Are chinese weapons ingenious or incredibly dumb? Do these work?

>>31090880

Anything will work as weapon if you're crafty enough to know how to jam it into someone's throat or eye socket.

>>31091099
1/5 missed topic
See me after class

>>31090880

If they didn't work, why would they use them?

Only if you value dying with honor.
Qapla'

>>31090880
These things actually are very thoughtful and work well.

I feel like a lot of asian weapons were designed to only be effective after 98,426 hours of training. Even the katana or whatever you wanna call it was a weak sword design and only worked if you absolutely mastered it to maximum proficiency.

As compared to maybe a broad sword that was designed to do massive damage with any technique.

>>31092525
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55Un3rLuDg

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>>31092525
>the katana or whatever you wanna call it was a weak sword design and only worked if you absolutely mastered it to maximum proficiency

Where do people come up with this shit?

>>31090880
>guy has shield
>use hook to grab shield
Seems legit.

>>31092616
Trip them up, bind their weapon, hook ends together to extend reach...

Fight using only the left and right mouse buttons.

>>31090880
You have to remember that those were most certainly "feat weapons", the kind you learned because it was hard and used to demonstrate martial prowess rather than being dead useful, or at least a combination of both.
Europe had their share of such (wielding two swords together, duelling shields, some sort of flails) but certainly to a lesser degree. It didn't had the same martial culture though...

The hook sword would still be fairly useful to parry and hinder pretty much anything from spears to swords but the heaviest stuff. And linked they have twice the range of a usual sword... It's wonky but it has its share of useful traits.

>>31092525
That's ridiculous, you could learn to fight with a japanese sword ok in a few weeks, it's just as easy as any other sword. So basic level set of instructions are just like seven techniques and that's all.
Broadsword were typically heavy and had a weird balance which would actually make it harder to use for a noob.

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>>31090880
They just fine. I'm sure Chinese warriors of whatever dynasty were proficient with their weapons.

>>31092848
>t. weeboo
also
>linked they have twice the range

Most of the wacky kung fu shit was literally formalizing the use of farm tools as weapons, or hard-on-purpose exercise programs to keep buddhist monks from getting fat.

On the other hand China has always sucked at warfare, so could be both.

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>>31093038
This. Kung fu is great for exercise and fitness. But when it came down to combat most Chinese foot soldiers were armed with basic infantry weapons. Spear, short sword for close combat, etc.

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>>31090880
Shaolin were pretty based desu

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Chinese weapons in general are things like spears, halberd, plain old swords, crossbow, lots of crossbows, and so on.

Things like hook swords, multi-section staffs, and so on are probably not something that ever saw much use in actual fighting. And if they did, well, it may not have been the intent of either designer or the guy who trained with them that such would happen.

Curiosities just for their own sake, conversation pieces, oddities to fool around with a bit when training gets too monotonous, an anomaly to give your brain a workout, something spectacular to please the crowds at festivals.

Or perhaps in some case an attempt to gain the upper hand by using somethign your opponent has no experience whatsoever facing. Another option of course is that they may have seemed like a good idea, to someone who hadn't actually gotten much fighting done, and which where then kept around for some reason.

India likewise produced a lot of oddities, but it's the basic tulwars and daggers and so on that got produced en masse. Africa has a number of odd things, but when someone needed to die it tends to be a ratehr everyday spear that comes out. And in Europe we have the "all inclusive" lantern shield, the (recently named) hockey stick sock scabbard sword, and guns built into absolutely everything.

>>31092848
So you counter his silliness about the katana with something about equally silly about the "broadsword", which probably isn't the type of sword you're thinking of.

>>31092848
>And linked they have twice the range of a usual sword...

And not half of the edge alignment control. Nothing you need in a rhythmic gymnastics demo, very important in a fight.

>>31093278
>So you counter his silliness about the katana with something about equally silly about the "broadsword", which probably isn't the type of sword you're thinking of.

