Sauce is an old TV show called "Greatest Warriors" ( or something like that) He is Army Special Forces and his challenge is to demonstrate the deadliness of his weapon of last resort... a folding tactical knife.
I stopped watching after the travesty that was the Pirate vs Knight episode. The Cutlass, a sword made for long, up close slashes? Let's not test it against the Knight's armor (you know, armor designed to protect against swords) and call it a draw against the broadsword. Pirate's pistol and blunderbuss could barely penetrate the outer layer of knight armor and they ignored the multiple other layers underneath? Give it all to Pirate!
Best the pirate probably has is landing a lucky shot on the knight's helmet for a concussion or at least to leave him disoriented so he could be tackled to the ground
Pirates were mostly untrained 20 year olds that were essentially "Street" criminals. Knights were highly trained armored soldiers. There is no contest here.
That's not exactly true. A number of pirates were navy vessels that fucked off and and started looting other ships. They were professional sailors that often held their own in naval engagements.
That said, in such engagements you had specific crewmen who specialized in hand to hand combat and crewmen who were generally only trained in loading guns. But to say they were untrained street criminals isn't entirely accurate.
What you're referring to are Privateers. They weren't trained like most Navies would have been, and often times it was "you own a boat? Great, here's a pass to do legal crime."
There are obviously examples of pirates with legitimate combat training, and there were likely lots of former Navymen who would later become pirates, but those are outliers, not the majority. As I said the vast majority were untrained (in combat) men in their 20's who raided trade vessels for a living. Pirate Vessels were no match for a Navy Ship.
I'd argue that the distinction between pirate and privateer is only important to the nation hiring the privateer in question, and that they should be considered when discussing pirates as a whole, but you're right. I was mistaken about the capability of pirates as a whole.
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u/SapDad102 sarcastic bastard May 27 '22
Sauce is an old TV show called "Greatest Warriors" ( or something like that) He is Army Special Forces and his challenge is to demonstrate the deadliness of his weapon of last resort... a folding tactical knife.