fastenings & ensure that the straps are not tangled. In many ways learning to fight in a close helmet is probably more of an adjustment – but again it depends upon what type of helmet it is. Similarly you need a lot of training to fight with a shield effectively – my guess is much more so than just wearing the armour.

b) My own experience is that ‘soft armours’ such as jacks etc. are dead easy to wear & fight in & mail shirts are similar. The issue with mail however is that it generally ‘hangs’ all it’s weight on the wearers shoulders, so it’s best belted to take the weight of the mail skirt on the hips. Or if it’s worn under a ‘hard’ armour — such as a breast plate — the mail is reduced and the mail sleeves & skirt are best sown onto a padded under garment (an arming doublet). Mail is hot to fight in & you will dehydrate quickly. Surprisingly the same is true of soft armours such as jacks — which to give any real degree of protection require to be quite thick. However, mail & most other metal armours also conduct the cold very quickly (which is not the case with soft armours) and so I’d imagine many deaths after battles caused by hypothermia adding to shock. Soft armours, unless greased or tarred will also get sodden with sweat & rain of course, which can make them a lot heavier even than mail!

c) more complex 15th century harness requires an established process or order to put on.  So it’s standard practice in full harness to put your leg & arm harness on first — it’s a sort of ‘inside-out’ process — nearest the body first: arming doublet, leg harness, arm harness, mail standard, upper breast plate, then fould & skirt and tassets, and finally shoulder plates, gorget, helmet and gauntlets. You will need at least 1 assistant — usually to click the sliding rivets on the back & breastplates into place (using a bear-hug technique) and also to tie on your shoulder plates and do the rear strap up on your bevor. For speed, you can leave off the leg harness & just drop the upper breast & back plates on over the arming doublet. Or, as we see in some 14th century illustrations you get mounted men-at-arms in just their arming doublets, with helmets, arm & leg harness, as this is the camp ‘dress-down’ state of a fully armoured man (a crab without his shell!).

As has been stated here previously the weight of a full harness is distributed over the whole body so unlike mail it’s not a huge burden initially, but once fatigued it’s a true burden — especially leg-harness.

Fighting in full harness is a truly learned skill (not one that I ever fully mastered!). It requires lots & lots of practice and training (both individually & in groups) so as not to injure yourself as well as your friends. Whilst (in my experience) it makes you feel truly invulnerable (9 feet tall) equally you can be exceptionally vulnerable, as you have restricted vision, a generally poor top-heavy point of balance (helmets & shoulder plates move your center of balance upwards quite considerably) and the fact that once in it it’s not really a quick process to get out of it.

Fighting in full harness is about using the whole body — yes you’ve got your sword, dagger, mace or pole-axe but equally you are wearing another +6olbs of hard & often deliberately sharp outer shell.  Elbow points are truly deadly (hence the common expression of “giving somebody the elbow”). In fact your elbows are deceptively dangerous weapons.  I remember a re-enactment of the Battle of St.Albans many years ago. We (The White Company Men-at-Arms) were engaged in a hand-to-hand melee in a series of mocked-up stage built houses and an opponent with a sword & buckler (in a metal breast plate thankfully) engaged me unexpectedly from my rear right side – just slightly inside of my visor slit line of vision. I was expecting my back to be covered, but my supporting bills were engaged with other assailants — all I saw was a flash of opposing livery colours (Staffords – red & black) & a raised sword. As I was also engaged with my pole-axe with another armoured enemy with a longsword to my front instinctively I jerked out with my right elbow with as much force as I could muster & the impact knocked my assailant off his feet & threw him out through a low window a full 2 or 3 yards, winding him badly. From my rear, I was extremely vulnerable as the backs of my thighs are unprotected and a sharp blade could easily slide up under my shoulder plates and into my shoulder.

Similarly, if you get hit by a pole-axe (the hammer or blade) on a sliding rivet in your shoulder plates, it will lock the whole arm and you end up looking like a bird with a broken wing as your arm is locked in the position it was in when the rivets were locked, again making you extremely vulnerable.

d) I don’t know about ancient Greek linen armours or greaves, but again I guess they’d become 2nd nature after a while.

