Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I don't mean to pick on Jason here since many posters do it but my pet peeve is the use of THEN when making a comparison instead of THAN. E.g. the above sentence should read: "they were less inclined to charge THAN either Saracens or Crusaders"
I have no idea why this has become so common except perhaps that people no longer enunciate their words correctly. :-(

agreed

Agreed with the increase in range but the missiles are much lighter and shorter than regular arrows so damage should be reduced. Perhaps they should be treated as specialised flight arrows.

Edit: Just found this passage in a draft of an upcoming book that I helped to edit:
"According to Latham and Paterson (1970:29), short arrows [darts] lacked the power and strength to penetrate mail or armor but were sufficiently effective as a harassing device, especially against unprotected horses of enemy cavalry. The characteristic feature of this type of arrow is that they were shot at high velocity with low trajectory making them accurate shots at short ranges. They could also be used by masses of archers at longer ranges for shooting a barrage of arrows."

If anyone is interested the book should be available within the next month or so. It will be the definitive work on Iranian/Persian arms and armour.
http://www.arms-and-armor-from-iran.de/

_____________________
I am admittedly a bad grammarian on the net, and I do have trouble with then/than.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The Saracens were armed and armoured in a very similar manner to the Europeans and their method of warfare was also very similar except for the fact that they made a greater use of horse archers. However this emphasis by scholars on horse archers has been greatly exaggerated.

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Probably so-the "terrible tartars" do catch the imagination in the way a horror film does.
In point of fact a steepe people that establishes itself as a ruling caste among settled peoples usually seems to evolve it's customs to local standards. Often toward the end nothing remains of the steepe but the traditions and the taste in art in the various "stately pleasure domes". The Seljuks were evolving toward this.
Maintaining a "terrible tartar" sort of army requires an ammount of pastureland that a heavily farmed society simply cannot afford. Also there is no particular reason why the conqueror has to live as hard as daddy did-until the next wave of barbarians comes over the hill, that is.

[Verjigorm]

It should be noted that a signifigant portion of muslim cavalry were recruited from outside the Caliphate. Muslimized turks from the steppe, Khursans, Moors and berbers. Many of these people did not keep a settled form of life, and would remain pastoral. Even today, the descendents ofthese steppe people maintain almost the same life, with the largest change being the adoption of rifles.

So, the Solenerion could be a weapon accessory, added to a bow, that allows it to fire darts. These darts a -1 to damage, convert the damage to Pi, and +1 Accuracy. I don't hold for increased range, as you would notice a remarkable increase in effective range by the increase of 1 accuracy.

Also, were lariats used by any turks or stepped normads of the 12th century?

[Lord Carnifex]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Also, were lariats used by any turks or stepped normads of the 12th century?

I'm looking through Grousset now, and not finding any specific references to the period. However, it is taken mostly for granted that lassos were a fundamental hunting and war weapon of the Central Asian nomads:

Originally Posted by Rene Grousset

The Empire of the Steppes p. xxvi

...and waged war as he pursued game or mares: with arrow and lasso.

There is also this site, but it lacks what I would consider definitive academic references: http://www.geocities.com/kaganate/seljuq.html

[Kyle Aaron]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I don't mean to pick on Jason here since many posters do it but my pet peeve is the use of THEN when making a comparison instead of THAN. E.g. the above sentence should read: "they were less inclined to charge THAN either Saracens or Crusaders"
I have no idea why this has become so common except perhaps that people no longer enunciate their words correctly. :-(

should read,

I don't mean to pick on Jason here, since too many posters already do [it] so, but my pet peeve is the use of THEN when making a comparison instead of using THAN. E.g. the above sentence should read: "they were less inclined to charge THAN either Saracens or Crusaders"
I have no idea why this has become so common, except perhaps that people no longer enunciate their words correctly. :-(

Jim Bob's 223rd Law of the Internet: Any post correcting another poster's spelling or grammatical mistakes will contain a spelling or grammatical mistake. That includes this one.

Better just to let it pass, mate ;) Only correct those who've asked you for it. And then make sure you can get it right yourself. My personal favourite is, "that is bad grammer." :D

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Jim Bob

should read,

I don't mean to pick on Jason here, since too many posters already do [it] so, but my pet peeve is the use of THEN when making a comparison instead of using THAN. E.g. the above sentence should read: "they were less inclined to charge THAN either Saracens or Crusaders"
I have no idea why this has become so common, except perhaps that people no longer enunciate their words correctly. :-(

Jim Bob's 223rd Law of the Internet: Any post correcting another poster's spelling or grammatical mistakes will contain a spelling or grammatical mistake. That includes this one.

The comma after 'here' is not entirely necessary, though harmless. Adding 'too' changes the meaning of the phrase by adding a value judgement and is unnecessary, though in this case doesn't really change the meaning of the sentence as 'pet peeve' can also be taken as a value judgement. Changing 'do it' to 'already do so' changes the meaning of the sentence, as 'it' refers to 'use of THEN' not 'pick on Jason' (using a pronoun with no clear antecedent is poor english, but in context presumably refers to the text which was being quoted, which has been trimmed from your response). I agree there should be a comma after 'it', which you didn't note as a correction. Adding 'using' is unnecessary but does not change the meaning of the sentence. I agree that the comma after 'common' is desireable.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

So, the Solenerion could be a weapon accessory, added to a bow, that allows it to fire darts. These darts a -1 to damage, convert the damage to Pi, and +1 Accuracy. I don't hold for increased range, as you would notice a remarkable increase in effective range by the increase of 1 accuracy.

Sounds good. How much should these things cost/weigh? Do they need to be removed before regular arrows can be fired? How many turns are needed to add/remove the device?

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Jim Bob

should read,

I don't mean to pick on Jason here, since too many posters already do [it] so, but my pet peeve is the use of THEN when making a comparison instead of using THAN. E.g. the above sentence should read: "they were less inclined to charge THAN either Saracens or Crusaders"
I have no idea why this has become so common, except perhaps that people no longer enunciate their words correctly. :-(

Jim Bob's 223rd Law of the Internet: Any post correcting another poster's spelling or grammatical mistakes will contain a spelling or grammatical mistake. That includes this one.

Better just to let it pass, mate ;) Only correct those who've asked you for it. And then make sure you can get it right yourself. My personal favourite is, "that is bad grammer." :D

Actually I think I meant:
"I don't mean to pick on Jason here, since many other posters do it too, but my pet peeve is the use of THEN when making a comparison instead of THAN." (the second occurrence of USING is implied and doesn't need to be repeated)

[Luther]

Originally Posted by Jim Bob

Better just to let it pass, mate ;) Only correct those who've asked you for it.

Yeah, right, and it's actually far worse when someone correct someone else and jokes about that, but in fact he's wrong. Like you sadly did here.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Captain Spaulding

There was a fascinating documentary on the BBC earlier this year, the title of which sadly escapes me, where they "tested out" bronze swords against iron ones. All of them were short swords, with a leaf-shaped blade

What they found, much to the surprise of one of the archaelogists on the programme, who had been predicting that the bronze blade would shatter into fragments, was that the bronze blade actually stood up better than the iron one did. With contact, both blades were blunted and had chips taken out of them, but the iron one actually came off much worse in this respect.

The big difference was that the iron blade was apparently much easier to repair afterwards than the bronze one was. I also seem to recall, though I'm not any kind of expert, that once a culture had iron-working sussed out, it was much cheaper to make iron implements than bronze ones.

Neil Burridge made the bronze weapons. Here is a list of other shows where the man himself or his weapons appear.
http://www.templeresearch.eclipse.co...ze/film_tv.htm