>>28787019
get ready for a dump then

File: 1386729498448.pdf-(4.78 MB, PDF, Longsword_Composite.pdf)

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>>28787019
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_school_of_fencing

good for lots of longsword stuff

>>28787202
Interesting read so far. Saved and skimming.

File: 1386729830456.pdf-(5.22 MB, PDF, swordpdf.pdf)

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>>28787019

>>28787019

You might check out Paradoxes of Defence by George Silver.

He's a huge rapier hater and rapierfags hate him in return. Nevertheless he has some interesting things to say about fighters of various skill levels, and how highly he rates various weapons.

>>28787019
actually instead of dumping let me just give you a giant compendium of european martial arts masters


http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Main_Page


I like marozzo for polearm but liechtenauer and wallerstein are great too, Im not a fiore guy myself so I cant speak on him.

Thanks for all the info so far! Interesting reads.

>>28787756
Remember, op, as you read through all these interesting manuals and moves, that a particularly long duel would last for perhaps 30 seconds, rarely more.

>>28790286
Not disagreeing, giving examples of time.

Parry opponents oberhau, drop your point, and drive it through his throat. 8 seconds.
Bring a Hanging guard to your opponents oberhau and return the favor with your own oberhau to his neck. 7 seconds.
Counter oberhau with Zwerch, stab eyeball. 3 seconds.

>>28787019
For monsters I would vote Pikes, Halberds, any polearm really. A good two-hander as your backup,

>>28791711
What if you can only use swords and variants on swords?

>>28792509
Then I'd say weapons designed for use against armoured targets and ones that give you decent standoff range. German 2-handers and estocs maybe?
Thing about fighting monsters many times your size is that you have to consider that people did these things IRL. Think about what weapons were used to hunt boars, a spear. Take it a step up and look at how people hunted bears, a spear and sometimes ropes and nets. Then how do you bring down an elephant? Supposedly mostly by scaring them, slings and javelins being popular weapons against them.

Pretty much asking what sword you should use for cutting down monstrous things is like asking what kind of for you should use to cut your bread. Swords are good for fighting people, not so much big animals.

>>28793191
>asking what kind of for

*fork, dammit

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>>28793191
I would personally use a katana to cut my bread
they've been folded a thousand times you know

>>28793191
Awl pike

>>28793239
>they've been folded a thousand times you know

/k/ bladesmith here.

Starting with 2 layers and folding the blade 9 times brings you 1024 layers.
If you tell the "folded a thousand times" crap to a smith, you will get the traditional "Hammer-to-forehed" -treatment.

This is what I did last summer:
> Started with carbon steel (0.75%C), nickel steel (0.1%C, 3.5%Ni) 5 x 25 mm bar stock, cut into 80 mm pieces
> 5+5 alternating layres of carbon steel and nickel steel, tig-wedled together at one end, fluxed with borax, heated in forge and compresson-welded into single bar with hydraulic press. 10 layers.
> First forging: stretched into a rod with forge and power hammer, cut in half, fluxed and forged together. 20 layers
> Second forging: Streched, cut, fluxed and forged. 40 layers.
> Third forging: 80 layers... then 160, 320, 640 and finally 1280 layers at 7th forging.
> End result: Carbon steel and nickel steel are mixed so finely together, that welding parttern is not visible to naked eye.
> Washing the polished steel with nitric acid does not bring out the pattern.
> Costomer can not see any fancy patterns. Needs a microscope to see that the stee is not just a normals stock.

Why to do this: If you have only shit-tier pieces of mixed steel whih are too small for making a sword, you can pattern-weld them together to form mediocre steel.
If you have good steel, you skip the time-consuming (and fuel-consuming) pattern-welding, and just make a sword.
You also lose some of the steel af froce-scale during the pattern welding, so you need to work very fast when the steel is out of forge.
When making blades from stainless steel, forge scale not a problem.

>>28791654
Moral of the story? Never lead with an oberhau. Maybe never lead at all. This is a joke.

>>28795220
That is not funny.

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>>28793817
/guy who's seen a joke before/ here, that's a joke.

>>28793191
>>28792509
If you have to stick with a sword for whatever reason, I could see a falcata/kopis kind of thing being fairly useful, together with a shield. You're not going to fence much against an animalistic enemy, so the lack of a straight point/two edges isn't that big of a deal. In return you get a sword that excels at causing deep and, more importantly, very disabling wounds, even against something that would have a thick hide and strong bones.

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>>28796207
Forgot mah pic.

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Swords, Bronze age, scandinavian, dates ranging from 1,700BC to about 500BC.

broader-bladed cutting, and a narrow, diamond-section thrusting blade, very similar to a rapier in function.

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>>28796267
southern european bronze age, early La Tene Period

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>>28796286
Later period La Tene (southern european, gaulish france/southern germany, possibly a little into britain and spain) - blades transition from bronze-working to iron-working.

hilts remain cast in bronze, often in anthromorphic shapes

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>>28796342
later La Tene period still, hilts start to become organic components.
At this point, La Tene culture is being infringed by the early Roman and lombardian cultures of the south pressing north, who proceed to copy and modify the design of these iron swords for their own forces

>>28796218

>shield against monsters
Bad idea. If something like even boar speeds at you, the only result of blocking attempt will be a broken arm and a very pissed off boar. Ideally, when hunting, you want to obstruct opponent's movement as much as possible and keep out of its range untill it bleeds to death.

>>28793243
Mein Neger!

>>28787019
>the best type of sword for a duel against a similarly armed opponent

Depends on the armour both fighters are using. If neither fighter is wearing any armour, you should probably go for something relatively light and narrow. Keep your distance and go for stabs instead of slashes.