Hope that helps, but we probably need to bear in mind that we (me) are nowhere near as fit or ‘hardy’ as those ancient or medieval soldiers – more used to physical graft and burden carrying than us ‘soft’ modern types!!!

Mark [Fry]

I asked for a little more information about the armor ‘locking up’ and Mark expanded on this, as well as adding some other interesting insights about armor use in the late middle ages:

The issue with armour ‘locking’ is the fact that much of the 15th century shoulder armour plates have sliding pins & rivets to allow the plates to travel freely over each other but at the same time keep any gaps to the minimum. So a denting blow on an area where the rivets would normally travel freely effectively locks those two plates together. It’s thought that is the real purpose around the hammer heads often found on one side of a poleaxe. Once the men-at-arms had his arm/shoulder restricted in this manner he was extremely vulnerable to the long sharp pointed spikes at either end of the poleaxe which were slid into gaps in the harness. Even a long sword, grasped 6″ or so back from the point to give it some rigidity is just as effective. Have you seen the DVD Reclaiming the Blade (it’s got John Howe in it from the Company of St. George amongst others)? Well worth getting if you can find a copy. 15th century sword fighting in harness was a matter of using all parts of the sword so the guard & pommel are equally lethal even against a chap in armour.

The idea that a man in good quality harness is like a beached turtle if felled is (as I’m sure you know) complete rubbish. We used to turn cart-wheels, make rolls, and easily get off & on horses unaided in good fitting full harness. In fact there was an incident when one of our number fell off the castle wall at Rockingham, in full harness, during a demonstration. With his arming jack underneath he just bounced down the grassy incline — after falling some 10 feet or more. Apart from a headache (probably hang-over induced) he had a few minor bruises, that was all. There used to be some pretty good footage of arming 15th century harness on the Company of St.George website — it’s worth trying to get access to this.

I developed a theory (whilst in the White Company) that there was no such thing as ‘billmen’. Nik Gaukroger & I have had endless debates about this previously.

My theory is that you had men-at-arms (of various status) and ‘soldiers’. The soldiers were mostly archers (Longbow armed) but would be very happy to pick up bills or similar pole-arms as & when required (such as guard duty etc.) for off-battlefield duties (as they appear in 15th century illustrations). The men-at-arms fought in distinctive units — more heavily (fully armoured) & therefore higher status or more experienced (hence the more comprehensive harness) guys at the front, with less well armed chaps at the back (so these are what modern re-enactors would call ‘billmen’) in sallets/kettles, brigandines or munition back & breastplates or jacks, maybe arm harness but probably not leg-harness. These guys’ ‘role’ was primarily to make sure that the guys in the full harness operated at maximum effect — so they watched their backs, defended them if they were knocked over & helped them up and generally stabbed or cut with their own pole-arms around the better protected & also fight their opposite numbers in the melees.

Similarly, I think that we’ve got our interpretation of later medieval hand-gunners all wrong. We see them primarily as skirmishers, when in reality all the illustrations of the period show them relatively heavily armoured and fighting in the front-ranks of mixed bill &/or pike or spear formations (there is a great 15th century Flemish illustration of this but I cannot remember the source at present). All of which makes great sense as I think that they probably operated a bit like ‘anti-tank’ weapons – as they were probably the best means of shooting down the very heavily armoured front-rank foot men-at-arms.

Anyway … all just an interesting theory

I should mention that anyone interested in ancient and medieval warfare, weapons, armor, and armies — especially if you are interested in wargames — should join AncMed and/or The Society of Ancients.  I’ve been lurking AncMed on and off for years and it’s been quite an education. Although you sometimes get some heated arguments, the level of sophistication and maturity (not to mention scholarship!) is usually very high.

