What is the difference between a sword and a short sword?

Yvsa

Yvsa

Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
15,395
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Sorry if this has been brought up before.

I don't know anything about swords or short swords or at least not enough to designate a difference let alone much else.

I feel the study of swords is much more information intensive than the study of knives as a whole generally speaking and don't even know if I am correct about that.
But I feel it's because the sword is totally weapon oriented while the knife is more utility oriented.(Am I wrong about that?)
I find the more I learn the less I know about any subject so.....

What distinguishes a short sword from a sword and why?

One reason I ask is that I have what I've been told is an Argentine Short Sword that was supposedly used by Tankers.
It is a "Modelo Argentino 1909."
And made by Weyersberg Kirschbaum & Co. Solingen.
And both the short sword and scabbard have matching serial numbers.
The guard isn't made to fit on a rifle like a bayonet. This is my favorite military blade of the very few I have.

Thanks for the help for the uneducated about swords.
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>>>>---Yvsa-G@WebTV.net---->®

"VEGETARIAN".............
Indin word for lousy hunter.
 
This is a slightly easier question than the Sword/Knife thing, though it is still difficult to answer as it cannot be broadly assumed very easily. In Japan, a short sword is less than 2 shaku, or approximately 2 feet in blade length. However, even here the line can be fuzzy (o-wakizashi for example).

On the other hand, "gladius" if I remember right just means "sword" without designating long, short, fat, happy, sad, or horny. But in many cases, we consider them "short swords" by virtue of their size alone. Operating by a "size" principle...22-24" of blade length seems to be relatively fair estimate for the boundary of the majority of blades I know of. But I don't know of all the types of swords out there, and cannot make sweeping statements that will encompass everything accurately.
 
:
LOL, I was wondering what kind of answer that might bring.
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I also should have noted that the blade length of the blade in question is 14 3/4" long and 1 5/16" wide and is 19 7/8" oal.
The spine is nicely rounded and is a spear point configuration, if any of that helps.

And perhaps these dimensions put it in the category of a long knife then?
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>>>>---Yvsa-G@WebTV.net---->®

"VEGETARIAN".............
Indin word for lousy hunter.
 
Yvsa,

To me a short sword is a compromised device intended to serve as both a weapon and a tool. Relatively speaking a sword is primarily a weapon and a knife is primarily a tool. Yes, you can use a knife as a weapon, and some knives are primarily designed with this in mind, but, if the knife can not function adquately as a tool then it has the makings of a poor knife.

So, if you can use the thing as both a weapon and a tool, then you have either a knife or a short sword.

N2S

 
Not2Sharp, a shortsword is NOT and NEVER was a tool. It is and was a weapon, pure and simple. I would hate to think of what would have happened to a Roman Legionary whose Centurion caught him digging or chopping brush with his gladius. He would have been justifiably excoriated and then beaten black and blue by the Centurion's vine-staff. If you use a weapon as a tool, it gets dulled and then is no good as a weapon. I suggest that you read some of Sal Glesser's very good comments on keeping a dedicated self-defense knife for just this reason, so it won't get dulled doing daily chores.

Yvsa, I would say that common usage would put a shortsword at anything between about 13" and 22"to 24" in blade length. Anything shorter would be a knife and anything longer would be a regular sword. Now, I have seem Bowie Knives with blades of 14" and more, but these are the exceptions that prove my rule, and the Spartans shrank their xiphos shortswords to ridiculous lengths, I've heard of blade lengths of 10" or so, but I understand that to have been a competitive macho sort of thing. The other Greek city-states and, perhaps more importantly, Macedonia of Phillip V and of Alexander the Great stayed with the more traditional xiphos length of 24" or thereabouts.

The usual point of a shortsword was to get inside of the range of your opponent's weapon, be it a spear, as in the case of the Greek hoplite, or a lonsword, as in the case of the Celt/German barbarians whom the Roman Legions fought so successfully with their gladii. It is most definitely a closs quarter combat weapon!

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Walk in the Light,
Hugh Fuller

[This message has been edited by FullerH (edited 02-21-2001).]
 
Ummm not to sound simplistic but a sword is well... long and a shortsword is um er... short. In relation to what you might ask? In relation to the user of course. Let's not over complicate things we don't have to people.
 
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Hugh,

With all due respect what would you call this thing? Most of us would call it a short sword. Sure looks like a tool to me; but, perhaps it was intended exclusively as a weapon, and the user simply used some now long forgotten martial arts trick to pin his opponent while he inflicted fatal damage with the sawback.
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I agree that within specific military organizations the use of edge weapons for utility role was frowned upon. The French retired their model 1878 bayonet and replaced it with the edgeless (cruciform) model 1886 bayonet after a senior general witnesses an infantry man using his bayonet to perform fieldcraft.

