My evolving thoughts on medieval hand to hand combat weapons vs. modern firearms, My thoughts as I pursue both German longsword and shooting sports Options

[Wounded Ronin]

Fairly recently, I started practicing German longsword with a local ARMA group. I never appreciated the longsword fully before. Like most people who don't have any basis to know any better I thought of the sword in terms of just cut and thrust. However, I am beginning to more fully appreciate the art of using the longsword...the bind, the anti-armor techniques, percussive techniques using the crossguard and pommel, clinches and throws while using the sword, and I also am beginning to understand how on the whole a longsword is pretty much objectively better for killing people than an axe or a hammer. I'm beginning to understand the ways in which a longsword would usually be able to outmanuver an axe or hammer especially when used against an unarmored opponent and given a basic level of skill on the part of the wielder, and accordingly why the sword was symbolic of the military elite in medieval times in Europe.

But damn, at the same time, I also participate every month in shooting sports like USPSA and steel shooting, and again given a skilled operator, I'm really struck by how much unimaginably better modern firearms are than even a longsword.

Before I'd taken up serious study of the longsword, I think I actually had unrealistic ideas about how potent a longsword or katana would be if someone decided to use one in the middle of a firefight. You read and hear all the stories about katanas cutting through several stacked up bodies, and you imagine how quick and powerful someone must be if they practice with the sword, so you imagine that someone with a sword can just hide around the corner, jump out, and lop your head off before you can react, even if you're wearing a kevlar helmet and vest and have got an AK47 in your hands.

But now that I actually practice with a longsword I think I appreciate how it'd actually be really hard to do something like that in reality. You'd need enough room to swing the sword, which would be harder to do if you were hiding around a corner in an enclosed indoor environment, and you'd need to hope that your attack isn't mitigated in its effectiveness if the guy you're ambushing jumps backwards or flinches away when he sees all that movement coming towards him. Even if you hit him, again it would require skill to hit his neck as opposed to, say, his upper arm, and it would be a combination of skill and luck to actually incapacitate the guy instead of only wounding him. It might be more practical with the longsword to try and thrust at the guy in his face or upper torso, but even if you succeeded in ramming the point of your sword into the chest before he can react, I don't see how you could be guaranteed that he'd be incapacitated right away and wouldn't be able to get a shot off half a second later even if he were mortally wounded through the lung or something. With all this body movement and timing you get one penetrating wound into the guy's torso, whereas with a few trigger squeezes the other guy can give you multiple penetrating wounds into your torso that probably penetrate deeper and are more likely to shatter bone. (Actually I kind of have the same question about bayonetting someone...how do you know the other guy won't just shoot you while you're driving your bayonet through his lung?)

And that's thinking about a committed do-or-die high-powered attack, as opposed to a lighter bop on the head that you might see from the bind against another swordsman.

The more I know and the more I practice both, the more I feel that given a basic level of skill in both disciplines, firearms are a lot deadlier than swords. Now a knife might even be different given that it could be used in conjunction with tackling someone and keeping his rifle pointed away from you, but as long as we're talking about swords per se which are going to be used at a slightly longer distance, I'm really beginning to understand how modern firearms made them obsolete.

But I think it's very good for me to understand this, as someone who is interested in role playing games. If I ever wanted to try and run a realistic RPG set in, say, the Pacific during World War II, I would be better mentally equipped to come up with good rules for what happens if a Japanese guy with a katana tries to jump out of the bushes and decapitate a US Marine who is scanning for threats with his 1911 out.


