Khukuri Stopping Power for Wild Animals

You know, this discussion is so silly, I'm going to bring up Vic Morrow and his Tommy Gun on Combat soon unless someone stops me....
But right now I've got a story to read.

munk
 
Mad Max, Thunderdome??

Great OTT (Over The Top) movie, but for chainsaws, you want Evil Dead Two, where the protagonist's hand becomes possesed and attacks him, he cuts it off, and instead of a prosthetic hand, fits up a chain saw and proceeds to do battle with the supernatural bad guys. That's a grade-A B-movie with chainsaws!! Only hard-core B-movie fans need rent.
 
firkin, I've seen Evil Dead 2, it rocks! Did you see the sequel, Army of Darkness, where he replaces the chainsaw with an artificial hand after being sucked back in time to the Dark Ages? That one's another great B movie. Oh, and on the original subject, I think that I'd want my new Chitlangi. I'd prefer to go with a lighter khuk, that way I might actually be able to hit the cat before it hit me. I'll agree that the force behind it isn't so much as, say, an AK, but a lighter blow that hits the target does more good than a monstrous one that misses entirely, IMO.
 
If I had to choose a khukuri with which to fight a bear...any bear...I'd go with a BAR ;p
 
A serious question: is a stocky Khukuri better than a sword type design? In other words, If King Arthur were here with his sword, and Zorro with his, and an Ex Marine with a 18" AK...what would work best?
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It's better not to pull historical figures into the discussion, because it is obvious that King Arthur would kick the collective butts of Zorro and the Ex-Marine, what with Excalibur being one of the greatest weapons in history and all.

Let's say, instead, we have 4 unarmored combatants.

The first is a knight with a bastard sword, which has a grip long enough to accomodate two hands, and a blade around 37" in length

The second is a samurai with a Muromachi-style katana, with a blade length of around 28" nagasa

The third is a man of the Renaissance, armed with a typical Spanish cup-hilt rapier with a blade length of 40"

The fourth is your Marine, armed with an 18" AK

If all four were to fight one another in a duel, and assuming equal skill levels with their respective weapons, I would put my money on the knight. The bastard sword gives him good reach, great thrusting potential and good cutting power without being a heavy weapon.

Knight vs Samurai:
The bastard sword would be sturdy enough to ward off attacks from the katana and respond with thrusting attacks (especially to the hands), which the Japanese did not make much use of and probably didn't have as many counter techniques for them. No hands = no holding onto the weapon = end of fight.


Knight vs Renaissance man:
The rapier is faster on offense and defense, and has a great reach, but a thrust doesn't always kill in one hit. It has been shown many times throughout history that a thrust CAN penetrate a human body and not incapacitate the victim immediately. However, a good slash or cut from a bastard sword would probably have the shock value to stop the fight there and then...if not, the blood loss will take care of the rest. Of course, if the knight is able to beat down the rapier blade with a good hit, he can close in and end the fight quickly.


Knight vs Marine:
No contest here, in my opinion. The AK is only 18" long...and assuming equal levels of familiarity with their respective weapons, the knight would make mince meat of the Marine in short order.
 
Originally posted by Kmark
Knight vs Marine:
No contest here, in my opinion. The AK is only 18" long...and assuming equal levels of familiarity with their respective weapons, the knight would make mince meat of the Marine in short order.
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Maybe, but could he circumcise a fly?:D
 
Yeah, but Excalibre is a hell of weapon to swing agaist a cat or bear. It's too heavy.

C'mon, don't match these historic figures against each other, pit them against the bear or cat.

Besides which, today's Ex Marine is the culmination of centuries of breeding ( and Dairy products!) We are bigger than King Arthur.

I saw a brief on a training manual for knights once. They had lots of sophisticated dirty tricks most of you here i'm certain are familiar with.

There is a place in all good men's heart for the truly great B movie.

munk
 
That's right, Munk. As a kid when I visited museums that had full body armor I was surprised that the armor looked like it was made for somebody about my size rather than a man.
 
Yeah, but Excalibre is a hell of weapon to swing agaist a cat or bear. It's too heavy.
...
Besides which, today's Ex Marine is the culmination of centuries of breeding ( and Dairy products!) We are bigger than King Arthur.
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Two thoughs:

First, excalibur would not have been a heavy weapon. Most real swords were actually very light and fast. The clunky stuff is more of a Hollywood creation. The real stuff was lively and well balanced.

Second, some of the armor that we see in the museams today is actually the well preserved armor of the younger nobility. It is just the boys armor worn by these men as teenagers. These guys were not quite that small. They were probably pretty close to our normal height. Furthermore, as nobility, they probably spent more hours staying physically fit than most of us afford to invest today.

n2s
 
In a twain, I wud choose a Khukuwi dat.....HEY!!! Dop dat....couga's don't wide twains
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Spoken like a true Mountain Man Wal. Having had direct experience with cougars, I'd opt for a 21" GS for length and speed, or a 18"-21" UBE for thoroughness.
 
The bastard sword would be sturdy enough to ward off attacks from the katana and respond with thrusting attacks (especially to the hands), which the Japanese did not make much use of and probably didn't have as many counter techniques for them. No hands = no holding onto the weapon = end of fight.
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Uhh...I dont know where you get your information, but most of the Katas and Iaido that I have been taught start with basic perrying entering and slicing a wrist or forearm.

