Exotic Weapons

A Katana

In this blog I am going to talk about a few exotic weapons. The first one is one of my personal favorites and it is the katana which is a two handed weapon but it's blade is about the length of a longsword. It has a single edged blade that is curved for the purpose of when it is in it's scabbard at your hip you can unsheath it and swing in the same motion. The next weapon I want to mention is the aara which is like a whip and a sword all in one. I believe this weapon to be from India. That's all I would like to talk about for now.

The Artillery and Chemical Warfare

Back in medieval times they had large artillery but not to many variations. the main one used was the trebuchet ( I will show a picture below ) was used to launch boulders at the enemies castle. But that wasn't all they would launch. you see as people got smarter they created things like flaming balls of sticks to launch or they would take the carcasses of the dead whether it be human or animal and they would fling them over the walls to spread the disease. This was their version of chemical warfare and it was somewhat effective. I'm unsure but they also may have had large bombs that they flung over as well.

The guns of Medieval Times

Way back in those times what they had for long range weaponry was bows and crossbows. Now we still use these weapons today but ours are much more advanced as silly as that sounds. For bows back then they had short bows and long bows. We will start with the short bows which had at least a 45 pound draw weight ( the amount of pull force needed to get the bowstring back ) all the way to 75 pound draw weights yet were only about 4 feet in height. The long bows were the sniper rifle of the day with their maximum effective range being 300 yards and the draw weight being 100-150 pounds these were powerful and stood at right around 6 feet tall. Sadly it took a lot of skill to be a good marksman with a bow so there weren't many bowman which is why the crossbow was invented. The crossbow was easier to use for the fact that all you had to do was pull the string back to lock it in place and then put the bolt in the firing groove and you were ready for action. The crossbows typically had a 100-120 pound draw weight and a 60 yard range with a stirrup on the end to make it easier to pull the bowstring back. The most common arrowhead used would have been the basic one but there were variations like some had barbs so that once they went in their target they couldn't be pulled out and others were poison tipped so the enemy would die of poisoning if the weren't killed by the arrow. One of the most deadly arrowhead variations is the bodkin arrowhead which was used for penetrating armor now I don't know what made it so special but is was definitely effective.

The materials their armor and weaponry was made of.

Back in medieval times all weapons were made out of iron or steel. Now around the 15th century was when tempered steel came into play which was stronger than the materials they were using before and this tempered steel meant they could reduce the blade width without taking away any strength from the blade making the weapons easier to wield as they were lighter. Around this time most arrowheads made were made out of iron and extremely sharp which rendered chain mail useless. On another point if you don't know what chain mail is it is a type of armor that was good for fending off slash attacks from the enemies and is made out of a bunch of steel chain links hooked together in the shape of a shirt. Chain mail was rendered useless against any arrows or stab attacks because the point of the arrowhead or sword would just slip through the links and keep going causing major damage to the person wearing the chain mail.

The Close Range Weaponry Part 2

The next weapon is just a regular sword which was one of the most common for the reasoning that it had better range being that it was from 35 inches to 55 inches long which is just about 5 feet long. The other reason is because you could wield a shield as well giving that much more defense. The final weapon is the 2 hand great-sword which is my favorite weapon because these enormous beasts of a weapon had 5 foot long blades not including the handle so they had a pretty good range for a sword and if you could swing in battle while being suited up in 150 pound armor you were basically unstoppable.

The close range weaponry

In medieval times one of the most common weapons was a blade weather it be a small knife of a two hand great-sword. We will start with the smallest weapon used for battle. The smallest weapon used for battle in medieval times would be a dagger, now daggers were common as sort of a back up weapon because they were lightweight yet could do a lot of damage. The basic length for a dagger would have been around 20 inches long overall. Next we have the short sword and yes it is pretty much exactly like the name says, its just a small sword from 25 to 35 inches long and are more of a stab you in the gut weapon.

My First Post

     Hello my name is Hayden Schick and this is my blog on medieval ages. I don't know why but ever since around the age of 10 I have been interested in the middle ages and also in the skill of swordplay. Although I only began to like these things four years ago I have learned a great deal on them. On this blog you will learn the fascinating facts I have to tell on the subject. So if I haven't bored you so much you have left my site then thank you and I will get on with it.