[Regia-NA] The Nasal: What's it for?

[rmhowe]

Simply discussion. :)
Front toward enemy, or for the terminally dumb - shield foot/sword foot.
Dyslexia was probably far less common when most people couldn't read.
:)
Besides it gives the Sergeant something to grab and shake besides
your lower lip or goiter.

Nicholson, Andrew wrote:
 >> I think that perhaps there might have been a thought that nasals
 >> could be done away with for similar reasons, to make the helmet
 >> lighter and easier to see out of.  Practical experimetation (or the
 >> theory of evolution) showed that the gains were less than the
 >> risks, and the nasal was adoped.
 >
 > As some folk are aware, my wife complained that my old helmet was
 > looking scabbier than some of my peasants ;)  -  it had, after all,
 > done some 16 years of service - and that someone of my status should
 > have a better one. Me, I come from the "If it ain't broke, don't fix
 > it" school of kit.

The U.S. Gov't subscribes, apparently, to the Fix It Til It's Broke
rule. So does my state government. Well, actually the state can't
find anyone much competent to supervise a lot of departments. That
explains why the Prison Department was run by a television salesman
and Physical Plant for a very large university was run by someone who
was a middle level local supervisor who was fired for sexual
harassment from the Idaho Dept. of Transportation.
He got fired here too for the same thing, and his successor wasn't
any more competent. :) Of course both places were sheer chaos.

 > The sheer quantity of dents and hammered-out creases proved it was a
 > good helmet, despite its age.

When I first joined the SCA it was still largely in its infancy armor
wise. Perhaps 15 good sets of armor were in the whole kingdom.
Or about one in twenty-five fighters was decently armored.

The only knight in this area was an import from out west studying for
his doctorate in aerospace engineering. He was already a captain in
the Air Force and I think may have retired as a Colonel now who was
formerly the second highest liason between the Air Force and the
contractors on the X-30 project and it's successors.

I owned the only armory in North Carolina then that the average SCA
member could come to and work on their equipment to fight. We had one
private man in NC making armor for non-SCA purposes, and a guy who
made it for big money, and later worked at the Tower of London for
a while in the Armouries, and afterwards the Higgins Armory, and
last I heard he was Curator for the SC State History Museum.
So I was it for a while. I taught basic techniques to others who
taught and supervised others. At the time the SCA was not out of
the pot helm phase and that was what was in the manuals then.

We initially had Count Sir Ton teaching us to cut the crowns out of old
spring steel US Army helmets and fit them up with sides and faceplates.
These things would dent up like warts on toads despite the fact that
the steel was so hard it took two people wrestling with one on a Beverly
Shear just to cut it. One day's workshop had 28 helmets built and
people came from as far away as 120 miles for the opportunity.

They could split motorcycle helmets -back then- with one good killing
shot. So denting the spring steel army pots was no surprise. Nowadays
anyone -here- has the skull piece made of heavier than 16 gauge (the
SCA minimum) and if you want your brains in place in Atlantia you
more probably use 12 or 14 gauge steel with hopefully at least 3/4"
of closed cell foam padding inside. Enough other kingdoms (and some
of our own folks as well) complain about Atlantian blow calibration
and armor that it's a fairly safe bet we're giving the hardest shots
on average anywhere. One Duke we have here used to practice at the
pell with eight pounds of lead on his rattan sword. That is the same
individual "The Man Who Would Not Die" song was written for.
I was told he practiced so much he screwed up his shoulder.
Since they apparently didn't want him as king again during our second
crown tournament I watched (from about ten feet away) him apply the
same massive shot to the left side of an opponent's helmet FIVE
times before they would accept the kill. That man's clock must have
rung for a week. He only had one good shot but it was massive and
tremendously successful.

Good armor can easily be had nowadays and one member of our Barony
(Tom Justus, Master Eldrid Tremayne) can do full fluted Gothic Armor
(or anything else) to order as he does it for a living. Things we
once had trouble obtaining can be ordered from a plethora of
sources now.

The point here is the helmets are heavy enough to stop blows from
breaking your neck. They don't move that much from the sheer mass
of them (excluding probably some illegal face thrusts with pole
weapons at the major wars). Assuming you stay away from Duke Michael.

By now the SCA has fought literally millions of combats and I have
heard one rumor that two individuals have died in 38? years
because of personal negligence (I only have hearsay) with their
health or neck protection when they shouldn't have been fighting.
SCA helmets are usually strapped on. Broken necks don't usually
occur. We now require protection for the upper spine and neck,
kidneys, elbows, knees and hands at a minimum. Backhead wrap
shots are very common with SCA combat.

