Been a while, but this caught my attention.

From what I understand on a few things on what I've read, or seen in film commentaries and documentaries, here are my 2 cents.


1. Knives. In a combat situation you want a stabbing weapon more then you do a slicing weapon as both parties might be hyped up on adrenalin and not thinking about that, and you'll take a long tome to bleed, and you might die of exhaustion before anything major happens. Yes, slicing can do some serious damage, but it has to go down deep enough or get lucky.

Stabbing someone will do more damage, although generally one needs more then one stab most of the time to take someone out.

2. Guns. Guns can do alot of damage, and while many wounds are treatable, the fact is it is a weapon that can do a lot of damage, with the larger calibers leaving bigger holes. As for stopping power, it depends because a .22 caliber round wouldn't drop someone hyped up on meth until you have emptied a whole clip in them, and even then they could probably take it. Something like a .45, especially if it's a magnum, was made for stopping someone in their tracks."

Also you have to know what to aim for. Most of the time you are aiming for the chest because bigger area, more vitals, so more likely to get a kill. Head shots are nice, but are hard to pull off unless you are really that good.


3. Martial Arts. Most martial arts by themselves have their moments, but everyone has a weakness. Ty Kwan Do relies heavily on kicking; nearly all of them are useless once you get them on the ground; and any form of jujitsu is largely useless if you can't grapple your opponent. However, a mix of martial arts, like kajukenbo deal with these weaknesses by taking what is good about each of them, thus eliminating some of the problems. Moreover, many a master in it will be teaching you to deal with what happens in the real world, including groups. Who to attack, who to ignore, who to charge?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajukenbo


Although, I have to wonder a couple things with Loroi physiology. In combat is there a range for the psychic abilities, like you can do this much or at this range before your brain fries? I know it isn't a simply not using enough brain power as most brain functions are automated, and done without thinking (telling your body to breathing, flinching, blink, salivate, or sneeze), and when we do use a 100% of our brain, we call it a seizure. But would there be some kind of strain, like a popped blood vessel or something, if too much psychic abilities were used?

On a more physical level, would they have some of the same pressure points as a human, and therefore could be used against them in combat?

they are sort of like us in physiology so i imagine they do have some similar pressure points

i was also wondering what sort of limitations their mental powers have, aside from the distance limitation

I understand that the range & power of the telepathic & related abilities depends on a mixture of training, & the individual Loroi. Health & similar issues presumably also have an influence.

In short: it depends, but you're better off attacking a Listel than a Mizol.

@saint of m

A .44 Magnum round has about 2/3 the muzzle energy of a 5.56 NATO round. Until you start getting into full-power rifle rounds like 7.62 NATO shot placement is king. When you're talking about short-term survival a .22LR to the heart is more valuable than a .50AE to the gut.

I agree. What I'm saying is that when facing a determined knife wielder within rushing distance, a handgun doesn't guarantee your safety as well as, say, full plate armor.



Maybe, but I wouldn't count on that to stop an attacker in his tracks.



You wouldn't be the first to say that, but juries often don't see it that way.



Ending the darwin award recipient is more likely to cause major prison time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43710936/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/oklahoma-pharmacist-sentenced-life-killing-would-be-robber/
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/self-defense_murder_defendant.html

If you manage to get the jury to let go of you, even corpses have mommies, and most of them are SURE their kid was innocent. The burden of proof in civil court is different than in criminal court, you can be found guilty even if there's a reasonable doubt, and the cost of defense alone often leaves people bankrupt.




I agree with this, but I would add: if the target is defending himself, he is likely to get his hands and forearms sliced up long before getting stabbed anywhere important. In a knife vs knife fight, you don't want to get within stabbing range unless you have a clear advantage, so extended slicing becomes even more likely.



http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/11/robert-farago/range-accident-reveals-45-stopping-power-or-not/

I wouldn't count on any handgun's stopping power for my self-defense needs.



Don't forget the kneecaps. One bad knee can be enough to stop even the most determined charge.



What do you mean can't grapple your opponent? Even boxing and kyokushin constantly end up in clinches.

