Curved AP Sword

[BerkeleyBoi]

I have been reading a lot of the unit descriptions and it seems like the curved swords were very effective against armor. However it seems later, curved swords seemed have been replaced with mostly straight swords during the middle ages or so.

I don't know too much about weapons or ancient history, but what prompted the change?

[helenos aiakides]

A straight sword is good for thrusting, also it is much easier to fence with

[Watchman]

A concave-curved heavy blade of the kopis/falcata/machaira type is AFAIK quite robust and in many ways actually performs like an axe disguised as a sword, but somewhat tricky to make. They were usually apparently also made relatively short - it may be that the design doesn't lend itself to long blades to begin with or something.

Anyway, later single-edged straight swords with a wide flaring blade, such as the Medieval falchion, appear to have much the same effect for a rather simpler structure and thus low price tag (even knights often carried falchions as they had enough "oomph" to get through armour at least up to mail, and were both robust and cheap).

As to why the design fell out of use in Antiquity, it's probably just that the Romans and their remaining foes tended to prefer straight blades of various lenghts.

[dominique]

I know that swords were eventually replaced by axes and spears as the main infantry weapon in the early middle ages. Swords became an aristocratic weapon and so needed to be used in duels.

A straight, long, double edged sword is a very balanced and polyvalent weapon, exactly what you need in a duel. So naturally, the Frankish / Saxon / Normanno-Viking elite adopted that kind of sword.

Also, as the fighting tactics evolved from the Phalanx (where the sword was used to hack a guy holding a two handed pike) to the legion (where the sword was used in a poke and stab kind of way) to the shield wall (where it was used to stab over the shield). So the needs influenced the weapon. A Kopis is a good hacking weapon, the gladius is a nice stab/slasher and the sweord/sverd has a good length to reach over the shield and is very versatile.

The recurved blade made a come back in the twentieth centurty in the indo-british ghurka units (the Kukri).

:duel:

EDIT : Whoops, Watchman is faster than me! Nice post btw|

[Maeran]

Also, the curve of the AP swords is there to add weight to a point, so there is more damage when that point makes contact.

Straight swords are better for smashing bones, accurate thrusting and are probably easier to make to a decent standard (nothing worse than having your weapon break because the quality of the metal is uneven- at least uncontrolled uneven, many later swords at least combined harder edges with a softer core to reduce breakage).

The more precise thrusting action of a straight sword would help you get through mail easier too. which was shown in a link somewhere on here recently, can't find it just now. A short curved sword with the AP 'bulge' wouldn't do more than bruise someone in chainmail, and longer curved blades are much much better at slicing flesh than the hacking side of a straight sword. This was certainly why cavalry adopted a curved sabre in the gunpowder armies of Europe and probably why Japanese swords (among others) are curved too.

As far as I can tell, the Germanic peoples used straight swords, and the Romans adopted a short straight sword designed to thrust as well as slash, so by the fall of the Roman empire, few people thought of using a curved blade. Which agrees with what Watchman beat me to saying, probably while I was looking for that chainmail testing link.

[Watchman]

Convex (unless I'm getting these terms mixed up again...) curved swords - sabres - work completely differently than the concave choppers, though. They're designed for the "draw cut" which is most excellent for slicing flesh, and well suited for mounted use, but sort of blow against armour.

Anyway, given that longswords in Europe at least only started going cut-and-thrust around the High Middle Ages (when mail was becoming common enough to be a real annoyance to cutting swords), I sincerely doubt if the thrust-related differences played any part in the demise of the concave swords. (Shorter straight swords tend to be thrust-heavy anyway, since they don't have the lenght and leverage for shearing cuts like the long ones.)

[Maeran]

Well, the adoption of a straight sword by the legions to use for tight formation thrusting rather than the wild swing needed to get use of concave (forward bending, you are using it right) AP type swords could really have caused the decline of the curving types. And I would say that with more certainty if it were not for the rhomphia. Indeed it was only the rhomphia (which is a concave blade, but as I understand it a slicing action, like later convex blades) that lead me to mention the slicing qualities- which don't work too well against armour.

