Pirate Vs Knight: I call BS!

Huh?

I've seen that show once or twice (not the one you're referencing, though). It's pretty ridiculous. In a lot of ways it reminds me of fantasizing about pitting two sports legends from different eras against one another, then arguing about who is better. Except with weapons and armor added to the mix.

The thing that hacks me off the most is that warrior vs. warrior misses the concept of larger formations working on concert. A single Greek hoplite and an entire phalanx are two thoroughly different enemies, for example...

Since...

when was a flintlock pistol a long range weapon? What is their definition of long range.

My research and actual use of a flintlock pistol, circa 1650s, only gave accuracy at under twelve feet.

Seems like a load of baloney to me, Dawn, the whole series set up the weapons rather than the skills.

Personally, I wouldn't expect anything titled "Deadliest Warrior" to be very historically accurate. The title just sounds goofy.

pdr said:

when was a flintlock pistol a long range weapon? What is their definition of long range.

My research and actual use of a flintlock pistol, circa 1650s, only gave accuracy at under twelve feet.

Seems like a load of baloney to me, Dawn, the whole series set up the weapons rather than the skills.

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You either need to learn how to shoot, or you were using a smoothbore flintlock.

Rifled barrels had been around more than two hundred years by 1650, and all the good, accurate flintlocks had them.

With a rifled barrel, a flintlock pistol is just as good as the person firing it, and were very, very accurate. I have no trouble at all hitting a man sized target at seventy-five yards with one, and while I'm a pretty good shot with a pistol, I'm far from the best.

AZ_Dawn said:

This isn't for research, even thought it does involve a pirate, but it's somewhat historical and it's bothering me.

My eldest sister (MES) is helping one of our sisters out with her kids. Sometimes MES will watch Deadliest Warrior when the kids are asleep. She told me today about a fight they simulated between a pirate and a knight.

YouTube Video.
Wikipedia's explanation what's going on.

Now my knowlege of history isn't thorough enough to be sure if a Golden-Age pirate and a plate-armored knight couldn't be in the same place at the same time. And perhaps there's a reason that a pirate who's packing heat like he expects a fight is alone on shore (other than sheer stupidity). But getting shot with a crossbow and still running away with a heavy chest? I ain't buying it. And how the @$#! did he light that grenado so fast? And there's probably some historical/scientific inaccuracies that I'm not knowlegeable enough to mention.

What do you guys think? And yes, "Dawn, you're wrong, and here's the proof," is acceptable.

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The show isn't about history, it's simply about who would win if these two people/groups could have fought. I've seen one or two goofs on the show, but they bring in the best experts they can find, and while nothing is perfect, the tests do follow scientific procedure as exactly as possible.

As for getting shot with a crossbow and running away, men have survived, ran, fought, for days not only with a bolt in their chest, but with considerably more modern and more deadly projectiles in them.

That show is like internet psychics: for entertainment purposes only. Unfortunately, that's the same for about half of what's on the History channel.

I always found the nose to nose trash talk between the experts particularly amusing.

Ironically, the nose to nose trash talk between the experts was always my least favorite part and the reason I stopped watching the show.

Its like, "Guys, I don't CARE who's cock is bigger, just smash up some impact dummies with swords, that's what I want to watch!"

Also, their scientific methodology was incredibly suspect. If you are testing two kinds of grenades, you need to use the SAME test. Not TWO different tests. That's just STUPID.

<sighs>

If the show had been more like Mythbusters...

Jamesaritchie said:

As for getting shot with a crossbow and running away, men have survived, ran, fought, for days not only with a bolt in their chest, but with considerably more modern and more deadly projectiles in them.

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Agreed, stranger things have happened.

During Belisarius' reconquest of Italy in the 6th century (I believe it was during the siege of Rome), one of his men was shot in the face by a Gothic arrow. It entered just inside his eye and punched out the back of his skull. He not only kept fighting, but after he was back within the walls, the surgeons clipped the arrowhead, pulled the shaft out, and the soldier survived with no ill effects. I believe he even retained most of his sight in that eye. And all of this is related by Procopius, who observed it firsthand.

Ah!

A smooth bore pistol, of course.


Rifled barrels had been around more than two hundred years by 1650,

Can you point me in the direction of that research please? I understood that the art of rifling a barrel was not common until much later.

I'm sorry...

that JR did not return with his research.

BUT

even Wikipedia states that:

Barrel rifling was invented in Vienna at the end of the fifteenth century by Jaspard Zoller. In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, improved upon the work of Zoller.
Yes, we can accept that.
BUT
Though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century.

