What woudl realistic sword fighting look like ?

[Sarevok]

In movies it's common to see named characters engaging in long dramatic sword duels. Is this realistic ? How long would two well trained fighters of the ancient world (from before the middle ages) take to kill the other in a one on one duel ? What if the fighters were from the middle ages and wore fully body knight armor ?

[Darth Wong]

In battle, you generally didn't have one on one duels at all. Dueling was more of a social and ceremonial function. In battles, if you spent too long focusing on one opponent, somebody else would come along and kill you.

I imagine the tactics of battles would have been much more succinct and brutal than the fencing and dueling that we're accustomed to seeing in movies.

[Dartzap]

A large amount of kicking to the groin was probably involved as well, just before the sword went in to meet the heart, or anything else, for that matter.

[General Zod]

In movies it's common to see named characters engaging in long dramatic sword duels. Is this realistic ? How long would two well trained fighters of the ancient world (from before the middle ages) take to kill the other in a one on one duel ? What if the fighters were from the middle ages and wore fully body knight armor ?

Historically, if you ever got into a sword fight in battle it usually meant the shit was really hitting the fan. Spears were vastly preferred in actual combat due to their reach and the sword was commonly used as a backup weapon more than anything else.

[Tasoth]

The roman way, from what I know, was to march in formation, knock the opponents off balance with your shield and then stick them in the chest. In the middle of a fight, you're probably looking for unaware individuals you can stab in the back or side while they're occupied with someone else. When in comes to life and death, fuck honor, fuck the rules.

[Zixinus]

In mass combat, spears and cavalry charges dominated with the occasional aid of bows. Most ancient people I know of either despised or embraced the bow. Combat was messy and difficult to control. After battle usually followed allot of burying or cremating, then long tedious marches during which a significant portion of the force died from diseases or untreated wounds.

A strategy I know of, is how the Mongols, Huns and all associated tribes fought. They were horseriders from young age and proficient bowmen. You might find them mentioned in European history between the fall of Rome and 800-900 BC, otherwise in the west area of Asia.

Anyway the strategy they followed was simple: make a strike at the enemy's army, enough for them to began chasing you. You are retreating. Then find a circled, deep area and lure them in there. Once they are, get out the bows and shot the living crap out of them.

Bare in mind this happens WHILE RIDING HORSES, so the surrounded enemy troops die off almost no matter what. There was likely no mercy and afterwards, came the pillaging, looting and taking of women (I'm not kidding, it was considered proper to kidnap women as wives).

So yeah, it was a bucketful of fun.

As mentioned, duals were rare and served more as ceremony and had little practical use otherwise. Knights had swords as backup and primary used their lances, proven by the knight tournaments as they provide an example of how people fought in that age. Using lances.

But since you are interested in ancient people, I can also mention one more thing: among Greeks and similar people, polises (city-states, like a small country centered around a big city) expected every citizen to be armed and ready to fight if needed be. Keep in mind that the citizens were the elite of the population, as the rest was compromised of slaves, free people without rights and bastards (literally bastards, as in bloodline).

EDIT:

Oh and don't forget sieges. Sieges were plenty, as open battle was messy. Famous battles were often sieges, just look at the Illias. A fortification gave protection from most bandits and alike, shown by the fact that early Christian temples were simple forts as well as places of worship. Roman style churches in particular, if my memory serves right.

While conquering you can't let castles and like left at the hands of the enemy, as castle defenders often made pillaging runs at the enemy's supply lines. A period of my country's history was about how we defended againts the Turks when they got the idea to invade Europe. During these times canons and swords were used allot, as at siege defence a sword is a good weapon.

[Thanas]

The roman way, from what I know, was to march in formation, knock the opponents off balance with your shield and then stick them in the chest. In the middle of a fight, you're probably looking for unaware individuals you can stab in the back or side while they're occupied with someone else. When in comes to life and death, fuck honor, fuck the rules.

Nitpick - looking at roman columms, the gut seems to be the preferred target - less ribs to get stuck in and given the medical standards back then, just as fatal to the enemy.