But there were other military organizations like artillery and pioneers that did issue short swords primarily for utility, but also as sidearms.

N2S

ps. BTW the ruler in the picture is 15.5 inches long.



[This message has been edited by not2sharp (edited 02-21-2001).]
 
Agreed Triton...

And FullerH: Tanto are short swords and can range from a nagasa of 6" to 12" in many cases. They are not knives. This is one kink where semantics come into play, and why it's sort of pointless to try making broad sweeping assumptions. This is also why I say these can be difficult questions, because most any solid "definition" can be challenged. They are almost trick questions in that respect.

But Triton's right...let's try not to add extra degrees of complexity concerning long and short.
 
Please forgive the below, it is childish and immature, it's also funny, so I can't help myself.


TOLD ya so!
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ROFL
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Tráceme no sin la razón, envoltura mi no sin honor
Usual Suspect
 
Not2Sharp, you can call a Lincoln Navigator and "Off-Road Vehicle" because it has all-wheel-drive, too. But I wouldn't advise taking it, or any of its luxo-SUV ilk into a true off-road situation, such as the deep Baja. The military of all nations have been justly accused over the years of foisting the most illegitimate junk upon the hapless GI Joe or Tommy Atkins in the name of "efficiency", and that monstrosity that you show is a prime example. It must be a sword that was issued to somebody's engineer battalions, because the saw teeth on the back of the blade are intended to be used in cutting brush and smallish trees. There was a fad of issuing saw-toothed bayonets to engineers for the same reasons. But it was discovered that the teeth impeded their effectiveness as weapons since they hung up on stabbing. During WWI, they were generally withdrawn after all sides started to complain that they were "inhumane"(!?!). I would expect that your sword would probably chop ok, but that it was never really intended as a weapon so much as it was intended as a machete/saw which is, indeed, a tool. Please also remember that a shovel can be, and frequently has been, used most effectively as a weapon in close quarters combat, especially if the edges are sharpened. But I seriously doubt that anyone other that some hype catalog selling the "Spetznaz Shovel" would ever try to call one a weapon.

Robert, "A rose by any other name is but a rose" would seem to appy here. I can see fudging on the upper end of the scale, but calling a 6" knife a sword? That seems a triunph of form over substance. As I said, there are Bowie Knives that would probably qualify as shortswords, and there are Tantos that would seem to be better off called knives, whatever the technical description might be. I will also note that I have never seen the term "Tanto" applied to anything but a knife, but, then, my interest and knowledge is more in European weaponry than Japanese, which is where your's is, so I guess that I will have to defer to you on the technical terminology.

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Walk in the Light,
Hugh Fuller

[This message has been edited by FullerH (edited 02-22-2001).]
 
FullerH: I had discussed this in short length in the sword/knife thread already. One thing is that people don't care enough to be more than ignorant of certain things. This isn't usually a bad flaw as it's common in just about everyone.

Most people don't give a damn what a real tanto looks like, or what it was historically. Many folks don't give a damn about how heavy a claymore really was, except when there are other people bent on "correcting" misinterpretations. Many folks who buy crap swords from BudK are satisfied that they have a real sword and it's what proper swords are like. They don't give a rat's ass enough to find out contrary.

And it's okay really...Not everyone has to be picky about technicalities and stuff in all areas. Luckily it keeps some really immature people out of the real picture.

I started a sword misinterpretations thread a while back so I could hear some of the quirks other people expressed. There are some things most people really don't know because they simply don't care enough to be well versed in a subject.

I'm sure you got some peeves too that you can't expect everyone to know.
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Addendum: Geez, maybe after a few shots of ice water I'll be a little more articulate.

[This message has been edited by Robert Marotz (edited 02-22-2001).]
 
Fuller,

On another recent thread I mentioned that I like to collect 19th century short swords precisely because there was such a variety of practical and impractical models. The sword pictured above is German probably dating to 1860-70s. It was not at all uncommon for units of all nations to be issued short swords like these.

The Austrian model 1853, the Argentinian model 1898 and 1909, the US model 1909, and 1005, the Belgium model 1868 Bayonet, The German model 98-05 bayonet(the subject of the WWI sawback issue), Spanish model 1848 artillery machete, and British Elcho Bayonet, and thousands of other lesser known patterns are all short swords, or short sword like, implements issued to serve as both tool and weapon.

