Obviously you haven't partaken in the sweet, orgismic deliciousness that is the Crunchie bar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crunchie

Thank you so much! I got really excited reading some of the little details you added - like darkening the bow, etc.

** Oh yes, room service, maid service, etc.


*** Did you get a chance to see those booby traps I posted? I loved those little drawings on the link, but the vids show the actual traps; really interesting stuff. (I think it is on page 4 of this thread)

Thanks again D.Foxy!

But theose crossbows had an heftier draw than a 130 lbs bow. And what would have happened if the buckled had not been struck straight on but at an angle ? Odds are it would have ripped on and deflected away. Or at lest been deflected enough to hit on the helmet. And left Stavak in deep trouble with the fighter a bare five meters in front of you with sword at the ready while he would still have his bow in hand.

What I would have done : aim for the face, and as soon as his sight is obscured by his bucler, change aim and go for a body shot - thinner armor than the buckler and nobody's going to give much of fight or a run with an arrow stuck in his innards. It might not be as immediately disabling as a possible brain shot but it seems more reliable, and Stavak has a thing for reliablity.

Note on crafting a longbow : a quick peek in wikipedia mentionned a crafting time of ten hours for a master archer making a longbow. Of course it's the crafting part, it doesn't include drying the wood, for which a year or more seems right.

Note on crafting a longbow : a quick peek in wikipedia mentionned a crafting time of ten hours for a master archer making a longbow. Of course it's the crafting part, it doesn't include drying the wood, for which a year or more seems right.

From Wiki, "The English Longbow"

Materials

They were made from yew in preference, although ash and other woods were also used. The traditional construction of a longbow consists of drying the yew wood for 1 to 2 years, then slowly working the wood into shape, with the entire process taking up to four years. (This can be done far more quickly by working the wood down when wet, as a thinner piece of wood will dry much faster.)

I suspect you are talking about modern methods of crafting longbows, which uses chemicals, and techniques which were not available in medieval times.

While the exceptional crossbow, like the exceptional longbow, did have draws to or even over 200 lbs, the average crossbow in medevial times had a 150 lb draw and could shoot a quarrel (the name of an iron crossbow bolt) through plate armour at 40 yards. Therefore my 120 lb bow shooting a steel bolt through a buckler at 5 yards is well within the bounds of possibility.

Regarding angled projectile rejection, this really depends mainly upon the shape of the point and - aha, this is something you may not know, it's a rather obscure and fascinating fact about projectiles - the speed/weight ratio of the projectile. Modern high speed projectiles flying at impact speeds of well over two thousand to even four and a half thousand feet a second are highly sensitive to strike angle: slower, heavier projectiles are not so sensitive. If you really want to study this arcane subject in detail I suggest you study the penetrating power of the really, really, REALLY heavy guns of WWII, the 15, 16 and 18 inch Naval Rifles found on the Queen Elizabeth, the Iowa, and the Yamato class battleships, against armour at low impact speeds and low impact angles. The armour piercing bolt is this, in miniature.

This really needs to be pinned. If I could give you a tip; compile all of your posts into the OP, and ask Rohugh about it. Send him a PM.

The times I've mentionned came from the 'longbow' article. It seems quite odd to me that trimming the wood to achive the desired shape after you've split your logs to get a suitably-sized piece of wood would take such a long time, even with the need to follow the wood's grain and using hand tools.
If it takes a master artisan one to two years to craft one, it would make the longbow and horribly expensive weapon, in the same league as full armors and the like. Not something that the majority of a thousands strong army could use, as the english did for a few centuries in a row.

Maybe the bow were shaped - which would require time for the wood to take it's shape (and during which the bowier could prepare other bows).

Maybe the bow were shaped - which would require time for the wood to take it's shape (and during which the bowier could prepare other bows).

That is correct. Bowyers in medevial timess would make bows in batches, usually one batch from one yew log. I had Stavak do the same in my short story.

It wouldn't penetrate unless it was perpendicular to what it was hitting. If he didn't ball up it would most likely deflect off any part of him.

And yes steel bolts were used in crossbows, but is there any evidence there were steel arrows for bows? Firing like that I would think would make the arrow wobble and fishtail because it has no flex to it. I've shot aluminum arrows meant for a compound bow out of a recurve bow, and they whip around like hell.

