Reenactment, HEMA, and Death in Context
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 พ.ค. 2024
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~~Video Description~~
Military reenactment, alongside a few other historically-inclined hobbies, often prides itself on its accuracy down to the minutest of material culture details. The uniforms being made to historical standards, the drill being practised as it was historically, and all the rest...but there are some ways in which no reenactment, no matter how amazingly well done, can ever be even close to accurate...and that's okay! But we need to understand what those limitations are, and keep these hobbies and the information they provide us within their proper context. Otherwise, it can lead us to make poor assumptions, and even convey those assumptions to the public, which defeats the original purpose entirely!
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Haha that ad segue was the best I've seen I think! :D
Actual threat changes everything: During patrols you are taught to take a knee everytime you stop, during training the Lt. ALWAYS had to remind everyone constantly to do it. First two weeks in Helmand same story, until one afternoon there were a couple rifle cracks in the vicinity (nothing happened, later turned out to be just locals poaching), the magnitude and severity of the situation set in and people started taking a knee as soon as they stopped even 10 meters outside of the FOB.
When watching the modern warfare reenactments I can't help but cringe at the guys who just walk around upright seemingly in their own fantasy land like at 6:22 or 16:11. The footage at 5:55 is a lot more realistic looking.
How kneeling became "taking a knee" is beyond my comprehension. Usually language simplifies over time... Is this some colonial invention?
@@olanordmann2743 The phrase has existed for a good while; it just became more popular recently.
@@yetanother9127 It's use seems to have been restricted to colonials until ~2016, the earliest use I've found so far is from Florida 1972.
@@olanordmann2743 Kneeling is both knees on the ground, taking a knee is only one
As a mutual reenacting friend of ours once said-in our drill, we’re only gonna be as fast as the slowest of them.
I'd love to eventually start up a Fencible group. With a whole lot of drill and event experience, the best reenactors will look reasonably like non-professional but still regular-ish troops!
@@BrandonF well, I'm sure that the Napoleonic community would approve
I could imangine a line infantry soldier would feel terrorized when the enemy formation shoots faster than his formation, knowing full well that his formation would most likely to be routed
Started as a WWII reenactor two decades ago (US and Russian) and ended up in the actual army, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Another difference, bluntly and uncomfortably, is the hate. Personal squabbles that tend to ferment in reeactment aside, most reenactors, regardless of side, don't hate each other. When you know that the combatants on the other side actually want to end you with every fiber of their being and you don't feel so kindly towards them either, it's very, very real.
Interesting insight. Thank you.
In American Civil War reenacting, the most common form of this is people saying soldiers never fixed their bayonets, because the reenactors never fix bayonets due to safety regulations and a misguided belief of “bayonets were never used as bayonet wounds were so rare”
No, they would have been fixed at almost every battle. Maybe not put through someone, but always fixed.
I think it's stretch to say they'd always be fixed, but if you were advancing on the enemy then, yes, they'd be fixed.
Maybe they’re thinking plug bayonets were still in use in the late 18th century? Weird
@@colbunkmustyeah they weren’t, why add unnecessary weight when your enemy is far and currently in no threat of melee, or cavalry threats
Not always but often enough.
@@Hockey-gn2tj beuse lne of the main points of a bayonet is defense agenst cavalry and you dont know when you will charged. And the the extra weight on the gun does no mater as you dont stand aming for minuts on en so its not a problem. And you are allredy carying that weight anyway
The HEMA point is similar to any combat sport. MMA fights are indeed "real" fights, but nobody hits their opponents in the throat or uses a downwards elbow strike to break an arm or collar bone, because these folks need to be able to fight again. Non-sport combat, whether on a battlefield or in a back alley, is *always* going to be more vicious.
Honor, tradition, and respect goes out the window when it's not in the ring with someone who agreed to spar or fight with you. In the streets? I'm coming home to my family.
I don’t think MMA and HEMA are that comparable in that sense. In mma people do get knocked out, strangled and have limbs broken. Those illegal moves you mention are not any more dangerous than a flying knee or head kick(for context throat hits are legal when standing and elbows are legal except one specific direction cause of some weird compromises made to make mma legal)and back in the day almost all moves were legal.
mma has real dangerous similar to an actual fight. HEMA has to simulate it with points cause we don’t want to die.
I gonna debate tho that medieval Training could also be similar to combat sport. It meant to remember the mistake so avoid making them in combat, not killing the trainee outright
It's also not a reason for untrained people to despise HEMA like "nah they are not real combat lol" when they could have more sparring experience than normal medieval infantry.
@@wolfensniper4012 don’t get me wrong I love hema and compete in it. I do think someone trained in hema would be effective in a real sword fight.
However hema does have an extra level of separation. A Hema bout simulates a real fight, mma is a real fight in a controlled environment
Ehm i got soo many times stabbed in my throat in HEMA. It is a valid target in our rules and soo we have triple protection there....
As someone who has been shot as well as experienced someone trying to stab me to death I can confirm that threat of death changes the game completely as far as how someone behaves. Likewise once one has been through such they change as a person forever.
Absolutely! Not merely does immediate danger affect the way a person acts 'in the field,' but the prior experiences as well!
What’s the story? If you don’t mind telling.
My friend with reenacting experience told me of a time an infantry group was being charged by horses. The battle they were reenacting, the charge was to be repulsed, but it was so intimidating being charged by armored horse the infantry actually broke and ran.
Oop
If one is feeling fear in a reenactment, then that reenactment is doing something right.
Should be noted that HEMA is a reconstruction- reliance on a few published works as it has been suggested a lot of educators kept training knowledge to themselves to increase their value. They are still some gaps in what we know to historical European combat. We are more fortunate in that we have historical archives of US, UK, France, et cetra that go back to the 18th (Probably earlier for some nations) to modern times so we can see "Ah, this is how they drilled, this is accounts from battles and reports!"
Reenactors are modern people taking part in a fun hobby
THEY were a random farmer from the poorest part of Wales dying 5000 miles from home knowing no one else is earning money for the people they care about.
One of these people is going to be more cautious than the other
I will say that as a hema practitioner, there is a lot of variety in how different groups approach sparring. There are some groups that treat it as a sport. My instructor focuses a lot on treating hema as a martial art rather than a sport. This includes sparring at full force (with stabbing and only if you are wearing the suitable gear) and focusing on non stop fighting so that people need to defend themselves as they attack. When we run tournaments, we also try to create rules sets that punish doubles, amd encourage people to defend themselves. This still doesn't quite cut it however. There are certain cuts, like schaitelhau for example, that doesn't translate as well to hema because it depends on the other person wanting to defend their head, which someone wearing a helmet might not care as much about (it depends tho, concussions are still a worry, but some people are just murder hobos). One of the biggest limitations in longsword specifocally is that since the swords are dull, they will not bite each other and stick in a bind like how sharp swords will, which also changes things. There are plenty of other tiny things that add up too but this comment is long enough as is
I had never considered that a sharp blade vs a dull one would actually have different properties beyond the impact on humans. That is incredibly interesting! Thank you for your comment.
@@BrandonF
Because simply it's not a thing in actual full speed combat.
@pinocchio418 what isn't a thing? Sharp swords biting each other definitely is a thing especially if they hit together at full speed
@@pinocchio418 and what is your experience to argue that?
I actually think that on a certain level both you and @benjaminmcclelland2464 may be falling into one of the specific traps discussed in the video; that we have a tendency to assume that our experience translates directly to a truth.
I have used sharps to spar, and I did find they feel different when making blade-contact. Perhaps not different enough to fundamentally alter the way I wanted to fight, but definitely something of which to be cognizant.
