Leaf Blade vs Straight Blade

The leaf shape was ultimately left behind because it was easier to manufacture straight blades. The romans where all about mass production which is why the blades where designed to detach from the hilt by 3-5 rivets. This is easy when they are bronze and poured out in 10 blade rows. Thus choose a effective shape and go. However iron is not as forgiving when cast (it tends to develop too much carbon and become brittle) thus the departure to creating bars of iron then just cut out what you need, run it over a grinding stone to make sharp, and rivet in.
As for why i brought it up. Eh didn't look at the dates just saw that there was very little on the leaf blade but alot on the straight sword.
Most of my info is derived from research on alexander the great and research on hopolite soldiers as well as a look into roman foundry work.
The understanding of function came from actual use in live steel combat through the E.C.S.
None of this makes me a expert by any means as i hold no doctoral or masters on the subject.

Do you have a picture you could share of a gladius with this construction? I don't for the life of me remember them being built that way although there were certainly bronze age swords that had a riveted construction.
 
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