Weapons tangent thread

[javcs]

Hockey stick is a solid choice. So's a lacrosse stick, probably. Or a what'sit called, hurley stick? Celtic-origin game - one of those would probably be pretty good too.


Baseball bat + ball +glove (or softball, I suppose, the bats are effectively interchangeable, I think) means you're good as far as no premeditation for having it with you.

[Absalom]

In germany a bat is considered a lethal weapon and illegal to carry around, but an axe is considered a tool. So in my cars i carry short axes.

And you are aware that you can legally own and carry around a crossbow (and bolts) here in germany?
Sometimes those laws really make no sense to me.

If you assume that the point is to prevent armed insurrections instead of violent crime (which is generally the case with gun-nuts here in the US) then it actually makes perfect sense. After all, you have to manually reload the crossbow.

High-power air rifles are also legal in all sorts of weird places (e.g. China) that you wouldn't expect.

Honestly though, at least in Europe I expect that it's just from an emotional reaction that they issue to all liberals at the factory (not that I would know, since I'm not a liberal).

Not to forget, cricket bats have very long handles, allowing you to space you hands out and 'push/pull' the bat, like with a katana or samurai sword (I forget which) Of course there is the down side that a return swing, going in the opposite diction, will be harder to make if you miss the first time

The katana-style push/pull is only relevant if you sharpen the cricket bat enough to cut someone, at which point you can abandon all thoughts of "no premeditation". Cricket bats (and baseball bats, for that matter) are only suitable for the traditional "chop" and "stab" sword motions, neither of which (at least as far as I know) are ever sanctioned with katanas (they just aren't designed for those moves).

A hockey stick might be different matter, but I imagine that using it like a sword would be an inherently complicated thing.

[discord]

hockey stick can be push/pulled but the balance and shape leans it more towards european long sword fighting rather than japanese.
and i must mention that despite less awesome time in the movies, european martial arts are nothing to sneeze at.

and as the saying goes, the only reason a government ever has for outlawing weapons is because they are afraid of the people coming after them with'em....interestingly enough i don't really mind that part very much, but i REALLY hate that they lie about it.

admittedly it would be interesting to hold a 'sanctioned' protest against some stupid idea the government came up with and every one of the few thousand that comes carries a hunting rifle(unloaded ofcourse) slung over their back, would be very interesting to see how that would pan out in different countries.

[Arioch]

A baseball bat would be a very dangerous weapon. I'm sure a cricket bat would also be dangerous in the right hands, but the baseball bat is compact and balanced, and meant to be swung at high velocity. It would split a skull open without much difficulty.

[Dragoon]

Okay So we all have probably had some high school physics, so Force=Mass x Velocity should be pretty well known. When it comes to weapons you can swap out mass or velocity as long as you increase one to make up for the lack of the other.....

A few things that come into play after that are structural integrity, cross section, and point of balance...

If the weapon can't handle the force it is delivering it's not going to be much use... if it's too flexible it simply bends and doesn't deliver the energy, if it's to weak it shatters or snaps...and if it's too light it just bounces off as it encounters the other object ( it may inflict some pain and damage but it cant deliver all of it's energy to a target)

If you deliver that force over a small area it's going to be more effective... the more energy you deliver to a small area the more damage you can do. Swords are more lethal than a baseball bat since it focuses it's energy to a very narrow area pushing other stuff out of the way.

Point of balance is important for several reason, properly placed you can deliver more force to the target area, and the faster, more accurately you can control it.


on another note....
I took some self defense...after a spectacular "failure to communicate" while I was working as a security guard. the training was nothing serious just the basics...I did get to set in on the other classes though. My instructor one day started handing out brooms.. Simple heavy duty Janitors brooms.
Then he explained that the size, weight, and appearance of a broom makes it a very handy self defense weapon if you happen to be in your house. including the Brush end which if thrust into someones face does a dandy job of blinding and disorienting.

For those of us who were out of the house he recommended a can, one of those simple wooden ones that you see older folks carrying. light, easy to handle and designed not to break easily. in addition it's not something anyone would take a second look at on the street. except maybe wondering why you need it... in a fight though you can block, strike and trip with it...( ever seen a savatte practitioner with a cane?)

His "best Weapon" recommendation was a good pair of sneakers... "If you're in a fight you've already screwed up"

[icekatze]

hi hi

While I cant speak for a cricket bat, I can say with certainty that a baseball bat is a deadly weapon. So is a golf club. If you're locked in a fight with someone and can't run away, having something that is sturdy and has a longer reach is going to be really important.

I think I'd probably go with the broom too.

