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Category: Phillosoph

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Phillosoph

Supercavitating Machine-Gun Bullets.

In 1957 a British Government White Paper proposed cutting funding to manned interceptor projects in favour of developing surface to air missile systems. As should have been obvious, but evidently was not, this was a very foolish decision. If in a total war footing it may be possible to destroy any aircraft entering your airspace with missiles. In most other situations it is prudent to intercept and confirm that a target is in fact hostile. Much of the cold war was spent with fighters intercepting intruding aircraft and driving them off, with never a shot fired. Such actions are of course impossible for a missile.
A similar situation occurs with naval operations. A modern warship or submarine can destroy a target at hundreds of miles range, but more commonly a target needs to be visually verified. It may need to be boarded and searched to confirm it is what it seems. If it is hostile, a captured vessel will yield more useful intelligence than one that is sunk. If shots need to be exchanged, it will often be a warning shot or a burst to disable the engines. Large calibre shells and missiles are not suited to such tasks. For these reasons the machine gun is an important but often overlooked weapon for naval operations, be it mounted on boat, helicopter or warship.
Last night, while researching some information on supercavitating torpedoes I came across some references to supercavitating bullets. I came across the idea of applying supercavitation to rifle calibre bullets a few years ago in the context of deep penetration rounds for big game hunting. When supercavitation features are applied to bullets they also have an extended range when fired into the water. For example, the 30mm cannon round being developed has a through-water range against mines of at least 75 feet.

Supercavitating rounds of smaller calibres have also been developed and have an obvious application for naval machine guns. With a longer underwater range machineguns can be used for the destruction of underwater mines and have a better capability against enemy frogmen. There has been some suggestions that such weapons can be used against torpedoes. By the time a torpedo gets into machine gun range things will be pretty desperate so there is nothing lost in trying this by then I suppose. In larger (cannon) calibres supercavitating rounds may have a more practical application against torpedoes if a ship’s CIWS system can be programmed to also engage underwater targets.
There are a couple of things I wonder about supercavitating machine gun ammo. Would the rounds have an acceptable performance through air at likely engagement ranges? Many of the targets likely to be engaged by naval machine guns will be of wooden planking or sheet metal, so does the round have adequate penetration against these? If the answers to these questions of performance are positive these rounds is we may see small calibre supercavitating rounds adopted more widely for naval service.
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Phillosoph

Boarding Pikes

The boarding pike has a very long history. Spears and javelins have probably been used on board ships at the very start of naval warfare. In the Royal Navy boarding pikes remained in service on board ships until 1926.
When we imagine shipboard combat, the cutlass is the weapon that springs to mind. Many fighters throughout the ages and across the world appreciate that a competently used quarter staff is generally superior to a sword. The boarding pike is essentially a staff with a metal point added. Not only can it defend its user, but also parry attacks against nearby comrades.
The boarding pike was to evolve over the ages, and in its final form it had a number of interesting design features.
Length of boarding pike varied. Some were as long as 10 or 12 feet but typically they were between 7 and 9 feet. (Note that examples in museums have sometimes been cut down for display) Regular readers will know this is the size recommended by many western and eastern martial traditions as being the optimum length for a long fighting staff, or a spear capable of being wielded in one hand.
Early boarding pikes had broader leaf-shaped blades and this design persisted longer in US Navy service than among the European sea powers. Spear heads are seldom used as cutting weapons. To cut effectively a blade must strike edge on and not be canted either in delivery or upon impact. Most weapons intended for cutting have an oval or polygonal section grip to facilitate this. Spears, on the other hand, usually have simple round section shafts. Many designs of boarding pike accordingly had triangular, square or diamond section spike like blades.

One of the reasons for the popularity of the spike was doubtless that it was simple to mass-produce, but it also had other advantages. The spike head was quite light, making the weapon faster and more agile. The spike penetrated efficiently and was also easy to withdraw, being less likely than a broader blade to jam in areas such as the ribs. As many readers will have heard, a triangular section blade is supposed to create a self-supporting wound that remains open and bleeds more freely rather than closing. This may also be true of a sufficiently sized square or diamond section blade.
Most boarding pike heads incorporated langets, which are metal straps or reinforcements that extend down the shaft, a useful feature for a weapon that might have to deal with blows from cutlasses or boarding axes.

