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Throwing hawks or knives in combat?

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Being that so many Vikings of the early age were farmers when not going "A Viking" or raiding in periods during the summers and they returned to their farms after the raids; it is clear that many were not full time soldiers or men at arms of a Nobleman.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree about that as well.

Gus
 
csitas said:
When locked in hand to hand mortal combat I truly believe if you want to survive, you will find a way. Training or not. Training is nice but, I don't see proof that is required.
Are you saying that an untrained person, who's never been in a fight, has the same odds of winning, as a trained Navy Seal, because "he wants to survive"? I respectfully disagree.
 
Practice makes perfect. Remember how clumsy it was to drive, the first time you loaded, frying eggs? Muscle memory helps. Dads or uncles or knights or older warriors taught kids how to fight. Lacrosse or jousting or to-chi were ways to keep those muscles in shape and reactions below conscious thought.
You could take a Seal and someone in good physical shape hand them both a weopen neither had ever used and and the Seal would have the advantage because of training to fight and well trained reactions.
Survival is a great incentive, but a tired old warrior would kill the untrained without hesitation or mercy.
 
Artificer said:
As a Career Warrior myself
Thanks for your service

I chose the Marine Corps because I believed I would get the best training and serve with more Warriors who volunteered to be there.
You do know that they did draft marines too, yes?



William Alexander
 
William,

Have to admit that when I went to Boot Camp in Oct 1971 a week after my 18th birthday, I did not know that they drafted some people into the Marine Corps during the Viet Nam War. Out of the 73 Recruits in my Boot Camp Platoon, we had only one Marine Reservist and the rest of us were all Active Duty and all of us were volunteers. I was even more surprised that about half the Platoon were still 17. I had been concerned a bit before Boot Camp that I might have been the youngest recruit, but I wasn't. We did have people who had gotten draft notices, of course, but they had then volunteered.

Matter of fact, I did not run across anyone who had been drafted into the Corps until 1976 at a Marine Corps League meeting. He asked me if I had volunteered or had been drafted. When I replied I had volunteered for the Delay Entry Program at age 17, he replied, "Oh, so you only volunteered, huh? I was CHOSEN by the Corps!" That's when he explained that he and two others at the AFEES Station the day he was physically inducted, were picked out to go into the Marines. Heck, I also found out some were drafted/picked to go into the Navy and some into the Air Force and that really surprised me.

Since I had enlisted in the Delay Entry Program at age 17, I never paid any attention to my draft number. The day after I came home on boot camp leave, though, Dad handed me a letter and said I really had to take care of it. It was my "Greetings from the President" Letter and had come a couple weeks before. So the next day on Monday, I went to the Draft Board in Uniform. There were two Secretaries there and I patiently waited until one of them looked up and asked if she could help me. I handed her the letter and told her with a smile, "Its too late. You can't have me. I already joined the Corps." She chuckled and pointed me to the desk of the Head of the Draft Board. When he looked up, I also informed him they couldn't have me. He asked to see my I.D. Card and when I handed it to him, he marked me off the role and said there had to have been a problem with my Recruiter reporting my enlistment to the Board. He then shook my hand and told me to ignore any other letter that may have been sent. It was only then that I learned my Draft Number had been 73 out of 365.

There might have been some Enlisted Marines who had originally been drafted and made the Corps a career, but I never ran across any. Every Staff Non Commissioned Officer I ever ran across had been a volunteer.

Gus
 
csitas said:
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is, When locked in hand to hand mortal combat I truly believe if you want to survive, you will find a way. Training or not. Training is nice but, I don't see proof that is required.

Bad news. Although the phrase, "rise to the occasion," sounds good, it's B.S.
No one rises to the occasion in a crisis, one falls to his/her highest level of training. The only time "untrained" persons win violent encounters with "trained" persons is when the "untrained" grew up/live in a violent world, and the "trained" individual has been "trained" but never really encountered real world brutal violence, "untrained" wins, usually, cause trained but inexperienced can't make the psychological shift to such a brutal mentality quickly enough. But, in these cases (often cited as why "the bad guys win") a lifetime in an environment where violence and brutality are the norm, surviving it is it's own training.

D.V.C.
Dave
 
And thank you for your service. :hatsoff:

Of course the definition of an "Old Warrior" changed with time, geography, diet, sanitation and even the health care they received while in the military. Surprisingly, in much of the Roman Period, men retired from the Army with 25 years service and from the Navy with 26 years service, though the latter is a bit muddied. A surprisingly large number of veterans lived to retirement age to get their pension money and land grant. However in medieval Europe, many soldiers did not survive nearly that long.

Old Warriors got that way because they didn't make too many stupid mistakes and had at least some luck, but mostly because they used their heads and had good leaders. Like anything else, their longer experience meant they could teach younger warriors quite a bit.

Gus
 
There never had to be a formal/codified martial art for people to be trained to use the hand weapons of their time.

For example, Vikings were not full time soldiers and had no martial art school, but they were trained to use the hand axe very well by older warriors.

I'm not suggesting that "no martial art = no martial techniques". But I am saying that it is observable to have martial techniques, combat moves for a weapon or weapons, and not an actual "martial art".

LD
 
Loyalist Dave said:
There never had to be a formal/codified martial art for people to be trained to use the hand weapons of their time.

For example, Vikings were not full time soldiers and had no martial art school, but they were trained to use the hand axe very well by older warriors.

I'm not suggesting that "no martial art = no martial techniques". But I am saying that it is observable to have martial techniques, combat moves for a weapon or weapons, and not an actual "martial art".

LD

OK, then taking that into consideration, even full time soldiers then or now rarely were/are taught a true martial art, unless they study one in their off duty hours.

