Super cutting swords, are they needed? 

This is such a weird comments section, I think it is the only one I have seen (of this length) where every comment seems to be polite and well-considered. And it is about how best to kill people. Cause or Consequence? I don't even know how to tell.

I would wager that specialized cutting swords are also more forgiving in the cut. In the sense that it is far less difficult to give an effective cut and far less likely to give an uneffective cut. Meaning that even if the strongest level of preformance is overkill, the average level of performance is still above non-cutting swords.

You mention overkill, but neglect a few points... First of all, there's confirming the kill. The advantage that your 'overkill' has is that you are absolutely sure that a target is unable to resume fighting, usually because you can see his head flying off of his torso. If you deliver a cut that may kill, you would have to wait several seconds to confirm that the target is indeed dying/dead. Secondly there's the amount of effort required to produce a killing strike, when your sword does half the work for you, getting a deadly cut in is going to be far easier. Then you mentioned that stabbing requires action from the defender, this is correct. But it is common doctrine that a swordsman attacks and defends at the same time. So while he is required to use his tempo to deflect a stab, he is gaining a tempo, or even a deadly tempo because he's attacking at the same time. Then there's the guards where stabs can be made from... while cuts are telegraphed in their guards (1 guard has 1 direct attack and one indirect attack, everything else constitutes a guard change), thrusting is no different as they all require the sword to be pointing forward. The thing with the sword pointing forward is of course that the opponent gets a free binding which he can then use one of the master hews from to gain a (deadly) tempo.

You see. A battlefield is not a surgeon's table. Overkill is not a waste of cutting capacity but it's a weapon in itself: terror. Sure a battle with people dying and being wounded is bad enough, but with limbs flying, heads rolling and blood splatting everywhere? That's mental warfare!! Also, if you cut an arm or neck to the bone, there is a good chance your sword might bet stuck there, a specialized cutting weapon will clear itself out by removing the limbs and be ready for the next engagement, or to parry another opponent.

WOW, the great discussion and comments here are phenomenal! So phenomenal in fact that I just can reply to you all (Damn my limited time!). Not to worry, I certainly read all your comments and seriously consider everyone's feedback. So I'll make a follow up video addressing the more common ideas and replies, and those comments that particularly stood out to me ^_^

1. Better performance against soft armors like gambesons 2. Increasing the percussive damage of a sword (some of thrand's videos show how even without bypassing the armor, bones can be shattered by sword strikes) 3. Reduces the chance of getting a cut stuck in an opponents body 4. Intimidation 5. A thrust to non vital areas may be not that lethal, a gigantic gash is. 6. For group fighting is not only about keeping the enemy at bay, theres also the fact that when you thrust someone you have to remove your sword from their body before being able to engage anyone else. Cuts attack and "remove the sword from the opponents body" in one motion (well to be fair, this isnt always the case..) 7. under stress people revert to more primal and animalistic movements. We naturally favour the cuts over thrust in this situations. 8. I know that you mentioned "chopping your way through the jungle" as a joke but swords like the messer and cutlass were also used as tools. 9. Not only cutting swords make better cavalry weapons but are also good as anti-cavalry weapons (big, two-handed cutting swords) . To stop a horse with a "thrust" you would need a pike. 10. Lets face it... Cuts are just way cooler ;)

Humanity's greatest invention, a pointy end on a stick. We call it the "stab-farther".

I think you might be overlooking the sword in cavalry application Shad. One of the reasons they used sabers, which is identified as a cutting weapon, is because a thrust is more likely to get stuck in the target. Since you're expected to primarily slash when on horseback why not use a weapon specialized for that purpose.

There is one situation that comes to mind where thrusting is counterproductive. Fighting on horseback. The main reason for this being balance. Attempting to thrust while riding a horse is not only difficult (you can only use one hand, as the other is on the reigns) but dangerous. If your blade is grabbed by a man on the ground, they can easily rip it from your hands or simply pull you from your horse. The real benefit of horsemen comes from their mobility. Being able to ride past another person, while still being able to deliver a fatal blow, and keep on going, without having to pull your weapon out of them. This is why sabres became the go-to weapon for horsemen from their inception, all the way to when horsemen were rendered obsolete by Armoured Fighting Vehicles.

You are making an interesting point there. I feel like if you need a weapon for self defense as say a charackter from your average RPG, that crawls through dungeons, fights indoors, outdoors, on the battlefield, from a horseback ect. you might need a generaly good one fits all weapon, that you can also carry around easiely. BUT: Some swords, in fact quite a lot of them, are designed in a very specialized way, because you only use them in a specialized way. For example the roman gladius, which is a very specialized thruster. Now it has scary sharp edges on either side, so you can cut with it but the very close-to-guard point of balance and pronounced point make for an excellent (while rather short ranged) thruster. Why do that? why limit the range of the person using it and take so much weight away from the point? And most importantly, why not add an extensive handguard, or at least a crossguard. Where the romans not concerned with their own safety? Of course they were, but other factors can make up for what the sword is lacking. In fact you only use the weapon to thrust at short range with it, so it might as well be absolutely overdesigned to do only that. Let's ask who was using it. The answer to that is of course a roman legionare. What does almost every legionare do for at least half his life? Working on a field. Roman legionares were usually not using that sword at any time, other then on the battlefield, or training for exactly that. So most of the time they dont even need a sword, and the sword can be awesome at being a battlefield weapon, while it aboslutely does not matter how it would perform in a one on one unarmored situation. Now, let's ask what a battlefield situation would require a roman legionare to do. As a roman legionare, you have a big ass shield. Because the solidiers aren't exactly experts in what they do, it's essential that the protection is very large. You can sink the lower end of your shield into muddy ground and push against it and you are rather safe, because men to your left and right are doing the same thing. Of course you are never truly safe, peaple to your left and right are dyin, those in front of you are trying to kill you, so you are always in danger, but a formation like this is really hard to break, even if the defenders are not very skilled so we can call it battlefield-safe, with the understanding that a thing such as safety really doesn't exist on the battlefield. Now with that being said, just defending is not gonna cut it(or thrust it in this case). If you are using so much energy for your defense and space is limited, your only attack option is a quick thrust over your shield or through the (ideally) small gap between you and the next legionare in line. It would be very hard, to get enough space to actually do a full swing for a decent cut. Also thrusting (especially with a short sword) is easier to learn. No need to worry about edge alignment, just "stick 'em with the pointy end" and you'll get the job done. This also means, that your hand is only going to be exposed for a brief moment, and only for attacking. (almost) Never predictable, because the shield blocks sight and (almost) never for defense, because it is so huge that you can fit your whole body behind it. Why add the weight of a cross, or knuckleguard then? well, you don't. Now, if you are done stabbing a few times, the roman formation will have you move back, so you dont get yourself killed and the next line takes the lead for a while. In that situation a bulky weapon is very unpractical. Same goes for super cutting weapons. Sabres for example where often used by the cavallery, where the weapon is already in a fast motion, so you just need to hold it out and you'll cut like a champ. On the other side, thrusting might be terrible, bacause if the weapon gets stuck, it's lost for good and your horse will not go pick it up for you. Being a bad thruster is actually beneficial for a cavallerist. Maaaaan that took way to many words. But people say that about your videos, so I think you'll understand. Also on a sidenote, I am still studying history, not done yet so let me know if I got things horribly wrong. Not to late to fix my knowledge. (hopefully)