I will also say that the assumption that a strike "primarily works because they opponent wants to defend their head" is one interpretation among several I've seen, and used, and changed over time, and that that using a different interpretation of, in this example, sheitelhau, in my experience yields far more positive results in sparring.
Point is, for any of us to blanket say "This is what the master meant", without being able to further contextualize and contrast to other possibilities, falls into that trap.
@@benjarashow7148 There is no dissens regarding the wider fencing context.
I am just saying, just like you, that sword biting happens but not to a degree that it changes the dynamics.
Yes it feels differently but it does not act differently. And I will stick to that statement because it was proven several times. In a personal space and even here online, on TH-cam.
Sticking swords is a hyped trend in HEMA that has no significant impact on the fencing itself.
As an avid airsoft player, vice captain of a university airsoft club and a war studies and history students nothing makes me feel more crazy than hearing airsoft players parrot re-enactorisms.
The guy who ran the hema club i went to when asked about realism in sparring always said
"The only way to properly represent a fight is to have a real fight... And we dont do that because we run out of sparring partners very quickly"
There a big difference upbetween "using the move together" with a friend and actually trying to disassemble another human in a 2-way competition for keeps.
‘If you used real bullets it would be better’
Some kid to me after the Guildford Courts house reenactment 2022.
She had a point.
brandon f is whats gonna get me into reenenactment when i get the time i swear to god
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@@BrandonF oh i will brandon, just give me a few years to finish high school and im all set to reenact history (and all the nitpicking you mentioned in the video)
I got started with it right out of high school, too! Just make sure not to rush into any new group or part of the hobby, though. I know it's super exciting but it's also important to speak with many different groups and to find the one that will work best for you. Not just based off of what impression looks the coolest or what historical unit had the most interesting history, but the size of the group, the kinds of people in it, etc. Chris the Redcoat has a great video about the "red and green flags of reenacting" that you may enjoy!
@@BrandonFdefinitely will be watching that! and thanks for the advice!
Brandon is the reason why I got into re-enacting, too! His and Chris’s advice is priceless in case you wanted a peer confirmation of his lessons. 😂
Well done, Brandon! I've been doing this living history/reenacting (adult play acting) for 40 years, and this is something that is always on my mind. We are suspending reality to facilitate teaching history to the general public. I am very glad that I didn't live back then!
In my experience, it's the less experienced fencers who fight with no regards to their "lives." A lot of people I know wear the minimum of protection in order to force themselves to be more aware and more conservative with their actions and strikes.
Also, the more lethal you try to be, the safer you end up as you always present a threat your opponent can’t just rush. When you’re trying to take your opponent’s head off and not just snipe their hands you end up presenting a better cover.
Hey Brandon,
HEMA guy here
I will say, there are moments mid bout where if its high intensity enough we can absolutely get a taste that survival rush.
Granted its only for a few moments but at the end of the day you are trying to stop somebody hitting you with a big metal bar and you can be stressed to the point of forgetting you're in armor and all you want to do is stop what's happening. And the fight or flight reflex kicks in, especially when you're physically exhausted trying to breath in as much oxygen with each breath through a helmet.
It doesn't happen very often, but when it does there no other rush that compares.
I mostly agree with your points but I thought I would include a bit of my experience here.
The fact that we can get that whilst sparing a friend in modern protective kit with blunt 'weapons', gives a very limited insight in to just of f****** terrifying it must have been for real.
I wasn't carried off an SCA battlefield due to injuries sustained, but only because I was stupid and didn't wait long enough to be. And yeah, when you're physically wounded you can get a taste for that fear. Remember, actual deaths in battle were fairly low; I've read of Roman accounts where legions lost the battle and only suffered a few hundred casualties (to put this into perspective, this is less than 1% of their force). Being wounded badly though to be out of commission was the more common outcome.
Is it a perfect view of the past? No, of course not, not even close. There are a thousand things that make it different. I've also been stabbed a few times and dodged more than my share of small arms fire, and the experiences were sufficiently different to drive home that modern recreational martial arts are not actual combat. But I do think there are important insights to be gained if we're careful.
It's like geology. We can't actually go into the mantle, and we can't actually wait five million years for some solid-state reaction to occur. So we build analogies, document the places where our analogies break down, and acknowledge that some things are beyond our capacity to investigate experimentally. We can't actually kill each other in the name of understanding the past, so we approximate it, acknowledge that it isn't perfect, and try to gain some insights both at the personal and the academic level.
Definitely not the, but i will say there are some guys in my club that hit like a truck, and im doing everything i can to not get hit from a point of "this will hurt a lot" still not the same as life or death, but i do think there is something to be said for pain avoidance, pushing thr approximation a little further.
And of course im talking pain as in bad bruises, not broken bones from improper protection
@@therecalcitrantseditionist3613and then you face one of thoose guys in a cometition that really want's pepole to go full contact and where that guy has no reason not to hurt you if he can. In my first competition I got my arm hit so hard that my armguard from SPEC shattred and I couldn't use my right hand properly at work for two weeks. Still by the time my next match was on the adrenaline pumped so high that I didn't even feel the pain until that match was over...
As someone who has done some of the biggest battles in the SCA (reenactment level medieval arsthetics with modern safety standards for full contact combat), I can say it definitely gives you just a taste of the real thing. But that's what play is all about. Getting just enough of a terrifying experience to be fun.
I run a HEMA organization and sometimes I will try to put myself in the mindset of "I cannot let myself die no matter what" which definitely gives a different perspective on the matter although obviously far from the actual reality. It is very interesting though to feel the difference as I go to an extremely defensive mode and don't throw myself out there. As such my kill counts drop drastically though I can generally keep myself in for much longer. It generally ends with my desire to increase my kills again so I let the mindset fade out after a few minutes....
I always thought this. Blank fire only is theater, and airsoft is sport.
You make some interesting points on HEMA and I would like to expand on some of them and add a bit as well since I am a teacher at my local HEMA club. Definitely I've seen at a fair few clubs that people take a LOT of unnecessary risks, even in some tournaments you can score points for an "after blow" which is when you strike your opponent after you yourself have been hit, and this encourages people to "risk it for the biscuit" in the name of points. Having seen all of this it started to change the way I wanted to fence as well as teach. I know that I can't completely recreate the mindset of someone in that kind of life or death fight but I try to put myself in the mind set of "DO NOT GET HIT ABOVE ALL ELSE OR YOU WILL DIE!" which makes me a lot more cautious and I find myself staying out of range or hanging out in a guard called Long point, as in I have the point fully extending in front of me to discourage an attack, and when I do attack I try for lots of faints and false cuts to fool my opponent and get his weapon almost completely out of the way before I strike.
I also started teaching and practicing techniques that were taught at the time specifically to keep people safe. For instance binding, binding being when the two blades make contact in front of the two fencers, and from the bind you can get a lot of information from a fairly safe place, because when you are at distance you know nothing about your opponent but when binding you can tell almost exactly what kind of swordsmen he is. Your opponent might be weak in the bind so you can displace his blade and stab to the face or he might be too strong in the bind so you can just void the bind (as in remove your sword from contact) and let his blade carry on into air well you deliver a cut. Or he might be highly skilled and be winding around you sword quicker than you can keep up and so retreating might be a prudent idea.