The arguement probably ran something like this; we need to arm these troops and we need to provide them with a field tool, we cannot afford to buy and carry two different tools, therefore we combine the required aspects of both tools into one "monstrosity".
The arguement must have been successful at some level; although, I suspect the troops probably accidently left many of these behind when they went off to do battle. Whether practical, or impractical, the short sword as a tool was a reality and a common one.

N2S

 
N2S,
Something to expand on and further illustrate your point.

Back in the days of the USSR, the Soviet military doctrine was such that it was desireable for every soldier to carry with him a pair of wire cutters. Unfortunately, the soldiers themselves didn't see enough usefullness in wire cutters to justify carrying them so they were almost always left behind.

Some genius in Soviet Command realized that while soldiers almost never carried wire cutters, they ALWAYS carried knives, so they invented a pair of wire cutters that LOOKED like a very knife-like bayonet. No one ever stopped to notice that it was a crappy knife and a worse bayonet, but the WIRE cutter on it sure did work great, and the soldiers carried it willingly "knowing" that it was one more "weapon" at their disposal.

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Tráceme no sin la razón, envoltura mi no sin honor
Usual Suspect
 
N2S, just because some genius in the Ordnance Department or in the Quartermaster Department decided that it could do two or more things that usually conflict with one another does not mean that they were right. Just think, our Ordnance idiots refused to buy the excellent Lewis light machine gun during WWI, going so far as to take away the ones that the Marines had when they were sent to France, and issuing instead the French Chauchat, which every small arms expert that I have read has universally condemned as the worst light machine gun ever designed or made. There are any number of sarcastic songs from every nation concerning the rear echelon mind and how it dreams up useless ideas for the frontline soldier. I would posit that these engineer bayonets and shortswords, while technically both weapons and tool, I suppose, would fit the description, "Jack of All Trades and Master of None." I would go on to note that they were all pased out of use by the end of WWI.

Ken, have you ever met anyone who has tried to use that Soviet bayonet as a wire cutter. I have met such a person, and he had tried it out on a high tension line. The things are supposed to be insulated, but he was fortunate to have been wearing insulated gloves, because the electricity freid the bayonet sheath and the surface of the gloves. His comment to me was that he thought that it was some sort of a booby trap set by a double agent to hurt Soviet military preparedness! About the only thing in that line that I have ever heard about that the soldiers liked and appreciated was the device that the Israelis added to the bipod pivot on the Galil ARM that the grunts can use to open beer bottles. Previously, they had used the lips of the FN rifle magazines, causing jams at inappropriate moments.

Robert, I sorry if I came across as pissy, I didn't mean to do so. It's just that the thought of a 6" sword really blew my mind! I guess I will have to revise my statement to say that, in Western parlance, a shortsword has a blade of about 14' to 24". Is that better? I am not really qualified to speak for Eastern edged weaponry.

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Walk in the Light,
Hugh Fuller
 
FullerH,

If you want to really get excited about dumb ordinance folks you should look into the development of the US M1 Garand Rifle. The designer was a design engineer at the national armory at Springfield. He was denied funding for the project, but it was the late 1930s and it was becomming clear that a crisis was developing. So Garand developed the rifle and produced the prototypes on his own, on his own time, after hours when the plant had shut down.

The result was the best rifle of WWII, and an attempt by the ordanance board to fire Garand (after 20-30 years of service) for violating their instructions. Fortunately, someone reasonable manage to step in and stop the ordinance folks, before they could get rid of this very loyal and brilliant designer.

BTW, many of the famous 19th and 20th century arms were developed by US designers who were then frustrated enough by the US ordinance board to take their arms overseas; Even the mauser rifle was based on a US design concept, which the ordinance board had refused to accept.

Now, on the subject of swords, What are some examples of short swords that we should consider as pure and unambigous weapons?
 
Try any of the various Roman gladii, the Greek xiphos, or the Italian cinquedea to name three. Any of them could be used as a tool in a pinch, but their purpose was as a close quarters stabbing weapon. For pictures, try http://members.aol.com/gijchar/main.htm for the Greek and Roman items, just click on the appropriate points, and try http://www.lutel.cz/index2e.htm for the cinquedea, an Italian shortsword from the Renaissance. Go to the site, click on Catalog, click on Daggers, and then go to the bottom of the page. Lutel, the Czech maker classifies it as a dagger, but most Americans call it a shortsword as it has a blade of at least 16". This one os 44cm, which converts to 17+". In american usage, try the Heavy Artillery Shortsword, as copied from the French, and used at the time of the War Between the States. Again, it was intended as a weapon, although I suspect that most were used as kindling choppers. The nickname for the French version was "Cabbage Chopper" but in French, which I shan't attempt.

