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[Loud Whispers]

Wasn't there some duke's kid who was slain by a swan he was kicking around?

IIRC, Swans don't have the force to break arms. But, that may have been adult's arms. Children's arms tend to be softer.

You haven't had the joy of watching a team of firemen try to get a pissed off Swan's head out of a fence.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Wasn't there some duke's kid who was slain by a swan he was kicking around?

IIRC, Swans don't have the force to break arms. But, that may have been adult's arms. Children's arms tend to be softer.

You haven't had the joy of watching a team of firemen try to get a pissed off Swan's head out of a fence.

Just hella giggling and pointing and holding his sides. A grumpy fireman yells "Oi! You gonna come over here and help or are ya just gonna stand there and laugh?!" He only continues laughing with unbridled joy.

Wasn't there some duke's kid who was slain by a swan he was kicking around?

IIRC, Swans don't have the force to break arms. But, that may have been adult's arms. Children's arms tend to be softer.

Generally I believe that's the case. Also this child was kind of a little shit who was beating the swan for a lark and it just turned on him. Swans gone wild! I mean. More wild than usual for a wild creature!

[Andrew425]

Wasn't there some duke's kid who was slain by a swan he was kicking around?

IIRC, Swans don't have the force to break arms. But, that may have been adult's arms. Children's arms tend to be softer.

You haven't had the joy of watching a team of firemen try to get a pissed off Swan's head out of a fence.

My friend once accidentally smacked one in the neck while he was rowing, it got really angry.


As for Halberds i'm a big fan of the pole axe. I think that works the best in the most situations and if the shaft is short enough you can use it by yourself

[GrizzlyAdamz]

@leo
Huh, that Is interesting with the pig-stabbing. Maybe the cloth has a higher surface-tension kind of thing going on, doesn't let the chain mail sink in? Though yeah that pig doesn't have the same inertia as a dude in a gambeson.

Hmm, not so much a spear, but yeah a halberd spike does have the same surface area. Let's see..
Given these sources:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090122075623AAwSOLT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Armour_penetration

And plugging in the numbers for a 900 grain arrow traveling at 185ft/s, that's ~68 foot pounds of force.

Compare this with 'Jam's data from here:

an average hoplite spear was about 1.4kg heavy. Underarm thrust speed was varying between 8.5-9m/s

1.4kg is a light halberd, and I'll use 9m/s for the calculation- which comes out at 41.84 foot pounds.

That's a fair bit less than the longbow, and that first test you listed took pretty much the max force to penetrate the cuirass.
Also, them arrows look really funky when they bounce back out!


I still don't trust spear thrusts to catch as well as those arrows did- would have to see it myself.

[scriver]

Wasn't there some duke's kid who was slain by a swan he was kicking around?

IIRC, Swans don't have the force to break arms. But, that may have been adult's arms. Children's arms tend to be softer.

You haven't had the joy of watching a team of firemen try to get a pissed off Swan's head out of a fence.

My friend once accidentally smacked one in the neck while he was rowing, it got really angry.


As for Halberds i'm a big fan of the pole axe. I think that works the best in the most situations and if the shaft is short enough you can use it by yourself

If the shaft is short then it's no pole

[Funk]

This video is the first thing I came across. The visuals look appropriate but I don't have ears right now so I can't vet the armor thickness or material, or arrowhead material, or draw strength. Also it looks awfully close, archers would fire from farther back and probably lose energy with distance.

The full video of that episode, and a really good show.
a longer weapons and armor test on a pig, with slow-mo.