[MR] "Answered Privately"

[Duke Galmr Ingolfsson]

I think the list machine ate the first attempt at this.....

Logan wrote:

> actually your majesty it reads:
>
>"an acceptable thrusting blow to the face shall be a directed touch and
>shall be substantially lighter than to other parts of the body"
>  
>

The reasoning behind reduced force for face thrusts is safety. And I 
think it’s misguided.

This rule is a knee-jerk reaction to the rise in injuries as a result of 
permitting directed blows to the face (thrusts). Rather than address the 
real issues directly, the marshallate threw up a safety net that covers 
up 3 things: inadequate helm construction (specifically the chin strap 
and padding system), inadequate armor inspection techniques, and poor 
on-the-field marshalling.

There is no fundamental reason that blows to the front of the head are 
inherently more dangerous than blows to the side or back of the head. In 
fact, I could probably construct an argument that it’s safer (assuming 
the weapon (or part of the helm) doesn’t strike the face). This also 
assumes a properly constructed and fitted helm.

Inadequate Helm Construction
As a marshal, absolutely every helm failure I have witnessed was the 
result of either bad padding or a bad chin strap. Sometimes these were 
items that started off safe but degraded into an unsafe condition, but 
most often they were just poorly done. You would have this beautiful 
stainless steel helm, sturdy and well constructed, with a piece of kite 
string for a chin strap.

You see a lot of this because most helms are sold without padding or 
chin straps. Those are left to the purchaser to finish themselves. 
Sometimes there are instructions, but mostly there aren’t. So, 
generally, the parts most likely to fail and cause injury are left to be 
installed by a person that may not be best qualified to make them.

I don’t blame the armorers completely. Customers are looking to get a 
pretty helm for as little as possible so corners are cut. I am sure most 
armorers would be happy to pad and strap their helms in a way that 
provides complete protection for the person they are making it for. But, 
that takes time and time = money. You get what you pay for, so when you 
buy a helm, if you are not 100% certain you know what you are doing, 
have the padding and strapping done for you by someone who does.

Inadequate inspection techniques
As a marshal, 90% of the helms I have failed were due to too much or the 
wrong type of padding or inadequate chin straps. It’s almost unheard of 
for a helm made in the last 15 years to fail by falling apart. Removable 
grills come off, chinstraps break or the padding doesn’t actually 
prevent the helm from striking the head.

This is an area that has been steadily improving and should really be 
the layer of protection that limits helm injuries to extreme cases. The 
place where it falls down is that armor inspection almost always happens 
in a hurry between the time the fighting activity coordinator gets their 
act together and the start time of the fighting. This means most 
inspections are done on the body and in a queue of hot and only slightly 
patient fighters. A proper inspection needs to start with the helm off 
so the chin strap, padding system, grill fixing and welding can be 
inspected. Only then should you have the fighter put it on and see if it 
fits properly and does the job.
The second problem is that marshals are nice guys (well most of them). 
They don’t *want* to fail your helm. They understand about driving 6 
hours to fight and if this helm doesn’t pass *right now*, you have to 
sit out. Having inspections occur right before the fighting only makes 
that worse since there isn’t time to fix any field repairable problems 
that might otherwise have been able to be made. As a result, marginal 
helms are passed.

Poor on-the-field marshalling
This has always been a problem and some solutions are actually making it 
worse rather than better. The biggest problem is uneven enforcement. 
Fighters don’t know what to expect from the marshallate. Some marshals 
are very strict, but most are unwilling to step in and make calls. I am 
not talking about “active” marshalling; I am talking about enforcing the 
basic rules.

There is a knee-jerk reaction that occurs when someone gets hurt on the 
field that the person on the other end is a bad guy and clearly doing 
something wrong. Often, this turns out to not be the case. But, all 
anyone remembers is that so-and-so got pulled off the field for hurting 
fighter_05. This sort of reaction adds to the mistrust of the 
marshallate. Now, sometimes people are behaving badly and jacking people 
way too hard (whether this is to the face or not) and those people do 
need to be pulled.

But, we don’t need special rules for face thrusts. We already have a 
rule for excessive force. All this touch kill stuff has taken the 
decision making (including the use of common sense) out of the hands of 
the fighters and the marshals on the spot. And it’s a shame.

Galmr