<story><title>Inside the world of longsword fighting</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/video/sports/100000003040466/inside-the-world-of-longsword-fighting.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yummyfajitas</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Swords have little use on a medieval battlefield anyway. You use different weapons and tactics.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just curious - could you explain this in a bit more detail? It&amp;#x27;s surprising.</text></item><item><author>Sander_Marechal</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a HEMA practitioner from The Netherlands&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I doubt it has close resemblance with medieval long sword fighting, though :-)&lt;p&gt;It does actually resemble it very much, but medieval longsword fighting was probably very different than what you &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; it was.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.&lt;p&gt;Not really. The main difference is visibility. First, the modern HEMA equipment is a lot heavier than e.g. standard fencing gear. It&amp;#x27;s a lot thicker (like those dog attack suits) and often have steel or kevlar plates in the inside. Second, medieval gear wasn&amp;#x27;t all that heavy. I have a full suit of maille (as it&amp;#x27;s really called) and it weighs less than 15 kilos, helmet included. A full steel plate armour shouldn&amp;#x27;t weight more than 25 kilos. That&amp;#x27;s less than modern soldiers have to carry around on the battlefield.&lt;p&gt;The biggest difference is that a fencing mask gives you better visibility than a historical closed helmet.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; these guys fight one on one&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s what happened in medieval times too most often. The original medieval books were written mostly for one-on-one combat, either for dueling or trial-by-sword. That happened a lot more than being caught in a war on a battlefield. Swords have little use on a medieval battlefield anyway. You use different weapons and tactics.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And fighting on some uneven, damp meadow [...] would be hard compared to fighting indoor on a floor.&lt;p&gt;My HEMA group trains for this as well, and I suspect many other groups too. It is also mentioned in the medieval books. I have trained in loose sand, in the surf on a beach, in deep snow, etc. It&amp;#x27;s true that competitions are usually held indoors on an even ground though.</text></item><item><author>flexie</author><text>Looks like great fun!&lt;p&gt;I doubt it has close resemblance with medieval long sword fighting, though :-)&lt;p&gt;It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.&lt;p&gt;And, I assume a medieval fighter would take far smaller chances than these modern hobbyists knowing a counter blow could be (almost surely would be) fatal.&lt;p&gt;Also, these guys fight one on one. But in a war you would have to guard yourself from blows and cuts not just from one  enemy but from a crowd of enemy soldiers, left and right.&lt;p&gt;The guy you were fighting might be using a sword or he might have another weapon. Maybe he was using a shield and you didn&amp;#x27;t. And if he had a sword, he might not have read the memo that it should be max 4 feet long.&lt;p&gt;And fighting on some uneven, damp meadow he might be fighting uphill or downhill, and just keeping ones balance when striking or blocking would be hard compared to fighting indoor on a floor.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mcv</author><text>He puts it a bit too general, but against full plate armour, swords are nearly useless. In the late Middle Ages, when plate armour became increasingly common, people started using weapons with better armour-piercing capabilities, like maces, warhammers and various polearms.&lt;p&gt;Swords are great against lightly armoured and unarmoured targets, like peasants, archers and civilians. Swords remained in use as a side arm and civilian weapon, and a popular duelling weapon, which may also be why so many medieval manuscripts are about one-on-one fights. Carrying a polearm with you everywhere you go is a lot more cumbersome than having a sword hanging on your belt.&lt;p&gt;But swords were absolutely used on the battlefield. Romans and vikings used them a lot. Knights had them of course, and even they became increasingly less useful against other knights, they often didn&amp;#x27;t really want to kill each other anyway. Pikemen generally had a short sword as backup weapon (the Katzbalger), and there&amp;#x27;s of course the massive two-handed swords used by Landsknechts to break up pike formations (supposedly; nobody knows for sure). But again knights in plate armour, you&amp;#x27;d better get something that can knock holes in it. If you want to kill him, that it.&lt;p&gt;You might compare the sword to a pistol. You don&amp;#x27;t usually send a mass of soldiers into battle with just a pistol; you give them assault rifles (or polearms). But officers and civilians tend to carry a pistol, and maybe some soldiers have one for backup.</text></comment>