OK, before someone says how the Dacians still meant trouble for Hamata wearing legionaries, I know that, and think that the hook might have added force the the slicing effect by pushing it into the armour- and Romans still had bare arms, throats and legs.

If anyone reading this thinks I reckon I'm some kind of sword expert, I'm not. This is just what I've picked up from playing R:TW, Cossacks and the like.

*Edit* I'm confusing my convex and concave now. Fixed.

[Watchman]

The Romans were never major users of the falcata sword type in the first place you know. And given that kopis/machaira was used as a sidearm by some hoplites it cannot have been that ill suited for close order infantry action.


Indeed it was only the rhomphia (which is a convex blade, but as I understand it a slicing action, like later concave blades) that lead me to mention the slicing qualities- which don't work too well against armour.The rhompaia is the "chopper" principle of the convex blade at work you know. Recall that the blade shape means it behaves like a sickle in some respects - and sickles were specifically developed for cutting through thick bundles...

And given the sheer weight of the rhompaia, combined with the usual impact-focusing qualities of the convex blade type (although rhompaias were AFAIK as often straight as curved actually), it's little wonder it tended to bust armour pretty darn well.

It works very differently from the concave sword type, where it is the tip that does much of the cutting; that's one reason katana tips were ground to such elaborate and specific profiles. Straight and convex swords instead have their "sweet spot" impact strike focus point a bit above the tip, usually something between 1/4 to 1/3 of the total lenght, and aim more to shear directly into the target rather than "along" it like the draw-cut sabres.

[dominique]

I don't think that trying to chop through chainmail is a good way to beat an opponent. I'm pretty sure they were not used in that way.

When you read mediaeval authors like Chretien de Troyes, the way they describe the fights between chainmail armored duellists is:
1-Club him senseless with blows on the head, in the throat, or trip him down.
2-Give him a couple blows on the arms, legs to keep him from moving.
3-Give him a coup-de-grace in the face, groins, armpits.

In the chevalier a la charette series, Lancelot often lift the hauberk of his downed opponent and put his sword through the belly of the poor fella.

And for the limited training in medieval martial arts I had (Lichtenhauer and such), I could resume the technique as HIT THE FACE, HIT THE THROAT. When we duelled using the medieval rules, a hit anywhere else was giving 1 point. When you hit the face or throat, it was a victory.

If the medieval martial arts and medieval litterature (and they are our earliest source in chainmail/armor combat) are any indication, people didn't hack away armor with swords.

I know my references come from the medieval period. I didn't find any from the classical period, except the order of Caesar at Pharsalus (thrust the pila in the face, don't throw it at them) which his an indirect, probably interpretative reference.

[Watchman]

Yeah, with most swords hitting mail mostly just ruins the edge AFAIK. But enough weight in the weapon and/or blow, and the focused blunt trauma already gives the guy underneath serious problems. Ergo the developement of the big "mail-killer" swords-of-war and tip-heavy choppers like falchions in Medieval times, and the falcata/kopis/machaira type blade ought to have worked much the same way in general.

[Maeran]

This convex/concave confusion is making this harder to follow than it should be. I'm going to re-classify them as bent forward, bent backward and straight.

So a rhomphia (which is indeed far straighter than most curved blades- I just had a quick look on the net for pictures) looks like it could be a combined effect weapon.
The relatively straight middle portion of the blade is as good as a straight blade for hacking into shins, through helmets and such. I'm not sure about the helmets, I still don't get how the forward curve without a mass like the AP type can bite into solid surface armour, this is why I thought of the draw action sawing and adding pressure through the movement. Perhaps the leverage of such a long sword?
Then the slight curvature allows the tip to do a lot of damage to any exposed flesh, I've mentioned how I think it could work against mail already, by which a chopping action would be dissipated a bit.
Finally, it's long straight and pointy, so you can stab even a small gap in the armour if you can crowd/distract/exhaust a heavily armoured enemy into letting his guard down enough for such a move to work.

I thought that the hoplite use of swords was really for when things got very bad and the phalanx (whichever one) lost formation. The slash that you are obliged to make to get the best out of a machaira (all the same) seems awkward to me in a dense formation, compared to the thrust that was equally as good for the gladius- not that you can't do both with all these swords.

