…and are only ever seen used on the stun setting, even in military battles. Whenever a Starfleet officer uses the kill setting on his weapon, it’s because he tried stun and it didn’t harm the energy-resistant target; the kill setting invariably proves to be useless as well.
In all my years of watching various trek series (all of them except TOS), I have only seen one instance of people being disintegrated. It was that episode of TNG where that mute diplomat’s interpreters are killed. One time. That’s it. And if memory serves, it wan’t even a Starfleet-issued phaser that did the job.
Phasers suck. So do bat’leths. In a battle (in, say, an urban environment or on a space station) between modern U.S. Marines and an equal number of soldiers from any Star Trek military, the Marines would win every time with minimal casualties.
I know I sound awfully negative, but please don’t get me wrong. Star Trek is tons of fun, IMO. Part of the fun, though, is poking fun at its extreme lack of realism. I’m just sayin’ that the only reason Klingon warriors are so feared is that Starfleet personnel are even bigger pussies.
Off the top of my head, Star Trek II had at least one person get waporized, Star Trek VI had a pot (with a turkey in it, IIRC) get waporized as a demonstration of why a sneaky assassin doesn’t waporize the evidence of their crime on board a Starfleet vessel. The turkey was unharmed.
But yeah, there are times where projectile weapons are certainly more effective than things like phasers, such as in First Contact where Picard took down a pair of Borg drones with a tommygun in a casino. That was just cool.
Also, in regards to the Klingons using bladed weapons against phaser-armed Starfleet (and on occasion, Bajoran) personel, it’s worth pointing out that the Klingons use beam weapons of their own: Disruptor pistols. Once they’re close enough to use their blades though, they prefer to whip them out. It has been shown in a couple of episodes to have a certain demoralizing effect at least on Starfleet personel (one episode of DS9 has a pair of Starfleet doctors debating whether it would be more painful to be beheaded by a Bat’leth or vaporized by a disruptor while they awaited an expected Klingon attack, all while Jake Sisko squirmed uncomfortably nearby).
Yeah, Klingons do use beam weapons, definitely. In VI, the lumpy Klingon jailer disintegrates the shapeshifter/Kirk; and Commander Krugh beams down to Genesis planet with his disruptor at the ready in III.
I got no idea why Klingon weapons are so damned goofy lookin’, except that we only ever see actors swingin’ 'em around trying to look cool. By the same token, one might snicker at two anemic actors dragging broadswords around a polystyrene castle set (one fighting left-handed so we can see both their faces at the same time). They got no idea what they’re doing.
As regards the clicky-poppy-out pokey things on the Klingon knife, it’s just for dramatic effect. Klingons probably watch our shows and say, “You have to manually eject shells from a shotgun? How archaic! What purpose does that serve? And why does that man always draw back the hammer on his pistol? Can he not simply shoot the gun without pulling back the clicky-poppy-back thing? Ha ha!”
Actually, I can kinda guess why they pop out and retract. The quillons on a regular sword aren’t sharpened at all. When the sword is sheathed, there are no exposed blade surfaces. Put a clicky-poppy-out knife thingy with sharpened whatsitzes into a sheath and you’ve got sharpened edges pointing in four directions. Retracting the extra two blades maybe makes it easier to store? Dunno.
And back to Star Wars, I always figured it takes Jedi reflexes to wield a lightsaber because of blaster fire and other Jedi. You’re trying to see 1 second into the future to know where the blade has to be to block that shot. Sure, an ordinary mope might learn how to use one without chopping off both of his own feet, but it’s doubtful he’d survive enough battles to learn anything useful. Rapier skirmish? Get sliced a few times, stabbed once or twice, and run the hell away. Lightsaber skirmish? Well… let’s just say there don’t appear to be many “minor wounds” in that kind of fight.
I wouldn’t put any money on it. That would be one hell of a defensive weapon for a trained user, and those inner barbs look ideally suited for use as a swordbreaker. I could readily imagine that this was based on a real weapon. The fighting style would need to be very flowing, with the wielder manoeuvring to stay constantly off-square to any opponent with a longer reach. But yeah, given some training and the right circumstances that has the potential to be a hell of a weapon
Truth is often stranger than fiction.
This one indisputably is based on a real weapon. And if you think the prongs on that weapon are silly, wait until you see the more extreme variants of the real thing. And yes, the prongs were sometimes spring loaded.
Once again the side barbs are designed as swordbreakers. By making them retractable the weapon would be far more convenient to carry. An added possibility is that the prongs are designed to be coated in poison.
Once again, it’s a fairly faithful copy of a real weapon, in this case it’s a North African weapon. Unfortunately I can’t recall what it’s called.
What use is it? The weapon is basically a falcata, somewhere between a sword and an axe. Falcata are easy to make with low-grade steel or even just iron or bronze, and they have astounding armour penetrating power. With that spike on the top of the inside curve that one would effectively act as a war hammer. It would punch a not very neat whole through metal plate with little effort. But at the same time the weapon can be used as a sword against unarmoured opponents and even used from horseback by employing a reverse swing. IOW it’s a good weapon if you don’t know where your battlefield is or what armour your enemy will have.
