I wanted to post a picture to Facebook, but my phone doesn't have the login.
How do I get it to my laptop?
The phone, which took the picture, does have my Google Chat login.
So send the picture to Marv, copy it from the message, paste to Facebook.
Voila!
I have used that can opener to open cans and it mystifies some people.
A thread about swords on Arfcom got me thinking...
Swords are sidearms, not primary weapons most of the time. It's the weapon you pull when your main weapon goes tits up.
It's a weapon to show your status.
That's not how most of us gamers did it most of the time...
When we did, however, we hardly ever had cause to use them.
I've got so many character sheets that have secondary weapons that I never used.
Not a sword when I had a polearm.
Not a pistol when I had a rifle.
But... You never knew when the GM would decide to break your main weapon and better to have it and not need it that to need it and not have it.
Where have I heard that before?
Your Swiss Army Knife might have a place to stow a straight pin!
Look for this little hole under your corkscrew:
Update: 1-3/4" is the maximum pin length! The 2" pin pictured will poke out from under the scale at the far end and snag on your pocket lining.
Slides right in and is retained by the closed corkscrew!
My older knives don't have the little hole, but it's very neat to have learned this.
From a YouTube short, no less.
While they're looking at their government banning machetes, they seem to have forgotten about how they lost their guns.
And it seems that once you lose the guns, everything else eventually gets banned as well.
From the wikipedia page on Australia's gun laws, they don't seem too much worse off than much of Europe, but still need to "mother may I?" owning pretty much anything with extra steps to get "better" stuff.
Rapiers, by the way, come from a Spanish sword called 'espada ropera,' or dress sword.
They come from side swords, Italian for rapier, 'spada de lato de striscia' is "strip side sword." Strip referring to the width of the blade.
It becomes a rapier instead of a side sword when the blade narrows enough.
Generally, the hilt needs to get fancied up too to be considered a "real" rapier, but there are side-swords and back-swords with equally elaborate hilts.
Wikipedia has a little snippet about where the word rapier comes from.
The narrowing of the blade made them lighter for the same length, thus easier to lug around in social situations.
Some people noticed that you could get more length for the same weight as the old side swords and became tripping hazards at parties.
Eventually the "same length but lighter" school prevailed and the small-sword was invented.
$39 then, $100 now. Even the ones with mismatched serials are $80.
Instantly out of stock, as is typical of emailings from Atlantic.
Did some saber drills today.
No surprise. I'm old and arthritic.
A familiar burn is in my forearm. Exercise is good, right?
Solid brass turtle defense tool. The spike is to crack their shell.
For a change, it's heavier than the Basic Set thinks they should be. 0.8 lb. measured against 0.25 lb. in the book.
This gives your punch with Brawling a +1 to damage.
The legality of brass knuckles is, typically, silly in Florida.
You can have them.
You cannot make them or sell them.
You cannot conceal carry them.
They are subject to local ordinances because they are not part of the state preemption on weapons.
They do count as concealed dangerous weapons.
They are not mentioned at all with regards to use as paper weights or meat tenderizers.
The combination weapon that's the M1918 trench knife is more legal for carry. We're not talking about making sense, we're talking about the law here.
Medieval hand weapons made after TL7 are automatically upgraded to fine quality at no extra cost in GURPS.
The cavalry saber is, in GURPS terms simply a broadsword with an open frame basket hilt.
It's too light. 2.1 lb. with scabbard instead of 3 lb. But Damage should be sw +2 cut and thr +2 imp, Reach of 1, Parry 0, ST 10.
The martel de fer is far too light; 2.2 lb. when a combination pick/hammer should be coming in at 3.5 lb. It's also a bit long, it can readily be wielded two handed. So I compromised by using the pick stats and reducing damage by 1.
Damage one-handed is sw imp and sw +1 cr, Reach of 1, Parry 0U, ST 10. Two-handed is sw +1 imp and sw +2 cr, Reach of 1, Parry 0U, ST 9†.
The tomahawk is, again, too light at 1.3 lb. It's closest to the hatchet's 2 lb.