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*He mentioned flails specifically, as opposed to a simpler, handier weapon like a short sword; I think he’s right about that.  Likewise pole-arms seem more complicated to wield than spears, and while you see depictions of peasant levies armed with spears, clubs, and simple pole-arms derived from agricultural tools, you don’t see them carrying great-swords, halberds, and so on.  So maybe the ‘simple’ versus ‘martial’ distinction in 3rd and 4th editions are a good idea.

**Nicias also mentions that one of the teachers of this art made a fool of himself with a weapon he invented that combined a spear and scythe.  Apparently when he tried to use it in a boarding action to cut another galley’s rigging, it got entangled and he was dragged the length of the ship.  So any early guisearme apparently failed to impress the Greeks.  It’s a very interesting anecdote, though, as a reminder that even the Greeks experimented with polearms.

Cold iron and the Lords of Darkness

For quite a while I’ve been pretty confused by the term ‘cold iron’ that keeps cropping up in the old AD&D Monster Manual.  Unless there is an explanation squirreled away somewhere in the DMG, ‘cold iron’ is left unexplained. (The demon entry mentions ‘iron weapons’  — nothing about them being “cold iron” — oversight or intentional distinction?)

I assumed from the beginning that it must mean something other than ‘regular  off-the shelf weapons,’ for example, or else why not just say ‘normal weapons’ or ‘metal weapons,’ right?  So my best guess was always that ‘cold iron’ must mean an archaic, non-steel iron, with some impurities but not much carbon.  This would make them softer than more prone to breakage and blunting than steel weapons, but a cold iron mace-head would be pretty much as good as a steel mace-head; it would be the bladed weapons that would really suffer from being made of regular iron.

For a while I tried to imagine ‘cold iron’ as some sort of iron that was worked without heating it, but I don’t think that is even possible with iron.  Maybe you can cold forge copper or bronze.  It couldn’t be cast iron either, which is usually alloyed to lower the melting point — so colder but less pure.  Still I picture iron weapons as looking black or grey like cast iron.

Anyway my point is that I recently picked up a battered but usable copy of Lords of darkness, an AD&D supplement that has “Forgotten realms” and “introduced by Ed Greenwood” on it, but which is fairly generic and could be used in any setting.  The book has a short explanation of various materials and tactics for fighting the undead, and a short passage on ‘cold iron’ which explains that this is special iron with no impurities.  There is a brief mention of the tendency of cold iron weapons to break easily, and while they no mechanics for that, I’d say they might break on a natural one on an attack roll (I don’t otherwise use ‘fumbles’ in my current game).

(Checking Wikipedia for this post, I see it suggested that “cold iron” is just an archaism for “iron” since iron is usually cold to the touch.  Nothing special about it at all, just plain old iron.  I’d like to try out a setting where elves are susceptible to iron weapons too, since in folklore the fairy folk are fearful of it and several of Poul Anderson’s fantasy stories and novels use this idea a lot.  I’m not sure if that would work well in my current game but I’ve had events shake up how magic works before so there may be a way to make it happen.)

Anyway if you should stumble across this supplement, it is worth looking over.  The scenarios look all right (two are by Paul Jaquays!), although there is certain amount of railroading in one I read. There are also nice discussions of undead, including a number of alternatives to energy drain and the ghost’s 10 year aging effect, is pretty interesting, especially as the proposed solutions to these perennial “problems” shed some light on the state of the game when it was published.

Some of the interesting tidbits are suggests for the effects of various anti-undead folk remedies like knocking on wood (useless), mirrors (only good vs. vampires), and salt (useful against a lot of the undead).  There is even a chart listing how various means affect all the undead from the Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, and Fiend Folio!  The whole thing is pretty cool as a source book on using the undead.