IMO the worst weaknesses of any martial art come in the form of bad habits due to how the art is trained, more than in what it never claimed to cover. Taekwondo's high kicks can get your leg caught, and thus leave you very vulnerable. Many boxers don't realize the risk of breaking their hand when punching someone in the face with their bare knuckles.


If you said that BJJ provides rather poor training in takedowns considering their reliance on ground fighting, I'd agree with you. Butt flopping doesn't work so well outside BJJ tournaments.

Among judo weaknesses, I'd say there's not enough training in alternate grips. While pretty much any judo throws can be done without the jacket, and even with closed fists, most judokas won't know how to adapt most of them if they've never tried. In competitions we too often see throws with poor followup, where the winner falls shortly after his opponent and in an unfavorable position (ex: giving up his back).

Wrestling in general is a lot more dependent on physical ability than jujitsu styles. It also puts more emphasis on following the opponent to the ground, which is not always be the best option in a self-defense situation.

Folk style wrestling tackles put the wrestler in a bad position if he fails, something like a half of fights lost by wrestlers under mixed grappling or MMA rules are lost to the guillotine choke. A failed tackle against an armed attacker can be fatal - you can end up with a slit throat, or a brick in the back of the head.

Greco-roman wrestling aim to grapple in a clinch yet trains no defenses against trips and tackles.

Catch wrestling has a higher risk of leaving practitioners permanently crippled due to injuries to the spine or legs. Other than that, it has the usual wrestling weaknesses I guess.



Kajukenbo schools vary widely. Some of them spend a lot more time on katas than on full contact sparring unfortunately, while others spar a lot more. What sparring I did see in videos looked a lot like Sanshou, aka kickboxing plus takedowns but not much (or good) ground fighting.

It could use more work on basic pins and escapes (as found in the judo component), otherwise if they do get taken down by say, an unexpected tackle they would be pretty helpless from that point on. Also gloves and the risk of self-injury when punching someone in the head.

The kata's versus actual sparring is pretty much a problem in every single civilian martial art. Kata's make rank progression easy and look flashy. So a lot of people eat them up and a lot of teachers tend to focus on them more than on what they should.

As to good knife fighter against another one. There's that common saying, that if you have two good knife fighters, you don't end the fight with one getting stabbed. But from one bleeding out from far too many small cuts to count.

@ Junk: Pretty much, which is why knives should be last resort or for stealthier kills.

@daelyte: whaat I meant by grappling is getting the opponent on the ground and keeping them there or raining blows upon them. Most mainstream martial arts like to be in a more standing position or prefer to have a bit of range. Take that away and the fight is already gone in your favor. However, you can get around that.

Kajukenbo schools do very, but that is the point. They expect their students to mix and match different martial arts, and there are justifiably good moves in each style. The problem is it's alot like Rock Paper Scissors where one can beat one, but is helpless against the third.

As for guns, I'm not sure about you needing a rifle as some of the military handguns that go with a large caliber were designed for that problem (they go somewhere in the jungle, and the standard side arm won't stop someone hyped up on something). However the assult riffle or shotgun would be a better bet, for sure, with some like the Berowolf designed to do nothing but stop things in their tracks (in the case of the 50's cal. Short range Baowolf, stop a car).

the .45 ACP and 9mm military handguns are LESS powerful than many civilian guns. They are designed as backup weapons for soldiers who have much more effective weapons on hand. A .44 Magnum has 2-3 times the muzzle energy of the .45 ACP but the restrictions of weight and bulk on a gun that will easily take the Magnum (as well as the rimmed cartridge) makes it totally unsuitable for military use. For comparison the Colt Anaconda weighs 47 ounces with a 4 inch barrel while the Glock 17 weighs 22.

A retraction, I didn't check the units, a .44 Magnum has roughly the same muzzle energy as 5.56 NATO.

.50 Beowulf is an interesting round, it lacks long-range performance but at short-range it's probably pretty amazing and starts to reach the range where shot placement becomes less important.

I stand corected on the side arms.

As for the Beowolf, it was designed as a close quarters weapon, especially for guards at checkpoints so they can kill a charging car's engine, among other things.

What about Boxing or Wrestling? IIRC, they have no kata whatsoever, are they not civilian martial arts?



