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Yes! Unfortunately, it seems many of the contemporary reviewers I’m familiar with don’t care for them, and many replicas are just… shoddy. But, I love short swords, and a small, broad-bladed weapon can be a brilliant cut-and-thrust weapon by all accounts.
Speaking of replicas, I’m not sure it’s really possible to make a decent “economy” cinquedea, seeing as the fullers on almost all of the surviving examples you see are very crisp and often angular (something a low-cost sword cutler will not produce for an affordable price point). Furthermore, while it is likely there were cheap versions of the sword in their day, almost all of the surviving swords are very intricately etched and detailed. Both of those things make getting a reasonable representation of one very prohibitive.
…First thing that comes to mind is the “eket” of Lord of the Rings. If you ever tinker with The Last Days mod for Warband, Gondor has those things everywhere. 🙂
Well, tried editing the first post a time or two, and then the forums decided I could edit it no more. Looks like MyArmoury will NOT let you link images directly. Here, at least, is a non-picture link:
http://myarmoury.com/talk/files/2_total_628.jpg
Obviously, the attached is a historically-inspired piece rather than a historical one, as it is a training sword. However, I readily believe a combination of complex hollow-grinds and fullers could have existed on a similar historical weapon. There is an obvious aesthetic and functional appeal for such weapons, though they come at the price of… price! Not to mention durability and rigidity – it’s a false notion that the fuller confers strength – the fuller is a trade-off between strength and weight.
The tools were very neat to look at – sorry for the belayed response.
But, then – THE FULLERS! LOOK AT THE FULLERS!:!:!:
http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=132&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=1460
That’s freakin’ fantastic! I wish the articles covered more details on these subjects. Reminds me a lot of my thread on the old board, “Images of the Underworld.”
You know, that actually makes a lot of sense…
At first, I thought you may have just been referencing the more substantial guards on many sabres, but that is a feature of a given weapon, not upon the spectrum of curved swords as a whole…
…So, instead, what I would wager would be that due to the curvature, a little bit of wrist movement can result in a lot of displacement of the blade, if you will. As per actual torques and what have you, I suppose if we’re interested enough, we could try and get some numbers up and run them to see if a curved blade might have some sort of leverage advantage, or if there’s something else going on.
Going back to the wrist movement, a curved weapon covers an arcing pattern from the line of action of the hand, and therefore can kind of be in a lot of places at once. A straight weapon doesn’t do that nearly as much.
So, right on then! Not sure how much of that would stand up to rigorous scrutiny, but it does make sense to me at the moment – thanks!
I think all of the points I’ve seen you raise are valid and worth considering. I consider myself of the school of thought that all inputs are potential datapoints, and as such, they need to be contended with in a scientific manner.
…When I look at Tod, I see an excellent craftsman as well as someone who is also a scientist/engineer. That doesn’t mean he’s right. I think it’s great you mentioned the NOVA special – Ric was my teacher for a week, and I contend that he is the most brilliant man I’ve ever met. Note that a degree does not make one a scientist. Ric earned his mastery through his art, which is something I would wager the vast majority of “real scientists” cannot lay claim to. Even still, that does not mean Ric will hold everything you, and perhaps I, hold as newfound truth as such. Ric was not at all sold on Peter Johnsson’s geometric theories. I respect his opinion, and I am absolutely certain that not all weapons were designed in that manner. However, I also contend that I think geometric design is truly an excellent tool, and I am fascinated by the concept of someone using geometry to perform complex calculations… without ever needing to resort to equations. If you recall the write-up on my swordsmithing class, you’ve probably read my assessment on the matter yourself.
So, I would look at it this way: Tod is acting as an empirical scientist in this matter (and there is no shame in that). It’s a rough experiment, but enough to start forming opinions from. He uses what he knows how to make, and hopefully, he will be consistent enough with his testing to establish at least some relation between what he does and makes to form some type of rational conclusion. And, that conclusion is going to be limited to the parameters he and his equipment can adhere to. Thus, his conclusions will not be the final ones – you speak of science – one of the biggest problems we have today is that the layman and even other scientists take someone’s conclusions as fact. THAT is not science, that is religion. I have no problems with religion, either, but one should never confuse it with science.
For a disclaimer on our ancestors, I have noted to you several times before that my opinion has become that people have not changed much, only our understanding of things have changed. I have learned a LOT from you, and I have heard you make mention of how people in the past were a lot different from us in many regards. I disagree. I feel their understanding of things were different, and because our understanding of things have changed, we instead do not understand them. But, craftsmen were still craftsmen, politicians were still politicians, farmers and scientists and killers the same. Whatever people were doing back then clearly was effective for its time, but because that understanding has either been lost or has otherwise changed, we write them off, which is obviously farcical. Do I think modern steel is better? Yes, yes I do. But, people used what they had and they made it work the best it could. If there is any living evidence of this left in the world, it’s probably with the Japanese swordsmiths and practitioners. Although I’m not part of or really into that culture, why would one bother to make swords like that today, when modern materials are so much better? I think the answer is simply that the case in question is one where the optimum solution for a problem was solved within the limits of a given technology, and it has created a mythos all of its own. This is in part because it worked back then, and it still works today – the difference is that the understanding was not lost.
So, to conclude, I am going to be happy sitting back and waiting for the next run of tests, waiting for what reasonable data can be gathered, and understanding that it won’t be perfect or absolute, for nothing really is. If it was, we’d still be in the past, because the future would have no reason to happen.
