Re: CWT Draft: Military Use Weapons

["redroop1964" <rupert.carus@btinternet.com>]

Dear All

A this is my first message to this group; hello one and all.

I have not played DQ for years properly; the most recent time was 
with my eight year old daughter about three months ago. It was great 
fun but very time consuming.

So, as a non-DQ playing member of the group feel free to tell me to 
get lost if you feel that what I have to say is not relevant to game 
play.

I have no time to play DQ but I am trained in Medieval Martial Arts, 
this includes unarmed, small sword, longsword, pole arms and lance.

I do not have a horse and so will probably not ever use a lance in 
either training or bouts, but the rest I have various degrees of 
familiarity with.

Re: Pole arms. Most pole arm training is very similar. For example 
the quarterstaff and pole-axe both have the same 'cuts', 'blocks' 
and 'guards'. It is just that the pole-axe was designed for use 
against an armoured opponent. The billhook was very similar but with 
the additional benefit of the hook obviously, which was used to 
unbalance and trip, remove items of armour etc. The most 
important 'cut' for all these weapons was the thrust, especially for 
the quarterstaff. A cut from a quarterstaff is relatively easy to 
deflect whilst a thrust is much more difficult. A blow from an 
oblique 'cut' has a good chance of giving a glancing blow whereas a 
good thrust from a quarterstaff will crack ribs and puncture lungs.
A friend of mine was run into with a pole-axe whilst wearing 3mm 
steel armour (during a re-enactment) which very nearly penetrated 
the armour. Probably the most important factors in the use of 
offensive and defensive battlefield weapons were how cheap they were 
to produce (swords being hellishly expensive even today), and how 
far they allowed your opponent to come. It is probable that the main 
reason why a dismounted man-at-arms was so vulnerable to being cut 
to pieces once knocked off his horse was that they were then 
resorting to using their secondary weapon, the sword. 

Re:Blocking (with pole arms). Blocking is a very alien notion to a 
martial artist, at least a western one. You would never put your 
weapon in the path of a cut, but the side of your weapon to deflect 
the blow whilst simultaneously presenting an attack of your own. 
Some weapons, the very big double handed swords, where specifically 
designed to cut through pike hafts, but these were very impractical 
once the melee developed.

Re: The pike. The effectiveness of the pike lies in the training and 
cohesion of the unit armed with this weapon. These units were used 
as heavy infantry, although were often lightly armoured. They did 
indeed defend well against cavalry, but then so did all pole arm 
wielding foot units. Units of pike were also devastating when used 
against infantry. Unless you can break the line of pikes there is 
not much you can do to break the unit. There are a number of 
historical battles (I am sorry I can't remember which - will have to 
go back to my books) in which poorly trained pike units where wiped 
of the face of the battlefield because once the wall of pikes if 
broken the weapon is practically useless. As the use of small arms 
developed so the pike got longer, reaching its longest length in 
order to defend itself from contemporary cavalry armed with light 
side arms, the pike kept the cavalry at the weapons maximum 
effective range! Whilst the pikeman was standing with lead bouncing 
off him the musqueteers where taking pot shots. I'd rather be an 
infantry man any day of the week.

I will only go so far as to make one suggestion as to how these 
observations might be incorporated into rules but would be willing 
to ask others in my martial arms group and other groups for their 
opinions as to how to codify this if you all felt it might be 
worthwhile. My suggestion is to restrict the pike and lance to 
battlefield situations because their use outside massed combat 
renders their wielders practically undefended.

Regards

Rupert