Armor boy apparently also has a sword, but decided to blow his wad (hah, black powder joke) before drawing it XD
Yea, being more serious the dude is light cavalry and a predecessor to the dragoons - with an important duty to harass the enemy and their cavalry with caracole attacks etc. Even pistol and musket cavalry would often be forced to fight in melee when charged by enemy cavalry and especially with a musket you'd better have that shot fired before closing in as even lances were being discarded unused when the units began mixing into eachother, not a lot of time to start organizing your firearms at that point. Polish Hussars for instance had a lanyard hanging from their wrist that was attached to their saber so that when they ditched the Kopia they could with a quick wrist move grab a hold of the saber very quickly. Besides in the picture the dying man's horse is already sort of prone which gives the impression that he was merely desperately trying to defend himself with his sword as his unit was being overrun by heavy cavalry. Not sure if they were but by the amount of armor on the heavy cavalry riders they could very well be lancers who had by now ditched their lances and were now resorting to their pistols before moving on to swords. Warhammers were found to be inferior in cavalry combat to swords, harder to retrieve and more tip heavy etc. Given their advantage here the heavy cavalry would not likely be quick to withdraw but would prefer to just crush their foe quickly using their superior shock and armor but they also have the option of starting to withdraw once having fired their pistols to reload and possibly retrieve a new lance if they were lancers. It's also possible that they may have more than one pistols to be able to stay in the fight longer before withdrawing to recover before next charge.
Since I went through the trouble of copying this from the book by hand I thought of sharing this piece of Fabris's advise on passing and attacking with a rapier:
As much as I try to go the path of becoming more skillful I tried to explain to my friend some ago how Buhurt is historically correct: Since long ago it was customary for the knights to gather to Tournaments where some of them would fight on foot or horseback with oversized overprotective tournament-gear while bonking each other with blunt swords and the like and also brawling until one or the other yielded! It looked fun back then and it hurts to this day!
A friend criticized this scene from the movie Troy I just had to point out that it is a historically practiced serious fighting style. And not just historically practiced serious fighting style - but one developed at the University of Padua, one of the most famous centers for development of martial arts with means of science where fencing master professors would apply early scientific methods of mathematics and geometry as well as practical testing to refine their martial arts fighting styles which had an ample amount of opportunity to be tried and tested not just in sparring but in real fights from duels to warfare. As to why? When using one handed swords you will reach the furthest by rotating your hips and upper body fully counter-clockwise as viewed from above to reach the furthest extent. This also allows a lunging step to be performed rapidly and by reversing the rotation you can retract that step very rapidly to recover yourself from the attack if you do not wish to push further forward. Normally we don't have anything in the other hand meaning there is no proper counterweight - just the empty hand. Having an actual weight of roughly the same order of magnitude as the sword allows for much more forceful and balanced rotations. Now, it is not incorrect to point out that the shield is not protecting you much when placed behind you. But the shield never covers all of you, you're always somewhere open - legs open, head open, the shield is in front or on one side. If it's in front your sword is retracted and has poor reach. If it's on side it's not on the other side etc. And since the fight won't end until you at some point hit your opponent (preferably well enough to end the fight) you will eventually be defeated if you just defend because no defense is ever perfect. And this is where the concept of tempo comes in. It means both 'time' and 'opportunity'. As you see a tempo to wound your opponent it means a few things: - there is an opening on the opponent - he is undergoing some action that creates an opportunity to attack since he cannot be doing two mutually exclusive actions simultaneously - you have an attack that by it's time fits into that tempo - you are within reach A tempo is NOT - being in range - opponent having an opening - opponent being idle and ready In this latter case if you attack the opponent will react to your attack with a parry, nullifying the attack. In the aforementioned case you don't have to defend - the tempo means you can deliver an attack safely and get out of there. It could be while shielding yourself or by opening your defenses, depending on situation. If you wish to end the fight and win you'll eventually have to do something, take a tempo. And if tempos are not presented you have to create one. Feinting is a good way to create a tempo. Feints always lead to an attack or they are performed wrong. Attack at an open target forcing the opponent to parry. If he doesn't parry you attack that opening. If he parries you use the parry as a tempo to attack another target with the same motion. Because you have good control and situational awareness you can even open up yourself fully when you take the appropriate precautions and wait for the right moment to do so and can more easily and more quickly deliver a wound proactively even if your opponent simply 'turtles'.