Things like this I think are important to tell and teach HEMA students because it makes the experience a lot more authentic than a larp session. I also wanted to comment on the force of the blows given in duels. It depends on who's dueling but for the most part the blows are controlled to prevent over swing as said in the manuals but are still powerful. Folk like SKallagrim have done tests with ballistic dummies where they cut with about the same force as they do in duels and the effects are usually devastating. Again like you said though we really don't know how strong or how fast fencers and soldiers would have been in reality, we can only speculate. Another interesting part of that speculation is energy conservation. Some battles could drag on for days and a single soldier may have to fight for ten hours or more so it would logically be unwise to expend all your energy at the start of the battle, this has led to many believing that the strikes would have probably been measured yet powerful.
Hopefully this helped add to the video and teach a thing or two to the viewers. Thanks for making thought provoking videos for all of us who love history : )
The way to handle the after blow is not to score the 2nd hit, but to say you don't get points for a hit if you're hit in return a fraction of a second later. If two people are fighting for real with swords, each one hitting the other is definitely a possibility, and if that happens neither of them won and both lost.
Here's my addition to your Warthunder Ad: Its so realistic people will leak classified documents just to prove they are right about their favorite in game vehicle!
Edward Snowden walked so Tanks4TheMemories420 could run
Reenactment is theater on another stage where everyone can be his own director. Experimental Archeology is when where research begins and results then are documented. But nothing wrong with playing theater.
One example out of many that makes me smile. On my first deployment we were on a small FOB. An Inf CO, arty PLT, SF team, and some misc folks. We received indirect fire daily. Sometimes multiple time a day; and only on a few specific occasions did I actually “get down.” In one occasion they walked 14 mortars up to us; and it was only after the 4th round we decided to move behind the hescos. I’ve not been under intentional arty fire; but you get used to rockets and mortars quick. Usually you’re climbing up higher to see where they landed or hit. Remember that clip in Band of Brothers where a mortar comes in and one guy hits the ground while everyone else stares at him like an idiot? That’s not unrealistic.
One humorous experience from that same deployment. I had a chance to eat at a proper defac as we were rotating out. A rocket blew up over the defac. The AF folks had recently rotated in; and they scattered like roaches; while the rest of us kinda just stepped up in line. In there defense, it was a pretty good boom that rattled the whole structure. Not to sound stoic, but we were used to it, tired of it, and hungry.
I'm a HEMA practitioner and Civil War cavalry reenactor. I like your video!
When it comes to reenacting, I *totally* agree. Nobody is going to die and the main goal is to have fun (everyone achieves "fun" in different ways). It's a much better experience when you have actual military veterans with you or, even better, in charge of you as an officer or NCO because some things never changed when it comes to military life. There are times when the frustration and desperation feels quite real when you do war games and improvised choreography... the danger can be real too! I've seen people be thrown and trampled by their animals, get sliced by rusty sabers, and take blanks to the face.
I think you give an honest and polite view on HEMA. However, no one wants to pay medical bills or be injured, the hits can in fact hurt and even hospitalize. I know quite a few folks that broke bones or got stabbed for real on accident. Your gear is to you what a net is to a trapeze artist, the training dictates that you don't rely on that alone. I find that lots of people are subconsciously suicidal in fencing until they've either had a serious injury from that attitude or had a chance to train without protective gear.
I do western style viking fighting, and I agree with your sentiments here. We have safety rules (no blows to the head and no ranged weapons) and kill zones (only strikes above the knees and to the body kill). These rules really changes the way fighters and units behave.
You really delve into the lack of fear, which I completely agree plays a major role. We constantly do "risky" stuff because we know we won't die. Most commonly if we spot an opening in enemy lines we will try to make a break through. That makes sense within the rules of the game, because breakthroughs can devastate the enemy forces. However, the individual doing the breakthrough is almost certainly going to die.
I think you left out another more broad consideration though. Understanding the mindset of the past is difficult. People are shape by the time they are living in, and no amount of reenactment or knowledge of the past can really change that. You will always be a modern person pretending. This issue gets more profound the further from the present you get. Understanding the viking mindset is close to impossible for modern people. That matters for reenactment of both peace and war. For instance we have no real comprehension of how the viking beliefs shaped their behavior on the battlefield. On one hand we can assume that survival is a basic human drive overriding everything else. On the other the religious belief that death in war leads to "salvation" might actually shape the risks you are willing to take.
Reenactment is like building an amazingly realistic scale model of, say a MKV Spitfire, no matter how accurate you make it, how much work you put in, and how close to the original you manage to get, at the end of the day, it's still "just" a model. And that isn't a dig. Reenactors do a lot of good stuff, but it's not real.
Real soldiers are usually exhausted, generally hungry and, in the black powder era, often drunk.
And always scared.
I absolutely love that comparison! I hope you don't mind that I WILL be stealing it.
@@BrandonF Not at all mate, steal it and use it to your heart's content!
Wait a minute....
You didn't die?
Damnit man!
You had me fooled this whole time!!!
Okay now I have to figure out whose grave that was....
You know Brandon, when I saw the set-up for this the lyrics of Pulp's "Common People" came into my head:
Still you'll never get it right
'Cos when you're laying in bed at night
Watching 'roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all.
The frame of mind I go into HEMA sparring, is that of a school kid going to the sand box to play tag. It is challenging to move my body and sword in a way to deliver a cut or stab to a resisting opponent. I enjoy the challenge, I enjoy learning from people who are better at it than me, and I enjoy sharing my what I have learned with others. I accept what you say about how my experience can not 100% align with a duelist or soldier from the past, but it was never my intent to get into their head space. I am a modern man with all the benefits of modern material science, playing a (possibly ancient) game at a level of safety that is only possible thanks to modern material science.
I do wonder who’s running around claiming to be a real knight or duelist. Hema is at its core a sport at this point. At best it’s a fun way to stay active. Even in Meyer’s time that was already a case. They could turn it into practical value, but for us it’s like airsoft or going to a shooting range. What weekend warrior at an airsoft game genuinely thinks he’s better than a trained soldier? Anyone that deludes themselves like that is just being an idiot about it. Even unarmed martial artists know damn well that while your chances in a real life or death fight are better than an untrained person, they’re still going to have a much worse time if push comes to shove. Training of any kind helps, but no one is a main character. And no amount of civilian training can rival real combat experience. We just cannot replicate that nor should any sane person want to. So why does this keep coming up?
@@knightmareza9478 It is not claiming to be a real Knight or Duelist but claiming you hold special insight into those activities because you have participated in the closest modern simulation. There are some among us who do claim that insight, as there are many in the reenactment community who rightfully claim the same. That is not me, I am just here to hit my friends with sticks in a purely consensual manner.
I do often wonder how realistic or applicable HEMA techniques are. The wearing of armour and the genuine desire to *injure* would substantially change the equation vs "first hit".
When I watch HEMA so many "hits" scored just look like light dings on armoured areas. In a real fight, would that hit even be noticed? I suspect not.
I think that different schools and methods of practising HEMA do this to better degrees than others. I've definitely seen a lot of footage of the 'dinging' counting as a full 'kill' / ending the bout, but I've also seen schools where it's much more...rough, so to speak. I imagine it depends on the level of professionalism and safety equipment, and the precise goals of the participants. It is something that can be done incredibly well, but it can also be done poorly, just like reenactment.
This is absolutely something that gets some discussing in HEMA, and I think it is worth considering (as is so often mentioned) a bit of context.
Some weapons and systems in HEMA are meant for fighting in armor against armor (harnisfechten) but many are intended for “plainclothes” (bloßfechten) combat or even for dueling. A cut to the hand can be fight-ending even outside of a dueling situation if it renders the opponent unable to properly grip their sword. And some sources/systems are clearly intended for dueling where maiming would not necessarily be the intended outcome.