Also, the Japanese learned ALOT about entering in. Japan is heavily wooded and it makes sense to spend your time learning how to wield a staff (cheap) instead of spending a few years income on a Katana. Hence, if you were upper class, Samurai, and could afford a katana you would be very well versed in entering in cause everyone of the lower class, the people you were keeping in slave..er...ruleing over would be trying to kick your butt.

My view on this subject is that it dosent matter on the weapon. It is the individual wielding it that makes it lethal. For instance, what if the marine's father is some sort of master in Aikido or other soft martial art designed to take advantage of an opponents strengths (the greater the strength, the more apparent the weakness). You could give him a ballpoint pin and he could get lucky on a few of'em.

Or the spanish guy could be grappleing with the marine and he take a rock and cave his head in. Or the marine could be sitting on a nearby hill watching the other 3 fight it out and he call up fire control for a small artillary strike. (What makes a marine really lethal, pinpoint artillary.)

It dosent matter. To each his own.
 
The stopper I would have to carry would be a good 12 gauge pump scattergun with a 20" barrel in improved cylinder. Either 00 buck only or 00 buck and slugs alternating.

Just keep aware and look over your shoulder.

Maybe one of those double barrel 12 gauge pistols like in the "Ghost and the Darkness" about the lions. Great flick!
 
Yeah, but Excalibre is a hell of weapon to swing agaist a cat or bear. It's too heavy.
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But katana are light? There is this tendency to associate heaviness with inferior melee weapons, and lightness with superior melee weapons, but the fact of the matter is mediaeval swords are mostly light and well balanced. Stuff like the falchions and certain cavalry swords are forward balanced for the cut, but they're not just sharpened crowbars. As Not2sharp has said, the heaviness and clunkiness of the sword as typically shown by Hollywood is a total fabrication and a disgrace to the true weight of these weapons.

I own a modern reproduction of a longsword, a bastard sword and a cut and thrust sword...all three are by Gus Trim, who has been widely acknowledged to make high performance production 'mediaeval' weapons, and all of them are light, responsive, and very fast.

note: discount everything you see in the movie "Zorro" where Antonio Banderas is using his rapier as a cutting weapon...many rapiers were primarily thrusting weapons. A great number of them weren't even sharpened.

C'mon, don't match these historic figures against each other, pit them against the bear or cat.
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Oops, sorry...I thought it was weapon vs weapon...my bad :(

In that case...I'd pick the katana for its cutting ability and reach.

Sorry SamuraiDave, I meant to say thrusting attacks are not widely used by kendoka, not to say that attacks to the hand were not defended against. Almost all the techniques of kendo are cutting attacks, am I correct? Even when attacking the hand, it is a cutting motion rather than a thrusting motion. When faced with a weapon that is used to thrust equally as it is used to cut, such as a cut-and-thrust bastard sword, that is where I think the 'knight' would have a distinct advantage. Of course...one good hit from the katana and its death by shock or exsanguination, while a thrust even from a bastard sword is not as guaranteed a kill.
 
It is a matter of historical record, both written and anthropoloigically (sic) that people have gotten bigger. If there is a sidetable on better nutrition with Nobility I can see that though
that is not going to be consistant from generation to generation.

It is interesting to think Nobility would have been larger than 'normal' for period, and I can see that, just not as large as today's people.


As for Bill's fitting old armor...that is easily solved; Bill is a reincarnated Gorkha.


munk
 
I read the link provided on height which attributed our changes to nutrition, that there was not real difference in man's height from stone age to the early 1800's, and that the middle of the nineteenth century showed the remarkable growth spurt. There was nothing there that contradicts historical evidence, including clothes, that Knights in the Middle ages were not smaller of stature than people today.

munk
 
1) A cat has just jumped on you unexpectedly, but you are still alive. Isn't a sword too much to bring to bare?

2) A cat or bear is feeling cornered and you are facing him. Wouldn't that be ideal for sword?

3) Vic Morrow has a 10 pound Thompson Machine gun, can he bring it up fast enough off his shoulder to get the cat? Oops...WW2 Thompsons were not as heavy, were they?

munk
 
Sword - unwieldly at grips (very close quarters), okay for attacking bear or cat when used with Beserker outlook.

Thompson - not as good as "The Great Pacifier" (12 guage), but will also induce pacification when discharged in correct direction in a timely manner.
 
PANCOR JACKHAMMER MK 3 A1
12 Gauge - 10 shot rotary magazine
Select Fire Machine Gun -
Serial # JHMK3A1

"The Jackhammer is an automatic, gas-operated, 12 gauge shotgun which uses a pre-loaded rotating cylinder as its magazine. The cylinder has grooves incised on its outer surface which are engaged by a stud on an operating rod, so that as the rod oscillates it rotates the cylinder; it is very similar to the system of cylinder rotation used by the Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver. The Jackhammer barrel floats, and is driven forward by gas pressure after the shot is fired. It is then returned by a spring giving movement to the cylinder operating rod. The significant point about this movement of the barrel is that it disconnects the barrel from the gas-tight connection with the cylinder, allowing the cylinder to be revolved to index the next round, and then, on the return stroke, reseals barrel and cylinder together." (From Jane's Security and CO-IN Equipment 1994-95)
 
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