Swordplay

[Sinner]

To successfully perform a passive block as suggested would require strength, but it isn't impossible. An experienced swordsman will also yield to a degree, extending the time taken to halt the momentum of the attack thus taking some of the sting out of the blow, reducing the chance of a broken blade or causing the sword to slip.

It was generally prefered to block with the lower part of the sword, which is often thicker & thus stronger, reducing the chance of a blade snapping, plus also avoiding damage to the egde of the blade closer to the point, ie. the part most likely to be used to strike an offensive blow.

[TexRoadkill]

I was reading an article on bladed weapon combat and it talked about the evolution of BWC. It said that it's inherent in men to want to slash at an enemy instead of thrusting. Thrusting is much more deadly and it was a technique the Romans decided to work on with their men (not sure when that started). Once they got their men trained to thrust instead of slash they became much more deadly against the undisciplined barbarians.

[Tamur]

But this probably has the danger that the blow chops your hand off instead.

Ha! Yes... I just had my thumb broken (fracture) last week when a particularly bad parry brought my thumb smack into my son's blade. Yowch.

Parrying near the tip of the blade is near impossible. Mid-blade is best --- if you try to catch and parry near the hilt you're getting too close to your opponent and the fight will end pretty quickly, one way or the other

[Tamur]

did you make your swords? Me and a friend were discussing the kind of wood to use for swords and what the best way would be to produce them would be. Any suggestions or did you buy them?

Nothing fancy, but the trick is to get and use a single block of wood for the entire sword. At first I tried a simple dowel attached via a small steel rod and glue to a grip/handguard, but wood joins are just too weak to handle the punishment.

The very simplest, longest-lasting, and great fun for NOTHING is to just get a reasonably-sized 100 cm (about 3 feet) long dowel. These last forever, can be easily carved into a nice blade shape, and are very inexpensive. You can find them in any craft store.

Second is using a larger piece of wood, like a 4 cm x 10 cm x 100 cm slab, and carving one. I did this once -- it took me three months at a few minutes a day, and lasted for something like three weeks. Dreadful waste it was, looked very nice while it lasted though!

Let me know if I can help out with more detail. It really is great fun.

[DemonArchangel]

Well, a melee was a big fat crush, if you were a "barbarian" with a longsword, you couldn't swing it right, but the gladius was short enough to be used effectively in scrum situation.

[octavian]

mmm, wooden swords my best friend has quite a collection of wooden swords that he has made (as well as some steel ones that he bought). his wooden swords are some of the best i have ever seen (and that is saying a lot). he usually can make one sword in under 6 hours of work as well, he is an extremely good modelling artist artist, so from 5 feet away, his swords (no joke) look real. he usually uses red oak for the wood, and keeps the blades at least 3/8 of an inch thick at their thickest point (right beside the fuller). i will see if A) i can get him to email me some of his digital pics of his swords B) get him to tell me exactly how he does the manufacturing of them.

[Colovion]

Then again you could simply just thrust straight at the opponent and kill him before his sword falls. Some forms of Kung Fu concentrate almost entirely on this aspect: when someone swings a big hook coming at your jaw an easy way to stop it is to either dodge, parry (which is difficult when a lot of force is involved or the opponent is stronger than you) or do a fast strike at the opponent straight on. I would think that the same is true for swordplay given that you can judge the speed of your opponents sword enough that you know you will be able to get a lethal enough thrust into your enemy that their momentum stops. Physics would dictate that a swung blade that has it's axis halted would produce the blade to swing faster through pivoting but with less force behind it or would fall clean out of the opponents hand.

THen again I've never seriously had any sword fights. Tamur - did you make your swords? Me and a friend were discussing the kind of wood to use for swords and what the best way would be to produce them would be. Any suggestions or did you buy them?

[Dimeola]

How broken would the melee become. Upon meeting would the two units remain cohesive? Or stay in formation....perhaps dependent on training. Still have my old training bokken....I believe its oak....its very tough and sturdy. The point is sharp and could easily remove an eye or be driven into a man`s belly.
D

[TonkaToys]

In Fencing you regularly need to block and riposte with your blade... anything else is illegal!

Sabre is the closest of the Fencing weapons to what we are talking about (slashing) and the trick with parrying there is to have the blocking blade at a diagonal angle from the plane of the attack... that way the momentum of the attacking blade is transferred into a sliding motion along the blocking blade.

Depending on the type of attack, and your desired counter attack or riposte, you can have your blade point slightly towards the attacker - in which case their blade ends up on your guard allowing you greater leverage to push it in a direction you want or to restrict its freedom of movement.
Or... you can have your blade pointing slightly away from your attacker so that their blade slides past you, leaving you inside their guard.

Of course it doesn't always work like that, especially if you've got a good opponent.

[English assassin]

Then again you could simply just thrust straight at the opponent and kill him before his sword falls

You could: this is why foil fencing, for instance, makes it a rule that if your opponent begins an attack, the attack MUST fail (eg be blocked or miss) before you can score on the counter. Of course that's good for sport but the fact that the rule is necessary shows that being the first to strike would normally be by far the best in combat.

Also in foil (never done sabre but would like to) you must parry with the bottom half of the blade nearest the grip. You simply can't parry with the tip, the leverage against you is too great. Of course in foil the blade you are parrying has next to nil momentum being so light.

The point about thrusting is absolutely right. Its much quicker than a swing, and I suspect more deadly, since you are heading directly for vital organs. Your en garde position is safer too, since your point is aimed directly at the target area at all times. If he is fast, even an unarmed man stands some chance against a man armed with a slashing weapon, as there is a moment when he must draw it back to strike, and you can step in. I remember practicing this in Ju Jitsu against opponents with "truncheons" and all I would say is that, after practice, its reasonably easy to do reliably in the dojo when your opponent is a friend with a plastic bottle ! In principle it would be just as easy against a barbarian with a broadsword but I'm glad I never put that to the test...

[Ludens]

The point about thrusting is absolutely right. Its much quicker than a swing, and I suspect more deadly, since you are heading directly for vital organs. Your en garde position is safer too, since your point is aimed directly at the target area at all times.

I guess it also depends on whether your enemy is armoured. If he is, will a thrust do much damage? A swing has more momentum and will probably better for breaking bones through armour, even if the armour is not penetrated.

[The Wizard]

Generally there is very little left of the knowledge of, for instance, the martial art that the medieval knight employed to fight. We can imagine, we can reasonably approach the way they fought, but it will always remain speculation.

The further you go back into time, the less there is known about the martial arts employed by Europeans, and generally you can say that anything before the time fencing became a sport is speculation.

Martial arts in the Far East were preserved because they were usually continually practiced by a group, an 'order', if you will, unlike the martial arts and swordplay of European peoples, which were far more personal and not practicioned under the direction of a larger organisation, something the peoples of the Far East achieved far earlier than we here did. The swordplay of a samurai, for instance, is preserved in the martial art we know as ken-do.



~Wiz