This is not to say that anyone using, say, a rapier/sidesword/etc is participating in a duel to first blood or that even someone who *is* ostensibly doing so will show such restraint, but it does leave room for such actions to be meaningful in the right circumstances.
Rules often attempt to address some of this (i.e. afterblow/doubling/failed retreats in events meant to simulate unarmored combat), but no ruleset can replicate the *feeling* of being in a genuinely perilous fight. And, as you rightly point out, no ruleset can effectively evaluate whether any given strike *would* immediately incapacitate a determined attacker of be shrugged off due to adrenaline in the moment. It is entirely possible that someone who truly wants you dead could push through even a severe wound to a deep target and continue attacking.
So - and apologies for this turning out way longer than initially intended - a lot of HEMA fencing is not intended to simulate armored combat, but certainly there is room to debate the merits of techniques in various dueling/street fight/self defense/battlefield situations.
It's one of the reasons I chose to train saber rather than long sword. The fact that it would have use primarily by un-armoured combatants makes HEMA saber the opportunity to be a slightly closer analogue than longsword. It still only get you so far though.
Most of HEMA combat is simulating "unarmored" combat. The competitors wear protection because if you didn't, you'd have broken bones or worse even without the sharp edges. It's also the reason why most poleaxe combat even in full harness isn't done at full force. Spinal injuries aren't something that you can just walk off.
most hema is supposed to represent unarmored fighting
if you wanna look up how armored fencing is done, look up harnischfechten (note: people don't strike each other in the head with swords if they wear a helmet, it's quite pointless)
A fantastic and insightful video, as always. I wanted to say (if you were looking for ideas) that a video on the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland would be an amazing addition to your works.
There is a lot to talk about e.g, the massive recruitment of Irishmen across the country, the tactics used in the fighting, the brutal massacres, the brutal reprisals from government forces, the glorious and deplorable deeds alike!
If you wanted a great source of information I cannot recommend enough the book “The year of Liberty” by Thomas Packenham.
Thanks for reading!
Its prob fair to point out real militaries have the same issues doing training. In force v force training you dont have live fire to contend with - at best laser simulators. In live fire exercises its all one way and no-ones shooting back - most of your safety conditioning is about not getting friendly fire. Trying to get realism in scenarios is very hard when real life is vastly more intense.
I've also done airsoft and you def take ridiculous risks you never would in real life - because respawn is only a few minutes away at worst, and it doesnt actually matter if you win or lose apart from a bit of pride lost. Occasionally bigger games might have more punitive rules, but its still never going to be equivalent.
a quick example I've used a few times. In training infantry are normally only issued about 6 mags, and a section attack drill is normally completed against a single unsupported position in 10 - 15 minutes.
In the falklands there was one para who talked about going into battle at goose green with 14 mags, a couple of 200 round belts, a couple of bandoliers, and a sandbag of loose ammo. By the end of the battle he was rummaging in the pouches of fallen argentinians for spare mags/rounds. Trying to convey that in a training scenario is hard.
Hi, someone with a masters here in History (also did HEMA):
The points you describe in relation to HEMA and ones that people who do a lot of research and practice are quite aware of. Things a very context specific: are you training for war? Or for sport (the difference isn't all that much until the moment when it hits)? Are you displaying in front of an audience and therefore displaying humerous moves to make the audience laugh? Are you dueling for first blood? No one who actually delves into historical research disregards these factors. Violence is inherently social and are based on social/cultural norms
What I think fills the hole you've left is the fact reconstruction in HEMA isn't based solely in isolation, it comes with reading manuscripts and historical sources at the time. Coinciding with wider historical reading, you actually find (based on for example crusader first hand accounts) that the experiences aren't all that different from today. People do a myriad of different things in stress: they wet themselves, get very courageous, run away, get immobilised etc. Military stuff is often long travel, eating stale bread, someone getting disciplined harshly for looting, and trying to navigate a hostile land (unless it's yours of course). No one is suggesting we know what it feels like, heck modern military people don't to an extent with the advent on modern facilities and technology (mass manufactured rations and readily available water being two factors in mind).
I would have agreed with you several years ago when HEMA, at least on social media, was still in it's exploratory phase (no one did much reading, or at least never took such reading seriously, or simply didn't know such reading existed; if there was any reading, it was simply the treatises themselves and that resulted in all kinds of assumptions e.g. people just carried bucklers around on a daily basis: plot twist, that never happened), hence why people made all sorts of unsubstantiated claims without proof (and still do e.g. medieval people never used to bathe, now it's the zeitgeist is that they always bathed, with little room for nuance).
Is reconstruction 100% proof that what happened, happened in the way you perceived it? No. Does it inform our opinion on what may have happened at the time? Yes. Can a inter/multi-disciplinary approach aid us in understanding what happened better? A definite yes.
Finally, unless I'm mistaken, we're all human and share similar experiences. Sure they're different but they're understandable, otherwise we wouldn't be able to understand them.
Reeanacting is valuable because on sees and gets a feel for how it was like for the period in question. It will never be perfect for many reasons but it can inform others of about the period in question.
I remember seeing someone try to show the difference between modern communication methods and WWI methods for controlling forces. It was striking how difficult it was to control infantry using WWI methods, especially when new orders came down. Modern communication methods made it much easier to control the forces in a timely manner.
Ha! The one time me being a camp follower is actually to my benefit!!! It’s much more immersive for me because my job is the hobby and the hobby is my job. It is especially beneficial to my research and interpretation with my ability to do ethnoarchaeology (recreation)
You're right of course. I came to this conclusion years ago and totally gave up the re-enactment hobby as a result.
Brandon, I absolutely love your content. There's something about the respectful way you talk about things I find really inspiring. Thank you for your well-read content, mate.
That is a lovely thing to hear. Thank you, I appreciate it!
This dude is the literal embodiment of “I own a musket for home defense.”
30 years of re-enactment, you are spot on with this. It is a "game" and a fun one, but not actual combat. 20+ years of martial arts and as a 1st responder, I have had people actualy try to kill me on a number of occasions (with and without weapons). It sucked. Still have nightmares about parts of it. But when someone is actually attacking you with intent, it is an entirely different situation, and it is not fun. Now the important question: WHERE IS TIMMY???!!! I WANT TO PLAY WARTHUNDER WITH TIMMY!
.grin.
For a few years I did HEMA (I didn't know it by that name) and I don't remember it being described as a method of understanding history, it was more of a sport, similar to eastern martial arts. We did learn a bit of the historical context, but more so to understand the sport. I must admit however that I never managed to get into the social aspects (which made me feel isolated and lead me to quit) so I don't know how others saw it.
So I practice Harnischfechten (which can fall into a HEMA context, understanding the HEMA is an organization and not a system within itself ), and also have the unfortunate luxury due to occupation knowing what edged arms actually do to the human body.
A large issue is indeed a lack of understanding of actual violence, controlled violence takes on a different context in a sportive setting, even in period the difference between outrance & plaisance was highly noted, both with war fighting (kampfechten) and dueling (zweifechten) which is an interesting thing to note in itself as a level of expected violence in combat could fluctuate in the moment depending on desperation. One of the largest issues and oldest debates among European martial artists is sportification, it is in this regard where your point becomes most apparent, as people confuse the goal of an engagement as being “of defeating one’s opponent” where it should rather lye in “staying alive”. There is of course other factors that simply can’t be factored in as well, in a modern setting, such as committing to an action to die with purpose or to brave death with purpose. So yes there are issues in this setting, that said not all settings are equal, much to the quality of re-enactments and living history events some are better than others, it’s knowing what to take away and what to leave that is key.
