Author Topic: How was real melee like?  (Read 14434 times)

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Offline EponiCo

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #45 on: July 14, 2013, 12:43:29 am »
+2
I can't think of the name for the life of me but wasn't there some Russian massacre that ensued in the 19th century simply cos there was a huge crowd and a rumour spread that there was cake (i shit you not) and people rushed to one side of the field, not noting that there was a small ditch along the way, those who fell or got trapped were crushed and trampled.

The worst thing though: The cake was a lie.
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Offline Teeth

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #46 on: July 14, 2013, 01:27:33 pm »
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Honestly I don't think this is that far from the real deal. These weapons are clearly heavy and I am pretty sure taking one of those voulge swings to the head will fucking hurt. Of course people don't die as quickly, it is a very cramped area and neither side is actively trying to push. This makes the combat look rather stale and uneventful, but apart from that, the way people are swinging, the way people are protecting themselves and others, think it is pretty close.

Of course one needs to differentiate between different era's and army types. I think the early feudal armies which consisted of levies with little training, would probably only be commanded by telling them to hold or charge and then hope for the best. I think it would be a chaotic clusterfuck, although naturally people will try to keep friendlies at their sides and backs, unlike Braveheart where everybody seems to be fighting alone against charging opponents from all directions.

Professional armies which have been trained and equipped to actually hold formations, like hoplite phalanxes or 15th century shot and pike armies and everything after that, would probably cause a much less chaotic melee, with clear lines, trumpet signals and officers keeping everyone together. I honestly doubt Roman legionnaires would hold much of a formation though, as it was supposedly fairly loose and would probably get fairly chaotic if charged.

I find the idea of pushing matches ridiculous, people try to kill eachother, not move eachother. I think early medieval and viking shieldwalls were a method of keeping together before combat and during combat it would either dissolve or people would hit over the shields during combat. Same with phalanxes, they would be pushing with their spears or pikes and not with their shields. Lindybeige's suffocation argument seems stupid to me as well, if their chests do not even have room to expand because they are packed so tight, where did they leave all their sharp weapons? Such masses of meat is not something I find logical, I think fighting would be generally somewhat more spaced out because I think people tried to use their weapons to fight.

Offline Ronin

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #47 on: July 14, 2013, 08:12:01 pm »
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I think the tactics parts were mostly present in the beforehand and in the shooting stages. When the melee begins, it would become a real mess.
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Offline Joker86

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #48 on: July 15, 2013, 03:13:28 pm »
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Since Heskeytime already answered the part about the use of pushing (which sometimes, not always exists, and which never was defeating the enemy by pushing, rather changing the circumstances under which you can defeat him), I'd like to add an assumption of me:

Honestly I don't think this is that far from the real deal. These weapons are clearly heavy and I am pretty sure taking one of those voulge swings to the head will fucking hurt. Of course people don't die as quickly, it is a very cramped area and neither side is actively trying to push. This makes the combat look rather stale and uneventful, but apart from that, the way people are swinging, the way people are protecting themselves and others, think it is pretty close.

I think there would have been more "martial arts" in those fights. I don't mean any Kung Fu shit or unrealistic fencing with three enemies simultaneously, but I am dead sure there has been a dozen or so "standard grips" and counters and whatnot, which worked rather well, were safe and quick. Especially since those who were trained in those martial arts often fought against untrained enemies, and I guess untrained people tend to do always the same mistakes. So I think it wouldn't all be only that hacking and stabbing like on that video, a few of those individuals (namely the leading lords and perhaps a few of their trained retinue soldiers) would know exactly what they are doing there, and we would see a few disarming blows, perhaps a few men being killed by their own weapon and similar stuff.

Just look at all the fencing videos on youtube. Sure, those were late middle ages and duels, but holy shit! I would never have seen most of those things coming! THere is no chance you can counter them if you don't hav the same level of training, so I guess it would have been used in battle, too. Especially since those tained fighters were not in panic and stayed calm and thus deadly.
Joker makes a very good point.
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Offline CrazyCracka420

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #49 on: July 15, 2013, 03:38:32 pm »
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I just don't think the 2nd and 3rd and beyond lines of men were pushing forward.  You need to give the guy in front of you 2 feet (or more) in order for them to be able to fight.  Pushing the guys in front of you is only going to get them killed.  You see pushing matches in these re-enactments because they aren't killing each other, they are trying to hold ground and push the other guys around (what else can they do?).  You need room to swing weapons, you wouldn't (intentionally) have the clusterfuck you see in these re-enactments. 

Sure if you're a bunch of scrub peasants you might end up getting into a "trample the guy in front of you" formation, but professional armies wouldn't be shoving their guys forward.

I don't know why people imagine medieval battles as shoving matches, it just seems asinine.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2013, 03:41:43 pm by CrazyCracka420 »
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Offline Prinz_Karl

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #50 on: July 15, 2013, 06:22:24 pm »
-1
Since Heskeytime already answered the part about the use of pushing (which sometimes, not always exists, and which never was defeating the enemy by pushing, rather changing the circumstances under which you can defeat him), I'd like to add an assumption of me:

I think there would have been more "martial arts" in those fights. I don't mean any Kung Fu shit or unrealistic fencing with three enemies simultaneously, but I am dead sure there has been a dozen or so "standard grips" and counters and whatnot, which worked rather well, were safe and quick. Especially since those who were trained in those martial arts often fought against untrained enemies, and I guess untrained people tend to do always the same mistakes. So I think it wouldn't all be only that hacking and stabbing like on that video, a few of those individuals (namely the leading lords and perhaps a few of their trained retinue soldiers) would know exactly what they are doing there, and we would see a few disarming blows, perhaps a few men being killed by their own weapon and similar stuff.

Just look at all the fencing videos on youtube. Sure, those were late middle ages and duels, but holy shit! I would never have seen most of those things coming! THere is no chance you can counter them if you don't hav the same level of training, so I guess it would have been used in battle, too. Especially since those tained fighters were not in panic and stayed calm and thus deadly.

You don't seem to know alot about martial arts, since I guess you rather took your knowledge from those movies. Please be careful if you call Kung Fu shit if you don't know what it's about, because martial arts means something different than what you stated.

Offline Joker86

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #51 on: July 15, 2013, 07:07:47 pm »
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You don't seem to know alot about martial arts, since I guess you rather took your knowledge from those movies. Please be careful if you call Kung Fu shit if you don't know what it's about, because martial arts means something different than what you stated.

"Kampfkunst" meinte ich. Ich wollte das jetzt nicht auf "fencing" runterbrechen, weil ich denke dass in der Schlacht Griffe und Tricks benutzt worden, die nicht in die klassische Definition von "Fechten" fallen.
Joker makes a very good point.
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Offline Prinz_Karl

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #52 on: July 15, 2013, 07:17:37 pm »
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"Kampfkunst" meinte ich. Ich wollte das jetzt nicht auf "fencing" runterbrechen, weil ich denke dass in der Schlacht Griffe und Tricks benutzt worden, die nicht in die klassische Definition von "Fechten" fallen.

Wollte ja nur klarstellen, dass du Kung Fu und Kampfkunst nicht herabwürdigst, weil die Darstellung in klassischen Kung Fu Filmen oftmals nur auf Show beschränkt ist und Kampfkunst mehr bedeutet.

Offline Joker86

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #53 on: July 15, 2013, 08:06:43 pm »
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Wollte ja nur klarstellen, dass du Kung Fu und Kampfkunst nicht herabwürdigst, weil die Darstellung in klassischen Kung Fu Filmen oftmals nur auf Show beschränkt ist und Kampfkunst mehr bedeutet.

Ich habe mich hier tatsächlich nur auf die übliche Darstellung in Filmen bezogen.

Joker makes a very good point.
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Offline Joker86

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #54 on: July 15, 2013, 11:38:59 pm »
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I dont understand the following replies lol, but i assume Joker explained that he wasn't calling Kung Fu shit, he was just explaining that it wasn't what he meant by martial arts, because although incorrectly, people often make that connection when someone says 'martial arts'.

One of you probably also mentioned that 'martial arts' is a Roman term meaning 'arts of Mars' (The Roman God of War).

Karl only wanted to remind me that Kung Fu and martial arts are no "shit" as I said, and that I shouldn't think that movies and other stuff depict them correctly, and I replied it was actually what I was referring to, since I didn't mean with "professional soldiers used martial arts" that they would jump around, dealing roundhouse kicks, jumping saltos and so on.

I meant real, useful and working grips which help you winning. I bet you would have seen quite a few in that video if this was a real fight.
Joker makes a very good point.
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Offline Smoothrich

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #55 on: July 16, 2013, 12:05:14 am »
+2
real battles:  tens of thousands of people getting owned because of a few hundred pro polish cav charge pikewalls like champs (and never stop charging)

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Offline Prinz_Karl

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #56 on: July 16, 2013, 02:38:16 am »
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Karl only wanted to remind me that Kung Fu and martial arts are no "shit" as I said, and that I shouldn't think that movies and other stuff depict them correctly, and I replied it was actually what I was referring to, since I didn't mean with "professional soldiers used martial arts" that they would jump around, dealing roundhouse kicks, jumping saltos and so on.

I meant real, useful and working grips which help you winning. I bet you would have seen quite a few in that video if this was a real fight.
I dont understand the following replies lol, but i assume Joker explained that he wasn't calling Kung Fu shit, he was just explaining that it wasn't what he meant by martial arts, because although incorrectly, people often make that connection when someone says 'martial arts'.

One of you probably also mentioned that 'martial arts' is a Roman term meaning 'arts of Mars' (The Roman God of War).

Joker86: Ich meinte nicht, dass es in falsch dargestellt wird, sondern dass viele Kung Fu nur als Showkampf sehen.

You both make a distinction between Martial Arts and Kung Fu, if I understand it correctly you see Kung Fu as "fake", whereas Martial Arts is what grap technics and other streetfighting tricks is really about. Actually Kung Fu is based on real fighting and Kung Fu is exactly what you think of Martial Arts. You're trained real streetfighting in Kung Fu and also grap technics are those that are used for example by policemen. What I want to say is that one part of Kung Fu is showact which is though based on real fighting technics, which is another part of Kung Fu.

If you think for example Bruce Lee was only a master of showact, you should see him finishing off a guy in reality, there wouldn't be that much difference. I hope I didn't misunderstood you both but I don't like that many people are degrading Kung Fu to fake, which, true, many times occurs to be the case.

Offline Joker86

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #57 on: July 16, 2013, 03:50:53 am »
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Not at all, we're referring to Medieval combat in Europe, so we wanted to make clear that when we said 'martial arts' people didn't assume we meant Kung Fu. We were referring to the European equivalents at the time, not commenting on which we thought was better, simply cos although Kung Fu is impressive it has nothing to do with Medieval combat in Europe.

TO summarize, neither of us said Kung Fu is fake, we just said we were talking about a different kind of Medieval Western Martial Arts since (to the best of my knowledge) European knights, housekarls and peasants weren't trained in Kung Fu.

Right. I assumed that if I wrote "knights used martial arts" some smartass would come along and say "lol like dealing rondhouse kicks or what like Bruce Lee?", and that's why I wanted to clarify that I don't mean those displays of martial art you see on TV. And yes, I know that although Bruce Lee was an actor he could have killed 99% of all people on earth with his bare hands, I have no doubt in that.

It' just about medieval (and any other, in real fights about life and death used) martial arts look different from what we are used to.

A nice example I know of is the movie Alatriste. There is this scene where Viggo Mortensen/Captain Alatriste blocks the arm of a Dutch soldier and stabs him in the face to then run off (The video starts at the proper moment. The first shot is showing someone else running away, then the scene I am takling of comes). This is clearly a trained movement, not a natural one, and yet it is quick and deadly. This is what I am talking about.
Joker makes a very good point.
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Offline Prinz_Karl

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #58 on: July 16, 2013, 05:17:20 pm »
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Ok, sorry that I misunderstood you. I just do not see that much difference between Martial Arts 600 years ago and Martial Arts today as you learn the same basic things.

Anyway here should be a proper video on "Medieval Martial Arts" that I found :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEqyqeKfoSQ

Offline Tor!

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Re: How was real melee like?
« Reply #59 on: July 16, 2013, 05:36:04 pm »
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I find Alatriste a very good movie, and most of the fighting is shown with focus on effectiveness instead of showing off  :P

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