Of Blades, Fights, and Assassins

BSparrow was kind enough to suggest to me that I should open a separate thread for those who would like to gain some knowledge from the real world on the use of white arms, and their use by assassins in ancient history as well as martial arts fighting techniques. So, first and foremost, BSparrow, this thread is dedicated to YOU, and the title of this thread too is also a tongue-in-cheek reference to your magnum opus, long may your opus be indeed magnum!

First, though, I shall need an introduction. Who should and should not read this thread, and a bit about Who I am.

WHO SHOULD AND SHOULDN'T READ THIS THREAD.

If you are the type of writer who believes that it doesn't matter at all what is possible, or not possible, in the real world, and that what real world martial arts experience is like should not have any bearing on TES fanfics because you are writing about the gameworld, then this thread is NOT for you. Don't read any further, you have (and I am not being sarcastic) more valuable things to do with your time.

BUT if you are the type of writer who is going to write extensively about assassins and adventurers who battle, also rather extensively, with white arms - swords, daggers, maces, axes, spears, bows, arrows, and whom use light and heavy armour as part of their equipment, and who perhaps combine their attack weapons with light or heavy shields - and who may have to fight either single or multiple opponents at a time - and who make it their business not only to fight but also to stay in shape ....AND if, at the same time, you are also the type of writer who would like to inject a little realism into combat scenes...

...THEN this thread is for you!!!

WHO AM I TO BE WRITING THIS THREAD?

First, I'm fifty two years old, disgustingly healthy (according to my doctor) and have studied, on and off, the martial arts since I was a teenager. No, I am not Steven Seagal (my idol!) but I do know my way around weapons, and I have a solid foundation in striking and grappling. And I have studied (from the scholarly point of view!) the craft of assassination from ancient to modern times.

And I am also a gamer, and a writer, and I have noticed that many of the fanfics here center around either adventurers with a talent for combat, and/or assassins.

This is why I am writing the thread.

PART ONE: THE ASSASSIN'S DAGGER.

There's a reason why the dagger has always been associated with the assassin. Many of the assassinations of ancient times have been done with daggers, and even today the short blade and its skill is still being taught in many martial arts schools.

But for assassination, the dagger needs to have these attributes: it must be easy to conceal: it must be capable of causing death with a very great degree of certainty: and it must have great incapacitating power.

All these characteristics may be found in the classic dagger of assassination, the stiletto. While strictly speaking it is not a 'dagger' since a true stiletto has no sharp edges, it is usually called one. It is a long, slim blade, sometimes edged, but sometimes not. It resembles more an overgrown needle than a shrunken sword. It tapers to a very, very sharp point.

The classic assassin's technique is to keep the stiletto in his sleeve, and move to within touching distance of his mark: then thrust upward under the rib cage into the heart, and move off quickly.

Wounds to the heart are paralyzing, and thus there is a high chance that the victim will not cry out as he is stabbed. Indeed, there have been recorded cases where the victim did not even know that he was stabbed until the assassin was some distance away: he initially appeared to be having a sudden shortness of breath, and only after three or ten seconds could he scream that he had been stabbed. With stiletto stabbings there is very little blood: sometimes less than a nasty shaving cut!

This is why ancient assassins liked to carry out stiletto assassinations in a crowded street: it was very easy to 'accidentally' collide into the mark and at that point-blank range swiftly stab him into the heart, withdraw the blade as swiftly, and move away before the commotion broke out. Frequently the assassin was aided by helpers who would shield him before and after the assassination, and if a chase happened, would pretend to chase the assassin and hinder the real pursuers!

Some stilettos have been fitted with springs in wrist sheaths, so that when the blade is released by the assassin's hand immediately after the heart stab it retracts, pulled by the spring, into the wrist sheath. This is an idea you may wish to consider.

Regarding poison.. I will explain more on that later, in my other posts on bladed weapons. At present I will just say that it was rare for stilettos to be poisoned, for may practical reasons.