I would also point out that while the shield may not be defending you from your immediate opponent, it's going to make it pretty damn hard for someone to snipe you from behind with the shield covering your head and much of your upper torso. Doesn't mean they couldn't go for a crippling blow, but backstabs work best when they're the last blow, not just one of many. It also protects against most downward cleaving blows from behind, though hopefully the enemy that takes the effort to get that close without being noticed isn't going to aim for the shield. One might also realize that the shield is not always a defensive tool, and if the opportunity was to present itself, throwing a full force shield bash is going to ruin a lot of enemies chances of winning fair maiden ever again. It actually kinda reminds me of one of my favorite fencing styles where one holds the blade above one's head, with the open hand leading. It's considered a 'weak' position because you've only got two real avenues for attack and your sword is not easily able to defend against attacks, particularly low attacks, however the style plays to that weakness and the expectation of the enemy. It's a gamble but it's also quite easy to force your opponent into attacks from the direction you expect them to simply because it would seem foolish to attack differently when you've given them such an opening. Being able to anticipate where the blade is going to come from changes the stance from very weak to very strong, allowing you to react before they've even really begun their action, whether you choose to attack or defend (typically attack, it was a very aggressive style and it did not lend itself to long drawn out battles, once your opponent realizes how you're reading them they'll begin to change things up which destroys your advantage.) I could imagine the shield being used much the same way, I mean, a solid brass or bronze shield smashing down on a brass or bronze or even an iron blade with significant force is liable to shatter the thing.
I discussed this with someone who knew Agrippa and he said that the right fencer is opening up a line of attack with his shield out of the way. This is an 'invitation' or sometimes called 'opening up'. The left fencer sees the opening, thinks it's foolish to lower one's defenses and rushes in an attack - but the right fencer was expecting just that exact reaction and performs a perfect counter-attack without even touching the left's blade. Fabris calls this move 'girata of the front leg', you lift your leg and as you are stepping with it you turn it around in the air. Now holding the shield in your arm allows you to use it as a counterweight and allows you to bring your hips and torso further backwards relative to your new facing or to the right relative to the original line between the two of you, distancing your targets from the opponents blade, voiding by positioning yourself and creating a new line. From this position it is also easy to defend your body with your sword if need be as the opponent's sword is left out of line to the inside. The shields used here are iron (or steel) rotella shields with wrist grips. Wrist grip shields are not ideal for shield bashing, center grip shields are better for this but even with center grip shields but not always. The most aggressive shield I've seen is the Italian Lantern Shield, one of which was recreated for Nick Thomas of the Academy of Historical Fencing. It's been made sparring friendly but the real one has a sharp jagged spike in the center and a full sized sword attached parallel to the wrist. There are also other aggressive shield types: Falchions and iirc. Hungarian Shields. Apparently there were whole classes of light infantry specializing in fighting with a sword and a small shield but indeed since the Roman times I don't think anyone managed to recreate the sword and shield heavy infantry as the main body of infantry - the closest to it are the Rodeleros who had full plate armor, shield and a sidesword or rapier and they were quite effective aboard ships and on many of the expeditions but indeed due to the significant role of cavalry and it's impact no such infantry could operate on it's own or face being ridden down. As well as having great difficulty against pike blocks.
Yeah that sounds like it. I've had a shield design similar to that kicking around since I was in grade school, nice to see there's some historic precedent.
Oh yea, that feeling of "holy shit! They had one!" I always theorized that after passing the tip of the opponent's blade you'd want to proceed to his body so he can't cut or stab you further. Then reading Fabris he said it exactly so! Though yea most of the stuff has been "oh really" and "aha I see" but those couple of times when you have your long term concepts validated by actual historic figures? Yea. And I bet you've heard more than once "oh no, akchually, it wouldn't work", "shield bashing is barbarian fantasy" bla bla. Well, see, some didn't feel that a huge steel knob - the boss - wasn't enough to punch with and added a spike to it, others made the spike even bigger and then these guys added a sword. In Scotland they essentially had dirk and targe form a union as a single offhand weapon that lended itself to offense as well.