I don't see why you would require a sword, simply carry a bag or pouch pilled to the brim with pommels. Imagine the sheer number of rightly ended opponents, the results would be devastating.

cutting clean through has one advantage in my mind: recovery. say you had a sword that can cut to the bone. that's great, but in combat your cut is sloppy enough that it embeds in their bone and you can't quickly remove it. your immediate battle would be over, I'm sure, but in any situation with more than one enemy it becomes essential to retrieve your weapon. this also applies to horseback battle, scimitars are shaped to have cutting potential far beyond what is necessary, but in the heat of the moment, on a moving horse, you don't have time to stop and wrench your blade out of the victim you've just hacked at.

Cutting swords can lower enemy morale.

Shad, I respect the thought you put into this, but you're mistaken on several points. Before listing them, I wish to state that I agree with you concerning the effectiveness of the thrust. A properly placed thrust kills more efficiently than a cut. Yes. Absolutely. That said, 1. Extreme cutting ability is not redundant. In a fight, the ability to survive is at least as important as the ability to kill. Having struck his opponent, a fighter must be able to extract his blade easily to maintain defense. Swords capable of passing entirely through a limb will not get stuck in the bone. 2. Assuming for the moment that extreme cutting is redundant, your argument proves the same about extreme thrusting. A thrust from a longsword or katana, properly executed, will kill. Why then develop the rapier? Because it's nimbler, possesses superior hand protection, etc. 3. Weapons specialized for thrusting, if they are swords and not daggers, tend to be long. This makes them less suitable for close quarters combat since it is more difficult to bring the point to bear. A cutting blade, sharpened along its entire length is more useful here. 4. It is not easier to block a cut than a thrust. Yes, a thrust can terminate at any point on the body, but it really arrives from only one direction. A cut can come from anywhere, and a skilled fencer will not telegraph his intentions. True, cuts require preparation, perhaps this is what you mean by 'telegraphing, but the inclusion of feints can keep your opponent guessing. 5. Combining points 1 and 3, we that cutting swords are better for facing multiple opponents. Granted, these do not necessarily need to be 'extreme' cutters.

Perhaps the cutting of complete limbs and beheading is preferable to bleeding wounds. Imagine. You cut off your opponent's arms. They are now disarmed. You no longer need to pay them any attention due to their lack of arms. Now, if you slash an artery in their arms, they will bleed out, but still pose a significant threat because a loss of blood does not equate to lack of threat. They can still kill you before dying themselves. Sometimes wounds don't kill a person until hours later. Also, wounds can be patched. Limbs cannot be reattached.

I think it's connected to the armor people were wearing, e.g. in india turbans and baggy clothes was worn, a lot of flexible fabric that would be cabable of stopping the blade of a straight sword from going deep, but the extreme curvature of talwar is less likely to get stuck in the layers of fabric, because the point of the sword is pretty much out of the way and you can make really long cutting motions without your tip of your sword getting entangled in the cloth, similar thing with padded armor/gambeson in europe in connection with falchion/messer, great cutters for a better chance to cut through the thick wool padding

That's funny. Common historically used argument in favour of thrust (from Vegetius to Victorian times) was that in practice even very nasty-looking cutting wounds turned out to be superficial and not deadly. So perhaps you need that "overkill" to be effective cutter in real battle

In one of your later videos, you speculate that swords that emphasize the cut, like a falchion, are designed to let you easily sharpen the blade to the point that it will defeat gambeson armor. You answered your own question in a video that came out years later!

Surely it's to do with recovery? Bearing in mind that most of those "cutting" swords are designed for combat against people not wearing armour (or armour that would effectively stop a fatal strike). If you cut cleaner then your exit and recovery are surely faster?

With regards to cavalry- perhaps they simply don't use thrusts often enough for it to be worth keeping the balance when they could simply make a sword which is better at cutting?

Tl;dr Did you hear they used curved swords? CURVED swords?!

Because thrusting on horseback with a sword is stupid.

You say a sword specialized in cutting like the scimitar is overkill because it detracts from the thrust. So wouldn't a sword specialized in thrusting like the rapier also be considered overkill because it detracts from the cut? The only sword not considered to be overkill by you, is the long sword. What you're kind of saying is the long sword is basically a beige minivan. It's comfortable to use, it does two things very well and it's boring.

The trick is to surprise everyone by killing them with the pommel

The weakness of a rapier is that your opponent can initiate grappling from a longer range than if you have a bladed weapon. Lichtenauer taught that grappling is the base of all swordsmanship.