Given the huge number of interpersonal combats one sees more
training deaths by far in the armed forces and one would expect
far more in real life simply by actuarial tables.

On the other hand we have had concussions, and eye injuries have
been largely by the nocks of arrows bouncing back through the
occularium. Bars or eye slits cannot exceed 1" and weapons must
be a minimum of 1 1/4" in diameter. Most injuries I have seen
have involved falling the wrong way - excluding the dopey squire
who kept sticking out her hands to stop mace shots and getting
both thumbs broken and given the light helmets of the day a
concussion or two.

I once warned a guy that pounding steel rod cold to flatten it for
drilling and riveting over the occularium would result in it being
crystalized and becoming brittle and breaking into the opening.
It did and lodged in the flesh over his eye less than two weeks
later.

SCA injuries taking out eyes or eye sockets have been incredibly rare
archery aside. One early Atenveldt or Ansteorran King was shot at
one time with a wooden arrow some idiot had put a rubber ball on
the end of and it lodged in his sinus over the eye within the
helmet. Someone I once knew was present at the time and was later
at the hospital when they tried to remove it from his pothelm
which was then what was fairly current in the SCA for head armor.

According to one book I have written by a medical doctor, who also
has a black belt, it is possible to cause fatal injuries either
by penetrating both sides of the sinus driving bone splinters
into the forebrain, penetrating through the very thin bone behind
the eye into the brain, or crushing the projections on either side
of the cervical spine which enclose a blood vessel supplying the
brain, which is fatal within 15 minutes and non-remediable.
Similarly there is a blood vessel to either side of the forehead
that must not be severed. A crushing blow can also break the
hyoid bone of the neck blocking the windpipe. This is the same
bone broken during strangulation - remediable immediately only
by a tracheotomy. I've always thought the SCA armor standards
particularly light on throat and under chin possibilities.

A blow to the sides of the neck can cause the muscles to contract
and cause temporary unconsciousness by restricting blood flow to
the brain. One would think we would see more people knocked out
by this but somehow they aren't. Then again we're using something
larger than a rebated steel edge.

Adams, Brian
Deadly Karate Blows - The Medical Implications
Burbank, CA, U.S.A.: Unique Publications, 1985 Mass Market Paperback.
"Headed by Brian Adams, a team of medical experts committed over three
years to researching, experimenting and evaluating the scientific
effects of karate's deadliest blows on live subjects and cadavers. Their
findings, combined with the author's experience from 25 years as a
martial art instructor, clearly demonstrate the techniques, targets and
strikes that can turn your empty hands into deadly weapons."
ISBN: 0865680779
I have an earlier edition of this in hardback apparently.
AKA Adams, Brian: _Medical Implications of Karate Blows_
A blow is a blow is a blow. With sufficient force the results
are much the same.

I also have Fairburn's _Get Tough_ that was the training
manual for the British Commandos and Col. Applegate's _Kill or Get
Killed_ among many others. I used to work maximum security inside
NC's Central Prison. Mostly alone. It helped to know many tricks.
So many martial arts and a lot of military manuals and medical
books I've bought and read. Somewhere over a couple hundred.

I presume someone in Regia is aware of most of this.

None of this has to do with concussions (shaking of the brain),
blunt force trauma driving splinters into the brain causing
pressure or hemorrhage or other silly things caused by squashable
helmets. :)  Maybe Charles Schultz's Linus was right - there may
be a great pumpkin or two on the loose.

 > Two years ago I bowed to pressure (or, to be more precise, mindful of
 > the advice above I was tempted at York by a right helmet at the right
 > price) and acquired a new bonce protector. This one has no nasal.

I've known two human raccoons that got that way from broken noses -
one in an ambush fight by two mean bastards who did it for fun without
provocation (the nice guy worked across the street from where I lived)
- one in a two collision accident while not wearing a seatbelt and
going through the front windscreen, through the rear window of the
car they hit, then back through both of them when their car was hit
in the rear, swelling his nose to about four times normal size and
it never came back down all the way (he was an employee of mine)
- it left him, a white man, with a distinctly negro appearing nose
for life. The nose stayed about twice the size it once was - much
broader and flatter. It was a pug nose. I don't know how the man
breathed. A black friend of mine who boxed Golden Gloves had his
septum shattered well enough they simply removed it. The appearance
was similar to my employee's nose afterwards. Very flat but still
broad. Only most whites never have noses like that.
Reminds me of a boxer pup my aunt had that ran head on into a
road grader and mashed his nose up almost to his forehead. Called Ditto.

A blow to the side of the nose directly will more easily inflict
damage generally than one straight on - at least with non-bladed
weapons or hands that break the nose.