My next post will be on the basic sword, and swordfighting techniques.

D'awwww. :wub:

See, this is why I suggested this. It's the first post in, and I'm already learning new things. I'm familiar with stilettos, but I never knew that was how they were used. Thanks for that little tidbit, and I look forward to more. :twirl:

Great work, D. I'm always looking to make my combat a little more realistic, and I think that some of this info may do the trick. Looking forward to more.

Most excellent and interesting! Although I'm not much of an assassin person, the quality of this first part makes me very hopeful for the time you put up a part for more slashy of us.

I can already see an Anticlerite Agent of mine using this textbook full of deadly. Thank you for sharing.

Wow! Excellent stuff, Foxy! I don't usually make assassin characters, but it's still interesting anyway, and who knows when I might get the urge? I look forward to reading more, I expect it will help me a lot.

By the way, if this does get completed and a lot of people like it, I'd recommend it for a sticky.

Yes, YEs, YES! Thank you very much, Foxy. I'm terrible when it comes to combat. This will help a lot.

Thank you so much for starting this wonderful thread.


Even though this describes me, I don't follow instructions so well and will continue to read your thread with relish.

I give priority to game physics, but you have helped me incorporate numerous aspects of realism that don't conflict with actual game play. Can't wait for you to share some bow things!

Nice thread and an interesting read, how many different weapons and types do you intend to cover?

Swords, swords, swords!

Nearly every man, and quite a few women, have fantasized at one time or another during their life of fighting with swords. Most of us have never actually done so. A few of us have sparred, and a very, very few have sparred with masters of more than one technique...

I have had the good fortune to have learned under a master of both kendo and an expert in the German school of fencing, as well as the fortune to have watched and talked to fencers in the discipline of the saber and the rapier. And to have a short, but useful, study in the Italian school.

Furthermore, I have also read quite a lot on the subject...so I hope to share with you some basic facts, and insights, into the "King of white arms" - the sword.

Basic sword description.

The sword has basically four parts: the blade, the guard, the hilt, and the pommel.

Since I basically follow the Japanese and Italian schools, I will divide the blade into three parts: the lowest part of the sword, called the forte or the strong part, the middle third, and the top part of the sword, the weakest part.

You basically attack with the top third, to either thrust or slash. To chop is different: you use the lower part of the top of the blade, almost near the middle, to chop.

What is the difference between a thrust, a slash, and a chop?

A THRUST is when you use the sword like a spear, to push the point and the blade into the body of the enemy to injure vital organs deep in the body. Comparatively little blood comes out in a thrust: especially if the thrust is into a muscle, the muscle will spasm and shut off the flow of blood outwards. Thus, to achieve the immediate disablement of your enemy in a thrust, you should aim for the vital organs - brain, lungs, liver, heart.

There are two ways to increase the effect of a thrust wound, and both use nasty tricks. One trick is to twist the sword as you thrust it in: this will increase the size of the wound channel so that the muscle can no longer spasm and squeeze the wound shut, thus allowing massive amounts of blood to flow out. The other trick is to have a sword with an 'air channel' groove in the middle, and thrust into the lungs of the enemy. This will allow air to enter the lung cavity, which in the natural state operates in a partial vacuum. That will collapse the lung immediately. It will also puncture the lung so that the enemy will die drowning in his own blood. Ugh. Nasty.

Remember in battle the adrenalin flow will do strange things to people! There are accounts of soldiers in the heat of battle having a spear thrust directly through them and not feeling the pain for quite some time! So if, in battle, you thrust through the arm or thigh of the enemy, you should not automatically assume that the enemy will curl up and fall down. Some do. But some will continue fighting on at about 80% capacity.

This is why the lung thrust is so popular in thrust fighting: no matter how strong the enemy's mind and adrenalin anesthesia is, he cannot fight on if he has no oxygen to breathe.