Just stopping in to see what Foxy is writing about. :wave: Seems you've got a nice discussion going here Foxy. :goodjob:

Would it be possible for this to get pinned?

I doubt it but I will run it by the others and admin. We really try and limit what is pinned.

That's fair enough, but I can't imagine the amount this guide would improve other people's fight writing.

What about a link in Illusionary's guide?

HI MUM!!!!!


Here, have a nice set of Gothic Steel armour!!!


:lol:


SOOOOOOO good to see you mum.... what's up?

:wave:

My thoughts on Ninja Weapons, part one

I was going to write a long treatise on Ninja Weapons...but I have work to do, dinners to go out to, friends and others to meet, and a certain PM to reply to at length. So I'll chop up this post into fragments.


The principles of Ninja weapons should be: power, silence, one-move kill, lightweight, compactness, and ... cheapness.

They need to be powerful enough to be a one shot kill because the ninja is, for various reasons I do not have the time to go into here, usually a small to medium sized man or a woman. Therefore his weapons must compensate for the weaknesses in his or her physique.

This is why many Ninja weapons are poisoned, and why ninjas have made a deep study of various types of poison.

The ninja will nearly always be outnumbered. Therefore he/she must attack in stealth, and silence is stealth.
As is compactness and lightness. Bulky weapons are easily seen, and are difficult to carry into narrow places and up walls and under hiding places. Heavy weapons are tiring to carry for long distances.

The ninja is an assassin because he isn't rich - so very expensive weapons are O.U.T. on his budget! He MAY carry one or two specialist weapons that are expensive, but he will take great care not to lose them and use them only when absolutely necessary.


THE FIRST GROUP: CHEAP, DANGEROUS, AND EFFECTIVE

( 1 ) The garotte

( 2 ) The sling

( 3 ) The disassembled spear



The SLING and its usage I have already described. See above post.

The GAROTTE can be nothing more than a length of rope with two handles used for strangling from behind, but this simple garotte has the disadvantage of bringing the strangler way too close to his intended victim. If the victim is trained and keeps his head cool enough for the correct counter, which is to reach behind your neck and attack the eyes of your strangler with your thumbs, there is a high - too high - possibility of the attack being unsucessful.

I have invented a ninja garrote which is basically a three section stick that snaps together to become a five foot long rigid pole. There are eyes along this pole, like a fishing pole has.

The head of this pole is a half moon steel curve with an ice pick horizontal wedge in the middle and the tip of the half moon crescent also hast two eyes.

The garotte rope is threaded along these eyes, and the operation is for the Ninja to silently run up behind the sentry, slip the garotte at the end of the pole over his head, then pull the rope at the end of the pole with one hand while simultaneously pushing the pole into the neck with the other. If done correctly, this will result in the ice pick snapping through the neck veterbrae and through the spinal cord while at the same time the garotte will snap around the neck and cut off blood and air to the brain. And in addition to this there will be a safety distance of about three feet between the sentry and the ninja.

For best results, smear a paralysis poison on the ice pick before attack, though I do not advocate the use of poison on weapons which you will have to reuse again. The hassle of avoiding contact with the restowed weapon and cleaning it carefully afterwards is just too great.

The collapsible spear is simply the garotte pole with a spearhead on top! In this way you don't need to carry two weapons - you can carry the 3 section, compact pole, and put a garrotte head or spear head on it as the tactical situation needs!

Thus you fulfill the requirements of stealth, cheapness, quietness, lightness, and compactness!

More on this...

Please be sure to add the black egg, possibly the deadliest weapon they can use.

Black eggs, along with other smoke devices, and calthrops, either ordinary or poisoned, will indeed come in later posts, in the evasive tiechniques section.

:P

I know a lot about the weaponry and tactics of Pirates, and in the wake of today being International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I'll send you a few things you might find interesting.

The mind of the Warrior

This is the part where writers who are not too much into the technical points of weaponry, such as BSparrow and Helena et al, will appreciate. For it is a psychological and philosophical examination of the dichotomy that exists in the mind of the great Warrior.
In describing the mind of the great warrior, one has to understand that there is a duality in that mind: great anger and arrogance existing side by side with dispassion, humility, flexibility and caution.

