Why isn't a gun considered an elegant weapon?
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Why would you want to wound someone? A wound in a fight is simply giving your opponent another chance to kill you. No weapons accept the most brutal ones are designed to wound; they are designed to kill. Wounding someone is not only pointless, its also insulting and dishonorable.Maraveno said:
And aren't most fencing matches over in seconds? I mean, between each point, which are designed to count as stabs, correct? And each stab is, theoretically, a debilitating strike in real life with uncovered blades, which is the way classic duels were done. They didn't bring seconds for nothing. You certainly can duel a man with a pistol, people have been doing so since its inception. The only difference being, when you fight with pistols, there is a smaller chance of both parties walking away. Which, really, is the entire point of a duel in the first place.
Fencing is NOT an accurate representation of swordplay. Thats like saying boxing is an accurate representation of an actual fistfight. Fencing is done with fake swords (which sway and bend!), and extremely rigid with rules and which hits "count". A real fight with real swords is over normally as soon as someone gets stuck. Fighting in real life isn't a game, you can't keep going at top form until you run out of hitpoints. One real hit is often enough to take a fighter out of the game, even if its completely non-lethal.
Well. The limb-rending, agony-screaming, organ-grinding reality of combat swiftly becomes really tough to ignore when you consider the gutwrenching effect firearms has on human biology. It's much easier to ignore with more primitive, less destructive weapons.
Why are people in this thread treating swords like they weren't war weapons?
Years of training, honing your skill, attempt to 1v1 someone on an active battlefield, get speared in the back.
Years of training, honing your skill, attempt to 1v1 someone on an active battlefield, parry/block his every attack, get ready to strike, someone else joins the fray and they 2v1 you.
Years of training, honing your skill, engage the enemy with your unit, slip on some mud, get stabbed while trying to get back up.
Years of training, honing your skill,"trying to do something", die to arrow/other ranged weapon.
Years of training, honing your skill,..........X............., get crushed by calvary.
Wanna know something funny? Even if you are part of the elite, a spear/sword to the back by some "Peasant" will s-kill(cwidt?) you. The peasant would have had little to no training.
Years of training, honing your skill, attempt to 1v1 someone on an active battlefield, get speared in the back.
Years of training, honing your skill, attempt to 1v1 someone on an active battlefield, parry/block his every attack, get ready to strike, someone else joins the fray and they 2v1 you.
Years of training, honing your skill, engage the enemy with your unit, slip on some mud, get stabbed while trying to get back up.
Years of training, honing your skill,"trying to do something", die to arrow/other ranged weapon.
Years of training, honing your skill,..........X............., get crushed by calvary.
Wanna know something funny? Even if you are part of the elite, a spear/sword to the back by some "Peasant" will s-kill(cwidt?) you. The peasant would have had little to no training.
I don't know if this is an edit or I'm helping the "guns can so be elegant" side but, have you ever heard sniper squad chatter (sniper and spotter). Reading angle, wind speed, projected distance, targets movement, etc. That is elegance...beauty...what-have-you in it's purest form, Mathematics, pure sweet mathematics.
But remember people "War, War never Changes" (Thank you fallout)
But remember people "War, War never Changes" (Thank you fallout)
Catapults were the olden days equivalent of Artillery and so I thought this would do nicely...espressojet said:
"The artillery lends honor to that which would otherwise be a vulgar brawl." - Frederick II of Prussia
You want to see a truly elegant weapon?
This is the German 1942 Maschinengewehr 42, aka the MG42 to you WW2 buffs out there. Weighs 25 pounds, 44 inches long, fired the 7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge at over 1,200 rounds per minute. TWELVE HUNDRED ROUNDS. Its firing rate is so fast, it doesn't so much make a bang as a sound like cloth ripping, because the human ear can't hear well enough to differentiate the sound of each shot. Let me give you a reference on what just one of those bad boys looks like.
Just one of those could kill you. Just one. And that death machine above is spitting out 1200 of them in the time it takes you to boil an egg. Thats right, it could mow down an entire Roman century in less time than it would take them to make formation. And its crewed by TWO people. But the most remarkable and elegant part of its design? It can fire all 1200 of those rounds without breaking. Its a remarkably complex machine, cycling remarkably fast, yet it can do it over and over and over again without fail. Barrel overheats? Its a cinch to simply swap it out. A jam can be cleared by swapping the belts. Its the Ferrari of weaponry, and it was made in the freaking 40's. 70 years ago, and the Austrians STILL use a variant of it that was made in 72.
Its stuff like this that really proves why the sword, or really any sort of melee weapon, is simply inefficient. And honestly, there are BETTER weapons in the modern age. Why would anyone bring anything less? The elegance lies in its singularity of purpose. This goes beyond a weapon, its a machine. Its a tool created for an express purpose. There is no pretension to honor, no belief that holding it makes you better than the other guy. It gives proof enough the moment you pull the trigger. Its pure elegance.
This is the German 1942 Maschinengewehr 42, aka the MG42 to you WW2 buffs out there. Weighs 25 pounds, 44 inches long, fired the 7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge at over 1,200 rounds per minute. TWELVE HUNDRED ROUNDS. Its firing rate is so fast, it doesn't so much make a bang as a sound like cloth ripping, because the human ear can't hear well enough to differentiate the sound of each shot. Let me give you a reference on what just one of those bad boys looks like.