Ah, then yes good takedown defense can help avoid ground grappling most of the time. However I don't see how that weakness applies to most forms of jujutsu, other than BJJ.

Brazilian Jiujitsu is the only art I know of that's primarily focused on ground fighting.

Japanese Jujutsu trains not only throws and submissions but also strikes and techniques not allowed in sports. Most only do kata however, and those that do sparring and randori still tend to put too much emphasis on eye gouges and groin strikes which IMO are overrated.

Aikido is derived from mostly the same jujutsu roots as judo, notably daito-ryu aiki-jujutsu. Other than shodokan aikido, I don't know any that do randori - the rest only train with compliant partners. I don't think they have much groundwork at all, other than doing wrist locks on each other while sitting.

Judo focuses on throws. Maybe 1/3 of training time goes to ground fighting, in 30 second bouts, with victory by submission or a 10 second hold. Apparently that's enough for a judo blackbelt to have the advantage overa BJJ blackbelt for those first 30 seconds, but it if lasts over a minute the BJJ guy wins by attrition.

Sport Sambo is similar to judo, but with more focus on following an opponent to the ground and finishing them quickly with joint locks. They can still throw people without following them, of course.

Combat Sambo, MCMAP, Defendu and Krav Maga are all descended partly from judo, but incorporated other arts to cover striking so I don't think ground grappling is central to their strategy either. Weaknesses would vary from fighter to fighter.



The same philosophy as Jeet Kune Do, and now MMA, but with a different starting mix. Not knocking it, quite the opposite. What I saw seemed to fall short in terms of skill on the ground, but other than that it seems very good.



Yes, I hear the chinese have it as strikes, throws, and submissions. Throws beat strikes, submissions beat throws, and strikes beat submissions.

Sanshou (and what I've seen of Kajukenbo) would thus be in a prime position to beat pure BJJ or Muay Thai fighters. IMO its weakness would be wrestlers who have great takedowns, and are good at staying on top on the ground so they can pummel from there.

From a certain standpoint someone who's trained as a boxer is better off than someone trained with katas but will overall be behind someone who's training in more traditional sparring techniques.

Boxing does have a lot of amazing techniques in it, but they're pretty limited in effect and also do tend to work on the premise that you have those gloves on. Trust me, you really don't want to keep punching someone into the face without them on. It's more likely you'll hurt yourself against his or her cheekbones than the other way around. (those things are extremely tough).

But boxing does give speed and strength and does work on a confrontational basis. Still really rule tied. But not bad.

AS wrestling goes - I assume you mean the wrestling that happens on schools and stuff right?

Good and bad again. In a way better than boxing since close body sparring is a bit more usefull against one person, but it's also insanely rule tied and person has reflexes kinda set to those rules.



But overall both are better than any training which focuses on katas more than anything else. Hell as a friend tends to say - a person that knows nothing is sometimes better off than someone who only knows katas.

Keep in mind - if you look at historical martial arts and current effective ones. it usually doesn't matter where you find them. Be they european, african, asian or whatever. They will generally have the same moves and are probably going to be fairly balanced against all three - hits, throws and submissions. The human body works in similar ways no matter where you come from. Though I do recall that old european MA's tended to incorporate a bit more high strength work which was based on the assumption that european populations where indeed a small bit bigger than others.

The real difference come in armed martial arts. Where local differences really start to play a huge role. In part because the weapons and armour begin to vary wildly.

Put a historical judo practioner against a historical person who's thought one of the various unarmed styles in Europe and you'll get fairly similar moves and expectations from both.

Put a historical samurai against a medieval knight (let's say german to make it easier) and you'll get completely different techniques and styles. That is as long they stay armed. If they become unarmed you'll again get similar results.

But considering how a samurai would fare against a knight, I doubt it would get to that. The samus are a fair bit outclassed in the arms race.

junk: i mostly agree with your points however there is one point i'll dispute, the arms race between japan and the west, the katana is a very fine sword, the japanese longbow is also very fine, it is in the area of doctrine and defensive equipment it differs significantly, for instance the shield....

