Conquest

[Lupus]

Anyone with cable might wanna check out the History Channel series 'Conquest.' At least, it seems to be an actual History Channel production - if it's showing elsewhere, I apologise. I thought it was in-house.

 

Anyway, it's about weapons and combat styles. Has an actor (Peter Woodward), who knows stuff about things. It's mostly about medieval stuff, but also has odd digressions (an episode on bull riding? What the hell?).

 

As an example, the first episode I saw was about axes. It was brilliant. Changed my opinion about 'em. Showed them being used in what they think would be historical styles (as very little is known about actual medieval combat styles), and they were /fast/. Slow to get moving, but once they were moving, they could change direction very quickly. It went into the psychological aspects of axes - how a single axeman could break entire units, batter on shields, and force opponents onto the defensive by keeping up a constant flurry of attacks. It even showed how people can switch direction fast enough to feint - switch from a downwardsblow to the head to an upwards shot at the stomach in an instant.

 

Other eps covered archery (including explaining why continental European armies didn't use bows much), duelling (all the way from 501CE to the 1750s), knightly tournaments, and medieval 'weird weapons' for use against knights. Even had an ep on SWAT teams, it seems - haven't watched that tape yet.

 

It's a re-creationist's dream, really. And they're all using quite genuine weapons. Sometimes, they show the effect of weapons on armour, such as chainmail getting pierced by just about any solid blow (an axe, meanwhile, cut the chain shirt right down the sternum, without really noticing). In any case, it should be an incredibly useful source for anyone interested in learning about real-life aspects of weapons. So far, no game system I know is accurate enough to cover all the aspects of weaponry, so it's not about achieving absolute realism. HERO system isn't about that, anyway. But it can help avoid certain fallacies.

 

I got reminded about this after reading the earlier thread about 'speed factors' for weapons, which again raised the question of big weapons being slow. Conquest quite clearly showed that big weapons are not necessarily slow, nor are small weapons necessarily fast.

 

But for those who want to get more understanding about the weapons at hand, their historical contexts and how they were actually used in history, I'd really recommend this series.

[tkdguy]

Is the History Channel still showing it? I can never find it on the listings. Too bad, I love that show. Maybe I'll check out the History Channel website.

[tkdguy]

According to the History Channel website, Conquest will show again on Dec. 18, 11 pm ET/PT.

[Max Callahan]

Re: Conquest

 

Originally posted by Lupus

It's a re-creationist's dream, really. And they're all using quite genuine weapons. Sometimes, they show the effect of weapons on armour, such as chainmail getting pierced by just about any solid blow (an axe, meanwhile, cut the chain shirt right down the sternum, without really noticing).

 

Unfortunatly this is actually a re-creationists nightmare

The mail suit in question was a modern recreation piece, made in the modern fashion where the rings are simply bent into circles. An actual piece of armor would have consisted of rings that were riveted closed which would have not come apart like their demonstration suit. The were in effect trying to pass off a costume as actual armor.

Also they were demonstrating the mail with out the proper padding underneath, and it was placed on a wooden cross of questionable strength, which being rigid, would not behave the same as if it were on a real body.

 

The real problem with all this is having caught Conquest being so very wrong about a subject I know about I now can't trust them when they talk about a topic I don't know about.

 

For historically accurate period combat info I highly recommend the nice people at The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts http://www.thehaca.com their videos page http://www.thehaca.com/Videos/NTCvids/testingbladesandmaterials.htm has a wonderful collection of clips of weapons being used against actual armor over actual hunks of meat

[Bartman]

Re: Re: Conquest

 

Originally posted by Max Callahan

The real problem with all this is having caught Conquest being so very wrong about a subject I know about I now can't trust them when they talk about a topic I don't know about.

You just described everything on the History channel. At one point I used to watch it regularly. But eventually I realized that everytime I had good detailed knowledge of a subject their shows were consistantly and regularly wrong on a large number of points. And frequently they were wrong about the key points on the subject they were covering. Once I realized that they were consistantly wrong on those subjects I knew, I concluded that they were probably wrong on those subjects I didn't. So I stopped watching altogether. I am sad to hear that they are still messing it up over five years later though.

[TheDude2371]

Actually, I haven't found too much fault with such shows as Tales of the Gun or even Mail Call. I like MC quite a bit, to be honest. I find the Gunny entertaining and informative at the same time. Haven't found any big complaints about that show as of yet.

[Markdoc]

>>>For historically accurate period combat info I highly recommend the nice people at The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts http://www.thehaca.com their videos page http://www.thehaca.com/Videos/NTCvi...ndmaterials.htm has a wonderful collection of clips of weapons being used against actual armor over actual hunks of meat<<<

 

Now that's a sweet link! Why didn't we think to video it when we did this kind of stuff?

 

Thanks for the link!

 

cheers, Mark