In mass combat, spears and cavalry charges dominated with the occasional aid of bows.

Disregarding the period of about 200 BC - 300 AD and most of the imperial age of course.

A strategy I know of, is how the Mongols, Huns and all associated tribes fought. They were horseriders from young age and proficient bowmen. You might find them mentioned in European history between the fall of Rome and 800-900 BC, otherwise in the west area of Asia.

Anyway the strategy they followed was simple: make a strike at the enemy's army, enough for them to began chasing you. You are retreating. Then find a circled, deep area and lure them in there. Once they are, get out the bows and shot the living crap out of them.

A minor nitpick - this strategy was not really succesful in the end, because when you run into an enemy with professional forces employing combined arms, you are pretty much screwed, as the Huns (Aldaric, Aetius) and Mongols (Mameluks, anyone?) both found out. In fact, every succesful nomadic army expanded rapidly to include other forces beside mounted archers, the Hun and the Mongols again being the prominent examples.

Furthermore, while your forces are indeed quite fast, your civilians are terribly slow with no safe refuge. As a hungarian, I am sure the cumans are familiar to you...or for even a more drastic example, take the pechenegs.

In the end, this is basically a steppe tactic...which limits your area of operations considerably. It definitely was not the main tactic employed by western nations.

[Zixinus]

Disregarding the period of about 200 BC - 300 AD and most of the imperial age of course.

I'm not a historian, but I recall the Romans used both cavalry later on and their version of the phalanx. Mostly they used a more open, modified version of the phalanx that was more adapt to their mountain ranges.

A minor nitpick - this strategy was not really succesful in the end, because when you run into an enemy with professional forces employing combined arms, you are pretty much screwed, as the Huns (Aldaric, Aetius) and Mongols (Mameluks, anyone?) both found out. In fact, every succesful nomadic army expanded rapidly to include other forces beside mounted archers, the Hun and the Mongols again being the prominent examples.

Yeah, that is true. Which is why the Hungarians and many associated tribes (Hungarians are actually a collection of a few tribes actually, from what I know there is no true genetic Hungarians, and no Hungarians are not actually Huns, albeit we are related, don't get me started) settled down. Like many nomadic tribes after the fall of Rome, we just raided and pillaged till it was stopped. Either they raiders were exterminated (I recall that the last great raiding parties were trapped between two armies and had nowhere to run, the corpse were thrown into the river) or took up Christianity and settled down (like my country).

It was a good tactic for pass-by towns and village militia, but not for proffesional forces of disciplined soldiers and competent leaders who did not take the trap.

Furthermore, while your forces are indeed quite fast, your civilians are terribly slow with no safe refuge. As a hungarian, I am sure the cumans are familiar to you...or for even a more drastic example, take the pechenegs.

Actually I don't know jack shit about them, at least not under that name.

ANNNNNNNND to answer the original questions:

In movies it's common to see named characters engaging in long dramatic sword duels. Is this realistic ?

Obviously not. Or at least as realistic as gunfights in movies are.

Two skilled swordfighters making a fight long and dramatic is not impossible, just not that frequent as movies make it. From what I know, the first one to make a mistake dies or gets injured enough to lose and die.

How long would two well trained fighters of the ancient world (from before the middle ages) take to kill the other in a one on one duel ?

Most likely depends on the skill, status and equipment of these warriors. Usually, fights lasted rather short. Don't expect anything much longer then a couple of minutes, unless one flees to fight later again. If the two warriors are especially good and in good shape, then maybe 10 minutes maximum, maybe longer. Hour long battles are stuff of stories and stories alone from what I know.

What if the fighters were from the middle ages and wore fully body knight armor ?

Then they fight until exhaustion. Full, proper knight armours were very difficult to bypass or pierce, up until it developed to the point that only very few hand-held weapons were effective againts it. Still a knight on the floor was a knight on the floor. That is why they usually stayed on their horses.

