Re: (TFT) Is a sweeping blow physically cutting thru your target?

["Neil Gilmore" <raito@raito.com>]

> Ah! When was this gathering? I heard nothing of it, alas. Were any minutes
> or proceedings published? Peter Johnsson is an amazing smith - I've
drooled
> myself into idiocy looking over his work. I'd really like to commission
him
> to make me a replica of the Svante Nilsson Sture's sword that he did a
> couple years back, but even my well paying engineering job doesn't quite
> give me the budget for that...

Sometime in Feb. It wasn't well published. I only got to go because one of
my pro-smith friends got invited, as well as St. Martin's (Bob Charron's
group). So really I got 2 invites. I don't think that there was anything
published -- it was pretty informal. My contribution (if you can call it
that) was to show a couple of the Albion guys how to tie a turk's head. With
my own shoelace because they couldn't find any string.

Most interesting to me was the difference between the Oakeshott bastard
sword and Johnsson's. My background with edged stuff is mostly Chinese and
Japanese (depending on whether I'm using one or two, but then, my first
martial art was French, go figure), but I've been studying the Italian stuff
for a while now, enough to feel confident to use it in SCA bouts (my primary
venue). I also know just a smidgen of the German stuff.

Neither of these blades swung for crap when using an oriental-stle swing.
But, using Fiore's shoulder-behind-the-mass style, the Oakeshott sword lost
all its weight and really started moving. Johnsson's moved better with the
Italian style, but still felt awkward. But, using the little Talhoffer I
knew, that sword moved a lot better. So even with two blades that look about
the same, there's a lot of difference.

> Yeah, not the best references, but I wanted to stick with stuff that was
> more accesible. Behmer's "Das Zweischneidige Schwert der Germanischen
> Volkerwanderungszeit" is a bit more scarce, to say nothing of the fact
that
> it is written in rather obtusely phrased German (I'm in the middle of
> translating the &^%#$ thing now)

Yeah, that sounds like the book I was thinking of.

> Damn straight. Though pattern welding, etc. is not a bad technique for
> having a flexible and shock resistant core with an attached cutting edge
> that can maintain its sharpness.

You could do the same with a plain core. I don't think that the pattern
welding gives you much. Then again, I'd go for a maraging or something like
4340 for a sword to use against armor, if I got a preference. Ultra high
strength, good enough hardness. All it has to do is kill, not slice
tomatoes. But when actual steel is ahrd to produce, and even iron has to
have the slag beaten out of it, it's a good technique.

> Yep. TFT is far too generous with the power of its swords vs. armour. This
> is where a penetration stat, like the one Ty Beard suggested and is in
fact
> used in TFT under Giant Spiders and Scorpions, would come in handy.

To argue the other side here for a moment, TFT is also trying to make
somewhat even progressions in armor and damage. It also makes combat deadly,
in constrast to some other systems.

> Actually, a sword can cut though mail, even riveted mail, but *only* with
a
> very hard and square hit, which you usually do not get in most fights.
> Against a bobbing and weaving target, that is unlikely to occur (except
when
> said target "zigs" instead of "zags" - then, OUCH!) Otherwise, riveted &
> welded mail provides pretty good protection, and can absorb an amazing
> degree of abuse (though blunt trauma is still a concern). Making some of
the
> stuff right now and can I just say it gives the term "labour intensive"
> whole new meaning! Plate is pretty much proof against swords, though I
have
> seem some meagre evidence to the contrary (thinking mostly here of
mediaeval
> artist depictions of great helms being split by swords. Not reliable
> evidence but it cannot be wholly discounted, either). Either you aim for a
> part not protected by plate (armpits, groin, vision slot, etc.) or discard
> sword in favour of a nice, massy warhammer with a wicked back spike... or
> any decent sized pole arm or heavy crossbow.

Then you also have Bob Charron's assertion that there is no written evidence
of a fully armored knight being killed by an arrow in any manner other than
being hit in an open visor (or head if not weaing a helmet). Which is an
entirely different discussion.

As for armor, I'm in the process of some Japanese stuff, which gives riveted
mail a run in the labor department.

And even with the pole weapons, pole ax play was seen as vigorous excercise,
rather than dangerous.

Or you wrestle them down, draw your dagger, and dispatch them. Remember,
using a sword against armor is wrestling, with a sword in your hands.

Some recent experiments seem to show that tip cuts are the most destructive
to mail armor, not just because the tip is out at the end of the lever, but
the tip iself cuts better because it's concentrating the force more than
even the blade does.

Some time ago, when I was young and stupid, I wanted to do an experiment. I
disliked the manner in which the SCA defined a 'killing blow'. It was
defined as a blow that would kill or incapacitate an opponent through the
'standard armor', which was mostly mail, if against a real weapon. Now,
neither the gauge, nor the diameter, nor the alloy, nor the heat treatment
of the mail was defined. So, the plan was to do enough research to figure
out what was standard. Assuming that there's some sort of bell curve for
each of these aspects, one could produce a representative piece of mail.
There was a possiblity of no such distribution, which would have had its own
part in my agenda.

So we now have 'standard armor'. How hard does one have to hit it in order
to kill or incapactiate. Well, there's lots of trauma research out there
stating how hard various body parts have to be hit to break them. OK. Now
construct a machine that swings a portion of a blade at the standard armor
and measure how much force is transmitted through it. Correlate the results.
Additionally, plot transmitted force vs. 'angle of attack' of the blade. My
opinion is that this would show that even a couple of degrees off
perpendicular and you're not going to take down your opponent.

All this would leave roughly 3 possibilities: we need to hit much lighter,
about the same, or much harder. If we needed to hit much lighter, do you
think that everyone would siddenly start taking blows half as light as
before? I doubt it. If we needed to hit a lot harder, do you think that
everyone would suddenly just take the bruising blows in their sport armor? I
doubt it. Would evidence that angle of attack is very important suddenly
lead to it being acceptable for most every blow to be called a glance? I
doubt it.

So nothing would change, except that the 'standard armor' would be a joke.
Well, they changed the rules so that the 'standard armor' is meaningless,
but still defined, and still defined poorly. Now it's a bad joke.

(Don't get me wrong. I love what I do. I just wish it were more consistent.
Ask me sometime about the Middle Kingdom's weapon construction rules, and
why a six-foot stick has to have an 18 inch blade, while a six-foot stick
has to have a 27 inch blade.)

Gee, I did go on, didn't I?

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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