One-Handed Spear Reach and Reversed Grip

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Rasna

Well, it depends. You know better than me that all the armour isn't the same. Surely no human would have a chance to punch through a XV-XVII century plate harness using a spear one-handed. But if we talk about textile/leather armour or thin metal armour ("light" mail, "light" scale and so on) putting some extra power behind the strike could be useful.

Textile and leather armour is anywhere from 1 cm to 5 cm thick and weighs more than steel armour. No one-handed spear thrust can penetrate it.

[Rasna]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I guess I'm just not picturing how you getting so much more reach with the underarm thrust in a shield wall. But just because I'm not "seeing" it doesn't mean it's not happening of course!
I'm guessing not all that 40-50cm is from holding a 180cm spear further back.
I can see how just by itself a under arm thrust extends more than an overarm one. You lose some reach as at full forward extension with the overarm you have to angle your arm and spear to keep it pointing forward, and as you say that's awkward and you lose power and control.
It's just short of dropping your shield to allow it room I'm not seeing how you fully extend an under arm thrust forward. Keeping the shield up would limit the forward thrust by also forcing it to have to angle itself and bend the arm.

Also then again my experience is with longer spears mainly, that might be a factor (also our respective shield may also differ).

I'll be honest I don't have much experience with the sliding attack (it's harder to do with overarm, so that may well be an advantage that underarm has that I'm not fully factoring in)

Well, I was talking about weapon's reach in general rather than in a specific situation (es. serried shield wall). Surely you're right about underarm disadvantages in a shield wall and that's why we almost always use the spear with an overarm grip in that situation. Sliding hits, both in underarm and overarm positions, definitely work: the difficult thing is to give them the right amount of power by tightening the grip when you are going to hit your target, combining speed with push.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Textile and leather armour is anywhere from 1 cm to 5 cm thick and weighs more than steel armour. No one-handed spear thrust can penetrate it.

I don't agree. Maybe this is true for the thickest leather/textile armors, but 1-2 cm of textile/leather isn't a spear-proofed thickness. I've personally pierced properly constructed gambesons of a certain thickness (up to 24 layers) with spear throws and with strong well-placed one-handed overarm spear thrusts (obviously worn by a dummy, not by a real folk!). Alan Williams in his tests ascertained that the spear point he used needs 50 J to penetrate a 16 layers linen gambeson, while cuir bouilli (only 5 mm thick) required only 30 J to be pierced. A one-handed spear overarm thrust or throw could generate up to 130 J (and perhaps even more if the warrior is a big man with years of martial experience). Surely armor works: a gambeson of a certain thickness is almost impossible to pierce with one-handed underarm spear thrusts and with weak or inaccurate throws and overarm thrusts, and even if armor is pierced the resultant injury will be less likely to be deadly or incapacitating, but I don't think that, generally speaking, leather/textile armor is proofed against spears.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Rasna

Well, I was talking about weapon's reach in general rather than in a specific situation (es. serried shield wall). Surely you're right about underarm disadvantages in a shield wall and that's why we almost always use the spear with an overarm grip in that situation. Sliding hits, both in underarm and overarm positions, definitely work: the difficult thing is to give them the right amount of power by tightening the grip when you are going to hit your target, combining speed with push.
.

Ah right OK got it, yep I've only been talking about in a tight shield wall and agree under arm when you not in a wall has advantages!

On the sliding hits thing and overarm it may be I just haven't done enough of them, or haven't been shown a proper technique. I always felt I risked losing my grip and had to 'snatch' at them when doing them overarm (I did find underarm easier though)

I agree with your points about armour as well.

Anyway

cheers

TD

[AlexanderHowl]

Another thing to remember is that it was infection rather than trauma that usually killed the majority of people injured during combat. When a swear penetrates cloth or leather armor, it brings the outside filth with it, and it only needs to deal 1 HP of damage to cause a potentially fatal infection. In addition, soldiers would often envenom spearheads before combat by dipping them in their own feces (or horse feces), meaning that a 1 HP injury could be carrying a number of pathogens.

In GURPS, we tend to focus on trauma over infection, which I think is unrealistic before TL6. Even in TL6, four to nine times more soldiers died from disease in WW1 than from trauma. It is only with the advent of antibiotics that infection is not a major cause of conflict fatalities.

