Well yeah that does make sense for that episode. Those kind of things were winning wars at the time, but I didn’t know if the fight was swordplay or a full scope of weapons. I’ll have to go watch the episode now.
For a large period of history ranged weapons were not a deciding factor in warfare. In most of the periods in which shield walls were the dominant strategy, ranged weapons were not in great enough supply or powerful enough to really bother the soldiers. They would just hide behind their shields and then continue what they were doing, it wasn’t a big enough issue to reign over a battle. The viking samurai battle that they did was one of the more absurd fights. Sword to sword, I guess the katana is a better weapon, but vikings fought in shield walls, and the samurai were not familiar with shield tactics or how to fight one. A shield wall would destroy them, but in a single combat the additional element of fighting a shield is a huge thing. It’s not just that it’s useful, it’s terribly different. If you have a background in swordplay without shields and then fight someone with one, it blows your mind how different everything is and how handicapped you feel until you begin to understand it. A samurai hadn’t seen it before and would end up proper dead, proper fast. That is the kind of stuff the show misses. Things that are way more significant than “what does this weapon do to a pig”
I have to go watch the episode but I would say that a sword duel between joan and william would definitely have to consider the fact that william would not be familiar with the techniques used in fighting against plate, things like how to avoid the arm guard, where the weak points are in plate and half swording. If william was given the knowledge of these things, then he would certainly win, but without the knowledge there would be many issues he would have to figure out mid fight. That would be the only advantage I could see joan having in a duel though.
I said evolution of combat, not warfare. To go way back when we were just above neanderthals, we as humans were the only species to have non kin specific cooperation. Like other animal groups in the future, you could have a group of 5 with 4 being concerned with the good of the group while there is 1 freeloader. Problem arises when you have a freeloader that has a crazy massive size. Before any weapons were developed the 4 people could oust that one freeloader but it would be risky even with ganging up. When the early projectiles were developed (I think it was called the atlatl) people could oust freeloaders very easily due to higher killing power with little risk vs reward. This worked until the invention of armor that could withstand the projectiles. Once you had armor it came down to who had the better melee to actually overcome such armor.
In short what I am saying that projectiles are not the end all be all of deciders of combat but they are what you start with first. I could care less how amazingly strong you are if you do not have armor that can withstand an arrow ( ex/ Apache vs Gladiator and Pirate vs Knight). The shield wall formation was dominant because there were no ranged projectiles that could penetrate the armor…until the invention of the gun. Today ranged projectiles like guns, missiles, nukes, and so on are still dominant in combat because there are very little things that one can wear to make yourself unaffected by these things.
I will agree that the show does not account for a lot of things such as how badly unfamiliarity will factor in, but there are a ton of things that they do not factor in. Hell if anything unfamiliarity should make things even more lopsided (how badly do you think shaka would get his ass handed to him if he actually saw a claymore and figured he could block it with his wooden shield? In my opinion the results should have been even more lopsided). There are other things that should be considered like terrain, actual size of military, fortifications, transportation, methods of communication, etc but there isn’t really a way that the show could factor all of things and still consider it fair since it’s theorycrafting. Personally I thought Sun Tzu and the mongols were robbed since they weren’t famous for their op weapons but more because of their strategies and incorporation of engineering respectively. The show is just meant to be entertaining with some knowledge to it.
Yeah I can agree with what you are saying. I have actually watched the joan of arc episode now and the george washington episode too. I can understand now why they went in the direction they did. The problem is with the fake hype writing of the show. None of those people were the best warriors in their army, in fact I would say that none of the generals were. There was always a better shot or a better swordsman, but they weren’t leaders. The show isn’t really comparing a fight between joan and william, but a fight between armies lead by them. They would never meet in combat, though the silly (and most times terrible) demonstration at the end always shows them fighting. I have to agree that joan’s army would win that fight.
Also I am rather pleased that they got Dave Baker on the show. He is a talented smith and has a very nice line of theatrical blades. I would very much like to see them bringing in different smiths for work on blades that they specialize in, people like Trim or Clark could really offer some great things. They have moved past a lot of the popular warrior cultures, and even though I would love to see them actually do justice to some of them, I don’t think they will revisit them. Sadly that means the opportunity for showing off some really beautiful swords is being lost. I do like seeing a name I know, instead of all the random actors and stuntmen normally listed as the “weapons experts.”
I am going to try and catch up on the rest of this season, but from looking at the wiki to see what the episode content was, I can’t offer nearly as many complaints about the episodes. I just don’t have the knowledge or experience in these, and I’m not going to argue with a statement made by a ranger.
I am really really looking forward to the fake experts and trash talk in the vampire vs zombies episode. “Vampire expert and Hot topic manager Toby ‘NightSadness’ Fallows is here to represent the vampire side, while part time haunted house actor and zombie expert Tim is here for the zombie side, along with John who has seen every one of Romero’s movies at least three times.”
I didn’t really like the whole single person duels because they were just silly. Unless we had concrete data about the physique, performance, and personality of these people everything is hearsay. In the end the episode is just measuring weapon capabilities with results done by one person. I have to admit this show is much much better than an older show (think it was called strongest fighter or fight science or something) I saw. The other show tried to measure which fighting style had the strongest punch and came to the conclusion that a boxer’s punch was the strongest…but the boxer had to have been at least 230 lbs of muscle while the karate guy was like 160 lbs.
