Recruitment/contributions thread

[Apollon-04]

I understand it now. Thanks, Ron. Riptokus' post all made sense, except for the fact, he made a point, and then argued against himself. Seems kind of odd to me. And using Kevlar for a bow? Thats not a logical point, since thats just stupid. Aztecs have seen steel used in blades before, which is why they would then take steel, and use it in blades.

[Ron Losey]

I understand it now. Thanks, Ron. Riptokus' post all made sense, except for the fact, he made a point, and then argued against himself. Seems kind of odd to me. And using Kevlar for a bow? Thats not a logical point, since thats just stupid. Aztecs have seen steel used in blades before, which is why they would then take steel, and use it in blades.

OK ... you're finally starting to follow what I was saying.

[Apollon-04]

Im going to make a spanish sword, without their special guard thing, and add some decorations. That's ok, right? And my drawing skills suck, but Ill try and draw some concept art of a spanish warrior in special plate armor.

[guspav]

A mesoamerican warsuit with a breastplate doesn't sound like a bad idea either, breastplates are pretty generic anyway and could just be captured pieces.

Maces with sharp wings would pretty much be like metal macuahuitls, still for that, Mexicas would need at least some rudimentary steel or ironworking skills so those wouldn't come soon.

As a matter of fact mesoamericans did use captured or lent (or whatever) equipment such as swords and pikes.
Now personalizing  them their way it'd be just like Ron said: attaching them feathers and painting them, maybe making a carved wood grip for a sword.. stuff like that

[Riptokus]

I was arguing against one style, a steel base with obsidian blades, but arguing for wood base with steel blades.

[Ron Losey]

I was arguing against one style, a steel base with obsidian blades, but arguing for wood base with steel blades.

That might happen ... but I think they generally call that design a "hatchet".

"Glaive" also comes to mind - a wood base with an attached steel blade.

[Apollon-04]

I think he means swords with wooden handles. Thats how I modeled my original sword, that I will not use now.

[Ron Losey]

Most swords have wood handles ... at last a little bit around the tang, and then wrapped in whatever will give a good grip.  It can be a solid piece of wood, drilled for the tang, or slab sides like you often see on modern kitchen knives and stuff, but odds are there's at least some wood in the grip.

[Riptokus]

Sigh. I feel the need to go into extreme depth for you all, since history seems to mean nothing.

First post-

Actually, Jallon might be right with the first weapon. Yes, the MEXICA WARRIORS might grasp the sword and want them, but the MEXICA WEAPONSMAKERS would probably be similar to any weaponmaker anywhere in the world, seeped in traditions and allowing only a small change in overall design in the short term. Making a m?cuahuitl was pretty straightforward. You get a long piece of wood, cut groves on each side, insert obsidian blades into it attached with a adhesive, and cut people with it. It's only a small leap to use steel, and since a m?cuahuitl was used to capture slaves as well as kill, the blunt end might have been seen as rather important. For the second one, putting it into a bar of steel? It has become very important to ground you on the rock of reality.
1) Ironworking is a very complex skill, which came out of thousands of years of Bronze Working. Working copper and being able to smelt steel are two different things. Steel didn't come until quite a long time after that.
2) Large scale mines weren't known to the Mesoamericans like they were to Europeans, so you wouldn't see iron in abundance, which offers no advantage over obsidian anyway.
3) If the Mexica find a way to work steel and get enough of it to use it for warfare, then they will almost assuredly start by copying what works, not copying what they currently have. Would you make a Kevlar bow? It makes great body armor, why not! Because the material isn't practical for that use.

Adhesive sticks to wood much better then metal because of it's porous nature. Just FYI


This was in reply to the conversation you and Jallon were having regarding his proposed m?cuahuitl and Ron Losey's arguments about it. It seemed to me that Ron was arguing against Jallon's initial plan of a Wooden m?cuahuitl handle with Metal blades inset. That is how I interpreted his first post. His second post, after receiving input from Ron, described a metal steel blade whose edges were made of obsidian.

I am not saying I want any weapon in, I am just saying that Jallon's origional design, which he will no longer use, was practical. This appeared to be misunderstood, so I provided what appeared to be clarification thus -

I was arguing against one style, a steel base with obsidian blades, but arguing for wood base with steel blades.