I do Rapier within the SCA, you are om the point when it comes to not fearing death. I take risks and do stupid maneuvers that would kill me because it's cool sometimes.
Lovely analysis, thanks for providing it.
11:41 the spaghetti wars have begun.
This is something you can find in almost any sports, because there are rules. If you take a look at Olympic fencing, it doesn't look like a realistic duel, even with épées. Because there are rules to follow, and the champions are often the ones who know the rules precisely, and how to bend them without breaking them in order to make the best score.
Realistic duels were (more often than not) disloyal, because the main goal is to survive. So you can easily forgive yourself for breaking the rules, if you win at the end.
So if your enemy is waiting for you with his rapier already drawn, prepare a dagger in your boot and some pocket sand, because it will be useful.
As an airsoft player of ten years without military background: we for sure often act with a lot less care (also a lot less training and drill than in the military), thpugh i think there's a massive difference between the types of games.
At a regular open day game, im far less risk averse than at a multi day event.
Where at the day game, i might have to walk 50-100m back to respawn, wait 5 minutes and then i can try again. At a milsim, i might have walked an hour or more to my objective and if i get hit there, i need to walk back all that distance, wait an hour and walk out again. So suddenly i am far more careful and do not just try stuff for the lolz. Tactics matter, because theres an actual punishment for being hit. Thats what i enjoy so much about these longer form events. Its far less predictable and the stakes are higher. At a regular day game, you know roughly how many players there are, which place they start the round and the field is usually small enough to calculate where people go.
At those big events woth hundreds of players and multiple square kilometres of area, there could be no opponents at your objective, there could be a small group, that you can win against, there could be a full platoon or even company.
I reenact Germans for WW1 and WW2 and have been in tacticals. There is some training value if you take it seriously and actually try to act as you would in a deadly situation instead of play around. A simulated battle with real guns can help you get a grip on tactics. You never have quite the feeling of a life or death situation like when I had a defensive gun use (guy pulled a gun on me but he ran off when I pulled my own gun) or got into a bad car wreck. In dangerous situations, I was surprisingly not scared and I was level headed, time felt like it was in slow motion (3 seconds felt like over 20 seconds). The fear and anxiety comes after the adrenaline wears off and you contemplate how much worse it could've been. It's a really weird feeling that's hard to describe, adrenaline does odd things.
As someone who likes to do HEMA stuff, I personally like to wear as minimal safety equipment as possible to ensure that I am always scared of getting hit. I'm not even trying to seem cool, I will obviously wear a helmet and gloves to avoid breaking bones or losing an eye, but since getting my arms or legs hurt is not really permanent and but also painful, I think it provides a sense of alertness you might miss with large jackets. I have also come to greatly appreciate how far clothing technology has come. And I have to say that medieval clothing has a vast amount of flaws that I think most people do not realize.
Part two. For my rev War reenacting I did find a difference to my actions for a battle reenactment and tactical war games. Like at the Winter Tactical at the Greene Homestead. There was a lot of arguing of if someone got hit or not. I fired upon a guy at a stone wall maybe 4 times at maybe 30 feet and he refused to die, but that wasn't one of the thinking about real battle situations. The one that got to me was when we were in the woods and I saw red coats and automatically hit behind Steve Gardner's box of beer (in a wood box, we had no clue there was real beer in it, probably would have cracked one open and watched the line of soldiers walk by), and I stayed there for far longer than I would have if it was just a reenactment. I was actually scared. My partner didn't want to carry it so I was dragging it by myself and jumping behind trees and brush . Any sight of red and I was on the ground. Of course later we made it to the filed and another LI guy came and we ran across the field to the pine trees. Of course later when I didn't know how many were left I ran to the well and started chatting with you. I might have something stupid like "hey your that famous You-tuber guy" Anyway, good video!
In fencing as in Hema, I have seen our Newbies charge in with what would be suicidal attacks during bouting because they are too focused on getting the hit, rather than not getting hit. To discourage this activity, my club counts afterblows as valid hits. We also actively shame doubles as something to be avoided in an attempt to make our fencing more historically correct. My club is much more concerned with the practical martial art of our system than the sport you will often see in tournaments. Each of whiches rulesets result in different types of fencing to be more advantageous.
Brandon doing a breakdown of guts and blackpowder innacuracies would be so funny but atleast i know zombies are definitely accurate to the napoleonic wars
Hello Brandon. You pretty much explained why I played wargames, but watched reenactments. Apart from painting and making figures, which was the bit I enjoyed most, there needed to be something that made it competitive, to give it a bit more fun. I did try to follow a historical script of a kind, by making armies that reflected real ones, but this often made for a defeat to those who were "rule lawyers" rather than "in it for the love of history".
I ended up adapting an Arab army, created after seeing Lawrence of Arabia, to an Abyssinian army for competitions. It was historically accurate, but because they had what were referred to as Christian fanatics, a favorable dice roll would create a wave of high morale, as per your video, such that further "plus" dice rolls gave a crescendo of victories right down the table battlefield. The look on an opponent's face was enough to make up for all those defeats when trying to play in the spirit of what would have happened, without being unbelievable.
I had a similar experience with 40k tabletop. Fielding lore focused armies based on reasonable troop compositions just fall flat compared to optimized meta armies. Sucks all the fun out of it when you fight the exact same army list over and over because it is just the best for the generic tournament rules. And few people who are in it for competition want to play an innately unbalanced scenario for the fun of experiencing the lore accurate side of things
@@knightmareza9478 I used to distract the rule lawyers by pointing out that I could in theory have had fanatical Christian elephants.
They were there to disorder cavalry, then the infantry with cutting weapons were allowed to charge them, so I wanted them as the fanatics, but the opponent did not know which and where and worried about jumbo getting cross 🐘.
@@alansmithee8831 I absolutely adore the idea of fanatical christian elephants! You cannot convince me that if the pope was gifted an elephant he wouldn't have mounted a cross on it and used it against the landsknechts in 1527
I used to fight in armored tournaments (in my 1420 Burgundian recreated armor). It was fun, but the rules were made for unarmored people. We had swords and you got points for hits, but they were all strikes on armor and we couldn't thrust into gaps in the armor. With my German (well Liechtenstein) unarmored Judaical Combat group the tournaments made more sense, but still every little hit would stop the fight and reset. We did start to do non-stop and judges would count the hits for us until the time limit ended. Still wasn't accurate, since a strikes back then (mostly hand hits) would have had a different effect. I mean if people got stabbed they wouldn't just fall down dead. I liked the German system because the manuals said keep striking till the opponent was on the ground, and then hit them a couple of more times to make sure they were truly incapacitated. That made more sense than some of the flourishes where you block one srike and then hit with another, and that was the end of the fight. I have studied a lot of medical articles with first hand accounts of what people did when they were stabbed or shot and applied that to my HEMA fighting. every hit I thought about if that would have made me drop my sword, or I would rage and keep slashing with a sword stuck in my arm.
I apologize for this Long comment. I'll add another comment with my Rev. War experience.
