Low Tech vs Basic Weapon Stats

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by sjard

Not off the top of my head. But his videos are more based on video game/movie/tabletop gaming realism than on actual real world information.

I watched a few of his videos about a year ago and decided he was passing himself off as an authority for things he really didn't know much about and never really went back. I'll watch parts of videos when he gets linked in places like this but they usually just reconfirm that he's entertainment not education.

Assuming we're talking about the chap with a faux hawk and chinstrap?

I just watched a few vids of his on you tube, on that (admittedly limited) experience he seems pretty good on basic practical stuff like why a klingon makleth's handle being a bit of leather thonging isn't very good for a faster than light civilisation. And he can find point of balance.

But I don't think I'd look to him for more detail than that, for example he can find a point of balance, but seems to infer quite a lot from it.

Does he pass him self of as an expert, if so what of? He didn't make any claims of himself in any of the few videos I've watched, but like I said I've come across him in the last hour and haven't looked that deep (but as general point I tend not to go to youtube for analysis and detail on complex questions)


that said it is a tough comparison to make from the point of the viewer though. as far as I can tell he makes 10 min videos, it's not like he's writing books, the difference in medium by definition means different levels of detail.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Does he pass him self of as an expert, if so what of?

He's been pointed to in these forums as an expert on weapons, including bronze swords. And the bronze sword crafter Neil Burridge thinks he's great, which makes both of them fools in my book. YMMV.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by safisher

He's been pointed to in these forums as an expert on weapons, including bronze swords. And the bronze sword crafter Neil Burridge thinks he's great, which makes both of them fools in my book. YMMV.

I guess it's going to depend on what the context is, and what's actually being argued.

IME generally speaking specific arguments are more relevant than blanket statements, especially blanket statements of expertise or lack off it.


EDIT: Oh and it would seem a bit unfair to class this chap as a fool just because others think he's not*, has he himself made any great claims to expertise?


*well unless you saying the mere fact of being cited as an expert by posters on this forum is enough to define a person as a fool!?

( I don't think you are saying that ;-))

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

*well unless you saying the mere fact of being cited as an expert by posters on this forum is enough to define a person as a fool!?

See for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjMtzJ6xgQ

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

And he can find point of balance.

This sets off all sorts of alarm bells about him all by itself.

Yes, there will be a point of balance, no, it will not be where most people think it should be, and most especially, have been taught how to find over the last 40 years or so.

For example, finding the "point of balance" the way a lot of, say SCA people teach it, you want something that balances itself on a fulcrum point about 5-6 inches past the cross. However, this tends to put a preferred point of impact about 2 feet past the tip of the blade, where there's nothing but air. There's a lot more math involved, but that's a quick example.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by safisher

...and...to which no one will agree because there is no real metric to benchmark performance to. Armor is benchmarked to bullet performance, but what are hit points and melee damage points benchmarked to?

If half a dozen people with graduate degrees argued and experimented and researched for a few years, they might come up with something ... but that would require several people with real training working for several years and doing real research and experiments, not just citing things by memory and pointing to YouTube videos. We are lucky that some people with real expertise volunteer their time to work on the rules for modern kit in GURPS.

Originally Posted by kracht

Interesting, thanks for pointing it out.

My source is Robert Elgood's Hindu Arms and Ritual. I won't say that the guys at SJG knew about swords like that in the 1970s, but there are a few real swords for which the non-Thrusting Broadsword is a reasonable set of stats.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by safisher

See for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjMtzJ6xgQ

I don't see any claims of expertise.


On to the video

Obviously his testing wasn't scientific in anyway. It didn't involve any precise measurement of results or definition of parameters. But then he kept his observations small, and they seemed to correlate with what happened.

They seem to conform pretty much to already established things



The end observations (scientifically supported or not) were :

steel is harder than bronze (although they certainly weren't combat speed blows they were parrying).

And bronze would bend and could be bent back.

About the closest he got to making a supposition off that was that while both were true neither would cause failure of the sword in an extreme way, edit: and that attempts to harden the edge would help with this.


The shield test was a bit pointless as they were rimless (although I guess it inadvertently demonstrated the point of rimless shields).


Wacking trees with swords (done scientifically or otherwise) doesn't tell us much about sword wear in proper use, but he made that point himself.

Neither he or the sword maker made any great claims about his testing (the sword maker just said he liked it).


Do I think that 15 min video shed any great light on a historical question? No

But do I think any great unsupported supposition was made or fallacy was in evidence*? No

It was basically pretty innocuous, of course that also means attempts to extrapolate too much from it may well be unfounded.


*or at least unrecognised

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by sjard

This sets off all sorts of alarm bells about him all by itself.

Yes, there will be a point of balance, no, it will not be where most people think it should be, and most especially, have been taught how to find over the last 40 years or so.

For example, finding the "point of balance" the way a lot of, say SCA people teach it, you want something that balances itself on a fulcrum point about 5-6 inches past the cross. However, this tends to put a preferred point of impact about 2 feet past the tip of the blade, where there's nothing but air. There's a lot more math involved, but that's a quick example.

Ah Ok, the videos I've seen where he discusses point of balance he's only talking about where a particular weapon balances on a fulcrum, and what the implications of that might be for handling and moving it as an object in your hand. I.e. not trying to tie point of balance to point of impact, and calculate the perfect former for the preferred latter* (although he might do that elsewhere I don't know).

But as I said he did tend to over infer the ramifications of even that. And I guess the point is as I said there's not a lot of detail. Point of impact wasn't even mentioned let alone tied to point of balance in anything I saw, so it's not so much he was wrong about it, but didn't actually address it in anyway.

Also as an aside while he seems to have lots of experience handling weapons (and swinging them around etc), he doesn't seem to have an awful lot of experience of handling them in for want of better term a "combat like way"?

I could be being unfair to him in this though there's not much to judge him by.



*IIRC balance in terms of handling and balance in terms of point of impact being at the optimal part of your weapon two potentially conflicting things in weapon design (lots of variables though).

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

If half a dozen people with graduate degrees argued and experimented and researched for a few years, they might come up with something ...

AFAIK there was nothing like that done for the armor/bullet metric. It appeared in the first version of High-Tech and that's it. Probably a reasonable assumption was made by Mike Hurst and that's it.

And there have been several people researching and writing about GURPS and weapon rules for several years. Douglas Cole and myself, and experts like Peter and Hans and Pulver and Kromm.

but that would require several people with real training working for several years and doing real research and experiments, not just citing things by memory and pointing to YouTube videos.

Exactly. Most of the posters on these forums (but not all, mind) couldn't really care less about the rules or the work put into them. I wonder if many of them even play GURPS. Frankly, some of them seem to be satisfied with trying to make themselves look smart and arguing about their pet grievances.

We are lucky that some people with real expertise volunteer their time to work on the rules for modern kit in GURPS.

Yes, well we tried.

[kracht]

Originally Posted by safisher

I wonder if many of them even play GURPS.

I used to, and I would again if I could. Hell, I will!

Originally Posted by safisher

Frankly, some of them seem to be satisfied with trying to make themselves look smart and arguing about their pet grievances.

Let me put this straight: to me, GURPS is the most (scientifically, technically, historically) authoritative RPG ever, and this we owe to people like you. Nothing I say is meant to detract from that.