🙂
Bit O/T, but because I’m not a sabre guy (though I do love Polish sabres!), but how is it that a curved blade in particular might offer a defensive advantage over a straight one? Just curious, here…
No, no! Don’t get me wrong, I was not suggesting they were merely up against unarmored rabble. Instead, yes, those polearms would have been the primary ant-armor tools they were using.
…I made the comment about sabres and curved swords as those are most often best suited to soft targets, whereas longswords, depending on the type, will often have a degree of anti-armor capacity, especially when in halfsword.
Here, I think Tod is demonstrating something about metal springs. I am an engineer, but not formally trained as a mechanical engineer. So, I do not know as much about metallurgy as I would like. However, I think the concept he is illustrating, as has also been discussed on MyArmoury, is that metal springs seem to have a limit to their velocity. Again, not as informed as I would like to be, but his test here seems to be leading up to this point. So, it will be interesting when he does a comparative analysis with a 1200lb crossbow – with a steel prod.
…The latter part is important. There might have been a trade-off for armies and soldiers for why they might want steel prods or composite prods. You might get faster velocities and thus longer ranges out of a composite prod, but you might have greater safety when using a steel prod. That greater safety is most certainly one of the reasons you do not see reproductions more like Bichler’s on the market, along with a heat treated piece of steel much more easily obtained these days as well.
Just saw this on MyArmoury, and it’s very relevant to arbalests:
…Might be worth chewing on for a while. We’ll have to wait for Tod’s next video on the matter for sure!
Not quite a weapon, but a tool:
…This is a neat channel, so far as I can tell. Danish ex-pat veteran who moved to Siberia. Here, he reviews a Siberian native-style axe, why it has the features it has, and what those features are and aren’t good for. It’s a classic study of how traditional tools almost perfectly merge the form factor of the blade with the ergonomics of the handle – something a lot of contemporary tools are severely lacking in. I think it’s relevant here, as I’m sure this style of axe was probably around in the medieval period as well.
Very interesting indeed. I am surprised at the number of sabres/falchions we see the knights armed with. They must have been up against lots of soft targets, or the illustrator just happened to hold curved weapons in preference.
…Obligatory curved swords! reference. :p
Well, to start, if you just want to make things easy, here is the old discussion:
…Without making things easy, one of the first things you can make note of about a bolt – almost any bolt, regardless of the style of crossbow – is that they are shorter than arrows in general. Some may state that this potentially makes them less aerodynamically efficient, which is a statement I’d need to analyze further, but it also makes them stronger, so long as the diameter of the missile meets or exceeds that of a comparative arrow. My first argument in this regard is going to be in regards to something called the Slenderness Ratio, which you can read about here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slenderness_ratio
Regarding actual numbers for strength, the article does mention the Modulus of Elasticity, which would be covered in a separate set of equations. We’re not there, so there is no need to worry about that just yet.
So, here we are so far: Other articles I refreshed my mind with used the Greek Lambda as the variable to denote the Slenderness Ratio. So we’ll go with that. Your equation so far is thus:
[Lambda] = l / k
Refer back to the article, and it tells you how to calculate k:
k = (I / A)^0.5,
…Or the square root of I / A. Note that I’ve re-written the article’s formula because I’m actually solving for k here, and not just writing an equation a certain way for convenience.
A is the cross-section area of the bolt shaft. Yes, I do believe some of those buggers taper, which would make computations a bit more complex, but we will worry about that later of the conversation ever gets to that place (I actually do need a refresher on some more complex calcs like that, to be honest). Area of a circle is pretty easy, of course:
A = [Pi] * [r^2]
…Where Pi ~ 3.14 and r is the radius (half the diameter) of the bolt shaft.
I is the Second Moment of Area of the shape in question, which is of course the circular cross-section of the bolt. Use Ix or Iy from the circle formula on this page here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_second_moments_of_area
In general, you use the second moment of area to evaluate how strong a structure is in relation to its cross-section in relation to a given direction. A circle is the same in all directions, and so that is why Ix and Iy are the same.
…So, you calculate all this stuff, kind of going in reverse-order from reading at this point. Eventually you can calculate that [Lambda] = l / k noted from earlier, etc., etc.
And what’s the point? Bolts will have a lower slenderness ratio than arrows, which makes them tougher given that both missiles are made of the same materials.
AND THEN, the final point is this: Why didn’t Europeans just make Chinese-style crossbows with wide, bow-like prods with long power-strokes? They could have. Maybe they wanted the bolts short and stocky explicitly for the purpose of dealing with increasingly heavy armor found on European battlefields…
Ahem – as an aside, if you want to get back into the medieval crossbow discussion, I’d be happy to re-hash some of our conversation from the old forum. I do think there are in fact a lot of merits to the narrow and short power stroke crossbows, though that does not make them the best. There are reasons for why you would want both Eastern and Western-style crossbows; neither is necessarily better in my (current) opinion.
Great insight, Jean.
I think that last idea floating around was based in part on the fact that Talhoffer was not listed in the “Society of Liechtenauer,” or what have you.
https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Fellowship_of_Liechtenauer
…Granted, in retrospect, considering anything along the likes of which I suggested earlier on such loose information is pretty weak. But, the concept that the various masters did not get along all that well is perfectly sensible!