A kata is for practise. never ever used in combat. Ever. they aren't used to make rank progression "flashy" they are used to teach students how to perform moves in combination, repeat: Teach Moves In Combination. You never actually use the kata it's self in a fight and yes, the kata is used to show the people grading you that you know the moves and are able to perform them in combination, but think karate kid's Mr Miyagi and "Wax on, Wax off" his teaching teaching the kid to block and making the motion a natural habit (a clean car to boot), many of the moves in a kata have a use, such as Sokuto fumikomi AKA: Stamping Foot Edge Kick or Jodan uke AKA: Upper Arm Block to name only two of several, they all have a use.
But if you're enrolled in a karate school which is teaching you that a kata is what's used in a fight, that in a fight you can stand there and just use kata moves rather than actual fighting stance moves, moves taught for the eventually that you get into fight (for which a kata is not designed), then get out of that school.

Sparring is different from kata in that you practise fighting moves with people that know those same moves you have to be quicker, smarter and better than the other or you'll lose, sparring teaches you that while kata is a safe way of becoming faster and still learn the moves.

michael: that is how it is supposed to be, yes, reality does not conform to theory.

I know what the the sense of katas is. The problem is, that in most cases those kata's form a long term drill which supercedes pretty much everything else.




The katana is actually a fairly mediocre sword as far as built and design go. It's not bad and it's fairly amazing against unarmoured opponents, but it tends to be brittle on the edge (more than is common for other swords) and is both shorter and just has heavy as a longsword.

On top of that a samurai has essentially no way of dealing with a knights armour. Even riveted chain would probably be enough to deal with virtually any katana cut.

On top of that keep this in mind. Weapons like the katana were known in Europe. Or at least very similar ones. Shields, longswods and armour on the other hand were not known on the same level in Japan.

Those japanese longbows (as well as English ones) would once more have serious issues penetrating armour in such a way to dangerous to the kight.

There's a reason why the French didn't generally fear british long bowmen. It was because those long bowmen couldn't generally do squat, unless the french did something incredibly stupid.

Which they ended up doing on more than one occassion. And even so it was often terrain that was the danger.

What do you mean by traditional sparring techniques?



Yes, I also mentioned that earlier.



Ever heard of Irish collar and elbow wrestling? It was intended for smaller individuals to use speed and leverage to defeat bigger stronger opponents, and the techniques and strategy are remarkably similar to judo. Yet it clearly evolved independently in Europe, alongside various related Celtic wrestling styles.



Also, samurai were primarily horse archers not swordsmen.



Not all plate armour was well-made or well looked after, and there were also weak points in the eye and air holes and joints where arrows could penetrate, meaning that even if the armour was proof against nearly all arrows, being shot at by thousands of longbowmen would have been an uncomfortable experience, physically and mentally. One contemporary French account described the barrage at Agincourt against French knights wearing plate armour as a "terrifying hail of arrow shot".

Full plate armour of the highest quality was also extremely expensive, only used by knights; the vast majority of soldiers were not armoured in plate from head-to-toe. Even for knights, in practice their horses tended to be less well protected, so that longbows could kill or wound the horses even when the arrows had little effect against the knights themselves.

Also, there were different types of arrows. Some were barbed and good for hunting, others designed for piercing armor.

But English longbowmen were better off then the general range standby, the crossbow, as it took forever to load (other then that, it it had a lot of kick and an idiot could wield it no problem in some cases).

As For samurai and anti armor, they had their methods. First you have the kanabo, which was a thick wooden club almost as tall as the samurai weilding it, with thick metal stubs or spikes on it (it's the prefered weapon of their oni, or devil/ogre). It could bash armoed foes to death, and was affectionatly called a "Sword Breaker."

The ninja also had a method or two. First off was their ninja sword, which while just as sharp as the standard katana, was made straiter so it could be a piercing weapon used agaisnt samurai armor.

Kusarigama was also a popular choice. At one end was a hand held japanese sickle that resembles a small scythe, and on the other was a metal ball connected to their sickle with a chain. The ball was a heavy weapon and could be used to bash someone's head in, but was more often used to wrap around a warrior's sword arm, and pull him to the ground or else in a position where the blade to do it's work.

