A person in melee can, to some degree, "go defensive" and save their strength. However, as many captains of the 16th century said, "a bow half-drawn is useless". This is of course one of the reasons that firearms surplanted the bow in combat. Faster to load than a heavy crossbow and sure to smash armor with any solid hit; the arquebus did not depend on the vigor of its user.
5 weapon myths from the movies
- Thread starter ravells
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A person in melee can, to some degree, "go defensive" and save their strength. However, as many captains of the 16th century said, "a bow half-drawn is useless". This is of course one of the reasons that firearms surplanted the bow in combat. Faster to load than a heavy crossbow and sure to smash armor with any solid hit; the arquebus did not depend on the vigor of its user.
DangerousThing
SOC-13
However, fencing weapons are light, especially the épée, so I can imagine strength not being very important, whereas long term endurance is. So the task to win a national tournament might be written in short form as "Impossible, End + Fencing".
And yes, I've taught staff for a couple of hours straight, so I would have to agree that endurance is more important than strength. But I ran cross country in high school, so back then I had endurance.
I fenced, strength is pretty much 90%, it gives you your form and movement, it gives your confidence and aggression to move in quickly and overpower a weaker opponent. The lunge/parry/riposte, forcing them back can quickly determine a bout, endurance is when there is more parity or multiple bouts.
Strength, speed, endurance, ...It is all relative to your style and weapon you use. As in any individual sport, fencers who rely on any single one more than the others tend to lose eventually when they come across a more flexible opponent who has more tools in his pocket. If you watch our US fencers in the last Olympics you'll see exactly that happen with the Women's saber team. The top favorite who relied mainly on strength and power lost to a smaller, more defensive fencer who used speed and technique to score on every attack made by the 'better' fencer. It brought back a lot of memories of times when I was on both sides of that equation
Fencing is a lifetime sport and as such one's technique can be adopted to your body's abilities over time. The masters of several of the clubs I fenced at or against were quit a bit older than the majority of us an yet could run us into the ground or score a touch when we could never get near their blades. This included the master of my first club who taught the '84 US Olympic team when they rotated there for a season.
And EPEE is right: the epee is the heaviest of the weapons used and roughly the same as a real sword would be. Neither the sabre nor the foil are as heavy as their deadlier counterparts, but that isn't the point in any case - Olympic fencing isn't combat any more than IPSC or 3-Gun competition shooting. It is styled along the lines of such, but rarely will you bleed in it so it isn't quiet the same thing. However, I would argue that since the same techniques, physical requirements, and some of the mental ones are the same as those needed for combat with real European type blade weapons that it does give you a working knowledge and experience close enough to better understand than most what a sword fight would be like and what you need to do to win.
So IMHO and experience what is required is not any one attribute, or technique, but to strike a balance that fits with your own strength, endurance, and dexterity so you have technique that works for you. I think that is a truism for any combat situation: sport or otherwise.
Fencing is a lifetime sport and as such one's technique can be adopted to your body's abilities over time. The masters of several of the clubs I fenced at or against were quit a bit older than the majority of us an yet could run us into the ground or score a touch when we could never get near their blades. This included the master of my first club who taught the '84 US Olympic team when they rotated there for a season.
And EPEE is right: the epee is the heaviest of the weapons used and roughly the same as a real sword would be. Neither the sabre nor the foil are as heavy as their deadlier counterparts, but that isn't the point in any case - Olympic fencing isn't combat any more than IPSC or 3-Gun competition shooting. It is styled along the lines of such, but rarely will you bleed in it so it isn't quiet the same thing. However, I would argue that since the same techniques, physical requirements, and some of the mental ones are the same as those needed for combat with real European type blade weapons that it does give you a working knowledge and experience close enough to better understand than most what a sword fight would be like and what you need to do to win.
So IMHO and experience what is required is not any one attribute, or technique, but to strike a balance that fits with your own strength, endurance, and dexterity so you have technique that works for you. I think that is a truism for any combat situation: sport or otherwise.
If you say so. At the risk of engaging in a genitalia-measuring contest I fenced against a lot of power-fencers and they could score a hit or two, but they wore themselves out quickly and tended to be predictable since the blade work when using the wrist and upper arm instead of the fingers is less flexible for the defense. And slower. And nothing is less satisfying in the sport than to let some power-fencer come at you all bluster and strength and just guide their weapon away with a flick of the wrist and score a touch as they try to recover that deep lunge you side stepped.
