the wakizashi is the sword of the post post modern man >made for unarmored peasant slashing >intended for constrained environments >no goofy embellishments to get caught on everything
t. no sword
the w. is honestly a pretty terrible weapon, bad at cutting, bad at stabbing. It was a borderline ceremonial weapon, the only thing its good for is fighting indoors and it doesn't do that amazingly
Ok anon look at what everyone else is coming up with >cane sword, machete, spadroon
These are all shit. Any sword that needs to be handy in a pinch in an urban/enclosed situation will be a "bad" sword. That's why the wakizashi was carried paired. This means nothing if you're not facing good swords.
Seen many videos of urban monkeys getting in machete fights and struggling to land more than superficial blows because obstacles and fellow monkeys force them into awkward swinging arcs. You need cut and thrust to be roughly equally competent. The only other worthwhile sword I see so far is the gladius.
small sword via a fencing salle and foil you fat larping fuck
japs adopted western European swords for use when they were last relevant in the 19th century your opinion is discarded by the very Japanese you fetishize with your tojo era bullshit
A bayonet
fair
https://i.imgur.com/xJvO9Rp.jpg
Cane sword. You could plausibly walk around town with one without anybody realizing it.
fake and gay reproduction chinese/indian made shit
https://i.imgur.com/p0opkvl.jpg
The best sword for modern times would be the machete, actually. It has a single bladed edge, which is easy to maintain and enables half swording with bare hands. Nobody wears armor anymore, so slashing weapons can shine. Nobody else uses swords, either, so the lack of a crossguard is a plus.
wrong clumsy fool
https://i.imgur.com/7gh1YTl.jpg
Everyone itt is retarded. Picrel, best choice.
Great idea bozo, until you run out of gas, or get fucking stabbed because your slow ass logging tool is terrible for both reacting to attack and actually hitting fuckall that isn't a staggering slow zombie.
>japs adopted western European swords for use when they were last relevant in the 19th century
First of all Japan had a brief love affair with all things western in service of catching up technologically and then went right back. Second the topic was about looking at what would be most beneficial today. That has nothing to do with battlefield swords which is why I picked a sword that specifically existed outside the battlefield pretty much entirely.
small sword via a fencing salle and foil you fat larping fuck
japs adopted western European swords for use when they were last relevant in the 19th century your opinion is discarded by the very Japanese you fetishize with your tojo era bullshit
[...]
fair
[...]
fake and gay reproduction chinese/indian made shit
[...]
wrong clumsy fool
[...]
go away now
1. European longsword for primary fighting weapon
2. Katana for weeb primary fighting weapon
3. Rapier for aesthetic but equally cringe primary fighting weapon
4. Courtly small sword for every day carry
5. Spadroom for every day carry with British empire style superiority complex
6. Saber for most ideal in modernity
The best sword for modern times would be the machete, actually. It has a single bladed edge, which is easy to maintain and enables half swording with bare hands. Nobody wears armor anymore, so slashing weapons can shine. Nobody else uses swords, either, so the lack of a crossguard is a plus.
Good luck keeping your fingers stuck to your hands. Rapier or any basket hilt provides the most protection, and small swords are probably more convenient to use in urban encounters
No fucking way anon. The benefit of a machete is that you can claim it's a farming tool and not an offensive weapon when confronted by authority figures, that's it.
You ever seen any of the machete fights in Latin America or mainland China?
They're fucking brutal and dumb.
Generally nobody dies (at least immediately), they just hack and slash at each other until both fighters are covered with blood and maybe have lost tendons in their strong arms and can't hold their weapons any more, then everyone runs away, leaving pools and trails of blood.
Mostly they appear to last around 2-3 minutes, a lot of circling and back and forth swings that don't connect.
I've seen quite a number of them (Chinese triad fights are interesting because they're harder to find, given the firewall) and I always think if one person was there who had experience and an actual sword they'd fucking destroy.
Is it fair to say anybody that believes this has never actually used a machete for it's intended purpose? A machete is a farming tool that CAN be used as a deadly weapon, but if you compare it to any purpose-built sword it's almost completely deficient.
Great idea bozo, until you run out of gas, or get fucking stabbed because your slow ass logging tool is terrible for both reacting to attack and actually hitting fuckall that isn't a staggering slow zombie.
That's wrong, though. The best option was presented here
https://i.imgur.com/p0opkvl.jpg
The best sword for modern times would be the machete, actually. It has a single bladed edge, which is easy to maintain and enables half swording with bare hands. Nobody wears armor anymore, so slashing weapons can shine. Nobody else uses swords, either, so the lack of a crossguard is a plus.
The rapier was the last serious killing sword. Heavy and broad enough to do cuts (in some, not all forms) excellent reach and point of balance suited to thrust-centric fighting, fantastic hand protection. The only serious competition here are sabers.
"Depends", on basically everything. Any specific answer is just fanboyism, but perhaps that''s what you're actually after?
Even the smallsword was expected to handle actual self defence. Rapiers were brought to war by kings and grunts alike.
For the modern age? Rapier without the hilt, "blade" made out of extruded carbon fiber, handle with added tungsten weights to shift balance into your hand. Fighting style - keeping distance while poking holes, blade is always moving to confuse the opponent, no slashing blows.
How is that specifically a rapier as opposed to a generic/new type of thrusting sword?
>How is that specifically a rapier as opposed to a generic/new type of thrusting sword?
It's not a rapier of course, but it should make it easier to imagine what I have in mind - a thrusting sword with a long, narrow blade.
good luck fighting more than one opponent who agreeably stays within the competition lines.
the threat of a slash allows to you defend a wide arc to your front and sides, thrust only means you will lose to a man with a bit a of sense and a heavy stick, because he will simply sidestep you, parry a thrust get inside your guard and club you senseless because he can swing for effect and you cannot.
You never design a weapon for an assumed single situation and certainly not a sidearm.
[...]
something like this is probably the best answer, for a bladed melee weapon that isn't a hatchet or e-tool. Crossguard is still desirable because while sword are uncommon if you plan to use one in melee then you will be in melee and protecting you hands from hatchet, clubs, knives rocks or other improvised melee weapons is a plus and the middle length blade/hand and a half grip makes iis a very versatile weapon.
Being aesthetic as fuck is just a bonus.
If he can "simply" sidestep me and get inside my guard, I can "simply" dodge his club and go for another thrust, because my sword is much more maneuverable than his club. Anyway, the main ideas are:
- center of mass is right in the handle
- extremely light weight
- extremely rigid blade
- has at least some edge to discourage grabbing
It makes maneuvering the sword as effortless as moving your hand. It's surreal compared to any traditional sword, feels more like a foil, but with a rigid blade.
I have an unsharpened prototype I fuck around with in my backyard. Couldn't find a longer piece of carbon, this one is 1m long.
