Swords: Difference between revisions
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[[File:ist2_4517576-design-elements-swords_4483.jpg|frame|One thing they all can do: kill (and look [[Badass]]).]]
{{quote|"''[[I Like Swords]].''"
|'''Fighter''', ''[[8-Bit Theater]]''}}
Before the times of gunpowder and rifles, swords were an important weapon for professional soldiers such as knights, men-at-arms, mercenaries and state armies. The crafting of these weapons were of vital importance to any nation-state that wanted to maintain a standing army. While the concept of a sword is pretty ubiquitous, several different types of this common weapon were crafted with much of the difference based on regions. While swords have largely been replaced in modern armies by firearms and other weapons, the allure of the blade is still alive today. Just see [[Katanas Are Just Better]].
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* These were the final forms of the European sword in military service. First appearing in Hungary in the 17th Century, they were universal in Europe's armies and navies by the mid 18th Century and remained in service until [[World War I]]; they still exist as ceremonial weapons. Obviously strongly influenced by the Arabian scimitar and Indian Talwar (see Middle Eastern Section below), as well as by the Cossack shashqa, these are single-edged, curved weapons frequently featuring basket hilts or D-shaped or bell-shaped handguards intended to protect more of the hand and fingers, much heavier than the rapier and in some instances about as heavy as a medieval arming sword or longsword. They were typically used with the same fencing techniques as the rapier. The saber became associated with cavalry, and the very similar cutlass (the cutlass is typically a bit shorter, to make it more maneuverable in the narrow passageways on board ship) became associated with naval service.
** Of note, the cavalry saber eventually evolved to become a blunt crushing implement, with a dull, narrow edge and heavy weight. When swung, the sword would break bones with ease, while not opening deep wounds and potentially becoming stuck. Such blades saw the heaviest use with the US cavalry in the American Indian Wars of the late 19th century.
***With the caveat that the US cavalry never had much of a saber tradition. Cavalry was not important in the American Revolution, certainly not as a European style shock arm, and in the Great Plains wars and the American Civil War, the chief weapons of the Federal, Confederate, and even the Texan cavalry were the revolver and the carbine. Plains tribes did not have access to as much ironmongery as Europeans, but did use their version of the lance for hand to hand fighting. They preferred rifles and carbines when they could get them too though.
***The war saber should not be confused with the fencing sporting saber. It is heavier and in many systems uses the edge more because of the needs of a mounted melee which often do not leave time for a thrust. For a demonstration of two masters of the saber go to this site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5w2Mh6CyXo
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* A Turkish ''yatagan'' is a curved sword with an edged concave side, rather than the convex side of the usual ''kilij'' scimitar. It was meant for thrusting and chopping blows. Sir Richard Burton — the 19th century adventurer, not the 20th century actor — declared it the best designed sword ever in his important work "The Book of the Sword".
* Before the Western Europe adopted the sabres and cutlasses, the East have been happily using them for a long time to hack at each other. Around 16th-17th Century, the constant fighting with the Turks and various steppe peoples led to the straight swords being replaced by local incarnations of the "scimitar" of the Middle-Eastern designs (though in an interesting twist, the Hungarians, being originally a nomadic steppe people, arrived in Europe wielding sabres to adopt the Western sword around the 10th-11th Century). Since then, the ''szabla''/''sablya''/''szablya'' was a standard side weapon in these parts of the world, even achieving the status of a national symbol in some places.
* A ''shashqa'' is a sword of Caucasian origin, later adopted by Cossacks, and even later, by late Russian
** That's because for most of its history it evolved not as a ''sword'', but as an utility knife — that eventually ''became'' a sword. Indeed, the word "shashka" itself is a corruption of Adyghe "sash-kho", "long knife". So it kept a knife's characteristic curved hilt and lack of handguard.
** In an interesting note, shashka is used and worn remarkably like a [[Katanas Are Just Better|katana]] — with its edge upwards, and its design is similarly best suited to quick decisive blows, not elaborate saber fencing, and the same blade could probably be used equally effective in both mountings. [https://web.archive.org/web/20180706040430/http://wartools.ru/klinkovoe-oruzhie/primenenie-shashki-shashka-v-rossii-mify-i-zabluzhdeniya Here] near the end you can see pictures from the manual, showing how to draw a shashka: to the side, upward or downward, depending on the circumstances.
* Middle-eastern swords have influenced the development of the last swords to see common military use in Europe, the relatively heavy, curved, single-edged 'saber' and 'cutlass,' which appeared in the 17th Century as successors to the rapier. The Talwar directly inspired the creation of the 1796 British Light Cavalry Sabre (especially the way the blade grew wider at the point), which in turn influenced an American version.
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