[Meest]

Most likely depends on the skill, status and equipment of these warriors. Usually, fights lasted rather short. Don't expect anything much longer then a couple of minutes, unless one flees to fight later again. If the two warriors are especially good and in good shape, then maybe 10 minutes maximum, maybe longer. Hour long battles are stuff of stories and stories alone from what I know.

I think it's been found out that it was more like a few minutes was very rare with fights being mostly in the seconds, even in duels. There's only so long both could dance around feeling each other out, especially armoured. This is for to the death duels, but I guess you can count the dancing around prior to blows. Once it got to blows it was usually ~15secs and this is from examples of reenactors who train those styles but have no fear of death.

[Thanas]

Disregarding the period of about 200 BC - 300 AD and most of the imperial age of course.

I'm not a historian, but I recall the Romans used both cavalry later on and their version of the phalanx. Mostly they used a more open, modified version of the phalanx that was more adapt to their mountain ranges.

That would be true for roman legions of the seventh century and onwards BC, however by the time the reforms of the 4th century BC (accredited to Camillus, however that is doubtful) the roman had invented the manipular legion. Scipio eventually reformed it into a flexible formation very much unlike the phalanx, with the primary fighting instrument being a short sword instead of a spear. I would not call it a version of the phalanx anymore than I would call a modern destroyer a version of a ship of the line.

Although this representation by Peter Connelly is not very good because it assumes a lot of things, it does show the general difference.

Furthermore, while your forces are indeed quite fast, your civilians are terribly slow with no safe refuge. As a hungarian, I am sure the cumans are familiar to you...or for even a more drastic example, take the pechenegs.

Actually I don't know jack shit about them, at least not under that name.

Short version: They were nomadic tribes of the 10-13th century and had the bad luck to run into the Byzantines under the Kommenian dynasty. The Pechenegs did try to employ the same steppe tactics you outlined above...and then the Byzantine army simply marched to their camp. The Pechenegs were not fast enough to escape, tried to defend themselves and were eventually slaughtered by the Byzantine heavy infantry, namely the Varangians. What was left of them were settled in Byzantine lands and the Byzantines later used them as part of their combined arms army as light cavalry. They are most famous for crushing a crusader army of the first crusade. The Cumans were another nomadic people who enjoyed a brief period of success against the Byzantines and Hungarians before they were eventually defeated and absorbed, mostly in Hungarian lands iirc.

Either they raiders were exterminated (I recall that the last great raiding parties were trapped between two armies and had nowhere to run, the corpse were thrown into the river)

That sounds awfully like the battle of Levounion - which was fought between the Byzantines, Cumans and Pechenegs. (Another candidate being the battle of Lechfeld, but there was no entrapment Iirc).

[Falkenhayn]

In movies it's common to see named characters engaging in long dramatic sword duels. Is this realistic ? How long would two well trained fighters of the ancient world (from before the middle ages) take to kill the other in a one on one duel ? What if the fighters were from the middle ages and wore fully body knight armor ?

No. Unlike in western films, the Japanese tend to take their historical swordsmanship very, very seriously. Its an important (and marketable) aspect of their national identity, and so the duels in any Kurosawa film are reasonably accurate. You'll see that most exchanges consist of a void-countercut-dead or "good" parry-countercut-dead sequence of events. The Japanese have a living tradition to draw from, and can consult the requisite Iado or Kenjutsu (not Kendo) master. Such preserved battlefield arts are more indicative than the game that is sport fencing, or a "sword master" who holds a MA in "stage combat".

The ancient world isn't a great setting for such a duel. Classical, professional armies are trained to move and fight as a formation, and obviously the viability of the formation is more important than the survival of is components. A "well-trained" swordsman is one who holds his space in rank and file firstly, and puts down the man in front of him secondly, and he is aided in the task by the men to his left and right, and the men behind who maintain his balance and body position.

Celts and Germans moved in units (the warrior bands of the commitatus, lead by a renowned fighter) but fought as individuals. They wore little armor, and status was determined by feats of arms. I don't see why they wouldn't throw themselves at each other with a minimal regard for their own survival.