AND
it is fairly safe to assume that most 17th and 18thC guns would be smooth bore and unreliable over a distance. And that 19thC gun barrels could be without rifling.

pdr said:

A smooth bore pistol, of course.


Rifled barrels had been around more than two hundred years by 1650,

Can you point me in the direction of that research please? I understood that the art of rifling a barrel was not common until much later.

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Just check any encyclopedia, or type Jaspard Zoller into Google. Rifled barrels were invented in Vienna by Jaspard Zoller in the late fifteenth century, though many say as early as 1440. It's certain that August Kotter made significant improvements in 1520, and from 1520 on, rifling was more a science than an art, albeit an expensive one.

"Common" is a misleading term. Rifled barrels were uncommon in military ranks until the Civil War, but only because rifled barrels were considered too slow to load, and mass fire by long lines of troops meant accuracy wasn't the critical issue.

But even in the Revolutionary War, the Americans used rifled barrels in devastating manner. At the battle of Bunker Hill, Americans with Pennsylvania or "Kentucky" rifles were making three hundred yard head shots on British troops, and were told to hold their fire until the British were much closer because they were far out of range of the rest of the Americans who were using smoothbore muskets.

Rifled barrels were also much more expensive than smoothbores, and so, before the seventeenth century, were usually owned by the rich, or by market hunters, wolfers, and other who made a living by using a rifle, or whose lives depended on accuracy.

Dueling pistols had rifling early on, of course. There's not much point in having a duel if neither one of you stands a chance of hitting your opponent.

"Common" or "uncommon" really has nothing to do with it. Good, accurate rifling was available from 1520 on, and by the 1600s was darned near as good as anything made before the computer age. Those who had need of an accurate rifle or pistol got them. They were considered "uncommon" only because they were more expensive, and because the military preferred mass, rapid fire over accuracy.

But you were talking about a flintlock, and true flintlocks were not invented until 1610, and were not widely in use until 1630. With the popularity of the flintlock, rifled barrels became much more common, again outside the military.

It was, of course, possible to have rifling cut into many smoothbore rifles and pistols, and isn't a terribly difficult process. I've rifled barrels just as they did then, and it's mostly a matter of elbow grease.

In favor of smoothbores, pirates most generally used some pretty accurate muskets for use when the enemy ship was still at a distance, and then used musketoons or blunderbuses loaded with anything from nails to buck & ball when the enemy ship drew close.

Their flintlock pistols could also be smoothbore or rifled, depending on what the individual wanted. They had the money to buy the best, but also captured many a ship with rich cargoes or well off passengers or officers, and kept the best weapons they captured.

You simply can't equate "common" with what individuals used. Individuals used whatever their occupation called for, and when your life depends on having an acccurate rifle or pistol, then you buy, beg, or steal an accurate rifle or pistol.

A given pirate may or may not have had a rifled flintlock, but there was certainly no reason he could not or would not have owned one.

pdr said:

that JR did not return with his research.


BUT
Though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century.

.

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Then explain the Pennsylvania or Kentucky rifle, which was extremely common long before the nineteenth century, and all of which had rifled barrels.

There wasn't much in Kentucky - long - before the 19th century. Harrodsburg, considered to be the first settlement, was in 1774. There really wasn't a lot going on beyond the Appalachians until after the Revolutionary War.

The "Kentucky" rifle was first created in Lancaster, PA in 1730. It gained the name "Kentucky" because of it's use by frontiersmen. Daniel Boone carried one through Cumberland Gap in 1775 on his way to settling in Kentucky. That's not really very long before the 19th century. Puma

I'm a fan of the show but I'll admit it isn't perfect, not in the long-run. But it's the closest you'll get to anything else. Please read everything I typed if you want to reply. No ignorant business of reading one or two lines and basing a whole thing off of that.

But its important to remember what science is. Science is observation and the application of those observations (which can be recorded). The show has more science in it than all of the information concerning Evolution combined (which is a theory, and theories based upon a theory, a theory which isn't even true, which wasn't observed back then, and the state of changes has never been observed nor recorded).

They had a real flintlock pistol shoot at real armor, with a real deflection and a real dent. The tests are real. High-speed cameras are real. But the application of them is really off and massive amounts of guesswork at that.

The difference in area, equipment, skills, backgrounds, etc. between the two warriors would be so radically different every "1000 battles" that nothing could really be proven. But like I said, this is as close as we're going to get.


