the possum said:
Well, we go from asking whether a sword cane is considered a concealed weapon, to debating whether cut or thrust is better.
I don't intend to debate that. In fact, my blades are mostly good for cutting, and I did agree with you that a good cut ends the fight more surely than a gunshot. My argument is that we probably tend to underestimate the thrust, and I base that on several hundred years of European practice emphasizing point work, right up to the 20th century and Gen. Patton. We may think the edge has the obvious advantage, but this was not so obvious to generations and generations of men who devoted lifetimes of thought and practice to the subject. So maybe we're missing something.
I'd still want some rudimentary cutting edges, if for no other reason than to dissuade the other guy from simply grabbing the blade.
That's actually a good idea. I'd like to think the other guy is too busy getting stabbed to grab a blood-slick metal spike very hard, but you never know.
Really? I have heard this many times and fail to see the truth in it on the simplest level. How can sticking a little slit through somebody be more deadly than cleaving them from shoulder to thigh?
Comics and paperback novels notwithstanding, it must be the case that cleaving an opponent from shoulder to thigh is a rare thing in actual swordfights. Either that, or many generations of Europeans were too stupid to opt for a virtually omnipotent weapon, choosing instead to develop elaborate systems of combat around "sticking a little slit through somebody."
Since you fail to see the lethality of deep puncture wounds "on the simplest level," we can discuss it on the simplest level. Slashes and cuts, unless delivered accurately and with very great force, tend to go through soft tissue and glance off bone, or perhaps spend their momentum breaking bone. Unless you score right on the head, a cut or slash isn't likely to hit a vital organ. Not to downplay cuts and broken bones. As far as I'm concerned, they're good fight enders, and I depend on them.
But if we're talking about the
lethality of a blow, you have to admit that "sticking little slits" deep into vital organs, the upper airway, major arteries of the neck, arm, and thigh, and even the brain (via the eye socket) is a lot easier with a stab than with a cut. Perhaps "little slits" in one's weapon hand and tendons would be no laughing matter, either. And again, these thrusts can be delivered with great reach and blinding speed and no warning.
How can "sticking little slits through somebody" be lethal? How do you suppose most
firearms kill people?
Ummm.... How about cutting the leg
off at the thigh? Or removing an arm at the bicep? I'm willing to bet the effects will be even more dramatic.
Sure, I'm all for dismemberment.
I could have a Patton (thrusting) saber or a 1796 pattern (big-time slasher) within reach right this moment. Guess which one I have?
I don't think I have to the time to do any sort of justice to the subject, even if I actually did know a lot about it.
Neither of us does. Apparently, all of Europe wasn't able to completely settle the question given several centuries. Which is really all I want to get across.
But suffice to say weapons didn't evolve into thrusting swords only because the thrust was more destructive.
I wouldn't suggest any such thing. I only suggested that the thrust was
widely thought to be more
deadly than the cut, and that this was only one factor in its favor. Other factors included speed, reach, angles of attack, efficiency, and deceptiveness.
To its detriment, the point had a reputation for inflicting wounds that took too long to kill the recipient, while good cutting swords inflicted horrific-looking wounds that could be immediately debilitating. Cleaving from shoulder to pelvis doesn't exactly sound like an everyday reality on any battlefield I've read about, but an exceptionally strong blow could go through a helmet all the way to the upper palate, or send the helmet flying with the head still in it. Such blows were rare, however. Where I've seen them recounted, it's in a sort of "damnedest thing I've ever seen" tone. Generally, the ugly nature of slash wounds must have had a demoralizing effect on the enemy.
But still, it was (and is) way easier to stick "little slits" in an enemy's throat and lungs and heart than to decapitate him.
There are a host of logistical issues on the medieval battlefield that would reduce the cut's effectiveness, such as armor, that would not be present in a modern day self defense scenario.
I specified post-armor. Actually, I believe armor favored the use of the edge over the point. When armor disappeared, so for the most part did broad swords dedicated to the cut. The rapier and later the small sword didn't come into fashion until the Renaissance. But even prior to this, you can see the ascendancy of the point in combat treatises, particularly for civilian combat.
Likewise, thrusts were so feared because they spelled almost certain death *from infection* several days later.
So did cuts!
Nowadays, a skewer through the body in any but a few very small locations wouldn't be fatal with proper medical attention. Would a modern attacker be as afraid of it as his historical counterpart, who actually understood what a thrust meant?
No, but that is not because thrusts are more survivable than cuts. It's because they underestimate the severity of deep puncture wounds.
Perhaps those interested should check out a couple articles on the Classical Fencing page that document plenty of real duels where thrusts did not end the fight in time.
I alluded to this reality several times but noted that the same is just as true of bullet wounds, and yet nobody proposes that the handgun is an ineffective weapon. I also asked a question that
has to be answered: Europeans knew very well that the recipient of even a mortal thrust sometimes continued to fight. Why, then, did their fighting systems continue to emphasize the point almost exclusively over the edge? Why did this trend not reverse direction but instead intensify? Were European masters-at-arms just too stupid to see the glaringly obvious advantage of the edge, which you and I so easily grasp, having never set foot on the field of honor? I don't think that can be true. I have to think instead that they know something about point work that we don't.
I've read those articles from the classical fencing site before, and that is exactly why I have said that recipients of thrusts tend to go on fighting before dropping dead.
I can't find the reference right now, but I know of at least one battle where troops armed with small swords faced those armed with sabers or backswords. Afterword, the commander pleaded pleaded with his superiors to replace the smallswords with stout cutting blades, as the smallsword blades "were cut down and broken like willow twigs" or something to that effect.
This sounds apocryphal for several reasons. First, I've often heard similar things referenced but never cited. Second, to my knowledge, the smallsword was always and solely a civilian or dress weapon and was never, to my knowledge, issued to troops. Third, I would like to see anyone crash a good smallsword parry, much less break the blade like a twig. Fourth, it sounds way too close to this passage from
Ivanhoe:
"So trenchant was the Templar's weapon, that it shore asunder, as it had been a willow twig, the tough and plaited handle of the mace, which the ill-fated Saxon reared to parry the blow, and, descending on his head, levelled him with the earth."
Sounds like the fictional Templar cleaved through a piece of wood, not a metal sword.
If you want to read some first-person historical accounts of point-versus edge swordfights, there are one or two articles on the front page of Swordforum.com, and they present a picture that, to my thinking, gives the clear victory to neither. (In fact, after reading these articles, I still went ahead and bought the 1796, which I think is the consummate cutting sword.)
And that's the thing I'm trying to get across here. Many people say it's obvious that the edge beats the point, but it's not obvious. Not even close. I don't want to pick a side in that contest, but I do want to recognize something that I've overlooked before and that most people continue to overlook these days: The point is deadly! (Criminals know this. They'll shank you with a screwdriver.)
The edge also inflicts deadly, horrific wounds, of course. And now I'll go fondle my 1796 saber.