[Maeran]

Yeah, with most swords hitting mail mostly just ruins the edge AFAIK.

I came up with the slicing/sawing/increasing pressure idea for the Dacian weapons because I don't see why well armoured Romans would suffer so much that they change their armour to compensate for it. After all, if the Dacians were always going for the soft spots, why did the Legions leave the armes and legs bare and add metal to the helmet instead? It was the work of 5 minutes armchair archeology and certainly flawed.

Padding and the flexibility of the mail were important in dissipating the energy of the blow. Couple this with the shallow nature of the 'sweet spot' on an AP type sword (on the bulge, behind the tip and on the leading edge), I think that mail was relatively good at protecting you from such a blow. If the blow is heavy enough, of course it would cause damage, but you can equally well use a blunt weapon for that.

That AP bulge, like an axe, would be very good on rigid surfaces, like a helmet, or a shield. Thinking about it, I think that the main use of such a weapon would be to disarm your heavily armed opponent by breaking his equipment. Then you have an easier time killing a man who is trying desperately not to die. The armour isn't the ultimate target, but you're just looking for a way past it.

[quackingduck]

I found this to be quite an interesting site and answers all kinds of sword questions.

http://www.thearma.org/essays.htm

[Elthore]

check this out:
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/falxcut1.jpg

[quackingduck]

check this out:
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/falxcut1.jpg

i would have never guessed a falax could go through a sheild like that.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The gawking legionaries with cameras is the best part of that picture. :laugh4:

[the_handsome_viking]

I have been reading a lot of the unit descriptions and it seems like the curved swords were very effective against armor. However it seems later, curved swords seemed have been replaced with mostly straight swords during the middle ages or so.

I don't know too much about weapons or ancient history, but what prompted the change?

It really depends on the type of armor and the type of curve of the sword. Like others have said, the Falx and Falcata performed in a similar fashion to that of the axe, the axe being typically much more successful against armor than any sword to be honest, which is why it was generally so popular, that said the mace and club was in turn typically more effective against armor than both, maybe not so much in terms of cutting obviously, but in terms of denting and smashing, yes.

Why did curved swords get replaced with straight swords? well, they didn't the curved sword was always sort of a specialized weapon in the case of the falx or falcata and something of a cheap weapon in the more scramseax or falchion swords. The classic migration period long sword is basically just a very good and vesitile weapon, the Frankish version eventually producing a narrower tip that could be used to expose gaps in armor, and also allow a greater capacity for thrusting in general than the typically broader tipped migration period sword.

The straight sword was always pretty much the norm in Europe, the long sword as we know it bascially originating amongst both cavalry and infantry in the extended Celtic territories. The length of a cavalry blade is sort of understandable, you need more reach when you fight from an elevated position, also a little extra blade length in general doesn't hurt. As for the longsword using infantry? well, thats more of a preference I suppose, Celts were very fond of their single combat and loose formations, and naturally such individualistic fighters, especially of the wealthier classes would prefer such a versitile and lengthy weapon that could pack a punch if whirled around to build up momentum before a strike.

In terms of anti armor, really, youre looking at the mace, club, or axe, or I suppose the lance or various types of polearms, and when more plate armor came along obviously a bashing weapon would be a bit more ideal than any sort of curved sword.

That said there are some other fairly logical explinations for the design of various forwards curving bladed weapons being popular. For example, typically speaking when you are fighting in ancient warfare, you are up against a battleline of men typically equipped with shields of some sort, and the natural reaction to someone swinging or thrusting a weapon at you is to raise your shield, the falcata and the falx, just by looking at them, sort of give the impression that in combat they could sort of curl over the top of the shield and hit the wearer in the head, whereas a straight blade, if blocked would typically not make contact with the head unless the force of the blow pushed the shield down or cut through the shield to the point that it made contact with the head of the shield holder.

Generally speaking though, like I've said, the straight swords dominance in Medieval Europe can in many ways be atributed to its versitility in combat and striking or thrusting range.