No warrior can be one without that fierceness, which is the outcome of anger and cruelty, in his or her mind. Contrary to what we may think, battlefield studies have shown that humans do not like to kill: that they have to be trained to kill, for it is in the intrinsic nature of humans to avoid killing one another. Studies going back as far as the Napoleonic Wars have shown that even in the easiest way of killing, which is the firing of a musket into an anonymous crowd of enemies at a distance, men automatically shot to miss. It was only the veterans who were hitting the target every time - which gave a definite advantage to Britain, the only army in that war which was completely professional. This was why Napoleon did not try to use fire in his columns: he used the French columns in exactly the same way as a modern boxer used his right hand - to deliver a knockout blow while having found the range with a left jab. In the Napoleonic system the artillery was the left jab, the column was the straight right that finished off the job not by fire, but by sheer weight of numbers.

Knowing this, I think we will have to emphasize the importance of humanoid target training in preparing the warrior. Indeed all armies today emphasize this. The raw recruit is 'de-sensitized' to the shock of killing one's fellow man by plunging his bayonet again and again, and shooting again and again, into straw targets that are made up into the shape of a human.

'Sadistic' drill sergeants, who know the routine, scream and howl and sometimes even beat the raw recruit so that he will lose touch with the finer sensibilities of human hesitation, and become a machine that can kill without compunction...

It would seem from all this that the best warriors are cold blooded psychopaths - indeed I have deliberately drawn one of my warriors, the archer and bandit Stavak, to reflect this side of the professional killing machine. And yet if we look at history we will see again and again the very greatest of warriors were not just killing machines: they were humanitarians as well, with a surprising sensitivity and a feel for the common soldier.

History has shown us many examples, the Japanese 'sword saint' Miyamoto Mushashi for one, of warriors who were equally gifted with weapon or paintbrush, who could handle pole arms and poetry with equal ease. (No, I am not among them )

And the more we study these warriors, the more we begin to understand that the greatest of warriors are those that balance the dichotomies of cruelty and compassion, of hatred and healing, of leadership and love.

The cruelty of the warrior is a fire in training that burns away some, or all, of the humanity of the warrior: but the greatest of all warriors are those who have marched steadily straight into that fire, and come out again on the other side without having been burned or besmirched.

Thus the great warrior must hate his enemy enough to want to kill him, yet at the same time retain enough of humanity to spare a surrendering enemy.

The great warrior must have supreme self confidence - the cockiness to think that he could take on an entire army all by himself, which must be tempered with the humility that knows that even champions must fall and die one day. Without self confidence the warrior will be eaten alive on the battlefield: with too much arrogance the warrior will fall into the pit of his own pride. He has the arrogance to believe that he can walk on water, simultaneously with the knowledge that all warriors only walk the path of those who have gone before.

And he must simultaneously burn with rage in battle while at the same time holding an ice cold detachment.

Heart on fire
Mind on ice
A volcano in your briast
But frozen the mind rests.

Ada: "Um... I'll try to remember all that."

D.Foxy,
Well done!

As a thirty year veteran of the U. S. Marine Corps, I have trusted your judgment regarding weaponry that predates my hands on experience. Here however, you are talking a subject I am familiar with.

Your description of the individual warrior psyche is extremely insightful. Note that I say individual warrior. The dynamics that take place within an organized force of warriors are complex, and generally beyond the interest of our TES endeavors.

There tends to be a distinct difference between the younger and the older warrior. I don't find it inconsistent with your article. Note that my comments are not gender neutral - I am not trying to make a statement. I simply have not observed women in combat. Let me share what I have observed. I suspect some aspects of this are timeless.

The younger warrior overflows with his own immortality and aggressive confidence. He is na?ve enough to believe in glory. If he experiences fear, he is embarrassed by it.

The veteran warrior has glimpsed at his own mortality. He sees no glory, takes no pleasure in killing. His discipline and determination though, are unstoppable. Despite the horrors he may be exposed to, he is motivated by a cause that transcends his own significance, even the significance of his family. Whether his cause be to protect homeland, faith or freedom, he has embraced that there are things worth dying for. Fear is well known enough to him. He is not embarrassed by it, for he knows from experience that fear will not affect his actions. He grimly delivers that which is necessary. He outwardly may appear unemotional or detached. He sees and feels as other men do, but is able to place those feelings in a mental container to be cherished in quieter times.

