If you want to know about medieval plate armor, you need to watch this video from a curator of the Department of Arms and Armor at The Met. I started this post several years ago and never finished it. It
Traditional versus Modern Steel Katanas
Is the traditional method of making katanas better than using modern steel? Here’s the answer from modern expert sword maker Walter Sorrels. To summarize, katana blades made from modern steel have superior performance. They are harder and keep a sharper
Speed Archery Techniques, Part 4
My posts on speed archery have been very popular and continue to get a lot of traffic. So I’ve been digging into it more and trying to find more resources for those of you who are interested in the topic.
Mobility in Medieval Plate Armor
Does medieval plate armor slow you down and make you easier to hit in melee combat? On the face of it, you’d definitely think so. But the truth of it is that plate armor was designed to allow freedom of
Fast Archery Techniques, Part 3: The Crossbow
In my past posts on archery speed shooting techniques, I’ve talked about some methods for shooting bows much faster than many people think possible. If you haven’t seen them, there are links at the bottom of this post. But for
Can Arrows Penetrate Medieval Armor?
Can Arrows Penetrate Medieval Armor? I find this question fascinating. As both a gamer and a fantasy writer, I like to get as close to reality as possible, if only to make the fantastic elements of my games and stories
Studying the German Longsword Techniques at True Edge Academy
The past two weeks, I attended a class on the medieval art of the German longsword. The past decade or so has seen an explosion in the area of Western Martial Arts called Historical European Martial Arts, or HEMA. These
Archery: Speed Shooting Techniques, Part 2
A little over a year ago, I wrote about a couple of archery speed shooting techniques and posted some YouTube videos. Since then, I’ve come across a few more videos of archers shooting incredibly fast. These videos debunk decades of
Speed Archery: Fast and Deadly
This is one of the cooler things I’ve seen. If you like archery at all, you’ll like this, but if you’ve ever played an archer in a role playing game and been frustrated at how long you have to wait
Weapons That Made Britain
Ing over at Blog Ing just wrote a post about Deadliest Warrior, and it reminded me of another similar show I’ve run into recently. It’s called Weapons That Made Britain, and it’s cool because it mixes historical fact with modern