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Post by RufusScorpius on Apr 4, 2019 1:12:10 GMT
True, but my injury was very clearly a cut across the palm of my hand about 2" long and clean. I can only guess aliens or some secret government experimental conspiracy. 'Tis a puzzlement...
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pgandy
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Post by pgandy on Apr 4, 2019 1:25:08 GMT
True, but my injury was very clearly a cut across the palm of my hand about 2" long and clean. I can only guess aliens or some secret government experimental conspiracy. 'Tis a puzzlement... Could that cut be similar to what I describe with throwing stars? That is, the target was cardboard behind a knit shirt. The star would strike and while not cutting the cloth other than making a pin hole would continue into the cardboard holing that and push the clothe into the cardboard. When the knit stopped stretching and returned to normal it forced the star out leaving a hole. Sometimes the cloth remained in the hole and other times it too popped out of the cardboard.
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Post by RufusScorpius on Apr 5, 2019 0:01:48 GMT
Possibly, possibly. It's rather like getting hit with a baseball bat I suppose: the clothing won't have a mark on it...
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Post by mrbadexample on May 5, 2019 12:47:10 GMT
Edge parrying is the only way to parry in many sabre systems, in fact in a later manual it is specifically taught NOT to parry with the flat as not to damage the sword through way of bending it. You parry using your edge. Ideally, you parry against their flat. This means you will be deflecting their blade, not stopping it hard - you don't have to worry about a forceful blow pushing through your block. I have a Moro kris with a cut on one of the flats - it appears to have been on the receiving end of a hard parry. Interesting. My favorite antique kukri has two cut marks on the flats. That would explain them.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on May 5, 2019 13:28:00 GMT
You parry using your edge. Ideally, you parry against their flat. This means you will be deflecting their blade, not stopping it hard - you don't have to worry about a forceful blow pushing through your block. I have a Moro kris with a cut on one of the flats - it appears to have been on the receiving end of a hard parry. Interesting. My favorite antique kukri has two cut marks on the flats. That would explain them. Speaking of kukris with damage, here an interesting one with a deep cut on the ricasso: If this this cut was with a long straight edge, it might have been rather unfortunate for the wielder. A piece of paper in the bottom of the cut showing where a straight edge would have gone:
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Post by Tiers1 on May 5, 2019 14:00:05 GMT
I was pretty surprised to see the topic get so much attention, and it was exceptionally interesting to read the various well-informed responses and ruminations. It is a source of fascination for me how this market has been around for a good 20+ years at this point, however only in the last few years is the general enthusiast community preoccupied with how effective swords actually were in battle against various media. It strikes me as rather extraordinary that with a handful of semi-exceptions, to this day there are no notable and correctly implemented (skilled practicioner, historically accurate edge for the period and type, etc) *extensive* cutting tests against different armor types with different types of swords. I think Skallagrim has a few (whereby it took a RAZOR sharp edge to get through a gambeson) and I recall another gentleman from years ago who struggled to get through cloth.
I recently saw a Scholagladiatora vid where Matt Easton made a sort of off-hand comment about swords through the ages generally spending more time on the hip for showing off purposes than in actual combat. I know they were never primary weapons, but if that were true than our romanticizing of them in media seems all the more silly in a way...in a way because I of course recognize their symbolic value, and maybe that is just as important.
I would finally note an interesting point someone brought up. If the blade takes some nicks...who cares. The cutting edge still being even 70% intact will probably be workable, and the nicks can be whet later. Considering what seems to be a more and more apparent truth that most swords were exclusively for wherever the armor isn't, even if that is fingers and noses, nicks would not be a substantial reduction in effectiveness.
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Post by pgandy on May 5, 2019 16:37:51 GMT
I was pretty surprised to see the topic get so much attention, and it was exceptionally interesting to read the various well-informed responses and ruminations. It is a source of fascination for me how this market has been around for a good 20+ years at this point, however only in the last few years is the general enthusiast community preoccupied with how effective swords actually were in battle against various media. It strikes me as rather extraordinary that with a handful of semi-exceptions, to this day there are no notable and correctly implemented (skilled practicioner, historically accurate edge for the period and type, etc) *extensive* cutting tests against different armor types with different types of swords. I think Skallagrim has a few (whereby it took a RAZOR sharp edge to get through a gambeson) and I recall another gentleman from years ago who struggled to get through cloth.
