Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

I've been in a fistfight, but nothing serious.

0 (0%)

I've been in a life-or-death fight.

0 (0%)

I've never been in a fight.

0 (0%)

I am MaximumZero, and I got in three fights this morning before breakfast.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: April 02, 2017, 08:55:24 am

[Strife26]

Knives are not great weapons. They're certainly better than a rock, but not too much better. In the common sorts of scenarios, drawing a blade reduces the possible outcomes, namely the one where someone gets the shit beat out of them, but they're mostly okay. In a knife fight, or even a one knife fight, the outcome is largely a crapshoot. The advantage of a competent person with a knife is not overwhelming or the odds I'd especially like to bet on. Of course, I'm currently in a situation where carrying an actual weapon isn't an option, so I have a handy S&W HRT blade that I carry, but that's a pretty extreme compromise in my self defense capabilities.

[stabbymcstabstab]

actually from what I've read knives are actually better for self-defense since people are innately scared of them compared to guns.


Also how good of a blade is the S&W HRT Blade? I've been in need of a new knife after my last one got lost after the clip broke.

[Steelmagic]

I don't actually have any guns, since I need to save for a car. But my father has a Chinese SKS and .357 revolver the type of which I cannot remember. I've never been able to shoot the SKS however, as there aren't any rifle ranges around me, no matter how much I want to.

[Strife26]

It's a very serviceable pocket knife, opens nicely even after a ton of abuse, just a knicked up blade that's my own fault and a coating that's now a pretty cool looking camouflage pattern. I didn't pay retail for it, so I don't know how great it is price-wise.

[AzyWng]

Knives are good weapons.

Don't let the fact that they aren't that good... against someone with platemail and a bastard sword... As evidence to the contrary.

Now, my days in Chivalry have more than provided evidence supporting the use of knives as weapons, on the contrary.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Knives are good weapons because they're pretty impossible to parry. So if you're unarmed and somehow end up in knife range you can very well be fucked. All it takes is a good feint and you're stabbed.

[redwallzyl]

or you could bring a sword and kill them from range. reach is king in melee fights. that's one of the reasons everyone used spears forever until guns and even then for a long time. hell, bayonets are basically just short spears so they never really went away.

[Neonivek]

Knives are not great weapons. They're certainly better than a rock, but not too much better.

Well... Given that knife vastly increases your kill and disable ability many fold... Giving you basically a foot inch beam of kill.

I am not sure what you mean.

or you could bring a sword and kill them from range. reach is king in melee fights. that's one of the reasons everyone used spears forever until guns and even then for a long time. hell, bayonets are basically just short spears so they never really went away.

Weapons need to be judged within their own realms. You are not going to use a Knife on an empty road against people kitted out with spears, pikes, and swords.

Well... unless it is a Rondel and Arming sword.

---

Or I'll put it this way... A Sniper Rifle is a terrible gun by the merit of the average combat situation. Anyone experienced with it will tell you that in a direct confrontation it would be better to immediately drop your Sniper Rifle and use a pistol instead.

Why is the Sniper Rifle used then?

---

A Knife is a easily carried, concealable, multiuse weapons.

[Parsely]

Knives are good weapons because they're pretty impossible to parry. So if you're unarmed and somehow end up in knife range you can very well be fucked. All it takes is a good feint and you're stabbed.

I disagree. Approaching this from a modern perspective: if you wrap a jacket around your arm you've created a good parrying device.

Spoiler: Like so. (click to show/hide)

Blades have problems penetrating thick cloth. Slashes will be even more ineffective than they already are, and even if he does stab you in the arm, the wound won't be as bad as if you were defending with bare skin.

While I would refute the idea that knives are "impossible to parry", most people won't have the presence of mind to do that in a real fight. Real fights are terrifying and as a result, if you have not trained your defense, there is a good degree of certainty that you will panic instead of doing whatever you imagined yourself doing.

As always, the most realistic resolution to most fights that end without you in the hospital is to run away.

[AzyWng]

I remember reading answers to this question on Quora (which is also where I got the general idea that if you using a knife as a weapon in self-defense could easily get a "no" in court), and one response stated that the blade of most knives was a bit short and that there was a lack of hand protection (probably from the small hilts of most knives). That response and at least one other stated that as far as killing the knife was also more of a tool - something to quickly bring down a target with after taking them by surprise or overpowering them with an actual weapon.

[Neonivek]

What actual weapon are you expecting to carry in these scenarios?

Judging by the diagrams everyone here lives in Fantasy Japan and Camelot

[Parsely]

What actual weapon are you expecting to carry in these scenarios?

Judging by the diagrams everyone here lives in Fantasy Japan and Camelot

The picture was the first one I had on hand of what I was talking about. It also demonstrates that this technique showed up in historical martial arts treatises, which lends it a little (only a little) more credence.

Also yeah, some people are talking about modern self-defense and others are talking about the merit of these weapons in a historical context. It's kind of a mess.

[Neonivek]

Historical context alone is sort of a horrible mess. Given that Knives have existed longer than swords have.

And the third category is the merit of the weapon in a "hypothetical anything goes" context as well (Hmmm, but what if your opponent brings out a Weed Wacker against your knife?)

But in terms of modern self-defense... I guess the more similar concealable light melee weapon would be Knuckles, Nunchucks, light flail / sock flail, and the baton / Telescopic Baton.

[Sensei]

Nunchucks

Ah, the Mall Ninja school of self-defense.

[AzyWng]

What actual weapon are you expecting to carry in these scenarios?

None - I was simply curious, is all. Too much video games and the like, but I'm not really the sort of person who'd use anything other than his legs in a fight (and that'd be to run away).

(Hmmm, but what if your opponent brings out a Weed Wacker against your knife?)

Unless we have different models of Weed Wacker in mind, this is something even a noncombatant like myself can question - why would an attacker of any caliber/level of intellect/level of insanity use a Weed Wacker as a weapon?

Short of hitting someone with it and letting its weight do the work, the device that makes the Weed Wacker wack weeds essentially swings a small strip of plastic at sufficient speed and force to slice grass.

Do note that this is not a lawnmower, let alone chainsaw, blade we're talking about. This is a piece of plastic. My father and I used a Weed Wacker to cut grass at corners and other areas of our lawn and at one point dear old Dad had to stop the machine for a sec to reel out more of the plastic, since most of it had broken off from use.

And the device in question needs to be switched on and off, as well.

Lastly, the whole contraption is not balanced for use as a weapon.

So you basically have a polearm chainsaw, except it's used to cut grass at ground level and thus sucks immensely as a weapon, even compared with something like an actual pole.

Never mind actually bringing it as a weapon to a location in the first place, short of a landscaper disguise.

Nunchucks

Ah, the Mall Ninja school of self-defense.

Isn't the nunchuck a flail that has both ends usable as handles?

That seems... difficult to use at best...