Damage is sw cut, Reach of 1, Parry 0, ST 8. Can be thrown! Damage sw cut, Acc 1, Range x1.5/x2.5, RoF 1, Shots T(1), ST 8, Bulk -2.
You DO have silly larp weapons of your own, don't you?
PS: If you happen to have an M1917 Cutlass sitting on your shelf:
Damage is sw+1 cut and thr +2 imp, Reach 1, Parry 0, ST 8. It should be about 2 lb. with scabbard, but real world weights are missing the Low Tech stats consistently.
"Sarge, I forgot my helmet!"
2d+2 cr against an unarmored skull still gets DR 2 from the bone, like a small mace or the hammer side of a martel de fer.
An average two-handed hit from a ST 14 dude will, on average, deliver 9 points of raw damage.
Minus 2 for the bones.
Times 4 for hitting the brain.
28 points of damage.
Two death rolls for a HT 10 mook and almost halfway to auto death.
A max damage roll would get 12 past the skill for 48 points of damage and 4 death rolls.
The typical 12 HP PC would fare a bit better.
The average roll will just barely get a death roll.
Max will get three death rolls.
In both cases they're major wounds to the head and bonuses to being knocked over and penalties to not losing consciousness apply.
Kids, remember, wear your helmet!
Update:
If my much smaller, and weaker, ass swung it one handed at an unprotected noggin...
1d+2 cr will do 3-8 points of raw damage with an average of 5 This will get 4-24, average 12, points against the HP of the target. On average the victim is looking to roll for consciousness, but not in danger of dying unless they fail that roll. Getting a death roll is possible, but I'd have to roll well.
Two handed changes the raw damage by just a point, delivering 8-28, average 16.
Kentucky Ballistics wonders how medieval weapons perform against modern armor.
Will it GURPS?
Scott looks like he's running a ST 14. That's got a thrust damage of 1d and swing damage of 2d.
His helmet appears to be NIJ IIIA rated. That's DR 12.
The first weapon is a small mace. He'll do 2d+2 cr with it, averaging 9 damage. It shouldn't penetrate.
The next weapon is a mace. He'll do 3d-1 cr with it, averaging 9 damage. It shouldn't penetrate.
Then the pick. He'll do 2d+1 imp with it averaging 8 damage. It shouldn't penetrate.
Using two hands, as he does, is good for an extra point of damage. Averages are 10, 10 and 9; so they shouldn't penetrate on average.
BUT!
Maximum damage with each weapon, two handed, is 15 cr, 17 cr and 14 imp. Penetration is possible, and, maybe, he got a good roll with the second hit with the pick.
This GURPS!
He didn't tell us what kind of vest it is. It looks like NIJ II soft armor. DR 10/5* (higher DR vs pi and cut).
The sword should do 2d-1 imp for thrusts and 2d+1 cut for swings. Average hits should be 6 imp and 8 cut respectively.
The DR 10 stops the cut handily, even if the armor takes some damage. The DR 5 stops the thrust, and his poor technique probably explains a below average damage roll.
The pick, doing 9 impaling with his two-handed swing gets 4 into the dummy.
This GURPS!
I'm not going to bother with the ahistorical morningstars or the idiotically long $1,500 not-so-great sword. But if I did the morningstar it'd do 3d cr swung two-handed for an average of 10. It shouldn't get through the helmet, but should get through the vest. I think it did, but he didn't really show the effects.
His spear should do 2d-1 imp when thrown. Average of 6 damage. That should penetrate, and it did, slightly.
Two-handed stabbing with it should do the same damage.
This GURPS!
I don't know how fast he was going on the scooter, so I can't calculate the damage bonus.
Do you have a pick with a hammer face?
I do!
2.2 lb. of 1055 steel and American straight grain hickory... Sold by Midway, marketed by Cold Steel, made by an American Tomahawk Co. manufactured in Taiwan... It doesn't appear to be THE American Tomahawk Co. either.
| Not ATC's logo... |
| If I had a nickel for every California cancer warning about nickel... |
The langettes are sheet metal and installation is DIY. The included screws are cheap as all fuck. Pilot holes are your friend.
