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Author Topic: Melee Combat  (Read 31372 times)

LordBucket

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #60 on: September 08, 2014, 01:59:06 pm »

LB, people are arguing about katanas versus another weapon.

Are they? What other weapon? I see people debating shields vs double weapons and katana vs armor, I don't recall seeing anyone in the thread debating katana vs any other specific weapon until now.

Quote
they're pretty crap. Apparently, you need training (a LOT of training) to use one without it shattering in a couple of hits.

Replicas generally have cheap plastic in the handle. That falls apart very easily, yes. And training won't stop that. But I assume we're talking about weapons designed to see actual use. As swords go, katana are not especially delicate. I'm pretty sure your average katana would hold up against an armored opponent a whole lot better than your average rapier or foil. Or, for example, I once handled an american civil war sword. That thing was absolutely flimsy in comparison to your typical cheap $150 decorative katana stamped from 440 stainless steel.

What specifically are we trying to compare here? I've never held a 1600s katana. I don't know what first hand what they're like, and I suspect probably nobody else in this thread does either. Yes, I've held a WW2 era katana, but I didn't exactly go whacking it against things to test how sturdy it was. But it certainly felt solid enough, and I wouldn't expect it to shatter like you seem to be claiming.



I've never held one but they're pretty thin weapons.

...no, not really.  If fact they're generally thicker than most double bladed swords. But you bring up a good point. I have held katana, as well as a number of other types of swords. And I've fought with them. Granted, I've never specifically taken kendo classes, but I have trained with other types of swords: chinese straightsword and sikh sabre. I've personally done informal tameshigiri with a live blade wakazashi and destroyed it in the process, and I've done SCA sparring with both rattan and shinai.

So...I feel like I have at least some background to speak on this topic.

Katana are not bad weapons. No, you're not going to cleave through the torso of a guy wearing plate armor, but you're not going to do that with a non-Japanese sword either.



The weapon I'd use would be a quarterstaff because, without training, they are one of the best weapons to have, apparently. Even people in heavy armour can be taken down with them because whacking a guy across the head with something used as a club is certainly gonna stun them a bit after a good few thwacks, and from then on it's just repeating that until they're unconscious.

...ok. I can see that. I don't know that I'd agree with it, but I think it's definitely a valid option. It would be suitable for keeping him at a distance and very good for stabbing him in the face. I suppose if I were to choose a weapon to use to go up against a guy in plate armor...well, like MaximumZero, I think maybe a nice Kalishnakov rifle with a 30 round magazine would feature fairly high on my list of choices.

But, since obviously that's cheating within the context of this thread, if we're limiting ourselves to traditional "ye olde weapons" I'd actually be extremely tempted to go with a chainwhip. And the first thing I'd do would be yank the knight's weapon out of his hand. At that point his armor wouldn't be such a huge advantage.



Now, that said, if I were facing a Raubritter in heavy plate armor, I would do two things: A) Outmanuver him and rely on counter-attacks, and B) attack the joints in the armor or stab through the visor of his helm and sell his armor to buy a new sword. Moving laterally in plate armor is hard unless you're very strong.

I'm unsure about that. My only personal experience with plate armor is SCA plate, which is generally made from aircraft aluminum. It's very light, and it doesn't hinder movement much at all. If we're talking SCA plate, I wouldn't want to depend on being able to flank him, for example. If we're talking medievil plate...I have no experience with it, and what I've read is generally inconsistent about how heavy and cumbersome it is.

But were I in that situation with a katana...yeah, first thing I'd want to do would be to poke the guy in the faceplate with it. I don't really care if the tip breaks, the knockback of having a sword jabbed into your helmet a bunch of times would start to hurt eventually. Stabbing through the visor I think is going to be difficult if he's still standing. That's a very small target. I think I'd keep jabbing him in the face until he either got angry and left, or did something stupid that would enable a takedown. Would have to get a feel for weight and manoeuvrability of his armor. I can conceive of using the sword to parry solely for the purpose of getting close enough to take him down by hand. Would need to feel very confidant before I tried that though. Making a mistake and ending up with a guy in armor on top of you would not be a good situation.

Might be better to simply keep a distance and continue tapping him until he started suffering from the heat of his armor. Once he's tired and starts taking it off to avoid heatstroke, the armor becomes a disadvantage.

What weapon is the knight using? If he's using pretty much any european sword, he probably has a range advantage over a katana. The staff might be a better option. Still think I'd choose a chainwhip though. Useless against his armor, but similar range as the staff, much faster, and way easier to disarm him. Once his weapon's gone, grappling with a heavily armored opponent is an interesting problem, but I think it's very solvable. Plus, now I have his weapon, whatever it is.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2014, 02:11:24 pm by LordBucket »
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TamerVirus

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #61 on: September 08, 2014, 02:04:46 pm »

Are people talking shit about the katana?

I train with my Katana every day, this superior weapon can cut clean through steel because it is folded over a thousand times, and is vastly superior to any other weapon on earth. I earned my sword license two years ago, and I have been getting better every day.
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Sergarr

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #62 on: September 08, 2014, 02:17:51 pm »

Why did melee combat discussion turned into katana discussion?

