Straight swords vs. curved swords

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D5CAV
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Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by D5CAV »

At the last ELGS, smoke-poles were either junk or stupid prices. I was about to leave empty handed when I managed to talk someone down from stupid price to painful, but reasonable price on a Prussian Blucher Saber. It has the most pronounced curve of any sword I own and it feels club-like in my hand compared to my favorite sword, a German Uhlanen Saber. Both are about the same period - 1880 to 1910.

I fenced in college; mostly foil and some epee. I picked up a saber maybe a dozen times, but didn't see the point (so to speak).

Contrary to Disney movies, sword fights last about as long as gunfights, and they end the same way, with penetration of major organs leading to organ failure and death. Even the storied Samurai sword killed primarily with the point. Like medieval swords, the cutting blade was used mostly for executions.

Anyway, my Uhlanen saber has a nice, long, straight blade and feels only slightly slower than my epee. As in gunfights, speed kills, so a faster sword will win over a slower sword. I could fight with my Uhlanen saber, but I'd be at a disadvantage with that Blucher saber.

None other than the patron saint of Cavalry, George S. Patton, also a champion fencer, favored the straight sword. I have my regulation US Army 1902 saber, but I've long longed for a US Army 1913 Cavalry saber, designed by Patton. I've seen M1913 at ELGS, but always at very stupid prices.

Anyone have any ideas why curved sabers lasted until the end of sword fighting?
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Yogimus
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by Yogimus »

Best sword is the one attached to a 6ft long stick
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Erik
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by Erik »

I always thought the curved sabers was primarily a cavalry weapon, designed to cut down infantry. From what I've heard, straight edge swords are more useful for stabbing, but doing that from horseback means you loose momentum and might loose the sword, so slashing with a curved blade as you ride past has better effect. Or so I've heard.
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Jericho941
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by Jericho941 »

D5CAV wrote:Even the storied Samurai sword killed primarily with the point. Like medieval swords, the cutting blade was used mostly for executions.
That goes against pretty much everything I've heard about their use, but then again, there's a lot of BS out there when it comes to samurai swordplay.
D5CAV wrote:Anyone have any ideas why curved sabers lasted until the end of sword fighting?
I'm gonna throw out a wild guess and say it's because the tip isn't actually the exclusive fight-winner, and thrusting from horseback is awkward. IIRC the last units to get any real use out of swords were cavalry.
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Darrell
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by Darrell »

CByrneIV wrote:
Yogimus wrote:Best sword is the one attached to a 6ft long stick
Generally yes... pretty much all bladed combat in war has proven this to be true over and over again.

Sometimes a 12 foot stick even.
As mentioned in the Battle of the Nations thread, watch the Russians--a third or more of them are using halberds/poleaxes to great effect. Or did you mean spears? I've wondered (but not surprised, I suppose) at the lack of spears in the fights. Too dangerous?
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D5CAV
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by D5CAV »

Yogimus wrote:Best sword is the one attached to a 6ft long stick
Actually, I have one. A Uhlanen lance with 2 feet of point at the end of an 10 foot pole. Pretty unwieldy, though.
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Darrell
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by Darrell »

CByrneIV wrote:...reliable individual firearms replaced them.
But even then, lived on as bayonets, I suppose.
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D5CAV
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by D5CAV »

Erik wrote:I always thought the curved sabers was primarily a cavalry weapon, designed to cut down infantry. From what I've heard, straight edge swords are more useful for stabbing, but doing that from horseback means you loose momentum and might loose the sword, so slashing with a curved blade as you ride past has better effect. Or so I've heard.
That's pretty much what this long treatise on the physics of swords says: http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/GTA/mo ... mpacts.htm

For the specific task of whacking troops from horseback, the heavy curved saber did most of the work, so it took less skill from the trooper. However, the heavy curved saber wasn't much good for anything else.

Maybe Uhlanen were thought to be more elite and skilled so they got the straight swords? From a casual count, it looks like the Prussians had almost as many Uhlans units as Hussars and Dragoons, so that seems unlikely.
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D5CAV
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by D5CAV »

Jericho941 wrote:
D5CAV wrote:Even the storied Samurai sword killed primarily with the point. Like medieval swords, the cutting blade was used mostly for executions.
That goes against pretty much everything I've heard about their use, but then again, there's a lot of BS out there when it comes to samurai swordplay.
The accounts of Miyamoto Musashi's duels indicate that most were won with stabbing rather than slashing, even though much of the training involves slashing cuts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

These were mostly tightly regulated duels, so the results should be taken with a grain of salt vis-a-vis real combat, but in one of the "duels" he surprised a vastly superior ambush force and pretty much killed everyone with rapid point penetrations.

The truth is, there aren't a lot of accounts of real combat with Samurai swords, since the Japanese did most of the real combat with guns and arrows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oda_Nobunaga

Oda Nobunaga won his battles by using firearms - purported to be better then European examples of the time. He and his successors made sure they stayed in power by outlawing firearms and only allowing the "Police and military" (Samurai) to possess the remaining weapons - samurai swords. Samurai swords were basically only used to terrorize unarmed peasants and merchants (by slashing them like the helpless targets they were), and for stylized duels with other samurai, which is why I tend to question their mythical status as weapons.

Strictly enforced weapons control (not just gun control) worked pretty well for monopolizing power for about 400 years, but western firearms got better, as the Japanese found out to their dismay when Admiral Perry sailed into Tokyo harbor in 1853.
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Aesop
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Re: Straight swords vs. curved swords

Post by Aesop »

Curved swords used for slashing attacks were transitioned to straight swords because the preferred method of use, the cavalry charge, was doctrinally to be performed with the point extended forward and driven home by horse and rider in a massed charge. I defer to the sensibilities of Lt. G.S. Patton on that plan, and whatever technical term it might occasion, it was unquestionably a cavalry weapon, designed by him precisely for exactly that, post- attending the renowned French cavalry school at Saumur.

There was no "sword fighting" performed as such until the charge had devolved into a melee, at which point the doctrine was to reform and charge point-first again and again until it devolved to an exercise in chasing broken hordes fleeing from the field in unrestrained panic, at which point a baseball bat would be as useful.

In the end, it was handsomely effective, but obviated by two rather more useful expedients: machine guns which made mass slaughter a workday propostion, and the tank, a metal steed that was even less likely than a horse to falter or turn away (assuming one could get and keep it running), and trampled the lackadaisical with far greater destructive force than a quartet of hooves would do. Marrying both innovations in one platform and helpfully adding an artillery
piece pretty much ruined individual combat for all time anyplace that one might have used horse cavalry, and thus it sits.

Regarding cuts from points vs. slashes, what Chris said.
The only samurai killed by penetrations were mainly either found punctured with arrows, or serving as an ad hoc weapons-holder for a yari.
Virtually the entire kata of the katana was the use of its blade to slice, slash, and hack, not to point thrust, beginning with the actual draw.
People actually fighting with swords on foot were better served with cutlasses, a la pirates, or light long swords like an epee, and long sabers only made sense when one had the additional altitude of a saddle seat and mount betwixt wielder and ground.

BTW, D5CAV, don't buy any "Patton" sabers unless you've educated yourself to spot the fakes. Most of the ones in circulation through the 1980s were legit, but in the last few decades, the plethora of replicas - and their quality - has become widespread, and all dealers aren't necessarily either scrupulous or edged-weapon educated enough to tell the difference. There's nothing wrong with the replicas, as long as you aren't paying "original" example prices.

Caveat emptor.
Last edited by Aesop on Tue Sep 24, 2013 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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