An opinion piece:cutting vs thrusting

A lot has been said and written about cutting and thrusting.

I will note that things like clothing styles, leather jackets, armour, etc. have an influence on the historical techniques and weapons used. In today's world people dress differently in different climates. In the north a person may have on a leather jacket over a heavy sweater, in the warm south a lightweight t-shirt. This can make a difference in cutting techniques.

Of course, the khukuri brings the chop and the crush into play along with cut and thrust.
 
Angus Trim makes a leafblade, but it has a medieval style guard.
There are 2 sizes, and the short one is about the size of a gladius, a bit larger than the Albions, but within the size range of the ancient Roman ones.

The Atrim is less expensive than the Albions, but should be perfectly functional. There is also a big leafblade, but that is probably less useful indoors.
Atrim also makes other shorty swords. I have never held one one of them, but perhaps others on this site can comment. They have a reputation for working in cutting.

For myself, I wanted one that was hand forged, rather than perfect and CNC machined. That was why I got the blade by Al Massey. I would guess that the Angus Trims would be strong, sharp, and useful - if ever needed.
Incidentally, the Massey blade cost about the same as the short Angus Trim leafblade.
 
Howard,

That makes a lot of sense. I haven't studied martial arts or knife fighting. Even here in the North Western US, people wear heavy clothing for the weather.

A cut does not do as well as a thrust when there is resistance, does it?

Surely the design of the khukuri make it a cutter when other blades can not.



munk
 
munk,

the hands are often closer than the body of the opponent- and if your adversary "jerks" his hands away from your thrust, he may have opened his body in the process.

John
 
You know, I was thinking about this. Seems to me that the Romans fought
in formation. It would make sense to me that thrusting would be much safer to your buddy to the right and left. I can imagine someone missing a enemy guy with a mighty swing and wackin' one of your own guys by mistake....... So effectively you narrow the gap between individuals and also increase the number of blades per square, kind of like concentrating you fire with a rifle, so that if you were a swinger facing the Romans you may be facing 2 or 3 stabbing blades from the romans in you zone on the battle field. Add this with pressing forward one the field at the same time and that would definitely qualify as using the thrust effectively.

I wonder it that had anything to do with it? reasonable theory ?
 
here's a fairly descriptive dissertation on roman army dispositions and tactics.

linky

per this the normal seperation between ranks and files was about 6 feet, which was failrly spacious - you need room ro swing a pilum when you are about to throw it & need room to swing your sword & sheild about without interfering with the guy next to you. other sources say the horizontal spacing of rankers was closer to 3 feet, with the 6 feet spacing of the filers behind you to allow for missle throwing.

the left side was your 'weak' side as it was weighted down by the shield, so fighting was biased to the right, and your general would try to get some sort of attack on the enemied left flank to disrupt their formation. romans fought as a team rather than as individual duellists, so you'd help the guy to your right by zapping his opponent whose right side was more exposed (similar to what brit bayonet men did to the scots at culloden).

romans won because they were more disciplined and fought dirty. barbarians lost because they fought with their personal honor in mind and wanted the glory of besting their opponent one-to-one in a duel. the romans also won because they understood logistics.

a roman battle would normally be done at the advance rather than staticly awaiting the enemy, they would addvance completely silent -when close they'd throw their heavy pilum spears in two volleys which would shock the advancing enemy to a halt, the romans would draw swords, and then shout and charge the enemy. usually the enemy wouold break at this point as the buzzsaw of the roman gladius hit them. slingers, archers were not heavily employed in the traditional late republican/early imperial armies.

people actually killed in the battle lines were in low numbers, the majority of casualties happend when one side broke & started to run, with the victors mowing them down as they tried to get away..... and as in most armies up until the advent of penecillin, more people died of disease and infection than in battle. roman medicine and wound treatment was far in advance of the barbarians, so they lost fewer men that way too.

the romans really epitomized the slogan 'who dares wins'
 
That gladius is my own, known as the Gladius Hispaniensis back when Albion carried it. It is more likely a mainz-pattern gladius, though a little longer than usual, and a little more curved as well. Grip is bone, squarish cross-section with steps that really aid in grip retention. Wood is walnut, there is also a bronze plate inset at the base of the blade. 5160 steel stock-removal by Gus Trim, back when he made blades for Albion. The scabbard is plain, yes, but I never wanted to pay $200 or more for a historically-accurate scabbard. I asked for a leather-covered wood scabbard with no frills for $50, just to protect the blade in, and that's what I got from Tritonworks scabbards.

In more recent news, I got a nice Kindjal from Michael Rader. Here it is:

unsheathed23xb.jpg


18.5" blade, 25.5" overall length. Great blade, cuts and thrusts with authority. Beautiful peruvian walnut scales. Fit and finish is excellent. Go to www.raderblade.com should you wish to order something from Mike.
 
that kindjal is gorgeous! will have to look into getting one. russian equivalent of the roman glad...
 
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