See, I've heard all kinds of arguments, but really the only argument that ever really bears water is practicality. While it's nice to have the extra offensive potential on your off hand, in the end it's that much extra weight, combined with well, now it's got a lot more pokey bits in inconvenient areas. Add to that the simple effects of wear and tear (it's still a SHIELD, if you're not blocking with it, you might as well just have another weapon!) and the practicality dwindles in the face of broken spikes and constant maintenance. While I'm certain there were probably a few of very high quality that were worth the constant upkeep, most shields were simple and effective because it meant even when they took a serious beating they were still capable of doing what they needed to do.
They don't need a whole lot of upkeep. Just the basic oil treatment or even wax, I sometimes get one oil treatment just so right that my stuff can go on for months of practice without needing any other maintenance than checking for burs which is just a safety thing for blunt training sword. For real swords it's even less than that with the exception of sharpening but if you do the sharpening well and have a nice wooden scabbard or so then it's really not going to dull on it's own or even from doing cutting practice. Iron or steel shield - it's just going to keep on going, the wooden plank shields are a whole another matter and especially on the wooden ones the leather requires some occasional care as well as proper storaging. Because, while murder and fights were very common most people would for most ages spend their entire lives carrying a sword and not using it once in a fight. So your shield would not get all mangled up from being hit on. On the other hand if it did get hits on it - remember the survivorship bias. At that point you'd be very happy to see your shield broken, considering your torso and arms cannot be bought from a shop. But all in all you're right - whatever a person carries on his person is his own decision except for when customs, laws or contracts define them otherwise. So, 13th century city - you might not be allowed certain weapons in certain cities. Outside the city you could carry anything you like, "you could drive around with a catapult". But you wouldn't because of how inconvenient that would be. Still many ordinary people could and would carry spears, polearms and swords, axes and maces, at the very least a staff or a cudgel. Then there's the 16th to 17th centuries when everyone except soldiers who regarded themselves as gentlemen would carry at least the rapier and possibly also the dagger unless it was illegal to have a dagger. In any case it's easy to see why the buckler was quite popular - it's small, light, can be all metal and is easy and quite convenient to carry with you and has most of the advantages of a shield for self defense purposes.
I'm not referring to the general maintenance in this case, I'm referring to the, my shield just got the fuck smashed out of it kinda maintenance. A steel shield can take a hell of a beating, but a spike attached to said shield is a whole 'nother story. Then of course there's general carry, sure you could have a scabbard made to cover the pointy bits on your shield, but it's another thing you're going to have to keep track of, and in the moment, discard. Enemy's not gonna wait for you to get your scabbard sorted so you can recover it later. Of course what's legal and what's available are another thing, only the very wealthy or those who rely entirely upon their gear to stay alive are likely to commission something outside of the 'normal' scope for their area. Legality might also encourage some unusual designs, a shield could hide a number of things with a clever enough design and get little more than a cursory glance to determine if it appears normal (no x-ray back then, not like you'd get much penetration on a steel shield anyway) and maybe rather than having to work it out from it's hiding place you might arrange a stabby point along the shields edge. I know that it was quite a common practice to carry sheath and shield together, I'd have found it quite difficult to believe noone thought to combine the two
Usually the buckler hangs on the sheathed sword, I hear this is where the term 'swashbuckler' comes from. While it's possible to see any number of ways to carry, certain ways were popular because they worked so well and people were keen to imitate good practices they saw on others. Certainly wandering about for a few days in the wilderness will earn appreciation for ergonomy. As to 'after battle damage', that's always an afterthought preserved to if you actually survive - for surviving alive is the only thing that tends to matter. This is why we see some fencing masters making a killing with 'intensive crash course for duelists' kind of deals - it cost you a heck of a lot of money to hire the city's best fencing master for yourself for a month but then it appears that more than one persons were willing to dip into their savings and cough that sum up. Even if you ended up in debt would be OK - you'd still be alive. At least in the times when duels tended to be until death, eg. not the 18th to 19th century with it's "we draw pistols and both of us intentionally miss and call it a day" and frowning upon the guy who actually aims at his opponents in a duel. Ordinary regular swords and shields etc. were not especially costly but