Just one of those could kill you. Just one. And that death machine above is spitting out 1200 of them in the time it takes you to boil an egg. Thats right, it could mow down an entire Roman century in less time than it would take them to make formation. And its crewed by TWO people. But the most remarkable and elegant part of its design? It can fire all 1200 of those rounds without breaking. Its a remarkably complex machine, cycling remarkably fast, yet it can do it over and over and over again without fail. Barrel overheats? Its a cinch to simply swap it out. A jam can be cleared by swapping the belts. Its the Ferrari of weaponry, and it was made in the freaking 40's. 70 years ago, and the Austrians STILL use a variant of it that was made in 72.
Its stuff like this that really proves why the sword, or really any sort of melee weapon, is simply inefficient. And honestly, there are BETTER weapons in the modern age. Why would anyone bring anything less? The elegance lies in its singularity of purpose. This goes beyond a weapon, its a machine. Its a tool created for an express purpose. There is no pretension to honor, no belief that holding it makes you better than the other guy. It gives proof enough the moment you pull the trigger. Its pure elegance.
In this thread no one who has ever had to use a sword or a gun in combat. Also anyone who says guns are instant win and bang your dead have been playing too many video games (adrenaline is a wonderful thing, I've seen a deer run 50 yards with a 30-06 through its heart). Sure any idiot can make a gun go bang but the trick is hitting what you aim at. Besides unless you decapitate someone with a sword they are going to bleed out how elegant is that? Having a gun doesn't make you Tom Knapp. Guns are plenty elegant anyone who says they aren't hasn't seen colts new 100 year anniversary custom 1911's. http://www.coltsmfg.com/Portals/0/panels/1911%20ANV%20I%20Description.pdf
A gun doesn't discriminate between users. even someone who doesn't know the first thing about guns, can kill someone if they're told to pull the trigger, it's not the same with a sword.
Now im not anti gun's, they are incredible feats of engineering and do require skill to be used well, however it's their incredible power and ease of use wich makes them overpowered that loses them respect when in the wrong hands.
Now im not anti gun's, they are incredible feats of engineering and do require skill to be used well, however it's their incredible power and ease of use wich makes them overpowered that loses them respect when in the wrong hands.
Most of what you are saying doesn't make sense at all. If an untrained person fires a gun they won't know how to handle the recoil of it, they probably won't know how to reload it, and it is more than likely that they'll end up shooting themselves in the foot. But this doesn't mean they don't have the ability to kill. When a person fires a gun it is an action, and by the laws of physics there must be a reaction.Ordinaryundone said:
I.e: bullet is fired out of the gun(action) wounds/kills somebody (reaction). When the deed is done, the deed is done; it doesn't matter if the person blew their hand off in the process because they still fired the gun and every functional person has the ability to fire a loaded gun. This leads on to my next point.
The reason I have listed above is enough for guns to be considered inelegant and so I shall list an explanation to why I mentioned it.
Criminals and gang members alike are notorious for carrying a concealed weapon: either a gun or a knife and in the hands of a criminal these are not considered elegant at all as for what they are: a tool to get the job done.
The average criminal does not have any expertise in handling weapons but this isn't a problem for them as like I mentioned earlier: anyone can fire a small arms loaded gun. A concealed weapon would usually be something like a Glock or submachine-gun at most powerful as it is concealable and is easy to use. But if we go up the ladder a little we can find the M14 sniper rifle/automatic. This gun takes much more skill to use than a Glock or a submachine-gun where it is literally point the gun at the thing you want to be full of holes and you pull the trigger. This gun is different: it requires training and expertise to be operated and is a much more powerful gun. But it is still just a gun: a weapon which in essence the concept is just as basic as a handgun. A small time criminal would not own this gun as it is far too hard to use and hard to conceal. But an American homeowner might as if they had the license it would be perfected legal for them to own that gun.
I don't know what type of blade you people are thinking of here, but when most people think elegant blade, they think Katana. A Katana is the definitive Samurai sword used for centuries among the highest ranking warriors the Japanese could offer. People spent lifetimes trying to perfect the art of swordfighting centuries ago.
--Actually, I've just realized something massively important and so I'll cut to my conclusion quickly:
The reason people think guns are so inelegant is because when countries were invaded centuries ago the natives didn't have guns while the invaded did as they come from a more technologically advanced society and the invaders slaughtered thousands upon thousands of natives with their 'guns' and all the natives could do was pray that they would outlive the day. With this particular war I am referring to when the Red Indian's land was stolen from they are were nearly wiped out to extinction.
Wars are horrific and guns just make them more so. Guns are plainly used for evil than good things, and that is why I think they are considered inelegant.
They're loud and even though they are complex mechanisms you can kill someone who is much stronger or skilled than you with comparative ease, hell I learned to shoot pretty well in a couple of months but I've been training to use a katana for the past 4 years and I'm still not that good, my sensei kicks my ass every time when we spar with bokkens.
A gun can be Elegant "looking" but not elegant in the sense that you can do a lot with it other than injure, swords for example are elegant weapons, some less so than others but as a whole Swords are elegant Instruments, with a sword you can guard, attack, parry, or even flourish.
you cant do that with a gun(though if gun-kata were real you could)
you cant do that with a gun(though if gun-kata were real you could)
Because there's no way to parry bullets, unless you would have some sort of shield-combo. And than, you would only be able to wield hand-held pistols.
Not so much on the terms with melee weapons.
Not so much on the terms with melee weapons.