Is it me, or are the maceman carrying...

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by pauli
consider what happens on impact.

with a ball and chain, you transfer whatever momentum is carried in the ball, and... that's it.

with a mace, you deliver the momentum contained in the weapon, and continue to apply muscle power. there is follow through.

a ball and chain can carry a great amount of energy, no doubt - look at a wrecking ball. but it requires a huge amount of telegraphed setup. a mace is going to crush the tin can knight in front of you long before a ball and chain is ready to strike, and it's probably going to take fewer hits to do it.

I think I was thinking of a a little different version of the weapon than you were - looked at some weapons on the net, and I agree that the one-handed flail probably doesn't deliver quite as much power as the mace, since the chain, or the stick isn't that long.

The power, of course, depends on the length of the stick and chain (and the weight of the ball in the end of course).

I just got the image that the sort of a flail that the "macemen" seem to be weilding in the game (a larger, two handed version) would have quite a momentum when swung, and would do more damage than a normal mace.

As to the pluses and minuses of such a weapon when compared to a mace, in addition to those mentioned already:

Strike something hard with a flail (even a large one) and you're ok, do the same with similar power with a mace, and much of the power of the impact gets delivered down the shaft of the weapon, and your hands get hurt! On the other hand, a flail is kind of an unweildly weapon to use for defense, and a large flail needs room to manouvre, room to really get it swinging, in order to unleash it's power. Everyone can use a mace at least moderately competently, but I'd rather have that inexperienced "flailing man" on the other team!

[Last Conformist]

The terminology of ancient and medieval weapons was never intolerably inconsistent, but "mace" does normally mean a rigid club with a stone or metal head.

[Barchan]

FWIW (and it ain’t much), dredging the long-lost AD&D reservoir reveals the following unadjusted damage against small/medium targets:

Mace, Footman – d6+1
Morningstar – 2d4
Flail, Footman – d6+1

Maybe someone can use this to argue the morningstars the Civ4 Macemen appear to wield are a bit more powerful than the maces they’re said to have are?

[Dry]

Originally posted by pauli
consider what happens on impact.

with a ball and chain, you transfer whatever momentum is carried in the ball, and... that's it.

with a mace, you deliver the momentum contained in the weapon, and continue to apply muscle power. there is follow through.

You are wrong about the principle of the mace.

It is a common error of newbies to try to apply muscle power to the impact.
If you have ever wield a mace - same for axes - you should know that not only it is not efficient, but it will get you exhausted in no time.
The energy delivered by the mace is - should be only - a combination of weight and speed.
Your muscle strength is far better used to give just speed. You will tire far slower and will be a lot more efficient this way.
The stick acts thus as a lever to increase the speed you are giving. Speed at hand level, increased by the length of the stick. The longer the stick, the better.
To increase even more the speed, lift the mace, swing it and 'at the right moment' pull slightly the stick toward you to produce also a whip effect.

This is even better done with a flail, because with the flail, you have a double lever: the stick and the chain. Speed at hand level increased by length of stick, then, speed at end of stick increased by length of chain.
The speed at which the ball hits the armor is greater whith a flail than with a mace. And thus the energy delivered is greater.
The whip effect is probably more difficult to deliver 'at the right moment', but I would not be surprised if was even more efficient than for a mace.

Now, the flail certainly requires more skills.

[Dry]

Originally posted by MightyTiny
Strike something hard with a flail (even a large one) and you're ok, do the same with similar power with a mace, and much of the power of the impact gets delivered down the shaft of the weapon, and your hands get hurt!

A fraction of time before the head hits, you must release your grip so no energy (vibrations) backfires to your hand/arm. Hold the shaft lose just enough not to lose it.
As I said above: don't try apply your own strength to the impact, just give speed to the weight and release slightly your grip on impact.
When you wield a tool, wield it, control it, but let IT do the real work. I guess same is true for weapons.

[SpencerH]

IIRC from my visits to weapons museums, although their use was actually rare (axes and hammers were much more common), the use and usefulness of the heavy morningstar-style flail weapons (in the west) was against heavily armoured knights. The mass and velocity (i.e. momentum) of the fast moving spiked ball is able to punch through or severly deform armour causing injury. AFAIK they were mostly used wielded from horseback (making the cIV animation even more inappropriate).