The rapier was the last serious killing sword. Heavy and broad enough to do cuts (in some, not all forms) excellent reach and point of balance suited to thrust-centric fighting, fantastic hand protection. The only serious competition here are sabers.
It’s also important to remember that swords with heavier blades that were pretty much arming sword blades with the same hilt preceded and were still in use at the same time as rapiers and everyone knows them as side swords
I'd consider the "sidesword" at best a subgroup of rapiers. Splitting them off on their own based on weight has much the same issues as splitting off "war rapiers" based on width above; there doesn't seem to be any natural place to put the border between rapiers and side-swords. Pic related, all the rapiers the Wallace collection had on their website (each dot is one specific sword) when I scraped it for data, minus the one with a built in pistol and any 19th century replicas. It isn't exactly dividing itself into two separate groups. People also often divide sideswords and rapiers not based on weight, but on width, which makes for a wonderful collision when we look at specimen like the Wallace collection's A574 https://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org:443/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=61067&viewType=detailView
It seems the sidesword thing would at best have come about by taking the Italian "spada di lato", translating that, and then using it as a specific term for a style of sword/rapier popular in Italy at the time that the phrase was in use. (Using local terms for local forms of weapons, like dao or messer, is a well established practice.)
But in this case the term has swollen to cover all heavy (or, more commonly, wide) rapiers, seemingly for little purpose but to preserve the idea of the very narrow/light/civilian rapier from historical artefacts that don't want to comply.
>I'd consider the "sidesword" at best a subgroup of rapiers. Splitting them off on their own based on weight has much the same issues as splitting off "war rapiers" based on width above; there doesn't seem to be any natural place to put the border between rapiers and side-swords.
Are you serious you know most if not all side swords and pretty much all the swords I mentioned are always shorter and more cut centric than rapiers and which makes them fall in the same category as arming swords in fact they literally started as just medieval swords with a ring or bars above the finger guard and as I mentioned earlier about cutting capacity just look at the blades of the picture of the sword above and look at the blade and compare it to an average rapier but the point that I am making is a side sword is just and arming sword or an evolved form of there of
Rapiers were heavy swords. I'm unsure where the incorrect meme that they were light and flimsy comes from. Theater and film, perhaps. Or that crippled, inbred sport they call fnncing now.
Untrue. The rapier began to give way to the colichemarde in the the 17th century. This sword type was itself later superseded by the small sword which was later superseded by the épée.
[...]
Untrue. War rapiers existed but were primarily civilian weapons.
By 'serious' I mean 'refined on earlier ideas.' The swords that followed on the rapier were compromises for weight and clumsiness and you'd have to be a very bad rapierist to be outmatched by a smallsword user.
>The rapier was the last serious killing sword.
The fuck are you talking about? Pic related. Sabers we’re used for hundreds of years after rapiers fell out of fashion.
Longswords would destroy rapiers. The rapier was purely a dueling sword for wealthy people.
Why do people with no knowledge about swords or their use feel the need to comment on shit they know nothing about?
>The fuck are you talking about? Pic related. Sabers we’re used for hundreds of years after rapiers fell out of fashion.
on horses triblade smallsword was the endpoint of widely utilised sword evolution
The movable diamond shaped iron studs decorating the hilt were made in Woodstock, near Oxford (UK). These studs were made from imported Swedish horse shoenails which were transverted into these beads. They became so popular that in 1742 this Woodstock work was introduced to the British Consul in Florence to be given as diplomatic gifts. A similar example is in the Victoria & Albert museum and the Metropolitan NY.
By the early seventeenth century, the rapier, a long slender thrusting sword, began to dominate as the gentleman’s weapon of choice. During the course of the century, however, as civilian fencing techniques became more specialized and refined, the rapier developed into a lighter, trimmed-down weapon known by about 1700 as the smallsword. Smallswords, often richly decorated, remained an integral part of a gentleman’s wardrobe until the wearing of swords in civilian settings went out of fashion at the end of the eighteenth century, at which time pistols were replacing swords as arms most frequently used in personal duels. The majority of smallsword hilts are made of silver or steel, but many also employ a wide variety of luxurious materials, such as gold, porcelain, and enamel. At their best, smallswords combine the crafts of swordsmith, cutler, and israeliteeler to create an elegant weapon that was also a wearable work of art.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/26748
Well museums and serious dealers make for better information sources than the random spewing of some tard making a thing in his yard
https://i.imgur.com/z9GZEYJ.jpg
>How is that specifically a rapier as opposed to a generic/new type of thrusting sword?
It's not a rapier of course, but it should make it easier to imagine what I have in mind - a thrusting sword with a long, narrow blade.
[...]
If he can "simply" sidestep me and get inside my guard, I can "simply" dodge his club and go for another thrust, because my sword is much more maneuverable than his club. Anyway, the main ideas are:
- center of mass is right in the handle
- extremely light weight
- extremely rigid blade
- has at least some edge to discourage grabbing
It makes maneuvering the sword as effortless as moving your hand. It's surreal compared to any traditional sword, feels more like a foil, but with a rigid blade.
I have an unsharpened prototype I fuck around with in my backyard. Couldn't find a longer piece of carbon, this one is 1m long.
Not to mention it saves you the effort of learning, phrasing, and selecting information relevant to the context.
Students. Students never change.
>The rapier began to give way to the colichemarde in the the 17th century.
because a rapier was big and heavy and people weren't dueling much anymore. Rapier is the last word in unarmored duels, excluding polearms and other massive weapons
Proper duelling was rather on the way in during the 17th century. Prior to that the power of the nobles was usually strong enough, and the state weak enough, that they could simply go straight to private wars instead.
https://i.imgur.com/z9GZEYJ.jpg
>How is that specifically a rapier as opposed to a generic/new type of thrusting sword?
It's not a rapier of course, but it should make it easier to imagine what I have in mind - a thrusting sword with a long, narrow blade.
[...]
If he can "simply" sidestep me and get inside my guard, I can "simply" dodge his club and go for another thrust, because my sword is much more maneuverable than his club. Anyway, the main ideas are:
- center of mass is right in the handle
- extremely light weight
- extremely rigid blade
- has at least some edge to discourage grabbing
It makes maneuvering the sword as effortless as moving your hand. It's surreal compared to any traditional sword, feels more like a foil, but with a rigid blade.
I have an unsharpened prototype I fuck around with in my backyard. Couldn't find a longer piece of carbon, this one is 1m long.
>- center of mass is right in the handle
Maybe something for a modern foil fencer, dunno where those balance really, but it certainly isn't where historical rapiers had their centre of mass. I guess if you don't foresee any kind of weapon-to-weapon interaction blade authority isn't really needed, but even so I wonder if a bit better tracking might not be good for actually poking into someone as opposed to the sport fencers poking at someone.
>So by your standards what I wrote is true
No, because as you saw above, the raiper became the smallsword.
>Hurrr what's a war raiper
It's a raiper with a wider blade. King Adolphus II used one.
While the rapier is an important part of the smallsword's ancestry, the smallsword is not just some sub-category of the rapier. Thus it's basically irrelevant here when we discus the use of the rapier, just as how your school grades aren't terrible relevant to the question of how your grandfather fared in school, and just like the weapons of the 23rd century doesn't tell us much about what an assault rifle is today.
>It's a raiper with a wider blade. King Adolphus II used one.
Right. Around what width/proportions exactly do we draw this line? What data do you have to show that there's at leats one cluster of rapiers on each side, but relatively few just around this boundary? What data do you have to show that the clusters on the wider side were primarily used by military, and those on the narrow side were for civilians? Sad to say, I'm expecting nothing of substance here.
As for Gustav II Adolf (cake on Monday), well, here's his favourite daily carry rapier, with a 35mm wide blade. The rapier in the post you replied to on the other hand is the one he carried into battle at Lützen, it has a 28mm wide blade.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Stick to photographing museums. Some of us own these pieces and provide the collections your photograph.
1 month ago
KM
Gone and bought the MET have we? That must have cost a pretty penny.
Now there's nothing wrong with posting pictures of swords, nor in letting the museums explain them. But don't inject it into a discussion like that. Quotation marks or a > is also a good idea, it's hard to be too clear about what's your words and what's a quote.
1 month ago
Anonymous
You've always been a pretentious worthless little prick anon although at least *your* photographs from museums are fine even if you take exception to better ones and I've done more with museums like the met than you could possibly imagine. Stick to making farting sounds on youtube and remembers some people were collecting swords before you were born.
1 month ago
Anonymous
You've always been a pretentious worthless little prick anon although at least *your* photographs from museums are fine even if you take exception to better ones and I've done more with museums like the met than you could possibly imagine. Stick to making farting sounds on youtube and remembers some people were collecting swords before you were born.
this is the most pathetic slap fight on this board
Sorry but there's just nothing a rapier could do against a longer sword, like a longsword. The rapier was a thrusting sword and relied on ranging. Since the longsword was two handed, all of its actions were far more powerful than what a rapier could accomplish. The rapier will lose any and all clashes, binds etc. Attempts to parry swings will result in the rapier being swatted aside. There's no contest.
Rapiers are much longer than a longsword and they worked so well essentially every other kind of sword except the saber and cutlass disappeared forever
Longswords are 140cm, while rapiers are 104cm. The rapier was only ever a sidearm or duelling weapon.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Longsword's grip gives it shorter effective reach. You need to go to actual greatswords to be correct. Again, rapiers were uses in war - this is indisputable - and shorter cousins that favored more cutting were even more common in that role.
Sorry but there's just nothing a rapier could do against a longer sword, like a longsword. The rapier was a thrusting sword and relied on ranging. Since the longsword was two handed, all of its actions were far more powerful than what a rapier could accomplish. The rapier will lose any and all clashes, binds etc. Attempts to parry swings will result in the rapier being swatted aside. There's no contest.
This is simply nonsense. You won't 'simply swat aside' a sword with vastly superior point agility. You are not unpalatable, they're parrying your point, they have mechanical advantage. I'd really like to know how you expect to bind a more nimble dueling sword, especially since the rapierist has a free hand and likely recourse to a buckler or dagger to give them more defensive options than the longsword user.
No, rapiers were light and thin, essentially being sharpened rods. You're thinking of the estoc.
You are incorrect. Lightness is not a feature of rapiers compared to other contemporary one-handed swords. Rapiers have thin blades not to save weight but due to improved metallurgy, metalworking, and an emphasis on an agile point. Light weight is a feature of smallswords.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Unparryable, autocorrect is a plague.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I don't think you've ever actually seen a rapier. You seem to have them confused with other swords, like the estoc. A real rapier is always outmatched by a real longsword. Also you're drinking crazy juice if you think 2 handing a weapon means losing the advantage of a 40cm longer blade.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>two retards flailing at each other with zero technique
LMAO
>A real rapier is always outmatched by a real longsword.
Exact opposite is true in a 1v1 situation. Rapier has superior reach, agility and stabbing ability.
1 month ago
Anonymous
In 1v1 the longsword definitely wins. Rapier has inferior reach and longswords are able to do everything better than them, from swings to stabs.
1 month ago
Anonymous
rapiers have better reach than longswords what are you on about
1 month ago
Anonymous
unarmored combat rapier owns, armored combat longsword owns, simple as
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Also you're drinking crazy juice if you think 2 handing a weapon means losing the advantage of a 40cm longer blade.
By your own fucking numbers (140cm longsword, 106cm rapier) the longsword would need a hilt 4cm SHORTER than the rapier for that to be the case.
1 month ago
Anonymous
You are on crack. Longsword blades are 30-34inches and rapiers seldom less than 41. Long swords have longer hilts for two handed use but are outmatched in every way by the rapier, like I said, outside of military and naval uses every other kind of sword was inferior
1 month ago
KM
140cm is a decidedly long longsword.
As for rapiers, some years ago I wrote down the length and blade length of all rapiers on The Wallace Collection's website that had these listed. In that dataset the average blade length is 109cm and the average total length 116cm.
I'll also repeat what another anon pointed out: for equal blade lengths single handed use gives you greater range
>The rapier was only ever a sidearm
Trying to diminish something by calling it a sidearm completely misunderstand the role sidearms had (have?) People carried their sidearms because they were useful, and they knew the performance of their sidearms may be a matter of life and death. Whatever primary weapon you carry would likely not be useful in every situation (for example a lance or a pike when the fight gets too crowded) and it certainly wasn't indestructible. And no matter why your primary weapon has been foiled, when that happens it's up to your sidearm to keep you alive.
No, rapiers were light and thin, essentially being sharpened rods. You're thinking of the estoc.
The average rapier in the Wallace collection (based on those on its website when I checked) comes out to 1.225 kg, that's not a light one-hander. The heaviest is a massive 1.87kg beast. Funnily enough that one is pretty thin in profile, pic related.
Longsword's grip gives it shorter effective reach. You need to go to actual greatswords to be correct. Again, rapiers were uses in war - this is indisputable - and shorter cousins that favored more cutting were even more common in that role.
[...]
This is simply nonsense. You won't 'simply swat aside' a sword with vastly superior point agility. You are not unpalatable, they're parrying your point, they have mechanical advantage. I'd really like to know how you expect to bind a more nimble dueling sword, especially since the rapierist has a free hand and likely recourse to a buckler or dagger to give them more defensive options than the longsword user.
[...]
You are incorrect. Lightness is not a feature of rapiers compared to other contemporary one-handed swords. Rapiers have thin blades not to save weight but due to improved metallurgy, metalworking, and an emphasis on an agile point. Light weight is a feature of smallswords.
