Deadliest Warrior - Season III

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know that I’m both a fan and a critic of Deadliest Warrior.  In fact my biggest criticism of the show has always been their so-called “combat simulator” aka the “deadliest spreadsheet.”

Understand that the art of fighting is not an output from this simulation; it is an input. It is not an experimental result, but a set of assertions written by software engineers. Whether or not these assertions are prima facie reasonable is irrelevant; dojo novices quickly learn that “reasonable” is not a working martial art. (Incidentally, this may explain why no computer scientists have yet won a UFC title.)

Bracketing out the apparent flaws, I’ve also always thought the show was fun entertainment with a dash of historical reenactment.

This past weekend I was  down for the count with a gland infection and caught up on Season III.  My thoughts?

The producers actually made the show better!  The improvements:

• Improved combat simulator
• Consideration of many more variables
• The addition of an ex-Navy SEAL to the DW team

For example, I just finished watching Episode 25 which considered such variables as…

	U.S. Army Rangers	North Korean Special Operation Force
Terrain Familiarity	78	88
Extremism	83	90
Psych Warfare	74	86
Operational Experience	85	78
Hand-To-Hand Combat	89	81
Discipline	83	88

Sadly, they replaced Max Geiger (aka the Deadliest Haircut) with Richard “Mack” Machowicz.  Mr. Machowicz is a former Navy SEAL who brings valuable combat experience to the show.

So long Max!

Okay, now on to episode 3: The U.S. Army Rangers vs. the North Korean Special Operation Force. One of the factors they considered was hand-to-hand combat. They pitted the Rangers SOCP against the North Koreans combination of old school Tae Kwon Do and old school Hapkido.

Here’s the deal: In the breakdown they said that the fanatical North Koreans spend two hours each day practicing martial arts. Mind you this in not your McDojo-style YMCA Tae Kwon Do. This is the old school framed-in-a-military-context Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido that such books like A Killing Art or Shotokan’s Secrets depict. So I really had to raise an eyebrow when they ranked the Ranger’s higher in hand-to-hand than the the North Koreans.

Yes, yes, the Ranger’s SOCP is built around simple gross motor skill moves that are less likely to degrade under battle stress. I get that. But two hours of martial arts practice each day? I am almost certain that the Rangers do not practice hand-to-hand that much. Plus the North Koreans were ranked as far more fanatical (see above “extremism”). One example: They actually shot their own wounded soldiers in the head because they were slowing the team down!

Check out this YouTube video that shows the TKD/Hapkido portion of the show:

(FF to 2:35 to see the demonstration.)

You can also watch the full episode over at Spike TV when they finally post it.

So what do you think?

-BCP

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