Society for Creative Anachronism

#1 heres an example of the kind of stuff on their website

http://www.florilegium.org/files/COMBAT/Fightng-Small-art.html

its a guide to help smaller fighters compete in battles. to my mind this is better than the primary sources ive read, by far.

#2 and this

http://www.florilegium.org/files/COMBAT/knife-throwing-msg.html

knife throwing

#3 Yep. I was a long term member (lapsed a couple of years now) And yes - definitely a good source for info not just on combat but other medieval stuff too.

I was definitely grunt material mind you.. ;-)

Sledge
front ear sound

#4 Tim used to be a member of SCA. We have a pretty good handle on the combat aspects of SCA.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#5 hey, cool! do you think you could recommend a contact at sca, someone who enjoys discussing these things? the aforementioned email returned non-deliverable. i want the combat in URGE to be realistic, not cartoonish, so i plan to do a lot of research in this area. i'd be glad to share anything i come up with, if it could help RW.

#6 Is it just me, or is that just common sense? Maybe it seems that way to me (I have a bit of a martial arts background), but it isnt some kind of crazy, deep thing that you need to read books on. If you want a good feel for it, go out and have a swordfight with one of your friends that is into that kind of stuff, and doesnt mind a bit of excercise.

Some good practice swords to use are thin PVC pipes (the thin white ones, 1/2" to 3/4" diameter) with pipe insulator stuff duct-taped onto the outside. It makes for a relatively stiff sword, yet padded, light, and still enough weight that you cant whip it around, and not too much weight where it will break bones (unless you are being excessive). If you are going to do it, wear some protective stuff. A helmet is a good idea, a cup is nice, and some kind of eye protection, and dont go for direct chest thrusts (break ribs that way) Just be careful. I think actually doing it will give you a much better feel for it though.

#7 There is a big difference between two guys in melee/HTH combat that know what they're doing and two that don't.

I know if you animated the "moves" of the guys in almost all of the bar fights I've seen (yes, I've seen my share), people would laugh pretty hard :)

If going for a realistic look, a little research can't hurt. SCA or a martial arts school would help. Reading books can only do so much.

#8 Josh: We used to do that in high school, but we used 1" pipe with end caps and half full of sand. The speed of the swing increased as the sand whipped to the far end. 5 or 6 of us used to beat each other silly in the semi-dark of night-time woods (at least till one of the guys broke his arm). Not that I recommend anybody try it this way - at least stick to a lit location or day (stumps are hell in the dark at a full run).

Might mention that even without sand, I heartily suggest some type of eye/ear/head protection at a minimum - you can do some real damage with a piece of PVC - even padded. You are really taking your health in your own hands with these kind of shenanegans. And fer gosh sakes, don't tell anyone it was my idea.

So... anybody wanna go shoot bottle rockets at each other out in the back field?

It's a wonder I lived past 16...

#9 Heh Now I'm definitely not letting my kids come over to your house! :-) "Now you see, the cherry bomb is more effective when it's lit and traveling through household plumbing.."

#10 Oh, it's safe now. After enough broken bones and stitches I have learned to restrict such idiocy to a minimum. Well... more or less anyway. I don't really count bones broken while skydiving, ... and the time I chipped my femur on a car's tailpipe was completely unrepresentative of the other 'mishaps' in my past. In any case, I won't do anything stupid if you bring your kids over (not while thay are around anyway). Besides, I would never subject my own plumbing to that kind of stress (there's stupid and then there's stupid).

But this is way off the topic now. Seems like if you want realistic looking HTH, you are going to have to do some research and, to a certain extent, ignore what happens on playgrounds and in bars. Drunks and children rarely fight in a cinematic manner. Anybody have any other ideas for good study sources? Movies? (hrm, mebbe... mebbe not)

#11 just the one in count of monte christo, where the guy disarms his opponent, flipping the sword into his open hand...thats just too sweet

#12 Well hey, bar fights arent about fighting technique. :)

I guess you do need some kind of training to understand sword fighting though. I suggest going and taking martial arts. Its fun, its good excercise, and you get to punch each other. :) After a bit of that, sword fighting will make a little bit of sense. At least, it does to me.

#13 the problem with commen sense is variables. you can go in the back yard with sticks, but why when you can get the info from people whove done it for years. and theyve probably seen every thing there is to see in a melee except peoples guts falling out 8P.

ive never seen a western martial arts school. even if i had, id probably trust the sca more. martial arts schools teach a lot of dogma and extraneous crap sometimes, trying to force their philosophies onto the real world. the sca started from scratch, and developed their techniquesthrough simulation. and i have a pretty good handle on unarmed combat anyway, its armed combat where im clueless.

can anyone suggest a contact in the sca?

#14 maybe i should elaborate. good swords are balanced near the hilt, rather than towards the tip. makes the blade do the work rather than your arm. i learned this from the sca site. might not seem useful, but it suggests to me that swords werent used like axes, but with some finesse. a broad leaf arrow wont penetrate chain mail, but an armor piercing tip will. a javelins useful range is 20-40 paces, and easily dodged unless youre surrounded by comrades on every side. helms with conical tips deflect blows better than rounded ones.

whether or not i use any of this information is to be seen, but i think its best to know how the real thing works before i try to change it.

edit: oh yeah, the romans had a spear with a barbed head made of soft metal. it was used to penetrate a (wooden) shield. once it did, the barbs were all bent up and twisted and the shield was nearly impossible to use, meaning you had to drop it. where else do you find stuff like this?

#15 You're making me want to break out my throwing knives again =) It's been years since I last practiced and I have definitely lost my edge (I completely embarassed myself at a knife throwing booth at a recent Renaissance Festival =). The biggest problem is finding a safe place to practice (no, my apartment is not an option) where people aren't going to keep looking at you like an idiot (or call the cops!) BTW, the gloves and other gear a hockey goalie wears make excellent padding for a "sword" fight.

#16 I used to take aikido, which includes weapons training, typically bokken (sword) and jo (staff) training (sometimes we played with little wooden knives as well). One thing I recall was that a correct strike to the body with a sword did *not* follow through; too easy to get the sword stuck. The correct way (assuming one was actually attempting to connect which we wouldn't do as it's very dangerous) was to get far enough through to kill an opponent while avoiding getting stuck in bone; as I recall this involved a quick accurate strike, typically to the head and neck, either straight down on the crown or from either side. Higher-level people got a lot fancier though... fun to watch.

#17 Yeah, the shovel/axe combination used in WWI and WII was very deadly and reccomended to be used swinging down as you described. Preferred over the bayonet by many since it wouldn't get caught in the bones quite as much (bayonet required forward thrusts, making it get stuck in ribs frequently)

Read all Quiet on the Western Front if you need a few examples of it in action, or just play some Day of Defeat (which is funny to people whining about being too powerful... it would usually kill in one hit. The thing was getting that first hit wasn't easy when the gun is being fought with machine guns!)

#18 Blade stuck in bone..dammit, I hate when that happens!

#19 The SCA are not that big on cambat, really, but it's a great place to meet people especially if ya like to drink mead

#20 i took aikido/jujitsu for three years, and sometimes a kenjutsu instructor would come in on sundays. i took a couple of lessons, and from what i could gather, the katana was a slicing weapon, at least thats how it was taught. get the sword to the target, and slash the opponent open. hacking wasnt the idea... on bare skin, something that sharp takes almost no force to lay you wide open. as far as armor, he said the idea was to get inside of it through weak spots, rather than cut through it.

then again, i didnt get to know him too well, and he couldve been full of shyte like 50% of all the martial arts instructors ive met.