As an example, even the British Army that did publish manuals and orders on many things, did not have a bayonet manual until the very end of the 18th century/early 19th century. As much as they relied on the bayonet in this period, they also only had "martial techniques" of instruction. Yet, it is very difficult to find any PROOF of that instruction before the manuals were written was given to the soldiers, outside of very "basic techniques" in the early manuals.

Gus
 
....Uh????? :confused: Artificier.....I know you are very much educated on things relating to the AWI so your statement puzzles me. I'm not much of an expert on the Continental soldier or the Redcoat. But, I have frequently read of instances of the Americans being soundly defeated by the British when a bayonet attach was used by the Redcoats because they had superior training in their use. I respect your input on posts regarding things AWI so am puzzled by what you just said. :hmm:
 
They concentrated on tactical movements. They were trained to put bayoneted musket it to a position and move in a direction based on drum beats, commands or bugle calls. They were trained company to company instead of man to man.
The men paraded till the moves became second nature, and responses didn’t require thought. The company was a pawn on a chess board, and it was up to the general to move them. One red coat with an empty musket vs one rifleman with a tomahawk was anybody’s guess. One hundred redcoats moving as one vs milita the best disciplined won.
 
Sorry if I was confusing. I'll try it a different way and hope this will clear it up.

There was no "Bayonet Drill Manual" in the British Army until after the AWI. Earlier Drill Manuals that were used up to and including the AWI only had a few "basic techniques" shown in the manuals and certainly nothing that could be called advanced training or bayonet fencing and especially not a martial art.

Now the British Army up through the AWI (and afterwards) was one heck of a lot further along in writing, publishing and documenting some of the smallest details of day to day Army life and more than anyone else in the colonies. Detailed Minutiae was kept in log books kept by Serjeants (with a nod to the period spelling) Company Officers, etc., etc. going all the way up through the chain of command. Yet it is very difficult to document any bayonet training beyond learning how to take up the poses/positions with the bayonet mounted musket in the Drill Manuals.

(NA's had nothing even remotely resembling this documentation, because most tribes/nations had no written language.)

The only documentation that seems to have survived for any kind of bayonet training in the British Army up through and including the AWI, was the very few "basic techniques" listed in available Drill Manuals. (I emphasize the use of the term "basic techniques" because that is what others described how NA Warriors used the Tomahawk.) These techniques were basically just how to hold the bayonet mounted musket at a charge position or when receiving an enemy bayonet charge or against enemy mounted troops. There is nothing in the Drill Manuals on blocking or parrying an enemy's thrust or other techniques of "bayonet fencing" to actually use the bayonet effectively in close combat.

Now as you mentioned, the British Army was known for being very effective with the Bayonet up through and including the AWI. Of course some of this in the early stages of the war was due to the discipline of the British Soldiers and the fact that many Patriots did not have bayonets. However after Valley Forge when the Patriots were far better trained and disciplined for only a few months and had bayonets by that time, the Patriots did much better at going head to head with the British Soldiers and their bayonets.

Now what this tells me is that even with the British Army being what is often referred to as the most professional Army in the world at the time and with ALL the full time training they had received before coming over and training by their Senior Enlisted and Officers; they only knew a few "basic techniques" of bayonet fighting. Otherwise, the British would have easily won over the Valley Forge trained Patriots (even with their bayonets) in hand to hand fighting with bayonets at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. This because that battle was only a few months after Von Steuben showed up to begin to train the American Army at Valley Forge on 23 February 1778.

IOW, even the most Professional Army in the World at that time with writing, publications, manuals and a full time Army; only had a few "basic techniques" for bayonet fighting that can be documented. Of course the British Army was primarily trained in drill, movement and firing - with the bayonet only being a secondary weapon, though an important one. But, they did not have advanced bayonet techniques and certainly no martial art with the bayonet.

OK, a little more comparison between the Most Professional Army in the World compared to NA's. Yes, NA's primarily used guns or bows if they did not have guns and the tomahawk was their secondary weapon. But some state the NA's had no "martial art" with the tomahawk. Well, no kidding, but we also have to remember the British Army did not have a martial art with the bayonet and they had all the advantages over the NA's mentioned here and that some others have already mentioned.

What I'm getting at is why must we assume that the NA's had to have a martial art, written language, publications, etc., etc. to effectively use the tomahawk; when even the British Army did not have a bayonet martial art or bayonet fencing training in the period?

The British Army only had "a few basic techniques" with the bayonet, yet they used the bayonet pretty effectively. The American Army only had a "few basic techniques" with the Bayonet and not as much discipline and training as the British Army, yet they did well against the British in hand to hand combat only months after Von Steuben showed up to train them.

So "few basic techniques" with the tomahawk and taught to NA's by other NA's with more experience in warfare, made them fairly formidable along with their other tactics.

Gus
 
Your statement about training and use of bayonet tactics ion both sides is absolutely correct. Formal combat training was not as we know now and depended to a large extent on working together. Von Steuben's instruction made all the difference but it would still be up to the overall training of any regiment or company. The ultimate example would be the 1st Maryland at Guilford Courthouse. As the British pushed everyone back the grenadier company of the Brigade of Guards was plowed into by the 1st Maryland, bayonets level. Gen. Lee described the British as having been "compelled to recoil from shock". When the 2nd Maryland started to fall back under pressure, Col. John Gunby of the 1st did a left wheel and his troops poured it into the advancing British...things would never be quite the same afterwards.
 
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Thank you for that information.

BTW, just loved the pic with the Viking and how wolves don't play well with dogs. :haha: Sorry I missed that earlier.

Gus
 
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