George Silver, master of defense

A good twelve years ago, maybe 15, I found this web site with the complete text of George Silver’s “Paradoxes of Defense,” a book largely devoted to explaining why people should not be hiring these upstart Italian fencing masters (and their newfangled rapiers) and instead rely on the more traditionally English weapons, as taught by English masters of defense, such as, oh I don’t know, maybe George Silver.  You might want to dismiss his arguments but from what I’ve read about him, Silver actually was a serious martial artist and fought duels with all manner of weapons and even challenged a rival Italian master to a duel with the full array of weapons (including battle axes, bills, two-handed swords, staves… everything).  The Italian master did not bother to show up, which Silver took as vindication but which can equally be seen as the dismissal of a crank.

An image from Geo. Silver's Paradoxes of Defense, demonstrating the perfect length for a sword in relation to the wielder's measurements. This illustration is often taken to be a portrait of Silver himself but there is nothing to support that assumption in his book.

Anyway the interesting thing is that Silver detailed what he though of as the hierarchy or order of superiority among weapons, both for dueling purposes and at war:

First I will begin with the worst weapon, an imperfect and insufficient weapon, and not worth the speaking of, but now being highly esteemed, therefore not to be unremembered. That is, the single rapier, and rapier and poniard.

The single sword has the vantage against the single rapier.

 

The sword and dagger has the vantage against the rapier and poniard.

The sword & target has the advantage against the sword and dagger, or the rapier and poniard.

The sword and buckler has advantage against the sword and target, the sword and dagger, or rapier and poniard.

The two handed sword has the vantage against the sword and target, the sword and buckler, the sword and dagger, or rapier and poniard.

The battle axe, the halberd, the black-bill, or such like weapons of weight, appertaining unto guard or battle, are all one in fight, and have advantage against the two handed sword, the sword and buckler, the sword and target, the sword and dagger, or the rapier and poniard.

The short staff or half pike, forest bill, partisan, or glaive, or such like weapons of perfect length*, have the advantage against the battle axe, the halberd, the black bill, the two handed sword, the sword and target, and are too hard for two swords and daggers, or two rapier and poniards with gauntlets, and for the long staff and morris pike.**

The long staff, morris pike, or javelin, or such like weapons above the perfect length, have advantage against all manner of weapons, the short staff, the Welch hook, partisan, or glaive, or such like weapons of vantage excepted, yet are too weak for two swords and daggers or two sword and bucklers, or two rapiers and poniards with gauntlets, because they are too long to thrust, strike, and turn speedily. And by reason of the large distance, one of the sword and dagger-men will get behind him.

The Welch hook or forest bill, has advantage against all manner of weapons whatsoever.

Yet understand, that in battles, and where variety of weapons are, among multitudes of men and horses, the sword and target, the two handed sword, battle axe, the black bill, and halberd, are better weapons, and more dangerous in their offense and forces, than is the sword and buckler, short staff, long staff, or forest bill.

The sword and target leads upon shot, and in troops defends thrusts and blows given by battle axe, halberds, black bill, or two handed swords, far better than can the sword and buckler.

The morris pike defends the battle from both horse and man, much better than can the short staff, long staff, or forest bill.

Again the battle axe, the halberd, the black bill, the two handed sword, and sword & target, among armed men and troops, by reason of their weights, shortness, and great force, do much more offend the enemy, & are then much better weapons, than is the short staff, the long staff, or the forest bill.

Man, he really hates rapiers.  But interestingly he thinks a longish polearm is best for dueling or personal defense and that in full-on battle the best weapons are the sword & shield, the two-handed sword, and short polearms (if we assume, as I think we should, Silver’s “battle axe” is a sparth or pollaxe, and that the black bill is the short “military” bill).

Anyway this all sounds fairly reasonable to me, although I’d be curious to hear what the reenactors say, and moreso what the guys reinventing/recovering medieval European martial arts, like the ARMA, would say.

The closest I’ve come to any ‘weapons testing’ has been fighting a lot with padded weapons in high school and college. But we never developed shields that were practical and so my experience is entirely with one or two swords, maces, flails, and pole arms, and I’m sure our techniques were very stylized and crude, since we disallowed head shots, and were using freaking padded weapons.  We did try to make them realistic in terms of weight and length.  But we could ignore the fact that sword edges chip or blunt, or that metal may cut wood, and other physical properties of real weapons, so I am not confident it counts all that much.

