Famous blades throughout history

[GIRLYmann]

The Vietnam War is history.
The knives which remain
A solid reminder of its role in soldiering...
http://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=2444

 

[Lapedog]

Today I'd like to post about two re-curved blades from the ancient Balkans. The Falx and the Sica.

Sica:

The name Sicacomes from Proto-Indo-European root sek-, meaning "to cut", the Sica's angled blade was designed to reach around the shields of opponents, like the large scutum shield of Roman legionaries. With the tip pointing up, the Sica would often catch on the bottom of opponent's helmets, allowing the user to force the blade upwards through the jaw and into the brain.

Falx:

The blade was sharpened only on the inside and was reputed to be devastatingly effective. However, it left its user vulnerable because, being a two-handed weapon, the warrior could not also make use of a shield. It may be imagined that the length of the two-handed falx allowed it to be wielded with great force, the point piercing helmets and the blade splitting shields - it was said to be capable of splitting a shield in two at a single blow. Alternatively, it might be used as a hook, pulling away shields and cutting at vulnerable limbs, or striking the edge of a strong shield. The inward curving point was still able to pierce the armor or flesh of the target behind the shield, rendering even the most reinforced shields much less effective defensively against a falx wielder.

These blades were used to deadly effectiveness against the Roman's and Greeks. The Falx was such a vicious weapon that Rome added lips to the top of their shoulder armor along with to their helmets.

The Dacian, Thracian and Illyrian tribes were ferocious in their warfare. Rome suffered a couple defeats at the expense of these men before overwhelming them in Trajan's time, some such as the Bastarnae suffering a Roman genocide.

Cool, but for a really mean Balkan curved blade from that period you should check out the Rhomphaia

 

[Jack88]

Cool, but for a really mean Balkan curved blade from that period you should check out the Rhomphaia

The Rhompaia is essentially a falx, a polearm but these Thracian tribes instead of using them in a tight formation like say the English did, used them as weapons in the vanguard to smash tightly formed Greek/Roman formations. Powerful weapon, very cool stuff.

 

[wazu013]

This one is a Colonial Prov. RI Big Jack. It was issued as part of the C-1 sustenance vest as early as 1944. I bought the canvas pouch separately from the knife. Both are in unused condition.

 

[Unkldave]

My Dad went out West in the mid-1940's and brought this back from Mejico. It's real and it's spectacular!

 

[Unkldave]

This is a pry-bar, and has helped fix many flat tires for my dad and me. A knife is a only a tool.

 

[hank_rearden]

I had to go through all the posts and saw the gap in 20th century knife history:

The bad knife of the 70's and 80's

 

[Lapedog]

^this looks like the knife from Big Trouble in Little China.

I believe the knife in that movie was actually a Blackie Collins Tac II, which along with the Gerber mk*II looks alot like the knife above.

That double edged wasp waisted dagger is an iconic historic design. Goes back to the coke bottle handle shaped FS dagger. Awesome pedigree to these daggers.

 

[marcinek]

That double edged wasp waisted dagger is an iconic historic design. Goes back to the coke bottle handle shaped FS dagger. Awesome pedigree to these daggers.

In actual fact, that design goes back much, much further than that. They are stiletto daggers, and the design didn't just appear out of nowhere in the first half of the 20th century.

Stiletto daggers, including ones with the "wasp waist" handle, go back to the late 15th century, and their precursors even earlier than that.

 

[Armadew]

Or a Swiss Basler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_dagger

 

[Dr Heelhook]

This is the Fairbairn Cobra. It was a fighting knife developed by William Ewart Fairbairn in the 1950's. For those who don't know, Fairbairn was an instructor in hand to hand combat for various commando units during WW2 and a riot control police officer in Shanghai, fighting Chinese street gangs during the turbulent interwar period. He trained boxing, wrestling, savate and various Chinese and Japanese martial arts and was the first westerner to get a black belt in Judo under the Kodokan (not the first non-Japanese, that honor went to Russian Vasilij Oshchepkov, one of the developers of SAMBO). Fairbairn was in hundreds of street fights in China and had knife and bullet scars all over his body. He was accredited for several inventions like riot batons and body armor to withstand a 7.63x25 Mauser bullet. He's most famous for the Fairbairn/Sykes commando knife and the smatchet, but he apparently developed the Cobra knife for the Cyprus riot police when he went there to train them in the early 1950s. It's approximately the same length as a smatchet, but obviously faster in hand.

 

[Jack88]

That Fairbairn is an awesome knife, been looking for one of reasonable cost...

Are there any Scots hanging around here? Looking at both traditional Dirk's and Sgian Dubh's and have some questions.

 

[Natlek]

The Kopis:

It is disputed where the kopis originated, its generally accepted as being a Greek blade though they've been found in Etruria, Etruscan territory. Possibly derived from the Egyptian khopesh:

This blade style is obviously used for slashing rather than stabbing, and the kopis is much longer than the Greek short sword Xiphos(commonly used as a hoplites secondary weapon)
Xiphos(Courtesy zombie tools):

A Xiphos was commonly 50-60 cm (even as short as 30cm) where a Kopis was often as long as 65cm.

It is even suggested that this weapon style made it as far as Nepal when Alexander the Great's army made it into India and inspired the khukuri:

The Nepalese have made this blade style famous, but most people don't know about the history of ancient Iberia, pre-Roman times and the Falcata:

Scutarii named for their shield (the Scutum) put this blade to great use against one another, the Carthaginians and finally the Romans. The Romans had great trouble in subduing Spain and suffered multiple embarrassing defeats often to smaller armies. The Celt-Iberian's would also spawn another famous blade...

The Gladius:

“Who was the first that forged the deadly blade? Of rugged steel his savage soul was made.”
― Tibullus

This photos I was taken this summer in museum with findings from the ancient Macedonian city Pella . . .

Look at the shape of this knife , obviously nothing has changed after 2300 years I think I will make one like this . . .