5 weapon myths from the movies

[Timerover51]

Indeed, that is a pretty accurate description. One of the notable things about bloom iron is that the iron does not achieve a molten state in the smelting process - we couldn't reach those temperatures until the industrial revolution.

The English were producing cast iron cannon in the 1540s, and the Chinese were producing a wide range of cast iron objects long before then. According to Technology in the Ancient World, the earliest known Chinese cast iron object dates from about the fourth century before Christ. That is just a little bit before the Industrial Revolution. If you check either Edwin Tunis's Colonial Craftsmen or Jack Coggins's Ships and Seaman of the American Revolution, you can get a very nice cross section of a colonial furnace producing cast pig iron in ton quantities.

 

[Hyphen]

Yeah - and all space ships must explode in a fiery, audibly booming conflagration after being hit by the brilliantly bright, and loud, laser beams from the streaking away fighters!

Of course, this should be no problem for the crew, who can just don space suits and outrun the explosion out an open cargo hold... probably shooting two automatics for thrust so they can catch up with a luckily nearby fighter they can cling to without being noticed... thereby gaining access to the enemy ship which they can take over after hot-wiring the computer to bypass its security... :devil:

<muttering referee> "Typical damn Traveller players, another scenario ruined, I just don't know what it's all coming to these days" <shakes head, thumbs through next scenario...>

 

[aramis]

Nope, all you do when folding a blade is evening out the impurities. Iron / Steel has a crystaline structure. It's not plywood

You can see the layers with the naked eye on some broken blades, and under a microscope, it's still clearly visible - the folding process does produce layers of carbon-steel with layers of lower carbon steel.

You can also see the pattern weld, as well, on a broken blade.

All that folding also creates a very interesting crystalline arrangement - as you are NOT melting the steel at folding - merely softening it.

 

[Enoki]

A good Nova video on sword making including alot of metallurgy

http://video.pbs.org/video/2284159044/

 

[sabredog]

...so if you were to fold a lightsaber enough you might be able to cut a Star Destroyer in half....hmmmm....

 

[nDervish]

Some years ago, I did come across a shooting a few seconds after shots were fired. I heard a sort of "pap, pap" like a loud slap. I came around a corner to see the victim lying on the sidewalk, screaming, "He shot me! He f***ing shot me!" He seemed more angry than hurt. The shooter was still standing over him, and not far away, so the victim wasn't 'blown back'. The pistol looked almost comically small. Fortunately, people came rushing out of surrounding buildings, and the police arrived in less than a minute to arrest the shooter.

I had a somewhat similar experience myself, although nobody got hit and I was there (in the middle of it) at the time. Some friends and I were sitting on a dock and a person 150-200 yards down the shore to our right fired several shots at someone a similar distance down the shore to our left... While I heard the shots fired, they were subdued enough at that distance that I was firmly convinced that it was just fireworks until we went over and saw the shell casings on the ground.

I had also heard a hissing sound like a bottle rocket flying past, which none of my friends had noticed, which imparted a bit more impact to the realization that it actually had been a gun, since it meant he'd probably come damn close to hitting me.

Oh by the way, it's a common misconception but damascus blades were made by a different process to forge or pattern welding. The weren't actually made in Damascus either, they made in India & imported into Europe via the middle east. So as far as anyone was concerned they came from Damascus.

I don't know the current state of the research on it, but I read some years back about the defining characteristic of Damascus steel being that it was made with ore from a specific mine with traces of vanadium in the iron. They still hadn't worked out the details of the process to replicate it, but the vanadium was given credit for the existence of a visible pattern on the blade.

 

[sabredog]

I had always read that the process had something to do with tungsten and higher carbon content than European swords. The rippling swirly appearance was from all the folding and twisting of the metal as it was hammered out.

I would think that modern high-carbon steel is just as good and probably better in any case.

 

[DangerousThing]

I'd love to add a pattern welded sword to my collection, but as you say, they're really expensive. I especially like Patric Barta swords. But they're the price of a half decent car.

How about making your own? I know there are smiths who run courses on forge welding in the UK. I'd be surprised if there wasn't in the US (if that is where you are)

I wasn't even thinking about a sword blade! Just a good folding pocket knife, and the thing's still US $1,000. I don't want to think what a sword blade would cost.