you'd also have to define who we're talking about, where and what decade. For the wealth varied, some people would get a letter of recruitment (translation?) and could raise a whole company and take charge of it and paying for much of the gear for the squad leaders (whatever they would be called in the given context) and the formation. Meanwhile an ordinary worker too could in most places and times especially since 13th century afford a sword and some other gear if he wanted to. Remember that people didn't usually blow away their money as it came but tended to save a huge part of their income for bad times, this is why banditry doesn't work today and why it worked back then - people were often carrying sizable savings with them, even the lower classes. Unlike today if you go rob someone they may have something like one day's pay with them, back then they might have a year's salary or so. Considering cheapest swords only cost something like 5-15 days salary for the lowest classes or ~2-4 days salary for soldiers, ~10 days for a laborer in a city, it's really not an investment equal to a new car even to get just some sword or weapon. The 'squad leader' types too often had to buy the gear for their 'squad', they would often receive a higher initial payment but also they would form their unit at a loss and recover that investment over time from the salary and then make profit. Still, plenty of people around being able to buy not weapons but actual horses. And in many places if you could afford to buy a few horses that meant that you could form your own cavalry squad (3-4 horsemen or so), you might even get some kind of a title corresponding with your status but this might not yet be a formal societal class - but in cases it could be possible to then try to advance up to get enlisted in a noble unit and earn nobility or similar higher up social status. The weapons weren't really as expensive as some people make them be - what was expensive were the horses! Especially good horses bred for war were very expensive and they tended to have massive differences in individual cost. I remember reading of a Hussar who's superior shot his horse and he insisted the horse was worth 600 zloty. Their salary ranged from 20 to 50 zloty and one squad leader (towarzysz) commented it cost him 1,600 zloty when he bought a three horse poczet (3-horse hussar unit) from his brother and "I did not overpay". What's especially interesting to me is that in many places a soldier would be recruited for one tour at a time, which could easily range from spring to autumn. He'd receive a signing commission and then perhaps quarterly pays, after the term was over they'd get disbanded but might again be reformed. This for the non-standing formations, there were also the standing formations. It was not uncommon apparently that people would only do one tour, especially among nobles who would simply go serve once to collect a certain title and prestige for having served. Also to be fair some nobles and soldiers would at times be motivated to when needed to go on fighting without pay and without being required to by law. In any case, sure, if you own anything ever that is several months to a year or more of your salary - it will be an investment and you will want to take care of it. Affordable weapons and gear were increasingly available since 13th century and salaries and purchasing power improved, the economy grew.
After action repair isn't an afterthought when you're attempting to design something that is out of the ordinary and you're going to have to either repair or replace it every time it gets destroyed in combat. It's easy to find an armorsmith and grab the next shield of the type you like off the rack of shields, slab some paint on it to match your lords colors (if necessary) and be done. Not so easy to ask that armorsmith to build you something he's never built before, and do it quickly enough that you can get back to it. Especially if your original is barely recognizable. On top of that, just commissioning the original itself could be a sizable investment, unless you happened to know someone or were yourself a craftsman. Even then time could be difficult to come by to try anything out of the ordinary for the average Joe. Soldiers might not always be fighting but they were usually kept busy lest they be useless when they're needed. Of course once you have a new thing, you've gotta be allowed to -use- the thing, and most rank and file units were not often open to experimentation. Experimentation meant you probably would not be as useful as you might have been with a standard weapon. Yes, trained horses were expensive. Why you think most people fought on foot? It'd be really difficult to grasp just how that life was for us, without breaking down and just living it for a year or so. We tend to romanticize things and gloss over those parts of it that were unattractive. A knight would have a horse is one of those things, in some circumstances he might have a horse but be indebted beyond his means to repay simply because he's required to have a horse. They had some very interesting and creative ways of handling a paradox like that, some of which were certainly not beneficial towards the cause thereof, but there was very little they could do about it. Clothing is another one of those things, we're pretty spoiled nowadays, though the materials are often of cheaper make they're readily available to just about everyone.
