I wanted to take a moment to give a shout out to the folks at
www.anachrobellum.com who, in conjunction with the Knife-hand the World folks, have put some pretty stellar t-shirt designs together, incorporating some of my favourite things.
Vikings,
Samurai and
Revolutionary War warfighters, fitted and kitted with modern wargear.
Here are the three shirts that are available now:
This is the Til Valhall shirt. It portrays what a modern Viking pipe-hitter might look like while servicing his enemies with cold steel and hot lead.
As you can see, this berserker is a little better equipped to wreak slaughter and carnage upon his foe than were his distant ancestors — though true to form he has transitioned from blaster to a bearded skull splitter to make a point. We’re pretty sure Gunnar Hamundarson and Egil Skallagrimsson would approve.
Sure, maybe they didn’t have frags and mags in the
Fóstbræðra saga
, but that’s the way Anachrobellum rolls…and for that matter, it’s the way most of
you roll as you conquer your way to Valhöll.
Here is the second in their line,
The Tactical Samurai.
Why the Samurai? Of all the warrior archetypes in the world, none is perhaps more recognizable than that of the Samurai. The word Samurai is derived at least in part from the word saburau, which means “to serve.” That’s fitting enough, particularly in the modern context and even more so with regard to how we regard the warrior ethos. There’s nothing wrong with a little ego in a fighting man, quite the contrary — but if that ego is not subordinated to some sense of the greater good (serving your country, serving your community, sticking up for those weaker than you), well, then…
This particular Samurai is carrying some things MInamoto Tametomo and Miyamoto Musashi wouldn’t recognize — Mk17, PEQ15, OSS Suppressor, S&S Precision Manta strobe and the like — but they’d understand the philosophy behind it.
Lastly, Roger's
Rangers are back in the
Roger's Rangers Returned shirt from . The frontiersmen and scouts trained by Robert Rogers were asymmetrical warfare experts before there even
was a Continental Army (and long before anyone coined the term Asymmetrical Warfare). Once the Continental Army was established, its original 10 Rifle Companies were veterans of Roger's
Rangers.
Capt. Robert Rogers first recruited his men in 1775 to support the British Army during the French and Indian War, conducting recce operations, raiding and essentially becoming an iconic example of (truly) light infantry operations.
This is a storied unit of American military history. Indeed, Rogers
Rules of Ranging are studied and quoted even today -- just take a look at the United States Army
Ranger Handbook, numerous scholarly works about warfare and counterinsurgency manuals. As such, Anachrobellum believes this warrior archetype to be imminently suitable for many of today's armed citizens and uniformed professionals.
The original Roger's
Rangers were obviously limited in their equipment and weaponry. Those of today have far more impressive tools -- this is why our Roger's
Ranger Returned is rocking SKD PIG gloves, a MK17 with Elcan Spector and PEQ15 -- as well as assorted other gear and the mandatory tomahawk of course!
Pick one up at
www.anachrobellum.com or find them on Instagram, @anachrobellum.
#warouttatime
On Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/Anachrobellum/
There are all kinds of cool-guy articles about putting lead to steel at
the range, also many articles with serious-looking folks in pajamas
bending arms and throwing bodies. But something I haven’t seen a lot of
are action shots of the Japanese training method known as “tameshigiri“,
or practice cutting. Much like ballistic gel is used to simulate how
bullets react to human flesh for firearm testing, the practice of tameshigiri involves
cutting practice on a realistic simulation of human flesh, without all
the mess (and paperwork).
I have fifteen years of kendo
(Japanese full-contact fencing) and hold a 3rd Dan grading, but even
with all that my school never trained with live blades nor practiced tameshigiri.
So whilst I had countless hours of swinging at and hitting my
opponents, we did so in the knowledge that it was all blunt-force.
Again, we were simulating combat, and simulating cutting.