[discord]

dragoon: well said, but there is a few factors you skipped.

shape(since that not only changes the point of balance even if that is the most obvious it also changes how it should be used, compare a european longsword with a katana, similar weight, balance is similar too, reach is similar but once you hold it it is a very different thing indeed and it should be used very differently.)
that includes but is not limited to how to hold it, does it have space enough for effective two handed wield? is it a stabbing, cutting or perhaps bashing weapon? precision or more brute force approach?
shape is the problem with using a baseball bat as a weapon, it can do immense damage just likes it is designed to do(fast swing to whack the ball far) but it is not very good at hitting hard repeatedly in fast succession, or at different targets..and once you swing it is a rather big movement, easy to predict and difficult to change in mid swing, all in all making it a rather suboptimal weapon.

surface, most obvious is gripping surface but the business end can be changed by it too.

mentioned materials, but composites and material can change how it behaves a lot too, for instance you want SOME flex in a weapon you strike with, if only to save your hands from rather horrible vibrations, this is another point many baseball bats suffer, try using a bat and just hit something hard lightly, not a full swing just hit it, a tree works just fine, you will notice the vibration of the bat is rather annoying, rubber 'glove' of the area you hold helps a lot with this, this effect is much worse with a metal bat.

[Dragoon]

there are even more factors than we have mentioned. Depending on what you want a weapon to do any singe factor can radically change it's effectiveness.

Baseball bats and cricket bats are only the best weapon for the job when you don;t have a real weapon handy. A friend of mine even managed to KO a guy robbing him with a can of V-8 ... I still have that article around here somewhere ... even after 20 some years it gives me a chuckle.

What an object is made of and how it's put together is sometimes very important.

Had a drunk swing at me with a pool cue one night,(I really should avoid night shift at stores next to bars ) stung like the devil when I blocked it...and left a bone deep bruise across my forearm after a few swings. the third time it snapped in half at the joint between the two halves of the cue. At which point i made one heck of a strategic withdrawal once I didn't have to worry about being binged in the head as I ran. ( my arm was numb and about useless for a few days, but my skull was intact )

In this case. the fact the cue was made in two sections and I managed to catch it where those two sections joined ( pure luck, I didn't know that it was a two piece cue) played into my favor. If it had been a single piece of hardwood I'd ended up with a broken arm at the least after another block or two...

[discord]

usually the correct way to handle that would be to close in, long weapon that needs wide swings, take a step in and it is mostly harmless(tm).

strangely enough that is often the best defense, step in and get closer.
<edit>
to note, even if the theory is simple, actually doing it takes guts, lots of guts.
</edit>

[Dragoon]

Oh my instructor and every senior student in the class made sure to dissect my actions in extreme detail later.( but he gave me an over all "acceptable" rating...no one got seriously hurt, no one died, I went home..they went to jail. )

Problem was he was faster on his feet them me.. I retreated, he advanced....I advanced, he retreated... (just my luck he was drunk enough to be in a fighting mood but not drunk enough to forget basic tactics. )

plus I was having to watch out for his brother who was trying to recover from a face full of pepper spray.( Pointed it at the idiot with the pool cue, and it went Ptthhhhppptttt evidently I had used it all on his much larger less drunken brother.)

All in all I'd normally designate a pool cue as a better defensive weapon than offensive. you can use it in two hands to block and deflect attacks, but unless you have a lot of swinging room( or have some training with a staff/broom) it's not very good on the attack.

now baseball/cricket bats on the other hand are not worth a bucket of spit on the defense. but they are definitely a pretty powerful offensive weapon.

and to all I definitely recommend that if you by one of those Key chain Pepper spray things...get two.( seems they are great on potency but lacking in the ammo capacity area.)

[discord]

not exactly true about the capacity of a pool cue, you just have to stop thinking about it as a deformed baseball bat and understand it's a less pointy spear, or a unbalanced staff.

but then again, it takes some skill to use those anywhere near properly...*shrug*

[Dragoon]

POINT DISCORD!

You're dead on there when you say it takes some skill to use anything at it's potential. I'd take my chances against an untrained thug with a machine gun, over a trained SEAL/SAS operator with a cricket bat.

[discord]

dragoon: depends, is the thug stupid enough to let me get within arms reach sure, no problem, if not....
well a quote from somewhere 'I do not fear a bullet with my name on it, i fear one addressed to whom it may concern.'....ah got it slightly wrong, it's murphy's law on warfare "It's not the one with your name on it; it's the one addressed "to whom it may concern" you've got to think about.".

[Dragoon]

Once upon a time in my hometown a young lad thought he could take on four cops with a fully automatic weapon...the officers went scrambling for cover and the youth gained a sense of invulnerability as he hosed down everything in sight.

of course 30 rounds went into cars, trees, ground..then the gun went click..at which point the officers stood up from behind the engine blocks of their cars, fired, and said youth discovered he was gravely mistaking in his sense of invulnerability....

And I am beginning to wander why the heck I am still living in this town....I should move somewhere safer...like Baghdad or Benghazi....