Europe also had methods for getting past armor, but largely focused on the bludgioning aproch. Maces, flails, norning stars, warhammers, and the scottish ball and chain were all used to great effect for that. Even if they couldn't do more then dent the armor, the force of impact should be enough to deal some dammage (break an arm, snap a neck, cause a concussion.

Even braodswords were designed so that if even the blade dosn't get past the armor, you aint leaving the battlefield without a broken arm.

For a knight in armor, anther method that was popular was to grab the blade of the long sword with one hand, the gauntlet protecting the hand, and the tip of it into the breastplate of another warrior. This adds more leverage, and now you have a piercing weapon.

A Europian halburd could be used in a same manner. Generally it was a pole-arm that had a ax head, with a spear's tip and a hook. If it didn't have the hook, I've seen some with a warhammer on the back of the ax part. Each part had their use: The ax was a hacking weapon, the spear got through armor, and the curved hook on the back was used to take away shields (although, I guess it could dismount a rider as well).

junk:
one, the katana is a good sword, not the best in all cases by a long shot but very good due to being good at cutting, thrusting and being nimble enough to be used defensively, a difficult combination to pull off.
<edit> the greatest achievement of the katana though is getting such a good blade out of such crappy raw materials.</edit>

two, the japanese longbow was pretty much as good as the english, a bit bigger though and slightly more unwieldy on the ground due to it being designed for horseback use.

and three, it is defensively the Europeans wins the 'arms race', full plate when done right and maintained is VERY good armor, to bad only kings and high nobles(with a few nutcase lower nobility wasting much of their wealth on it) actually had it, chain mail ain't bad either but the biggest difference is the shield, give me a shield and a kitchen knife and i could probably take down most old school samurai, that is how big a difference the shield does.

Some TV show a few years ago did some number crunching, & decided that an army of Spartans vs an army of 'standard Samurai' would result in a Spartan win (which surprised them, because they expected that iron/steel > bronze). The Spartan shield was a big part of that (the Samurai sword, in comparison, was dismissed as useless in such a fight).

At any rate, the Katana is from all the descriptions I've read simply unsuited to combating metal armor. The various Japanese sword arts that originally used it apparently allocate scores on the basis of 'valid strikes' to traditionally unarmored portions of the rival's body (e.g. the armpit area). There are those stories of Katanas cutting guns, sure, but those were the highest-quality swords, and only succeeded a handful of times before they broke (gun steel is apparently comparatively soft, as well). The only real anti-armor weapon that I've heard of the feudal Japanese using was the Kanabo (& similar) mentioned above.

Though in some ways they're lucky that they managed that, since the iron found readily in Japan is apparently all of the lowest grade. I have no doubt that the average European army had more armor than the average Japanese one during the feudal eras of both. The fact that Europe was more directly exposed to a larger variety of combatants (Norse to the north, Byzantines & horse tribes to the west, & the Islamic world through Jihads & Crusades) might have given an advantage to a European army too, but only an actual real-world battle (which as far as I know never happened, and in these terms surely never will) could give us an answer to that question.

Very true

Worse you would need many real-world battles to answer the question. These would be necessary to remove the uncertainties associated with a particular battle (bad luck, terrain advantage, etc...)

Bad generals...

I can just imagine it: "What do you mean he charged straight into their spears?!?".

if it's a army comparison at the same time it gets different, since at the time where people are thinking 'samurai' western europe were marching in nice blocks of musketeers, which means that if the japs could close with the enemy without breaking or losing too many troops, they would probably win, if not....europeans would slaughter'em, either way the japs would be losing
troops like chaff to the wind.

the difference here is.
1. guns
2. doctrine on how to use what you have.

the comparison between the knight and the samurai is more fun though.

It's also because both the knight and samurai are icons. Sure you could claim that have many variations. From the crusading frank to the heavy plated milanese knight with an armour built to resist italian heavy crossbows. To early samurai to late idolised versions.

But in the end, when you say knight, most people imagine one certain subset and the same goes for samurai. And while they are both from completely different eras. What they have is comperable.

Out of curiosity, I had noticed that Fireblade possessed on her Gurps character sheet a PK shield ability. I was wondering if that would that be able to repel sonic attacks?

I AM NOT SURE

LET ME CHECK THE BOOKS AND GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT