Vikings used swords, just like everyone else.

Sometimes, just like everyone else.

I just take the fact that no one today uses swords in the military for anything related to actual combat as proof enough that guns are far better than swords.

Swords and other bladed weapons are excellent for dis-arming people.

these days, the bayonet is a weapon of last resort, when the position is overrun and the ammo have been spent.

But back before cartridges and other options, a bayonet turned a "club" into a "spear".

the drilled ranks could at any time stop reloading and point their weapons at any onrushing enemies, resulting in something similar to a porcupine.

as for the club part, that was basically the other option. When out of ammo, or when out of time to reload, grab the weapon by the barrel and try to cave in the enemy skull with the other end. Heck, handguns of the era often had reinforced and/or weighted handles for just that option.

these days its more a case of "better to have and not need, then need and not have". And it as they often can double as a knife (tho iirc, there are some agreements going around that says the soldier is not to sharpen the bayonet) there is one less tool for the soldier to carry anyways.

funny enough, the shogun that outlawed guns had recently won his position thanks to equipping his army with just that.

I feel like guns are great-ER for disarming people: 'Drop your weapons!' (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

i meant this:
http://sultanofsnow.files.wordpress.com/20...-off-794357.jpg

Snrk, okay, yeah. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Which was all the proof he needed for how effective they were (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Hey here's a fun game. Go find a random German soldier. Tell him (or her) to his face that you can't kill somebody instantly by "neural shock" from a grazing hit with high-speed ammunition. Betcha get a real interesting (and graphic) explanation of how wrong you are, that the evil high-speed ammo is outlawed by the Hague, Geneva and Imtodrunktostan Accords and that we only didn't get the G11 because it fired said ammunition (nevermind that the muzzle velocity of the 36 is only like 10m/s lower).

Latrine rumors include a lot of tall talk about alleged weapon effects, that does not make it any more true. People who are bleeding out don't just collapse quietly...and before you say "but severing the vocal chords/blood vessels to the brain means you can't scream or struggle!!!11111" I suggest you watch some videos of halal/kosher slaughter. If that still does not convince you, there are also plenty of gore vids with decapacitated humans floating around the web.


PS: And another fun game - ask any soldier who told you about the instant knife kill what he actually used his knife for during his career, except stirring MREs.

*sigh* You seem bound and determined to argue that the use of an edged weapon to take out a sentry with relative quiet has never happened. What's more, you seem determined to do so through cherry picking out the occasional post to disagree with, and to reply to it and it alone rather than anything anyone else has said.

The simple truth is that knives have been used -- even up to the modern era, though admittedly less so in the face of suppressed weapons and subsonic ammunition -- to silently take out enemies, particularly sentries, for thousands of years. Yes, it's been overdone by movies and popular culture, but no that doesn't mean that it does not happen.

We're not talking about decapitation, we're talking about the methodical use of a reasonable-sized edged weapon to take out a guard. You keep talking about severed heads like it has anything to do with the conversation. Of course it's easy for you to talk about decapitation as a poor means of silencing a sentry, but then again I can just as easily -- and nonsensically -- reply with "hand grenades are no good for quietly taking out a sentry, either!"

Meh. Just snipe them anyway, or your neurostun gun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Question done.

You mean your refusal to believe something? Because that's the only thing I ignored and...well, one must believe whatever makes him feel good.


For example where and when?


Then please enlighten me Mr Miyagi, how does one use a blade to take somebody out without a sound?


Because severing the spinal cord (or putting the knife into the brain stem) sounds like the most promising concept to stop someone from screaming or struggling.Again, what is your plan to take out somebody without a sound?

So, Sengir, out of curiosity, how many times have you actually seen someone killed by a knife? Never? Weird, that would mean that you don't actually have any experience or any idea what you are talking about.

Now, I admit, no one in the 'edged weapons can kill silently' camp is likely to have first hand experience with it, but I'm willing to believe that in the several millennia that edged weapons have existed, methods have been developed to kill silently with them, even if that includes the slight inconvenience of placing your hand over the victim's mouth as you stab them.

So yeah, until you round up a couple hundred people and try to kill them silently with an edged weapon (recording the experience as proof) and see how many make a sound and how many don't, and try out several various method of obtaining a silent kill, I'd say your point is basically invalid.

I was told of three such occurances by a marine that served (and claimed to have performed all three) in the Pacific theater during WW2. In the time that I knew him he never told me anything that I found to be embellished.




Depends on the person but, right hand over the targets mouth pulling the head back into your right side shoulder, left hand thrusts the blade into the side of the neck as low as possible. Drawing the blade forward and to the left cuts through the jugular, windpipe, and carotid. Sudden drop of blood pressure in the brain will bring about unconsciousness quickly. A secondary thrust angled upward under the back of the rib cage can be used to puncture diaphram and lower left lung lobe.

Is it absolutely silent?
No. But neither is a suppressed gun shot (even using subsonic ammo). Remember noises travel further at night. On a lucky night you would have rain or wind to cover the sounds. An unlucky night, it is still and snowing...any noise travels far further than you would expect.

Is it messy?
Yup.

Is it absolutely foolproof?
Not at all. Unexpected things always happen.




The spinal column does a pretty good job at protecting the spinal cord as does the skull. My father was killed in a car accident and suffered a base skull fracture, the coroner said that his death was instant so I can't argue that such an injury is beyond the realm of possibility or fatal.

I don't think that anybody has stated that a knife or a sword is absolutely going to give a silent kill in every single situation in RL. If you are looking for absolutes, I cannot offer up any (beyond death and taxes).

As far as swords in SR, they are cool like Bull said (at least he and I think so). Fortunately, SR is a game and if it is fun and doesn't break the game I don't have a problem with a character running around with a sword.

How is it I'm the one refusing to believe something? You're the one that's refusing to believe that a knife has ever been found useful -- by anyone, ever -- to kill someone quietly.


Thanks for out-and-out introducing namecalling to a thread where folks are trying to have a serious discussion about edged weapons, firearms, and the constantly evolving nature of combat.

It's particularly amusing, of course, that you went for "Mr. Miyagi" as an insult, when graceful, traditional, honor-laden martial arts (such as the Karate shown in those movies) has absolutely nothing at all to do with the brutal, ugly, methods used of killing a man with a knife. Major William Fairbairn (co-developer of the British commandos' WWII fighting knife) was once described as having a "disliking for anything smacking of decency in fighting." He's a whole lot more "Sweep The Leg" than "Mr. Miyagi."

Now, as to how (and when) one human being has made a habit of using a knife to quietly kill another? For a start, you can check someplace like this, which is a pdf of US military combatives manuals. Specifically, take a look at Chapter 7, "Sentry Removal."

In fact, speaking of Major Fairbairn, here's a link to several pages worth of information from Get Tough, his own manual on hand to hand combat (including knife fighting). Get Tough shows at least one image of a sentry being killed with a knife, now that I take a glance at it.

Finding just those few examples of (fairly) modern military training manuals took me all of ten seconds or so. I genuinely find it hard to believe you expect someone to hand you a list of times knives have been used to kill someone quietly, though.


Your most promising concept, and the most promising concept of those who train to do this sort of thing, are very different. Good luck putting the knife in the brain stem of an enemy soldier wearing a helmet.

Why on Earth you would assume decapitation as the chosen method of quietly killing a sentry is beyond me.


It's not my plan. While I've taken more than my fair share of knife fighting classes, I've taken knife fighting classes, not commando training. I don't pay my monthly dues to learn how to quietly murder a sentry, sorry. It's just my hope that providing you with a few examples of training manuals from the last fifty or sixty years might help you to realize that yes, it's possible to kill someone quietly with a knife.

So, Karoline, out of curiosity, how many times have you actually seen someone killed by a knife? Never? Weird, that would mean that you don't actually have any experience or any idea what you are talking about. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)



The burden of proof lies with the person claiming that something DOES exist...


@Bob



And struggling or making sounds while trying to breathe and expulse the blood from the trachea are not exactly functions liked to consciousness, the whole point of falling unconscious is that the brain regions involved in those activities can remain active if there is not enough juice to power the whole brain.


And finally @ Critias: Of course the party line is "no problem, the guy will fall without making a sound or larger mess, just remember that your training and equipment let you pass any obstacle". What else do you expect, a graphic description how the victim will be struggling and squealing like a stabbed pig while soaking the uniform you won't be able to change for a few days in blood? Yeah sure, just like our ZDV 3/11 gives a totally realistic description of burn wounds and not hints like "just wash incendiaries off with cold water, if it continues to burn and produces white smoke cover the wound with wet earth". The point of these jungle books is not just education, but also instilling the reader with a sense that everything will be alright since you are prepared and everything.
Also note that most of the techniques described there involve first hitting the other guy on the head or otherwise stunning him before the actual kill...why should that be neccessary if a knife is just an instant, silent kill?

Damn, it's almost as if I already addressed your point, but you didn't bother to read my actual post. You just saw something you perceived as a slight against you, and flew into a rage, determined to hurt me with a poorly planned repeating of what I said, which I had already anticipated and responded to.


That would be you then, claiming that people DO make alot of noise when they are stabbed in the throat or have their throat slashed or whatever. regardless of any other circumstance.

Anyway, burden of proof in this case actually falls on the person who's belief is outside the accepted norm. Because we have manuals that show dozens of ways to take out a person silently (Which you have conveniently ignored), because it is commonly accepted that it is possible, and because the majority of posters (everyone except you) believe it, it is your burden to prove that those military manuals, that common knowledge, that accepted beliefs are wrong.

So, ignoring Sengir, I think everyone is in agreement that edged weapons are good for silent takedowns.

That said, I think subsonic ammo and a silencer would still be generally preferred, since it has the advantage of being able to be at a distance. That said, I remember from Ghost in the Shell that someone mentioned something along the lines of "Always do an assassination from as close as possible to ensure success." aka use melee over ranged. Is that an actual ideology or something, or was GitS just making it up for the one particular character? I suppose it is harder to miss with a blade on an unsuspecting/untrained target than it is with a sniper rifle from a great distance (thanks to how much wind affects stuff at those ranges), so there might be some merit to an idea like that.

Did you read the same manual I did? This one spent a pretty big block of text explaining to soldiers that killing someone with a knife was a messy, brutal, intimate, affair, and to watch out for the psychological ramifications afterwards. Rather than "No problem, the guy will fall..." it opened the entire chapter with a detailed, intensive, list of things you've got to do just exactly right in order to keep the whole mission from falling apart, explained that it was a difficult, tricky, job.

Which doesn't mean it's impossible -- so don't go gettin' all excited on me, thinking you've cleverly tricked me into admitting debate defeat -- but only that the training manual is realistic about the expectations it instills. No one's ever said it's a piece of cake to kill a man quietly with a knife, only that with the proper training it's possible.

But, anyways. You just go on reading what you want to read (in everyone's posts, as well as our links), pick out the line or two you feel like arguing, and continue to insist that it's "unrealistic" for anyone, ever, to get a quiet kill with a knife.

I don't know. You can kill a rabbit with a hammer without it making a sound. So that would seem to imply you could kill it with a knife to the same effect, and if you can do it with a rabbit, I don't see why you couldn't do it with a person - although it would probably be a good deal harder.

No, not really. I intentionally ignored most of your ludicrous "argumentation" to keep the discussion civil, but if you insist here's a non-whitewashed reply:


Uh-huh, so a lack of practical experience with something outlandish such as slicing peoples' throats automatically disqualifies people to talk about it...at least if those people also dare to burst you Hollywood-induced bubble of silent knife kills. For those who hold your opinion, the standards are kinda lower. And I'm not talking about the usual kind of double standards where hearsay is acceptable for one side while the other is held to impossibly high standards. No, you drive the normal idiocity of double standards to even new levels:


Wow.
Just wow.

People who disagree with you have to do a double-blind study on stabbing humans before you even consider them having an idea of what they are talking about. You on the other hand have a BELIEF. Not even one in a certain point, which would be testable , you simply believe that at some point in time somebody came up with something which might somehow support your point.



Now let's just ignore the impossibility of the study you suggested (after all, if your requirements for the other side's proof were fulfillable, it wouldn't be a good double standard) and assume somebody actually did that study: Would a result like "everybody screamed and struggled like mad" have any significance? Of course not, 100 sliced throats would only represent the tiniest fraction of an infinite number of possible angles, entry points, speeds, knife types, and other variables.
That is why scientific method is not to claim that something exists and then expect the other side to spend the rest of their lives trying to find a counterexample, which might literally take forever. Scientific method is to present proof that something does exist, and present it in a way which fulfills the requirements for useful proofs - most importantly falsifiability



OK, enough OT. We are not talking about science, we are talking about your belief that sometime since the hominisation somebody came up with something to prove your point, and the idea that this belief is all you need to make a valid point. Given these premises, the following statement is extremely comforting

Seriously, if your argumentative insanity made my arguments look good I shoud start thinking about a career as witch doctor or something.

Way to go continuing to ignore 90% of what is written to focus on one narrow point and go off on it for 5 paragraphs.

Perhaps I should have emphasized "I'm willing to believe..." based on the fact that stories of it happening has existed for at least a few millennia, based on the fact that the military provides instructions on doing it, based on the fact that the military in fact bases entire operations around the ability to kill someone with an edged weapon silently.

The problem for you here is that you are arguing that something can not, will not, and has never occurred. If you said 'it is difficult to kill someone silently' or 'not every single kill is going to be totally silent' or something along those lines, I'd believe your argument had some validity, but you are claiming that something that is commonly believed and has already been shown to have plenty of backing, does not ever happen, and have provided no real evidence to support your own side of this argument.

Can't you just agree that you disagree? Seems like a really pointless conversation to me.

Um, so without getting into the argument whether it's easy or hard to silently kill a sentry with a knife, this is another example of how firearms have profoundly simplified killing. Suppressed carbine with subsonic ammo, however you slice it (har), is much easier to kill someone with by shooting them in the eye, than having to low crawl up behind someone, stun him with your knife butt, and then cut open his subclavian artery without anything going wrong.

(With firearms what could still go wrong is if the round glances off the guy's skull, but that's probably less likely than you screwing up a knife stealth kill.)