[fredgiblet]

That is something that is amusing about restrictions on automatic weapons. For targeted attacks they are actually really poor. It's true that in the case of indiscriminate mowing-down-a-crowd attacks they would be great, however in situations like the North Hollywood Shootout there probably would have been greater danger with semi-autos.

[javcs]

That is something that is amusing about restrictions on automatic weapons. For targeted attacks they are actually really poor. It's true that in the case of indiscriminate mowing-down-a-crowd attacks they would be great, however in situations like the North Hollywood Shootout there probably would have been greater danger with semi-autos.

True ... but full-auto can be really hard on random people in the path of fire. Plus, let's be fair here, it isn't really a feature one would normally use for hunting game or defending against criminally-minded home invaders.

There's a little bit of tradeoff, I think - attempt to force gunmen to work on their accuracy, thus reducing their odds of shooting someone they aren't trying to shoot, but at the same time, you improve their odds of being able to hurt law enforcement and any of the other people they're trying to hurt (when it's another crook, that's a bit of a wash, though).
And, of course, trying to reduce people's efficacy when they go off and commit rampages/mass shootings.

[Arioch]

That is something that is amusing about restrictions on automatic weapons. For targeted attacks they are actually really poor. It's true that in the case of indiscriminate mowing-down-a-crowd attacks they would be great, however in situations like the North Hollywood Shootout there probably would have been greater danger with semi-autos.

That's something that I think most people don't realize. Many assault rifles don't even have full-automatic settings anymore (the current M16 fires either single shots or 3-shot bursts). Squads have a few fully automatic machine guns (M60 and M249), but these are used primarily for suppressing fire -- to make the enemy keep their heads down.

[Dragoon]

Full auto is a waste of ammo in most situations that's a fact

Suppression fire or close range room clearing by well trained soldiers are the only two really effective uses of a full auto weapon. Short tight bursts, ( of the sort the three round burst setting creates) are about the best use of an automatic weapon.

The often overlooked fact is that shotguns are more effective in some cases than automatic weapons.
The average Buckshot round is more effective than a sub machine gun it tosses out a dozen or so 28-30 caliber rounds every time you pull the trigger. You can get fairly lethal accuracy at 15-30 meters. at close and point blank range your dealing with a pattern of shot from about as big as your fist to the size of a typical serving tray. Which insures multiple hits,
The standard 3 round tube magazine of hunting shotgun loaded with light buckshot is about the same a a 30-40 round rifle magazine only without the long range and precision ability of a rifle in single shot mode.
If You have the nerve and strength to tame it pulling both triggers on a double barrel shotgun is a truly murderous blast at close ranges, and will with some skill ensure you can get at least one solid hit on a target at a decent range.In all honesty those long barreled hunting guns allowed in England and other restricted ownership countries are a good choice for about any thing short of actual combat.
As long as you don;t have to fire it more than twice.

[fredgiblet]

That's something that I think most people don't realize. Many assault rifles don't even have full-automatic settings anymore (the current M16 fires either single shots or 3-shot bursts). Squads have a few fully automatic machine guns (M60 and M249), but these are used primarily for suppressing fire -- to make the enemy keep their heads down.

Yep. It's funny in the movies when you have soldiers or SWAT teams blazing away with full-auto weapons or supposedly intelligent criminals wielding full-autos when all it's going to do is add years onto their sentences. Or going back to a previous thread when you have games like Halo where the "Assault Rifle" is actually more like an SMG with a ridiculously large magazine than a rifle.

[Mr Bojangles]

That is something that is amusing about restrictions on automatic weapons. For targeted attacks they are actually really poor. It's true that in the case of indiscriminate mowing-down-a-crowd attacks they would be great, however in situations like the North Hollywood Shootout there probably would have been greater danger with semi-autos.

That's something that I think most people don't realize. Many assault rifles don't even have full-automatic settings anymore (the current M16 fires either single shots or 3-shot bursts). Squads have a few fully automatic machine guns (M60 and M249), but these are used primarily for suppressing fire -- to make the enemy keep their heads down.

The myths that Hollywood pushes. A fully automatic gun looks good on screen (it looks good in real life, for that matter). But, at the level of individual soldiers that would be a waste of ammunition. With modern machine guns, like the ones you mention, one is more than enough for suppression fire. Most militaries want the soldiers hitting their targets.

However, pretty much every assault rifle has a full auto variant (often several). The M16s you're talking about are the A2 and A4, which have elements preferred by the USMC. The USMC has always favored accuracy of fire over volume. The US Army still uses the original full auto variant of the M16, and elements of the US Navy use the full auto A3. The US Army is moving to the M4 Carbine, which is semi auto or burst, but it also has a full auto variant, the A1.

And, with the increase in urban combat, you really don't want full auto. Too great a chance of stray shots hitting noncombatants.