And exactly how common were long-swords? Did they ever arm whole formations with them? You better believe NOT, for all the reasons stated above. William Wallace leading a charge with one is all good and fine, as long as his buddies next to him stay out of his way :-P, but get a whole formation of them and you're going to run into the same troubles I mentioned above.

Such a weapon is rather hard to use anyway, if only for the "oops! I didn't see you standing there next to me.. sorry chap! we'll get you a good surgeon and he'll get that upper-torso and head attached right back onto that lower-torso and legs, right quick!" reason.

And I'm sure there are others in here who will back me up on the severe disadvantage Yari troops face if not in good order.

//EDIT: I should have said "And exactly how common were *claymores*?" Longswords, or swords that could be labeled longswords, were probably more or less pretty common, but a longsword can be a reasonable size (i.e. much shorter than 7 ft.) and still be a longsword. There are many 'longswords', probably the most common, which would be better considered as 'mediumswords' and were more often referred to as 'broadswords'.

Of course even the additional classes I've just mentioned weren't generally common enough to equip whole units with, though I believe the Celts and Pictish highlanders (Pict = Scot) did something along these lines with the bigger swords. But in general a short sword and a shield is a better setup, at least in a large-scale military context.//

Matt

[This message has been edited by Khan7 (edited 09-10-2001).]