In theory, if the two warriors were in the respective locations, and the two men had the character given, then I agree with the end results, not necessarily the individual test results of who killed what how many times and why, but the end results aren't really that difficult to believe in. The men representing the sides, if you remove their "my cock is bigger than yours" attitude, neither side lied. You can check up on what they said.


If you don't know anything about history, it's a fair place to start if you want to see live action. If you know something and wanted to see it in action, it's not a bad thing to look at. Obviously, don't hang on all the words anyone says, but everything produced in the show is as honest as they can produce. There's just too many factors to input for a several-thousand dollar computer program to make results.

And for sake of entertainment, they have to make the actual matches at least somewhat close. It wouldn't be much of a show if the Apache shot the gladiator point-dead in the face and killed him in the first 10 seconds, (or Samurai for that matter).


But some of their tests aren't even required and a waste of time really. Doing a reliability test for the AR-15 by swiping mud all over the ejection port and putting water down the barrel and then pitting it up against an AK-47 with the same treatment? Any half-learned person would know the end results; AR-15 jams midway, AK-47 keeps on going without stopping (actually from my experience, the AR-15 did better than I thought).
I've used the AR-15 half a dozen times. Everything they said about it was true and while the testing could've been better, the end results were the same. I don't know how much time the IRA representative had for shooting the tree ornaments, but I can shoot soda cans at almost twice the distance with iron sights 7 out of 10 times, given time.

I've also done extensive research on the AK-47 and I've talked to several people who used it first-hand, and some who were shot by it and saw people die to it. Everything they've said about the AK-47 is also true (when compared to the M16 line of weapons, including AR-15, M4, etc). There's no need to really test it.

If the Taliban "spray and pray" as the expert said (and they do, they're poor, untrained marksmen), they should've had a test of it on full-auto. They're unbelievably inaccurate. They're ok if you're smart enough to single-fire or do short trigger bursts, but most of those who wield the AK-47 don't know that.



So far, I've used my study of history to predict every match up (not just end results, but also the testing) and I haven't been wrong yet. Season II just started. Have to give them at least some credit.

A knight's primary weapon was not, was NEVER, a sword. It's pretty much bs but I guess that's ok for pure entertainment since they never would have been in the same place at the same time anyway. Would have been nice if they'd gotten it a bit closer to right as far as the knight is concerned.

Albannach said:

A knight's primary weapon was not, was NEVER, a sword. It's pretty much bs but I guess that's ok for pure entertainment since they never would have been in the same place at the same time anyway. Would have been nice if they'd gotten it a bit closer to right as far as the knight is concerned.

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What was a knight's "primary weapon" then? It really depended on which knight you're talking about then. But each group got a choice for close range weapons and they happened to pick the sword.


The pirate, on the hand, almost exclusively used pistols. Swords were wildly flung around and generally used for intimidation. And the guys representing the pirates got the bit about the pistol right, and they also got the bit about the cutlass right, but they just failed to tell the show that the swordsmanship expert wielding it shouldn't have been on the show. Unless the pirate was an ex-officer who learned swordsmanship, the knight should've devoured him with the broadsword.


From my study though, swords were the most common close-combatant tools of medieval Europe, and were the strongest emphasis in the texts of the martial artists who wrote about them. The most common battlefield weapon however, was the spear, and all variations of it and has been for a long time (see also pike, and thrown weapons like the pilum, javelin, etc).

I've found the show to be like who'd win in a fight, Batman or Superman, or Santa Claus vs. Jesus, or a ninja against your gramma.

Mark Young said:

But its important to remember what science is. Science is observation and the application of those observations (which can be recorded). The show has more science in it than all of the information concerning Evolution combined (which is a theory, and theories based upon a theory, a theory which isn't even true, which wasn't observed back then, and the state of changes has never been observed nor recorded)..

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...did...

Did you just...say the Deadliest Warriors has more science than the entire field of evolutionary biology?

Zoombie said:

...did...

Did you just...say the Deadliest Warriors has more science than the entire field of evolutionary biology?

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Science is observation and the application of that observation. Evolution is a string of theories that have never been proven true, have never been observed, never been recorded, and never been reproduced in a laboratory setting. It has never been observed and has never been applied. Nobody, not university professors, not you, not a high school graduate, not Darwin himself could show me where Evolution was ever recorded, where or when it was tested, nor tell me about what they have observed about Evolution. It's simply a very popular theory.

Evolution isn't a science, it's a philosophy. Darwin uses the exact same principles of study as Aristotle and Plato.