Just fucking why, we have had this discussion on Bay12 so many times and it always ends up badly, so why rehash it again?
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TamerVirus

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #63 on: September 08, 2014, 02:28:46 pm »

That’s it. I’m sick of all this “Masterwork Bastard Sword” bullshit that’s going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.
I should know what I’m talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that’s about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.
Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.
Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I’m pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.
Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That’s right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.
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LordBucket

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #64 on: September 08, 2014, 02:29:10 pm »

LB, the WW2 katanas were mostly much, MUCH worse than the ones with the poor quality iron.

They were mass produced with little to no attention to quality. They were ornaments and nothing else.

You're making a sweeping statement about a lot of different swords.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunt%C5%8D

"The blades found in shin guntō ranged from modern machine made blades through contemporary traditionally manufactured blade to ancestral blades dating back hundreds of years."

According to that link, yes toward the end of the war, Japan started producing them out of cheaper materials until eventually they were using copper. But what's your point? Obviously purely ornamental swords made of cheap materials aren't relevant to the discussion. If you want to talk about ornamental swords not intended for actual use, then feel free to apply that same standard to European weapons.

The specific WW2 sword I got to play with was purchased by a friend at a gunshow. Again, I didn't go whacking any rice dolls with it, but from what I saw I'm pretty sure it wasn't a late production display piece.

I'm not saying katana are "oh, magical super swords, yay!" but to the people claiming that katana are weak, flimsy things that will "shatter" on a couple hits, I recommend you actually try holding one because I think some of you simply have no ide what you're talking about. I've handled a lot of swords. Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Europoean. Some replicas, some not. I can't speak to "1600s 1000-fold silk test" weapons, but there's just nothing in my experience that tells me that they're as flimsy as some of you are claiming.

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #65 on: September 08, 2014, 02:29:38 pm »

May I ask an on subject question

What is everyone's favorite short sword (in use and historicaly)?

My favorite short sword to use is the gladius/spatha (kinda similar and the polyprop weapon i have is called both)
My favorite historical is the Greek Kopis for its designed purpose, decapitation from a moving horse.
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MaximumZero

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #66 on: September 08, 2014, 02:48:58 pm »

If we're talking medievil plate...
If we're talking medieval (600-1600) plate, well...it didn't really exist often in the form of "plate mail" that most people are thinking. Plate wasn't big until the mid to late 1500s, and even then, it was mostly for high ranking soldiers in really rich armies. Every once in a while, you would see a specially trained "Curiassier" who was wearing a breastplate, but most of them by that point were horse mounted long-gun lancers. In early medieval armor, you'd see a "jack of plates" which was a cloth vest or coat with metal plates sewn into the inside of it, like brigandine armor. You'd normally wear that under your hauberk, like a flak vest.
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Sergarr

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #67 on: September 08, 2014, 02:58:34 pm »

May I ask an on subject question

What is everyone's favorite short sword (in use and historicaly)?

My favorite short sword to use is the gladius/spatha (kinda similar and the polyprop weapon i have is called both)
My favorite historical is the Greek Kopis for its designed purpose, decapitation from a moving horse.
My favorite historical sword is Falcata.
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MaximumZero

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #68 on: September 08, 2014, 03:16:00 pm »

If I'm grabbing a short sword for some reason, I have two to pick from. I'll take the Falchion, which is like an unholy combination of short sword and hand axe. For utility purposes, I want the Katzbalger. That said, I prefer a longer backsword or two-handed arming sword to actually fight with.
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LordBucket

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #69 on: September 08, 2014, 03:26:15 pm »

What is everyone's favorite short sword

Aesthetically? Those guardless reverse grip swords you generally see in B kung fu movies. You know the ones. The master is either dead, lost or drunk and his cute daughter thinks the protagonist who her father trained joined their rival's household, but he's really only faking to avenge his master and she doesn't know. So it's nighttime and she's dressed like a ninja looking for him so she can kill him. But she's not actually a ninja because she's...you know, Chinese. And she's wielding a pair of swords in a reverse grip pressed up against her forearms.

Those.

I like them.



breastplate

cloth vest or coat with metal plates sewn into the inside of it, like brigandine armor. You'd normally wear that under your hauberk, like a flak vest.

In those sorts of cases, most of the objections to katana wouldn't apply. Forearms and wrists are completely standard kendo targets. If somebody's wearing leather gloves, a chainmail hauberk that extends to the elbows a breastplate and a helmet, that leaves a lot of important area exposed.

The image I've had in my head when people say plate armor is basically this kind of head-to-to armor with double layering over the shoulders wrists and knees. If that's a museum piece, and not what was typically worn in actual combat, that might change a lot.

I don't know. It's possible that modern SCA hobbyist plate is vastly superior to anything that existed at the time. I've worn some of that armor, and some of it is so completely free moving that it's more flexible than I am. If that's not historical reality, if single-piece neck-to-waist style breastplate on top of a chainmail hauberk on top of cloth is more "realistic" then I'm not entirely certain it would be a net benefit in all cases. The breastplate shown in that image looks ridiculously restrictive to me.

