ANST - Re: A bit on weapons

[Therion]

(I get the digests, my apologies if this has been answered before)

> Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 09:38:43 CST
> From: "Greg Shetler" <odsman at hotmail.com>
> Subject: ANST - A bit on weapons
> 
> 1) If you construct a short axe (say, less than 3 feet long), it is just 
> about impossible to keep it under the weight limit if you use a basket hilt 
> on it.  Similarly, it is just about impossible to make it pass the balance 
> test (head heavier than hilt) if a basket hilt is on the weapon.  Even 
> without a basket hilt, if the axe is shorter than 2 feet long, you will 
> likely still be overweight....

This makes perfect sense - there are no historical cultures, times, or
places that developed a basket-hilted axe. The entire point (beg pardon)
of an axe is the penetrating power of the overbalanced sharp heavy head.

> 2) With axes and glaives, which kill if the head strikes even off-edge, why 
> do we bother to mark a striking edge?

The theory is that polearms are heavy enough to kill even when hit flat -
this is a holdover from the early, less well-researched days of the SCA.
Authentic halberds, glaives, and axes are much lighter than you imagine
them to be. We've just been conditioned by years of bad India and
Philippines repros and massively overweighted rattan and foam weapons.
SCA polearms *shouldn't* kill on a flat or haft shot. Knock a man in armor
silly, perhaps, but not necessarily an incapacitating kill. (Note that
polearm is my favorite weapons form, so it's hard for me to argue to
degrade their performance, but fact can be just as much fun as fiction).
Unpadded polearms are a good way to get the speed and impact of our SCA
weapons up to real-world lethality, but I prefer to make realistic looking
ultra-light polearm heads: use your favorite medieval weapons picture
book, a sharp knife, a foam boogie-board from Academy, and lots and lots
of 4" long pieces of high-quality strapping tape.

> 3) If we are considered to be wearing open-faced helms, so that we should 
> take any thrust to the face that would have touched the face, why do we just 
> shrug off incidents of our own shield bashing into our face hard enough to 
> rock us?

Nasty gouges and a few shattered teeth are nothing compared to a spear in
the eye socket. If you get pounded in the face with your own shield, shake
your head, pretend to spit out a couple of teeth, and dive back into the
fray with fire in your eyes. A touch of acting makes fighting much more
fun for both participants and observers.

					Therion

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