EDIT: All this also leads me to believe that it was easier to be brave on the battlefield in medieval times than today if you were an elite warrior. If you are wearing armor, have the skills, and have the swords, you can probably single-handedly kill a lot of peasants who come at you looking to bash you with an axe or hammer. The armor provides significant protection and your skills and weaponry will let you butcher the poor fools who think they can just swing their heavy tools around and bash your head in that way. I think that one skilled warrior with a sword can fight a lot more palookas with hammers and axes than he could if both he and the palookas were unarmed because in some ways the sword is such a good weapon. But, look at today. If you're an elite warrior with NIJ level 4 body armor and a two thousand dollar HK rifle, you can totally be taken out by a random bunch of palookas with AKs and RPGs. The power of firearms and modern small arms is such that they just need a little bit of luck to get you, even though you still have an excellent chance of killing a bunch of them. This impersonal yet significant element of luck leads me to believe that modern warfare is probably the most dangerous and savage the world has ever seen, eg. Battle of Stalingrad.

[Yerameyahu]

It's obvious that the sword was better: it was by far more popular. Same reason no one uses swords now, though: guns are by far better.

[Synner667]

Well, swords require skull to use, wheras any idiot can point a gun and pull the trigger.

It's why shotguns an smg are more popular with the less skilled shooters.
It also reinforces the fakeness of so many people in shadowrun running around with swords and using swords in combat.

[Tanegar]

Well, swords require skull to use, wheras any idiot can point a gun and pull the trigger.

Well, pretty much any weapon requires a skull to use. I mean, if you somehow lost your skull, you're pretty much out of the fight right there, don't you think?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[Backgammon]

Well that quote that goes "God made men, Colt made them equal" or whatever it is, is actually more thought out that at first glance. ANYBODY with a firearm can kill any other man. Sure there's some skill as well as reaction time and all that jazz, but bottom line, a mook can shoot a Special forces guy dead just like that. Which is why all the nobility was in uproar at first at the crossbow and then the firearm. A peasant killing a knight didn't happen before, like you said. The knight had equipement and training that made him far, far superior to the average farmer-cum-warrior.

However, on the subject of firearm vs blade, I always thought that that was even an option in shadowrun because of massive advancements in body armour. Armour having advanced so much, you reach a point where a) shooting at someone isn't a reliable way of killing him and b) on the other side of the coin, you can armour up, survive firearms shooting at you enough to close in and decapitate the guy. It's really the only way melee becomes an option in Shadowrun - because of the armour.

[Yerameyahu]

I dunno about your group, but everyone in every SR game I've played runs around with guns, not swords. Rarely, there's someone who can *also* melee, if the situation calls for it. And on a meta level, Stick & Shock. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) 'Nuff said.

[Critias]

While I agree with most of what you've posted, as someone who studies edged combat and shooting sports, myself...I have to disagree -- albeit slightly -- with your apparent final thoughts/conclusion.

Read up on the casualty reports on actual shooting firefight engagements in modern combat (from the Battle of Mogadishu up to more recent fights, in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance with the US military) and you'll see wildly out-of-balance fights between the well trained, well equipped, military and the comparatively rag-tag guys they're fighting.

Yes, a bunch of guys hopped up on khat and toting AK's can kill a highly trained, well equipped, motivated, soldier...but the final tallies still tend to be plenty skewed, when all is said and done. Even the conservative estimates for the Battle of Mogadishu, for instance, will show you about 600 SNA Militia killed to 19 Americans, with about 1,000 wounded compared to the American ~80 (86, I think?).

Bullets, like arrows before them (Agincourt, anyone?) bring a certain amount of fate/luck/chance/whatever onto the battlefield, and there's certainly no denying that. But skill, teamwork, motivation, experience...those things all certainly still play their part.

[Synner667]

Well, pretty much any weapon requires a skull to use. I mean, if you somehow lost your skull, you're pretty much out of the fight right there, don't you think?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

Heh, heh, heh

You spotted the only important bit in my post (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Blade]

While I agree with most of what you've posted, as someone who studies edged combat and shooting sports, myself...I have to disagree -- albeit slightly -- with your apparent final thoughts/conclusion.

Read up on the casualty reports on actual shooting firefight engagements in modern combat (from the Battle of Mogadishu up to more recent fights, in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance with the US military) and you'll see wildly out-of-balance fights between the well trained, well equipped, military and the comparatively rag-tag guys they're fighting.