In a civilian context, weapons like the messer make sense. If you get attacked by bandits or mugged in the street, you may be severely outnumbered. Therefore you want to make sure that any clean hit will immediately take an opponent out of the fight for good. A cut that incapacitates an arm or slowly makes them bleed out may not be good enough, but cutting off an entire arm will cause extreme shock from sudden blood loss and therefore make sure, they can't fight on no matter what. Just causing a slight bleeding and incapacitating limbs might be enough in a dueling sense, where you can just pile on the damage and a weakened opponent will not be much of a threat, but in a one versus many scenario, even a guy that can only use one arm still poses a significant threat because he can still grab you, pull you or otherwise distract you, so his buddies can finish you off. A weapon that's overkill pretty much rules this out. There may be people who can fight on when they have a wide cut over the back of their arm but there is nobody who can fight on with the shock of sudden blood loss that sets in after they lost an entire arm... Unless they are on an insane dose of amphetamines. The reason for the overkill factor is mostly stopping power. That also translates to the battlefield. Cavalry wants to end opponents in a single strike and their high position on horseback facilitates big downward cuts. A big mean cutter makes sense there.

Gambesons are the kicker, a Longsword has extreme difficulty against heavy padding, on the cut, a falchion does not, their are demonstrations of this available on the Medieval Review channel, also a curved blade is less likely to bind, and retains cutting power better with edge wear/damage (which is an important thing to remember, modern steel is far better than medieval steel, so holds and edge better, for longer, especially when striking shields etc), a third point, even trained combatants get a little cave man under stress, which is downward strokes to the head and neck, especially while tired and stressed. This argument was a major part of British Cavalry tactics and sword design, Matt Easton has addressed it iirc.

When it comes down to it, I’d prefer a weapon that would come completely through the limb. If I stop short, if my angle is off, and my sword gets stuck ... well I’m done. It might be overkill, but I’d prefer to have that safety net. Because unfortunately, in the heat of battle, when you have to react, can you say you’re going to do everything perfectly?

I do know the answer to your questions about cutting an arm off (or whatever) vs just cutting deep enough to disable. In combat, there is allot of adrenaline. There are several instances where a person will receive fatal wounds and did not know it, and fought for the few minutes while he was alive. If you cut the arm off, It is very unlikely he is going to be able to strike you again. If you cut deep, the person may not even know they been cut (especially if the sword is sharp) and make a swing.

1) stopping power: deep cuts debilitate faster; less need to aim well; even a weak/bad swing will do signifiant damage (untrained; exhaused; stressed) 2) target area: normal swords won't cut through winter clothing and gambesson as much as falchion or Katana would; similarly a rapier might kill with a cut to the throat or arm-insides but do little against the torso (or try to fight a rabid bear) 3) psychological: flying limbs, rolling heads and falling entrails scare enemies; the ability of an overkill will boost your confidence 4) potential weight reduction by specialisation: a machete cuts better than most swords but is 2-3x lighter; same could be said about thrusting with an epee

also not all of your swings are going to be at full power. i mean you may be tired or do not have much space to swing so the force of your swing will be lower. if you had a longsword you may bruise your enemy but probably not even pierce through leather armor. if you had a blade specialized in cutting the blade would pass through the leather and give your enemy a possibly fatal blow. this could mran the difference between life and death

Also seeing someone cut in half on a battlefield would be pretty demoralizing

Cutting through cloth is not as easy as you seem to assume. It's hard. Sabers, scimitars and tulwars were designed to do it effectively. From accounts of duels I read, saber cuts usually wounded, not killed, so there was no excessive cutting ability there at all. Just enough to do the job,. Then, a thrust has a shorter reach. Realistically you need to aim for the torso. Hand or head are small targets, difficult to hit on a moving opponent. Cut to the arm or head will usually do the job, but contrary to what you expect, it will usually not kill. People used to wear protective headgear (thick hats and so on), and even without it a quick light cut will stop on bones. Enough to stop the threat, not enough to kill. Thrust to the torso will likely kill, but it's very difficult to recover from them. You sword is stuck in the target for a considerable time, two-tempo action, while a cut can be followed into an immediate guard within one-tempo action. Especially important in melee, and that's probably why sabers became so universally adopted in armies all over the world.

Love the point! Generally I agree with this, but I have a possible rebuttal. Maximum *potential* cutting power is not all that matters; how hard you have to swing the sword to achieve a good wound is also important to consider. If a sword can cut very well, it doesn't require as much physical exertion to do damage in the cut as one that only cuts well enough. Largely, this would be against unarmored opponents. Of course, again, I agree with the overall point. When people do these cutting tests I think they obscure the original intent for having such a specialized sword; but I do believe there were times when the extra cutting power came in handy. Or should I say 'came OFF handy', amiright?!

Your videos always get me cozy at night before bed. 🙂

I love the ending of your videos, you always go right off the deep end in the best way LOL ps - binging your channel atm ;D

Classic Shad. Takes several thousand years of military history influenced by various economic, cultural, legal, technological, and fashionable factors, carried out by people who were often career warriors; thinks about it for five minutes and develops a hunch that all those people using cut centred swords were failing. Here's a thought. Thrusts are much more likely to kill than cutting swords and medieval fighting was often far more centred on disabling opponents than killing them especially if you are a knight. It's not always desirable to kill your opponent. Or in the case of falchions you're moving so far into heavy blades for cutting that you're also getting blunt force trauma. I've seen a guy in armour get hit on the arm by a falchion and the plate armour has stayed intact but the arm has broken inside the plate. It probably wouldn't have happened with a long sword. Okay it's not cutting but was an example of a more specialised blade. Or perhaps even though a longsword would cut through a hung pig the same as a tulwar you might be worried about glancing blows. Maybe on a glancing cut through layers of padding a longsword just wouldn't cut as well as the cutting specialised sword be you want every chance to count. It wasn't for no reason that in the late 17th century when officers began to get stuck in to the fray against muskets with bayonets that they largely swapped from small (thrusting) swords to heavy blades cutting sabres, because a long thin blade couldn't cope with the spear like bayonet. All these reasons and more might be valid reasons to opt for a specialised cutting sword just as there are many other scenarios to opt for a thrusting weapon. And sometimes a compromise weapon that excels in neither is the worst option of all. You can't just boil it down to 'against a immovable target a non specialised sword cuts well enough'. It's hugely reductive.

Curve of some swords (the additional cutting ) I was told was for making it easierr for a person on a mount to use as straight blade would stop on bone but curve would slide out so they could keep riding by and not stopping

Idk how you do it, the fact that my 6 year old son’s favorite youtube channel is a medieval informative is crazy to me. Lots of love from this tiny home in Texas Shad, congrats on new book 😅

Hi Shad! Let me first say that I greatly appreciate this channel as a place to gush over swords. I realize that this video has been posted for quite some time and that I am showing up rather late to the party, but I wanted to weigh in on this a bit, since I am a proud owner of a sabre, a scimitar (or shamshir), and a longsword, and have done limited HEMA training with the latter. Having played around with curved sword a bunch, I can confidently say a few things about their advantages and properties: 1. Their advantage in cutting lies less in their curvature of the blade and more in their weight distribution, which is a result of curvature. Basically, curved swords have more weight-to-length ratio over the length at which they curve, essentially giving them more force in the cut but sacrificing length and nimbleness (since the point of balance lies farther away from the hand than in most straight swords). These are, as far as my amateurish experience has shown, the main advantages of straight blades- easier to wield and more balanced, and have greater reach per weight, which are very important qualities. 2. They can most definitely thrust. In fact, I don't think they sacrifice much in thrusting capacity as you say. The scimitar you showed is an extremely curved sword that is not a good example of the majority of Middle-Eastern blades. If you take a gander at a number of popular curved blades, such as Tulwars, Pulwars, Shamshirs/Saifs, Sabres, Kilijes, and even Katanas, you will see that the curvature is not so pronounced as to prevent one from thrusting. To the contrary, I believe you can deliver equally powerful thrusts with curved swords as with straight ones. With the longsword, one tries to position the point in somewhat of a perpendicular alignment to the length of the target. To thrust effectively with curved blades, you simply need to adapt your arm motion to go into the curve (think of the motion one makes when throwing a frisbee). I practiced stabbing around my shield, over the top of my shield, through targets, what-have-you, and it works beautifully. 3. Curved swords _slice_. This is a point that is often overlooked. I should also hedge my statement and say that straight blades can slice as well, but curving the blade makes this happen much more easily. Where cutting is moving the blade through a target, slicing is moving the blade along a target. This becomes relevant when you consider two important situations in which slicing is advantageous: attacking heavy cloth (or silk), and attacking from horseback. In Europe, the most ubiquitous piece of armor, aside from a helmet, was the gambeson, a heavy jacket (which you have made a great video about, by the way!) that is rather difficult to hack through. Using a straight sword such as a longsword or an arming sword, an easier method of attack would probably be the thrust, which gets you through that heavy padding much more easily. In the East (read: hotter climates), gambesons are not in fashion, but other, lighter forms of padding were. Leather lamellars were around, as were silk robes and linnen. These are also very hard to cut through (particularly silk which was used rather often by elite fighters in many Islamic countries). As with gambesons, you can stab through them, or alternatively, you can slice through them. Regarding cavalry warfare: if you would imagine yourself to be riding down an enemy and striking on the gallop, how much force do you think would be transferred directly to your wrist? How easily do you think you could lose your blade if it gets stuck in an enemy? How easily do you think the increased impact force of striking from a moving horse could warp and damage your blade? Slicing helps mitigate all of these issues by allowing you to make more gradual contact with the target, and the fact that curved blades tend to have rather rigid backs means that warping is less common and more force is transferred to the target. 4. Come on man, you just made a series gushing on falchions and messers where you mentioned the usefulness of having more cut-centric sword designs. Same thing applies. 5. Your point about rapiers is rather pedantic. They did become the most important dueling sword in Europe, where people often came unarmoured to duels and only had one person to fight. Of course reach would give you a huge advantage in that setting. The broadsword still ruled the battlefield at the time of the rapier (correct me if I am wrong). Such a specialized thrusting weapon as a rapier would leave you vulnerable in a melee, while a nice broad sword allowed you to hack and slash more effectively, while still capable of delivering deadly thrusts.

Good question, mate. I will make a video response to this because I think of many important point which would kill the comment box. But I will say here that I think there were many weapon designs which were overkill or basicly not that practical, because people did them out of fashion or they just "felt" it would be a good idea. Another important subject here is the meaning of cutting, because it has actually two meanings. First the technical meaning in seperating material but this is also done by thrusts so this is just the physics meaning. Second meaning are cutting techniques like the "famous" draw cut. I prefer to differ the attack types of melee weapons in three: thrust, strike and cut (this meaning here in form of draw or push cuts). I say this because the katana is great for cutting techniques, but a messer (by the way very nice pronunciation :3) or falchion is more a striker, of course those weapons can also cut well mostly throu the nature of sword blades. Some axes also have mor cutting abilities, like the dane axe. Some weapons can only work at their highest under certain circumstances like the rapier in duels or the katana in battle situations were you also facing many light armoured enemys (ashigaru) and where many people trained out of tradition cutting techniques (but you see development in Japan, before the katana you had the tachi which was more curved and more a cavalry weapon, then the shorter and straighter katana emerged as a result of samurais fighting more on foot and lesser room because they fought in tight ashigaru formations and more in castles). I already writing too much, like i said I will make a video about that tomorrow.

a sword like falchion has much higher impact force then longsword, so against armor like mail it can double as mace

Historically thrust are more deadly than cuts. Matt Easton has a great video where he goes into great detail with first person references. It’s much easier to stitch a cut than it is a thrust wound.

Plenty of laugh, actually. Your sense of humour is just as dorky as mine, and I love it=)

Shad, please do not take offense to this question, but have you ever been in a fight? Not a little sparring match between buddies, but a conflict that really matters? When your fight or flight instinct kicks in, your adrenaline increases exponentially. That in turn heightens your other senses, which may be very difficult to control. In extreme duress the body can perform feats a rational mind could not fathom. Because of this and a few other factors the body can withstand a lot of abuse. That said, "just enough" could very well be not enough. When I went to war I heard so many reports that some of the insurgents would continue charging after having an entire magazine of pistol ammunition fired into them. There are times when "overkill" may be your only option. In hand to hand training one time, my partner got a bit overzealous and tried to snap my arm. No amount of tapping was he ever going to release me. So after repeated headbutts to his face, breaking his nose and leaning my free arm into his throat cutting off his air he finally let go. In war there is no such thing as "just enough", you destroy your enemy as completely as possible. You not only shatter their bodies, but their morale and their will to fight on.

Shad, there is one problem in you analysis, namely that you only considered it from the unarmoured, fighting-on-foot perspective. For some reason, curved sabre type back-swords were in vogue in cultures that placed light cavalry and horse-archers in a prominent role. If the weapon was designed for fighting on foot from the ground up they may not retain that level of curvature. Take Japanese back-swords for example, and no there is no such thing as The Katana; a katana is a back-sword and can be further categorised into more specific types. Tachi was fashionable from late Heian to early-mid Sengoku period where the primary function of the samurai was horse-archery. Uchigatana, a much straighter version of tachi with longer handle, came into fashion in mid Sengoku where samurais were mostly fighting on foot in formation. Uchigatana was further shortened during the Edo period, as the Shogunate wanted to limit duelling, and this is The Katana that we think of today, Therefore, the katana is not the result of trying to maximising certain battle effectiveness, for example cutting; as a matter of fact, the Shogunate was trying to reduce its effectiveness in unarmoured fighting scenarios. It is what it is mostly because it is the descendent of Taichi and retained a degree of curvature. When it comes to nodachi, we have to again consider it in a different historical context. Ming Chinese noted that it was particularly effective in cutting off pike-heads during their war with Japanese pirates. It was so effective that the Chinese general in charge invented new tactics and adopted the nodachi as one of their infantry weapons. But then we need to compare the nodachi to the greatswords and it will be a different discussion.

I think another potential utility of curved swords is that they tend to slide across and off their target rather than stopping on them. The weapon can then be quickly chambered for the next strike rather than having to reset completely.

So, you're saying that giving up a sword's ability to thrust is...pointless ;)

in college, a book on medieval/ancient weapons (cannot remember the name) stated that curves in blades/swords were used to shift the center of gravity in addition to making blocking/parrying more difficult do to different location of the blade per inch.

Well the fact that the longsword can turn into a military pick/warhammer with a simple flip pretty much makes is the absolute ultimate melee weapon of them all. Nothing even comes close to covering such a variety of possible fighting situations as the longsword does. Jack of all trades, master of none. Must be the reason why it is widely portrayed as a main battle weapon in all those late medieval battle depictions.

Shadiversity: "Might be overkill." Me: "Duh, execution. I think people will want to lose their head as fast as possible." Also, I think cutting is quite useful as well. Kinda why my favorite sword is the Saber and Viking sword. Though honestly, I prefer spears over swords.

1: The emphasized cutting design choices could also make landing a damaging cutting blow easier to perform: You would have to work less with a specialized cutting weapon to do the same damage as a more general-purpose design could with great effort. 2: The saber, scimitar, and other curved weapons you mentioned were often used by cavalry against unarmored targets. The rider would have to swing his saber down in an underhand motion to slam into the back of a fleeing soldier. A cutting emphasis could help penetrate the soldier's backpack and the back of the ribcage. Or the rider could make a chopping motion backward as he passed to attack the running soldier's face. Much of the power of the cut would be lost with the blade and horse traveling in opposite directions, meaning that a cutting-specialized design could compensate again. 3: The katana was certainly on many battlefields, but the samurai probably left those famous swords in their scabbards when contending with armored targets. When fighting formations of lightly armored soldiers or just figthing away from the battlefield, the katana was probably a very effective weapon.

If the longsword was "good enough", then everyone would've just used longswords.

I think the better cutters were used against chain mail and gambesons. Weapon choice depends upon enemy protection does it not?

How am I only now finding these older videos The jokes are great

"overkill" is a practical thing .. you make sure you win - "just enough" is not enough! in a fight for life

I think for a cavalry man thrusting isnt that useful so they threw it out of the window completely by using sabers etc.

But bro why not just use a katana? My grandfather was in ww2 and he said he saw a samurai cut a fighter jet in half. But long swords can't even cut wet paper (not even joking, this one time me and my anime club tested it and we couldn't cut anything, it was a training sword but everyone knows that katanas are better) So obviously it's the best tool ever! But for real gr8 vid plz make more.

This is giving me ideas for a sword design.

The terror weapon is a good point, but also I think the leverage of the wound might stand to get the blade stuck in the target if you don't cut wholly through. For example with katana the blade goes through an entire soldier and immediately frees the weapon for a follow up attack, whereas for example if you were using a short sword (something less likely to slice through the target, something the longsword is more than capable of) and the weapon stopped at the bone, or worse dug into it 1/4 to 1/2 way through, the wound could close on the blade and make it difficult to free giving your opponent time to thrust into you at close range or for one of his buddies to take you out. I know when I was using a chainsaw if you stop at all with it the tree leans into the cut and it becomes nearly impossible to get the chainsaw back out. Just a thought. Great videos, you've earned a subscriber! experience: Marine Corps Combat Trained (trauma experience) self taught long sword aficionado minor student in Iaido

*So it's not that Blades built for Cutting "cant' cut it" in combat, It's just that Swords built for Thrusting tend to "Get to the Point" faster and with greater efficiency?* Well, imo... Either way you slice it this is a good episode. And that medieval age weapons of any culture are awesome. ^~^

This is a horribly pointless and redundant comment. read at you own risk. I think super cutting swords are useful in that you can't presume your opponent is going to be naked or allow you a nice clean perfect strike to their arm or where ever. Let's use the the Samshir as the example for a moment. (For those who may not understand why a curve enhances the cut to such a extreme degree) That exaggerated curve means less of the blade will be touching material at any time. Distributing the the energy to a much smaller area. Where as a longsword's straight edge means your energy is meeting a lot more material at any given time. Among other reasons. Blah blah blah, you already knew that. After stewing on it for a good half an hour, maybe it would rock with is cavalry work? Maybe facing people in more linen armor? *sigh* you Sir, have a very compelling argument. But, with that said (looking away from all you pesky and messy facts and logics). I guess just love my Samshirs. I fear that because I'm Persian, I have become biased, or perhaps it's hard coded into my DNA. I just can't not love those curvy things.

From what I understand with a number of curved swords is they were cavalry weapons. You have a standard war horse going about 25-30 miles per hour or 43-48 Kilometers per hour charging at your enemy, the cutting edge can do some devastating damage. The blade doesn't even need to be sharp; the impact alone can take someone's head off. Exceptions exist, but this tends to be the case

Sorry for being late to the party. Some thoughts: 1st: As mentioned already, it might be worth consindering whether you fight mounted or on foot. Mounted, you only have a small window of opportunity to land a hit, but thrusting might need more time to aim and look for an opening. Furthermore, I would guess that after a mounted thrust, my blade has a higher chance to stick in the body, getting ripped from my hand and leaving me "toothless". From medieval imagery it seems to me that knight on horse, when using a sword, preferred a cutting attack. And many curved blades I know of are especially cavalry weapons. Some others are designed to attack e.g. the legs of horses in an explicit anti cavalry fashion - something where a thrust wouldn't work well. 2nd: Thrusts sure can be deadly, but a thrust comes in a linear way, the "danger zone" is a straight line. As soon as I can evade that line (or redirect it), I am good. A slashing/cutting attack has the whole plane as danger zone. The movement may be more elaborate and thus slower than a thrust, but that might be a small price to pay. 3rd: Depending on the armour (or lack thereof), a slashing weapon might cause more damage. A thrust might go deep, but the wound is linear. There are parts of our body where such a hit will hurt as hell and maybe kill you in the long run, but the damage is rather local, leaving you in the fight for now. A cutting/slashing weapon could cause damage on a larger area. Not being a specialist on medieval times I am more interested in ancient times, and from my reading, the romphaia was a rather feared weapon that caused rather nasty damage. On the other hand I would expect cutting weapons to be less effective against heavy metal armour. Here it might be better to precisely aim for the weak spots instead of wasting the blade by running it over a thick sheet of metal. Just some thoughts (^_^)

there's reasons why the saber dominated the battlefield for so long. It can cut as well as a katana, it can thrust as well as your long sword, it's one handed freeing your second hand to carry a buckler, a dagger, or even a second sword. It's one handed so you have greater range and freedom of movement than a two handed sword like your long sword. It's blade is curved allowing you to cut around shields and swords, reaching soft spots your straight long sword can't reach. I'll take a saber any day, you can have your long sword.

One reason for cutters like falchions might have been that they were often used by and against unarmored people, like on ships and in general once guns improved to the point where people started forgoing armor entirely on battlefields, and generally chopping/cutting will make someone a non-threat quicker than stabbing, since the trauma is generally more immediate and devastating.

I agree 100% with Shadervisity, infact this theory I always had in my mind, but since I have no RU-vid channel I never could share that thought. It feels good to find someone who exactly explains what I actually always thought to be the case.

Shad, your new video on Falchions disproves the point about super-cutting blades: the arming jacket, or gambeson/aketon, or simply padding would not stop the falchion, but a lonsword they would

I know that this is an older video but a lot of people never seem to want to mention body physics when they talk about the effectiveness of armor. “Not directed you! Btw”. But I’ve heard people make comments like “the katana would just rip right through leather or gambison blah blah.” Or “a mace would kill you even through plate.” It’s like people don’t lend a thought to the fact that a person is also moving, and blocking, and energy gets wasted, redirected, etc.. if a person was up against a wall and you hit them dead on, with perfect edge alignment, and enough force then sure, I think a good cutting weapon could bite into leather to an extent. But humans being non stationary targets makes a lot of that force get wasted or redirected. I’d like to hear that brought up more often in discussion.

In Kali, the Filipino martial art I study, the cut is king. I've done a lot of practice bouts in sword fighting, and the thrust is not overly difficult to defend against, I actually look for it. The problem with the thrust is that you have to move towards the opponent to effectively stab them with enough force and all I need to do is slightly redirect the tip to make my opponent's sword a liability instead of an obstacle. If my sword cut is blocked, momentum allows me more flexibility in moving sideways, and backwards if i mess up horribly, if I miss a thrust, I have to completely stop and reverse my momentum. I can still do damage with cutting while close and not just blunt trauma. I can slice legs, arms, gut or neck as I pass my opponent instead of needing to retreat. Not that the thrust isn't useful, I just prefer cutting.

Well, some cutting swords with a really curved blade naturally align their edges more perfectly because it's more like swinging a disk instead of a stick. The added mass behind the centre line of the handle stabilizes the blade and you would need more energy to accidentaly tilt the weapon mid swing, leading to better edge alignment when under stress/being untrained.

Shad has feet! Every other video of his has him sitting in his funny chair. I'm so happy.

brilliant discussion there and as usual we get the difference of opinions of where East is better than West or vice versa etc. in many of the sword designs we have to consider the environment and evolution of other war influencing technologies mainly armour. as we know many cutting weapons struggled with chain mail alone hence the evolution of heavier weapons that would shatter opponents not only emphasising only on the cut. In environments where armies would rely on light armour mainly leather due to limited technology or resources to supply all the troops, weapons such as curved blades were more than efficient and where possibly the extra cutting ability was used to cut through the leather and other fabrics. The is also seen hundreds of years later in the napoleonic wars where troops would wear tunics as armour was expensive and only cavalry would have a brest plate. hence one handed sabres were ideal. In the question of a rapier it was never designed as a weapon of war. but as a gentleman's blade to settle duels without killing each other but causing a flesh wound. ideal so people could settle disputes without killing the countries knights, warriors, officer's etc. imaging trying settle a dispute with long swords or maces etc. flesh wound would be the last of your problems. However putting into context versatility a blade that can meet all situations and still be effective will undoubtedly be the sword of choice. regardless of philosophy and the nonsense people like to preach about it all the weapons in question where design primarily for war. and adapted accordingly to the battle environment they were exposed to. hence as shad explains we get a long sword eventually amongst other wespons. as European wars were exposed to heavier armour shields etc. in essence a katana is very similar to a long sword in thought. 2 handed grip for power and dexterity. but emphasis on the cut although still capable to thrust. design effective in battle against the opponents it faced. Note though Japanese armour was more segment in sheets plates than European armour and shields were not common. A long sword as a katana can cut and thrust but heavier and longer in design to meet the requirements of European battles. which is better, depends what you're facing. and what they are carrying/wearing. However versatility is an advantage in any field.