Another notable design feature on many boarding pikes was that the head was narrower than the shaft, a feature that theoretically was supposed to limit penetration. One might wonder here why some form of arresting device such as a crossbar was not incorporated, as is seen on many hunting and military polearms used on the land. The answer is that the boarding pike was intended to be used in an environment where rigging and netting that might catch on a projection was commonly encountered. While I have seen a few illustrations of boarding pikes fitted with a backward facing hook the majority are designed to be free of projections.

Another interesting design feature is found at the other end of the boarding pike shaft. Around 1800 the Royal Navy was issued with a standardized design of pike. Having been designed by experienced soldiers it featured a metal spike on the butt. On board ship it was soon found this spike damaged the deck and would become embedded in the wood when the pike was grounded. Boarding pikes generally have a wooden butt. Some have a metal collar or fitting near the butt through which a wooden section of butt projects, and blunt brass fittings are sometimes found too.
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Phillosoph

Halloween!!

Following the success of last year’s “How to Survive a Slasher Movie” and the sequel I wanted to post something memorable for this year’s Halloween.

Will it be something scary? Something funny? Or will it salute the connection between Halloween and confectionery? I have found something that does all of these and more!
Be warned!
This is Not Suitable For Work.!
You may find it disturbing!
It may not be suitable for those of faint heart or weak stomach!
Yes, I am serious!
Having been so warned, click the link if you dare,
Happy Halloween
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Phillosoph

Fighting with Spears

It seems my cold has not done with me yet so I will not be writing a lot today. Instead I am posting some interested spear related-videos. The first few are for the Dagohir LARP events but have some interesting points.
Some interesting information on the one-handed use of spears.
A nice video on the use of Wing Chun pole, since a spear is more than simply a point. Shafts can both parry and strike too.
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Phillosoph

Military Fork

Given the subject matter of the last few blog posts it seems logical that today I feature a polearm with poliorcetic connection.

The military fork is obviously a weapon derived from the agricultural pitchfork. What is interesting is that one reference book I have mentions that it is a particularly useful weapon to have around during a siege. The fork can be used to hold up ladders, or conversely, push them away from walls. It can also be used to raise supplies up to the battlements. The backward facing hooks might have seen application in fighting fires, pulling ignited thatch down from roofs. Given this is essentially a pitchfork, the tines themselves might be used to relocate burning thatch.
As a weapon, the fork part could be used to catch weapons or limbs, perhaps pushing the victim’s guard to one side for the vital seconds needed for a comrade to make an attack. The backward facing hooks could be used to pull an enemy off balance or from his horse. Like many multi-tined weapons, penetration depth would be limited, preventing the weapon burying itself too deep in a target so that it became difficult to withdraw.
A not widely known fact is that the tines of a gladiator’s trident were so spaced that they prevented the likelihood of a point entering the eyehole of another gladiator’s helmet. Blinded gladiators were a poor investment, so trident-armed retarius were therefore always paired with opponents with closed helmets. The military fork seems to have the opposite design strategy. Those two very slender but deadly points would doubtless sometimes menace the eyeholes of an enemy’s visor.
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Phillosoph

Poliorcetics and Kulgrinda

As a change of pace from the recent discussions on pole weapons, today’s blog is instead about a couple of rare but useful terms.
The first is “poliorcetics”, which means pertaining to the science and art of siegecraft, both its application and resistance. From the Ancient Greek πολιορκητικα (poliorkētika, “things related to sieges”).