Yes, a bunch of guys hopped up on khat and toting AK's can kill a highly trained, well equipped, motivated, soldier...but the final tallies still tend to be plenty skewed, when all is said and done. Even the conservative estimates for the Battle of Mogadishu, for instance, will show you about 600 SNA Militia killed to 19 Americans, with about 1,000 wounded compared to the American ~80 (86, I think?).

Bullets, like arrows before them (Agincourt, anyone?) bring a certain amount of fate/luck/chance/whatever onto the battlefield, and there's certainly no denying that. But skill, teamwork, motivation, experience...those things all certainly still play their part.

I've read somewhere that it was partly explained by the fact that non-trained people will instinctively avoid killing people. So most people will shoot at the sky, hoping that the other people on their side will do the actual killing.

[Sengir]

ANYBODY with a firearm can kill any other man. Sure there's some skill as well as reaction time and all that jazz, but bottom line, a mook can shoot a Special forces guy dead just like that. Which is why all the nobility was in uproar at first at the crossbow and then the firearm. A peasant killing a knight didn't happen before, like you said.

Hitting something with a crossbow also takes some practice (although probably less than handling a longsword), especially if that something is moving on a horseback and you plan to stay alive afterwards. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Firearms were even more demanding in terms of skill, because until rifles became standard issue in the crimean war the only effective way to use them was to fire in coordinated barrages while standing in formation...and staying in formation, even when people were dying left and right.

What made crossbows and firearms so dangerous was their availability. A plate mail plus sword and good horse took ages to manufacture and cost a small herd of cattle, which meant only noblemen could afford it, while a crossbow could be made by the local horseshoe maker in a day or so.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

It's why shotguns an smg are more popular with the less skilled shooters.

I really hope that you are talking about SR and not RL, as a former skeet shooter I can attest that hitting a target the size of tea saucer flying throw the air actually does require some skill. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Hitting something with a crossbow also takes some practice (although probably less than handling a longsword), especially if that something is moving on a horseback and you plan to stay alive afterwards. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

What made crossbows and firearms so dangerous was their availability. A plate mail plus sword and good horse took ages to manufacture and cost a small herd of cattle, which meant only noblemen could afford it, while a crossbow could be made by the local horseshoe maker in a day or so.

I can take a person off the street and have them proficient in using a modern crossbow in five days (8 hours drilling a day). The sword takes far, far longer to achieve anything approaching proficiency.

Hitting the guy on the horse with a crossbow bolt would be my second choice. Taking out the horse would most likely render the rider unable to fight. There is a reason why stunt men wear rubber armor when doing those stunts, not to mention having a horse roll over on you...all very bad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

A sword or a knife in SR does have a role to play though. Silencing sentries on a stealthy approach comes readily to mind. But I do agree, during the middle of a firefight...I will stick with my shotgun or smg. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[PBTHHHHT]

I've read somewhere that it was partly explained by the fact that non-trained people will instinctively avoid killing people. So most people will shoot at the sky, hoping that the other people on their side will do the actual killing.

The battle also had the little birds (helicopter for those who don't know) making strafing runs, miniguns ablazing that would account for a bit of the casualties on the somali side.

[Sengir]

Silencing sentries on a stealthy approach comes readily to mind.

Which I might add is nowhere near realistic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Stahlseele]

The reason for guns making such a late entrance in japan was that the samurai and shogun were strictly against this, seeing how a samurai took years of training to become a feared warrior, whereas some days of training enabled pawns to kill samurai with guns.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

Which I might add is nowhere near realistic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Oh this I gotta hear! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Critias]

Which I might add is nowhere near realistic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Fairbairn and Sykes disagree with you.

[Bull]

If you're playing Shadowrun for the realism... Stay the hell outta my game (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The reason so many people use Katanas and swords is simple... The idea is cool, even if the reality is not. Reality is over-rated anyway.

Bull

[Sengir]

Fairbairn and Sykes disagree with you.

You could cut off somebody's head with a knife and the body will still be struggling...not to mention that you will most likely look and smell like a butchered pig afterwards. Better hope the enemy does not have an augmented nose (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[nezumi]

Katanas and swords also permit you to draw on mystical power (in the form of weapon foci and physical adepts with lots of melee combat boosts) which are not available with firearms. It's a given, but yes, magic has changed the battlefield.

[tete]

Well, swords require skull to use, wheras any idiot can point a gun and pull the trigger.

This... Just look at the Tokugawa Era for plenty of details.

Read up on the casualty reports on actual shooting firefight engagements in modern combat (from the Battle of Mogadishu up to more recent fights, in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance with the US military) and you'll see wildly out-of-balance fights between the well trained, well equipped, military and the comparatively rag-tag guys they're fighting.

You have to remember that when firearms were new, no one was well trained. When Tokugawa took farmers and gave them european rifles your highly trained samurai had just as little skill with a gun as a farmer but they were master swordsmen.

[Critias]

You could cut off somebody's head with a knife and the body will still be struggling...not to mention that you will most likely look and smell like a butchered pig afterwards. Better hope the enemy does not have an augmented nose (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I can't believe you're genuinely saying bladed weapons cannot be used to quietly take out sentries, when there are -- literally -- millenia of military history and gutter crime that say otherwise.

[Yerameyahu]

Not to mention all those movies! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Tanegar]

I can't believe you're genuinely saying bladed weapons cannot be used to quietly take out sentries, when there are -- literally -- millenia of military history and gutter crime that say otherwise.

Hey, here's a fun game. Go find a U.S. Marine. Tell him (or her) to his face that you can't kill somebody quietly with a knife. Betcha get a real interesting (and graphic) explanation of how wrong you are.

[Dumori]

I've never had the opportunity to use a longsword and train with it but I do know the theory and I have look at period texts. I'm a weapons nerd I study them in my free time. I do how ever fence. While fencing has set rules of engagement more so with foil and sabre than epee my faved style. I know where you are coming from.

However melee vs firearms would need massive adjustment to your training with the longsword. Think bayonet drill ect the aim as I can see it is to stagger the opponent beat the gun way and charge in close for the kill. I'm only really going of secondary source for this however and yes a longsword would be very unsuited to this job. A short glave/spear would work seeing as that what a bayoneted rifle.

Firearms unwieldy close up at least more so than a edged blade. Would I take a rapier like weapon up against a shooter. Only if it was all I had and even then I'd fight close to unarmed than with the weapon.

[Karoline]

and I also am beginning to understand how on the whole a longsword is pretty much objectively better for killing people than an axe or a hammer.

I'm reasonably sure the vikings would disagree with you, and so would the people who fought the vikings.

Yeah, sure, with a sword you can get all fancy with parries and somewhat quicker strikes, but if you have a trained viking with an axe... well, you're just in trouble. The vikings could wield their axes with nearly as much ease as an Englishman could wield a sword, but the hits where much harder. They were nearly impossible to parry because there was so much strength behind them, a blow was much more likely to be deadly, and even if you managed to block the blow with a shield, you'd likely end up with a broken arm, which in those times could easily be fatal in the long term from complications, and short term from losing your ability to use your shield.

I do have to agree however that it is basically silly to think that the use of a melee weapon in a fight with firearms is viable. The fact is that it is only remotely viable if you have the drop on the other person, and at that point you'd most likely be better off just shooting them, so there still isn't much reason to use melee weapons. The Japanese exemplify this for when they outlawed guns in their country because a peasant with a flintlock with virtually no training could easily take out a samurai that had trained for decades with their sword.

As for the gun being an equalizer: don't look at it so much as guy with gun vs guy with gun, but look at it as guy with sword attacking civilians vs guy with gun attacking civilians. If someone has a sword, it would be really easy for three or four people to swamp him and take him down, with maybe only one or two getting seriously injured. If someone has a gun however, they can basically take out a number of people equal to their ammo count because they can strike from a distance, which the sword can't do.