improvised weapons

it's intresting to read discussions on the finer points of various weapons but even though i live in the U.S. and in oregon at that( a shall issue state with respect to concealed weapons) it is not always and at all times i or anyone will have a commercial made weapon on there person. when i was a senior custodial agent at a U.S. atomic weapons site, we were taught that you are the weapon and all of the obvious tools are just convient, sticks and stones will break my bones, yes they will and so will many other common objects from rolled magiznes to hiar spray. so what would you do, not quite naked in a place where conventional waepons are denied to you.

Basically any object can be used as a weapon. You could fight someone off with a pen or pencil if you really had to. At least half of the rooms in your house probably have either some form of knife or scissors in them. A little bit of wire. A fork. Rocks. Anything over a few pounds that you can strike someone with. If you had to fight for your life, there are natural weapons pretty much anywhere you could be.

Man has mastered his environment with two major tools: the knife(or any cutting edge) and fire. Even the bravest tank driver will get a little nervous when some insurgent starts lobbing Molotov cocktails at them. There's to be a dozen or so easily constructed lethal weapons that kill at a distance. A projectile from a sling can kill at quite a distance. Almost any strong tube can be turned into a makeshift gun or cannon. Knowledge is the best weapon you can have and a well equipped tool set.

they are now becoming the ubiquitous accessory , and for reasons i cannot fathom , young people have developed aversions to carrying them in pockets [ status symbol , bling , narcissism ?? ]

but back on topic

keys or mobile phones are the " most likley " object to be in hand

and a strike to the nose eyes or throat - with a mobile phone or key - can be devastating - even if it just gives the 5~10 seconds to get a head start or create a ruck to draw attention

the principle is quite simple , pressure hurts - the same force delivered via a punch [ fist area 10cm square ] is far more devastating when focused throgh the edge of a phone 2 cm square

i wil have to check up on just who advocates this - but according to a good friend - this techniqque was tauch to his school age daughter recently @ a self defence class he sent her to ,

I guess you could use a cell phone as a weapon, but it is likely to break it. Especially as they keep getting smaller and thinner. If you hit a Motorola Razor against someone full-force, I don't think it could take the impact.

Some prescription glasses might start a smoldering fire if held in sunlight. Fire is a pretty prmal weapon.

A largish rock, stripped into a y-shaped stick by strips of bark, will make a deadly tomahawk.

When we were kids, we'd have "neighborhood alley fights" with stuff we found in the trash. One time, we found a load of women's panty hose. We'd fill a leg with thick mud, and then tie it of and swing it around a few times before lobbing it at the "enemy." You could throw a lot further this way. A one-time-use sling. After a while, someone would get mad and put a rock in the mud, and someone would run home screaming to their parents.

A true sling is basically all skill and little technology. We did it a few times, but you are just as likely to hit yourself or he guy next to you as you are your target, unless you have the right sling for you and the right rock. I do remember that the longer the sling, the easier to control. . .

.

YARCOFIN :

yes , a modern lwt handsent is unlikley to survive a combat ,

but so what ???????

if you do not use it , and loose the fight - what use is it to you ??

all " saving " it will achieve is leave a nice shiny toy for a looter

AtlAtl is my primitive weapon of choice.

[edit on 11/2/07 by shadow watcher]

Purchase a disposable camera that has a flash unit. Carefully slice open the cardboard box that makes up the camera to expose the capacitor which powers the flash unit. By carefully adding two short stiff wires that go from the capacitor, then through the box, you can make a very useful stun gun. Make sure you cut the wires going to the flash bulb. You need the two new "prod" wires to stick out about 1/4 inch from the camera body and about 1/4 to 1/2 inch appart from eachother. A paper clip makes a good stiff wire for the prods. Close up the camera box so that it looks normal. Fire up the camera to charge the "flash" and push the camera button while sticking the added shock prods into your nemesis.

Just make sure that he doesn't have a pace maker.

Kids, don't try this at home.

Originally posted by shadow watcher
AtlAtl is my primitive weapon of choice.

[edit on 11/2/07 by shadow watcher]

What you linked to, I think is a "hunting" atlatl. how can you tell? Well, because the weight on the shaft can make a noise by clicking against it, which causes game to freeze for a milisecond. Hence the Aztec name, the "rattle atlatl."

For combat, you want a totally silenced device, the "battle atlatl" of legend.


Sorry, couldn't resist. I thought of that when posting about slings. Atlatls were developed by Neanderthal man at several different points it seems. But Homo Sapiens sapiens quit using them. They seem to have been rediscovered in the Americas, particularly in the Yucatan. I suspect the classical cultures of the middle east had run out of large game. They developed a sling--a birding tool---into a mortal weapon because they were hunting small game? maybe.