<story><title>Inside the world of longsword fighting</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/video/sports/100000003040466/inside-the-world-of-longsword-fighting.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yummyfajitas</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Swords have little use on a medieval battlefield anyway. You use different weapons and tactics.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just curious - could you explain this in a bit more detail? It&amp;#x27;s surprising.</text></item><item><author>Sander_Marechal</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a HEMA practitioner from The Netherlands&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I doubt it has close resemblance with medieval long sword fighting, though :-)&lt;p&gt;It does actually resemble it very much, but medieval longsword fighting was probably very different than what you &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; it was.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.&lt;p&gt;Not really. The main difference is visibility. First, the modern HEMA equipment is a lot heavier than e.g. standard fencing gear. It&amp;#x27;s a lot thicker (like those dog attack suits) and often have steel or kevlar plates in the inside. Second, medieval gear wasn&amp;#x27;t all that heavy. I have a full suit of maille (as it&amp;#x27;s really called) and it weighs less than 15 kilos, helmet included. A full steel plate armour shouldn&amp;#x27;t weight more than 25 kilos. That&amp;#x27;s less than modern soldiers have to carry around on the battlefield.&lt;p&gt;The biggest difference is that a fencing mask gives you better visibility than a historical closed helmet.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; these guys fight one on one&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s what happened in medieval times too most often. The original medieval books were written mostly for one-on-one combat, either for dueling or trial-by-sword. That happened a lot more than being caught in a war on a battlefield. Swords have little use on a medieval battlefield anyway. You use different weapons and tactics.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And fighting on some uneven, damp meadow [...] would be hard compared to fighting indoor on a floor.&lt;p&gt;My HEMA group trains for this as well, and I suspect many other groups too. It is also mentioned in the medieval books. I have trained in loose sand, in the surf on a beach, in deep snow, etc. It&amp;#x27;s true that competitions are usually held indoors on an even ground though.</text></item><item><author>flexie</author><text>Looks like great fun!&lt;p&gt;I doubt it has close resemblance with medieval long sword fighting, though :-)&lt;p&gt;It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.&lt;p&gt;And, I assume a medieval fighter would take far smaller chances than these modern hobbyists knowing a counter blow could be (almost surely would be) fatal.&lt;p&gt;Also, these guys fight one on one. But in a war you would have to guard yourself from blows and cuts not just from one  enemy but from a crowd of enemy soldiers, left and right.&lt;p&gt;The guy you were fighting might be using a sword or he might have another weapon. Maybe he was using a shield and you didn&amp;#x27;t. And if he had a sword, he might not have read the memo that it should be max 4 feet long.&lt;p&gt;And fighting on some uneven, damp meadow he might be fighting uphill or downhill, and just keeping ones balance when striking or blocking would be hard compared to fighting indoor on a floor.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Sander_Marechal</author><text>Sure. The problem is that swords don&amp;#x27;t have much effect on an armoured opponent. There are three types of attacks you can do with a sword: slashing, stabbing and cutting. Against a gambeson (jacked made of 20+ layes of linen stitched together) stabbing works, slashing is hard and cutting mostly doesn&amp;#x27;t work. Now add a layer of maille over the gambeson. Cutting doesn&amp;#x27;t work at all anymore, slashing probably only bruises you or breaks some bones and stabbing only works with narrow and sharp-tipped swords. Replace the maille with steel plates and you&amp;#x27;re pretty much invulnerable to swords, except at the joints, eyeslits, etc).&lt;p&gt;So, sending out a group armed with swords on the battlefield isn&amp;#x27;t going to do much. You want warhammers with backspikes that can pierce steel plate and crush bone, halberds that can hit so hard it crushes anything underneath armour, long pikes to keep the enemy at a distance, bows to pierce maille. The best weapon on the battlefield is actually mass. Get a group large enough close together and trample your opponents.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s how most battles were won. In viking and early medieval times you would use large shields and short spears, create a shield wall and run over your opponent. Later on heavy cavalry appeared who could easily run over them. Cavalry dominated until the English started using the longbow en masse to kill the mounts of the cavalry. Swiss pikemen started using 6+ meter long pikes in tight bock formations. These pikes were so long that cavalry could be stopped dead before they reached the pikemen in a charge. It&amp;#x27;s like a wooden cumple zone. That pretty much spelled the end of heavy cavalry. Then soldiers started using halberds to get in between the pikes and crush pike blocks.&lt;p&gt;Swords were often carried on the battlefield but usually as a backup weapon, not as the primary weapon. Their cross shape granted them a lot of symbolic meaning in those religious times, but there are much better weapons available if you want to win large battles.</text></comment>