The SLASH is used to saw a large, fairly shallow (although some slashes can be quite deep) wound into the enemy's body, and let him die of the following exsanguination (loss of blood). To slash well you need a lot of kinetic energy in your blade, so slashes are made with the blade going as fast as possible. Unlike thrusting swords, which have straight blades, slashing swords have curved blades, which make the slash much more effective.

Also, slashing swords need a lot more maintenance than thrusting swords - you can get away with a dull edge in a thrusting sword, but never with a slashing sword. This is why, for example, Japanese katanas and scimitars and sabers need to be oiled and polished regularly - long, boring work, which in the middle ages was given to apprentices. Or the soldier went to the swordsmith for regular maintenance, where his sword was sharpened and polished ( No, he was not Crassius Curio, and it was not Lifts-her-tail who was polishing it! ) while he went to have a beer in a tavern.

Lastly, the CHOP was used to cut through bone - or heavy leather armour. This is why the chop is more of a finishing, execution type maneuver: it was slower than the slash, because you need to swing your sword slowly and put all your strength into the sword just before contact (try chopping a steak in your kitchen and you will see what I mean).

Chopping swords were used like axes, and just like axes, they were heavy and strong. In battle, though, since they were clumsy, they were rarely used. They are more of an executioner's, or head-man's, weapon. On the battlefield they were usually used only when the enemy was in heavy armour: then they were used, not to break through armour - that was the province of the spear- but in a mace-like role, where the idea was to whack the helmeted enemy in the head with a heavy sword to give him a whopping headache. The point and the blade were only secondary here.

Chopping swords have a fairly dull edge, except perhaps near the very tip. This is necessary in steel armour fighting: the steel armour would chip off the edges in the blade of a fine slashsword in no time, making it look like a saw, and ruining it!

My next post will be on the defensive use of the sword.

Aww... When I read the topic I thought you were doing martial arts as in fist fighting I am a black belt myself and hoped I could do something to help. Oh well, I know nothing of swords, this will help a lot. Thanks!

PS Now I see why you snapped that guy's head off over the improper use of weaponry

Thanks, and please keep up the good work :goodjob:

Oh, but be patient, Darkom - PRACTICAL hand to hand grapple and strike techniques used in the real world, will come later in this post - techniques I learned from Krav Maga and other street fighting based systems, and others I have not (yet) practiced but read about and seen on video! You and EVERYBODY here who is interested in both martial arts and writing about them are WELCOME to comment and, if you think you can contribute, to add to them!

If the writer knows what he/she is talking about, the more the merrier say I !

well this looks quite interesting. I look forward to the info about defensive use of swords.

Awesome. I'm more into stealthy stuffs, so this is pretty helpful with the info on the stiletto blade and whatnot. I'll be sure to include one of those in my later work.

A comment about grooved blades : in my opinion, the lung-collapsing trick you describe is more a handy side effect. The main purpose of the grooves was to reduce the weapon's weight while keeping it's strength. Like an I-beam, a grooved blade places more steel where strength is needed most and less elsewhere.

An interesting read, good sir. I eagerly await the continuation.

comment about grooved blades : in my opinion, the lung-collapsing trick you describe is more a handy side effect. The main purpose of the grooves was to reduce the weapon's weight while keeping it's strength. Like an I-beam, a grooved blade places more steel where strength is needed most and less elsewhere

Originally you are quite correct - read wiki and many other free publications on sword construction, which BTW is worthy of a thread in itself. However, the groove soon became called the 'air groove' in not one, but many languages - I know it is so called in Japanese, in Hindustani, in Classical Arabic and Farsi, and in many other languages. Not surprising: these are the cultures that have historically produced the best assassins.

Blocks and Parries with single or double swords - part one

You can block or parry an enemy's attack with a shield or shield-type armour, on which I will post more later, but in this post I want to talk about the defensive use of swords. And to keep things simple, in this post I will talk about how a single sword is used in defense, and move on to the much more complex use of two swords, or a sword and a dagger, in defense and combat.