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*”perfect length” for a pole arm for Silver is about 8-9 feet — see below.  For taller people, longer; for shorter people,  shorter.  He actually has a lot to say about long weapons ought to be:

To know the perfect length of your sword, you shall stand with your sword and dagger drawn, as you see this picture, keeping out straight your dagger arm, drawing back your sword as far as conveniently you can, not opening the elbow joint of your sword arm, and look what you can draw within your dagger, that is the just length of your sword, to be made according to your own stature.

The perfect length of your two handed sword is, the blade to be the length of the blade of your single sword.

To know the perfect length of your short staff, or half pike, forest bill, partisan, or glaive, or such like weapons of vantage and perfect lengths, you shall stand upright, holding the staff upright close by your body, with your left hand, reaching with your right hand your staff as high as you can, and then allow to that length a space to set both your hands, when you come to fight, wherein you may conveniently strike, thrust, and ward, & that is the just length to be made according to your stature. And this note, that these lengths will commonly fall out to be eight or nine foot long, and will fit, although not just, the statures of all men without any hindrance at all unto them in their fight, because in any weapon wherein the hands may be removed, and at liberty, to make the weapon longer of shorter in fight at his pleasure, a foot of the staff being behind the backmost hand does no harm. And wherefore these weapons ought to be of the lengths aforesaid, and no shorter, these are the reasons: If they should be shorter, then the long staff, morris pike, and such like weapons over and above the perfect length, should have great advantage over them, because he may come boldly and safe without any guard or ward, to the place where he may thrust home, and at every thrust put him in danger of his life, then can the long staff, the morris pike, or any longer weapon lie nowhere within the compass of the true cross, to cross and uncross, whereby he may safely pass home to the place, where he may strike or thrust him that has the long weapon, in the head, face, or body at his pleasure.

Of the lengths of the battle axe, halberd, or black bill, or such like weapons of weight, appertaining unto guard or battle.  In any of these weapons there needs no just length, but commonly they are, or ought to be five or six foot long, & may not well be used much longer, because of their weights, and being weapons for the wars and battle, when men are joined close together, may thrust, & strike sound blows, with great force both strong and quick. And finally for the just lengths of all other shorter or longer weapons to be governed with both hands, there is none. Neither is their any certain lengths in any manner of weapons to be used with one hand, over or under the just length of the single sword. Thus ends the length of weapons.

**a “morris pike” would be a regular 14-18 foot pike, longer than the “perfect length”

I think a “black bill” and a “Welsh bill or forest bill” would be a bill-hooks of differing shaft lengths, but I have not seen any definitive explanations of these terms.  One explanation I’ve seen is that a “black bill” is a heavier military weapon while the “brown bill” or “forest bill” is a lighter civilian tool.  It seems pretty clear from Silver’s writing that black bills are shorter than brown bills.

Shields again

Paladin in Citadel raises an excellent point  about shields and J.D. Higgins suggests a pretty good fix. Blogger ate my comment so I’ll comment here. 

I think I’ll stick with the “Shields shall be splintered” rule tohugh becaue I am running a vaguely Nordic campaign and Viking shields were light and fairly disposable.  In the sagas, anyway, shields WERE splintered.  A lot.

My other hesitation about Higgins’ table is that mail and plate armor really were strong defenses too and should not be underestimated.  By the time of full plate armor, no one bothered with a shield if they had plate.  So I’d go with sometihng like this (swapping ascending AC for descending):

• Unarmored: 10
• Leather:  12
• Shield only ; Mail: 13
• Leather & Shield: 15
• Plate/mail; Mail + Shield: 16
• Plate/mail + Shield; Full plate, with or without Shield: 18

So there would be diminishing returns on a shield for platemail and no return on full plate.

