Grate / Portcullis (or jail bars) and sawing through gaps instead of swinging

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Plane

I was figuring you'd aim at the ligaments connecting the joints as opposed to the bone.

Cutting through a joint like that is tricky enough when the body is dead and not moving. It's not a combat move for most people, and certainly not with a saw.

I'm just picturing your standard "hacksaw" and it seems like if I were cutting through a log, a hacksaw would work better than a machete.

It depends a lot on the log. Hacksaws generally have very fine teeth, suited to cutting through metal. They are not well suited to soft woods, meat, or 'green' bone, all of which tend to clog up saws with small teeth. They probably do alright on tendons, but the small teeth mean they also only cut a small depth with each pass.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Plane

I was figuring you'd aim at the ligaments connecting the joints as opposed to the bone.

Not practical unless the target isn't moving.

Zombie on it's back would be easiest to saw, but it's also possible to emulate, like say for example your ally puts a zombie into an "arm bar" it might not be completely immobile (and your ally isn't completely rigid) but it's probably enough to keep the muscles/ligaments taught enough for the teeth to bite into.

Why? It will take dozens of rounds to do any serious damage. The optimal way for a regular person to handle a zombie is to fight in pairs with polearms. The long shaft keeps it out of reach while you both work together to knock it down. When it is prone, one person pins it in place (using the long shaft to keep out of reach) while the other person attacks the head (using the long shaft to keep out of reach).

Doesn't one tend to 'chop' with a machete rather than do a draw-cut motion?

When cutting wood or bone they work like a light axe.

I'm just picturing your standard "hacksaw" and it seems like if I were cutting through a log, a hacksaw would work better than a machete.

Regular saws get clogged up when cutting green wood. That's why lumberjacks use axes or "felling saws" with large, specially-shaped teeth. Save your saw for dry wood.

I'm just picturing your standard "hacksaw" and it seems like if I were cutting through a log, a hacksaw would work better than a machete.

The fine teeth constantly get clogged up with gunk. Buy a cow or pig leg from a butcher and try it yourself.

[RyanW]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't portcullises often heavy wood rather than being solid metal. Still shouldn't be striking it with a sword, but an axe could make a go at it (assuming you could ignore the actions of the defenders long enough).

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't portcullises often heavy wood rather than being solid metal. Still shouldn't be striking it with a sword, but an axe could make a go at it (assuming you could ignore the actions of the defenders long enough).

Should be ... you'd need a pretty impressive industrial base to create a solid metal portcullis: by the time you could cast one in real life, you probably wouldn't bother to do so. Allowing latitude for fantasy, a solid iron portcullis is still going to be an impressive bit of tech. I can just about see diadochoi style kingdoms, or some of the other powers of the East going for a cast bronze portcullis if only to make a point... but yes, I would normally expect wood, with or without iron strips nailed onto it.

[DanHoward]

Smaller portcullises were solid iron. Larger ones were made from wood and covered with iron strips.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Should be ... you'd need a pretty impressive industrial base to create a solid metal portcullis: by the time you could cast one in real life, you probably wouldn't bother to do so. Allowing latitude for fantasy, a solid iron portcullis is still going to be an impressive bit of tech. I can just about see diadochoi style kingdoms, or some of the other powers of the East going for a cast bronze portcullis if only to make a point... but yes, I would normally expect wood, with or without iron strips nailed onto it.

I wouldn't expect a metal portculis to be one piece - you'd be looking at something more like a series of metal bars/beams riveted together. Like mail, the individual bars probably wouldn't be terribly difficult, and riveting them together similarly wouldn't be terribly difficult, but it would be expensive - each bar would be a big chunk of iron, even if you use multiple short ones instead of one long one, and riveting them all together would be rather time-consuming (again, like mail), upping the labor cost. Wood reinforced with iron bands certainly does seem more likely, of course.

Chopping through even a wooden portcullis probably isn't something really doable on a combat timescale, although a superhumanly-strong person with a heavy axe could potentially manage it. For mere mortals to break through, you're probably going to need to break through, with a battering ram or similar. You can probably saw through a wooden portcullis without a lot of difficulty (unless you hit those iron reinforcing bands*), but that's more something you'd be able to do if you've already cleared the area of defenders and just need to get through... and in that case it's probably faster to climb the dang wall and open the portcullis from inside.

As for using a saw on zombies or whatever, you'd basically need to use the saw as an improvised cutting weapon, swinging it rather than sawing with it. If you're dealing with living zombies, it should be able to open them up enough to kill them. For flesh-golems or weak undead (including "piloted" zombies, like the Flood from Halo), it could still cause enough damage to the muscle tissue to prevent the zombie from moving around (need to target the arms and legs, though). Against stronger undead, where burning away all the flesh would just result in fighting a still-active skeleton, a saw is probably largely worthless, unless it's heavy enough to serve as an impact weapon to break bones. Note the above is true of any cutting weapons against zombies.

*Iron-reinforced wood seems like it would be supremely annoying to saw through. Sawing through wood calls for a thick saw with wide teeth, while sawing through metal calls for a thin saw with narrow teeth - using a wood saw when metal is involved probably means blunting your saw before you can accomplish much, and using a hacksaw on wood results in the teeth getting gummed up with sawdust.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Should be ... you'd need a pretty impressive industrial base to create a solid metal portcullis: by the time you could cast one in real life, you probably wouldn't bother to do so. Allowing latitude for fantasy, a solid iron portcullis is still going to be an impressive bit of tech. I can just about see diadochoi style kingdoms, or some of the other powers of the East going for a cast bronze portcullis if only to make a point... but yes, I would normally expect wood, with or without iron strips nailed onto it.

You wouldn't cast an iron portcullis. You'd make it of bars and rivet and strap them them together.