I think with regards to hema what’s missing from the discussion is that this is an issue presented in the manuscripts themselves. Numerous manuscripts repeatedly express sentiments along the lines of “if you are not brave you should not learn to fence”. Secondly historical fencing manuscripts are not trying to convey what fighting is actually like but rather are designed to teach people a specific skill in which bravery and the ability to not react passively to attacks as the they also repeatedly emphasise the idea that if you only defend yourself and are afraid you’re more likely got get hit
On the point of Historical Fencing/HEMA:
Fencing was a sport back then as well. Of course, it also had a "real world" application, but most people did it recreationally. Entire events were held with tournaments where the goal was not to cause harm, but to just fence cleanly. Of course, sometimes accidents happened, but grievous bodily harm on the opponent was not the main goal. AFAIK except for people saying "I did it", there is no historical account of duels with sharp longswords. Well, there is one, but that was two dudes messing around at a wedding. It wasn't meant to be serious until one guy got injured by accident.
You can see references to fencing being a sport in the manuals themselves. There is a clear distinction between "Ernst und Schimpf" (serious and not-serious). And while Schimpf trains you for Ernst there is no denying that for most people it would always stay at Schimpf.
I would go as far as saying that if they had had the PPE that we use nowadays, they would have used it during their fencing. Absolutely. Because fencing was, even then, a sport.
Fencers were children of the sun, not children of Mars.
We do have historical accounts of duels where both sides are shown. Fencers being super timid and super careful, but also fencers who just jumped in without any fear.
Even during fencing events back in those days (where the swords were blunt) we can see this. Timid fencers, but also fencers who were not careful and got injured. One report has a man dying because he skewered himself on his opponent's sword.
Now, do we fence completely like they did back then? Nope. But we also have hundreds of years of sports science, good PPE and overall better living standards backing us. Fencing is a breathing thing. It changes now and it changed back then. While we will never be able to 100% recreate how it MIGHT have looked like, there are really good fencers that are getting super close (not me lmao).
Lange Rede kurzer Sinn: Fencing is a sport now as it was back then. Fencers were careful and also not careful now as they were back then. A 100% recreation is impossible and it is a relative minority of fencers that claim that they could now whoop as if it was "serious". But I am a fencer, not a martial LARPer, so those thoughts do not enter my mind.
Yes and yes again! There may be fleeting moments when it becomes real for a reenactor -- just for an instant -- but we always know that we're going home at the end of the event, and there's a good meal waiting for them. Not a crude hospital, or a shallow grave. Or not even that much. Sometimes, it's just necessary to remind ourselves of that.
I practice HEMA, but not like a lot of the footage in the video these types of mock battles. What I do is unarmored fencing with the longsword. But we are also very different from reenactment. For us this is actually a sport. We use old guides like Liechtenauer but we implement more modern fighting techniques as well.
Our trainer always says: When you're fighting for your life, you don't care about technique or honour. So this includes a lot of kickboxing, judo, etc. to be as effective as possible.
But I also have experience LARPing and while that is most definitely not reenactment, it might get a bit closer to this armored battle HEMA, you showed. Of course nobody there will get seriously hurt, as well. We're using foam weapons after all. But at some point when fighting huge battles you get very immersed. So immersed that you actually start to fear blows and become more cautious, etc. I can only imagine that it is similar for these larger HEMA battles. So of course it will never be the same as if you could actually get hurt. But if you actually fight and not just follow show patterns, I think you can get very immersed.
I do HEMA, and I can confirm, may fencers are a LOT bolder than they should be, which is one of the reasons doubles are so common. This is, in my opinion, in part because a lot of them are what I would call overly-armoured, and by that I mean they can barely feel the lighter snipes and draw-cuts at all, much less feel any pain. I tend to fence with less padding, partly because I overheat easily, and partly because I don't want to lose the healthy amount of fear/respect I have for getting hit. While I am definitely still far bolder than someone whose life was on the line, I feel I'm at least a little closer to the authentic experience, or at the very least a little more defensive and twitchy! All that to say, HEMA definitely suffers from a similar problem to reenactment, albeit potentially slightly milder depending on one's mindset and pain tolerance.
Limits of reenactment
1- being well fed and in good medical condition
2- no real threat to life and limb
3- perfect knowledge of how things will pan out
4- young ves old and well funded vs what ever a regiment can afford
5- actually risking the lives of you loved ones should you lose
I am really glad you made this video! As a hemaist I wholeheartedly agree.
I really wish we were a little more self-aware and self-reflective about the way we communicate not just outwards to curious non-practicioners but also to our own students and collegues.
I’ve fenced for many years and I never considered it in any way close or analogous to any kind of actual combat. Sometimes someone gets the wind knocked out of them or gets a bad bruise. It’s a sport. I imagine football is more dangerous.
I do LARP. Yes, it is nothing compared to reenactment but I would say close enough. I am also participating in larger scale and organized battles where units of infantry move in organized manner and fight each other with commanders and such. I can tell that there is certain level of immersion to it. I was even part of medieval battles with steel weapons. But just the notion that I am just going to my comfy home after the event and there is virutally no danger of me not returning there because I would be killed, just makes the entire experience basically a joke. No matter how hard you try or how hard you immerse yourself into it, it is not real. I even heard stories about super immersive LARPs where people broke down in tears or something but still... they know in the back of their head this is not a reality, they can escape, they can survive and all they need to do is just to say "stop the game".
I train in HEMA saber. I can only speak for my weapon and my class but the historical limitations leads to some of the most interesting discussions. Some of the manual teach techniques that would get you knocked out in the first round of a tournament. But in actual combat? Maybe there simplicity and repetitiveness can tell us something about how people sort to deal with the stress of combat?
You should check out Buhurt, that is the closest feeling to actually being in medieval combat, for me.
I do historical technology re-creation (making stuff, not wearing the clothes) and I know what your talking about. Unless I went and made things worth period tools it's not the same
This is very intrinsic in recreation and even in sports that recreate. It simply can never be the same as the original, because it counts out real risk of real life. I as a HEMA "Longsword Barbarian" know that only to well.
Great video as always Brandon and i would like to contribute ny own 2 cents about the whole topic as some one that has been in ww2 reenactment HEMA(particularly eastern type viking combat) airsoft and i have also been under serious risk injury while being shot with round lead rounds and rubber covered one and yes they are all not on the same lvl of psychologycal strain but as an example on my first airsoft match ever (and thanks that i was chosen as VIP) i was huddled behind some cover seing how my teammates where getting shot al around me and despite me knowing that they were physically alright that didnt stop the strain that i had while being alone and under atack and sure its way lower than what any combat veteran can tell you but with out risking my life is a close as it can get
Also while in hema i actually got the combat fatigues and tiredenes as well as how much armor slows down your movements(theres also is my physical condition to blame) and some combats that i had with people genuinely wanting to cause pain by repeatedly hittin areas that didnt got then any points and like you eay after the event or the camp ot the event ones goes back to the conforts of our moder world it does gives a broader perspective of what humans had had to deal in the past
The whole purpose of military drilling was that the soldiers would act as automatons when under stress - not think, just do what they had been drilled to do (OK, it didn't always work, such as the US civil war soldier who loaded his rifle 20 times but forgot to fire it, but that was the principle)
What I’ve discovered is generally when it comes to the differences between things like Hema and actual Medieval combat is the cleanness of it. Even if you are a practitioner of Hema and you’re trying to simulate a real fighter from the time, the subconscious fear for life and limb isn’t there. A man who is fighting in a gym with blunted weapons won’t flinch the same as a French soldier trying to block an incoming spear strike which is threatening to pierce his lung. Because of this, Hema practitioners tend to be much more formal with their strikes and blocks, something which is far too precise for a man who is fearing for his life if he misses.