I’d probably also consider allowing a shields a save (say, d20 vs. 9+damage stopped for metal, 12+damage stopped for wood) against splintering, but then decrease a shield’s AC to +1 again.  Or sometihng along those lines.  Becasue enhanced AC WITH splintering would make shields too good…

 

 

Mad Max beyond Tripoli

Scorpio Diamante notified me of this interesting article with a slideshow.  Thanks Scorpio!

I am wishing the Lybian rebels the best of luck in overthrowing Gaddafi, and hope they continue to outfit their military with like the Road Warrior.

Persian Immortal vs. random Celt

More than a week later, but I only watch this on weekends.

OK, Deadliest Warrior did it again. Awesome weapons tests, mostly, and decent history, and a stupid match-up.

Some thoughts:

• At least these two guys are from within a few hundred years of each other. That’s something.
• “Celtic Warrior” is so vague as to be almost meaningless. There were Celts all over Europe and their kits varied considerably, from naked woad-painted Picts up in Scotland to heavily armed and armored Celt-Iberians* in Spain, and really spanning the early iron age to however late you want to call the Irish and Scots, Celts…
• The chariots thing was a neat twist but in the Aechamenid Persian army (which featured Immortals) scythed chariots were a gimmick weapon that only occasionally did well. Also, it was more of a tank, with heavily armored horses and riders (the problem being they just weren’t that fast).
• Celtic legends like Cuchulain rode bladed (scythed?) chariots too.
• Pretty much the entirety of the Roman armor was borrowed from Celts: helmet shape, mail armor, and the “scutum” shield. An elite Celt (wealthy or a mercenary in Carthage or Rome or Sicily, some Galatians**) would probably have mail. But of course Deadliest Warrior likes to use cheap butted mail rather than real riveted mail, so it wouldn’t have made a difference on the show. On the other hand the Roman sword (gladius) and javelin (pilum) are more clearly copied from Iberian weapons. The Iberians had an all-iron (!) javelin that the Romans modified (using a wooden haft to save money and make them more breakage-prone so they can’t be thrown back). The Roman sword is sometimes called a ‘Gladius Hispaniensis,’ or Spanish sword, and copies the Celt-Iberian sword.
• Thermopylae demonstrated that Persian Immortals were no match for what were arguably the greatest baddasses of history, the Spartans. But I don’t thank anyone would last long against a Spartan. I put them about on equal footing with the knight and samurai. A Celt should just run from a Spartan too.
• The scary thing about Persian Immortals is that they probably don’t care that much if they die in battle, if the alternative is losing.
• The Immortals had nice sidearms. Their daggers were very long, really small gladii. (Shouldn’t the plural of gladius be gladii? Radius, radii? Wish I took Latin or Greek.) That would be a wicked weapon against their typical foes, who wore little armor. But the scythed chariot was an interesting test.
• The Persian axe is more or less perfect for what a one-handed axe should be. It will essentially ignore armor with the pick end. That will pierce helmets.
• Celts also used javelins. Much better than slings.
• Not as good as Persian bows, though. And the Persians had aphorisms about “shooting straight and telling the truth” as the measure of one’s manhood. They were pretty deadly. You would want Spartan armor and shield to fight that.
• Persian probably should have won. Those spears with the metal pommels are pretty nice. That would have an interesting balance. Greeks used bronze points on the butts of their spears for the same reasons. Herodotus, I think, said the Immortals had “golden pomegranates” on their spear butts. That sounds like a pretty neat weapon. I’d rather have a nice big two handed sword, though, if I’m going to use a two-handed weapon.

So, I’d say they got the likely outcome right (Persian Immortals being better armed and trained for the most part) even if the “representatives” were a little wacky.

*The Celt-Iberians being the descendants of Celts who settled in Spain and intermarried with the locals, producing a synchretized culture and one of Rome’s more difficult conquests despite their relatively small numbers and fragmented organization.

