Using an Axe

[Patrick Waterson]

Something slightly different: close combat using a hand weapon in the present era.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/wolf-attack-russian-granny-fights-off-beast-071805743.html


A woman from a village in southern Russia fought off a wolf with her bare hands and killed it with an axe.

Aishat Maksudova, from Novo Biryuzyak village in the Dagestan region, was in a group of villagers herding cows and sheep.  The 56-year-old heard the cry of a calf being attacked and rushed to scare off the wolf but it turned on her.

"I was not even frightened. I stood like this, holding an axe like this. And the wolf, with an open mouth suddenly jumped on me. Jumped like that. The wolf bit at my arm and I wanted to hit him with the axe," Ms Maksudova said.

In a reversal of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale where a granddaughter saves her grandmother from being eaten by a wolf, this Russian grandmother took fate in her own hands.

"When I raised my arm up like this, the wolf was just holding my hand. Trying to bite my hand. I wanted to open his mouth and put my fist all the way there, all the way to his throat. But I could not open it.

"So I just left my hand, and the wolf was just holding into it, pulling on it, pulling away like this. And then I took the axe and hit him on his head," she said.

Ms Maksudova needed hospital treatment after being bitten.  Her fellow villagers have vowed to hunt down other wolves in the area.

The axe (a woodcutting model) seems to have been quite effective, and was used in what appears to have been the traditional axe-in-battle manner: hit the opponent's head.

Patrick

[Mark]

Something slightly different: close combat using a hand weapon in the present era.

If you regard that as a novelty, I'll take you out for a beer in Aldershot next time you're in the vicinity. Albeit these days it's mainly well behaved Gurkhas.

[Patrick Waterson]

You are a gentleman, sir!

My impression is that it was customary to use the axe against a foe's cranium, whereas the sword would by preference be used against the torso and the spear against any part of the foe that got in the way.  It is nice to see Russian grandmothers keeping up the old traditions!

[aligern]

Whatever the weapon an unprotected head has to be the best option. The body is too well defended by ribs for a stroke to be certain, unless you are using a quarter inch chisel or weapon with equivalent profile.

An advantage with a head shot is that, if you hit but don't kill you may well cause concussion and render the enemy defenceless whereas a  strike on the body that does not get through will leave him still fighting.
I bet you didn't know that our esteemed editor haunted the streets of Aldershot at pub chucking out time to research combat techniques and wound effects.
Roy


Roy

[Mark]

It's a lot less lively since the paras left.

I would have thought that since the head might typically protected by 1. a helmet, 2. arms, 3. whatever the arms are holding - weapon and/or shield, if one had a weapon with sufficient reach one would go for the legs, preferably around the knee level. A hamstrung opponent can then be finished off on the ground.

[aligern]

 HMMM just hold back there whilst I benddown and aim for your legs, exposing my head as I do so.
Hereoic Vikings and Celts just batter down the raised arms. Helmets are a bit of a party spoiler though, explaining why Roman helmet technology became so developed.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

As far as I can see the standard idea was to use an axe on the head (Danish axes allowed a bit more leeway), a shortsword to the ribs or abdomen and a spear against the neck, preferably just above the collarbone.  Against an unshielded opponent, or one who was careless with his shield, anything was a good target.  Euripides' Phoenissae records the duel between Polyneices and Eteocles, with the latter stumbling and exposing a leg outside shield cover: Polyneices promptly stuck his spear into it.  This would have worked out well if Eteocles had not seized the moment, closed in and thrust his own spear into Polyneices' 'shouder' which, as they were both wearing 'coats of brazen mail', presumably meant the collarbone area or the armpit.  Either way, it ended the fight.

In practice men tended to go for what could be hit, so in the fight against the Insubres in Polybius II.33 the Romans closed up tight against their opponents and jabbed away at chests and faces until the Gauls went down through blood loss.

The Egyptians seem to have been pioneers in the field of organised axe usage (actually they seem to have begun with the mace and brought in the axe as soon as their metallurgy was up to it) and it is perhaps no coincidence that Herodotus gives them credit for inventing the helmet.

Poor old Seqnenre Tao could certainly have done with one! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1769615/figure/f1/

Patrick

[Erpingham]

As far as I can see the standard idea was to use an axe on the head (Danish axes allowed a bit more leeway), a shortsword to the ribs or abdomen and a spear against the neck, preferably just above the collarbone.
Patrick

Some interesting discussion of the frequency of leg wounds in this article
http://www.thearma.org/essays/LegWounds.htm
I know not everyone accepts John Clement's view of medieval combat but he does use a good range of sources.

Also well worth a look is this summary of Viking combat from the sagas
http://www.hurstwic.org/library/arms_in_sagas/weapon_use_summary.htm

Lots of graphs but keep going through.  As you will see, head attacks are common, as are body and legs but not arms.  Axe blows are most commonly at the head but sword blows are also frequently at the legs.

[aligern]

Very interesting, Anthony, though one crucial distinction is missing and that is whether the combat is  during a duel or in a battle line. I do wonder sometimes about the re enactment of combat  if it is not affected by the re enactors beig in such small numbers.  I would have thought that in line the variety of attacks is much more restricted. Of course, if the melee breaks up then it is much more like  a series of duels. I would have thought that in the main phase of battle the area taking most blows is the shield and that the aim would be to get around it at the head or front of the body or to disable an arm or wrist by cutting tendons.  To get the leg tendons the opponent would have to turn??
Roy

[Erpingham]

Very interesting, Anthony, though one crucial distinction is missing and that is whether the combat is  during a duel or in a battle line. I do wonder sometimes about the re enactment of combat  if it is not affected by the re enactors beig in such small numbers.  I would have thought that in line the variety of attacks is much more restricted. Of course, if the melee breaks up then it is much more like  a series of duels.
Roy

I think we pretty much agree on this - see my comments on the line relief thread.  Few of the fights described are in the battle line, where we might expect both a restricted range of blows and also maybe some team work - one man covering another or following up an attack to prevent the attacker exposing himself to blows from sides or rear.

[Patrick Waterson]

And given the typical Viking hauberk's coverage, the legs may have been an inviting target for anyone without an armour-piercing weapon.

[Mark]

It's a question of reach (and this in turn is going to be tied to upper body strength) ... if you have better reach then you have a lot more choices. If the weapon shaft is not long enough to outreach the opponent, and if the axe is two handed, then as Roy says you effectively have to drop your guard to swing at a lower body target (assuming you're on level ground and the opponent is unmounted).