A difference i've noticed (im not an expert at anything btw just some observations) when watching reenactments and actual combat footage is that in real combat footage soldiers in irl act very skittish, you can feel the tension their body language and how they act which is not really present in reenactment idk what it is you can genuinely feel the heightened sense of alertness in someone's eyes and body even if it is just on a screen. Ukraine war gopro footage of a trench raid will be the closest thing we will ever get to witness to a battle in ww1, even more so than a historical reenactment. Heck even the stick and rock clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the mountains and modern riots are the closest things we have to what it feels like to be in a skirmish or battle in medieval times
This reminds me of two comment section debates I had:
-One of on TikTok. A history professor who specialized in the US Civil War and questioned the purposed of reenactments. Part of it was her experience in finding Confederate reenactors who were Lost Cause types. Plenty of people told her reenactments got them into history but she seem stuck on the idea that reenactments don't teach the cause of the Civil War. Which to be frank is true but she didn't seem to understand how reenactments can be a gateway to larger study.
-The second was a guy who kept insisting soldiers should go back to wear full plate armor. Despite myself and others telling him how full plate armor was only worn by nobles and quickly went out with the adoption of firearms. But he kept digging in, even ignoring my experiences in Afghanistan. Armor guy had posted videos on his account and I found they were all animations of knights dueling. I have the feeling this guy never wore armor in any capacity and just stuck in a romantic fantasy.
I'm guessing most soldiers going into battle don't think overmuch about the political causes of the war. Maybe they did think about that when joining up and maybe they didn't - maybe they just got drafted.
I do HEMA. We often talk about the break between how we fight given the low stakes vs how we might react if each failed defence could easily result in our death.
For example, if someone strikes at my head, I might instead of defending myself first, attempt to stab them resulting in a "double". I might even do this in a competition as a tactic. If we were doing this with sharp swords and without modern protection, we would both die. That's just one example of 100 ways a single exchange is different for us modern people than it was form the true history.
We talk about it, but in general come to the conclusion that we'll never get the exact same experience.
Now I know that it’s 100% historically accurate to provision a regiment from a funnel cake stand 😂
I think it's a definite gradient, I'm not entirely sure about the rest of my group, but I always treat the weapons as if they're sharp. It's one of the things that really annoys me when I see different clubs, especially over in Europe (I'm Australian) covering their body with the shield and holding their arms out in front to "game" the combat system, which is one of the reasons why I have a certain disdain for entirely combat orientated "reenactment" groups instead of living history reenactment groups, as you see decisions in their kit to recognise this, like the use of anachronistic armour choices for face protection (looking at you lam'lar & rugfur worshipers) etc. some we can't get away from like protective gauntlets be it padded or armoured (especially in the early medieval period) due to insurance reasons.
10:22 Here you are mistaken twice, firstly, in thinking, that fencing, as well as the entire mechanics behind bladed, blunt or polearm weapons, requires the constant use of the user's full strength to do ,,killing" damage (this is an idea on a similar level to the idea that a sword must be heavy, i.e. absurd), and secondly, in thinking that the more hotheaded HEMA fencers will not use all their strength, regardless whether it is profitable for a given motion or not xd.
But rest is quite right thats for sure.
Yeah. I choose not to fence them. I wanna go to the pub afterwards not A&E.
i never thought of reenacting battles as anything more than big boys playing army. sure i tried as hard as possible not to get "shot", not because i felt it put me in any danger but because i didnt want to have to take a hit and be out of play. being a big history nerd only made it icing on the cake. if it could be a teachable moment to the public; great! if it could fire someones interest in learning more history; even better!
i always felt living history displays "in camp" or otherwise static were more useful in educating others as you could carefully study the vernacular of the time (especially from the people who were actually there if possible) and portray the character and mindset of the times (with certain exceptions for politeness and deference to younger observers). plus i found most people got a kick out of studying the kit.
about the only thing i ever felt approached what those guys felt was being wet or cold and miserable and i was always cognitive it was a minute dose voluntarily taken. it gave me a better appreciation of what those soldiers (past/present/future) have endured on my behalf.
That reenactment video in the begining looked really cool. Is there a video for it?
WAIT! So you're saying that howitzer wasn't actually firing canister at me last weekend? 😮
Well, I consider Re-enactments to be kind of similar to military exercises. Neither are definitely not realistic in all aspects, such as with absense of death, hit detection, but are considered 'good enough' simulations in some aspects. This is of course my perspective from Finland, which is a conscript country, so most people in re-enactments have at least some frame of reference for soldiering, this might be harder to wrap one's head around in other countries where most of the re-enactors have no kind of military experience.
10:31 I have a friend with whom I regularly fight with wooden swords or polearms. When we fight, we do it with full force, shattering 3-4cm of massive ash. We don't wear any kind of protection and if one of us hit, we'd definitely be in for a broken arm at least. Luckily we've never hit when training, but it is a completely different style of fighting when I train with him versus when I train with other people where we don't go full force. When I fight with my friend with full force, we circle much more, do much more legwork, and instead of parrying a stike, I rather jump back a bit, for example.
Hmm, medieval tournaments were sporting events the participants expected to survive so I'd say it is pretty close to some forms of hema. Duel, let alone warfare however is where I'd agree with you, going out to kill with a high chance of being killed should lead to diffrent behaviour.
Ironically, having reenactors simulate battles in which the soldiers were historically drunk beforehand (like many naval battles with "dutch courage") would better simulate the behavior of real soldiers of the time better than sober.
Lots of good points here, but one of the most glaring inaccuracies I’ve noticed with reenactors is the fact that MANY of them are middle-aged and overweight…certainly not the demographic of fighting men throughout history. When you consider that soldiers of the Napoleonic wars (for example) marched all over Europe…contrasted with many reenactors difficulty in “marching” across a 100 yard “battlefield”.
Myself slowly building an Late archaic Hoplite kit, i absolutely have no idea how they would react. 😅
Warthunder ad after that intro is crazy cause there are definetly war thunder players that think that they could fly a plane and be a pro pilot
Since you seem to think that a 18th century musket can laser beam somebody at 300 yards with a flat trajectory.. I’m not sure
Having been in fistfights and melee in a modern city and ghetto with life and death situations, while being too poor to afford major injury. I will comment that risk aversion, training and experience are the biggest actual factors in real violence. I find Martial Arts and HEMA in particular as just fun while training and conditioning, and actually you understand more of the theory after having experienced actual violence.
You will never be able to recreate actual combat through living history. We strive to get as close to the real experience to honor the men who went through the tedium and terror of those long past conflicts as possible, and thats what matters.
Have you thought about teaming up with Todd's Workshop or Skallagram to see how this might pan out?
I also have to wonder if the armor is enough. More career and life altering injuries occured when boxing gloves were added to boxing, and the shoulder pads and helmets have lead to more concussions and brain damage. Why? Without it you can only hit your for in certain ways without also injuring yourself. I wonder if some of the same rules apply here speaking as someone that hasn't LARPer or taken up hema
I'm a HEMA practitioner of various different disiplines, and as in any martial art, you are preparing for a fight, not actually fighting. So of course its not going to be the same. But it is indeed a much better aproximation of a violent encounter with weapons than just wacking away without training. Muscle memory is helpful in a fight, and HEMA tries to replicate it as much as posible. Also, getting struck in the thigh with a scottish basket hilt or an infantry officer's saber is going to hurt like a bitch, no matter the protective equipment which is why we either; use lighter weapons and/or strike with caution.
Compare this to boxing. If you knew you where to get into a bar fight, would you like to learn how to box, or would you just not learn anything because its never going to be a perfect simulation of a violent encounter?
I have done MMA in heavy plate armor for several years and participated in several World Championships and as far as I know most of us know this ain't historical. Most of us also do not think it is reenactment as well. It is a sport in fancy armor with a special set of Rules.