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>>28796360
leading us conveniently to the roman Gladius hispanesis, so named as it was influenced particularly by the spanish (hispania) versions of the gaulish swords.

>>28796364
Well, that was assuming you're limited to some kind of sword anyways, so you might as well have some extra protection. Besides, if the monsterin question doesn't outweigh you too much and relies more on speed (e.g. something more feline in nature) it'd could useful to keep it off of you when it tries to pounce.

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>>28796411
Apologies, wrong image, Brain hurts...

this one is the Gladius hispanesis.

The previous image is a Fulham or Mainz pattern, which supersedes the Hispanesis somewhere around 40 BC.

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Fuck yeah, informative sword thread.

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>>28796427
such gladius steadily grow longer over the following century with the influence of northern gaulish steel-working from Noricum introducing pattern-welding.
blades grow longer, forming the auxilliary cavalry's spatha around 200 ad

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>>28796509
gladius steadily replaced by the spatha - 3rd century ad

>>28796414
That "don't outweign you much" is still 80-100 kg of cat jumping straight at you. Not quite a biological battering ram that is boar, but nothing to sneeze at.
And in case of feline monsters a knife would be more handy - in extremely close combat you can poke with it much better

>>28796342

That's a penis.

>>28796564
Yeah, I really just meant to say that if no other option is available (such as a spear or net or something), I'd rather have have a sturdy piece of wood between me and it than nothing.

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>>28796552
Roman empire collapses towards end of 4th C and into the 5th C AD. Centres of manufacturing (Noricum) remain, producing blades. Fashions begin to revert more towards local styles, forming the dark age Spatha, with similar hilt construction to the roman predecessors

>>28796576
you're right
holy fucking shit
phallic imagery

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>>28796707
I'll have you know that the roman empire never truly collapsed and persisted into the late 19th century!

I kid, I kid.

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>>28796576
>>28796726
Speaking of...

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>>28796707
trade routes slowly become more precarious through western europe, making the sword blades produced in locations such as Noricum rise in value.
Swords become a status symbol, a mark of wealth and power, and are hilted accordingly, as marks of a warlord's power and riches.
this example, 6th C swedish, from Valsgarde.

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>>28796783
around this time there comes a rise in popularity of single-edged weapons too, extremely long knives, or slightly short swords, under the name seax or sax. particularly popular with germanic tribes who are migrating westwards and settling in the british isles.
their love of the single-edged long knife would eventually lead to their culture's name - the Saxons

this example is based off a french-found archaeological blade and a czech pommel both from the 6th C.

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>>28796886
into the 7th C, we start to see the rise of what're known as "viking" swords. Most arent actually viking, however - many are saxon, many more are southern european. Swords slowly fall in rarity, becoming more common as time passes and trade, by river and ship and by road improves.
Many blades are produced in the same regions of central europe as in the roman age, the area once known as Noricum has now become known as Passau and Solingen. Further along the rhine, at least one Frankish monstic settlement seem to have established trade routes through the holy land and into persia and india, where small supplies of a remarkable steel are sourced from - this homogeneous crucible steel producing some exceptionally high-quality swords.

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>>28797059
these swords are often summarised under a classification scheme known as the Petersen Typology. So a Type R is one particular style, a type S is another.

This isn't exactly related to the swords mentioned in the thread, but are there any single-edged European longswords (as in, real long swords. Bastard swords, hand-and-a-half swords, et cetera).
I'd like to know, because I think they look bitchin'.

Oh, also, would there ever be a bonus in just having one edge, compared to two?

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>>28797122
Swiss sabre.

>>28797150
Heh. Nice. Looks like a cross between a katana and a long sword.

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>>28797122
yep, they appear in the 14-15th C. I'll get to them sooner or later, but the narrative I'm writing here>>28797103 is only at the mid-8th C so far. I'll get there, those are my main area of study, infact.


many of the viking age swords consist of a 3-peice hilt, a lower guard (closest to the blade), and an upper guard, with a the pommel riveted onto the upper guard.
Often spirals of wire are used to decorate the junction between these parts. Later on, the parts are merged into a single pommel, but the wire grooves remain in place, as a fashionable relic of a forgotten production method.

>>28797176
Ah, nice. I thought you had stopped with the typology chart, I'll sit here waiting with bated breath then.

>>28797122
Longsword by definition is double-edged, but there were single-edged swords of similar size and style.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messer_%28weapon%29 is one of my favourites, mostly for its history.

>>28797122

Grosse Messers can be anywhere from single-handed to bastard or even full two-handers. Basically it's a combination of a sabre plus a falchion.

I suspect they are typically awesome at killing unarmored or mailed opponents but might suffer vs full plate opposition simply because you aren't powering through plate.

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>>28797122
Langseax.
Not really a sword you'd see in a duel and more knife-like than a sword.

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>>28797176
these construction details and fashionable styles are also clearly shown in another historian's studies - contemporary to Jan Petersen, Sir Mortimer Wheeler produced a typology of anglo-saxon hilt types, which classified as type I, II, III, up to type IX - a detail which will become more relevant later on.

>>28797233
Yeah. I was thinking larger blades than that. But those are quite cool, too.

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>>28797122
>Oh, also, would there ever be a bonus in just having one edge, compared to two?

Production is one. Multiple Chinese dynasty, with their massive armies, managed to equip almost every footsoldier with a dao, to the point that it was synonymous as the soldier's sword, as opposed to the Jian which was something of the upper crust's sticker.

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>>28797255
through the 8th-10th centuries, single-edged swords also continue in popularity, serving alongside 2-edged arms. approximately 40% of viking swords found in archaeological contexts are infact single-edged weapons.

>>28797287
But fighting-wise, two edges beat one?

French Estoc is my waifu. All the heroism and imagery of a cruciform longsword, but it can stab armour.

>>28797294
Percentage-wise... how many norse warriors used swords compared to spears, axes or cudgels?

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>>28797122
Also, contributing to your question, the Byzantine Roman Parameiron

Basically, they looked at their Turkic enemies, and saw what a fine sword they had for cavarly use.

>>28797296

Not necessarily, it's just different defensive tech brought about the need for different weapons.

Plate was only common for a fairly brief period in Europe so you had the development of specialized anti-plate weaponry. For the rest of the world big chopping blades were still plenty acceptable

>>28797296
Nope. Its always down to training.

>>28797304

My understanding is that relatively few simply because the smithing talent necessary to forge good swords was zealously guarded. Most of the regular norse warriors would use spears and axes.

Keep in mind that an axe is a very effective weapon if you have a very agressive style particularly if you are talking a big danish bearded axe which would be used by the elite huscarls and the like

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>>28797314
The Chinese did have a two handed double edged sword though.

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>>28797287
there's marginal difference in ease of prduction between a single and double edged weapon really. Both take a lot of time and work. The single-edged weapon being a peasant's tool is just one of the myths surrounding the weapons.


>>28797294
Somewhere around the 10th Century there is a sudden change in weapon design that sweeps over europe. It does'nt seem to be technological in basis, but infact may well be a shift in the philosophy and thinking of the medieval mind. There are research theories that this may in fact be the shift in christian thought - that numbers have philosophical meanings, and that therefore, numerical and geometrical proportion are influencing swords, just as they influence the shape and design of cathedrals. Maybe its just fashion. Maybe its just one of those changes as society shifts.
However, from the 10th C we see a distinctly different weapon start to appear - the medieval sword.

>>28797336

But it's purpose wasn't necessarily anti-plate which is the primary impetus for the development of the longsword

>>28797308
Is the tip supposed to be blunt or is that particular one just made that way so you can't hurt people with it?

>>28797287
I remember using a character with a jian in a forum game once. A game full of weeaboos who would go on and on about katanas, but refused to even look up a jian. I even included a picture and short description of it on my character's profile, yet still had people be confused at what it was.

>>28797366

Ignorant weaboos are so annoying. I mean have they never watched a wuxia film ever?

>>28797333
Those were the ones with one sharp point forward, then rapidly tapering backwards, right?

>>28797374
It's the laziness that gets to me more than anything. They couldn't bother spending two minutes checking wikipedia if they wanted more information?

One guy in the game had a spatha, really standing out from the trashy players. I didn't know what a spatha was at the time, so you know what I did? I LOOKED IT UP. A foreign concept, it seems, to the droves of 16-year-old idiots.

And I apologize for not contributing to the thread. All my references images got wiped out in a hard drive crash.

>>28797354
The impetus of the longsword was it's usefulness in defence to fend off multiple enemies and in offence to deliver a quick attack at longer range.

Longswords developed before plate armour.

File: 1386776276858.pdf-(7.25 MB, PDF, Oakeshott Typology Guide.pdf)

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>>28797353
These medieval swords are in turn summarised and described by the historian Ewart Oakeshott. His typology for the medieval sword is, at first daunting - 20+ blade types, dozens of cross and pommel styles classified.

it starts, at type X, and continues through roman numerals. XI, XVI, XVIII, and so on, with sub-types of many - XVa, XXa, and so on.

the reason for this starting at the roman numeral type 10 is because, by fortunate co-incidence, Wheeler's typology, as shown earlier runs from types I to IX, *and* Petersen's typology, running from type A to Z, happens to have its type X also match the first of the medieval hilt shapes. Net result, Oakeshott's typology conveniently merges the two main classification systems for viking hilts, and continues their numerical progression.

And now, the reason it starts at type 10 makes sense to you all!

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>>28797386

Dane Axe is more properly called a pole axe.

Basically it's an elite warrior weapon because it's utility was basically shit in tight formation.

A regular bearded battle ax would be a great offensive weapon but it's very trying, the beard on it is good for hooking on to the edge of a shield and pulling it from someone's grasp.

A poleax is pretty much offense personified because it needs a lot of space but can pretty much crush most defenses prior to plate.

>>28797354
Yeap, the Shuang Shou Jian is pretty much based on the philosophy of overkill: Asian Edition.

>>28797458
Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. A good hit with it will strike with the point, and the edge will cut more than chop.

>>28797428

They might've shown up during the transition period between chain + brigandine but really prior to plate you needed a shield which makes the longsword not exactly stellar.

Once you have the rise of plate you don't need a shield and arming swords are useless so you can afford to go all out with a two-handed longsword.

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>>28797442
early 11-12th Century, witha brazil-nut shaped pommel

>>28797361
It's probably still edged, so a stab could still do some damage. I figure it's got a rounded tip to aid with delivering proper slashes, and to make sure it doesn't get caught anywhere when you deliver a strike from horseback.

>>28797461

I imagine it's also stellar vs cavalry to a degree because heavy barding never really seemed to be a big thing in the east and you can take down cavalry fast by killing their horses.

Seems to be the big impetus behind some of the poleswords like the nagimaki.

>>28797485
I Googled some dates and your right.
I was under the impression two handed swords were more common than they were in the 13th century, but they were apparently exceptions to the general rule.

>>28797519

Yeah I blame D&D because what is typically a longsword in D&D terms is an arming sword in reality and actual longswords are more of a bastard/two-handed sword construct from the gothic period.

It also doesn't help that D&D tends to blend distinct historical periods without shame

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>>28797361
Actually the jury is out there with the Paramerion

There are those that think its a single edged sword that looks like a slightly curved double edged sword (see pic)

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>>28797559
>>28797361
Some say its this, with a point.

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>>28797361
>>28797583
some say its this (rightmost sword) and some even consider Byzantine copies of the Turkic saber as Paramerion.

>>28797559
>>28797583

So basically a falchion variant?

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>>28797506
>I imagine it's also stellar vs cavalry to a degree because heavy barding never really seemed to be a big thing in the east and you can take down cavalry fast by killing their horses.

Oh no. Chinese, Korean, Tibetan, and Steppe heavy cavalry comes with barding, while the light elements like horse archers won't be acting directly anyway.

>>28797625

Still vs a two-handed sword anything other than plate barding is going to crumple and the advantage of a twohanded jian is that you can also use it as a thrusting spear in extremis.

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>>28797498
this sword and the previous one start to show a stylistic change that takes place in the blade designs during the 12th-13th centuries - the point, previously relatively rounded, but more importantly, quite thin, suited to slash through without resistance, or to stab through cloth, instead starts to taper more and more, and become a little thicker - making the blade more suited to thrusting into the increasingly common maille armour, and bursting links open. After many centuries of relative stagnation, armour has started to evolve rapidly, and the metallurgical processes to create larger panels of solid armour mean that an arms race between offence and defence has again started up - an arms race that would over the following centuries see the sword maintain its position as the most revered and symbolic weapon, while its practical use was supplanted by polearms.

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>>28797610
Nope. Falchion descended from existing western blade patterns while the Byzantines got theirs from looking at what the Asiatic Turkics were kicking their asses with.

>>28797656

Well swords are still very useful on horseback especially once your lance breaks or gets stuck.

Plate armor infantry would probably stick to other better weapons though. Two handed war flails, mauls, etc would all be excellent weapons for elite men-at-arms

>>28797710
Flanged maces are fucking brutal on hoseback. Imagine the effect on a human face when a horse charges at full speed and the entire force of the horse and the rider concentrated on the end of a steel shaft and thick, sharpened flangs. It's going to disintegrate the face, smash right through most of the head and crack the skull like a rotten eggshell.

>>28797772
Same with flails, warhammers and hand-axes, right?

>>28797558
And it made up 'studded leather'.

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>>28797353
>The single-edged weapon being a peasant's tool is just one of the myths surrounding the weapons.

Except I didnt said it was a peasants weapon and what I said did happen to China. During the Han dynasty, ancestors of the Dao blades (pictured) were initially used only by cavalrymen for its focus on slashing. Sooner, it became a preferred choice for infantrymen. By the T'ang dynasty, it was standard issue & doctrine, with different bladeforms branching off which either focused on infantry or cavalry usage.

>>28797693
Well, these were kind of the days where you could kick Byzantium's ass with a blunt stick.

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>>28797772
Imagine this approaching your face.

Sorry for not going off the topic of swords a bit.

>>28797783

Flails can be challenging to use on a galloping horse and horseman flails are significantly different than foot man flails.

Still the rest would be brutal weapons. Even plate armored opposition is going to feel the blunt force trauma from a mace or a flail through the plate and gambeson.

Axes are less useful.

Warhammers in their actual form rather than their D&D form are almost purely anti-plate because those pick spikes punch through armor easily.

Put a warhammer on a long pole and you have a great can opener.

>>28797796

Studded leather is almost certainly meant to reflect a coat of plates or a jack of plates which were actual armor.

Ring mail was total bullshit though and has fortunately been exiled from the game.

Too bad they seem unable to admit lamellar

Can anybody here comment on the sword work in Ironclad? It featured the pommel and guard being used offensively and a sword being held by the blade but I do not know enough about medieval combat to know if it was actually realistic with its swordplay. The armour costumes seemed fairly spot on for the time period though.

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>>28797806
>it t was standard issue & doctrine to issue every footsoldier with a dao.

Sorry forgot that.

>>28797856

Vs plate especially if you are unarmored using the longsword as a bludgeon with the quillions as a pick/warhammer is a very effective technique.

You are still probably going to die vs an armored opponent but if you can hit his helmet hard with your guard piece you are going to fuck him up hard.

It kinda helps that the two-handed and long swords aren't super sharp because sharp blades simply get fucked up by plate armor.

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>>28796707
>Roman empire collapses toward the end of the 4th C

Dis pleb serious?

>>28798036
getaloadofthisgreek.jpg

>>28797881
I wouldn't exactly say "very" effective. It's better than nothing, but you'll most certainly find yourself at a distinct disadvantage against anybody who actually has a weapon actually designed for opening cans, like a pollaxe.

>>28797856
Some parts of Ironclad wrere "passable". Like the effect of a horse as a force multiplier.

Others not so much, like the weird fantasy-inspired axes for the bad guys. While it did include swordfighting that wasn't just the typical "clang the sharp edges together for show" it was quite static. HEMA fighting is either absolutely brutal and efficient like >>28791654
said or it gets messy and brawly with all the dirty tricks you can think of.

Fun movie though. Not to be used as sources for actual authentic historical things and such.

>>28798120

It's more for knights in case they get ambushed while not wearing their harness.

Mastery of those techniques is challenging at best. Still if you are a swordsmaster and you are just in your gambeson for some reason you are going to need something.

After all full harness isn't something you wear all day erry day despite what D&D might say.

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>>28798108
>Roman
>Not secretly wanting to be Greek

Hoc ego non sperare elit

>>28798153
>Others not so much, like the weird fantasy-inspired axes for the bad guys.

I thought that was just the Danish leader trying to be a badass. Most of the normal enemy soldiers were using hand axes, spears and the like.

>>28787202
You would not believe how long I've been on the lookout for one of these PDF's.

Also archived on suptg for posterity, an absolute pleasure to read through this thread elegan/tg/entlemen. Very informative.

((Polite sage because not contributing))

>>28798188
Granted, the background dudes had rather inoffensive weapons for the most part, but that leader and his overdesigned weapon did bother me. They should just have given him a real Dane axe and be done with it.

>>28798223
Also, why the fuck was he wearing woad?

>>28798153
To me the most annoying part was that apparently the original story of about ~100 knights plus attendants holding a castle against a far larger force wasn't ~awesome~ enough, so they cut down the number of the garission to literlly 15 guys.
I mean fortifications are a big deal, but at that point they could have taken the castle just by attacking in more than three places at once. Alternatively they could just have waltzed right past it, cause that few dudes aren't even a real threat to your supply train.

>>28798232
Because >muh paganism

Never mind that the place they came from was Christian at the time. You are right, its more a film for watching guys get hacked up instead of learning about history. Not sure they really had warhammers in 1215 for example but it was cool seeing guys get fucked up with one.

>>28787019
>types of swords:
edgy swords and pointy swords, all are sharp

>how were they used:
cutting or stabbing people, often with the intent to kill them.

I can't answer the others

>>28797881
That depends really. A sword for blossfechten would be sharp as fuck. Hence why some had hollow ground blades.

What would happen if you combined the Japanese's abnormally elaborate folding processes with the European's access to much higher-quality iron/steel? Would the former simply be redundant, or would you get a sharper sword out of it?

>>28798709
Damascus toledan katana. Become real life redguard (if you're black).

>>28798709
europeans folded steel, and were in fact folding steel close on 500 years before the japanese first created iron.

It would be totally redundant.

furthermore, folding steel has absolutely nothing to do with sharpness, and sharpness has very little to do with how good a blade is.

sharpness is determined by edge geometry, be it steel, shit steel, iron, bronze, or flint. infact, flint or obsidian are far sharper than steel.

sharpness in cutting performance is determined more by the edge angle - a V shape of the sides intersecting, is obviously sharper than a U shape with a more obtuse angle. but its also determined by how thick the blade is: a blade 1.2mm thick but relatively blunt will cut far better than a blade 5mm thick but razor-sharp.
all a razor-sharp edge offers is a fine edge that will be damaged on impact, something that the europeans appreciated because their weapons were more likely to be used on soldiers in armour, so they adopted a more durable edge.
think of it as the difference between a scalpel, and a chisel. both can easily take your finger off. but one is able to go through inches of wood, driven by a mallet, the other would break.

that's the difference between different types of sharpness - not how well it cuts, but how durable the blade is.

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>>28793191
there were swords for hunting boars, too. pic relatet it's a german Sauschwert around 1520

>>28798936
or coming from Jurgen Fricker's collection, it might well be a German Sauschwert around 2012...

What do you guys think about Italian or Spanish rapier vs. German longsword?

>>28798960
what's the problem with this guy haven't heard the name of him before, i just used the first picture google gave me that resembled what i had in memory with the datedescription of the site

>>28799029
German longsword wins.

Rapiers were invented for a diferent period of time, when armors were ditched because of the proliferation of guns, meaning what decided a fight was speed and mobility.

But, in a straight up fight, not only does the longsword have more versatility, you can wield it with 2 hands allowing for more strength in the blow, and the rapier simply cannot withstand such a blow.

Unless the guy with the rapier has god-like reflexes and manages to shaft the oppnent first (which would happen with any other weapon), longsword wins.

>>28799029
what rapier, what longsword?
because length of both differ considerrably during the timeperiods

>>28799091
he has something of a reputation among a number of well-educated collectors for selling "antique" swords that are suspected to have been dunked in a tank of acid to age them.

unfortunately, there's no proof of that, beyond the opinions of multiple experts who've expressed their doubts. At least, short of shelling out 25,000 euros or more and putting one of his sales to extensive metallurgical, radioisotope and physical tests.

and I dont doubt that some of his stock is real. but anything that goes through his hands is in many ways tainted by suspicion that it too might be a fake.

>>28798709

Folding was essentially done to get the required carbon necessary to get good steel into a blade with inferior iron.

With good crucible steel the need for extensive folding in order to get good distribution of the carbon is redundant.

>>28799101

Honestly if it was unarmored vs unarmored I'd be tempted to suggest the rapier simply because you can strike from so far away and then retreat and let your opponent bleed to death.

Blocking with either weapon is largely pointless. The long sword isn't going to be able to effectively parry the rapier and the rapier can't parry the longsword

The problem with the rapier vs the Longsword is that even if the rapier strikes first, he needs to be able to defend against the after blow. And with the force of the Longsword I just don't see that happening very.
The Rapier is going to score a beautiful thrust to the chest, Return to a guard to parry, and watch as the longsword plougs through and bury itself is his arm or shoulder.

>>28799101
>Rapiers were invented for a diferent period of time, when armors were ditched because of the proliferation of guns, meaning what decided a fight was speed and mobility.

In somewhat related trivia, this also eventually lead to civilian duels becoming incredibly lethal. With more "traditional", heavier/broader blades it was usually fairly possible to just fight until either first blood or surrender and have even the loser walk away in fairly good condition.
But over time dueling blades like the rapier became ever thinner and longer, with the fighting styles adapting to become more focused on the thrust. The deep puncture wounds caused by this were often quite lethal but not very disabling, leading to duels going on far past the point of no return for both combatants. Essentially it turned to a fancier version of the old saying about knife-fights: The loser dies on the spot, the winner dies on the way to the doctor.

>>28799382
youve obviously never seen a swordsman use a longsword to its full effect, a longsword simply has to be twisted or angled to delfect a thrust while the rapier lacks the weight to do the same and the strength to block a blow

>>28799722

A rapier's lunging thrust is brutal to try to deflect bro especially since the effective encounter range with a rapier is ridiculously big.

I'm not a ginormous rapier fan but it's completely specialized around unarmored dueling. Longsword? not so much.

>>28799751
Not the guy you're replying to. But In all honesty its the wielders skill in that particular weapon and his concept of measure.
I personally have a longer threat range with a longsword(about 15ft) than a rapier(7ft).
However, my last rapier instructor had an almost perfect measure. As a result did not only did he place in the top 3(i cant remember exact placement) for single stick, but he also placed top in the open longsword. Neither of which are weapons he practices with.

>>28796414
Appreciated and useful, but we're talking less wild boar and more Shadow of the Colossus.

>>28799877
Also, taking notes. Lots of notes.

>>28799831
And there was a time that the longsword was used for dueling. Hell most of the old German fight houses specialized in dueling.
Thats one reason that Fiore states in his manuals that everything he teaches he has seen done at least twice, or done himself on the battlefield. An obvious example is that the forehead cuts are almost completely passed over.

>>28799952
There was apparently a huge variety in possible duel layouts. I seem to remember that there was one drawing where on combatant was standing up to his hips in a whole in the ground, while his opponent was a woman armed with some kind of improvised flail (something heavy wrapped in a sheet)

>>28800092
A judicial duel between husband and wife. The hole was to keep the fight fair.

>>28799347
>Folding was essentially done to get the required carbon necessary to get good steel into a blade with inferior iron.

Erm.
No.

not even remotely accurate.

medieval steel - be it medieval europe, or japan, is not really like steel as you think it is. its more like two different colours of clay. mostly white, but some bits of nasty claggy black clay in there too. just shaping your object from the clay block will mean there's blobs of black stuff in it, and when fired, they'll make it crack. so instead, you knead and fold the clay over a few times, spreading it thin, stretching it out. doing so mixes the black bits into the white, and eventually it becomes more a streak of grey, thin enough that it does'nt make the whole pot crack when fired.

that's pretty much what folding does - it spreads slag impurities out and minimises them, so its less likely to have a mechanical failure due to a "large" bit of slag in the blade. (by which you might only mean a blob 1-2mm in diameter - small but enough to cause a failure.)

Crucible steel is, (despite what you may assume from having watched that one TV programme that everyone else has watched too) hardly a wonder-material, and is'nt particularly relevant, given that only a tiny fraction of european swords were ever made with Wootz - and forging that stuff has a whole load of different headaches.

>>28799529

Rapiers are usually regard as light and flimsy swords, true war rapiers were quite heavy and strong. I would say against a longsword it would only depend of the warrior using it.

>>28800203

I'm saying that crucible steel obviates the need for folding to get the carbon molecules spread out.

If you are using modern steel you'd never need to fold in order to make an awesome sword.

Japanese iron had a lower overall level of quality and there was never any real indication that they developed crucible steel during the Katana's heyday so they needed to fold like crazy to avoid those impurities.

>>28800233
plenty of the germanic rapiers have blades that, with a different hilt would've been entirely at home as part of a longsword.

>>28800233

Modern fencing rapiers would be shit but actual rapiers have much more robust builds.

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>>28800272

Yes, that was my point, war rapiers were not truly Estocs but they were quite strong and robust.


The rapiers we see today in popular culture are a mixed variant that was more of a civilian sword.

>>28800272
Modern fencing swords are not rapiers. In any sense of the word.

>>28800240
>Japanese iron had a lower overall level of quality
Sigh. Here we go again.

>>28800240
>I'm saying that crucible steel obviates the need for folding to get the carbon molecules spread out.

And what you're saying makes it painfully evident you've never actually done what you're talking about. Sorry.

that really is'nt even remotely like what carbon in an iron-carbon alloy is.
the carbon is already distributed with regularity throughout the atomic structure of a medieval steel. Even if there are peices of high and low-carbon steel from different blooms in a pattern-welded structure, actual carbon migration at or above the eutectoid point is marginal, given the durations which steel billets are held at that temperature for. For reference, please actually study dr Alan William's work "the knight and the blast furnace". As a note, for the level of carbon migration, cross-sectional metalurgical analysis of non-homogeneous medieval pattern-welding tends to indicate carbon migration of less than 0.25mm into the lower carbon alloy.

What folding is for is for the distribution of impurities, nothing whatsoever to do with moving carbon.

And please, stop going on about crucible steel. Yes, we've ALL seen "secrets of the viking sword". What you're going on about has pretty much nothing whatsoever to do with the real, normal actual steels produced in bloomeries which define 99% of medieval swords.

>>28798709
As >>28798807 points out, it's a redundant process. Steel is steel! The only inherent "quality" to a type of iron deposit is what sort of process you need to turn it into steel.

The Japanese folded their iron because that's what it took to make it usable. Since this is a laborious and time intensive process, this meant they had generally less steel to work with. Consequently the katana has a steel edge with a much softer iron core (that's why you see the wavy pattern on the blade, indicating where one material begins and the other ends.)

Note Europeans used the same techniques - the Celts were folding blades around 700 AD and had a similar mixed composition of steel edges and iron cores. European surface iron deposits were just as meager as any in Japan.

What changed was the importation of bloomery/crucible techniques from India, which was an improved production process. This allowed blades to be made completely of steel (as well as all-steel armours), since you could make more of it to work with.

A longsword and katana actually are completely different blades in terms of metallurgical composition.

>>28800367
just nod, smile and say "yes, dear".

there's no point in trying to educate them on that one, they just wont listen.

we've said it 1001 times, but it still does'nt sink in that the steel is pretty much the same, its just the manufacturing process which was poorer and harder for the japanese.

>>28800367

The number of regions that had high quality masa iron sand were relatively small bro.

Unless you are implying that all of the Japanese swords were forged in the masa iron sand regions?

>>28800428
>Steel is steel!
Mien gott. I give up. Someone else can beat their head against this wall.

>>28800428
>Note Europeans used the same techniques - the Celts were folding blades around 700 AD and

I assume you meant to type 700BC there.

La Tene culture.

>>28800471
Typo on my end, yes.

>>28800428
>What changed was the importation of bloomery/crucible techniques from India, which was an improved production process.

the bigger change was the adoption of the over-shot waterwheel. ie water flowing over the top of a wheel and falling down in a bucket, rather than the under-shot waterwheel, where the wheel was turned by paddles by the water flowing below it.

that increased power output by about 250%, resulting in a rise in heat in the furnaces, allowing better control over the smelt, and removing much more silicate impurity.

>>28800393

But the impurities are not evenly distributed. You can have lots and lots of big impurities in something that hammering an folding will hopefully minimize.

The reasons why I'm saying that you wouldn't need to fold modern steel as much is that it simply wouldn't be necessary. Hell top end steel can basically be stamped and be as durable as a forged blade.

>>28800393
>What folding is for is for the distribution of impurities
>>28800529
But the impurities are not evenly distributed.

I get the sense you're both agreeing with each other...

>>28800566

yeah we are talking past each other even though we largely agree.

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>>28800529
>But the impurities are not evenly distributed.

which is bloody well exactly what I've been trying to tell you, while you wittered on about crucible steel and moving carbon around, you numpty.

jesus h. tap-dancing christ. someone fetch me a drink before I get my fucking radge on.

>>28800584

I was just talking about the distribution of carbon slag not carbon steel you knob.

If you have extremely hot furnaces you can burn off a ton of impurities so you don't have to go crazy with folding methods.

>>28800444
and the fact that people like you odnt make the logical jump that this is exactly what we mean when we say "lower quality steel" rather than say "lower quality manufacturing process" for the sake of brevity

Here's an introduction to cast iron vs. wrought iron vs. steel with a layman's breakdown of what actually happens in the furnace.
http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_steel.html

>Western smiths usually followed a process of heating the low-carbon wrought iron in some type of sealed container containing carbon, the idea being to promote the migration of carbon atoms into the metal. It was tricky, and often produced only small amounts of steel, but steel was simply so useful for tools and weapons that even small amounts were important. Steel edges were usually welded to a wrought iron core or blade to make a steeled tool in the most economical manner.

This is the "folding" technique that gets discussed a lot.

Japanese sword-making uses similar techniques - the iron sand heated in a clay vessel and repeatedly covered with charcoal, eventually creating a steel bloom with steels of various carbon contents. These are then folded and welded together to create a blade - the harder materials on the "edge", and the softer materials on the "spine".

Later in the Middle Ages, as >>28800507 points out, water wheels were used to provide greater consistency and allow hotter furnace fires that allow for the melting of pure iron - since falling water can operate a much larger set of bellows without interruption than human muscle power alone.

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>>28800614
>I was just talking about the distribution of carbon slag not carbon steel you knob.

Slag is'nt carbon

Slag is pincipally Calcium Oxides (CaO), or Silicates (SiO2), not carbon.

if you're going to talk about subjects, you know it really helps if you have the slightest fucking clue about the topic. Please, for the love of all that is holy, go and get a fucking book and stop posting, before I run out of sarcastic reaction images.

>>28800584
>>28800614

I think what this really points to is a lack of standardization of metallurgical terms, or at least a lack of technical language that's easily understood.

How does one go about making silver & gold weapons and armor? I know that actually smelting them down and using that wouldn't be a great idea, are silver/gold flakes applied? How is that done? How does it bond to the other material?

>>28800272

Which is whey they are called foils and epees and are derived from smallswords not rapiers.

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>>28800739
or just that the guy taking about "carbon" instead of "slag", and the likes is making up his own terminology and doesn't really understand the subject enough to use the right words.

pic totally unrelated, but we need more images and less nonsense.

>>28793817
>thinks the folding has significance besides removing slag
confirmed zero knowledge of material science

>>28800733
oh for the love of jeezus, the point is he is trying to discuss a topic with limited knowledge, give him the fact that he was actually talking about slage
but educate him that it isnt carbon
but for fucks sake dont try and bar him from having the conversation you asshat, not everyones a fucking expert

>>28800790
One technique would be the regular inlay; you'd create your metal object with a small depression (usually you'd file/cut out the space after you've heat treated it and everything).

You'd then fill the space with your precious metal and then use a hammer to shape it into the inlay so it's snug and tight. Then you sand it down to a nice finish and then add other detail work that you'd like, like engraving, etc. Since most precious metals are much softer than steel you can usually bang them into shape without damaging the blade if you control the force you use.

>>28800883

But does Gold and Silver actually bond well with Steel? Or would you mainly just be using it as inlay or filligree?

