ianw_at_magna.com.au - good to see other australians raving on the list - says
>Arms get hit fairly rarely in SCA - I would say 30% of shots would hit
>the head, 40% the legs, 20% the body and 10% the arms. 2 reasons for this
>(1) heads and bodies are kills, and (ii) most styles are "square" is
>sheild in front, body at 90 degrees and arm tucked near the ear pointing
>the sword back or down. Most SCA fighters dont wear much arm armour -
>just an elbow
>cop, because less weight on the arm is less heavy, leading to higher tip
>speeds. Definitly, have most sheild-arm hits hit the sheild - all except
>a parry fumble I'd say. Sword arm I'd reduce to a 1 in 20 chance - weight
>the rest to the head, which tends to be easier to hit than RQ rules
>indicate.
Which I couldn't agree more with, yay!
But he also says
>Mongols and Couched Lances : Couched lances(is tucked under the arm) was
> a Frankish thing - according to what evidence exists, even the
>Franks used overarm styles often (eg Bayeaux tapestry). At a rough guess,
>nobody else needed that level of impact - an overarm jab didnt risk
>leaving the damn thing stuck in your enemy, leaving you off your horse
>and/orshort a weapon (maybe a riding roll if more than x damage is done
>?).
To which I must comment that the west franks (which in terms of weapons systems included the Normans of Normandy) were armoured overarm jabbing with spear cavalry from the time of Charlemagne, the use of the couched lance came later to the Normans of Normandy from the Normans of Sicily/Southern Italy who picked it up fighting the Byzantines in Italy in the 10th and 11th centuries. The Austrasian and Neustrasian (sp) Franks were even later adopters.
Couched lances do not actually require the stirrup, before the stirrup a high cantled saddle could be used to provide structural support to the lancer. Which is why lances predate the stirrup.
One more incoherrent post later
Aden
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