Full suits of armor make little difference in the duration of the combat; both knights are well trained in grappling and wrestling techniques, half-sword combat, or equipped with armor defeating weapons like maces and poleaxes. More likely than not, armored combat between knights ended on the ground after a quick exchange of wrestling and throws, with somebody being stabbed through the armpit, face or neck.

[CDiehl]

In movies it's common to see named characters engaging in long dramatic sword duels. Is this realistic ?

No. Real fights of any kind are ugly, brutal affairs, because the combatants are trying to win, not to entertain. The tropes associated with fight scenes are based on the fact that they occur in a piece of entertainment, and have nothing to do with accurately portraying people trying to kill each other.

How long would two well trained fighters of the ancient world (from before the middle ages) take to kill the other in a one on one duel ?

Probably a few moments. Both combatants want to end the fight quickly, and are trained to do precisely that. Whichever fighter manages to hurt or daze his opponent will almost certainly win. Unlike in movies, if you're hurt or confused in a fight, your opponent isn't going to let you recover; in a real fight, there's not a lot of gloating or smarmy one-liners.

What if the fighters were from the middle ages and wore fully body knight armor ?

Probably also a few moments. I'll assume both combatants have experience wearing the armor, so neither one is at an advantage. Also, since armor of this type is designed to protect against swords, I'll also assume blunt weapons are being used.

[ray245]

Not to mention...even a real duel is a short one.

From what I know about ancient chinese martial arts fight and stories, the number of parries is limited to 10-20 moves.

With 20 being two VERY EQUALLY skilled fighters.

[TC Pilot]

Roman or Greek (basically every kingdom between Macedonia and Egypt, and all the way to India) armies have absolutely no dueling involved, unless the respective armies had been completely routed. Formations are absolutely essential for their forces. Roman formations were a block of infantry armed with a large shield, a short stabbing sword, and javelins, with Greek formations essentially being more tightly-packed spear walls.

Cavalry and archers did exist, but only nomadic cultures ever had a predominant focus on either (or a combination, in the case of the steppe nomads north of the Black Sea).

Generally, in the world of Antiquity, the only time you might find duels were between the barbarians, which generally revolved around two hordes charging each other with little in the way of discipline. Though my knowledge of it is significantly less, I imagine feudal warfare was much the same (perhaps with the exception of the Byzantines).

[Elfdart]

Movie swordfights are about as close to the real thing as duels in westerns -which is to say, any resemblance is purely unintentional. Historians of the Old West haven't found a single case of two gunmen facing off in a quickdraw duel. Shootings back then were no different from shootings today: One guy gets pissed off at another and goes for his weapon. His intended victim does likewise if possible. The other shootings were also very much like modern ones in that some asshole is committing a crime and opens fire.

As CDiehl points out, real fights are nasty, brutish and short. People like to use fencing and boxing and other "fighting" sports as a model, but those who take part in them aren't trying to kill and avoid being killed. They also don't get to take breaks in the middle of the action, which is the main reason why all the talk in movie combat is so retarded. You're exerting yourself because your life depends on it -are you really going to have time to catch your breath only to waste it cracking jokes at someone trying to kill you? It's moronic.

If you look at some of the old instruction manuals for hand-to-hand combat from the Middle Ages, chivalry had zilch to do with swordfighting. One manual shows the "proper" technique for racking your opponent's nuts.

[Davey]

Well, in AEMA, (Academy of European Martial Arts) they'd carry out 'duels' using swords with blunt edges and thick, padded armour. I happened to see a couple the day I went to check it out, and they were pretty quick and usually ended in just a few steps, and not all of the duels ended in someone getting hit with a blunt sword - about half of them did. The other half of them ended in someone knocking the sword out of the other person's gloves. I don't know whether this was done just to test their ability to disarm each other or something else, but I'd guess from the various ways they disarmed each other, it's safe to assume a duel didn't always end with someone getting cut up, decapitated, or skewered.

[Falkenhayn]

If you look at some of the old instruction manuals for hand-to-hand combat from the Middle Ages, chivalry had zilch to do with swordfighting. One manual shows the "proper" technique for racking your opponent's nuts.

This is a plate from the Fencing manual of the 15th Century German Longsword Master Hans Talhoffer. The technique is called "Belly Stomping".

[lord Martiya]

Roman or Greek (basically every kingdom between Macedonia and Egypt, and all the way to India) armies have absolutely no dueling involved, unless the respective armies had been completely routed. Formations are absolutely essential for their forces. Roman formations were a block of infantry armed with a large shield, a short stabbing sword, and javelins, with Greek formations essentially being more tightly-packed spear walls.

Cavalry and archers did exist, but only nomadic cultures ever had a predominant focus on either (or a combination, in the case of the steppe nomads north of the Black Sea).

Partially confirmed: under Philip II and Alexander the Great the Macedonian phalanx was used only to stop enemy attackers, as an 'anvil', while the hammer was a powerful cavalry guided from the Etharoi ('Companions'), an elite force decisive in the battles of Chaeronea (against a Teban and Athenian phalanx), Granicus (against two Satrapic armies reinforced by a phalanx of 5000 Greek mercenaries), Issus (against 7 infantry baivarams and 1 cavalry baivarams of the Persian army, the Immortals and a phalanx of 10000 Greek mercenaries, total of 100000 warriors beated exactly from the charge of the Companions) and Gaugamela (against a Persian army of similar of superior size than the one at Issus and using also schyted chariots and war elephants. Even this battle was decided by the Companions). Without this cavalry forces the phalanx, used alone by the Hellenistic armies, was grossly vulnerable to flank attacks.
For the Roman armies, after the Second Punic War and a long evolutionary process they were indeed as you described them, formations of armoured man (with mail armours in the first time and then with scale and segmented armours) equipped with large rectangular shields, short stabbing swords and javelins, used to disrupt enemy infantry formations and kill a lot of enemies just before the contact, progressively flanked by cavalry squadrons used almost exclusevely as anti-cavalry units (Parthian cavalry was indeed a problem in certain situations, as demonstrated at Carrhae, and the Roman cavalry was used exactly to correct this problem). Romans rarely dueled, prefering team work, and between Greeks only Spartans trained in the use of the sword.

[Adrian Laguna]

It's quite possible for a sword fight to end in 1-3 strokes, I would even say this was rather common, if not the rule. I've seen a video of two guys from the ARMA going at it with longswords several times. One guy would strike, and the other would parry and counter-strike in one smooth motion. The duel was over in two moves. All you need for a one stroke battle is for the attacker to be faster than the defender, the latter fails to parry and he dies right then and there.

[Zixinus]

Quick question: does anybody have a link to, or alternatively a free ebook they can put on rapidshare, about medieval swordfights? I am interested in it but I know of no one around here where I could indulge my curiosity.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Does anyone know how common these kind of one-on-one duels would be in ancient barbarian cultures, such as the ancient celts? obviously their mythology focuses entirely on this kind of combat (apparently the Irish Book of Conquests describes battles as if they were hundreds of duels going on at once), but is there a historical consensus on how much it actually happened?

[Elfdart]

Quick question: does anybody have a link to, or alternatively a free ebook they can put on rapidshare, about medieval swordfights? I am interested in it but I know of no one around here where I could indulge my curiosity.

www.thearma.org is a good place to start.

http://www.thearma.org/Fight-Earnestly.htm

[The Dark]

Quick question: does anybody have a link to, or alternatively a free ebook they can put on rapidshare, about medieval swordfights? I am interested in it but I know of no one around here where I could indulge my curiosity.

www.thearma.org is a good place to start.

http://www.thearma.org/Fight-Earnestly.htm

And if you decide to get some of the printed sources, the two best I have are:

Medieval Combat (ISBN-13 is 978-0-7607-8011-4, ISBN-10 is 0-7607-8011-0), which is a Barnes & Noble reprint of the Talhoffer fechtbuch - it consists of 270 illustrated plates with translations of the original caption,

Medieval Swordsmanship by John Clements (ISBN-13 is 978-1-5816-0004-9, ISBN-10 is 1-5816-0004-6). Clements is probably the foremost reconstructionist of Western Martial Arts (and a major contributor to ARMA's website), who uses both the fechtbuchs and modern reconstruction to describe swordfighting. It includes a small technical analysis of weapons (going into length and weight), as well as a small discourse on shields and their development. It's slightly outdated in its research on technique, but I don't have any of the newer resources, so I couldn't say how much development there's been in the decade since it was first printed.

