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Ask me about swords.

Here's something we haven't talked about: scabbards.

One idea I've come across now and then is that your scabbard can actually trip you up in a fight, and you want to unhook and discard it if you have a chance. Is that just true for the longer swords (katana, bastard, and longer) or is it sometimes a good idea for arming swords too? Does a fighting style like profiled fencing, that controls your footsteps, help?

Edit: And, how feasible is the Xena-style back scabbard? I actually built one in my LARP days and know they slow down an arming sword's draw but make a longer sword basically impossible to get out without shifting off the back. (Though if you're in court or such, they might be the only way to wear a longer sword without it catching on everything. Peter Morwood's quasi-samurai have a back-scabbard that shifts neatly to the hip when they're expecting to fight.)

I do know swords take some attention just to walk around with them sticking out behind you, mostly when you sit down: you either want a couple feet of space behind the left edge of the chair, or you do unhook the thing.
 
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CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
One idea I've come across now and then is that your scabbard can actually trip you up in a fight, and you want to unhook and discard it if you have a chance. Is that just true for the longer swords (katana, bastard, and longer) or is it sometimes a good idea for arming swords too? Does a fighting style like profiled fencing, that controls your footsteps, help?
Never fought with a sword but I have drilled with one... a ceremonial sword [mid 19C cavalry design - I think I remember being told] and the hard leather scabbard it came in. These were tough enough to control when marching in close order or resenting arms. It would either trip me or bag into someone else. From that I kind of always thought that a "fighting" scabbard would be soft leather so it didn't get in the way, and there would be a hard/stiff "travelling" scabbard to keep it protected the rest of the time.

I do know swords take some attention just to walk around with them sticking out behind you, mostly when you sit down: you either want a couple feet of space behind the left edge of the chair, or you do unhook the thing.
The scabbard we used clipped on to a belt at two points. When you sat down or had some time off you undid one [the back clip?] and let it hang down you thigh so you pull it across your lap or generally keep it out of the way.

Don't know about Xena-Style - we got reported for carrying our swords over our shoulder. they had to be worn properly or carried in the hand for safety reason - they didn't want us to damage the swords by accident.
 

Kit

Maester
I'm short, and my jian is too long to comfortably wear at the waist. Drawing it from the back is awkward but possible with practice. Doing any sort of maneuvering with the scabbard on (anywhere) is a pain. If I was really walking around like that and might be attacked at any moment, I would probably want to have it slung on in such a way that I could shed the scabbard quickly.
 

Malik

Auror
A scabbard is held on the belt with a frog. The frog holds the sword at an angle so you can draw it easily, and so that a longer warsword doesn't drag on the ground. (Nobody ever wore a sword straight up and down, or tucked under their belt, unless they had never handled one before.) Frogs have been around since Roman times.

A good frog is adjustable, and holds the scabbard at an angle so you don't trip over it.

angled2.jpg


Fine scabbards have integrated swordbelts that serve the same purpose as a frog; holding the sword at an angle and keeping the scabbard out of your way.

DSCF3142.jpg
 

Trick

Auror
There's this B movie called Dawn of the Dragon slayer (not particularly impressive IMHO) and near the end the hero/farmboy has his sword (possibly an English longsword?) on his back, hilt over his right shoulder. For someone interested in a scabbard that would be functional in that position you should check it out. It was more of a half-scabbard that held the point of the blade while the hilt rested behind two curved forks. It really looked like the sword could be drawn fluidly and replaced easily enough to maintain function. Best part of the movie actually.
 

Malik

Auror
And also, fencing rapier-style with a warsword is an elaborate form of suicide. The warsword is for brawling. It's meant to hack, smash, and bludgeon; built to break men apart inside their armor and maim people fool enough to wear no armor.

Warsword combat is equal parts fencing, Judo, and Greco-Roman wrestling. Lots of locks, throws, trips, and shoving, with the sword as an afterthought once you've made an opening.

Here's video of a skilled man with a longsword whomping the living crap out of a very good rapier fencer, using the advantages of a heavier, longer, two-handed weapon. This is fencing rules, too; they're using right of way, there's no off-hand contact, no tripping, etc.

 
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There's this B movie called Dawn of the Dragon slayer (not particularly impressive IMHO) and near the end the hero/farmboy has his sword (possibly an English longsword?) on his back, hilt over his right shoulder. For someone interested in a scabbard that would be functional in that position you should check it out. It was more of a half-scabbard that held the point of the blade while the hilt rested behind two curved forks. It really looked like the sword could be drawn fluidly and replaced easily enough to maintain function. Best part of the movie actually.

That was about how I built mine too. :)
 
Hi,
Just a quick question. Is there a term for the sharpened edge of a sword blade--single or double-edged--other than: the edge, long edge or short edge?

Thanks bunches. Write on!
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Hi,
Just a quick question. Is there a term for the sharpened edge of a sword blade--single or double-edged--other than: the edge, long edge or short edge?
To my knowledge, it's only called an "edge" in English. I don't think there's another term for it.

Now, other weapons, like axes for instance, have different terms. The sharp edge of an axe can be called a "bit".
 
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craenor

Scribe
Hi,
Just a quick question. Is there a term for the sharpened edge of a sword blade--single or double-edged--other than: the edge, long edge or short edge?