Your comment in reply to what I said shows that you DID miss what Jallon was trying to say with the first post, which caused him to go down the wrong track with his second. That is what I was getting at. That is what wasn't understood, that is what I attempted to clarify, and that is what you posted a reply to as if it were a seperate issue. No doubt this will be misunderstood too, but I provided enough explanations.

Jallon, My opinion of your first work is it is good. Don't discard it.

[hayate666]

Why would the weaponsmiths go beyond what the warriors were accustomed to using? If a warrior is telling a smith that the strange new weapon (steel swords) he looted from one of his strange enemies is way more durable and sturdier than what he's accustomed to using, wouldn't the weaponsmith copy the strange item that was found so the warrior's buddies could try it out instead of cutting it up and glueing the bits and pieces to a wooden support? What's the use in that? I can almost see the baffled look on the warrior's face when someone would do that to his new toy!

Jallon's creative skills are very good, but it isn't the most logical path to take in a historical sense. Take a look at the Romans. Technology stealers par excellence. Their swords came from Spain (Gladius Hispanis), their armor was a Celtic designed mail and helmet. Battle tactics were based on the Greek phalanx and several Italian tribes surrounding them. Adding their own ideas to it came in periods spanning decades or even hundreds of years. So the historical trend seems to be copy ==> adapt.

[Ron Losey]

That's what I said.  History pretty much always shows that when any people are exposed to any new idea or technology, the first move is to try to copy it (or as close as possible), and only later to adapt it to their own situation, well after the copied form has become standard.

I cannot think of a notable exception.

[Riptokus]

Romans were the victors. They could take people who knew the secret of the technology. Try forging a sword yourself without any knowledge how to do it. Then try to introduce a new technology into an entrenched environment. After about 40 years of exposure, I'd accept that iron swords could be made by the Mexica, maybe, but how many Native Americans actually did learn how to make iron after contact with European soldiers? Most were just standard stuff with fillagree on it, traded for.

Availability of the material always affects the entire situation. Are the Spanish likely to trade basically shaving blades to the Mexica? Would the Mexica take them and use them? Could they get enough to use them for m?cuahuitl? If those are all yes, then there is a good chance the Mexica WOULD make m?cuahuitl using steel blades instead of obsidian, but we know history labels a big no on that, so there isn't any m?cuahuitl with metal blades.

[hayate666]

What point are you trying to make? The fact that they won't be able to make swords the day that they see them doesn't have anything to do at all with the general use of swords or steel in warfare.

Forget history for the moment and use common sense. Mexicas wouldn't need any Spanish fabricated steel razor blades for weapon use, because they were perfectly capable of making those themselves out of obsidian. What would be the advantage in Spanish razors? When using steel, there are way more effective ways of use that have been developed by a people with hundres of years of experience in crafting steel items. There is no need for them and there is no advantage for adding steel in their own weapons like they do obsidian, so even if they were able to aquire Spanish razors by the thousands, even then they would not use them for weapons, because it would be a lot cheaper and easier to make it themselves like they have always done.

[Apollon-04]

If I take all of what you guys have said, and make it into one sentence, it would say....


Ron Losey was right in the first place.

[Riptokus]

hayate666, it's all about manufacturing techniques. All societies are guilty of being woefully lacking in some feature that they could easily excel at due to "the way it has always been done"
Look at current technology to remove oil dependence. Full electric cars with gasoline backups are possible today, but the best we do is crazy hybrids that only extend fuel efficiency to what we had in the 70s. We have all these technologies out there that would work to make cars run without gas, but we don't do it. Instead, the US has made this push to "Hydrogen" or "E-85", both of which go with the tried and true method of something you have to "fill up" with. This is not only done because of what people will accept, but also because of the people who make the tools not wanting to change as well. There's your "Common Sense." History is there to draw parallels with.

As for why do it with steel, the answer is for the same reason they would want a steel sword. Durability.

The more I think on it, the more likely I feel that the Mexica would go that path. Every culture has it's own version of a "primary" sword, designed around it's own concept of how warfare should go. Minus your own attitude of superiority, what advantages would a steel sword have over a m?cuahuitl made with steel blades instead of obsidian? It's much easier to repair then a steel sword, and easier to recycle the material from a broken m?cuahuitl vs a steel sword. Already an obsidian m?cuahuitl could both decapitate an enemy and knock them unconscious so they could be captured. How is a sword an improvement over this system? Steel adds durability to this structure at the cost of sharpness, what does the sword shape really add that they didn't have already with a steel-backed m?cuahuitl?