>Rapiers have thin blades not to save weight but due to improved metallurgy, metalworking
I have my doubts. As the weight makes clear the narrow blade is usually compensated for by the blade being thicker flat-to-flat. With the smallest dimension (width or thickness) generally being the limiting factor for strength and resilience this should make the narrow and thick blade less demanding of the smith than the wide and flat one. Going by Alan Willliams we don't really see any major improvement in the metallurgy here either, past the late 15th century the metal in the swords is largely final, and the manufacturing changes are mostly just about rationalization.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>the narrow and thick blade less demanding of the smith than the wide and flat one
This is why the eventual form of the rapier as it became ever more clear that penetration was the overriding factor in winning swords became rhomboid, and in the colichemard, triangular in cross section, it is the strongest shape for the slenderest, longest blade
Untrue. The rapier began to give way to the colichemarde in the the 17th century. This sword type was itself later superseded by the small sword which was later superseded by the épée.
https://i.imgur.com/iUPLTS1.jpg
"Depends", on basically everything. Any specific answer is just fanboyism, but perhaps that''s what you're actually after?
Even the smallsword was expected to handle actual self defence. Rapiers were brought to war by kings and grunts alike.
[...]
How is that specifically a rapier as opposed to a generic/new type of thrusting sword?
Untrue. War rapiers existed but were primarily civilian weapons.
>The rapier began to give way to the colichemarde in the the 17th century.
because a rapier was big and heavy and people weren't dueling much anymore. Rapier is the last word in unarmored duels, excluding polearms and other massive weapons
>War rapiers existed
So by your standards what I wrote is true, and "The rapier was purely a dueling sword for wealthy people." isn't.
That said, the idea that we have some special "war rapier" distinct from those used in civilian circles is one that pops up every now and then. Unfortunately the people claiming such never seem able to show that we actually have two (somewhat) distinct groups of swords instead of simply one large continuos group. Instead we're left with the rapier family chopped apart at some largely arbitrary (and very poorly defined) point based not on anything we know of historical sword use or so but rather just on people's desire to be able to say "the rapier was a purely civilian weapon".
thanks. what differentiates them from smallswords and foils? cross section or weight? when i try to search for this information i always get fencing results and not historical combat/dueling/whatever answers.
A foil first and foremost has had the tip rendered (more or less) harmless, it's offensive capability has been foiled and thus the name. This could be a permanent affair (fold the tip or beat into into something like a nail's head) or temporary by putting something over the sharp tip that would hopefully not fall off at the wrong moment. I think both smallswords and epée were foiled (and strictly speaking the practice itself goes back to training rapiers and longsword "feders" etc), but I don't know how the foil diverged away from a foiled epée into being its own thing in modern fencing. Perhaps a matter of sporterisation and standardised rules for foil fencing while the epée was still "in the wild"?
As for epée vs smallsword I'm not very well versed in that either to be quite honest. The former seem to at least tend towards simpler hilts (knucklebows and quillions are rare) and longer grips. Though the two are very closely related, perhaps to the point where an older decorative style might render some fence-straddler a smallsword and a relatively(...) modern one might turn the same sword into an epée. (There could perhaps also be some leakage between the term from people seeing something labelled epée and thinking that's what specific sword it is, when in reality it was simply labelled in French.)
Pictured are a few archetypical smallswords at least. Knuckle bows, a significant quillion block between grip and disc guard, rear quillion, and arms curving up from the quillion block to the disc guard.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I feel like such a fucking idiot for having never worked out why a foil is a foil. Its so obvious now its been said.
The bivalve disc shape is common with smallswords too, and originates in European sword hilts first getting side rings, then filling said side rings with plates, and finally the whole affair merging into a single plate.
Though taking it as a reference to how flat you're about to stomp your opponents balls seems like it'd work nicely too.
I feel like such a fucking idiot for having never worked out why a foil is a foil. Its so obvious now its been said.
Yeah, it's one of those things. At leats it's easy to remember once you've heard about it.
For the modern age? Rapier without the hilt, "blade" made out of extruded carbon fiber, handle with added tungsten weights to shift balance into your hand. Fighting style - keeping distance while poking holes, blade is always moving to confuse the opponent, no slashing blows.
good luck fighting more than one opponent who agreeably stays within the competition lines.
the threat of a slash allows to you defend a wide arc to your front and sides, thrust only means you will lose to a man with a bit a of sense and a heavy stick, because he will simply sidestep you, parry a thrust get inside your guard and club you senseless because he can swing for effect and you cannot.
You never design a weapon for an assumed single situation and certainly not a sidearm.
https://i.imgur.com/ujtSCKG.jpg
IDK about 'best', but I've made my choice. >5k$ to get one made
I weep
something like this is probably the best answer, for a bladed melee weapon that isn't a hatchet or e-tool. Crossguard is still desirable because while sword are uncommon if you plan to use one in melee then you will be in melee and protecting you hands from hatchet, clubs, knives rocks or other improvised melee weapons is a plus and the middle length blade/hand and a half grip makes iis a very versatile weapon.
Being aesthetic as fuck is just a bonus.
This literally has no point without something affixed to the end. Probably some sort of hardened impact tool steel. Which makes it some sort of short spear. And you can get rid of the hilt because the ability to quickly adjust your grip outweighs a nonexistent need to protect against other swords, and carbon fiber sucks at taking an edge so there's no reason not to grab the 'blade'
The rapier of the 21st century is an African fighting spear made out of carbon fiber
>do you ride a horse too?
I would, were I not a layabout (in general le salle's sense) >The fake and gay reproductions of 1796s are offensively overbuild and cumbersome
The fear of this is what keeps me from actually buying one. Have you recommendations to go with your strong opinion?
buy a real one preferably a good blue and gilt officers one, don't fuck around get the best you can, the majority of cheaper genuine ones are troopers and tend to also be a touch cumbersome (but nothing like as bad as the reproductions). There are a limited number of makers, some of which are faked using crap reproductions but names like JJ Runkel (a German imported blade used by many good cutlers ) , Osborne, Reeves, Gill, Wooley. Decon, Harvey etc. They are a weapon for use primarily on horse (as is the 1803 flank officers really)
There's a good set of measurements of the Cold Steel replica and an antique one if you scroll down a bit here: https://www.swordforum.com/vb4/showthread.php?60374-A-tale-of-two-sabres-Osborn-amp-Gunby-vs-Cold-Steel/page2
The measurements of the antique can then be compared with any other modern replica as well. The main thing Cold Steel cheats with here is having a thinner maximum thickness and a thicker minimum thickness. This gets the total mass and centre of mass sorta right, but shifts that mass from the middle and towards the ends. So beware of that in other replicas as well if you end up looking for such. Odds are none will be all too close, so an antique is your only safe bet for getting something that moves right, but for cutting practice or other such rough handling I think a replica would be for the best. So the two complement each other.