Unlike the majority of my contemporaries, and all fencers today, I never used the modern pistol grips on my foil, but stayed with the traditional grip. The pistol grip made for a lot of lazy fencers IMHO as it encouraged using only the wrist and upper arm use instead of finer finger control. In sabre this was moot since they don't have that kind of grip, and sabre used a lot of screaming, stamping, and other nonsense along with strength if you wanted to go that route. But in foil that fine control is at least half the game; without it you may as well resign yourself to Class C since I have never seen anyone advance to A or master class on strength alone - they all use dexterity, speed, and endurance. And their brains instead of their muscles.
If you are all bandy and weak, you lack control. You'll parry to get the touch.
I love movie myths because when someone believes them, I can laugh my heart out after correcting them.
Though in that one, about the swords. depends on the sword. Katana's, as long as you use it correctly, you can get througha good few battles without it getting broken. use it wrong, completely wrong, then say bye to that sword. rapier's, I'd say, if you are using against the wrong sort of opponent and going for the wrong locations, bye sword. Otherwise, it can last a long time, though it will need to be sharpened often still. Otherwise, yea, pretty much every european weapon is likely to break.
Sniper, lol. I actaully didn't even think there was a myth of that making people think its point and shoot. Other then the myth of the Sniper on sniper, bullet hits the others aiming eye whilst still aiming.
Sonar. Can believe people believe that.
Modern dogfights, played enough combat sims. One missile mostly equals one kill, if you done it right.
Machine gun. Well, I know a few people who think assault rifles can fire for a long time.
Though my favourite Movie myth is bullets travelling through water. Another common sense myth.
Though in that one, about the swords. depends on the sword. Katana's, as long as you use it correctly, you can get througha good few battles without it getting broken. use it wrong, completely wrong, then say bye to that sword. rapier's, I'd say, if you are using against the wrong sort of opponent and going for the wrong locations, bye sword. Otherwise, it can last a long time, though it will need to be sharpened often still. Otherwise, yea, pretty much every european weapon is likely to break.
Sniper, lol. I actaully didn't even think there was a myth of that making people think its point and shoot. Other then the myth of the Sniper on sniper, bullet hits the others aiming eye whilst still aiming.
Sonar. Can believe people believe that.
Modern dogfights, played enough combat sims. One missile mostly equals one kill, if you done it right.
Machine gun. Well, I know a few people who think assault rifles can fire for a long time.
Though my favourite Movie myth is bullets travelling through water. Another common sense myth.
After thinking it over Dextrity gets you the hit, Strength does the damage, and Endurance allows you to do it repeatedly. While Strength will make a given weapon easier to hold and manipulate, attacks launched with full strength require a lot of energy and that wears on Endurance. Defense requires less power and so, while it should wear on Endurance somewhat, Strength should mitigate this.
It all sounds vary similar to CT with the exception of Endurance wearing out at a slower rate while parrying and to do that with any real balance would require keeping track of fractional Endurance points and no one would want that.
It all sounds vary similar to CT with the exception of Endurance wearing out at a slower rate while parrying and to do that with any real balance would require keeping track of fractional Endurance points and no one would want that.
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far-trader
SOC-14 10K
But they do and can, if what you're saying is that they don't. Or have I misread?
I think the movies mostly get this right as I recall, with all the "escape the hail of bullets by diving under water" scenes. The bullets do travel through the water in those scenes, just not very far. And Mythbusters showed it's farther for smaller low power rounds than larger high power rounds which seems a bit illogical on the face of it.
Here's your test results using ballistic gel. http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/07/mythbusters_bulletproof_water.html
Far-Trader, yes they can but not far. Go down 1-2 meters from assault rifle fire you are safe as chips. Shotguns, just go under the water. Pistols can get a little further.
Just hope they don't get the idea to shoot the weapon under water, where they travel further, but general not far. But that distance is more than firing in to water. But it's one shot one chance as most weapons damage themselves when fired under water.
Just hope they don't get the idea to shoot the weapon under water, where they travel further, but general not far. But that distance is more than firing in to water. But it's one shot one chance as most weapons damage themselves when fired under water.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Nope, not true, well, depends on what you mean by most weapons I guess
I don't think I'd want to fire a rifle underwater, even before seeing Mythbusters, and never a shotgun, again even without seeing Mythbusters. Handguns, no problem.I've got a link (at home unfortunately) to a youtube video of firing an automatic pistol underwater, repeatedly. Worked ok, no damage to the weapon, but it didn't cycle the action reliably, and some of the rounds were misfires iirc (not enough hammer force I guess).