Fight science I remember that show. They did a thing about swords on the first episode and managed to get Obata on there to do some tameshigiri, and then instead of filming him more they decided to let that shirtless kickboxer (I think that’s what he was, I don’t remember) talk about the sword and go to work on a gel torso. I don’t think that guy had ever used a katana in a serious way, but he was pretty good at spinning it around and looking silly. His cutting form and handling were really awful. Deadliest warrior has people with about this same lack of weapon experience, but at least they don’t get an actual expert on the show and then not let him do anything and have some random doing it instead. That upset me the most. This incredible guy is right there and they decided not to use him. They did more episodes of the show, or at least one more, because I remember an episode about the special forces that I saw. It was kinda neat actually. I’ll have to check wiki to see if there are more episodes of that show now.
After thinking it over some more…it would be more appropriate if the fictional stuff was left for a spin-off show, while regular “Deadliest Warrior” remained “pure”.
Even if you make it something like 60+ zombies per 1 vampire (haha, an attempt at making it “balanced” since vampires are ridiculously powerful)… I still think the vamps would have the edge. As with more realistic match-ups, there’s so much to consider with the fictional characters as well— the location, the element of surprise, whether or not certain things in the immediate are available as makeshift weapons, the time of day…along with which version of vampires and zombies we’re talking about. Some shows/movies/books portray vampires as being just weakened in sunlight while others make it a death sentence for them to be exposed to that… in Vampire Diaries (featuring the delicious Nina Dobrev, the current #3 on my Magnificent 5™), for instance, they are just fine walking around in broad daylight if they have certain rings that are enchanted by a witch…so that weakness is completely gone if they have the ring on. There’s other questions as well, like if we’re using the more sci-fi “Infected” version zombies or the old “walking dead” are alive again for no apparent scientific reason…if it’s Infection types, can they also infect a vampire…or can the vampire turn a zombie into a new vampire? Does charm effect work on female zombies? How many magical abilities are we allowing the vampire to have? See, there’s an endless number of questions with this that are all up to whoever would be writing the story.
Whatever the case, zombies are still at a disadvantage, and many would die before even 1 vampire is down. Oh and speaking of my beloved Vampire Diaries show… bring in an “Original” vamp and it’s all over, man. The Originals break the game. So far there is literally one way to kill those things (stabbed by the wood of a particular tree, and it must also be left in their body! Remove that and they’ll be alive and perfectly ok again.) and it’s highly unlikely the zombies or anyone else would have access to that shit. Anyway, vampires vs. werewolves is more of a balanced battle (dependent on which versions are being discussed of course), and it would be much more interesting, imo.
To be honest, as much as I hate the whole fiction direction for that episode I can’t blame them. There were only so many types of soldiers out there that had unique weapons. Unless they go for more 1v1 duels or even try to figure out 2v2s they’re going to start shooting off into left field. I agree with million about the whole writer making the vampire/zombie thing. Hell, if we took Twilight Vampires vs an army of Solomon Grundys I wonder how hilarious that would be.
There is not a chance in hell zombies should win this, unless the numbers are incredibly unbalanced in their favor… I’m talking at least tens of thousands for every 1 Vampire in the fight, with nowhere to run and just a short time before the sun rises. Vampires vs. Werewolves would be a more interesting battle.
Deadliest Warrior always be on some BS. Why the fuck is it even Vamps vs Zombies anyway. We all know it should be Werewolves in the zombies place. I like how they take away all the magical properties that make vampires who they are and reduce them to really strong, animal dumb, pointy teeth guys. Meanwhile the zombies get to attack each individual vampire in hordes of 60 cause the vampire is just some little lost lamb or someshit. They trying to make it super scientific but ignore all the facts that would make it impossible for a zombie to even function, let alone defeat an enemy that we aren’t even establishing that it can even hear or see.
I know one thing, nigga be talking about using shovels and axes versus zombies like it aint shit, but see what happens when you have them go against one vampire with a fucking shovel…
vamps! They tried so hard to tone them down and balance things and they STILL WON. Yeah man…YEAH. Vampires are the shit, man. (excluding the Twilight silliness, of course.) This is irrefutable scientific fact.
…and sheeeit, this guy’s accent is strong enough to be a Deadliest Warrior. It sounds like that school janitor from The Simpsons is hosting the show here.
I remember that show. They did a thing about swords on the first episode and managed to get Obata on there to do some tameshigiri, and then instead of filming him more they decided to let that shirtless kickboxer (I think that’s what he was, I don’t remember) talk about the sword and go to work on a gel torso. I don’t think that guy had ever used a katana in a serious way, but he was pretty good at spinning it around and looking silly. His cutting form and handling were really awful. Deadliest warrior has people with about this same lack of weapon experience, but at least they don’t get an actual expert on the show and then not let him do anything and have some random doing it instead. That upset me the most. This incredible guy is right there and they decided not to use him. They did more episodes of the show, or at least one more, because I remember an episode about the special forces that I saw. It was kinda neat actually. I’ll have to check wiki to see if there are more episodes of that show now.