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Lighthawk wrote:Take a look at SG's Legionary pic, that's the weapon pretty much exactly as they had on the show.

Hard to tell, but that looks like a light pilum. Each legionnaire would have one or two of those, plus a heavy one. If that is the light pilum, then the results are even more skewed than they normally would be; the light pilum could do some damage (it is a pointy stick, after all,) but the main purpose was one which I'm sure wasn't calculated into the show - the light pilum would pierce an enemy's shield, at which point that long lead neck would bend. Now, the enemy has some options: a) discard the shield; or, b) try to move and wield his shield with a 5-foot-long lead an wooden spear hanging from it.

Most depictions and recreations of a light pilum I have seen shows them as socketed and the heavy pilum as tanged with a weight at the junction. So the pictured pilum would be a heavy pilum so far as I know.

Vic wrote:Most depictions and recreations of a light pilum I have seen shows them as socketed and the heavy pilum as tanged with a weight at the junction. So the pictured pilum would be a heavy pilum so far as I know.

I didn't know that the heavy pila were built with a tang running into the haft, but the weight or stop behind the head does look like a heavy pilum. I based my comment on the thin-ness of the lead neck and the lack of taper to it, which indicate a light pilum. You may be right, which then begs the obverse question; if that is the heavy pilum, why was the match figured without regard to what was standard issue for a Roman soldier - the light pilum?

Mikey wrote:which then begs the obverse question; if that is the heavy pilum, why was the match figured without regard to what was standard issue for a Roman soldier - the light pilum?

Because it's Deadliest Warrior and made by drunken monkeys?

Tyyr wrote:

Mikey wrote:which then begs the obverse question; if that is the heavy pilum, why was the match figured without regard to what was standard issue for a Roman soldier - the light pilum?

Because it's Deadliest Warrior and made by drunken monkeys?

If drunken monkeys were also slobberiung fanboys. Yeah, I kinda knew the answer even as I was typing it.

Mikey wrote: If drunken monkeys were also slobberiung fanboys

Well, they've about the same IQ. I'm sure that counts for something.

I can't believe I've been missing this show!

Just start watching or something?

Does anyone have a favorite episode? Mine was Spartan vs Ninja.

That's my favorite, mostly because for once one of the hosts actually called a re-enactor on their bullshit. When the ninja smacked the spartan in the breast plate and it just bounced off the ninja tried to make up some crap about how now it was in the perfect position to hook the shoulder or neck and it really worked out well for the ninja in the end. Cut to the biomedical announcer guy saying, "Yeah, that's bullshit."

They even had those two up against each other in one of the big versus things they did at the start of season 2, and the Spartan won again even more convincingly when the precious ninjato couldn't cause significant injury to the Spartan's helmet even when stationary, in the perfect position, and supported on an unbending steel rod. It penetrated but not enough to do more than give the guy a bloody scalp, and the ninjato got wedged. Finally the ninja's had nothing on the Spartan shield, NOTHING. I think the rematch was even more of a curb stomp than the first one and that one was pretty one sided.

It's actually one of the few times they've really put weapons against armor and used those results in their simulation. It was almost a reasonably valid test. Also, it's great to post the youtube clip of the ninja's totally failing to penetrate the armor for anyone who assumes that bronze vs. iron age is an automatic win for the iron age guys.

Now my favorite bad one... that's tough. It was Green Beret vs. Spetznaz but after watching the SS vs. Viet Cong it's a tough call.

For worst I'd have to say Atila v Alexander. That ep was just one sad joke after another. From the "he can shoot around armor" to the siege weapons coming to play and the belly bow.

Hmmm... worst for me would either be James v. Capone - for pitting trained marksmen against untrained nobodies who happen to share some of their genome with Capone - or Pirate v. Knight, for completely ignoring the fact that late 15th or 16th c. breastplates were proof against a matchlock pistol.

We could be here all day debating worst. Pirate vs. Knight was bad. They actually tested the breastplate against the blunderbuss, a significantly more powerful weapon, at short range, and found that it couldn't reliably penetrate the armor... and it was one of the most potent weapons in the simulation. I still think it goes to Spetznas vs. Green Berets or SS vs. Viet Cong because of how easy it could have been to compare them and how horribly they fucked it up.

Spetznas v Green Berets and SS v Viet Cong didn't bother me so much. It was pretty clear they wanted to go way out of the lines for them. BUT, they did it with both so I'm okay with that.

Pirate v Knight was just a show and tell of poor testing.

Atilla v Alexander was total FUBAR from start to finish.

Speztnaz v. Green Beret didn't bother me so much for the testing - it was one of the better shows for that, IMO - but because they were clearly trying to compare two modern SOF's, but for the U.S. side picked Special Forces instead of an actual SOF. Lord knows we have enough of them from which to choose.