There are also a few specfically designed and some standard small arms used in underwater combat during WW2 by allied and axis frogmen. Again, as you note not with great range but good for close work. I don't recall the specifics of the weapons but google would probably turn them up if you search.
I can imagine they've made some weapons able to fire under water, on purpose. Because I know they have made weapons with Curved and bent barrels. The first was in WWI think by the Germans. and was used as a sniper rifle. And had on top of it a odd looking device that work as the weapons telescope, so that you could hide down in the trench and just poke to muzzle over the edge, find a target and pop at shot off at them, without ever putting you head over the trench's edge.
Some weird and wonderful weapons out there. And yea, I'd never wanna fire a Shotgun of any kind under water. Though after I posted my post, I remembered the results of the mythbuster experiment. They couldn't find any of the shotguns shots, till they got the gel at point blank range, if I remember rightly, they only found one of the shots and you would have had more damage to you skin if you was hit by a BB gun fired at 5 meters above water. Shotguns are completely useless.
The reasons why all this happens is, if I remember rightly, the pressure that the round makes behind it as it travels through water tries to suck it back. So weapons that are more high powered travel less in water. Where as those with little power (Most handguns) get to travel further due to there being less reaction.
Some weird and wonderful weapons out there. And yea, I'd never wanna fire a Shotgun of any kind under water. Though after I posted my post, I remembered the results of the mythbuster experiment. They couldn't find any of the shotguns shots, till they got the gel at point blank range, if I remember rightly, they only found one of the shots and you would have had more damage to you skin if you was hit by a BB gun fired at 5 meters above water. Shotguns are completely useless.
The reasons why all this happens is, if I remember rightly, the pressure that the round makes behind it as it travels through water tries to suck it back. So weapons that are more high powered travel less in water. Where as those with little power (Most handguns) get to travel further due to there being less reaction.
Nobody fencing competitively is going to be "bandy and weak". Why would you even think we are talking about that?
My position on the matter assumes the person is fit and up to the task otherwise we would be having a different conversation and be implementing the Required STR DM for that particular weapon. For Foil that would be a -1.
Add to that that Dexterity also protects against attacks by allowing for faster, more effective parrying and dodging.
The model I like is the one in Runequest - Strength increases damage and gives a bonus for forcing through and opponent's parry or block. Dexterity gives a bonus to speed (and thus order of attacks) and dodging, and Endurance tells you how many rounds you can attack until you start gaining cumulative negative DM's and is modified up or down by how much weight you are carrying, including the weapons and armor.
Anyone can parry and dodge unlimited times and Endurance has no effect on it - you just won't be scoring hits is all (which reminds me of what a master pointed out to me once about how new fencers think they are D'artagnan himself just because they can defend themselves all day against even the best fencer - but the rub is that they still lose because attacking and defending is what wins bouts)
Blocking (as in with a shield, which is counted as a weapon - not armor) is treated as an attack so Blocks reduce the Endurance (and weight carried modifies)-limited attacks at full strength.
So depending on one's attributes you can pick and choose among the armors, weapons, and their various means of protecting you and hurting others to get a happy medium. As your skills increase there develops a trade-off that simulates real life: if your skill in parrying (or blocking) is high then you can afford to wear less armor and gain a speed and endurance advantage...if your attack increases but you have low Dexterity and poor parrying then you can probably get by with gambling on heavier armor and less rounds to attack at full strength since one or two hits bashing through your opponent's defenses will do the trick.
For example: someone with a high skill in attack with one-handed sword could start using lighter swords combined with less armor to gain more and faster strikes (attacks) each combat before running out of steam. The pay-off would be that he would more likely hit first, more often, and probably still have more full-strength hits left after his heavier opponent was exhausted. The downside would be if he couldn't do enough damage to penetrate his opponent's armor so obviously adjustments are made as the need arises.
Still, this model, designed by people who actually used these weapons in the SCA and competitive fencing, are the most accurate and consistently realistic ones I've come across yet that don't require a laptop for tracking all the stats.
Now I'm not so sure as to why. Must have had one of those missing time events due to the aliens we are discussing on the other thread finally attempting contact.