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Walk in the Light,
Hugh Fuller

[This message has been edited by FullerH (edited 02-23-2001).]
 
Ken Cook posted something about the length of blades in relation to the dimensions of the arm, and now I can't find it.
I will probably duplicate something here.

For purposes of my own I recently did a search of the bible for the shortest blade still referred to as a sword by the people of the times.
Two swords stood out.

The first, a sword carried under the clothes of Joab, and which he used to assassinate Amoz.
We don't know the exact dimensions of this blade except that Joab used it to disembowel Amoz while in an embrace, meaning at very close range.
This suggests more of what we would call a heavy dagger, and yet contemporary reporters called it a sword.

The second, a sword made and carried by Ehud, a Benjamite Judge (Chieftain), in order to assassinate Eglon, King of the Moabites.
We know more about this sword.
We know it measured one cubit in length, had two edges, and that he had to smuggle it past bodyguards under his clothing.

The cubit has two measures based upon the human body.
The less commonly used term, the gomed, equals three quarters of the traditional cubit.
The gomed derives from the distance between the inside of the elbow and the inside of the curled middle finger.
The gomed has meaning to the proportions of the bow and arrow as made for individual archers.
Today, it corresponds to the pull of a rifle, or the distance from trigger to butt plate.
The US Military considers 13.5" as the average pull, and that makes one gomed.

A sword of 13.5" total length hardly fits anyone's idea of a sword.
Nonetheless, I commissioned Gene Osborn to make such a sword for me, to my design.
We thought Ehud might have had to use his sword to defend himself, or fight past the bodyguards, and so it would need to have the balance and heft to not only hack but to parry a larger (obviously, not much larger) blade.
And so, we designed and made an uncommonly heavy dagger with a grip and blade geometry which makes it possible to easily chop down a small tree.

The other measurement, a true cubit of the times, equaled 18".
The definition of this cubit comes from the distance from the outside of the elbow, as rested on a table, to the tip of the outstretched middle finger.
This distance also exactly matches, in most people, the distance from the center of rotation of the hip to the center of rotation of the knee.
A weapon of this length strapped to the outside of the thigh would allow the bearer full flexure of both the hip and knee without "printing" through the clothes.

I have designed and made a weapon 18" in length which has sufficient weight and appropriate balance and geometry to both chop down a large tree and parry a large sword.
I would describe this blade as reminiscent of the Keltic leaf blades but with a little less fineness of point and more weight forward.
The grip definitely favors hacking over thrusting, but not to the detriment of thrusting, by creating a relationship between the middle and ring fingers, the wrist and the "sweet spot" of the blade similar to that of the ancient Kopis and the modern Smatchet.

One has every confidence with this blade of its ability to parry or block the blow of the largest of swords.
It lacks only reach.

I have taken the long way of getting to my real point:
A sword, as distinquished from a heavy dagger, has the proportions, by weight and dimension, to effectively parry a hacking or percussion weapon such as another sword, a battle axe or a mace.
That doesn't mean it has to parry well, or particularly effectively, only that it can if pressed to do so.

For example, the rapier can parry a larger, heavier sword, such as a saber; perhaps not as well as another saber, but it can do an adequate job while setting up the thrust for which its designers intended it.

As another example, the katana can surely parry any other sword carried on a daily basis.
I do not think the men who carried the katana meant it as a main battle sword or to parry a main battle sword.
Rather, I think they designed it for the lightning strike to flesh which would end a fight instantly.
Nonetheless, a katana will meet another sword edge to edge in the heat of combat, and one of the swords will survive (horrible thought).
I make this distinction between the katana and the main battle sword because I do not think a professional warrior would expose his finest sword to the damage of battle.
Rather, I think he would use a fully functional, heavier and less decorated sword in battle with the understanding that the sword had less value than his life; a value relationship not necessarily so with the katana.

Therefore, I think of a sword as a pointed and edged weapon which can thrust, slash (whack or hack) and parry, although not necessarily all three to equal extent.
A sword can favor one or two of these attributes over another, but it should retain the ability to do all three to some degree.
If not, it becomes something else, such as a machete, kukri or heavy dagger.

In response to the original topic, then, I say length.

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Luke 22:36, John 18:6-11, Freedom
If one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself.
 
Too bad James Mattis isn't around for this. I remember that he had made a knife/ shortsword to fit the Joab story, and was in the process of making swords/knives to fit the other Hebrew Scriptures stories. He had said that he was doing so to honor the heroes of his people, aand, I suspect, to undercut the hoplophobes among them. I loved his sense of humor and of honor and still miss him terribly.

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Walk in the Light,
Hugh Fuller
 
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