Poor pic, but here's the designers own 1796LC.
The smallsword was the typical civilian sidearm worn in Europe from about 1650 to 1800. It was both a deadly weapon and a stylish costume accessory for the fashionable gentleman. The materials of smallsword hilts vary considerably, according to the wealth and taste of their owner. In England, silver was the preferred medium, and the custom of hallmarking silver with date-letters provides the opportunity to document changing forms and ornament. English smallswords served as models for Colonial American silversmiths.
Anything in the falchion /dao / cutlass/ messer category because were pretty much babbie’s first sword since they were very easy to use and handled like a large knife
Now there's a smart sounding statement that actually says fuck all. Even if you were familiar with how 35 inch knives handle (you're not) the reader is almost certainly not, so it doesn't help him any.
HEMA dork here. Weapon range is really the most important factor.
So if you want to get really good with a melee weapon with minimal training, go with a spear or pike. After just a few days of training with a spear, you're more quite likely to beat a swordsman with several years of training. (Most samurai actually fought with spears, not swords, and in Europe pike formations were difficult to counter.) However, spears are obviously not very portable.
In terms of swords only, a rapier will usually beat a longsword or broadsword when matched against people with equivalent skill. Again, it's due to the weapon range. You will have a tough time winning a fight with a longsword against a rapier. (The smallsword is basically a lighter rapier, meant as a civilian weapon for dueling and passable self defense. Same with the foil and epee. If you intend to kill and use it for defense, just use a rapier. If it's for dueling / sport / portability, then use one of those dueling weapons.)
>Most samurai actually fought with spears, not swords
Ah yes, the "I have no clue about Japan's martial history Starter Kit".
I'm not well versed in Japanese history, but weren't the samurai mainly trained for mounted archery before a boat with guns washed up on their shores? They did train with and use other weapons.
The razor blade to shave your neckbeard off.
Came here to say this
Minus the neckbeard, add OPs wrists
Nice.
the Tekkaman one
the wakizashi is the sword of the post post modern man
>made for unarmored peasant slashing
>intended for constrained environments
>no goofy embellishments to get caught on everything
t. no sword
the w. is honestly a pretty terrible weapon, bad at cutting, bad at stabbing. It was a borderline ceremonial weapon, the only thing its good for is fighting indoors and it doesn't do that amazingly
Ok anon look at what everyone else is coming up with
>cane sword, machete, spadroon
These are all shit. Any sword that needs to be handy in a pinch in an urban/enclosed situation will be a "bad" sword. That's why the wakizashi was carried paired. This means nothing if you're not facing good swords.
Machete is a good choice.
Seen many videos of urban monkeys getting in machete fights and struggling to land more than superficial blows because obstacles and fellow monkeys force them into awkward swinging arcs. You need cut and thrust to be roughly equally competent. The only other worthwhile sword I see so far is the gladius.
>Seen many videos of urban monkeys getting in machete fights
Where?
Idk probably the UK mostly
Pretty sure a sabre is superior if the fighter has any real skill, machete is more of an improvised weapon
small sword via a fencing salle and foil you fat larping fuck
japs adopted western European swords for use when they were last relevant in the 19th century your opinion is discarded by the very Japanese you fetishize with your tojo era bullshit
fair
fake and gay reproduction chinese/indian made shit
wrong clumsy fool
go away now
>go away now
What, you think you're the Critical Drinker or something?
>japs adopted western European swords for use when they were last relevant in the 19th century
First of all Japan had a brief love affair with all things western in service of catching up technologically and then went right back. Second the topic was about looking at what would be most beneficial today. That has nothing to do with battlefield swords which is why I picked a sword that specifically existed outside the battlefield pretty much entirely.
Japanese people mounted mass produced blades in sabre hilts for all of, what, 50 years? They stopped in 1934.
>foil
>not being a saber chad
Ngmi
The most practical thing you could do is get a good hunting knife and learn how to properly skin+gut wildlife.
Anything else is pointless LARP
A bayonet
Any polearm because swords are overrated
I recommend Blade: Trinity.
The one you like. If there's no passion you aren't getting anywhere.
Why, the samurai sword of course.
Cane sword. You could plausibly walk around town with one without anybody realizing it.
>fake and gay
I have a real one
1. European longsword for primary fighting weapon
2. Katana for weeb primary fighting weapon
3. Rapier for aesthetic but equally cringe primary fighting weapon
4. Courtly small sword for every day carry
5. Spadroom for every day carry with British empire style superiority complex
6. Saber for most ideal in modernity
The best sword for modern times would be the machete, actually. It has a single bladed edge, which is easy to maintain and enables half swording with bare hands. Nobody wears armor anymore, so slashing weapons can shine. Nobody else uses swords, either, so the lack of a crossguard is a plus.
Good luck keeping your fingers stuck to your hands. Rapier or any basket hilt provides the most protection, and small swords are probably more convenient to use in urban encounters
Nobody uses swords in the modern day. Bladed SHTF weapons should not have any kind of hand guard, because that's just dead weight.
>no one wears armor
>no one will adapt
It might work for a few weeks but eventually people will challenge any meta.
No fucking way anon. The benefit of a machete is that you can claim it's a farming tool and not an offensive weapon when confronted by authority figures, that's it.
You ever seen any of the machete fights in Latin America or mainland China?
They're fucking brutal and dumb.
Generally nobody dies (at least immediately), they just hack and slash at each other until both fighters are covered with blood and maybe have lost tendons in their strong arms and can't hold their weapons any more, then everyone runs away, leaving pools and trails of blood.
Mostly they appear to last around 2-3 minutes, a lot of circling and back and forth swings that don't connect.
I've seen quite a number of them (Chinese triad fights are interesting because they're harder to find, given the firewall) and I always think if one person was there who had experience and an actual sword they'd fucking destroy.
Is it fair to say anybody that believes this has never actually used a machete for it's intended purpose? A machete is a farming tool that CAN be used as a deadly weapon, but if you compare it to any purpose-built sword it's almost completely deficient.
zweihander
A gas powered chainsaw. Not only can it beat anything else ITT, it's actually useful in a post apocalyptic society.
Everyone itt is retarded. Picrel, best choice.
Great idea bozo, until you run out of gas, or get fucking stabbed because your slow ass logging tool is terrible for both reacting to attack and actually hitting fuckall that isn't a staggering slow zombie.
That's wrong, though. The best option was presented here
.
Chainsaws get jammed up pretty easily from clothing and hair.
>unironically study the blade
Elaborate
The rapier was the last serious killing sword. Heavy and broad enough to do cuts (in some, not all forms) excellent reach and point of balance suited to thrust-centric fighting, fantastic hand protection. The only serious competition here are sabers.
