It's not much...

Yeah, those guys don't seem to have the most refined technique. I wonder if many of them knew how to properly use a sword but in the heat of the moment they reverted to just swinging wildly.

J W Bensinger said:
Blue-try lockin your wrist at a 45 degree angle to your forearm, instead of 90. The Kalaripayatu (Sp???) guys will stand with one knee up against a tree trunk, and cut right and left w/o hitting the tree.
I do the 45 degree trick with the kilij I made years ago and it will cut a refrigerator box in half if you do it right. Thrusts with that curvature are very elliptical-again much easier to do with wrist locked @45 than 90. Kinda like a looping overhand punch like some of the panantukan long hooks.
Click to expand...

I'll give that a shot, thanks. I had read about that tree thing before, are these guys really fighting at such close quarters? You'd have to almost be on top of the other guy to hit them with a stroke like that.
 
JW, Aren't the Kalaripayatu the ones that use that HUGE freaky sword the Urumi? If so then Blue might be on to something if these guys are trained in that school as they start from sticks both short and curved and don't move up to swords until way WAY later in their training. SO these guys probably reverted to what they learned earliest when they had someone attack them and started swinging like a stick. Now you have me curious. going to go look for it.

Yep here is a video of the way they spar with an Urumi. Not sure, but I am guessing the fact they don't cut their own feet off proves they are fairly advanced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMAsCuDFSUI#t=55
 
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My talwar had pretty good reach-remember you're still initiating the cut at the point of percussion, which on mine was where the back edge started (take the sword and smack the flat of the blade with your palm-the point where the oscillation deadens out is the POP). I still had maybe 26" of reach even drawcutting with a locked wrist.
 
I tried the 45 degree angle and I was able to slice way more consistently. The cuts were more superficial, though, I wasn't cutting as deeply. I'll find the point of balance, I've been trying to hit where the false edge begins.

I've been watching tulwar videos on youtube, it seems like they don't go for big limb bisecting cuts. They get up close and personal and stab with the tip or do push cuts. Or use their buckler to interrupt the other guy's movement or punch him. Then once he's disabled, that's when you cleft him in twain.
 
Back to that Sikh video, it seems those guys were fighting over who got to speak first at some memorial. So I'm guessing they weren't genuinely trying to murder eachother.

Although I do wonder if that video is more accurate to what medieval warfare looked like versus what you see in paintings and movies. Just a bunch of guys swarming around, wildly swatting at eachother and then running off.
 
Well in most mideival warfare, I think the peasants got shoved ahead of the actual warriors with the threat they would be cut down from behind if they didn't keep fighting forwards. Then the "infantry" came behind them I am guessing often a lot of the battle field probably did look much like what you describe. But usually once those were hacked down or managed to escape. The real soldiers with training were a little more effective, but most scirmishes were either very small or enormous. most battles were actually more seiges and the real fighting was only done once the defenders got hungry and thirsty enough to risk a charge at the battleworks of the besiegers. In that case the main goal was to run through the other group as fast as possible.
 
I would like to share with you something that terrified me and I never knew about the mongol conquest :

Kharash[edit]
A commonly used tactic was the use of what was called the "kharash". During a siege the Mongols would gather a crowd of local residents or soldiers surrendered from previous battles, and would drive them forward in sieges and battles. These "living boards" or "human shields" would often take the brunt of enemy arrows and crossbow bolts, thus leaving the Mongol warriors safer. The kharash were also often forced ahead to breach walls.


there are even stories of them using the kharash as a living bridge to go over walls on horseback.
 
the best(worst) terror tactics the world has ever seen--other than probably ww1 gas attacks
 
Well if I remember correctly, didn't the mongols fling plague infested bodies over castle walls? Kind of on par.
 
To be fair to the Mongols, they'd only use you as a human shield if your town surrendered peacefully, presumably allowing some remnant to survive. If your town resisted they'd just kill everyone then and there.
 
Funny you should mention that. I read in some villages people would just kneel down in front of their huts and wait to be decapitated, as that was the best outcome they could hope for.
 
I bought another one of these things.
View attachment 450071

I still have no idea what it is or where it's from. The seller says it's from the Mahgreb, which is basically Morocco today, but sellers claim all sorts of crazy stuff.

The blade's brass so it isn't a weapon or tool, it must be for ceremonial or decorative use. Someone suggested it might be a Dervish knife; they use knives in their religious ceremonies to poke holes in their faces. But in the picture's I've seen, which are very hard to look at, the knives they use look like long needles.
 
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Blue-the 45 degree thing takes some getting used to- i'm having a hard time using my words, but a percussive "chop" (I hate that word in conjunction with sword work) with a drawing cut.image.jpg
The second sword from the right (admittedly it has a 34" blade) will darn near cut a refrigerator box in half if you haul off with it. Point of percussion is where the backedge swells out from the spine on most kilij/shamshir/talwar type swords in my experience.
 
JW, that baskethilt looks destinctly like an English blade I used to own, though the picture is sort of dark in the areas that would define it. Is it English or Scottish? Can you show some pictures of that one? Particularly the hilt area?
 
All of those are Vermontish...lol-that one is based on a Scottish ribbon hilt from the early 17th cent.-original is in the "swords and daggers from the tower of london" book. The original had a big, ugly curved double edged blade like a cartoon sinclair saber.
 
Ah, Very nicely done. The difference between English and Scottish ribbon hilts are very minor, so your interpretation of the width of the ribbons and how they join near the knucklebow is probably what was confusing me. So many of the swords based on the old Schiavona style have only very subtle difference. I will have to see if I can find the book because now I am curious how ugly the original was LOL. True Scottish are something that always interests me, but they are so hard to identify because so many of the style are actually English made when the Scottish Regiments were being armed since true Scottish blades mostly went the way of the dodo due to 1500s laws forbidding Scots to carry arms. (They mostly hid them instead of turning them in for destruction but they did not survive the neglect well either)
 
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