Remember when I said that the lower third of the sword was the strongest part? I was not just talking about construction. Do this experiment. Get a friend to take a broomhandle in his hands and hold it like a sword. Now get another broomhandle to try to whack or push it to one side. It is easy to whack or push it aside when you are striking the top part of the broomhandle. Now try to do the same by striking the broomhandle near your friend's grip. See how much harder it is, now?

This is why the lowest part of the sword, near the hilt and the guard, is called the 'forte' in the Italian school of fencing. It is used for BLOCKS.

What is a block, and how is it done?

When the enemy strikes a blow at you, and you do not want to dodge out of the way, you can BLOCK his attack. Note that you cannot block a thrust attack with your sword: you can only block a slash or a chop attack! You try to take the weakest part of his sword, the top third (called the 'foible' in the Italian school) on the strongest part, the 'forte' of your sword.

There are many, many techniques and conditions for a block, but I shall simplify them to this: you should not try to block a heavy weapon with a lighter weapon, and you should NEVER try to block when your feet are close together - it is very easy to lose your balance and fall down! Remember that unless you are a very supple athlete with excellent anticipation of the strike and the training to use your arms, your back and your thighs as 'shock absorbers'. the entire force of the enemy's strike will move into your sword, through your wrists, and into your body - it's like taking a direct hit football tackle.

What can happen when you take a block badly - when you take it on the middle or even, god forbid, on the top third of your sword? Well, at the least your wrists will be badly jarred, and at the worst the sword will be knocked out of your hand. And/or you can even suffer sprained or BROKEN wrists! This is why the 'forward block' where the sword's forte is pushed forward just as the slash or chop comes in is very good: it gives the attacker less time and space to build up his sword momentum, and it gives your arms some room to recoil back and act as a shock absorber.

And remember. even a good block usually ends with the swords in contact with each other. This gives the enemy swordsman a second chance, a chance to lever the sword out of your hand with a power twist. I shall post more on this later, in sword techniques.

This is why all proficient sword fighters prefer far more to parry than to block. Even when you block sucessfully, you wrists hurt, your elbows are jarred, and your weapon...may well be chipped or perhaps even broken.

Note to writers: there are sword fighting scenarios where using blocks is absolutely unavoidable. Think of a 'defending a spiral staircase' scenario. Or being backed into a corner in a room. Etc, etc, etc...

Post, part two, will talk about the parry.

Blocks and Parries with single or double swords - part two

What is a 'parry'?

A parry is where an attacking sword, instead of being stopped cold, is knocked aside by a sharp blow by your own sword to one or the other side of the attacking sword. Note that, unlike the block, you can parry a thrusting sword.

Unlike blocks, which are best done with the lower third of the blade, the parry is done higher up - with the middle third of the blade. Also, an element of timing is needed. Unlike the block, where you simply await the attack, the parry needs to be done simultaneously with the attack.

And also unlike the block, you move in the parry. The classic move is the the opposite side of where you are sending the enemy's blade. Let's take the simplest example. An enemy charges right at you and swings down his sword like an axe, aiming to split you in half from forehead to groin, centerline. You step to the left while at the same time whackin his sword away to your right: the partial shock imparted to your sword will send you even further to your left, which is all to the good.

Since the parry only uses the flat of the blade, and since it needs less force to neutralize the attack, you can use a light blade to parry a heavy blade without fearing a broken blade or a broken wrist. Be warned, however, that it takes more force than a novice can usually gauge to push a heavy blade aside. Only an expert should try to parry an attacking heavy blade with a light blade.

A parry also does not leave the blades in contact, which is important if you are trying to avoid the wind-up and spin-out maneuver which an opposing swordsman can use to spin the sword out of your hand.

The next post will examine the two-sword scissors block and the 'parry with one sword while thrusting with another' technique.