Longswords would destroy rapiers. The rapier was purely a dueling sword for wealthy people.
"Depends", on basically everything. Any specific answer is just fanboyism, but perhaps that''s what you're actually after?
Even the smallsword was expected to handle actual self defence. Rapiers were brought to war by kings and grunts alike.
How is that specifically a rapier as opposed to a generic/new type of thrusting sword?
>How is that specifically a rapier as opposed to a generic/new type of thrusting sword?
It's not a rapier of course, but it should make it easier to imagine what I have in mind - a thrusting sword with a long, narrow blade.
If he can "simply" sidestep me and get inside my guard, I can "simply" dodge his club and go for another thrust, because my sword is much more maneuverable than his club. Anyway, the main ideas are:
- center of mass is right in the handle
- extremely light weight
- extremely rigid blade
- has at least some edge to discourage grabbing
It makes maneuvering the sword as effortless as moving your hand. It's surreal compared to any traditional sword, feels more like a foil, but with a rigid blade.
I have an unsharpened prototype I fuck around with in my backyard. Couldn't find a longer piece of carbon, this one is 1m long.
It’s also important to remember that swords with heavier blades that were pretty much arming sword blades with the same hilt preceded and were still in use at the same time as rapiers and everyone knows them as side swords
I'd consider the "sidesword" at best a subgroup of rapiers. Splitting them off on their own based on weight has much the same issues as splitting off "war rapiers" based on width above; there doesn't seem to be any natural place to put the border between rapiers and side-swords. Pic related, all the rapiers the Wallace collection had on their website (each dot is one specific sword) when I scraped it for data, minus the one with a built in pistol and any 19th century replicas. It isn't exactly dividing itself into two separate groups. People also often divide sideswords and rapiers not based on weight, but on width, which makes for a wonderful collision when we look at specimen like the Wallace collection's A574 https://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org:443/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=61067&viewType=detailView
It seems the sidesword thing would at best have come about by taking the Italian "spada di lato", translating that, and then using it as a specific term for a style of sword/rapier popular in Italy at the time that the phrase was in use. (Using local terms for local forms of weapons, like dao or messer, is a well established practice.)
But in this case the term has swollen to cover all heavy (or, more commonly, wide) rapiers, seemingly for little purpose but to preserve the idea of the very narrow/light/civilian rapier from historical artefacts that don't want to comply.
>I'd consider the "sidesword" at best a subgroup of rapiers. Splitting them off on their own based on weight has much the same issues as splitting off "war rapiers" based on width above; there doesn't seem to be any natural place to put the border between rapiers and side-swords.
Are you serious you know most if not all side swords and pretty much all the swords I mentioned are always shorter and more cut centric than rapiers and which makes them fall in the same category as arming swords in fact they literally started as just medieval swords with a ring or bars above the finger guard and as I mentioned earlier about cutting capacity just look at the blades of the picture of the sword above and look at the blade and compare it to an average rapier but the point that I am making is a side sword is just and arming sword or an evolved form of there of
Rapiers were heavy swords. I'm unsure where the incorrect meme that they were light and flimsy comes from. Theater and film, perhaps. Or that crippled, inbred sport they call fnncing now.
By 'serious' I mean 'refined on earlier ideas.' The swords that followed on the rapier were compromises for weight and clumsiness and you'd have to be a very bad rapierist to be outmatched by a smallsword user.
No, rapiers were light and thin, essentially being sharpened rods. You're thinking of the estoc.
>Longswords would destroy rapiers
Like...if you swung a longsword at a stationary rapier? Sure, I guess.
If they're both being wielded by people who are competent with them? LOLNOPE.
>The rapier was the last serious killing sword.
The fuck are you talking about? Pic related. Sabers we’re used for hundreds of years after rapiers fell out of fashion.
Why do people with no knowledge about swords or their use feel the need to comment on shit they know nothing about?
>The fuck are you talking about? Pic related. Sabers we’re used for hundreds of years after rapiers fell out of fashion.
on horses triblade smallsword was the endpoint of widely utilised sword evolution
The movable diamond shaped iron studs decorating the hilt were made in Woodstock, near Oxford (UK). These studs were made from imported Swedish horse shoenails which were transverted into these beads. They became so popular that in 1742 this Woodstock work was introduced to the British Consul in Florence to be given as diplomatic gifts. A similar example is in the Victoria & Albert museum and the Metropolitan NY.
Materials: Steel, Iron, Wood
By the early seventeenth century, the rapier, a long slender thrusting sword, began to dominate as the gentleman’s weapon of choice. During the course of the century, however, as civilian fencing techniques became more specialized and refined, the rapier developed into a lighter, trimmed-down weapon known by about 1700 as the smallsword. Smallswords, often richly decorated, remained an integral part of a gentleman’s wardrobe until the wearing of swords in civilian settings went out of fashion at the end of the eighteenth century, at which time pistols were replacing swords as arms most frequently used in personal duels. The majority of smallsword hilts are made of silver or steel, but many also employ a wide variety of luxurious materials, such as gold, porcelain, and enamel. At their best, smallswords combine the crafts of swordsmith, cutler, and israeliteeler to create an elegant weapon that was also a wearable work of art.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/26748
Nice copy and paste.
Well museums and serious dealers make for better information sources than the random spewing of some tard making a thing in his yard
Not to mention it saves you the effort of learning, phrasing, and selecting information relevant to the context.
Students. Students never change.
Proper duelling was rather on the way in during the 17th century. Prior to that the power of the nobles was usually strong enough, and the state weak enough, that they could simply go straight to private wars instead.
>- center of mass is right in the handle
Maybe something for a modern foil fencer, dunno where those balance really, but it certainly isn't where historical rapiers had their centre of mass. I guess if you don't foresee any kind of weapon-to-weapon interaction blade authority isn't really needed, but even so I wonder if a bit better tracking might not be good for actually poking into someone as opposed to the sport fencers poking at someone.
While the rapier is an important part of the smallsword's ancestry, the smallsword is not just some sub-category of the rapier. Thus it's basically irrelevant here when we discus the use of the rapier, just as how your school grades aren't terrible relevant to the question of how your grandfather fared in school, and just like the weapons of the 23rd century doesn't tell us much about what an assault rifle is today.
>It's a raiper with a wider blade. King Adolphus II used one.
Right. Around what width/proportions exactly do we draw this line? What data do you have to show that there's at leats one cluster of rapiers on each side, but relatively few just around this boundary? What data do you have to show that the clusters on the wider side were primarily used by military, and those on the narrow side were for civilians? Sad to say, I'm expecting nothing of substance here.
As for Gustav II Adolf (cake on Monday), well, here's his favourite daily carry rapier, with a 35mm wide blade. The rapier in the post you replied to on the other hand is the one he carried into battle at Lützen, it has a 28mm wide blade.