Maybe I could forge, but I don't like the idea of making my own forge. If I could buy or repurpose an electric forge...

 

[Dragoner]

.

I would think that modern high-carbon steel is just as good and probably better in any case.

Modern steel is 100% better than steel from just a hundred years ago.

Swords though...are just decorations unless one is speaking of competitive foils, and they aren't even live steel. Even a long time ago, katana wielding swordsmen weren't considered as good as yari wielding spearmen; same as europe, the musket replaced the pike and were used side by side with sword, pike and musket with units like the tercio.

 

[rancke]

Swords though...are just decorations unless one is speaking of competitive foils, and they aren't even live steel. Even a long time ago, katana wielding swordsmen weren't considered as good as yari wielding spearmen; same as europe, the musket replaced the pike and were used side by side with sword, pike and musket with units like the tercio.

For a while there was a sort of rock-paper-scissors thing going on on the batllefield. Cavalry could roll over non-pike infantry, pikes could stand off cavalry, and non-pike infantry could defeat pikes.

(Or so I've read; I'm not in a position to assert the truth of this on my own knowledge).


Hans

 

[aramis]

For a while there was a sort of rock-paper-scissors thing going on on the batllefield. Cavalry could roll over non-pike infantry, pikes could stand off cavalry, and non-pike infantry could defeat pikes.

(Or so I've read; I'm not in a position to assert the truth of this on my own knowledge).


Hans

For values of "Pike means Spear of >3m haft length", it seems pretty much accurate. I've fought guys with 3m spears in the SCA - once you get about a meter past the spear head, they have to either retreat quickly, or switch to a secondary weapon. Haft strikes with the pike are not terribly useful, due to the lever effect. 4m pikes, even worse for the pikeman.

Now, as for horse vs foot, I've not done that in the SCA, but everything I've seen says the horse trumps sword-bearing footmen. And Horse die if they charge pikes.

 

[Dragoner]

For close in they carried the katzbalgers or other shortswords:

http://getasword.com/3854-thickbox/german-katzbalger-sword.jpg

However, there were usually ranks of pikemen, people would get through though.

edit: some interesting stuff: the yari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yari

the pike square:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_square

 

[Easterner9504]

Hickock45 is Youtube gun guru.

Always up to something. Use explosives to clean drains, shotgun to trim trees, hides AK47 in carburetor, chases zombies on his property and likes silencers too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBofwiYwGho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncR3QmxPUk0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkTb875bdtw

 

[ShapeShifter]

Myth: If you have script immunity you gain the ability to dodge incoming laser blasts from stormtroopers. If the blasts are supposed to be travelling the speed of light -- or close to it -- then such a character must be able to move FTL, and if that's the case then why do the characters need to travel in FTL ships? :rofl:

This is why I do lots of eye-rolling at the WEG d6 rules and their dodge reaction skill. o:

 

[Amber Chancer]

For a while there was a sort of rock-paper-scissors thing going on on the batllefield. Cavalry could roll over non-pike infantry, pikes could stand off cavalry, and non-pike infantry could defeat pikes.

(Or so I've read; I'm not in a position to assert the truth of this on my own knowledge).


Hans

Yep.

The issue in the 17th century was that the muzzle-loading matchlock took longer to reload than cavalry took to charge from outside musket range to deadly contact range. So you needed something to hold them at bay/

The classic 16 foot pike is a spectacularly unwieldy weapon ... but horses are generally unwilling to charge it, even if their riders are. So they will swerve aside or stop in face of it.

So musket and pike worked in co-operation with one another.

Increasing range and accuracy or muskets, and the switch to the flint lock, and the invention of the bayonet, all combined to give the musketeer a better chance of standing on their own against the cavalry, and so the pike slowly fell out of use.

 

[Amber Chancer]

One of those is wrong. Medieval swordsman absolutely did parry edge on edge. Not least because there are many surviving swords with nicked edges. Italian master Fiore de Liberi's manuscript is based on parrying.