Oh yea, I was reading through reserach made on inheritance records which is a great place to find out about the wealth and possessions of people - and one of the lines of research is clothing. It was damn interesting to see that even what amounts to a multimillionaire today, a rich merchant's wife would only typically have one really good outfit, a good outfit and three or so ordinary everyday outfits. And that would be the whole clothes collection! Now of course the everyday outfit itself would be far better than the best outfit of a wealthy farmer's wife would have and indeed there was a thing such as "dressing outside of your class" as depicted in written record of an open condemnation offered to a burgher's wife by a noblewife in Turku, the noblewoman commenting "oh, it looks like mrs. burgherwoman is all dressed up noble-like!" And spot on with that notion of falling into debt for your inherited military obligations! In places where a noble title would be hereditary and would include mandatory military service as well as potentially requirements of providing a number of men and the estate had fallen less productive people really got into serious trouble. In fact where some nobles would in places only do 'one tour' and be done with it others found that because their estate was so poor that they could not retire from the military and became professional troops, serving well into their 50's or so - it could take years to cover the actual price of your gear and horse etc. - for a Polish Hussar it could be around 2.5 years in many cases - but after you had covered the cost you were making a decent income from your service. As for there being thought placed to the maintenance of equipment, some equipment was indeed easy to maintain and others were not. Also good looking equipment tended to be important and people would invest to it if they could and sometimes their company master would provide it like the Rotmistrz paying out of his own pocket to provide things like the clothes and leopard skins for his company - though the leopard skins typically being only for the first rank 'squad leader' Towarzysz who would be tasked with recruiting their own poczet squad of retainers who would have 'munitions grade' armor. And when there simply wasn't enough money or equipment around exceptions were made. There's a record from one of the Dutch archipelago counties lamenting that they could not acquire the horses to mount themselves as was required and pointing out that their traditional warfare does not involve horses but is more marine like or on ships, which was then excused for them. Another example is when Poland's Hussar forces were almost completely annihilated and in the subsequent years they had to simply tolerate that the newly formed units were lacking much the equipment that was meant to be standard - such as the retainers or 2/3's of the formation having no armor at all. Also lances - lances simply broke and lancers simply ran out of them especially on a campaign. You couldn't just make a bunch of new lances just like that, there could be carts upon carts of spare lances but when they ran out they'd need to get proper lances from a lance maker. Until then lancers would use their swords and indeed many cavalries had some good swords that could be used similarly to a short steel lance but sabers and especially heavy cavalry sabers eventually became very popular but never replaced straight swords being used lance-like. Back to clothing, replacing tattered and broken clothing tended to provide reasonable extra cost for armies - and was definitely a noticeable cost and not below even officers being tasked to acquire suitable cloth during a campaign. Experimentation also happened but usually experimentation was up to the lord level actors. Such as a iirc. Dutch king trying to bring back sword and shield heavy infantry - because if it worked for Roman legionaries why couldn't it work now? Well, it didn't take off well, they weren't good against heavy cavalry lancers or pikemen. Many kinds of things were tried out though and many of them were utterly forgotten - "let's not talk about that". British experimental 'flying artillery', quickly forgotten Girandoni Air Rifle, it was actually a really good weapon but the pressure canisters quickly lost pressure and logistics proved difficult I can't remember too many things from the top of my head, I'm sleep deprived and tired but there were many things that were tried out and during wars many armies changed a lot and whole unit types would get often disbanded entirely as they were found to be utterly useless - and not just because of their weapons but some would simply have negative combat value due to other things such as their morale.
Details details! How is it not functional? Blunt or is it of a metal other than steel or just flimsy? Because, considering that you can't really effectively spar with the greatsword most people who own them primarily practice with going through the 'rules' or what the motions are called in various systems and in slow speed technical pair drills or very low intensity sparring. Thus the requirements on the sword are not as intense as for something like a rapier or feder and most things will do just great!
It is both blunted (though that's relatively easy to fix) and comprised of a general purpose stainless that is not really meant for being sharpened and hardened. It looks pretty. I could club someone to death with it. But it's not really much of a greatsword than a pretty looking steel greatclub that is marginally pointy XD (No estoc this is)