Most of the people and the instructors I have seen talking about the basked-hilted broadsword said that because of said basked-hilt, it make it heavier and therefore, harder to train with (at first) compared to any sort of simpler arming sword / messer. Nothing crazy harder, but I would certainly think that a two-handed short sword is easier to wield and therefore quicker to accomodate than a heavier one-handed sword with a big guard.

>>31093278
well, are we talking about military weapons or civilian weapons? The hook swords were not designed for military use. They were for unarmored people fighting bandits and the like. The hook sword words like any other hacking sword, you just can't thrust, but you can trip and trap in a way a more thrusting friendly sword could.

>>31092457
Kerplop!

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>>31093381
Can't say they've felt odd when I handled them. And the demi-basket (lacking as I am in actual usage experience with full baskets) on my fencing sabre doesn't seem to mess anything up. Of course it's a very different sword than the arming sword-ish one I trained I.33 with, but there's more than one way to skin a cat here.

So, hm, dunno. And having to worry less about your hand does seem beginner friendly. And they tend to lack the rear quillion, which is the one thing in my experience that you may end up whacking yourself with.

On the positive side, you meant broadsword when you said it, now whether >>31092848 did is still up in the air.

>>31093287
Not every blow needs to be a debilitating cut, sometimes, a glancing blow that surprise is enough to prepare a better one. Not every attack needs to injure or maim the opponent in order to be effective.

Then again I'll admit believing that the hook swords were most certainly prowess (ie gimmick) weapons more than anything.

the hook swords have other variations like the "chicken foot" swords.

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>>31093477
Same person, what I had in mind was more late 16th, early 17th century broadsword, schiavona and the likes. True that along the centuries, they were many declination of such types of sword, some certainly on both ends of the weight spectrum.

Generally, I would argue that two-handed swords (all but the large two-handers) should typically be easier to use than one-handed swords, well at least they are usually less tiresome, but I guess this would still depend on each person's morphology... so who knows (but the one who tried both) ?

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>>31090880
There is no reliable evidence for the usage of hook swords. They seem to come from (civilian) martial arts societies which were a dime in a dozen in China during the late imperial, which ranged from normalfags to very weird and flashy ones. Throw in equally flashy criminals. Pic very related.

As for China's other weapons, they're quite sensible.

The hook swords are really badass to see in person, and they're really useful for disarming opponents and generally fucking up someone's day. And almost all of this kind of Chinese weaponry can really do some damage, but you need to train with it so you're not doing that damage to yourself and your house.

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>>31093381
>basket hilt
>heavy
https://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=5033
Could people stop repeating bullshit that ignorant Victorian idiots spurted from their unwashed mouths?

>>31092525
>Even the katana or whatever you wanna call it was a weak sword design and only worked if you absolutely mastered it to maximum proficiency.
Ignorant
>As compared to maybe a broad sword that was designed to do massive damage with any technique.
FUCKING IGNORANT

Both weapons need a fair amount of training to utilize. Also, Matt Easton just uploaded a fucking video talking about katana v longsword and it was actually defending the katana design/use. And he's a HEMA instructor.

>>31090880
Hook swords seem to fall under the same classification as the Japanese jutte. They might have been designed to break swords or disarm criminals by what is essentially feudal police.

>>31095138
Jitte is unsharpened unlike Hook swords. Jitte essentially is police baton that could be used to block sword strikes and bind them.

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>>31095138
1) The hook sword's historical usage is dubious.
2) The Chinese didn't have a police.

They either had
>Soldiers
>Armed civilians
Enforcing the law. Which chased you with practical weapons.

The Nips ended up having weapons like the Jutte because of their social classes: if you're a peasant assistant of the Samurai tasked with catching a criminal, and the criminal happens to be a fucking samurai, you can't fucking hurt him or kill him because of Japanese law (Samurai > Peasant). Therefore they invented a lot of hooky nonlethals like the jutte or sodegarami (a type of mancatcher.)

In Imperial China, it's obey the law or lose it, no matter what your class is. The Chinese "non-lethal" mancatcher for example - the so-called "Tiger fork" spear- has a spike in case you're not cooperative.