Jmantime videos: American Jet Aircraft of WW2

[Mossie]

Going a little more advanced from the club, you get into blades. I bet most combat troops carry knives of one sort or another, with a thought that it can be used for fighting, too. Some also seem to like tomahawks and hatchets.

Not all that much has really changed in small blade weapons in the last few hundred years.

The bayonet comes to mind, mostly relegated to a last resort weapon and handy as a tool but the British Army still train for bayonet charges and have used them in combat very recently.

I think one or two militaries still train with swords?

[perttime]

I recall some science fiction Space Opera where swords had made a comeback for fighting inside spacecraft. If you are a Space Pirate trying to capture a Spaceliner with hull, cargo, crew and passengers relatively intact, you don't want to puncture the hull with projectiles (etc). Same thing goes for the defenders, once the Pirates are inside.

[Rheged]

Give me a trebuchete and some nice fire bombs and I can wreck an advancing army's day.

Read Desmond Baguely's book The High Citadel for a good story involving a scratch-built modern Trebuchet......There's quite a bit of aviation in the book too!!

[jcf]

The ancient/medieval Chinese (depends on your definition) had a repeating crossbow with a 10 round magazine (number from memory)

Reportedly still in use at the time of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, and, anectdotally, during the 'Boxer Rebellion'.

[Martin H]

I've often wondered.  Does Brian Blessed have a "normal" volume level or is he stuck on "bellow"?

Set permanently to bellow lol.

[scooter]

Give me a trebuchete and some nice fire bombs and I can wreck an advancing army's day.

Read Desmond Baguely's book The High Citadel for a good story involving a scratch-built modern Trebuchet......There's quite a bit of aviation in the book too!!

When I was in Iraq, I strongly contemplated building a trebuchet on top of my battalion's headquarters building

[Mossie]

I recall some science fiction Space Opera where swords had made a comeback for fighting inside spacecraft. If you are a Space Pirate trying to capture a Spaceliner with hull, cargo, crew and passengers relatively intact, you don't want to puncture the hull with projectiles (etc). Same thing goes for the defenders, once the Pirates are inside.

There's also Frank Herbet's Dune.  It starts off by introducing personal shields that can stop high speed projectiles, lasers are rendered useless as a nuclear explosion results, potentially killing both parties.  Lower speed objects can penetrate, especially swords.

[Weaver]

I recall some science fiction Space Opera where swords had made a comeback for fighting inside spacecraft. If you are a Space Pirate trying to capture a Spaceliner with hull, cargo, crew and passengers relatively intact, you don't want to puncture the hull with projectiles (etc). Same thing goes for the defenders, once the Pirates are inside.

The Traveller RPG had swords for exactly that reason. As well as the traditional types, there was the "Blade", which had a knuckle-duster hilt and a short, straight, single-edged blade with a point. The story was that early space marines took to using bayonets in situations where firearms were counter-productive, and then started asking for longer and more elaborate ones, the limits being set by swinging room and the avoidance of self-injury (not good in a space suit).

[Old Wombat]

I seem to remember that in Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War" humans developed a "stasis field" in which all matter was slowed to some set velocity.

Within the field & all unshielded organic life died & chemically powered projectile weapons became useless, as did energy weapons, so within the field troops were armoured & carried shields, swords, axes, etc., & bows were the only functional projectile weapons. The fields could be quite large but I think the only large weapon used was a ballista.

[zenrat]

Not thought about it before but Han was taking quite a chance letting Luke train with (spoiler alert! ) his father's light sabre on the Falcon.

[Nick]

Not thought about it before but Han was taking quite a chance letting Luke train with (spoiler alert! ) his father's light sabre on the Falcon.

I just thought the sabre was set to 'whack' and not 'cut through everything like butter' ! 
Wookieepedia confirms this... http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blade_power_adjustment_knob

[NARSES2]

The ancient/medieval Chinese (depends on your definition) had a repeating crossbow with a 10 round magazine (number from memory)

Reportedly still in use at the time of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, and, anectdotally, during the 'Boxer Rebellion'.

I've read that somewhere as well. Probably in a book I have on the Boxer Rebellion

[zenrat]

Not thought about it before but Han was taking quite a chance letting Luke train with (spoiler alert! ) his father's light sabre on the Falcon.

I just thought the sabre was set to 'whack' and not 'cut through everything like butter' ! 
Wookieepedia confirms this... http://starwars.wikia.com

Not thought about it before but Han was taking quite a chance letting Luke train with (spoiler alert! ) his father's light sabre on the Falcon.

I just thought the sabre was set to 'whack' and not 'cut through everything like butter' ! 
Wookieepedia confirms this... http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blade_power_adjustment_knob

wiki/Blade_power_adjustment_knob

I didn't know they had power settings.  What sort of battery life do they get?

The most ancient weapon of all is surely the fist.

[Mossie]

Still in regular use every Saturday night round these parts. 

[CANSO]

I think this is the right place for the next movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zvkwuGcWC_w