Like, for example, watch the King Arthur vs. the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I realize that's fiction, he's an actor, etc. But if that's the kind of speed and motion restriction we're talking about...I'd feel reasonably confidant fighting against that even with an umbrella simply because there's no way he'd ever hit me with those crazy three-quarters of a second long swordswings. I mean...seriously, you could simply walk away and he'd never be able to catch you. Meanwhile, watch a kendo match. Watch a fencing match. Watch SCA heavy combat. Watch pretty much anything modern. It's so much faster than I think you could do in all that restrictive armor.. But if you're not wearing all that, then many of the assumptions being made in this thread are no longer valid.

Yes, battlefield...hails of arrows from the sky, people attacking from behind, outnumbered twenty to one by peasants with pitchforks, etc....sure that armor is going to help in a lot of situations. But one on one against a fast opponent willing to push you on your back, sit on you and poke your eyes out? I'm not certain the armor is such a good thing. Chain alone might be better.

« Last Edit: September 08, 2014, 03:43:01 pm by LordBucket »
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Sergarr

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #70 on: September 08, 2014, 03:41:05 pm »

Most knights were using mail armor for the most of the time period, the breastplate craze only began after the advent of firearms IIRC.

Also you did not just tried to gauge the fighting speed from a movie where people are specially trying not to kill each other and thus are swinging at the speed guaranteed not to kill their opponent. I refuse to accept that you might have attempted to do this.
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LordBucket

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #71 on: September 08, 2014, 04:11:33 pm »

Also you did not just tried to gauge the fighting speed from a movie where people are specially trying not to kill each other and thus are swinging at the speed guaranteed not to kill their opponent. I refuse to accept that you might have attempted to do this.

*sigh* bay12

No, I'm looking at this armor and speculating how much it would restrict your movement, and giving a fictional movie example that approximates what I think might be a reasonable visual estimate.

Look at that armor. Single piece from neck to waist, so no flexing forward with your stomach at all. Look at the shoulders. Is it even possible to raise your elbow higher than your shoulder without bending backwards at the waist? Look at the metal skirt-piece below the breastplate. Is it even possible to lift your thighs more than about 45 degrees without that getting in the way? And according to wikipedia, that stuff can weigh as much as fifty five pounds. Now think of a stereotypical european longsword. They're bigger and heavier and longer than a katana.

Imagine putting on 50 pounds of stuff. Imagine being unable to raise your arms above shoulder level. Imagine being unable to lift your thighs more than 45 degrees. Imagine being unable to bend at the stomach at all because of the breastplate. Look at that armor and how much it weighs and imagine you're wearing it. And now imagine trying to swing around a heavy sword like that.

No, I'm not using the Monty Python sketch as a basis from which to draw conclusions. I'm giving it as a visual example of more or less the image in my head when I think of all that restrictive armor and weight. Honestly, the black knight in that sketch might even have an easier time moving. He's probably wearing a lot less. But for example, look at the swing he makes at 1:15-1:16. See how he has to lean backwards to swing the sword over his head? That's exactly the kind of slow, awkward movement the breastplate and shoulders would induce: torso is inflexible, and can't raise elbows over shoulders. He's doing exactly what I would expect.

« Last Edit: September 08, 2014, 04:19:25 pm by LordBucket »
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BFEL

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #72 on: September 08, 2014, 05:00:23 pm »

Are people talking shit about the katana?

I train with my Katana every day, this superior weapon can cut clean through steel because it is folded over a thousand times, and is vastly superior to any other weapon on earth. I earned my sword license two years ago, and I have been getting better every day.

9/11 WASN'T TERRORISTS, IT WAS A SINGLE SWORDSMAN WITH A KATANA. :P
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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #73 on: September 08, 2014, 06:46:12 pm »

Are people talking shit about the katana?

I train with my Katana every day, this superior weapon can cut clean through steel because it is folded over a thousand times, and is vastly superior to any other weapon on earth. I earned my sword license two years ago, and I have been getting better every day.

9/11 WASN'T TERRORISTS, IT WAS A SINGLE SWORDSMAN WITH A KATANA. :P
I just lost a lot of respect for you making a joke about that
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mainiac

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Re: Melee Combat
« Reply #74 on: September 08, 2014, 10:44:24 pm »

Back in the 90s, one of Japans tech schools got ahold of an unnamed Katana from the state after it was recovered from the bottom of the Tokyo river, they polished off the rust, edged it, strapped it to a hydraulic press, and tried to crush it, the blade SPLIT THE TEMPERED STEEL BLOCK IN HALF.  And the blade is hardly short, they ranged from three feet to three and a half, that's pretty decent length wouldn't you say?  And I am really getting sick of all this 'lighter blades are better' garbage, have you ever lifted a renaissance era knight's longsword?  The real thing, not a recreation?  They weigh nearly as much as a Katana, and have almost the EXACT same edge made specifically to cleave armor.  I've privately studied medieval warfare in Europe and Asia since I was twelve, and while I am definitely not an historian, I can say with surety that there was nothing inferior about Japanese bladecraft.

This is grade A+ humor to anyone with a smattering of education in engineering.
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