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New body armour promises to transform fighting sports

economist.com

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Re: New body armour promises to transform fighting sports

#51

Post by laxatives »

themartorana wrote: post #48
laxatives wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO nothing compares with longsword fighting. By comparison, SCA looks like a bunch of big guys wailing on each other in the middle of a scrum. Longsword fighting has a much more competitive environment with well defined technique and strategy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhbcntqyiSo

"...bunch of big guys wailing on each other..." Add in death and dismemberment and you have what war actually probably looked like for thousands of years - pure, unadulterated mayhem.

Fair enough. I'd imagine the guys fighting had a lot more fitness and probably weren't struggling with obesity though.

Re: New body armour promises to transform fighting sports

#52

Post by Impl0x »

lobotryas wrote: post #49
actsasbuffoon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I believe the joints were usually weak points. Swords-people used a technique known as half-handing, where they'd keep one hand on the hilt, and use the other hand to grip near the tip of the blade. That allowed them to use the sword more like a dagger, which gave better accuracy for maneuvering into the joint, while also giving them greater leverage with the hilt-hand. I was surprised that you can grip a blade…

You are not gripping the blade bear-handed: you would usually be wearing some kind of glove.

Half-swording can and was performed bare-handed as well.

Re: New body armour promises to transform fighting sports

#53

Post by vlehto »

try_sincerely wrote: post #46
vlehto wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No personal armor (so far) is good against blunt trauma. The reason for that is conservation of momentum. Blunt weapons often rely on large amount of momentum. Only thing you can do is to make the armor bouncy. So you can try to turn it into elastic collision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_collision But then again they often added small spikes and rough surfaces to the tips of such weapons, to turn it into in…

So morning star would be the weapon of choice there I suppose. Sword may win "by points" but with morning star you'd have a solid chance of actually neutralizing opponent.

Flanged mace should be pretty decent too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_(weapon)#European_Middle_...

Re: New body armour promises to transform fighting sports

#54

Post by cafard »

laxatives wrote: post #51
themartorana wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...bunch of big guys wailing on each other..." Add in death and dismemberment and you have what war actually probably looked like for thousands of years - pure, unadulterated mayhem.

Fair enough. I'd imagine the guys fighting had a lot more fitness and probably weren't struggling with obesity though.

There was something on HN a year or two ago that said that gladiators tended to be on the fat side. On the other hand, given the distances marched, I doubt the hoplites and legionaries had much excess fat.

Re: New body armour promises to transform fighting sports

#55

Post by gjolund »

arkitaip wrote: post #27
sjmulder wrote: post #26

The designers and advertisers have gone full mental on this site: http://i.imgur.com/1mJPxyK.png This is after I dismissed the “click this to add this to your reading list” popover.

Why you should use adblock: http://imgur.com/vKOQXOc

Extremely sound advice.

Re: New body armour promises to transform fighting sports

#56

Post by NoGravitas »

try_sincerely wrote: post #46
vlehto wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No personal armor (so far) is good against blunt trauma. The reason for that is conservation of momentum. Blunt weapons often rely on large amount of momentum. Only thing you can do is to make the armor bouncy. So you can try to turn it into elastic collision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_collision But then again they often added small spikes and rough surfaces to the tips of such weapons, to turn it into in…

So morning star would be the weapon of choice there I suppose. Sword may win "by points" but with morning star you'd have a solid chance of actually neutralizing opponent.

Historically, the weapon of choice for defeating plate armour was the pollaxe.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollaxe - Fiore's azza: http://scholasaintgeorge.org/training_docs/Basic%20Poleaxe%2...

Re: New body armour promises to transform fighting sports

#57

Post by rsync »

defen wrote: post #29
Rhapso wrote: post #9

Having done some SCA heavy, those open inner thighs make me twitch (armpits too, but less could be done about that). One thing SCA has figured out that the sports industry seems to have failed to is how helms work. It turns out the best way to extend the reduce the impact of hits to the head is NOT cushioning or crumpling to extend impulse but rather just having a lot of mass to move. I've been smashed over the head…

> watch SCA heavy Holy shit, these guys don't fuck around https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RiQR60-5gs

"Holy shit, these guys don't fuck around"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4tdkrYIRFg

(fast forward to 1:58, perhaps ...)

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