[Ansteorra-archery] Combat Archery - New Society Marshallate Ruling

Sun Aug 10 10:32:49 PDT 2008

I see at least one potential problem:

According to the new rules (emphasis mine):
* Combat Archery ammunition may have at _/*most*/_ 1" thick padding on 
the tip after taping.

According to Ansteorra's rules:
Ansteorra restriction: Shafted ammo shall use UHMW with 1” of resilient 
padding.

Society standards call for a minimum of 1/2" padding which gives 1/2" of 
variance. GulfWars conventions call for a minimum of 3/4" padding which 
give 1/4" of variance. Current Ansteorran rules allow for NO variance. 
All blunts would have to be EXACTLY 1".

I think we should either petition Society to increase the maximum 
padding to 1 1/4" or to change our minimum padding to 3/4".

In Service,
Baron Donnchadh

Eadric Anstapa wrote:
> As a Combat Archer unless you are using only Baldar Blunt's this 
> probably effects YOU. I don't know of any Ansteorran archers that are 
> already doing this. In essence it means ALL of our UHMW cored blunts 
> have to be reworked.
>
> Note this is /*Effective Immediately*/. Your ammo will not pass 
> inspection until it meets these new requirements.
>
> Yes, the cost in materials and more importantly time for a group like 
> mine that has thousands of pieces of ammo is staggering.
>
> Regards,
>
> -EA
>
>
> ============================================
> The Ruling:
>
> ------------------------
>
> Effective immediately by the Society Earl Marshal & the Deputy Society 
> Earl Marshal for Combat Archery, the following changes to equipment 
> are required due to repeated incidents of helm penetrations:
>
> * Combat Archery ammunition may have at most 1" thick padding on the 
> tip after taping.
>
> * All UHMW & Siloflex/Rubber Stopper ammunition must have a side wrap 
> of foam added that brings the total diameter of the blunt to at least 
> 1.5" after taping. This wrap must extend from the tip to at least 1/2" 
> over the UHMW or Siloflex itself.
>
> * All fletches on any arrows, bolts, or thrown weapons can project no 
> further than 1/2" from the shaft, or must be 1.5" thick.
>
> * NOTE: All Marshals need to be rigorous in their inspections of all 
> tips (arrows & thrusting) and mass weapons. Ensure that the foam is 
> firm, will not bend over, returns to shape when compressed, and can 
> not be easily pushed into a legal helm more than 1/2".
>
> ---------------------------
>
> The Explanation:
>
> For those that do not know, there were a couple of incidents of the 
> foam/tape of UHMW combat arrows touching the face/eyes of people at 
> Gulf Wars this year. There were more incidents at a West/AnTir war, 
> and at another event recently. Much discussion has therefore been 
> going on at Society Level about this potential issue ever since Gulf Wars.
>
> At Pennsic in the Town Battle on Wednesday, there were 4 incidents of 
> foam/tape penetrating helms that were reported. Yes, 4 in one battle. 
> Two of them resulted in minor injury. One was a busted blood vessel in 
> an eye, the other resulted in a bruise (black eye). All of these 
> penetrations happened to be UHMW/RubberStopper style ammo. In one 
> case, the rubber stopper itself had penetrated a bit.
>
> In all of these cases, the UHMW or Siloflex respectively did it's job 
> and didn't let any hard parts of the arrow enter the helm. But 
> obviously the force involved with just the foam/tape, from max 
> poundage bows at close range, is significant enough to be concerned about.
>
> At Pennsic, when this happened, CA was canceled for the next battle 
> (Mountain Pass) that was scheduled for that day. Especially because 
> that battle had been scheduled to be face plate only so it didn't seem 
> to be a good idea at the moment.
>
> The MiC Pennsic made a ruling that for Siloflex/Rubber ammo to be 
> allowed for the rest of pennsic that they would need to add a side 
> wrap. The Local Wal-Mart was bought out of Camp Mats, and much taping 
> happened that night so that archers could shoot the next day.
>
> Later in the war, meetings were held since many Kingdom Earl Marshals 
> were in attendance, as well as myself and the Society Earl Marshal. 
> These issues were discussed, as well as the fact that Low Profile 
> Thrusting tips & Mass Weapons depending on their construction can be 
> forced into a helm. Also it was brought up that there was an incident 
> of a polearm entering a helm in the Woods Battle and contacting 
> someone's cheek.
>
> After much discussion, the rulings above were developed. Basically, we 
> already have a rule that weapons should not be able to enter a helm 
> more than 1/2", and that people need to be constructing their weapons 
> such that this doesn't happen, and the marshals ensuring that weapons 
> are done this way.
>
> Additionally the other rules were added to ammunition. This is because 
> ammo travels with such velocity that we need to be extra vigilant to 
> ensure that we do not cause any injury. The rules as designed were 
> done specifically so that they are easy RETROFITS.
>
> Noone should need to remake any ammunition from scratch. Instead just 
> add a side wrap of foam overtop of existing ammo, and tape it down 
> good. To meet the letter of the law, a 1/8" wrap of foam will not be 
> sufficient, since after taping down, it will compress and be less than 
> 1.5" in diameter. Therefore two layers of 1/8" foam, or a layer of 
> 1/4" foam would need to be added and taped down well.
>
> Note that this side wrap IS required, you cannot just use bigger 
> diameter UHMW or Siloflex. The reason is that by adding the sidewrap, 
> you are making the foam on the tip much stiffer, protecting the edges 
> of the UHMW, etc.
>
> If archers have more than 1" of foam on the tip, it needs to be taped 
> down tighter, or a little bit cut off.
>
> Also in general archers need to think about their arrow tips as 
> thrusting tips and building them 'solid' like you would a sword tip. 
> Using high quality dense foam, and/or using oversized foam and 
> compressing it as you tape it down so that it ends up a very firm tip 
> that doesn't compress much, especially circumferentially.
>
> In Service,
> Siegfried - Society Combat Archery Marshal
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ansteorra-archery mailing list
> Ansteorra-archery at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/ansteorra-archery-ansteorra.org
>   