Huzzah for all this martial goodness! Very, very useful stuff. :twirl:

I'm wondering: is the risk for a broken wrist any better if you're wearing plated gauntlets? I've some minimal experience in armored combat (enough to know what it feels like to swing a sword; not enough to know how to swing it), and, in my experience, good armor is fairly supportive and capable of absorbing some of the force.

Or am I just imagining things?

Alas, gauntlets do not reduce shock. In fact they may even increase it, since any weight above the wrist adds to the forces straining against the wrist.

You are probably thinking of a chop to the wrist by a sword, where an armoured gauntlet is indeed effective is stopping the blow. But if it was a mace instead of a sword, snap your wrist bones would go!

I can answer that for you Bsparrow. Armor can absorb some force (Thick Leather under a Carbon steel Gauntlet works the best for me). It is like how the shoulder pads of a running back will absorb the force of a tackle in Football. It is to my understanding that the wrist can still be broken (Please correct me if I am wrong in that aspect. I normally use a shield with my Cut and Thrust sword (Hand and a Half to be more specific), and I do a lot of Parrying.

Outstanding information D.Foxy, and I think this should be made into a sticky for everyone to read.

Also, I have found it is easier to parry if when you step you pivot and the sword leg moves around behind you. Maybe this works for me because I use Cut and Thrust swords, but I thought I would share it.

Also, I am not and expert. Sword fighting is just something I find fun.

Hi Bmont. Excuse me, I am carrying on an email conversation in another window. Welcome to the thread. Have you any experience with sword AND dagger?

Two swords: or more correctly, sword and dagger.

I cannot understand why Beth, which got the medieval scene so correctly in other ways, not allow a simultaneous sword and dagger wield to be done - or perhaps it has been done, and I am unaware.

The standard way to fight in the middle ages and the renaissance was the sword and dagger used together, or the sword and small shield, the buckler (this is where the word 'swashbuckler' comes from!) used together.

The poorer, less trained warrior would use the sword and the buckler: the warrior with enough means to pay a master of fence for training would use the sword and the dagger.

Yes, it took training to use them together. I have fenced quite a few (heavily protected and padded!) matches with sword and dagger, and I can tell you from personal experience that it is quite difficult to learn.

In essence, you have to use the dagger to deflect and/or trap the enemy's sword, while counter-attacking with your own sword. Parrying with the dagger is usually just a tap, done in passing as you step aside, since you cannot use its short blade in the same way as the long blade of a sword to find the enemy's blade first and then tap it aside.

The dagger and the sword are more properly used, instead of just tapping aside the attacking sword, to trap and perhaps even break the attacking sword. Such 'trap daggers' have long, upward curving hilts, like the 'Sai' used by Elektra of the Daredevil graphic novel series, to trap and twist attacking blades. All off hand daggers, whether trap daggers or not, have strong guards - some even have basket guards - to protect the hand, for when parrying a longsword with a short dagger, you are basically punching at the sword blade with your fist.

Thus the swordbreaker parry is actually more of a block than a parry, and you do need to have strong wrists and forearms for this. You sweep at the attacking sword with your dagger hand in a half-block that does not stop the attacking sword 100% - rather, it stops about half the momentum of the blade, and allows the enemy blade to slide down your dagger blade till it is stopped by the guard. At once you twist your dagger so that the enemy's blade is trapped between the dagger's hilt and guard, and use this leverage to either break the blade or twist the sword out of your enemy's hand. At this point you can use your sword in your other hand to slide under the enemy's blade and add additional leverage: this position is known as the scissors, since it looks like that.

You may also block and trap the enemy sword with your own, and stab him with your dagger in the other hand - this technique is found in close and cramped area fighting.

My next post will be on shields, and armour in general.

No, not sword and dagger; I just have experience in sword and shield. It is something I have always wanted to try.

Also, I want to correct myself in my last post. I used the word absorb. That word is incorrect because you can not absorb a blow, but you can distribute the energy from it across a surface (like a shield) to reduce the force placed on their body.