The show Deadliest Warrior actually takes historical settings and utilizes the tools and methods those warriors usually/most likely used, sets up cameras and press mats, etc. and tests how effective/accurate/lethal they are. Then they take what they observe and (do their best to) try and calculate a battle between two (or a group of) warriors and see who comes out with more kills.

While it is shaky at best, and not 100% accurate in the slightest (far from), it is still a science.

...

<backs away slowly>

Confusion!

As the dueling and holster pistols my family own, dating from 1640s to 1750s are all smooth bore, as are the small personal pocket pistols of the 19thC, I am confused.

I will contact those most helpful arms experts at the Royal Armoury in the UK re how universal rifling was in European small arms like dueling and saddle holster pistols, before the19thC, and let everyone know their answer here in this thread. It will take a few weeks for the experts to reply.

The Reply!

Curator of Firearms
Royal Armouries Museum
Armouries Drive, Leeds, LS10 1LT
Tel: 0113 220 1875
Royal Armouries Museum
Home of the national collection of arms & armour
www.royalarmouries.org



I can say definitively that most pistols (or even firearms full stop) were certainly *not* rifled in the 17th century, despite the technology having been around in England since at least the days of Henry VIII (no doubt one of the earliest adopters!) and the rifled pistol being known as far back as the 1590s. Surviving examples of rifled pistols pre-1750 are rare - we have only a handful in our collection, which is one of the best in the world. For example, there's a rifled holster pistol by Barnes dated c1650, and a number of pocket or travelling pistols with turn-off barrels to ease loading and because you would hope to only have to discharge such a pistol once in a self-defence context, whereas military pistols clearly have to be reloaded in action. It was harder to load a rifled arm (particularly after carbon deposits began to build if firing repeatedly), as the lead ball had to be pushed past the rifling that it was intended to take up on firing. In a military context there was simply no real call for rifling in general terms, as aside from the above it was an added expense for the manufacture of pattern arms, and in any case infantry tactics did not allow for the benefits to be exploited (aside from Jaeger/rifle regiments).

No British military pistol employed rifling until the 1850s, by which time we're looking at Colt and Adams revolvers and reworked single-shot designs. Some cavalry regiments retained smooth-bore pistols into the 1880s! This was because cavalry (and civilian holster) pistols were intended to be employed at virtually contact-range to ensure a hit from a moving platform.


As a monied civilian (or military officer purchasing privately - though even then primarily for civilian use only), one could of course purchase or even commission rifled arms, and fowling pieces etc were quite common. Ful-sized pistols, however, remained smooth-bore as a rule until the second half of the 18th century for civilians (supported by a lack of literary references) and much later for the military as we've seen. Even then such weapon were of use primarily only for target work, since rifling was prohibited in the duel.



Supposedly examples exist with partial rifling at the breech end, or 'scratch' rifling that could evade the scrutiny of a duellist's 'second'. As the purpose of a duel by that time was less to kill one's opponent and more to demonstrate honour and courage, if anything covert were to go on, it was usually to seek a less bloody result (e.g. down-loading the pistols or even failing to load a ball), not a more deadly one. It was even frowned upon to take deliberate aim, or to practice before a duel! Note that the duelling with pistols is actually a red herring in this context, since it did not really come in until the early eighteenth century.


Back to the period and context at hand - a rifled pistol is perfectly plausible - but again would very much be the exception rather than the rule in the English Civil War.



Note that even if it were smooth-bore, it might be capable of throwing a ball with some accuracy at much greater ranges than 12ft. Using a later example, at typical duelling ranges (7 - 14 paces) 2/3rds of participants weren't actually harmed, but to put it another way - well, 1/3rd were! Bear in mind also the 'rules' of duelling - snap-shooting either by agreement or coin-toss, or simultaneous discharge at a signal (like a handkerchief drop). Hot-blooded shooting (in war or self-defence) might induce similarly low probability of a hit, but on the other hand, the shooter would be able to take careful aim. With a properly loaded, well-made pistol with a decently long barrel and the ball tightly 'patched' into the barrel with greased paper or pigskin, one could achieve a hit on a man-sized target at modern effective handgun ranges i.e. 50 yards (150 feet), and reliably hit a man at half that range with practice. By far the most important factor is the skill of the shooter, though rifling would certainly help.



With inherent inaccuracy of handguns generally and the slight delay in firing of a flintlock action, a miss at 12ft under stressful conditions is perfectly possible even with rifling (and even with a modern handgun), and much more likely without.