SoA Forums

Quote from: skb777 on April 15, 2025, 11:43:40 AMdid they really fight by charging headfirst at each other with lances or is this just a romance/joust thing?

No, in a joust you ran parallel with each other. Head on collisions did occur but it was accidental. In the 15th century, as a health and safety measure, they put a barrier running down the tiltyard to keep the riders from colliding. There is a nice image of this form of joust in the Medievalist article.

Thanks, Kim, that is helpful.

I've just found a Wikipedia reference to the combination "fuyue" being used in martial arts contexts for halberd - "Fuyue (halberds of various types)". There are other references to the compound term - as a symbol of Imperial-derived authority in both ancient and late-Imperial periods. This reinforces the idea that we're probably looking at one word, though doesn't help much as to what the weapon actually looked like.

I'm not sure I can take something serious that begins with 'Physics Students Do the Math'

I don't know the first thing about Medieval warfare did they really fight by charging headfirst at each other with lances or is this just a romance/joust thing?

I know these sort of quantifications are all the rage but I do wonder what their value is. For one thing it seems there are too many variables and unknowns to make any force calculation (or strength calculation or penetration calculation or whatever it is) really meaningful. But even if some widely agreed number was arrived at, so what? We know a lance strike could knock a man off a horse (because, jousting). We also know lots of other outcomes were available (like lance breaking, or missing, or hitting a limb and bouncing off). What new knowledge or understanding is gained by arriving at some number for force of impact (in circumstances x, given variables y)?

An interesting comparison is this

https://www.academia.edu/33789994/AN_EXPERIMENTAL_INVESTIGATION_OF_LATE_MEDIEVAL_COMBAT_WITH_THE_COUCHED_LANCE

Note the considerable difference in impact energy calculations.

I think one error in this new paper is to calculate that all the possible energy from the knight/horse combo is transfered to the target whereas a lot is retained as the combo continues to move (unlike a Honda Civic hitting a wall). The target is also not rigid - if you do it right the parts of the target separate out and the knight part flies through the air and crashes to the ground. The destruction of the lance also absorbs energy.

Incidentally, the abstract of the paper at Physics Special Topics states

"A knight wielding a lance riding upon a destrier warhorse at full gallop delivers a blow with the energy of a typical hand gun round (.45ACP) at 541J and the equivalent momentum transfer of being struck by a 1kg bag of sugar thrown out of the cockpit of an F1 car doing it's top speed of around 230mph (104Nm). "

These figures aren't in the paper, nor is the Honda Civic.  Note the impact is compared to a 541J handgun round, which is rather less than 53kJ. This really needs one of our engineers and mathematicians to look at it.

Sorry Jon....

Timely since 15 APR is Tax Day in the USA.  Apropos since this article is behind a Paywall for me... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/science/archaeology-papyrus-tax-fraud-trial.html

 

Still reckon its for wargaming.....

PS I don't credit the now popular knitting theories, I have watched some videos and yes it does allow you to knit tubes but the items would have acquired noticeable wear marks in the process that I don't believe have been seen.