The second term is “kūlgrinda”, a Lithuanian word meaning an underwater road or artificial ford. “Kul” means “stone”, so similar structures of wood or earth were known as Medgrindas and Žemgrinda. Underwater bridges were used during the Second, Korean and Vietnam wars, some of them capable of supporting tanks and trucks. I seem to recall in at least one instance the Russians constructed a crossing by driving damaged and obsolete vehicles into a river until they were piled high enough for the troops and tanks to cross safely.
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Phillosoph

Staff Fighting Grip Techniques

My cold is still messing with me, but I am on the mend. There is a severe weather warning for Monday, just in time for me to go back to work!
The cold has been messing with my sleep patterns, so I ended up lying awake in the early hours of the morning, drinking copious amounts of water and my slightly fevered brain processing ideas about quarter staves and naginata. One revelation that came to me was that the seemingly complex and dexterous manipulations of these weapons boiled down to just a few simple principles. Simplifying things down to simple principles is what my book is all about.
  • If your left hand (for example) is near the centre of the staff, bring your right hand to the centre and them move the left hand to grip elsewhere.
  • If one hand grips the staff near the centre, move your other hand from the lower quarter to the upper quarter, or vice-versa.
  • To switch between thumb inward and thumb outward grips release one hand and rotate the wrist.
You may also care to practice the baton twirling technique in the book too.
Watch the naginata video in the previous blog post and you will see that the above simple combinations of hand movements are frequently used.

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Phillosoph

Naginata

I have a cold, so only a brief post today. Following on from the topic of quarterstaffs, a nice video clip of naginata.

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Phillosoph

Perfect Length: Staffs

One of the explanations as to why a quarterstaff is called a quarterstaff is that it is gripped “at the quarters”. One hand is placed a quarter of the way from the bottom and the other is placed at the mid-point of the staff, leaving about half the weapon’s length as the primary striking part. In a previous post I discussed the  “perfect length” of swords and offered the theory that the optimum length of a blade would be that sufficient to defend the remotest part of the body, the ankle/ foot area. For me, being 5' 11" this required a blade of about 28-30.

The same logic can be applied to a fighting staff. The “top” part needs to be about 28-30" for me. For leverage and comfort my hands want to be about shoulder-width apart so the middle part of the staff wants to be at least 18". According to Vitruvian proportions shoulder width should be a quarter of my height. I also want a section of staff projecting below my lower hand for both defensive and offensive purposes but don’t want this so long that it gets in the way when using the primary striking part. About 12" sounds about right. 30 + 18 +12 = 60", or thereabouts. This is a bit shorter than I am, but that is not a bad thing since it makes the staff easier to get through doorways and more useful if fighting indoors or other restrictive terrain.
If we are considering fighting staffs the Japanese bo and jo will come up. The bo is usually the roshakubo (six shaku long staff), which is about 1.82 m or 71.6 inches long. This is probably taller than many historical Japanese bo users. Most staffs sold in martial arts stores these days are around 6 foot length or longer. The jo is usually defined as being 4 foot long but more accurately is 4 shaku, 2 sun, 1 bu = 127.56 cm, 4 foot 4¼ inches or 50¼ inches. An alternate convention is that it should reach up to just under the user’s armpit height, which would be about five-sixths of total height. Readers who know their weapon history will know that the jo was allegedly invented by a bo expert Muso Gonnosuke who wanted a faster and handier weapon after being bested by the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. Although not as well known, the classical Japanese arsenal also includes the goshakubo or 5 shaku staff of 1.52 m or 59.7 inches. If we look further afield we will discover that many martial traditions, from Portugal to India consider around 5 foot to be the preferred length for a fighting staff. Sometimes these are given as measurement related to the user’s stature, suggesting the staff should be as high as the chin, nose or forehead, for example. Many Chinese martial arts consider the correct length for a staff to be up to the user’s eyebrow. An interesting snippet of information is that your eye-height is 93% of your total height so an eyebrow height staff for me would be about 5' 7".
Boy Scout quarterstaff sparring
A good length for a practical fighting staff seems to be within a range from “armpit to brow” height, which for me is from 59" to 67".
Interestingly, 5 foot is the recommended length for a boy scout hiking staff, which reminds us that a fighting staff has many other applications as well as defence.
For techniques on using a fighting staff, see my book Attack, Avoid, Survive: Essential Principles of Self Defence. There is also a brief discussion about hiking staffs in my other book, Survival Weapons: Optimizing Your Arsenal.
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Phillosoph

Plate Armour Mobility

Today's blog post is just a link, but an excellent one on how mobile a fighter could be in plate armour. For more on armoured mobility see here.