**The Galatians were Celtic (Gallic) warriors who had the best chance to actually face Persians in battle. They carved out a small kingdom in what is now Turkey, in 279BCE. They had an interesting military, with the usual Gallic infantry (including naked fanatics) and cavalry, but also chariots (possibly including Persian-style scythed chariots!) and even some drilled “imitation legionaries”***. So they are moderately popular among war gamers, having unusual, colorful, and effective troops.

***Just as everyone adopted Napoleonic uniforms when Napoleon was winning battles, and more recently everyone copied American and Soviet military uniforms and equipment, in ancient times everyone copied the Roman kit when Rome was on the rise, so you’d see Carthaginian, Lybian, Galatian, Pergamene, and other armies fielding some troops armed and drilled like Roman legionaries****.

****But like I said, the Roman kit is basically stolen from Celtic and Iberian stuff.

Ist das nicht eine gefährliche Waffe? Ja, das ist eine gefährliche Waffe (Fechtbuchs online)

Back in the Modem age of the internet, I found a digitized version of George Silver’s Paradoxes of Defense — a manual on swordplay (and axeplay, and staffplay, and spearplay, and so on) that argued strenuously against the rapier and in favor of the “traditional” weapons of England, which ranged from shortsword to pike, and included battle axes, billhooks, greatwords, and everything in between.  In fact Silver also discussed the merits of the “longsword” or rapier but considered it overly offensive, at the cost of defense.  He even challenged an Italian fencing master to a duel (using the short sword, halberd, greatsword, etc.) and was apparently ignored.

It’s not clear to me whether Silver was decrying the loss of the old martial arts using weapons he preferred or if he merely saw a loss of business with all those Italian and Spanish and French fencing masters and their newfangled fighting schools.  But After reading some of Silver I began to be interested in finding more of the old fighting manuals (many are German and so called fechtbuchs).  You can find books with all kinds of instructions, and while there is also a bit of a renaissance of interest in them among people who want to revive or at least preserve these European martial arts, I find the books terribly hard going and I just can’t justify the effort it would take to understand them.  Still, the pictures are awesome.

A frontspiece with some sort of birdman.

Apparently a man who duels a woman had to stand in a hole with one arm tied. He got a club, she got a stone wrapped in a cloth.

Lucern hammers.

Awesome bucklers.

Um, chemical warfare?

That is what a spiked shield looks like.

Landesknecht judo.

Ouch!

And here’s a couple of interesting diagrams from an Italian fencing manual…  look like they could be acupuncture charts or magical diagrams or both.

A fantastic German fecthbuch is digitized here — entirely hand drawn, and colored, and in manuscript.  There are some 600 pages…

A few images:

Those are some far out spiked shields. But I’ve seen this sort of thing in many, many places. Hackenschild.

Yes, it covers some unusual weapons.

Thanks to Bibliodyssey for finding this!

There are some other Fechtbuchs online at The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts’ resources page.

Apparently most are restricted access but with the titles and authors in hand, you can actually find many other versions, selections, and plates from them online.

Rajput vs. Centurion

Deadliest Warrior is really letting me down.  I actually watched TV while on vacation to see the Rajput vs. Roman Centurion show.  A few unsorted observations:

