Cant recall ever seeing a thread on this topic so i thought it was time we had one... this thread is dedicated to military weaponry of any kind, from any era or nation.
There is a seemingly endless array of novel, fascinating, revolutionary or even ill-fated hardware out there so subject material shouldnt be a problem.
Under a real POTUS it would be awesome, under a Dem, it's lucky to float. They'll pour trillions into hating the home-based cops, and fuck-over the military and their mission.
So yes, I love it, but it'll be useless given the cowards who will be running the country and those cowards who vote them into office. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Donger:
Fire balloons launched by the Japanese against us and Canada during WWII. One resulted in the only deaths (6) of Americans on CONUS by enemy action during the war:
Meanwhile, we were researching nukes. That's a pretty good illustration of the difference in tech levels between the two warring nations.
The six deaths were a pregnant schoolteacher and a bunch of kids on a nature hike. When they went over to see what it was, it went off. Tragic beyond belief.
Originally Posted by Radar Chief:
They fired their bows differently too.
Yeah, don't count on Lars Anderson for a lot of historical accuracy. He's a stunt archer - a good one - but his 'theories' are not rooted in any kind of reliable history. [Reply]
Originally Posted by GloucesterChief:
Most people don't understand exactly what a longobws purpose was. It wasn't to kill knights, though if it penetrated a gap or weak point in the armor it certainly could. It was meant to kill horses thus unmounting the knight at least if not trapping, crippling, or killing them outright.
Once the opposing armies charge was swarmed under a rain of arrows as the longbow had both range and rate of fire, the real killing would be done by the English knights who usually fought dismounted, billmen with their bill hooks with could easily penetrate armor, or the yeoman bowman themselves using long daggers to stab through gaps and weak points in the armor.
Longbows certainly took out horses, but I wouldn't say that was their intention; they existed long before cavalry was even used to great effect, and the Welsh and English used them to great effect against both cavalry and infantry. They rose to prominence because they were easy to make and allowed a ridiculous range and rate of fire. What's more, its power and the development of the bodkin arrowhead made it absolutely devastating against all but the heaviest armor - one case had a long bow arrow penetrate mail armor, the wearer's leg, the other side of the mail armor, the leather saddle, the wooden saddle frame, and well into the horse. This was from several hundred yards away.
Of course, super-wealthy knights clad in the heaviest plate could sustain many shots (imagine wearing a trash can and getting hit with a ball-peen hammer; it'll hurt, but you'll live), so yeah, it worked out nicely that it killed the horses. Agincourt, with its huge slop of mud that the French knights were nice enough to thunder right into, was particularly ripe for this. A lot of the French nobles were quite surprised to find out that the usual expectations of mercy and a quick ransom were not being followed by the English any more. [Reply]
Misericorde dagger. A long thin dagger used to euthanize people who were too wounded to survive but whose wounds were not immediately fatal giving them a quick death instead of a lingering one. The name comes from the latin for 'act of mercy' and was used extensively in the Middle Ages and into the 17th century. The mercy kill was usually done by thrusting down between the neck and collarbone and piercing the heart. Another was was to thrust through visor into the eye socket and brain.
These daggers could also be used in close hand to hand combat.
There it is! That's the one a lot of the (especially English) yeomanry would use against a knight. Once they got that 'mercy/ransom/have a nice day' thing out of their heads, they figured the best way to take down a knight was by swarming him. Then, the misericordes they each carried would stick in the weak points - as you said, the collarbone, but also through the armpit or - gulp - up the groin.
I saw a Misericorde School, I think in Massachusetts. It made me chuckle a little. [Reply]
