We watched a couple of episodes of Ancient Discoveries today. They were looking at various military technologies, some from the ancient world and others from Asia. It was very interesting. We often think of people in the past being rather primitive. If military technologies are any indication, they were anything but. They showed us early frogmen; jungle crossbows of the Champa and Khmer; Chinese wagons loaded with automatic crossbows fired by the turning of the wagon wheels; a couple of incendiary weapons; the punji-stake traps used successfully by the Vietnamese not only against us, but against the Mongols who invaded their land, both on land and in the water, sinking most of a Mongol fleet; the murderous trap-door couch of Chandragupta with which he eliminated powerful enemies (by dropping them into a spiked pit); and many more. There were a couple of Indian weapons they showed. The first is the urumi, a flexible weapon used in kalaripayattu, an indigenous martial art style found across the Indian subcontinent. Basically, the urumi (or chuttuval) is a sword with one or more flexible steel blades, as much as 5-1/2 feet long. Most popular in the state of Kerala, it is a fearsome weapon, and it is said that a practitioner once killed nine of his foes in a single engagement.
The second weapon is called the chakram, or war quoit, and is a throwing weapon. Used by the Sikhs, it varies in diameter from 5 to 12 inches, is capable of ranges of up to forty yards, and appears capable in larger sizes of removing a person's limb (or possibly their head). On the show, it easily severed large stalks of cane sugar. The weapon has been immortalized, both in the movies and on TV. The Bond villain, Oddjob, employed a deadly bowler hat that was basically a chakram, while the warrior princess, Xena, also used them on the TV show. 
Also of interest was the Japanese horro - something akin to a silken parachute that was attached to the back of high-ranking warriors' armor. If they had to retreat - oops, sorry - strategically withdraw - it billowed out behind them, and served to defeat most arrows fired at it. Tests on the show demonstrated a success rate of 70%, quite amazing really. Another interesting defensive item was the Chinese scale armor made from layers of lacquered, or resin-treated paper. It was quite effective at stopping bolts from the inexpensive crossbows issued to the levies.
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