Crossing Europe-1499

[JAG2955]

Like the old Crossing America threads.

You have the ability to go back in time once more; this time to Europe circa 1499. You will be crossing Europe from the northern coast of Scotland to Rome. Upon arrival in 1499, you will be given a pack animal, a riding/war horse, a woolen cloak, period clothing and camping equipment. You will also be given a month's worth of survival rations, the contents of a modern combat lifesaver bag, a quality map, and enough gold and silver to make you as wealthy as a member of the middle class. Prior to departure, you will be given a combined anti-viral, antibiotic, and anti-fungal shot. You can drink the water with impunity, and any wounds sustained will not be infected. Ain't science wonderful?

You will be complete a mandatory 6 months of training in language, horsemanship, first-aid, and most importantly (and the purpose of this thread) weaponry. Your physical fitness will return to your prime and you will be trained to master whatever weapons you choose to become an above-average fighter for the time period.

Select one distance (polearm) or projectile (bow, sling, etc) weapon, one small singled-handed weapon (large dagger or equivalent), and one medium-sized (gladius to bastard sword-size) weapon. Fighting will be necessary, but not constant. If you're feeling up to it, select a shield and armor while you're at it. Just remember that you have to carry and maintain it.

Due to Time-Travel Transportation Security Agency rules, no explosives or propellants are allowed. We'll gladly make you a period-correct weapon out of modern materials if you so desire-please annotate what materials you want. TTTSA regulations will allow you to select a sword that was not invented at that time, so if you want a 1913 Cavalry Saber, so be it. If you want a katana, Sean Connery was able to have one in 1541, so you can too. Don't just limit yourselves to Western European weapons. If a weapon is lost and unable to come to the present, it will turn to rust long before it catches up to the present, thus negating any paradoxes, but we can't let someone weave an AR-15 into a tapestry.

Let's have some fun. Go!

[Aglifter]

Enough money to pay your way, and immune from disease - basic rapier and small sword, appropriate to the class at the time.

There was a regular amount of merchant traffic going on. You'd have to worry about the usual robbers/thieves, etc - so, how about a modern anti-stab vest?

[JKosprey]

I don't have much experience with blades as fighting weapons, so my choices are guesses, but I think a decent sized bowie or Ka-Bar would fit the bill for the "dagger". I've never had great arm strength, but I have pretty good arm length, so I'd probably be alright with a short but light sword- I believe that would be a rapier?

I'm pretty comfortable with bows...a 50lbs recurve would fit the bill.

[Termite]

You do realise that by 1499, firearms had already been invented and were in use, right? Mostly matchlocks, IIRC.

[Jered]

I'd take a wheellock rifle with a bullet mold in its caliber to make minie balls. Also the appropriate equipment for melting lead in a campfire. Remember, I can buy gunpowder there. Make it out of the strongest steel that you can. Wheellocks were invented around 1500.

A buckler.

A 1908 British Calvary sabre.
A bowie knife.

A cuirass made out of modern steel.
Likewise, a chapel de fer.
A really good pair of leather boots.

[dfwmtx]

Distance weapon - Crossbow. Use modern materials and tech when possible, except I'll take wood or bone when modern plastic would be there. I'd like something which can punch through armor, but I doubt I'll be using it for distances.

Mid-sized sword - Roman gladius, but with modern materials.

Dagger.....hmmm, torn on this one. I'd get a Sykes-Fairbane for in the city, a good survival knife with serrated edge for between towns.

And a mail shirt.

Geee, how'd this end up in my pack?


Apply a little science, watch me travel in style from court to court.

[JAG2955]

You do realise that by 1499, firearms had already been invented and were in use, right? Mostly matchlocks, IIRC.

Yes, but I pushed the date to 1499 (vice 1399) because I wanted to ensure that you may have to fight someone completely clad in plate armor as a counter to a rapier.

Since you're a killjoy, the contents of your time travel capsule have been replaced with a 2" pocket knife made in China, a colander, three packs of chewing gum, and a pair of assless chaps.

Also, a big reason is I've been watching a bunch of movies and tv shows recently that deal with swords (The Hobbit, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, and Ironclad, among others).

[Greg]

You're going to want a very good history book. Know when the wars are happening, where, and why. Or where they've just ended, and lots of former soldiers are now brigands.

I think at this time, France was at war in Italy and Spain joined in. Also the Swiss were at war with the Hapsburgs.

Maybe some other stuff was happening (Venice vs the Ottomans?), not sure offhand.

[Aesop]

I hide the cash and a small eating knife under robes of the Franciscan Order, avoiding robbery by the simple expedient of appearing to be a member of an order known for their poverty, and enjoy a pleasant stroll through the countryside from town to town as a mendicant friar and pilgrim.
I make my way to Paris and befriend then-Cardinal della Rovere, where under his patronage we discuss art and science at length.

In late 1503, the current Borgia serving as Pope dies, then his replacement croaks in a month, and my patron is elevated to become Pope Julius II, and I explain to him some ideas for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and suggest a couple of young artists named Raphael from Urbino and Michelangelo Buonorotti from Florence.

In my spare time I look up Leonardo da Vinci in Florence, and pass along some insights regarding this and that. Florence is later defended by a ring of Vaubanesque bastions. In their spare time, their square-rigged men-o-war sweep the Mediterranean free of Ottoman pirates, push the Turks out of Europe entirely, and reconquer Constantinople as a Christian bulwark against the Islamic hordes, saving hundreds of years of Balkan squabbles.

I arrange a similar visit to Padua to visit with one Nikolaj Copernik studying canon law, to explain a bit about actual medicine and heliocentric astronomy.

In later years I travel to Wittenberg, and over a weekly beer or two, egg on a young Doctor of Bible there concerning the scandalous sale of indulgences by Mother Church, and how someone oughta put a note up on the door or something.

Chaos, panic, and disorder, the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment is begun, and my work in Europe is mostly complete.

I spend my later life in England, getting Henry VIII and various nobles to sponsor English colonies in North America 90 years early, and implanting the seeds of treason in the heads of a burgeoning minority of nonconformist sects who travel there to establish them. After pushing into Pennsylvania early, they discover coal and oil, and with some Italian chemists and displaced German metal-workers, the colonies begin a thriving steel and armaments industry. They push the French out of Canada, the Spanish out of Florida, and declare independence from England while a tiny English fleet are still wrangling with Spain over Aztec gold. Between the colonists launching revolving turret ironclad dreadnoughts with rifled breech loading artillery powered by steam boilers, and fielding armored combustion powered tanks mounting Gatling guns, the English forces never have a chance, and I live to see the victorious colonials start the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the mid 1500s.

[MarkD]

OK, I'll play

For distance, I'd go with a bow. Quicker to reload than a crossbow.

Knife - I figure if a K-bar was good enough for Dad to carry in the Pacific in WW II, it's good enough for me to carry in Europe in 1499. Maybe fit a bigger cross-guard to it so it can function as a parry-dagger?

Medium weapon - Honestly, I think I'd lean more toward some sort of battle-axe/warhammer weapon, especially if I'd be fighting people in plate-armor. Crush a knee and all you really need is a can-opener.

If possible, maybe a halberd or something similar.

I'd have to go with Jered on the buckler. Maybe some sort of mail armor, perhaps it could be made of a lighter-but-stronger metal than steel? Or could we use Kevlar? How about a Kevlar helmet? Would that be cheating? They could be made to LOOK like period items.