Absolutely none of your factual information is news to me. And yes, the katana stuff in particular has been flaming ridiculous.
Yes, actually, I have held and swung swords, both historical and modern recreations (as in, “make a historical sword with modern steel”), and yes, they are light, but that’s not the point. A larger, stronger man with the same weapon has a HUGE advantage over his opponent, and if they are of similar skill, that size and strength advantage is almost certain to be decisive. A baseball bat is also not that heavy, but the physical strength of the batter is a HUGE part of how far the ball is going to go. And with the smaller implements (“daggers and the like”), one could argue that strength becomes even MORE important, not less.
As to the .22, I’m talking about good old fashioned .22, not .22 Long Rifle or any of the more serious calibers. When I was in high school, a guy fired a .22 pistol point blank into a teacher’s FACE, and it lodged in the sinus cavity. The teacher survived with a small scar in his face.
“You’re debating the lethality of something and comparing it to absolute damage caused when that’s not what’s important, it’s where the damage is being caused.” No, where the damage is caused is not the point - a sword through the eye or a bullet, either one is completely lethal. The question is, how accurate do you need to be to kill your opponent?
If I shoot you in the arm, odds are, unless I’m using something very large, it’s going to make for an unpleasant day, but you’ll be fine, unless I happen to hit a major artery. You might even end up with a broken bone… and if you don’t get one of those two things, odds are, you are not out of the fight. Sure, afterwards, you will be considered a casualty, but during the fight, you go on fighting with almost no reduction in combat capability (this is based on actual battlefield research, by the way - most wounds on the modern battlefield either incapacitate or do not have any significant impact on your fighting ability in the immediate term).
If I hit you in the arm with a mace, large sword, or axe, you will need medical attention in short order to avoid death. The odds of hitting that major artery are MUCH larger when I’m slicing your arm open to the bone. Even with modern medicine, you stand a decent chance of losing that limb, if you live at all.
THAT is what I’m talking about. Bullets to surgical damage (yes, that’s an overstatement, and much less true as the size of the bullet goes up), while historical melee combat weapons do systemic damage. If we’re talking same-location strike, there are VERY few places in the body where I’d prefer a hit with a battlefield melee weapon of any kind over being shot with almost any caliber of rifle - perhaps in the chest with a bludgeoning weapon or small slashing weapon. Perhaps.
Even modern prison and other criminal situation research and policies recognize this issue. Inside of 15 feet (even from a prone position), a strong man with a knife and the will to use it is a VERY dangerous opponent, even to someone with a gun. Sure, he may die of the wounds you gave him, but, barring very good shot placement (central nervous system or a good hit to a hip), you’ll be stone dead, and he’ll walk away and die later, assuming he doesn’t get medical attention quickly enough.
The advantages of the firearm is range and non-dependency on human strength to operate.
[quote author=mvm900 link=topic=14523.msg301958#msg301958 date=149936707
now you’re changing the goalposts. We were talking pure physical, can use the gun. Young girls can fire an AR15. Like not even teens. 8 year olds. I’m using children here as they’re probably the only realistic way to portray the weakness required without going ‘sickly old man’. But sure let’s talk about some 80 year old with a gun. Still don’t think they’d do as well as someone stronger and able to, you know hold the gun straight better. Guns are easy to use, and that’s the point, and can be mastered. You can just aim your gun in the general direction of someone and pull the trigger 50 times but you might not hit. That’s why most militaries focus on aiming, holding the gun perfectly still, which requires some physical strength and discipline. Because yes, anyone can fire a gun really. But they might not fair as well up against someone who is either trained or physically fit enough to aim the thing with any sense of precision.
Also you’re talking basically only handguns here when almost any weapon with fully automatic fire requires you to be in a certain stance or the thing is going to fire all over the place. And not even just those actually most guns other than handguns will just go all over the place if you’re just aiming and shooting. And handguns can benefit from being held properly too. Why do you think you see people holding a gun in such specific ways? It’s not just for show it’s to properly hold the weapon so it doesn’t fly over the place when you shoot. Shotguns and SMG’s and Rifles. I don’t think a disabled man can easily hold and fire a 7.62 hunting rifle. You’re only bringing up like cases where someone got mugged and they were fairly close of course. And that’s not what’s important anyway because we’re talking pure lethality. I feel like the point has been lost on all of you really.
[/quote]
99% of the stuff you are talking about is TRAINING (you even use the word quite a bit). In firearm combat from fixed positions, the 100 pound weakling with proper training and the 300 pound linebacker with proper training are on a level playing field. THAT is the point. Beyond a very low minimum, further physical strength is of near-zero benefit.
Compare that to all other forms of physical combat, where strength is vital, and more strength is better up to a ridiculous upper limit. Even crossbows benefit from strength - the stronger the user, the faster the reload time (as, under the covers, the crossbow is still just storing the energy produced by human muscle).
The same happens in archery contests too.
Body size and weight doesn’t matter(within reason), years of experience and training do.[/quote]
That’s ONLY because of the modern compound bow, but even then, at longer ranges, shorter firing times, or prolonged fire, greater strength would still grant a sizable advantage. A stronger archer could use a stronger bow (longer range), pull faster (more shots in the same amount of time), or pull more times (prolonged fire - though this is also mitigated somewhat by the compound bow).
But I will admit that for reasonably short distances (and not worrying about penetration of armor), the “upper bound” on the benefits of strength in archery are lower than other forms of historical physical combat (both bows and crossbows, for different reasons).
This whole sub-topic was the result of my response to this: “Guns in gameplay terms should be distanced killing machines, even pistols for the most part. snip Like even with higher marksmanship and skill in the weapon you’re not much better off than a person using the same amount of points in a melee build”
I was pointing out that “ranged killing machines” was really not very accurate, due the issues I was mentioning with damage. Yes, RANGED, but in terms of massive damage, no, pistols should not be dishing massive damage compared to a dedicated melee build, and even rifles should primarily beat out melee to due to “rate of fire” (you can fire much faster with a burst weapon than you can place serious hits in melee, which is certainly accurate), not individual hits.
Sorry factual matters “disturb” you.
