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Post by Afoo on Mar 21, 2015 16:22:30 GMT
A bit of a noob question, but what is the point of the wavy pattern on a flamberge sword such as this ? Its impressive looking, but practical use wise, what does it do?
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Post by DigsFossils-n-Knives on Mar 21, 2015 16:51:50 GMT
The wavy kris blade pattern? From WIKI: A flame-bladed sword or wave-bladed sword has a characteristically undulating style of blade. The wave in the blade is often considered to contribute a flame-like quality to the appearance of a sword. While largely decorative, some attributes of the waved blade were useful in combat. The two most flame-bladed swords are rapiers or zweihänders, although there have been other sword types with flame-blades. The term flamberge, meaning "flame blade", is an undulating blade that is found on both long blades and rapiers. When parrying with such a sword, unpleasant vibrations may be transmitted into the attacker's blade. These vibrations caused the blades to slow contact with each other because additional friction was encountered with each wave. The unusual cross section of the blade would also inflict wider wounds with a thrust while still keeping the blade light. The term flamberge was misapplied to refer to two-handed swords and was used later to refer to cup hilt rapiers with a straight blade.[1] Very large blades of the flamberge variety were viable for destroying halberds mid-combat, as an undulating edge causes far more damage when dragged along a tough material than a straight edge
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Post by Afoo on Mar 21, 2015 19:35:46 GMT
Seems like a lot of extra work for what seems like a fringe benefit though. Couldn't have been easy to make a sword like that using their technology
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Post by DigsFossils-n-Knives on Mar 21, 2015 20:07:31 GMT
Seems like a lot of extra work for what seems like a fringe benefit though. Couldn't have been easy to make a sword like that using their technology I wouldn't be surprised if it was also done to intimidate their enemies when going into battle.
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Post by Afoo on Mar 21, 2015 20:21:49 GMT
True. but again a fringe benefit - as if your huge 6 foot long sword wasn't scary enough :P Might make a good status symbol I guess? Much like a damascus steel blade in the Victorian era. Curious how these things evolved and developed.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Mar 21, 2015 20:24:11 GMT
For one-handed blades, I think there might be some real benefit in shredding hands that try to grab the blade.
Otherwise, magic and intimidation.
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Post by Afoo on Mar 21, 2015 23:35:20 GMT
Maybe it gives a +1 bonus to cast magic missile?
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Post by Croccifixio on Mar 22, 2015 1:27:27 GMT
It's obviously +1 to your charisma roll.
But I digress. In the kris community (of which Timo is one of the knowledgable ones), it's widely believed to be decorative. Purely for-battle kris were often straight or had minimal waves at the base. I think for kris that once you get past 5 waves it becomes mostly a status symbol and would be a bit impractical if you faced a similar weapon that was straight.
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Post by Madmartigen on Mar 23, 2015 7:53:10 GMT
For one-handed blades, I think there might be some real benefit in shredding hands that try to grab the blade. Otherwise, magic and intimidation. I've seen a few myself in museums here in Poland. No one hander tho, just two handers - and the two handers I've seen in person are huge, and I mean really huge. 1,5 - 2 meters long, well over 3kg weight, still pretty usable due to enormously long handle, very wide guard and large ricasso. So yeah, intimidation well defined. I've heard they were also effective against cavalry, used as spikes - which seems doable, but I cannot vouch for credibility of that information.
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Post by aussie-rabbit on Mar 23, 2015 12:28:04 GMT
I have a single hander here with 11 waves, 725mm (29") blade, 1.25kgs (2.75lbs) - probably closer to a bastard since you can grasp the pommel, very fast blade
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