"How Vikings Really Fought" Topic

"Sword fighting is back in style (assuming it ever went out) with as movies like Lord of the Rings and television epics like Game of Thrones leading the charge. Vikings were fighting here in the New World long before the rest of Europe made it across the Atlantic, but how they were fighting is somewhat of a mystery, until now…"

link

It seems something terribly exhausting!

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Hmm. I thought the shields were larger that the Norse carried. Also what happened when you weren't raiding and had to form a line of battle.

Moving in circle to the opponents back is true with MA as well.

Looks like hard work, likely due to no risk fighting allowing too many blows.

Intresting. Last summer I spoke to a Viking re-enactor who said swords were fairly rare among vikings. Spears & axes more common. Also they carried a longer knife. His shields were a tad larger than those in the video.

As always, the problem with re-enactors is that they aren't trying to kill or seriously injure their opponents. Note that the legs were unarmoured and a hit there can pretty much disable.

Also what doug said.

Very cool!

The shield wall generally lent itself to teh use of the spear. It is spear that men were obliged to own and bring to Vapentaks. The sword was very much a luxury item (though archaelogists have found a fair few considering)and would have come into its own when the shield wall was broken…

I've heard plenty of theories on how Vikings fought.

They allegedly fought "slowly" taking care to aim and place a good blow while covering themselves with their shield in solid defence. The video shows people hurling blow after blow like two girls trying to slap each other silly. And those shields look quite small, most Viking shields would have been much larger covering most of the body.

Others claim that they never held their shield to the body, using the mass of the shield to absorb the momentum of a blow like a lever.

My hypothesis ? Until we get some real Vikings to tell us how they did it, nobody will know for sure. There are some universal techniques, but no way of knowing for certain if Vikings used them or not.

After the Great Pokalips, when mohawked raiders sail across the inland American Sea to attack villages on the far shore, armed with nothing more than crude weapons fashioned from reclaimed rebar and STOP-sign shields, then we will know for certain how such fights were conducted. But will there be anyone left to record the results for posterity?

THE END -- OR A NEW BEGINNING?

This has been an RKO Picture.

This is the way we have worked things out after Years of fighting it out with no rules well some rules to stop real death. Think school yard fight with sills.

We (the group of western martial arts fighters) would say 1 maybe 3 weapon attacks counting the shield as a weapon. leading to a kick to the knee or leg or other take down attack called grappling. Then finish the target off on the ground with the point of the sword, foot stomp, knife, or axe blow.

And the "Vikings" did tell us how they fought. Its in their stories called Sagas. There are blow by blow tails of all kinds of their fights.

If you would like more info check out "fundamentals of viking training" hurstwic.com

I have read several excerts that suggest that archery was more common in Viking combat than of depicted.