I mean assuming no magic or alchemy involved

>>28800842
Why are forged steel pistons stronger than cast or billet pistons, then? None will have any measurable amount of slag.

>>28800790

ok, there's a few methods.

the most common one on early swords is mechanical adhesion. viking era, for example, you'd take a steel sword pommel, and you'd score lots of lines along it - maybe 0.6mm wide, and 0.7mm deep. the trick was to make the grooves wider at the bottom than at the top, sort of like a dovetail joint. thin wires are then hammered into the grooves, and they spread into the dovetail, locking them in place.
later on, that sort of inlay is used for little lines of gold or the likes, for patterns.

later still in the 16th C you get a technique called damascening (not to be mixed up with damascus for steel). there you're scoring and roughening up a surface, and you then lay a sheet or foil of gold or silver onto the surface, and its pressed in, in such a way that the rough surface mechanically grips the softer gold or silver.

from the 14th C, you also get fire-gilding.
what you do there is you take the gold and beat it into thin sheet. that's then dropped into mercury, which reacts with gold, effectively melting it and turning it into a mixture with the mercury. eventually, that gets made into a sort of golden paste, of mercury and gold. that is then spread over the surface you want to gild, which has been washed with acid. you then heat the material. mercury boils at 350-odd C, so the mercury boils away, leaving a thin film of gold over the surface which is then polished to a high gleam.

>>28800930
And today you'd use electroplating.

>>28800790
>>28800883
If you're looking to do an entire object covered in gold, the traditional method was gilding. For metal objects, you'd again start with a "finished" piece, and then heat it up to a point just before it would melt, and then gold leaf is pressed on. Since the melting point of gold is lower than steel, you're essentially melting the gold on.

There were other methods of gilding as well that involved chemical processes and used stuff like mercury also.

>>28800845
>give him the fact that he was actually talking about slage but educate him that it isnt carbon

I tried, several times, and they start responding by calling me a "knob".

If someone says "I dont know for sure, isn't it something like X that causes Y?" I'm happy to give them a mile of slack.

when they start trying to make authoritative statements about how folding is done for specific reasons, and then gets pissy when you tell them they're wrong, I rarely have patience for that.

>>28800739
I think the big issue is the idea that the term "steel" refers to a very specific material that's somehow magical compared to "iron" (although I'm certain that to medieval smiths it was absolutely magical).

It's probably better to think of the various iron products - wrought iron, steel, and cast iron - as a range that results based on how much carbon is introduced during the smelting process.

>>28801012
>someone acts like a douche to me
>I get to act like a douche to them
>it's a measured response

>>28801107

fair enough, just keep in mind that some of us are multitasking and firing off responses in between trolling /sp/ CL threads

>>28801096
Can we just agree that anything that's not made of ceramic coated, carbon nanotube impregnated forged magnesium is fucking garbage that never should have bothered existing?

So wait, european steel is stronger than japanese steel because we had better methods of removing impurities, like a hotter forge or whatever, and not because there were less impurities in it to begin with?

>>28801395
Was, not is.

>>28801395
pretty much.

the raw iron and steel out a medieval bloomery, and a japanese bloomery are pretty much the same, in terms of the amount of shit in them.

Japanese steel took a little more effort to make, as the source ore is'nt as easy to convert into steel, but that's all. And if europeans were in japan, they'd have had the same amount of effort to get a steel out of it.

But if you were to ship japanese tamahagane to europe, and european steel to japan, neither would be particularly shocked by the quality or lack of quality of the other's materials.

the big advantage that europe had was that grain needs milled, where japan could harvest rice directly. Net result, the europeans developed mills, the mills evolved more powerful water-wheel mills, the new more powerful waterwheels could drive more than just grinding stones, but powered the first steps of industrial revolution. fast forward a few centuries, and europeans are hammering out 100 blades at a time on water-wheel powered hammers in factories where the steel is heated using bellows driven by the river outside, sharpening the blades on rotary grinding wheels, again driven by the rivers, while the japanese are still doing them one at a time, heating the forge by pushing a bellows up and down by hand, then hammering out one blade with an assistant with a hammer, then polishing the one blade on stones, rubbing the blade along the stone...

European technological advantage did'nt come from any better iron, it came from a humble kernel of wheat.

>>28801603

My understanding is that Japanese swords were largely forged from Iron Sand and that the quality of iron sand present in the island was very uneven.

So some blades would probably come out of very good quality iron sand location but some would come out of the poorer regions

>>28787019
Here is a vid on "dark age" sword fighting including fighting with shield in an non static fashion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhpqAGdZPc

>>28801706
exactly the same thing was an issue in european steel. ore from sweden and britian was far less suited to the steel production process than ore from central germany and north italy.

>>28798170
Not even the Byzantines wanted to be Greek

>>28800842
> confirmed zero knowledge of material science

I would claim that I am quite well aware of metallurgy. I think that the whole point of my post was missed. Let's try again.

> pieces of mixed steel which are too small for making a sword

Removing impurities with forging is just one aspect of pattern-welding. Another important aspect is material homogenization. If you are making a blade from mixed pieces of junk steel you should not just weld them into a rod and forge it to a blade. The resulting blade would have uneven hardness and could bend or snap when used. Our ancestors had to work with limited and low-quality stock, so they had no other choice than pattern-weld it.

After blast furnace was introduced in Europe, it was possible to make sufficient amounts of homogeneous high carbon steel, and pattern-welding was no longer needed.
Today pattern-welding is used only for decorative purposes.

>>28797458
protip
>poleax
refers to a VERY specific weapon in a medieval context.

the daneax isn't it.