It's fun, though. Especially since it was on sale for almost 43% off. I can feature a $46 mertel de fer, I can't feature an $80 one.
A couple of whacks on our chopping stump shows that it works. The hammer face leaves an impression, the pick side gets stuck, like it's supposed...
If I have statted myself correctly with a ST of 11... It should do 1d+2 imp on the pick side and 1d+2 cr on the hammer side.
There's two Roman words for sword.
Gladius which is latin for sword. It's probably a loaner word from Celtic.
Spatha which derives from a Greek word for broad bladed and morphs into several Romance languages word for sword. It also is the source word for spade.
For the M7 bayonets:
BOC, 10.4 oz.
Conetta, 10.3 oz.
Gen Cut #1, 11.4 oz.
Gen Cut #2, 11.3 oz.
MILPAR, 10.7 oz.
For the M8A1 Scabbards:
PWH #1, 5.2 oz.
PWH #2, 5.2 oz.
TWD, 5.3 oz.
VIZ, 4.9 oz.
For the M10 Scabbard:
Gen Cut, 4.0 oz.
I wonder what the target weight was for each. We've got a 1.1 oz. range for the M7's, with the 1960's bayonets being lighter than the mid-80's.
For my birthday, Marv got me a Gen Cut M7 bayonet. It looks to be an unissued, but out-of-package example.
Because it was on sale, for an excellent price, it did not come with a scabbard.
Amazon, of all places, sells bare scabbards. Because I am awash in M8A1 scabbards, I chose an M10 for this bayonet. New in wrap!
Cage code 20014, interestingly enough, is for General Cutlery! The same folks who made the bayonet.
Compared to the vintage M8A1.
The M10 scabbard is 4.0 oz. and that's 0.9 oz. lighter than an M8A1 (both weighed without the shoelace). Interestingly, this M7 and scabbard weighed 15.5 oz. That makes it an 11.5 oz. bayonet. A previous measurement of an M7 with M8A1 scabbard was 15.3 oz. for a 10.4 oz. bayonet.
I'm interested to see what the tolerances on the parts are to give that spread.
I agree with Mr Chappell.
Knives are tools.
Kershaw Cyclone and Victorinox Explorer.
The Swiss knife rarely gets called on to cut with either blade. It's more commonly employed as a screwdriver and bottle opener.
I don't carry either to have a fight.
Both lack anything to keep my hand from slipping forward over the blade. The Swiss one doesn't even lock!
I'd much prefer a weapon for fighting.
| Why would you bring a knife to a sword fight? |
It's a thought I had back when I was learning kenjitsu.
A thrust where the edge of the blade slides down the side of the target, like the ribs or neck, is more of a cutting attack than an impaling one.
Should be the same with any point and edge sword.
Now I want to check it on a melon to see if it works at all, or if it's brutally ineffective.
The opening assist (don't call it a switchblade) on my beloved Kershaw Cyclone decided to stop working last night.
The mode of failure was the same as when Marvyn's decided to die, so I was worried.
Today I took it apart and gave it a thorough cleaning.
Had two frustrations putting it back together.
First, I couldn't remember how the assist spring went into the knife because it fell out while separating the halves and I didn't see where it'd come from.
Someone on YouTube had a video that solved that one.
Second, I dropped the smaller blade bushing into the field of debris at the foot of my work bench. UGH! I should really sweep up more than once a year.
So I vacuumed up the debris and took it out to the sawhorses and spread it out to find the little thing. Huzzah!
Once reassembled, the opening assist appears to be functioning correctly again.
Dunno for how long, but it's working for now.
I dread the day it quits for good, but it will still be a fine knife; it will just open conventionally.
I noticed a while ago that the mouth of the M8 scabbard did not match the contour of any bayonet's cross-guard.
Why is it angled away from the guard?
To match the profile of the top side of the M3 fighting knife AND so you can hang it from either hip!
I'm the only one who wondered, aren't I?