If the point of this thread was to help authors portray fights more realistically then in my opinion it is important to actually consider different types of fights aside from the cut-and-paste battles you specifically mentioned they default to. And for that, the concepts of tactical battles, ambushes and underhanded methods would be very useful. Especially when you are fighting for your life. Better be dishonourable than dead and all that.
Oh, believe me. Almost all the fights in my own writing use sneaking around, underhanded methods, and manipulation of perception. I am very aware.
I somewhat consider surprise attacking to be on a different scale though. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I wasn't saying your advantages aren't valid I was talking about their order and what is more advantageous among them.
Reach is (4) Avoid hit. even a short spear offers a lot of advantages from the get-go:
- You are unsure if the opponent will throw it (have to approach more carefully)
- The spear wielder engages you before you engage him (this is very crucial - I did fencing for years as a 6'4" in Sabre division, a tall guy among the shorter and much faster group. and that extra inch in arm span was devastating - I couldn't match their speed for long in order to dictate the distance so I had to rely on my reach to stop and\or hit my opponents before they got close. And at one point I was ranked top 50 in Canada in my division.
- Not only the early engagement allows him to score hits before you get close to hit him (4) he can also threaten you with his weapon to keep you at bay - can't really charge when there is a spear tip right in front of your eyes which would once again dictate his range and not yours (4)
We have some disagreement on this one. At the very least, weapon reach is part of it and skill is another part. Of the two, I would say skill carries around 2/3 of the weight. Your positioning and technique, how well you utilize your weapon regardless of it's length, does a lot more to determine whether or not you get hit than weapon length does.
That is, assuming you actually have a weapon of at least short sword length, or if you are using something shorter then it's got to have some kind of exaggerated quilons or other method of weapon catching.
Un-armed Vs. sword is a concept I trained in Kenjutsu. In practical application, it is all but ridiculous to think it's possible. I suppose I might one day get to the level it's at least feasible if I train at it for years, but that's an absolutely ludicrous amount of muscle memory that has to be built up before the skill of advancing on a sword-wielder un-armed even has a snowball's chance in hell of working.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5862244/
Not a direct quote but the main part of the scientific method in using rigorously tested data. It has to be strict. And yes it is the main part of the research to make sure your sources (and the data from your experiments) is first-rate. It is not really data but anecdotes otherwise.
Alright. Glad you are the one who picked this one up. At least you seem to have some level of academic honesty and are not just out to score points, and you have also linked to a proper scientific journal with your references.
On to addressing the point, when you talk about "quality of data," what is being referred to is generally the rank order of the data, which is as follows.
1. Aggregate research: The data and results of several versions of the same scientific experiment, repeated by multiple different people. This data is very difficult to cheat, and is considered to be of the very highest quality.
2. Peer-reviewed data: Data that has been reviewed by a peer review board, made up of several other people in the same field of research. This introduces a level of gate-keeping into the testing process that usually (although there are some methods to cheat with corrupt board members,) weeds out poorly designed experiments and reviews them for bias.
3. Experimental data: Data from a properly formulated experiment, which has all the proper controls and methodology in place to test the proposed hypothesis.
4. Research data: Data from the reading and aggregation of multiple sources of survey and anecdotal data.
5. Survey data: Data from the polling and questioning of multiple people in the experimental population.
6. Anecdotal data: Collecting stories and accounts pointing to a conclusion. When collecting anecdotal accounts, there is an opportunity for bias in which the researcher may ignore or fail to go through the efforts to collect accounts that disprove the hypothesis. This is an additional opportunity for error beyond the assessed validity of the accounts, and is by most accounts the more severe of the two opportunities for error.
When trying to draw a conclusion, it is best to draw your conclusion using the highest available form of data from the list. This is the quality of data. There are other factors that can be included as well.
1. The rigidity of the controls on the experiment. This is the most important.
2. The validity of the connection between the conclusion in the experiment and the data collected.
3. There is no 3. If you thought I was about to mention the credibility of the person doing the experiment, then you need to go take it up with Socrates. Arguments made on the basis of credibility are worthless before Logos.
The only thing credibility does in terms of your experimental data is it determines who is going to look at it and use it in their research data, and the likelihood of it getting peer reviewed.
Now that that's out of the way, on the subject of long-bow arrows being able to pierce plate armor, that is anecdotal data taken from historical doccuments. In other words, 6th rate data. Taken in aggregate, it becomes research data, which is 4th rate. What the other fellow in here was giving me was street-man's opinion. In other words, not even anecdotal. This qualifies as worthless data.
Now, the video link I provided was Experimental data. That's 3rd rate data, and the experiment was done with some pretty solid controls in place. This makes it the most rigorous experiment I am personally aware of on the subject. It also means it trumps the 4th rate data of the aggregate historical documents unless and until someone can produce experimental data that results in an arrow piercing historically accurate plate armor.
It doesn't matter what you think of the credibility of the guys in the video. If you have a problem, watch the video and try to point out problems in their methodology. It is all well documented as they tell you every step in the process they are taking. It would be considered sloppily written and a professor would cringe if they saw a transcript of the video presented as a scientific document, but it is very much presented in a way that could be considered an audio form of scientific research notes and data collection.
Unless someone can present me with peer review, agragate experimental data, or a more rigorous experiment that produces longbows piercing platemail, we are going to have to toss out our current interpretation of the historical doccuments that have mention of longbow arrows piercing armor as meaning that it goes through the breast-plate, and consider that it might be talking about something else.
(Yes, if you look at the experimental data without bias and without trying to score points, that's exactly what the test proves. Long-bow arrows shot from a 170lb war bow cannot pierce steel breastplate with a properly faceted triangular shape if it hits it straight-on. If this experiment was cleaned up a little and presented in front of a scientific review board, the conclusion they would draw from it is "needs more testing." However, it would, as I said, also throw the historical texts into question, or at least our current interpretations of them.)