To some degree it may be the closest thing you get to a medieval skirmish because you want to win and don't want to get hurt. But on the other Hand there are rules, blunt weapons, modern protection gear underneath the armor etc. But it still is and never will be the real medieval battle.
He didn’t ACTUALLY DIE ?????????!!)!!!!!!! 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱
I am so sorry for lying
Zammmmmmnnnn who else has been lying to us?
In my HEMA club we try to de-sport-ify training, by heavily disincentivizing doubles and self-calling our hits, as well as calling poor hits when we throw them (I.E. “that didn’t kill ya, my blade hit flat!”). Also lower gear (with LOTS of control) better simulates where things actually hit and we can judge better what ended a fight, but we are still waiting for a full-dive VR system so we could test each other in a proper duel until someone stops kicking…
Airsoft is a weird middle ground. On the one hand, half the players will go hail Mary, charge objectives to overwhelm the other team, rushing around, etc. Doing things that you definitely would not do in real life. Its incredible fun to watch and to do.
On the other hand you get some players that are genuinely afraid of the sting of a bb that they go completely in the other direction, being unrealistically cautious to avoid being shot. Doing things such as not leaving spawn, using teammates as human shields, etc, things that even the most frightened of soldiers wouldn't think to do (or be capable of doing).
Milsim airsoft is a lot closer to the "real deal" but because it is still a sport at its core, there are things that players can and will do that you wouldn't do in a real combat scenario because its too dangerous, that you can do in airsoft because the danger is gone. Milsim West is probably the closest to a realistic airsoft event and I would strongly recommend watching videos of people at those events if you want to see realistic airsoft content. They're usually multi day games where skirmishes can occur at any time even at night, there's people playing as civilians, police, government forces, different factions with different goals and what not, basically making it a massive roleplaying event with the added competition of airsoft, the event is managed by and both teams are usually led by veterans who will use and encourage somewhat realistic tactics to create more immersion. As I said though Milsim West is more of an outlier, and many other airsoft/milsim events don't have the same level of "realism", usually the difference between normal Airsoft and milsim is that milsim will have a story of some sort, or will feature a long drawn out game with multiple objectives, unlike airsoft which is usually multiple matches with different game modes.
With regards to a medieval context. Much of the footage you showed isn't HEMA or anything historical focused in the first place. Bohurt is basically a modern sport with all of the concessions it involves, and the mock phalanx pike forrays are pretty much just fun experiments without much substance. HEMA is mostly focused on a limited number of fighters with the best documentation not even being that medieval - the intact treatises with illustrations or at least written instructions only really begin in the later half of the 14th century. For the context of judicial duels, tournaments, or tournament melees this is... fairly alright? It's never going to be 1:1 simply because the expense of kits actually resembling the historical (lower and hand crafted) quality are out of pricetag for most, and we as modern people value the safety of everyone far more than they used to back in the day.
That said a lot of HEMA, both in the unarmored and armored context, can resemble what roughly happened at least in training sessions or ritualized combat (tournaments, duels, etc), with some leeway here and there to make sure some weapons aren't sharp or some aren't too pointy to make sure nobody dies. The main issue with HEMA is that the scope is actually super limited if you want anything earlier than 14th century, simply because the material just isn't there. There's many types of armor mentioned in documents that are a complete open question as to what they were exactly (double maille for one), a lack of surviving examples of helms leading to speculative assemblies based on artwork, and a total lack of sparring treatises on to how say, 13th, 12th, etc and earlier melee worked in a one on one context. This means if you go down that earlier road it's experimental, and experimental is the land of asterisks when authenticity is concerned.
And there's other questions of course for authenticity. Quality is super duper variable in the entire medieval period. It happens all the time in anecdotal accounts of warfare - somebody in a hauberk will get hit by a lance and be A-OK. Somebody next to them will get double impaled. Were the energies the same? Were the hauberks that notably different in quality? Is it respectably accurate for representing history to the public to only wear the best of the best armor for your safety and own ego (who wants to spent 1k on a crappy but historical hauberk vs a high quality historical hauberk)? Or the little things for that matter. How accurate are you trying to make your kit? Are you going with a thirty foot rule, a five foot rule, or one to one with a museum piece?
Plus when it comes to field battles all bets are off, especially in earlier eras. What even would a common Latin European infantry formation be like in spacing, drilling, commands, etc? Even if the battles are for show at least we know how men were assembled accurately in a 17th or 18th century reenactment. And different localities matter a lot. One culture might have super, super good detail due to lots of preserved gear - take Japan for example in the Sengoku era. Then if we take a gander to say, East Rome in the middle ages the archaeological preservation of high or early medieval armor is very under researched and poorly preserved.
Well reactors don't generally have to face being brutaly hacked by swords and warhammers to bits on a medieval battfield or facing having their bodies torn to shreds by grapeshot or cannister in a napoleonic battfield. They also don't have to worry about freezing to death or dying from infections.
You’ll know when bullets are coming in anger. Usually one puts their head down. Glad you admit it it’s acting. I’m getting all ptsd haha. Yay. I lived we won. Great job. I was in regular clothes too. I did once catch one from an air gun tho. Had to get that surgically pried out. When you’ve tubes and staples and need o neg immediately it sucks. Hospitals should have more o neg
I can (as have others) speak to the HEMA Experience - or a lot of us, your entire lecture here is very much preaching to the choir. We regularly work to connect our experience in sparring/tournaments/whatever to various types of other experiential and academic research to properly ground what we're doing in a context that we can better equitably speak to, and describe specifically, just how close we think we're coming to the lived reality of the thing we're attempting to emulate.
For academic looks, of course we start with the Fechtbuchs as the primary source -and seek to understand why they might say "do X" when our personal experience of "fighting" might lead to a different answer.
Secondarily, a lot of us do a LOT of outside reading - for many of us Tlustly's "Martial Ethic of Medieval Europe" and Kinsley's "Swordsmen of the British Empire" are starting points, and many go far deeper.
I'll point you to several (by now rather older) lectures and writings below; I'll say that our researchers have continued along the research lines of this, much further, since these were published.
Before I link those, I will also say that we work to also capture the lived experience of the members of our modern community to actively use martial arts as professionals. My club has several members who have deployed multiple times to active war-zones, as well as law enforcement officers, and they have collaborated at various events to present their experience of the active mind-set of modern soldiers, police, etc, in the interest that the HEMA community can better understand how that part of the experience might be similar (or different) from the historical analogues we seek to study.
As another aside, there are secondary experiential parts, that many of us consider intrinsic to the holistic study we follow. The prime example of that is the expectation that test-cutting with sharp swords (or axes, spears, etc) is a requisite piece to understand how the weapons themselves perform against tatami grass, clay, pool noodles, and animal meat (hung, or staked to ta pole)...
Point is, as I said at the top, a lot of us really do not only understand your prime point that we cannot truly capture the historical experience, but more - we have worked to capture an understanding of how close we can come, and we seek to be able to describe exactly how and we are doing things somewhat differently here, or there, or elsewhere...
So - some linked examples of research our community has done - these are mostly not primary research, though a few of our community are in fact historians with that level of access....
Some lectures from 10-15 years ago:
th-cam.com/video/iQY2CLe4zwU/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/bwsUVaa9lKo/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/pFMw1wv5nQw/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/7bsV3NFtDzU/w-d-xo.html
HROARR was at one point the primary 'clearing-house' of our best academics, somewhat less at present I think...
hroarr.com/research/research-projects/
hroarr.com/author/jean-chandler/#