My sisters' grandmother once developed a nosebleed so bad the only
way they could stop her from bleeding to death was by inflating a
balloon shoved up her nose into the nasal cavity.

I figure there is a good reason AS/Vikings used heavy cast nasals,
eyebrows and ridgecrests on a few of the better helmets that have
been found.
A bounce off the Bonce as it were, or an outward deflection at
a sufficient distance from the eye to avoid it in a downward cut.
Probably bends less than simple creased sheetmetal that tapers
over the top of the nose. That poor dunce Robin keeps smacking in
various action scenes of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with the bent
nasal has a rather rough week which began I think with a good swat
from a crossbow to the nasal and continued through a bag full of
potatoes?. :) Then the Sheriff took his day out on him.
I'm not sure of his progress or prospects after that.

 > I can confirm that over the last couple of years I have had more
 > facial injuries/bruises/grazes when wearing the new helm than when
 > wearing the old one (and no, it's not that I'm getting more sloppy in
 > combat, or slowing down).

You need to fight Baron Valdemar one time. He's getting old now
but I am not the only one who described him as a rabid shield
climbing squirrel (he's short and his style hasn't changed much
in 24 years - never yet made knight). He's a terrific organizer though
and has made Pelican. That boss is simply there for a step.
Rather like the Philippine art of Bando where they climb up your
knee.

 > Of course, one has to allow for the form in
 > which we depict combat (i.e. no deliberate shots at the face or
 > head), and accept that this may not reflect 'real life' usage.

Like the severely cut individual whose left jaw was split and who
survived to die in a later battle at Towton? I watched the recreations
and reconstruction of his face from the shattered skull last night
on the NGC channel. Secrets of Medieval War. One brief depiction
was a nose being deliberately sliced off from above and
behind. Others lost ears to multiple cuts.

We also are not treated to the long strips of muscle cut off along
the long bones of the arms or legs which would have been common.
Even Braveheart doesn't depict those. The injury statistics from
Wisby were very enlightening.  When they find the other 28,000 buried
at Towton (and not just the 37 they found in a likely mutilation and
murder grave a mile away _Blood Red Roses_ it should be equal to
or worse than Visby - _Armour from the Battle of Wisby by Bengt
Thordemann). Of course what can be reconstructed is only
injuries to the surviving skeletons, not flesh only wounds.
So even if some of them had multiple arrow or bolt shots to the
face we missed a lot of them to the bodies.

I don't think Regia uses flexible weapons either - so no dislocated
joints. No stones on ropes thrown as by the Irish. No slings or
sling staffs in combat, no huge war flails. No pots of burning oil.
I suppose fire arrows are out too.

Someone has yet to reenact a Song of Roland swordstroke
splitting through the skull and body, a break the handle off
Robert the Bruce axeblow through a pothelm (de Bohun),
or any of the joyful depictions of the fighting in
the Maciejowski bible.  :)

Having had two teeth broken in the upper left front and had
the lower front teeth caved in over my tongue while eating a
steering wheel in a pre-shoulder strap interstate accident
I can testify that sword strokes must have been much worse.
I only had forty stitches to the lower lip my teeth went through
three times. Two required root canals, one recapping at the gum
line, four or five teeth I bent back upwards a few minutes later,
thus saving them. I had -white- gums for a good two weeks.
About a year later the lip finally gave up nine pieces of
teeth that eventually worked their way out. The cuts had been
thoroughly flushed at the time with several large bore syringes
of hydrogen peroxide and still the pieces remained.

I worked with a guy once who lost all his front teeth to a
pool cue beating.  Never recovered. Nice guy but hard to look
at. You wouldn't put him out dealing with your customers in
a business.  In a shop he was a good capable worker.

Nasals and faceplates? Hell yes. Raedwald had it right.
You have socialized medicine.
Maybe it's different there.

In the U.S. we don't unless you qualify for Social Security by
either age or difficult to attain disability (fast is eighteen months
for the majority of recipients). Given the fact that most people live
from paycheck to paycheck and that serious injuries would be
catastrophic to income and earning ability as well...
(They don't pay for dental reconstruction.)

Dunno about there but root canals and a cap for a single tooth here
can be over $2000. Had I not pulled my lower teeth back up after
eating that steering wheel I would have lost them. I did save
3-4 whole teeth without root canals. My roomates the year before
had discussed such stuff and I'd remembered it. Of the four or
five flattened only one needed a root canal on the lower jaw.
The angle of them is rather obliquely straight now, as opposed
to a true curve, but I'm thankful for what I've got and the
scars don't show much under the beard. It looks better than
many people's teeth in front. Lots of gold caps in the back
from biting so hard I break or fracture the molars.

 > Guðrum

Magnus, still chomping.