The lower blade, which isn’t that big in the real weapon, is basically just a hilt guard, but it also allows the weapon to be used to deliver a stabbing motion at close range simply by punching the opponent.
Yeah, OK, this is Klang. Of course it does say that it is a weapon used for what is essentially ceremonial assassination. It isn’t supposed to be a fighting weapon.
Oddly enough of all the weapons of that page only the qutluch and the ghonDoq seem to be obviously impractical. And both are assasins weapons which, according to that page, is carried out in an almost ritual fashion by Klinggons.
Not the N. African weapon I was thinking of, but just to show how bizarre actual weapons have got over the years compare this and this
The meqleth isn’t an impractical weapon at all. It’s simply an member of that broad falcata weapon group. In fact given the similarities between it and the kora in that picture it may even be based on that and not the N. African weapon.
Of course given that I found that picture of the kora while looking for falcata pictures because both weapons apparently both evolved from the Egyptian khopesh it’s hardly surprising they are similar to another N. African sword.
It certainly was. I was sitting in the cinema thinking “WTF is Picard doing on the holodeck?” and the penny - getting himself a weapon the Borg are not adapted to (and that’s why it was more effective than a phaser) - dropped just before he opened up with the ol’ typewriter.
Yes. In a general melee you have much less chance of defending yourself with a pistol. Can it parry, can it quickly parry, parry, thrust, thrust like a sword/Bat-thing? You might not even be able to bring it to bear in a crush. With a Bat you can attakc multiple times, defend yourself against physical attack, use your whole massive klingon strength and body weight as a weapon.
And i’m guessing bayonets were put on the end of perfectly serviceable guns for a practical reason.
Pistols aren’t for defence. Body armour is for defence.
Pistols are for killing some lumpy-headed chump trying to knife you. And good luck with parrying those bullets, by the way. Bayonets were invented in the days when you fired a gun once and then either spent 5 mins reloading it or used it as a club. Turning it into a clunky spear was an improvement. Nowadays they remain because a big knife is a handy thing to have when you are living rough and making it so you can strap it onto the end of your gun is not hard. They only get used as bayonets when the alternative is using teeth.
I have to say that the daft weaponry is one of the things I always found massively annoying about ST. Compare, f’rinstance, the general level of ST tech with that employed by the Marines in ‘Aliens’. How come they have transporters and warp drives, but no smartguns? Why no grenades, nightsights, body armour, squad weapons, etc. etc.??
Klingons - massively aggressive and obsessed with conquest, yet they insist on using the most ridiculously ancient weaponry. Even though the weapons may be perfectly sensible and practical from a hand-to-hand perspective, that has very little place in modern combat. It’s like having the Nazis kick off WWII armed with lances and warhammers. How come the Klingons have managed to avoid squabbling with a race of nerdy engineers who would slap them silly?
You are assuming a deplorable lack of skill on the part of the handgun user. A complete neo can pick up a handgun, point it at someone and pull the trigger; but a complete neo can also pick up a knife and cut somebody with it. A skilled handgun combatant is more than a marksman. He maintains distance (which is his friend), is skilled in weapons retention techniques, knows how to use the handgun as an impact weapon if necessary, and also knows that the pistol isn’t his only weapon. The average shmoe you see at the gun club isn’t a skilled combat handgunner. Typically, neither is your average cop, though they are, thankfully, being taught more than they used to be.
Give me a neo with a handgun and a neo with one of those goofy Klingon weapons, and my money is on the handgun neo unless the Klingon neo is given the element of surprise. Give me skilled combatants with both weapons, and my money is still on the handgun guy.
Historically, use of pointy-stabby-cutty things died out because one could develop useful levels of skill with ye gonne much more quickly. Making it Klingons and phasers, instead of Moros and .45 caliber revolvers, doesn’t change the outcome.
This always bothered me. They never did develop actual grenades or man-portable explosives, forcing Starfleet officers (who also keep going into combat missions) to blow up their phasers in a pitiful little explosion.
They do claim to have that kind of power, but they’ve never shown it. Other ships with similar firepower were unable to do any such thing, even when they seemed to be trying to do so.
Yes, it is. The problem with it isn’t that it has a slightly unusual blade shape, as in your example of a real weapon, but that it’s unbalanced and has a totally useless giant flange on the back. That will render it unbalanced and very unwieldly, and it won’t help you block squat.
More to the point, comparing a Bat’leth to arcane Earth weapons is a poor idea. Those Earth weapons were rare and specific, used for a certain purpose. The Bat’leth seems to be taken as a general combat melee weapon, against foes with no armor and ranged weapons, in circumstances where they must advance with little cover in tight quarters. And for that, it is wholly ill-designed and useless, if any weapon would be decent.
