Lefty/k/ thread

Well, should I try it out or not?

For me, it's the quarter-staff. Thick enough so it can't be chopped, light enough so it can be carried for long distances. Can't be stopped by shields because unlike swords and spears that are meant to pierce, and therefore have to find a weak spot in the armour, quarter-staff can be used to whack someone hard on the head, or on the body, either knocking them back or knocking them out. You could also use a quarter-staff to break someone's hand/arm, ankle, etc.

I've watched a little of it in the past, but for the most part my knowledge comes from reading about these sorts of things. Getting my hands on the treatises on the styles of the day helped illustrate the effectiveness and use of weapons for me, plus I learned some neat (albeit ultimately useless) tricks about old weapons. If I ever get more than some pocket change saved up, I've always wanted to go into mold forging, then maybe work myself up into doing actual weaponsmithing once I get a familiarity with how to shape metal.

Tho for favorite weapon I dunno. Kinda indecisive because I always have a favorite weapon for every era it feels like, but I always enjoyed the aesthetics of the bearded axe. It was a good tool and a good weapon, which was always a great addition to Viking warbands. On top of being able to chop through shields and splinter any armor short of full plate, it could be used for felling trees and chopping firewood quite effectively. And the head of the axe itself was long enough to grip the tip of the shaft and have the hand completely covered by the blade, which opened up options when it came to close quarters combat and woodworking back at camp. The design was so versatile and effective that for many varieties of modern axe, they could consider the bearded axe their granddaddies.

Yeah it's really good and sold for dirt cheap. My beef with it is that it could be sold at ten times the price and be well worth it if they just refined it a little.

Well yeah, otherwise I would have my favourite weapon being the SMG or assault rifle right up until someone else got it, then it would be the nuke.

All weapons are borne out of necessity, it's really hard to have a favourite weapon for practical purposes when that weapon was one of the most efficient of its time. For example, the polearm became so widespread because people were covering themselves with platemail, which made the sword redundant. Turns out hitting people really hard with a long stick with a blade on top was effective at taking out armoured infantry, then some mad lad turned up with a gun and we started shooting each other in rows and then ended up wearing kevlar and ordering drone strikes.

Its more libright representative but I own several katanas, I know its not the most perfect weapon for every kind of situation, but aesthetically and using it its so fucking pleasant

dumping helpful info

no at least of you're counting all of it.

The need to mass produce weapons lead to some shitty quality AKs. Sure some are good but there is a lot of crap going around. I think it was the Yugoslav AK that was built to not work with the mags of others in fear of russian invasion.
Also Chinese weapons are shit 99% of the time.

I wish russia expanded on their special operations forces in the way the US and other Nato countries did, we'd see interesting shit

t. former 18b

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How do you procure ammunition in a country where it isn't sold freely?

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leave the country

I didn't realise you were part of the special needs forces.

The history of all hitherto existing society(2) is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.

The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.

Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.

We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.

The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.

In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.

Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

\, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the co

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.

The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.

In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.

Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

Nice. There's just something special about learning HEMA even with just reading & watching and through it, the common principles that pertain to all fencing. Seeing similarities between different methods even from different periods and using that to highlight the actual differences make it clear that all good fencing is about achieving the same thing in sometimes different ways. Of course, they were all parts of their own evolving traditions (which you can observe in different treatises of an indentifiable lineage like Liechtenauer's Zettel or the Dardi/"Bolognese" school) and intersecting influences added to the fact that there's only so many ways a human can move. It's up to you to decide which ones you're comfortable with.

I'm getting kind of tired of longsword myself but there is something to be said about how universal Liechtenauer's core conceptual teachings of the longsword are. There was even an article I read which actually used his medieval teachings to explain basic italian rapier fencing. For example, using the four hangings to explain the commonly used four hand positions and using durchwechseln to explain the cavazione. And of course, Liechtenauer's glossator's extremely useful description of winding and all its different positions which are simply explained is practically relevant to all fencing.

Another very simple but helpful thing I realised which follows his "fencing is about moving/movement" advice is that whether or not you've crossed with your opponent's sword, you're generally moving the sword in the same way and/or into the same positions. For example: You do a zwerchhau to intercept a diagonal cut and end up in an ochs/upper hanging position. Compare that to when you're already bound and decide to wind to thrust. Guess what? You're in an ochs position again. Likewise, you can do a krumphau both in and out of a bind to defend or attack respectively. In short, the same full or partial movements from and into a postition are used for both offense and defense. So keep this in mind even in another treatise. It might help simplify things.

Ah, I'm rambling again but I hope someone found it interesting. As a final note here's an interesting quote at the end of this video:
youtube.com/watch?v=VKptjGIfUx8