[Thanas]

Roman or Greek (basically every kingdom between Macedonia and Egypt, and all the way to India) armies have absolutely no dueling involved, unless the respective armies had been completely routed. Formations are absolutely essential for their forces. Roman formations were a block of infantry armed with a large shield, a short stabbing sword, and javelins, with Greek formations essentially being more tightly-packed spear walls.

Cavalry and archers did exist, but only nomadic cultures ever had a predominant focus on either (or a combination, in the case of the steppe nomads north of the Black Sea).

A slight addendum - what you are saying can only generally be assumed up to ~ 400 AD. Later roman armies had quite the dependancies on archers, heck their heaviest unit was essentially an archer/heavy cavalry combo. (Klibanophoroi/κλιβανοφόροι)

Generally, in the world of Antiquity, the only time you might find duels were between the barbarians, which generally revolved around two hordes charging each other with little in the way of discipline. Though my knowledge of it is significantly less, I imagine feudal warfare was much the same (perhaps with the exception of the Byzantines).

In late roman armies, duels between champions were not unknown. I remember one occasion where before an enemy (Sassanid or Goth, my memory fails me here) challenged the roman army to entire combat - too bad a roman accepted the challenge and he lost the duel.

Also, your view of "Barbarians charging each other" is completely outdated.

Partially confirmed: under Philip II and Alexander the Great the Macedonian phalanx was used only to stop enemy attackers, as an 'anvil', while the hammer was a powerful cavalry guided from the Etharoi

Nope. The Phalanx was very much used in the attack as well. The companian and thessalian cavalry were used to exploit gaps in the enemy flank - which only opened up after prolonged combat with the phalanx. I direct you to the essay by Stevenson, battle tactics at Gaugamaela.

Without this cavalry forces the phalanx, used alone by the Hellenistic armies, was grossly vulnerable to flank attacks.

You are mixing the companion cavalry and thessalian cavalry up with the light forces like the thracians Alexander used to screen his flanks. The companians and the thessalians were the heavy hitters and not used on the flanks - at least not while Alexander could still retain his greek army.

progressively flanked by cavalry squadrons used almost exclusevely as anti-cavalry units (Parthian cavalry was indeed a problem in certain situations, as demonstrated at Carrhae, and the Roman cavalry was used exactly to correct this problem)

The Roman cavalry attached to a legion per se was of little use except for scouting/skirmishing purposes. True heavy roman cavalry was little and probably restricted to the 1000. strong alae composed of citizens. Only in the time of Gallienus the romans developed a strong indigenious cavalry force. Roman cavalry was certainly not used directly against the cataphracts, being heavily outmatched in terms of equipment as we know it. In fact, specilized foot auxillaries were created against the cavalry forces.

[TC Pilot]

A slight addendum - what you are saying can only generally be assumed up to ~ 400 AD. Later roman armies had quite the dependancies on archers, heck their heaviest unit was essentially an archer/heavy cavalry combo. (Klibanophoroi/κλιβανοφόροι)

Right. I admit I was unclear in specifying my timeframe, but it was sometime between approximately Alexander the Great to the fall of Rome

In late roman armies, duels between champions were not unknown. I remember one occasion where before an enemy (Sassanid or Goth, my memory fails me here) challenged the roman army to entire combat - too bad a roman accepted the challenge and he lost the duel.

I can't help but say that must have been an incredibly rare event.

Also, your view of "Barbarians charging each other" is completely outdated.

How outdated? Gibbon outdated? Or Syme outdated? Certainly Roman armies were vastly more disciplined, particularly post-Marius