Stick to photographing museums. Some of us own these pieces and provide the collections your photograph.
Gone and bought the MET have we? That must have cost a pretty penny.
Now there's nothing wrong with posting pictures of swords, nor in letting the museums explain them. But don't inject it into a discussion like that. Quotation marks or a > is also a good idea, it's hard to be too clear about what's your words and what's a quote.
You've always been a pretentious worthless little prick anon although at least *your* photographs from museums are fine even if you take exception to better ones and I've done more with museums like the met than you could possibly imagine. Stick to making farting sounds on youtube and remembers some people were collecting swords before you were born.
this is the most pathetic slap fight on this board
I acknowledged sabers.
You are incorrect on multiple points. You're probably thinking of a smallsword.
Sorry but there's just nothing a rapier could do against a longer sword, like a longsword. The rapier was a thrusting sword and relied on ranging. Since the longsword was two handed, all of its actions were far more powerful than what a rapier could accomplish. The rapier will lose any and all clashes, binds etc. Attempts to parry swings will result in the rapier being swatted aside. There's no contest.
Rapiers are much longer than a longsword and they worked so well essentially every other kind of sword except the saber and cutlass disappeared forever
Longswords are 140cm, while rapiers are 104cm. The rapier was only ever a sidearm or duelling weapon.
Longsword's grip gives it shorter effective reach. You need to go to actual greatswords to be correct. Again, rapiers were uses in war - this is indisputable - and shorter cousins that favored more cutting were even more common in that role.
This is simply nonsense. You won't 'simply swat aside' a sword with vastly superior point agility. You are not unpalatable, they're parrying your point, they have mechanical advantage. I'd really like to know how you expect to bind a more nimble dueling sword, especially since the rapierist has a free hand and likely recourse to a buckler or dagger to give them more defensive options than the longsword user.
You are incorrect. Lightness is not a feature of rapiers compared to other contemporary one-handed swords. Rapiers have thin blades not to save weight but due to improved metallurgy, metalworking, and an emphasis on an agile point. Light weight is a feature of smallswords.
Unparryable, autocorrect is a plague.
I don't think you've ever actually seen a rapier. You seem to have them confused with other swords, like the estoc. A real rapier is always outmatched by a real longsword. Also you're drinking crazy juice if you think 2 handing a weapon means losing the advantage of a 40cm longer blade.
>two retards flailing at each other with zero technique
LMAO
>A real rapier is always outmatched by a real longsword.
Exact opposite is true in a 1v1 situation. Rapier has superior reach, agility and stabbing ability.
In 1v1 the longsword definitely wins. Rapier has inferior reach and longswords are able to do everything better than them, from swings to stabs.
rapiers have better reach than longswords what are you on about
unarmored combat rapier owns, armored combat longsword owns, simple as
>Also you're drinking crazy juice if you think 2 handing a weapon means losing the advantage of a 40cm longer blade.
By your own fucking numbers (140cm longsword, 106cm rapier) the longsword would need a hilt 4cm SHORTER than the rapier for that to be the case.
You are on crack. Longsword blades are 30-34inches and rapiers seldom less than 41. Long swords have longer hilts for two handed use but are outmatched in every way by the rapier, like I said, outside of military and naval uses every other kind of sword was inferior
140cm is a decidedly long longsword.
As for rapiers, some years ago I wrote down the length and blade length of all rapiers on The Wallace Collection's website that had these listed. In that dataset the average blade length is 109cm and the average total length 116cm.
I'll also repeat what another anon pointed out: for equal blade lengths single handed use gives you greater range
>The rapier was only ever a sidearm
Trying to diminish something by calling it a sidearm completely misunderstand the role sidearms had (have?) People carried their sidearms because they were useful, and they knew the performance of their sidearms may be a matter of life and death. Whatever primary weapon you carry would likely not be useful in every situation (for example a lance or a pike when the fight gets too crowded) and it certainly wasn't indestructible. And no matter why your primary weapon has been foiled, when that happens it's up to your sidearm to keep you alive.
The average rapier in the Wallace collection (based on those on its website when I checked) comes out to 1.225 kg, that's not a light one-hander. The heaviest is a massive 1.87kg beast. Funnily enough that one is pretty thin in profile, pic related.
>Rapiers have thin blades not to save weight but due to improved metallurgy, metalworking
I have my doubts. As the weight makes clear the narrow blade is usually compensated for by the blade being thicker flat-to-flat. With the smallest dimension (width or thickness) generally being the limiting factor for strength and resilience this should make the narrow and thick blade less demanding of the smith than the wide and flat one. Going by Alan Willliams we don't really see any major improvement in the metallurgy here either, past the late 15th century the metal in the swords is largely final, and the manufacturing changes are mostly just about rationalization.
>the narrow and thick blade less demanding of the smith than the wide and flat one
This is why the eventual form of the rapier as it became ever more clear that penetration was the overriding factor in winning swords became rhomboid, and in the colichemard, triangular in cross section, it is the strongest shape for the slenderest, longest blade
Untrue. The rapier began to give way to the colichemarde in the the 17th century. This sword type was itself later superseded by the small sword which was later superseded by the épée.
Untrue. War rapiers existed but were primarily civilian weapons.
>The rapier began to give way to the colichemarde in the the 17th century.
because a rapier was big and heavy and people weren't dueling much anymore. Rapier is the last word in unarmored duels, excluding polearms and other massive weapons
>War rapiers existed
So by your standards what I wrote is true, and "The rapier was purely a dueling sword for wealthy people." isn't.
That said, the idea that we have some special "war rapier" distinct from those used in civilian circles is one that pops up every now and then. Unfortunately the people claiming such never seem able to show that we actually have two (somewhat) distinct groups of swords instead of simply one large continuos group. Instead we're left with the rapier family chopped apart at some largely arbitrary (and very poorly defined) point based not on anything we know of historical sword use or so but rather just on people's desire to be able to say "the rapier was a purely civilian weapon".
>So by your standards what I wrote is true
No, because as you saw above, the raiper became the smallsword.
>Hurrr what's a war raiper
It's a raiper with a wider blade. King Adolphus II used one.
did épées exist outside of sport? i've never seen any outside of art.
They did.
thanks. what differentiates them from smallswords and foils? cross section or weight? when i try to search for this information i always get fencing results and not historical combat/dueling/whatever answers.
A foil first and foremost has had the tip rendered (more or less) harmless, it's offensive capability has been foiled and thus the name. This could be a permanent affair (fold the tip or beat into into something like a nail's head) or temporary by putting something over the sharp tip that would hopefully not fall off at the wrong moment. I think both smallswords and epée were foiled (and strictly speaking the practice itself goes back to training rapiers and longsword "feders" etc), but I don't know how the foil diverged away from a foiled epée into being its own thing in modern fencing. Perhaps a matter of sporterisation and standardised rules for foil fencing while the epée was still "in the wild"?
