Bullwhip, the ultimate flexible weapon?

[Stickybomb]

The Huns also used whips - from horseback. They did a hell of a mess through Europe and Asia.

[slamdunc]

The Huns also used whips - from horseback. They did a hell of a mess through Europe and Asia.

The mess through Europe and Asia that the Huns effected is likely attributable to their primary weapons: the Hunnic bow, the Scythian ax (Hunnic tomahawk), the long & short swords they carried, and their spears. They were also noted for lassos, I was unaware that they were masters of the whip; this deems further research.

[Diesel_tke]

I have sparred with the stick against a whip before. We do this occasionally to practice crash covering and to just get a variety of weapons sparring in.

The thing I learned in sparring was mainly that you have to time the swing of the whip, but this is difficult because it is a lot quicker than you think. But you time it, and do a roof block then crash. Once you get the hang of the timing, you really don't sustain any meaningful hits.

So then you just crash onto the person with the whip which makes it useless from then on. Inside range for it is not so good.

So in my experience, the guy with the whip gets one chance to hit, then they are out of gas, against someone who knows how to close the distance.

[ChenPengFi]

Relevant article here:
http://bullwhip.org/?page_id=35

Some time, probably in the early 19th century, a canny whip maker had the bright idea of loading the handle of a short snakewhip with lead shot and selling it for use as a blackjack. While there might be a law against carrying a blackjack, there was no law against walking around with a whip rolled up in your pocket. Often these whips will have some fancy plaiting beginning a three or four inches (75mm. to 100mm.) into the thong. This is to give a better grip when the whip is reversed and used as a club. If the whip is grasped a bit further down the thong, then the handle can be swung like a nunchuck, too.

Blacksnakes have attracted the attention of luminaries from Mark Twain to Russ Meyer. In The Galaxy, December 1870, Mark Twain wrote:

How well I remember my grandmother’s asking me not to use tobacco, good old soul! She said, “You’re at it again, are you, you whelp? Now, don’t ever let me catch you chewing tobacco before breakfast again, or I lay I’ll black snake you within an inch of your life! I have never touched it at that hour of the morning from that time to the present day.

The length and rigidity of a bullwhip or cow whip handle allow it to be used as you would a stick, to block blows with other weapons, or to hit and thrust. There’s another possibility, too. If the whip handler can flip a loop of the thong over the opponents head, pulling on the thong and pushing with the handle held horizontally will result in a chokehold, or if done forcefully can crush a windpipe. (Chokeholds can be extremely dangerous. Do not attempt to practice them without coaching from an experienced martial arts master.)

Whipmaker Gayle Nemeth, from Queensland, Australia, is promoting the sport of full contact whip fighting. Contestants wear long heavy coats and fencing masks, and whack away at each other with stock whips. Points are scored for a clean strike to the head only, so the object of the game is to avoid or block your opponents blows, while setting up a clean hit yourself.

[slamdunc]

Whipmaker Gayle Nemeth, from Queensland, Australia, is promoting the sport of full contact whip fighting. Contestants wear long heavy coats and fencing masks, and whack away at each other with stock whips. Points are scored for a clean strike to the head only, so the object of the game is to avoid or block your opponents blows, while setting up a clean hit yourself.

This sounds like it could be fun, but would it be functional out on the str33ts??

[csharp.negative]

Video of a bullwhip expert. He's cutting small handfuls of spaghetti with a bullwhip. Considering bullwhips were implements of torture and can put a pretty clean cut through a handful of spaghetti, what do you think it would do to an eye? Fingers and straps of leather traveling at the speed of sound are a might different from each other.

[Baltic]

Torture was generally inflicted on a helpless victim. A mobile and resisting opponent would be considerably more difficult to strike with effectiveness, let alone strike a small target like the eye.

Besides, you can use music to inflict torture, that doesn't mean it can kill you if you listen to it.

Whips look pretty on the big screen, certainly. That much we can give it. But as a "go to" weapon of choice in a fight? Surely there are more effective options.

[csharp.negative]

Sure it'd be hard to land it on something like an eye, but the point of the whip as a weapon is to maintain distance and land strikes. That's where the cat o' nine tails came into play, I'm sure. More hits = more damage = more survival. The whip isn't going to respect flesh too much. So yes, it would be difficult, but eventually you won't want to expose your arm to strikes from the whip once you've gotten all the skin peeled off of it.

Regardless, my go-to weapon will always be a frying pan and spatula.

[TheMightyMcClaw]

Video of a bullwhip expert. He's cutting small handfuls of spaghetti with a bullwhip. Considering bullwhips were implements of torture and can put a pretty clean cut through a handful of spaghetti, what do you think it would do to an eye?

While I agree with the statement that a bullwhip will totally, totally **** up a human eyeball, so will pretty much every other weapon ever invented.
It's not a very strong argument.

[Bneterasedmynam]

-Simon Belmont
-Trevor Belmont
-Richter Belmont
-Julius Belmont
-Octopus Belmont

Though to be fair, they only used the bullwhip until they were able to upgrade it to the superior chain whip, so I guess that should hold the title of "Ultimate flexible weapon."

Bring up the Belmonts all you want, but this guy still can kick all their asses: