Penney, Sean writes:
>> Matthew Hunter:
>> > It's never that simple.
>>Sean Penney wrote:
>> How do you figure?
>David Rodemaker wrote:
>>Because a fight is much more of an organic process than simply
>>hack-slash-stab-bleed-die...
>victor. But let's look at the weapons themselves. If the 30"+ smallsword
>replaced the 40"+ rapier because guys wielding smallswords were schooling
>the guys with rapiers,
While a smallsword can defeat a rapier...it's not really that simple
-- the rise of the smallsword was -more- because it fit the fashion of
the time to have a wearable weapon, and because metalurgy made
-really- light smallswords possible, than that smallsword provided a
clear combat advantage.
> well, a weapon that entered the field in the middle
>ages against a weapon that incorporates all the refinements of the next
>couple hundred years would be like bringing a knife to a gun-fight.
This statement assumes combat advancements are linear, and always
toward "more deadly". They're not.
>On reach, well, the rapier fighter doesn't have a problem with that, given
>his speed advantage,
You vastly underestimate the speed difference between a lighter
one-handed weapon and a two-handed weapon.
>and the fact that he can fight both in close, and has
>the lunge, which gives him equal, if not more, reach.
No, sorry. Flinging your body at your opponent, despite the -tempo-
advantage it gives you, is not a substitute for reach.
>He just has to be
>careful not to step into any of the soldier's swings to parry.
You don't know how to use a greatsword. I don't either, but I've seen
people who do...and they don't use it the way you think they do.
In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about -- you
think real greatsword is fought like swordfighting (wheras Mathew
clearly has a better idea of what a greatsword fight looks like).
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