In the German longsword systems, thrusts are generally thrown from Von Tag, which is a shoulder guard. The most basic attack is done by cutting into the center and then stepping forward to thrust your opponent in the face. The cut into line protects you from the sorts of responses bad fencers will throw at you, and also makes it easy to transition into a cutting attack if you misjudge the distance. The step forward into the thrust gives you better reach. This attack, the Oberhau, is executed similarly to the example Shad shows at 10:30 or so. It's as effective as any first-intention action. I have a lot of fun plugging newer fencers in the face with it, and it's an excellent set-up for more complicated actions against more experienced fencers. It can also be done as a defense, which is called a Zornhau, which is pretty effective against most actions from the shoulder.

Love it brother man! Hey, Can you do a vid about *inward* curved swords and blades? Like the falx, kopis, khukri, etc.? 😁

That's some fine editing with that katana.

There's a great documentary which looks at the injuries sustained during Waterloo where two very different swords were used. The French cavalry used an elegant thrusting sword which killed very easily, but if it didn't kill outright, caused "clean" injuries. It was efficient but generally harder to use on horseback. The English used a heavy, curved saber, which killed outright surprisingly infrequently but caused absolutely HORRIFIC injuries, cutting into bone, lopping off limbs, etc. Their saber bit deep and often took a soldier out of the fight. It horrified the French and surely had a psychological effect but, again, though easier to use from horseback, and causing terrible, maiming, injuries, it killed very rarely. Which sword was "better"? Not an easy question to answer, the French thrusting swords killed much, much more, but if they didn't kill, they didn't take a soldier out of the fight, whereas the English cutting swords killed very infrequently, but caused debilitating injuries which inevitably took soldiers out of the fight even if it didn't kill them.

Once in the past, when I was analyzing this, I went from the rapier to something like the schiavona, or the A&A Gustav Vasa Rapier or Town Guard Sword, which guards the hand, has the rapier length and thrust, but also has a cutting edge to some extent.

Great video. I don't profess to be an expert by any means, it is my understanding that some curved swords were developed to be used more effectively from horse back as the curved edge aided the cutting action while galloping at a high speed.

I think out of all the specialized cutting swords, the katana is probably more practical, because although it's stabbing ability isn't as good, you can still largely be able to use the thrusting technique with the katana that you would do with most other two-handed swords that gave you the option of thrusting at your opponent, because they didn't sacrifice *all* of its thrusting ability to make it a cutting sword. It's probably the closest to the longsword of Europe than the other specialized cutting swords, because you can definitely stab someone with a katana, and there are techniques you can learn that involve stabbing with the katana, whereas with the scimitar or Sabre, there is barely any room for a traditional stabbing technique and you'd have to hold the sword at a very sharp angle to thrust, or with a very thick sword like the Grosse Messer, the fathead makes it more difficult to thrust, even though it does have a point, and if you had the opportunity of course try to thrust with it, but unless you're aiming for a soft or large open Target, it would be more easy to catch on bone and clothing or armor.

i do agree with most of the points you made, but CONSIDER THIS! If you swing a sword into someone's limb or gut and it does not go all the way thru them, well now your sword is probably stuck in the rather macabre trap that is their partially disemboweled body. and now there very likely will be a few moments you have to spend trying to remove your sword from them whilst more enemies may be closing in on you. whereas if your cut goes all the way through them, you don't have that trouble. you can get right into the next fight without the aforementioned delay.

I agree with those points Shad. If one were to make the comparison between sword fighting and mixed martial arts, they might find that fighter's who are too specialized in grappling are highly susceptible to striking attacks and vice versa. Likewise, an unarmoured dual between someone with a saber or rapier and another with balanced longsword would likely result in a similar outcome to pro boxer going against a UFC fighter in an MMA match. Or, if you could isolate the effectiveness of swords to just there own physical properties and chart that on a line graph, you'd find that cutting and thrusting have a linear relationship.

Modern accounts of guerillas using scimitars on foot against soldiers would indicate that half-swording a heavily curved long blade and maneuvering it very close to the body could be a more effective use of these weapons than trying to swing it at arm's length like you would a military saber.

Thrust vs. Swings is a long-time discussion that I had with many other sword-enthusiasts. I respect your opinion, sounds valid from the points you presented, but here's some (friendly) rebuttals: Thrusting is quicker, but they're only harder to parry WHEN the defending side just swung their own weapon and not needs to recover their weapon's position to deflect the thrust. The downside of the thrust is that they're much easier to read. Swings are not as quick but they have more nuance to it. They're harder to read because different variations of angles can be changed from it's starter position. Just knowing the general direction that the swing is coming form is enough when you're blocking with a medium or large shield but, to parry with another weapon, it is not "just" moving it to a position where both blades touch (which is already harder than with a shield, from the volume they occupy in the space) but you also need to make both weapons connect in such a way that it neutralizes the impact that the incoming weapon would to on your body. That is to say that about half the ways you could parry a swing would make the attack not connect with the intended target, while the other half would have variations between impacts what would cause serious damage and others where the damage caused is reduced from the intervention of the parrying weapon From that, differences in weapon weight and weight distribution between attacking weapon and parrying weapon comes into play. There is historic text that instruct sword-wielding soldiers to prioritize blocking axe-wielding enemies with their shield instead of parrying because the surviving soldiers would suffering injuries from trying to parry axes, which evidences that these "partialy-parried" attacks still had enough force to cut through butted-mail (which was the mail more common on the times knight-based armies fought against axe-wielding barbarians) or break a bone from the impact even if the mail wasn't cut open. Parrying against a heavier weapon, or a weapon that has a "heavier swing" (due to it's unbalanced weight distribution) gives the defender a smaller window of response, for it requires the attacking weapon to be intercepted before it acquires a certain amount of force momentum. If a combatant is wielding a well-balanced weapon (a sword, rapier, etc) in their front, which is commonly called "dueling-stance", then thrusts are more easily parried since deflecting the other's thrust now rely more on timing of response and less on angle. To sum it up, my educated opinion (which may be wrong) is that both fighters need to adapt their attacks and defenses if one side is showing preference or exclusivity on their moves (primarily swinging or primarily thrusting) and, if both fighters are mixing it up, then it's anyone's game. When full plated armor comes into play (and still talking exclusively about sword wielding here), then of course thrusting becomes the only valid attack to cause injury, save few exceptions if you find an opportunity to hit the opponent's plated head to make them wobbly (and THEN try to pierce them with a thrust where their armor won't protect or only mail protects) or to swing the opponent's weapon our of the way for a follow-up attack.