Also, I think people are somewhat overestimating its potential as a parrying weapon. Simply put, there are better. Much better. Because of the handle shape, it’s not easy to wield at all. Maybe it was some high-class duelling weapon way back in the day. But it makes no sense to use it now as a common combat weapon.
Give me a complete neophyte with a gun and a master of swordsmanship, I’d still put it at 50-50 on the gunner, and then only because he might forget the safety.
This has been proposed, but really makes no sense. Even the Taliban used guns.
We’re just going to have to disagree. In the vast majority of cases that guy with a sword isn’t going to get close enough to use it. Can he parry a bullet? No, so odds are he’s gone. If melee weapons are so great then how come the Coast Guard doesn’t have Cutlass 101 when they learn how to properly board a ship? A few years before the Iraq war started I saw a show on Discover with the US Marine Corps training for urban warfare and clearing out buildings. Their primary weapon? Rifles, not melee weapons.
Originally they were added because melee was a real possibility after the first volley and there wouldn’t be time to reload. Bayonets are still on rifles because they are occasionally useful, and though you will still see examples of bayonet deaths (Falklands, Viet-Nam, or Iraq), I think you’ll see more deaths caused by gunfire than pointed objects.
They didn’t get much attention, but they did have them.
Ironically, they later claimed that the “phaser” meant a “phased laser.” This, of course, makes no sense. A laser is already phase coherent, and there’s nothing else appopriate.
Of course, we are talking about the show that regularly blabs on about “isotons.”
And how do you know where the balance point is on a weapon you have never lifted? It seems that you can have no idea how heavy the hilt and tang are and as such have no idea what the balance is like.
I see, so what is simply a hilt guard won’t help you block anything. Can you explain the logic behind this?
Can we possibly have a reference that the weapon the Bat’leth is base don was rare and specific and used for a certain purpose in the cultures where they were used on Erath?
I won’t argue with that.
Some may be. I am not.
Better at parrying? Sure. A shield for example. But a shield can not readily by used to cut or stab, nor does it have much potential for disarming.
People often have this idea that there is one ‘best weapon’ that is applicable in all times, all places, for all people and all reasons. The truth is that the best weapon varies from place to place and person to person. There is little use having a perfect parrying weapon like a shield if it can not be used to inflict damage. Nor is there much use having a heavy long sword in situations where the press of bodies will stop it being used.
OK, so now I get to ask: How often have you used this weapon in order that you can make this judgement? And who trained you in its correct use?
I can tell you from experience that simply looking at a weapon can never tell you how easy it is for a trained user to wield. Even using it without training won’t tell you that. I’d challenge anyone to pick up a two-handed flail with no training and use it without injuring themselves. To look at the damned things you would swear they were useless. Nonetheless such weapons were used to great effect in the real world and are quite easy to use with training.
Actually there were more bayonette charges in WWI than ever before. In fact there were probably more bayonette charges in WWI than in the entire previous 200 years.
And that was precisely because of the machine gun.
The only way to take an enemy trench was to cover the ground as quickly as possible with as many men as possible. Under those circumstances the attackers couldn’t readily fire rifles, and a complete lack of SMGs meant that almost every charge was a bayonette charge.
What will surprise you even more is that experienced soldiers on both sides often didn’t even bother with bayenettes. They adopted axes and sharpened spades and refused to carry rifles. Since it was going to be a hand-to-hand fight anyway they decided to go with hand to hand weapons.
Once again, truth is stranger than fiction. There was a time last century when it was not at all uncommon for soldiers to use hand axes against machinegun positions and enemy armed with rifles. This should act as warning for those engage din speculation. Without knowing the exact circumstances and the exact limitations of the weaponry available to both sides you you simply can not say what weapons will and will not be effective
People still led bayonette charges in Vet Nam at least.
I’m almost surprised something like that hasn’t actually been invented yet. Then again, it’d probably be about as safe as the Cornballer on Arrested Development.
They had one on the Heart of Gold (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), but it wasn’t perfected yet, Yeah, you get toast from the loaf, but if you wait any time for the second piece it’s cold on one side.
Sometimes technology can be disappointing.
And Klingons don’t eat a lot of toast anyway (they go more for scones and an occasional biscotti) so, really, the whole issue is a conversational dead-end.
Of everything that bothers me about Star Wars, the “I can stop blaster shots with my lightsaber” idea has always struck me as by far the stupidest. Blaster shots would move at the speed of light so in order to stop them, you’re moving at something close to the speed of light. I can see predicting a single shot and putting the saber in position before it is fired but Jedi often stop multiple shots. Their movements would make the agents in the Matrix look slow.
So in a thread about Klingons, I’ll get totally off track and rant about Star Wars.
If you accept that Jedi can see some things before they happen, then they only have to get their blade in place before the gunner pulls the trigger. They’re not moving faster than light: they’re moving faster than the gunman.
If you don’t accept that, then I’d go back to the movies and actually attempt to measure the speed of those bullets… 'cos that don’t look like the speed of light to me.
ST:TOS had technical advisors?!!
