{"id":3996,"date":"2016-11-03T19:00:25","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T19:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fightfast.com\/blog\/?p=3996"},"modified":"2021-03-31T14:44:45","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T14:44:45","slug":"open-quarters-vs-closed-quarters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/03\/open-quarters-vs-closed-quarters\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Quarters VS Closed Quarters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Nautical Perspective<\/h4>\nToday, a wee bit of history from the days of Fighting Sail and then we wade into how we might learn a thing or two from these 18th & 19th century sailors. Picture, if you will, a wooden sea vessel.\n\nMake it a swift sailing sloop or a heavily armed man-of-war or whatever vessel floats your boat. Conjure up images of the ships seen in any of the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, or better yet, Master and Commander. Ok, got those images in mind?\n
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Open Quarters Combat<\/h4>\nNow picture the superstructures on the main deck. For all you landlubbers out there, a superstructure is any structure\/cabin rising above the main deck. On larger ships there were typically two superstructures \u2013 the forecastle and the after-castle.\n\nGot that? When any such ship was engaged in maritime battle with another vessel, they would often draw themselves broadsides to allow cannons loaded with a variety of mayhem to do damage to the ship itself (aiming below decks to sink the ship and above decks if they intended on capturing the vessel).\n\nAt this point in the battle the ships are engaging in open quarters fighting.\n

Closed Quarters Combat<\/h4>\nIf\/when a boarding by an enemy vessel seemed inevitable, the vessel that feared boarding would close a series of doors\/shutters that ran along beams or supports bridging the superstructures. The crew would then retreat behind these barriers which were called, yeah, you guessed it \u2013 closed quarters.\n\nNow, just because the quarters have been closed does not mean we are engaged in actual hand-to-hand closed quarter fighting<\/a> as we commonly envision it yet. There are a series of loopholes (small openings) for musket and small arms fire.\n\nIf\/when the marauding vessel\u2019s crew is finally able to board and breech the closed quarters barrier, the one-on-one melee began with combatants wielding boarding axes, pistols, cutlasses, dirks, and perhaps a musket or blunderbuss here and there.\n\n[dfads params='groups=292&limit=1&orderby=random']\n

Okay, What Are You Getting At, Mark?<\/h4>\nThe point of today\u2019s little historical aside is twofold:\n