I would urge writers to consider age and experience in terms of how the warrior approaches combat and deals with his own actions. Does your warrior approach combat with a swaggar, issuing taunts and carve a notch in his blade after victory? Or perhaps does he approach it with a grim determination and be thankful he is the survivor after his victory?

I always thought the toughest warriors were the ones that went into battle feeling like they wouldn't come out anyway, so they would want to go out taking as many down with them as possible.

I heard this, and don't know if it is true or not. It was said that some branch of the military in Iraq (during Desert Storm) had stood some Iraqi prisoners up against the wall for execution, and slew a pig. They dipped their bullets in the blood and then loaded their guns to execute the prisoners. Then they draqed pig entrails over the dead bodies. When they got to the last prisoner they released him so he would tell everyone. If it is true, the psychological impact of that act would be it's own warfare; and thereby give the advantage to the soldiers. Of course, it may be just a rumor, but can you do a chapter on Psychological Warfare?

Your insight into battle tactics is amazing!

Oh, now I am officially jealous of this thread

Still waiting on that hand to hand combat section; I hope you didn't get off topic with ninja stuff (seems like fists should come before calthrops to me). As many have said, I will try to look at this while writing fight scenes- though more often than not my fight scenes are short and not very technical. I tend to do things only if they seem super-plausible (ie a sword going through leather and breaking some ribs on its way to a lung).

I'm also curious as to whether you have an equally in depth knowledge of anatomy and physiology. Seems like that and sword fighting would go hand in hand, or at least more-so than martial arts use it.

Once again, thanks. Keep it up :goodjob:

PS On the topic of this being stickied; I am kind of on the fence. While it is a great guide, I can't see it as being used exclusively for writing. Meaning that it seems like something one would be able to find elsewhere; unlike the other stickied stuff (Illusionary's thing is pretty unique, considering). Not saying this isn't cool and original, but I'm certain there are whole forums devoted to this kind of thing, not to mention lots of websites and articles. I haven't checked myself, and I don't see why I would with this convenient and delicious guide here, but it still seems like it isn't something exclusively fan fiction and RP based.

Not slamming it or anything- it's great and all- but, as I said, I'm indecisive. I'll leave it to the moderators without comment

The concept of getting our writers to be more realistic in their battles is great though; A plus for that :goodjob:

Probably false - executing prisonners in lot jobs without trial (considering the respective paces of military operations and military justice) then desacrating the bodies that way is counter-productive. And where would you ge the pigs in a predomainntly muslim country ? I'd be surprised if the US army bothered with bringing live pigs there.

* what would the muslim members of the gulf war I coalition think of it ?
* what would the european members think - that sort of crap is agasint just about every convention signed by the US and them, and Bush senior was more sensitiv to it than junior.
* knowing that if you surrender you're going to be worse than killed is as likely to cause 'they'll never take me alive' reaction and suicide attacks than desertions - and drag down surrender rates. And there's enough random factors in warfare without adding that sort on inpredictable reactions to the mix.
* golden propaganda opportunity for each and every group opposed to that war.

It's more probably just a rumor, or a threat used to coerce already prisonners into giving informations. Or disinformations spread by opposant to the war - using the most luatic accusation thrown against Israel as a yardstick, this one easily pass (I have a spot spot for the AIDS-infected melons and the lacing of potable water with aphrodisiacs to corrupt palestinian youth)

I agree, my son was stationed over there in this war, and the families are not allowed to send pork products to them in gift packages. We certainly would not have been allowed to bring in pigs. The source of this information was the internet, so it wasn't a reliable source. Also the other thing you said about the propaganda - the pig story could very well have been spread just to spread fear. There is always a lot of propaganda in war time to lower morale amongst the opposing force. George Bush used it with his "Shock and Awe" - to make people think something bigger than what was happening would be coming soon.

Still, D. Foxy must know some real psychological warfare ideas, (such as propaganda) that are used to give advantage to your side in a conflict. I would be very interested in a chapter about that.

Psychological warfare is usually only used in Modern combat. I mean, there are propaganda and scandals back home during these times to boost the citizen's morale, but that's about it. Realistically Psychological warfare/propaganda weren't widely use until the Napoleonic era. Now, Alexander did march on many cities with a large force in an attempt to get them to surrender, but that's very, very basic psychological warfare.

Really, the Nazis perfected it.