The problem isn’t with the science behind the modern engineering mind you, it’s that they tend to oversimplify the characteristics of pre-industrial artifacts and make a lot of assumptions about how thing like weapons work. Hence the myth of the ‘sharpened crowbar’ and the confident descriptions of medieval and early modern steel as inferior to modern even mild steel, which is ludicrous. It wasn’t until we had guys like Peter Johnsson taking a deep dive into how the blades were made that this (very confidently asserted) narrative began to unravel.