The no edge parrying is the pet theory of one group in the US (ARMA) I'm not aware of any others anywhere in the world who agree with it. It has been debated to death on historical martial arts forums & is now widely mocked.

I'm glad you make that point, A, as it saves me making it.

Mediaeval swordsmen didn't mind if their edge was blunt. A blunt blade makes a ragged cut which draws a LOT more blood than a sharp blade (paper cuts don't bleed much, right?) and blood-letting weakened your opponent and gave you the edge.

Broadswords are swinging weapons ... and you need to parry those swings or they take you down. Dodging is seldom an option.

There are no thrusts with a broadsword. The blade is too heavy to recover in time if your opponent side-steps, and then your full body is exposed to his blade (try it some time ...). The thrust only comes into swordplay in the 16th century, when advances in metallurgy allowed a finer blade to be wrought without unacceptabel risk of breakage. This enabled fencing to evolve into a mis of cut-and-thrust ... and the parries became much more complicated, including a number which relied upon the use of the hilt (which became more intricate as a result).

My favourite movie myths are:

1. A petard blows the gates inwards. It doesn't. It bows the gates outwards. (Attach it to the gates where they meet. The blast goes INWARDS through the gap. The gates petard case is blown OUTWARDS by the equal and opposite reaction ... and pulls the gates with it)

2. There is such a thing as a recoil-less black powder cannon. (Don't bother with wadding or shot, and you may get very little recoil ... but the discharge sounds all wrong, too!)

 

[mike wightman]

Exploding cannon balls - years before explosive shells were invented.

Because it's boring to just show a ball rolling along the ground taking peoples' legs off. Likewise it is agains the rules to show the effect of the real antipersonnel loads fired from cannon.

 

[Riik O'Shae]

It only happens in the movies.

Not so.

It is EXAGGERATED in the movies and Television shows.

The response of the body from being invaded by foreign objects does ellicit adverse responses from the body being invaded.
{Walk up behind an unsuspecting friend and stick them with a stickpin in a fleshly part of their body}

Terms like "Stopping Power", "Killing Power" and "Penetration Power" were all the cat's meow during the 1970's and early 1980's in the gunworld magazines. Taking them in reverse order, penetration is the easiest to decypher and explain: how deeply a projectile/object pierces an object, be it a body, a structure wall, or armour plate; killing power is also easy to describe ~ causing a living organism to cease living; and lastly, Stopping Power ~ the ability to cause your living organism to cease all actions immediately.

Unfortunately, the last term, 'stopping power' has been b*st*rdized into many other meanings beyond its original definition.

Riik

 

[Riik O'Shae]

Broadswords are swinging weapons ... and you need to parry those swings or they take you down. Dodging is seldom an option.

There are no thrusts with a broadsword. The blade is too heavy to recover in time if your opponent side-steps, and then your full body is exposed to his blade (try it some time ...). The thrust only comes into swordplay in the 16th century, when advances in metallurgy allowed a finer blade to be wrought without unacceptabel risk of breakage. This enabled fencing to evolve into a mis of cut-and-thrust ... and the parries became much more complicated, including a number which relied upon the use of the hilt (which became more intricate as a result).

These two statements are nonsensical. A true swordsman uses every trick in his book to defeat his/her opponent, including thrusting.

Real broadswords seldom weighed more than 4 pounds. A swordsman practised for hours at a time: lifting weights heavier than their chosen weapon, to build up strength to properly wield their weapon. The broad blade was designed to cleave, yet, it did have a point of sorts, and as such would be used in a thrust should opportunity arise.

Riik

 

[HG_B]

There are no thrusts with a broadsword. The blade is too heavy to recover in time if your opponent side-steps, and then your full body is exposed to his blade (try it some time ...). The thrust only comes into swordplay in the 16th century, when advances in metallurgy allowed a finer blade to be wrought without unacceptabel risk of breakage.

This is a common myth that was long ago debunked through a study of primary sources.

A 13th century doc.
http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/i33/i33.htm

"The heavy use of straight thrusts (something supposedly not associated with sword combat until the Renaissance), timed-attacks, passing footwork, lunging-steps, deflecting counter-strikes, are all very significant. The method suggests a complex coordination of weapon and shield in simultaneous action combined with footwork. "