Anyway, thanks for the reference, and again, sorry for the jokes. nice work.

Originally posted by Terapin
Purchase a disposable camera that has a flash unit. . . . .Fire up the camera to charge the "flash" and push the camera button while sticking the added shock prods into your nemesis.

Just make sure that he doesn't have a pace maker.

Kids, don't try this at home.

Back in the stone age (mid-nineteen eighties) we used to make "cattle prods" out of the then-new piezo-electric cigarette lighters. They used the pressure of your thumb to make a spark in a stream of butane. We would use up the lighter, and then short the anode and cathode into separate paperclips.

The only advantage would be that they charge electrically by the pressure down on the ignite button, and so you could deliver a lot of "snaps" in a shorter period of time. However fast you could flick your lighter. Thanks Terapin, for reminding me of that game. Hell on Freshmen, for sure dude.



[edit on 11-2-2007 by dr_strangecraft]

"battle atlatl" is too funny.
I went back to add a comment, but alas, it never took in the edit.
I remember as a kid making a cousin to the atlatl. I would take a marble and drop it into a long tube, and with the flick of the wrist, I could send that projectile at a target with deadly accuracy. It's funny what things you remember.

These primitive weapons are most interesting. I hope this thread bears more.

Not that it pertains to the OP, it is probably a good idea to learn how to create your own weapons should the need arise.

Recently I have started collecting Indian Artifacts, arrowheads, spearheads, scrapers etc and after finding my first few items an interest in how the points were made caused me to research on the skill of making such items from stones, coral, bones etc.

It's not any easy accomplishment, first being able to identify the types of stone material conducive to projectile production requires reading and hands on research.

Once you have a grasp of the materials, the hard part begins, the knapping of the "arrowhead etc." making process starts and that takes considerable amount of hands on to be able to produce an effective product.

I am no expert on this subject but thought I would post that should some catastrophic event occur, it would be of great importance for an individual to be able to make their own weapons to aid in protection, food gathering etc.

If the "you know what" hits the fan your ability to do the research and learn these survival methods would most likely be lost, so it is a good idea to learn these skills now, whether you use them or not, while it is still fairly easy to get information on how these types of weapons/tools are made.

Should the moment ever arise, when it comes to hand to hand combat I've found that the standard BIC lighter is a great way to stabilize your fist in a sudden scuffle. It's nothin' sophicated but it's very effective...

Not that I need it or anything


[edit on 2/21/07 by Calm Anomaly]

My subtle arsenal includes a carbinger that is large enough to hold 3 fingers. Slip it on and make a fist. maybe with the keys interspersed.
ka-pow!

Silence + Darkness + Garrotte = deadly weapon.

My choice for an Improvised Weapon would be a air gun. You can cast your projectiles from old discarded batterie lead, and they are acurate, and deadly.

Game shot with a Air Gun:

Did you know that when Lewis & Clark went west, they carried Air Guns?

Anything with an edge will do the job. Knives are ideal, but anything that can be easily wielded that will cut will do. I'm a big advocate of edged weapons instead of heavy blunt weapons for layperson self defence. My reason is simple:

Consider te smallest/weakest person in your household. Imagine them attacking you with a ammer. Pretty easy to stop them, right? They have to get up a decent swing and hit you fairly hard to do any damage. A follow up swing will probably be pretty slow too.

Now consider the same individual wildly swinging a 6" kitchen knife as fast as they can. Not quite as easy to stop now, are they? A knife is pretty light, allowing for fast swings. It is pretty guaranteed to cause injury no matter where or how hard it strikes. The fear factor is pretty important too.

Knives/glass/edged weapons are easy to use and scare the bejesus out of your adversary. They can be improvised very easily using loads of different materials. A sharpened shovel will do a hell of a lot of damage for example.

One of the best ideas when trying to improvise weapons is to think back to medevil times. Their weapons were often elaborations of improvised weapons. If you try to replicate these tools, then you will have something useful.

Ever heard the expression, "Fighting tooth and nail"? I guess if you truly had no options whatsoever, you could resort to biting and scratching. Or a toss of dirt or sand in the eyes of your attacker..."Pocket sand! She-she-sha!"

Simple mathematics Sock+ Cell Phone= Good game

If you end up in a situation in which you need range, when facing down something like I knife, I reccomend a cellular phone stuffed into a sock. Swing the weighted down sock like a flail and aim for the face. If done right, and after testing the theory with a training knife and a a test flail, it isnt all that difficult to get right...