Steel O’ Proof by Mark Hatmaker

Let’s talk buccaneers for a paragraph or few and then settle into a mighty pragmatic lesson that these spoilers of the seas took for granted and that many of we, the 21^st Century coddled crew, a bit less so.

Hand-to-hand fights were quite common in the days of sailing piracy, in fact we get our phrase “hand-to-hand combat” from this very fact. A crewman on a sailing vessel was and is a “Hand” and thusly hand-to-hand combat in piratical parlance is just that, a one-on-one affair between marauder and mauradee.

Contrary to cinematic depictions of rival ships holing one another willy-nilly with cannon shot, the preferred tactic was to fire upon masts and other standing rigging and leaving as much of the ship intact as possible. Afterall, a sunk ship cannot be looted, a sunk ship cannot be taken over as additional transportation booty.

No, the crux, more often than not, was to use sailing prowess and well-placed shot to make boarding feasible.

With boarding an ultimate aim, good hand-to-hand skills or also known among the buccaneers as “shot and steel” since it came down to the weapons you could hold and the empty-handed prowess you possessed once the weapons proved less useful at melee distance was a pragmatic premium.

The weapons were a hodge-podge of looted items or those acquired in port. We have various musketry, rapiers, pole-axes, pinking things, sabers, navajas, tucks, whingers, yatagans etc. etc. 

In other words, if it could be grasped and do damage to humans it was likely used somewhere in some nautical melee. 

There are also occasional references to bits of personal armor here and there. A cuirass here, a gorget there, that sort of thing.

Armourers of the day, like all good craftsmen, took pride in their work, they used a pragmatic quality control called “Steel o’ Proof.” 

Steel o’ Proof required that the armor be “proofed” or tested. To proof said armor one fired a firearm at close range. If it penetrated—no go.

If it stopped the projectile, the indentation was circled and or engraved with the name of the armourer and this “steel o’ proof” was the sign that, “Seems that this piece can be trusted.”

I hammer the obvious—If a buccaneer comes across a bit of armor in a booty acquirement raid, no steel o’ proof testament? Then no need to saddle oneself with the suspect item.

The 21^st Century & We Land-Lubber Combat Cadre

If we are wise and candidly honest concerning the realities of combat, we would merrily adopt this bit of buccaneer pragmatism.

We should view each tool we use [tactical folder, firearm, pocket kubaton, etc.] and each unarmed tactic or strategy with the same eye to steel o’ proof utility.

·        Is this leaping outside crescent kick worth the same as the lead jam kick that stops many a complex kicking attack in its tracks?

·        Is this Peruvian necktie submission that requires me to fall off of my opponent worth as much as the weight-on chancery?

·        Is this zumbrada blade pass that always assumes class-standard blade lengths a wise way to go in a world where not all blades are the same?

·        Is the personal protection firearm that has never been fired at night or under low-light conditions let alone under physiological stress [cardiovascular stress is sufficient] anything more than a dangerous prop?

If we are serious about this combat game we all play, then we always have an eye on utility. We want an item that has survived being red-decked?

And what is red-decked?

Yet another lovely expression from today’s buccaneer instructors.

Many fighting ships painted their decks red so that when hand-to-hand/shot and steel melees commenced the sight

of oak plank awash with blood would be less discomfiting.

To have been red-decked is to have been through a few of these melees and survived, meaning you were either incredibly lucky or knew a thing or two about what really does and what really does not work.

In a world with seemingly 90,000 unarmed tactics from strikes to submissions we are wise to red-deck them all under stress and evaluate them for steel o’ proof before we blindly attempt to carry that booty around in our noggins.

Some armor is very shiny but that don’t mean it will stop a bullet.

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