[Rasna]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Another thing to remember is that it was infection rather than trauma that usually killed the majority of people injured during combat. When a swear penetrates cloth or leather armor, it brings the outside filth with it, and it only needs to deal 1 HP of damage to cause a potentially fatal infection. In addition, soldiers would often envenom spearheads before combat by dipping them in their own feces (or horse feces), meaning that a 1 HP injury could be carrying a number of pathogens.

In GURPS, we tend to focus on trauma over infection, which I think is unrealistic before TL6. Even in TL6, four to nine times more soldiers died from disease in WW1 than from trauma. It is only with the advent of antibiotics that infection is not a major cause of conflict fatalities.

Well, wound infections usually took their toll after the battle, not during it.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Another thing to remember is that it was infection rather than trauma that usually killed the majority of people injured during combat. When a swear penetrates cloth or leather armor, it brings the outside filth with it, and it only needs to deal 1 HP of damage to cause a potentially fatal infection. In addition, soldiers would often envenom spearheads before combat by dipping them in their own feces (or horse feces), meaning that a 1 HP injury could be carrying a number of pathogens.

In GURPS, we tend to focus on trauma over infection, which I think is unrealistic before TL6. Even in TL6, four to nine times more soldiers died from disease in WW1 than from trauma. It is only with the advent of antibiotics that infection is not a major cause of conflict fatalities.

I take you point about wound infection being threat, but have you got a cite re the 4-9x figure?

Also death by disease covers a lot more potential causes of death while on campaign than infection from wounds received in combat.


I.e yes infected wounds was certainly a problem, and one that has killed many down the years, but it does sometimes risk getting over blown.

If nothing else bodies have been excavated with evidence of several wounds were the healing process had occurred before their eventual death.


And of course if you are fighting some chap his dying of an infection from a 1 hp wound you gave him is cold comfort if he was still able to do you damage after he received it but before he succumbed to infection ;-)!

[Flyndaran]

WWI had the Spanish Flu killing loads. Obviously that pandemic was unrelated to war injuries/infections. Though combat probably helped beat down immune systems and spread it.
Though war also involves moving large groups of people across regions they aren't native and therefore have less built up tolerances to with regards to local infections.
Anyone have infection rates for wars that took those factors into account?

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

WWI had the Spanish Flu killing loads. Obviously that pandemic was unrelated to war injuries/infections. Though combat probably helped beat down immune systems and spread it.
Though war also involves moving large groups of people across regions they aren't native and therefore have less built up tolerances to with regards to local infections.

And vice versa! A travelling army is a fantastic infection vector.

But yep, war basically disrupts the area it's in a lot of the time which in turn can stress a population and more stress makes them more susceptible to disease. That population also include the soldiers who have turned up there and added to the population of course!

Your example of Spanish flu for example, Germany having serious food shortages during and after the war was in weakened state when the flu came round.

Another example being those soldier campaigning in a the local area might well be able to rely on clean water when they are at home, but it's harder to ensure that when on campaign, similar to spoiled food and so on.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Anyone have infection rates for wars that took those factors into account?

I think it would be hard to split out the effect of war to find a like for like base point to start with, since it's not like diseases etc weren't a sporadic issue in peacetime.

Especially as several different war based negative factors will combine to increase susceptibility. i.e not eating well, walking 20 miles a day for extended periods, drinking manky water, getting lice ridden, getting a dose of the clap, all individually stress your system. Doing it all at once is even worse.

add on top of that the difficulty of getting precise historical data in general.

And of course to go back to specifically wound infection all this contributes to weakening the system and avoiding of recovering from infection.

[AlexanderHowl]

I doubt that anyone important really cared about how many of their soldiers died as long as the other side suffered sufficient fatalities to lose the war. If the majority of their soldiers died of infection or disease, it was just another person they did not have to worry about at the end of the war.

[DocRailgun]

Really? Are you really going to claim that all military commanders ever are inhuman monsters that don't care if their soldiers die?
They might well be willing to sacrifice soldiers or whole units for the sake of tactics and strategy, but that doesn't mean they don't feel guilty about it.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I doubt that anyone important really cared about how many of their soldiers died as long as the other side suffered sufficient fatalities to lose the war. If the majority of their soldiers died of infection or disease, it was just another person they did not have to worry about at the end of the war.