How effective would a chainsaw be in melee combat?

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Not.

Aside from the obvious problems of being horribly unwieldy they suffer from an ancient curse known as "throw a cloth at it". It is told in legend that the Wasteland Wanderer Merlin of Gamestop came across a knight of the MacDonalds clan who brandished the noisy toothed polearm known as Chain-Saw. Merlin overcame the knight by a martial technique he had learned in the academy of Car-Wash by throwing a loose cloth at the dread weapon. It jammed up immediately and stopped. Then Merlin brought his shotgun to bear and the knight fled.
 
thebigh said:
It would probably impose a penalty on your opponent's fright checks, but as a weapon it would likely be fairly ineffective.
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well, I'm looking at this in two circumstances :

1) on a battlefield, with trained combatants in armour, 99% likely to be weilding spear and shield, it's likely going to be next to useless, probably stuck in someone's shield before doing any actual harm.

2) in a barfight, with cvilians, it's probably going to f--- some sh-- up while causing mass panic and fleeing

So, yeah, more the sort of thing for Jason Vorhees to use against teens than a gamechanger in a Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court-type situation
 
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As a certified chainsaw operator and faller I've used a chainsaw or two.


Not all chainsaws are equal, there are small, cheap and rather wimpy chainsaws meant for home owners to use to cut brush, and limb trees. Then there are serious chainsaws meant for logging and rescue. Some of the rescue chainsaws are made for cutting through building materials, nails, sheet metal etc.
All chainsaws can do massive tissue damage even the wimpy ones.

I don't think any chainsaw would make a great melee weapon, but purpose designed fighting saw weirded with skill could potentially be pretty fearsome in 1-1 combat. Using it like a sword would be fairly poor form, the spinning chain provides the cutting power, not brute force.

Not hard to counter a chainsaws with armor though, Kevlar is very effective at jamming up the chain mechanism which is why it is used for protective saw apparel. As mentioned they are not super practical, heavy (15-25lbs for a saw of useful size / power), noisy, and can be cantankerous.

I'd put them up there with a flame thrower, potentially useful, can definitely be terrifying, but very niche.
 
Toadmaster said:
As a certified chainsaw operator and faller I've used a chainsaw or two.


I'd put them up there with a flame thrower, potentially useful, can definitely be terrifying, but very niche.
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So you wouldn't put your best guys on chainsaw duty?

Sorry for the The Tick reference.
 
Not effective at all. You would be better served bludgeoning the other person with the engine portion of a chainsaw than trying to hit them with the blade.
 
I would rather have a machete, to be honest. It would be easier to use and ultimately more effective. Chainsaws aren't really designed in a way that would make it easy to swing them around.
 
I'm just going to guess there's going to be a lot of flying blood when it does connect successfully. That alone is going to be intimidating.
 
BedrockBrendan said:
It should at least get some kind of intimidation bonus even if it isn't effective. If I saw someone coming at me with a chainsaw, I'm not sticking around to find out if balance is an issue
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This. It would largely be a "I am a scary bastard" weapon rather than effective in its own right. Even in a bar brawl it's unwieldy enough there's a good chance you'd get taken out by someone smashing a chair over your head before you could react.
 
Ignoring the practicality of wielding a regular chainsaw for the moment, what boon would a chainsaw blade give over a regular blade? Sawing through flesh seems less practical in combat compared to just using a good old fashioned sword arm.
 
spittingimage said:
I want your serious opinion. Also your ridiculous opinion. Also any personal experiences you have in chainsaw-dueling.
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It wouldn't. The 'blade' tends to bounce off bone, usually back into your face. Also, it needs time to drive through material, and you want something to shut your opponent down as fast as possible.
 
Giganotosaurus said:
Ignoring the practicality of wielding a regular chainsaw for the moment, what boon would a chainsaw blade give over a regular blade? Sawing through flesh seems less practical in combat compared to just using a good old fashioned sword arm.
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Limited spaces.
Although the operator was an idiot the use in the Dawn of the dead remake for cutting zombies off the vehicles through slits would be one where they could be handy. No room to hack with a sword or axe and stabbing zombies is fairly ineffective. The kick back mentioned by Chris can be easily mitigated through chain design and generally occurs when the tip is being used to cut. The most effective cutting occurs from the middle of the bar aka "blade" to the power head. The spiky bits on the power head are called dogs and their use is to gain a solid bite so the saw can be "pushed" into the cut.

All the blood and gore hacking at bodies wouldn't do the mechanicals a lot of good.
 
spittingimage said:
I want your serious opinion. Also your ridiculous opinion. Also any personal experiences you have in chainsaw-dueling.
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In an enclosed space, it would be more dangerous to your opponent. But any weapon with a good reach should be able to defeat it.

BedrockBrendan said:
We need to get the Hard2Hurt guy on this one
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Oh man, that would be so much fun...:grin:

Also, I'm glad you like the Hard2Hurt channel as well. Makes total sense:shade:.

TristramEvans said:
It would probably hurt
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...someone, for sure. I just don't like the unpredictability of who exactly that's going to be...

What was that Terry Pratchett quote about using a sickle:skeleton:?
 
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Just out of interest, is this being used in a classic fantasy setting? Think of going dungeon delving. Are you hiring porters for the fuel? Just hope noone uses fireball on them.

On a more general note, what do you do when it runs out of fuel in the middle of a fight?
 
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