I’ll throw this out there FWIW regarding cutting and live targets: I am an advocate of the thrust, but by no means rule out a cut. Thinking on it I suppose the target is the deciding factor. My first knives upon entering country were weapon/tools primarily a machete but as time went on kukris and a pinuti were added. At the time of this event I had only one then two machetes. My sharpening tool was the traditional file at first and then later a Smith but I am not sure when this was added. That’s a tool very similar to the AccurSharp, in fact I think they use the same blades and I believe there must be a connection, maybe the forerunner? My edges were sharp but not to the extent that I now make them. The area hadn’t grown up to the extent it is now and animals of various types would come around and these would include rats and mice mostly from the open field behind my house but there were a few sewer rats I’m sure. I use to take great sport in running the rats down playing tag with a machete. In the house things got interesting as they would like to run under appliances or furniture in an effort to escape. A squirt of Raid, the formula was different in those days, and the chase would be on again. I have lost count of the number of rats I killed and fewer mice that way. I do know that none escaped. I never once broke skin although the machete was sharp and had no trouble unfortunately in cutting me at times without trying. It only took one cut or I should say strike to kill a rat. With the first few rats that I killed in the house I did so with the cutting edge then switched to the spine in order to minimize the damage to floor and/or edge which never happened, outdoors it was always with the cutting edge. I would hit the thorax crushing whatever laid in the blade’s path, spine, ribs, lungs, you name it regardless of which edge used. There were times there would be haemorrhaging from the mouth/nose, death seemed instantaneous but never once was I able to make a cut through the hide.
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Post by markus313 on May 5, 2019 16:54:24 GMT
...Which brings us to the importance of adding a circular, drawing motion to the cutting strike (one reason why folks trained in late military saber styles had problems cutting through clothing – neither enough momentum nor motion to the edge). Plenty of power put on the rats, but not enough space to draw the blade across the target – a rat is too small to draw the edge across (without hitting the ground).
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Post by elbrittania39 on May 5, 2019 17:06:47 GMT
...Which brings us to the importance of adding a circular, drawing motion to the cutting strike (one reason why folks trained in late military saber styles had problems cutting through clothing – neither enough momentum nor motion to the edge). Plenty of power put on the rats, but not enough space to draw the blade across the target – a rat is too small to draw the edge across (without hitting the ground). I'll second this. When I added a sliding motion to my cuts they got dramatically better. Hitting with too much surface area of the edge at once tends to distribute the cut and just batter the target. Think of it this way: if you took a kitchen knife and just thwacked the entire edge lightly against your palm, it might not even cut you. But if you lightly draw a kitchen knife across your hand, you'll probably need to go to the hospital.
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Post by pgandy on May 5, 2019 18:58:53 GMT
Can’t argue against the value of a draw cut which was not possible with those rats. There were times in the house that we really danced. I don’t know if some were just panic strickened and tried to escape by running between my legs or if I was being attacked but after the fun and games started more than one charged me at which point I’d introduce them to my 9½D sending them flying into a bulkhead. And screaming, I never knew they could sound as such. We really had a go at it.
You might add dulled blades to the list of problems with the sabre’s failure to cut. The steel scabbards that were generally issued played havoc with a sharp edge as the Brits found out, sharpen today and dull by tomorrow was the saying, “Swordsmen of the British Empire”. I’ve had a steel scabbard dull a blade within a 4 day period and I certainly didn’t give it the treatment that a trooper bouncing around on horseback executing the sabre manual numerous times during the day. I now have a leather scabbard for that cutlass and put masking tape over the edge of my sabre before returning and the edges on both are holding up well.