As for epée vs smallsword I'm not very well versed in that either to be quite honest. The former seem to at least tend towards simpler hilts (knucklebows and quillions are rare) and longer grips. Though the two are very closely related, perhaps to the point where an older decorative style might render some fence-straddler a smallsword and a relatively(...) modern one might turn the same sword into an epée. (There could perhaps also be some leakage between the term from people seeing something labelled epée and thinking that's what specific sword it is, when in reality it was simply labelled in French.)
Pictured are a few archetypical smallswords at least. Knuckle bows, a significant quillion block between grip and disc guard, rear quillion, and arms curving up from the quillion block to the disc guard.
I feel like such a fucking idiot for having never worked out why a foil is a foil. Its so obvious now its been said.
bollocks epee?
The bivalve disc shape is common with smallswords too, and originates in European sword hilts first getting side rings, then filling said side rings with plates, and finally the whole affair merging into a single plate.
Though taking it as a reference to how flat you're about to stomp your opponents balls seems like it'd work nicely too.
Yeah, it's one of those things. At leats it's easy to remember once you've heard about it.
IDK about 'best', but I've made my choice.
>5k$ to get one made
I weep
dull rusty machete
For the modern age? Rapier without the hilt, "blade" made out of extruded carbon fiber, handle with added tungsten weights to shift balance into your hand. Fighting style - keeping distance while poking holes, blade is always moving to confuse the opponent, no slashing blows.
good luck fighting more than one opponent who agreeably stays within the competition lines.
the threat of a slash allows to you defend a wide arc to your front and sides, thrust only means you will lose to a man with a bit a of sense and a heavy stick, because he will simply sidestep you, parry a thrust get inside your guard and club you senseless because he can swing for effect and you cannot.
You never design a weapon for an assumed single situation and certainly not a sidearm.
something like this is probably the best answer, for a bladed melee weapon that isn't a hatchet or e-tool. Crossguard is still desirable because while sword are uncommon if you plan to use one in melee then you will be in melee and protecting you hands from hatchet, clubs, knives rocks or other improvised melee weapons is a plus and the middle length blade/hand and a half grip makes iis a very versatile weapon.
Being aesthetic as fuck is just a bonus.
This literally has no point without something affixed to the end. Probably some sort of hardened impact tool steel. Which makes it some sort of short spear. And you can get rid of the hilt because the ability to quickly adjust your grip outweighs a nonexistent need to protect against other swords, and carbon fiber sucks at taking an edge so there's no reason not to grab the 'blade'
The rapier of the 21st century is an African fighting spear made out of carbon fiber
who else /1796 light cavalry saber/ here?
do you ride a horse too? The fake and gay reproductions of 1796s are offensively overbuild and cumbersome btw
>do you ride a horse too?
I would, were I not a layabout (in general le salle's sense)
>The fake and gay reproductions of 1796s are offensively overbuild and cumbersome
The fear of this is what keeps me from actually buying one. Have you recommendations to go with your strong opinion?
buy a real one preferably a good blue and gilt officers one, don't fuck around get the best you can, the majority of cheaper genuine ones are troopers and tend to also be a touch cumbersome (but nothing like as bad as the reproductions). There are a limited number of makers, some of which are faked using crap reproductions but names like JJ Runkel (a German imported blade used by many good cutlers ) , Osborne, Reeves, Gill, Wooley. Decon, Harvey etc. They are a weapon for use primarily on horse (as is the 1803 flank officers really)
There's a good set of measurements of the Cold Steel replica and an antique one if you scroll down a bit here: https://www.swordforum.com/vb4/showthread.php?60374-A-tale-of-two-sabres-Osborn-amp-Gunby-vs-Cold-Steel/page2
The measurements of the antique can then be compared with any other modern replica as well. The main thing Cold Steel cheats with here is having a thinner maximum thickness and a thicker minimum thickness. This gets the total mass and centre of mass sorta right, but shifts that mass from the middle and towards the ends. So beware of that in other replicas as well if you end up looking for such. Odds are none will be all too close, so an antique is your only safe bet for getting something that moves right, but for cutting practice or other such rough handling I think a replica would be for the best. So the two complement each other.
Poor pic, but here's the designers own 1796LC.
Go to a HEMA school like every other actual sworddork, sworddork.
>HEMA school
weightwatchwers go to a fencing club with a maitre des armes
The smallsword was the typical civilian sidearm worn in Europe from about 1650 to 1800. It was both a deadly weapon and a stylish costume accessory for the fashionable gentleman. The materials of smallsword hilts vary considerably, according to the wealth and taste of their owner. In England, silver was the preferred medium, and the custom of hallmarking silver with date-letters provides the opportunity to document changing forms and ornament. English smallswords served as models for Colonial American silversmiths.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27961
The scalpel. Then use your amateur surgery knowledge to finance a firearm.
Anything in the falchion /dao / cutlass/ messer category because were pretty much babbie’s first sword since they were very easy to use and handled like a large knife
Now there's a smart sounding statement that actually says fuck all. Even if you were familiar with how 35 inch knives handle (you're not) the reader is almost certainly not, so it doesn't help him any.
>what is the best blade to study
Embrace the smol blad for smol beans
HEMA dork here. Weapon range is really the most important factor.
So if you want to get really good with a melee weapon with minimal training, go with a spear or pike. After just a few days of training with a spear, you're more quite likely to beat a swordsman with several years of training. (Most samurai actually fought with spears, not swords, and in Europe pike formations were difficult to counter.) However, spears are obviously not very portable.
In terms of swords only, a rapier will usually beat a longsword or broadsword when matched against people with equivalent skill. Again, it's due to the weapon range. You will have a tough time winning a fight with a longsword against a rapier. (The smallsword is basically a lighter rapier, meant as a civilian weapon for dueling and passable self defense. Same with the foil and epee. If you intend to kill and use it for defense, just use a rapier. If it's for dueling / sport / portability, then use one of those dueling weapons.)
>Most samurai actually fought with spears, not swords
Ah yes, the "I have no clue about Japan's martial history Starter Kit".
>epee
is really just a training version of a colichmarde, if you put a point on one it would serve just as well for murking dudes in poofy shirts
No you fool. Nobody is carrying a spear around all do during the boogaloo. You need something you can have equipped all the time. Like a machete.
I grabbed you fucking dull-edged rapier in my mailed fist and introduce your face to my longsword's pommel. What now, you prancing fairy?
I'm not well versed in Japanese history, but weren't the samurai mainly trained for mounted archery before a boat with guns washed up on their shores? They did train with and use other weapons.
Samurai were around for nearly a millennium. Things changed.
Greatsword is best sword
biggest, fastest, cuttingest
>but muh sheathe
carry it unsheathed, like a man
blade masters are based
losers on /k/ always be jealous of their autism