[Major Guz]

This game is so moddable, cannot someone change the name maceman to flailers (I like the sound of that, reminds me of the flail gun used in Freespace 2).

[Shaka II]

Regardless of what it's called, I'm using a bunch of them in my present game on marathon/highlands. And it's fun! Especially since Isabella doesn't have them yet. I never really used them much before, but in this game, the early fighting has been defense against barbs, so the first real war isn't until I've acquired macemen.

Go see the movie Tristan and Isolde out now, if you want to see some macemen or flailmen in action.

[steven8r]

The 'Mace' is a classification of various weapons having similar design, but subtle differences and generally considered a 'ridgid' weapon. Basically an upgrade of the old stand-by--the club. There are various sub catogories of mace that have all been pretty well documented by links in previous posts--among them, 'morning star' (I guess it resembles Venus-as-seen-from-Earth) and 'holy water sprinkler' (because of the already mentioned similarity to the implement of sacrement employed by the clergy.)

The 'Flail' also takes on many different forms but shares the similar design of a weight (ball, pole, etc.) 'dynamically' attached to a handle by some type of flexible link (string, sinue, chain, etc.)

Interestingly enough, "Diablo 2" does a fairly good job at describing various weapons. There are much more 'reliable' sources for weapon names, but Blizzard actually did a pretty decent job of research in this area.

As far as the forces of the two weapon styles, the Mace is easier to wield and involved less training and because it could be used not only by swinging, but is a much better defensive weapon because it can also be used to 'poke' your opponent to push him back. However, it is the weaker of the two (assuming similar length). The Mace could be used effectively as an offensive or a defensive weapon.

The Flail can generate more force upon impact, but is more unweildy and therefore requires a bit more training in its use. It is capable of doing just about as much damage to the attacker as it is to the attackee. However, when used by a trained attacker, Flails can reach around an opponent's defenses (over a shield, or even to strike him from behind--where (hopefully) the armor is weaker.) Flails are very effective in open areas, but when quarters are close, loses some advantages as greater room is required to get the full swing to do the maximum amount of damage. Also, because the Flail is a more complicated weapon than the Mace, it can disabled more easily--foul the chain and it is pretty much useless. Better on the offence than a Mace, almost better than nothing on the defensive.

An Oriental equivalent to the Flail would be the Nunchucks (sp??). This was orriginally used as a flail for beating rice from the stalks, but became a weapon since most weapons were outlawed by whomever was currently in charge at the time. Many 'Ninja' weapons started as agricultural tools that later became weapons.

As to the forces involved, I'm not a physisist nor an engineer, but I have this quote: "It takes 6 pounds per square inch of force to break human bone. The Nunchuck can generate 90." *

* Sorry for the incomplete bibliographical reference, but that quote comes from Eastman and Laird's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (probably issue #1).

[DrSpike]

And what greater source is there?

[Rook]

Hey who dragged this post up from the dead?

I want my recognition for discovering this error dammit! Why hasn't Sid called me yet?

[DrSpike]

He told me he tried but the line was engaged.

[Rook]

That's because the !@#$% phone company wont put DSL in my neighborhood!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by steven8r
An Oriental equivalent to the Flail would be the Nunchucks (sp??). This was orriginally used as a flail for beating rice from the stalks,

This is true of the European flail as well, and probably the mace. Swords are just overgrown knives. Axes are, well, axes. Most polearms, such as glaives, tridents, etc., have practical non-lethal uses (pitchforks, pruning trees, etc.). A spear is just a knife on a stick.

I bigger problem, I think, is that the swordsman was generally superior to every other type of infantry, which is why they were the main combat unit for many thousand years. It wasn't until until a few centuries after the introduction of firearms that sword-armed infantry finally disappeared.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

I bigger problem, I think, is that the swordsman was generally superior to every other type of infantry, which is why they were the main combat unit for many thousand years. It wasn't until until a few centuries after the introduction of firearms that sword-armed infantry finally disappeared.

I've gotta disagree here in that this is just too general. OTOH it's probably true that sword carrying inf were often better trained than inf carrying axes or maces.

The one army I can think of where the mace was mentioned as being commonly used was the Swiss. In addition to the well known, and extremely competent (to put it mildly) pikemen, there were other troops who carried maces etc and engaged the enemy flanks and from between the pikes once the opponent was 'fixed'.