Thanks bunches. Write on!

If you're talking about like a cavalry sabre that as the long, sharpened edge, but then at the end, the last 1/3 of the length is sharpened along the back edge, then those are respectively referred to as the True Edge and the False Edge.
 

Malik

Auror
A diamond blade would be like having a blade made of glass. Diamonds are hard but brittle. In fact, as anything's hardness increases, so does its tendency to shatter.

Again, swords are swords because steel is steel. If the properties of steel were different, we wouldn't have built swords. If the uses of swords were different, we wouldn't have built them from steel.

metallurgy.png
 

Valentinator

Minstrel
I'm not sure glass/diamond comparison is correct. They are completely different in their chemical structure. Glass is an amorphous non-crystalline material while diamond forms the most stable crystal structure chemically possible. Shattering requires flaws in the material but you can make flawless diamond structure. I mean people used volcanic glass for swords and it worked fine, why not diamonds? Of course the form factor must be different for a diamond blade it must be thicker for sure to compensate lack of flexibility. But it must be definitely extremely sharp.
 
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Malik

Auror
Volcanic glass worked fine until someone came up with something better suited to swordplay: copper. No one ever used a sword made of volcanic glass. Arrowheads and spearpoints and the occasional knife, but not a full-sized sword.

A diamond will shatter if you drop it or strike it. The harder a substance is, the easier it is to break. That's physics.

This is why L6 and 5160H -- high hardenability-grade spring steel -- are currently the steels of choice for high-end modern swords. Modern swords are hardened differentially; the spine and tang is drawn back to a forgiving temper and the edges are hardened separately. This makes the sword flexible but still super-sharp with excellent edge retention. L6 is one of the new "super-steels" -- it can retain a Martensitic edge while being drawn back to flexible Bainite at the tang, spine, and shoulders. A properly-drawn L6 sword has an edge like a scalpel but you can swing it like a baseball bat with impunity. (It will also cost you north of five grand, but who's counting?)

I have seen 5160 spring steel warswords that will shave an iron horseshoe but can be flexed over your knee past 45 degrees and spring back to true.

The ability to differentially harden a blade didn't exist until the industrial revolution. Until then, all steels were a compromise. Medieval swords had to combine flexibility, edge retention and overall toughness. Those are the three factors that make up a good sword, and they are all determined by varying levels of hardness. You need a softer-tempered metal for flexibility, a harder-tempered metal for edge retention, and a temper somewhere in the middle for toughness. Temper a blade too hard, the sword will be a bitch to throw an edge on and will break under a heavy blow; temper it too soft, it will sharpen easily but dull quickly, and the blow that would have broken a harder-tempered sword will bend it like it's made of Play-Doh.

To accomplish this, swords were built with a compromise temper combining the three factors.

Really good, super-expensive swords back in the day would be welded, using pattern-welded steel (if it was REALLY expensive!) or wrought iron along the spine and tang (wrought iron is springy but doesn't hold an edge) and edges made from harder shear steel. There would be actual weld lines that would be visible along the blade where one type of metal flowed into another.

Again: swords are swords because steel is steel. If we made weapons out of something else, they wouldn't have developed into swords.

If you want to have a sword made of diamond, as I said before, make it out of unobtanium -- the same material as room-temperature superconductors and pixie dust. It's Fantasy. Go nuts.
 

Malik

Auror
I should point out, too, that sharpness isn't as much of a factor in a sword's deadliness as edge geometry and blade harmonics. A good warsword built to cleave armor would have a trick bevel that wasn't technically sharp -- it wouldn't part silk like a katana and in fact you'd have to punch the edge of the blade to cut yourself on it -- rather, it would have a special edge, something akin to a chisel, built to split plate iron and wreck chainmail. A medieval sword that was super-holy-crap sharp would have an edge so thin that if you drove it against iron armor or another swordblade the edge would fold over (or, if it was really hard, nick and gouge) at each point of impact and it would be useless after about a minute or so.

The shtick about the hero with his super-sharp sword hacking armored badguys in half all day defies the physics of our universe. And again, if you had a super-sharp sword made of a super-hard material (unobtanium, "iron crystal," annealed pixie dust, etc.) and you wielded it against an armored opponent in a real kicking-and-screaming fight, it would be in fragments at your feet in a matter of seconds.

Edit: this is why a lot of knights carried a second sword, the arming sword, as a sidearm. The arming sword was generally sharper than the warsword and intended for use against unarmed or lightly-armed opponents.
 
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Valentinator

Minstrel
Malik, thanks for the detailed anwser. I'll still use the diamond at some point but it will be brittle. I am not going to use diamond swords anyway, the question was more about the physics of the diamond to portrait it more realistically. Thanks again.
 

Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
Malik, I love reading your posts. How can we convince you to write a series concerning physical plausibility in fantasy? Not just for swords, but for all the other things you seem to have great experience with, including actual melee fighting and the resulting injuries.
 

Malik

Auror
How can we convince you to write a series concerning physical plausibility in fantasy? Not just for swords, but for all the other things you seem to have great experience with, including actual melee fighting and the resulting injuries.

You can pay me. :cool:

I'm hoping that my fantasy series will do for swords and mail what Stephen Hunter did for the rifle.
 
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