• The Roman Centurion’s weapons were a pickaxe, gladuis, scorpion, and pilum.
• WTF?  A Centurion is an officer, I seriously doubt he’d even carry the entrenching tool/pickaxe.  A legionary might resort to using this if he were attacked while digging the trench around the camp with it or otherwise unprepared, but who would pick up a tool over a weapon?
• WTF? A Scorpion (ballista)? Again, shooting artillery is job for peon legionaries, not Centurions.
• The Centurion SHOULD have been armed with weapons a Centurion actually carried, i.e.: a gladius, a pugio (dagger), a grapevine baton (more for discipline than combat), maybe a pilum or two, and a shield.
• Shields were decisive “weapons” for the Spartan and Viking last season; why ignore the Roman and Rajput shields?
• The “armor” used in the tests was that stupid butted mail again.  Cheap and decorative and not used anywhere since before Roman times.  Riveted mail would most likely give very good protection from the katar and gladius both.
• The Rajput was not really limited to any particular period, and the weapons chosen were flashy but not necessarily the best they had access to.  They had really cool basket-hilted maces and picks, which would be a better choice against a heavily armored Roman, and why use a chackram as the missile when Rajputs also used composite bows and later muskets?  Odd.
• There was something perverse about having the Rajput demonstrate the sword on sides of beef and pigs, while the Roman weapons were used on humanoid dummies.  And that is not even going into the issues of cows as sacred animals and the Sepoy Rebellion and all that.
• I was really hoping to see the urumi (whip sword) do some damage but I guess it is not really as good as it sounds.
• The Rajputs often fought from horseback, the Romans not so much until much later than the early Imperial period depicted.  So they take away the Rajput’s horse and bow and lance from the equation too.
• A much better match up of weapons to test would have been: Katars vs. Pugio (Katar wins); khanda vs. gladius (khanda wins but it is very very close); pilum vs. chakram (pilum wins but you can carry a lot more chakrams so maybe tie); Rajput small metal shield vs Roman large wooden shield (Roman shield wins)
• In single combat, the Rajput, with slightly heavier armor and more modern weapons wins overall.  The Roman military model is all about battlefield tactics and discipline, not one-on-one badassery.  There were certainly some badass Romans but engaging the enemy one-on-one was not really the plan.  Romans won glory leading campaigns, not getting covered in the enemy’s blood and viscera.  The Rajputs however did uphold a warrior ideal that included some room for personal glory through combat prowess.

Still, it was enjoyable to see the weapons tested, so there’s that.  And really, isn’t the opportunity to snicker at an uniformed TV show the real entertainment value of 90% of the Discovery Channel, History Channel, and all that?

Anyway, here’s a more even match-up from the Scorpio Diamante papers:

SD: The amount of time you and your brother devote to battle equations is both frightening and intriguing. By the way a friend from Italy, who is aware of our “vs” game wants to know who would win in a battle between a Hairy Greek man wearing only a speedo vs. Hairy Italian man wearing only a speedo. No weapons.    I told him I didn’t think either had a competitive advantage but I would ask you anyway. Modern day Greeks and Italians have essentially the same fighting skills, right?

MM: I agree there is no tactical advantage to either in terms of arms & armor, but their are certainly psychological factors.  The Greek is in his element, wrestling naked or nearly so.  If he thinks the Italian is a Turk, Greek wins hands down, probably covered in viscera.  The Italian may be very formidable too, though.  For one thing, he is not wearing an Italian army uniform which increases his fighting ability by several orders of magnitude.  Jackie Mason has an incisive analysis of this (and the corrollary, that an Israeli man is an unstoppable killing machine in uniform but a pushover out of it).  Anyway the Italian would (possibly correctly) assume the Greek man is attempting to sodomize him and this could provoke a serious beatdown.   I may be biased, of course, being part Italian.

I have a question for your Italian friend, though — is “Fanapola” (fa Napoli?) really a curse?  I was always told it meant figuratively, “Go to hell” and literally “Go to Naples.”  I probably did not spell it correctly.  Italian-Americans like myself generally know only a smattering of pidgin Italian, mainly words relating to food, sex, and swearing, & the vocabulary is usually very corrupt in terms of phonetics and spelling.

SD: My source says it probably means “Go fu*k your uncle.”

The lantern shield

I think I first saw a drawing of a lantern shield in a The Palladium book of weapons & armor.  It may even have been featured in the ads for the book in Dragon Magazine, but I’m not sure.

It may even have been in the Exotic Weapons & armor book, come to think of it.  Anyway, a lantern shield is a crazy weapon which basically combines a small spiked shield, a bladed gauntlet, and, as the name implies, a lantern.

I found a couple of photos of one which must be the very same one as the one illustrated in the Palladium book.  From the front:

Now with 30% more swords

It’s been pointed out to me that while my blog has dorkery aplenty, there is precious little in the way of swords.  My bad.

Here’s some stuff hanging on my basement walls.