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Post by Jordan Williams on May 5, 2019 19:37:28 GMT
I was pretty surprised to see the topic get so much attention, and it was exceptionally interesting to read the various well-informed responses and ruminations. It is a source of fascination for me how this market has been around for a good 20+ years at this point, however only in the last few years is the general enthusiast community preoccupied with how effective swords actually were in battle against various media. It strikes me as rather extraordinary that with a handful of semi-exceptions, to this day there are no notable and correctly implemented (skilled practicioner, historically accurate edge for the period and type, etc) *extensive* cutting tests against different armor types with different types of swords. I think Skallagrim has a few (whereby it took a RAZOR sharp edge to get through a gambeson) and I recall another gentleman from years ago who struggled to get through cloth.
I recently saw a Scholagladiatora vid where Matt Easton made a sort of off-hand comment about swords through the ages generally spending more time on the hip for showing off purposes than in actual combat. I know they were never primary weapons, but if that were true than our romanticizing of them in media seems all the more silly in a way...in a way because I of course recognize their symbolic value, and maybe that is just as important.
I would finally note an interesting point someone brought up. If the blade takes some nicks...who cares. The cutting edge still being even 70% intact will probably be workable, and the nicks can be whet later. Considering what seems to be a more and more apparent truth that most swords were exclusively for wherever the armor isn't, even if that is fingers and noses, nicks would not be a substantial reduction in effectiveness.
Some problems surrounding the accurate testing of weapons are also not having period accurate clothing, a good medium for testing flesh (ballistic gel only good for ballistics, and skalls torso good for not much other than shape), and poor documentation and control. There are accounts in "swordsmen of the British Empire" of men in cavalry uniform in Crimea being cut "nearly in half" by service sabres, and of cuts going down shoulders and severing arms or wrists through coats, the latter being quite common. Cloth is actually easy to cut through in my own experience. The trouble is depth. I've halved a flannel over a large 1' by 1.5' jug, but this of course is anecdotal. In my own again anecdotal cutting with period sharpened swords with nicks in them, The nicks do not affect cutting very much at all if the edge is sufficiently sharpened. Skallagrims test a little skewed with poor quality testing materials. My opinion is that the best demonstrations come from history. The newly released "British Swordsmen 1600 - 1945" is a newly updated book full of sword fighting accounts.
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Post by pgandy on May 5, 2019 21:33:06 GMT
Thanks for the info on the new book, I’ll be on the lookout. “Swordsmen of the British Empire” was a treasure chest of info. I was surprised to see the amount of information about black powder pistols. There was nothing new there to surprise me, but confirmed what I had discovered on my own decades ago but had not confirmed in combat situations and hadn’t been able to find elsewhere. In fact I had begun to question my findings due to lack of confirmation, counter dictions in movies and reading, so much for fantasy and phony experts.
As for nicked blades cutting clothing, I’ve often wondered and assumed what you have found out. What I curious about is the effectiveness of a newly nicked blade that hasn’t had time to be freshly sharpened so that the fresh nicks still have burrs that possibly could snag clothing.
Also what is hard to separate in that book is the difference in results of a cavalry mounted sword and one used on foot. The speed of a moving horse will add significantly to a cut.
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Post by pgandy on May 5, 2019 21:44:11 GMT
My opinion is that the best demonstrations come from history. The newly released "British Swordsmen 1600 - 1945" is a newly updated book full of sword fighting accounts. That title wouldn’t by any chance be “British Sword Fighting 1600-1945” would it?
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Post by Jordan Williams on May 5, 2019 23:02:02 GMT
My opinion is that the best demonstrations come from history. The newly released "British Swordsmen 1600 - 1945" is a newly updated book full of sword fighting accounts. That title wouldn’t by any chance be “British Sword Fighting 1600-1945” would it? Yup! My bad, good read with lots of accounts from China too.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on May 6, 2019 5:46:49 GMT
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Post by elbrittania39 on May 11, 2019 17:55:21 GMT
I'd been meaning to make this for awhile, hopefully it gets my points across better than just text.
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