In my mind the best application for a cutting sword is from horse back .

I've heard in some areas, highly curved longswords were wielded close to the body and a highly defensive fashion. The blade would "wrap" around the wielder's body and they would use positioning and bodyweight/twist to drag the blade against their opponents. Often used in very close quarters situations.

Thanks for this and other videos on your channel! Well this is almost a year old and probably discussed to death but well I've just seen it so here goes anyway. First off disclaimers : - Longsword is my personal all time favorite sword, and like you have mentioned it is mostly due to it's versatilety, a jack of all trades, even if isn't necessarily a master of any. I am probably a bigger longsword "fanboy" than even you may be :). It can both cut and thrust great, can do very good against either armored or lightly armoured / unarmoured enemies, it is agile and fast and yet still appreciably powerful etc. - I do also agree that, thrusts are generally harder to defend against, and at least against most sorts of armour deadlier too. With these out of way, I believe you are kinda wrong here, depending on context. I remember seeing a test conducted by Michael Edelson some time in 2010 may be, it was various swords on padded gambesons of different counts of layers. There were at least 3 different longswords and a katana among the tested swords. Against really thick ones, katana did significantly better, while most of the longswords produced what would either be a superficial wound or not cut all on whatever is under the gambeson. Interestingly, the longsword that did best was albion's brescia spadona, which have the looks of a more thrusting oriented sword. I think a lnogsword will take ones head off on a unprotected neck just as fine as more cut oriented swords, but against cut resistant sorts of armour, I do think difference between cutting prowess of different swords will make a meaningful difference. I do remember reading that 18th century cavalry sabers did specifically evolved for excessive cutting potential as per troop reports of earlier lighter sabers not being able to go all the way through very thick winter uniforms of opposing (was it Russians?) soldiers. Also when we generalize as "longswords", are we not generalizing a bit too much? There are longswords that are thrust specialized, that are pretty bad at cutting, and then there are ones much more cutting specialized with a wider, thinner blade and spatulate tips. Latter group, does almost entirely sacrifice thrusting potential against both maille and gaps in plate armour. Of course there also are some that can do both pretty good, depending on what kind of protection they are expected to be used against. Then there is striking authority. Even when you will not be able to get through the armour, a more hitting authority oriented design with a more blade heavy balance will devlier a more substantial impact. Swords such as viking era swords, those more chopping oriented longsword or arming sword types, falchions and due to their thick blades most katanas would be examples to that. I'm sure you have seen Skallagrim's recent helmet tests. Powerful thrusts with a rondel just glanced off even the worst helmets suprisingly. However, strikes from wide bladed swords often did cause dents on helmet, and on some helmets caused enough damage on head model under it, or even when it didn't it probably was enough to give a concussion. From this perspective, if we'd go back in time and replace a viking's sword with a much later technology sidesword, I'm not sure if he'd appreciate the results of new sword that much. Also, though I did talk about cavalry sabers a bit above, for cavalry, regardless of the age, a hard hitting cutting oriented sword, is generally better and more practical to have than other types of swords. At such speeds, thrusting into a target may not be the best idea, and when done, retrieving your sword may not always be possible. Chop-chop-chop will be the more suitable way to go when galloping through infantry, or against another cavalryman charging towards you. Of course, this is assuming cavalry with hand weapons, of course lances are preferrable overall for them. So, long in short, I don't think it is always unncessary overkill for a sword design to focus more on cutting / chopping prowess than would be enough against an unarmoured target. I do believe there are forms of protection that will stop a cut from a sword that is not optimized for cutting, but would not be able to do so against one that is optimized for cutting. And tests conducted by people, as well as some historical anectodes we can read, seem to support my point of view. Cheers, and again, thanks for the videos! :)

So i think there are some points, that not mentioned yet in the discussion: Construction: The most good cutters are curved blades and curved blades have more differences to straight blades then the cutting power. Many of them are very Tip heavy , but don't feel tipheavy like a straight blade. Because of that many types of sabres have no Pommel (the Falchion has a Pommel i know). They have hooks and little shields to prevent slipping of (The Katana has a verry ruff gripp). Because of the tipheavyness, it has the same force like a straight sword but lighter (by the same forcelevel) because it has not so mutch weight on the hilt. At the same time they are very nimble at very close attacks, and get power in low space moments from their tipheavyness. The other point is swordalignment. The curved blade hit with a very small line of the edge. Its like a ball fall on the ground, only a little piece touch the ground. A straight blade is more like a board that hit the ground with the small side. Thats ab bigger area, and so the force are not so much concentrated. I trained much with many types of swords and i use not much armor. its very complicated to hit with a DULL sabre in a way that it dosnt hurt. Straight blades are very ok and only i and other advanced members of my club use sabers because we have learned the "nice" way to handle it. But in the hands of a newbie...its dangerous, the same by the spear. The combat-reach isnt so important like a straight blade. Sure you make more damage by the perfect distance, but in close fights (Dagger range) it still hurts a lot. You dont need so much training to "hurt enough" the same like spears and clubs. But, and that is the Thing because i like Straight blades or slightly curved blades more: Binding is very dificult. You can't stop the blade of an enemy with a very curved blade, you have to hit it away or you let the sword of thy opponent slide to the side. Ah... but one point more, blades and also spears in the thrust can be grabbed, and they can be grabbed in the binding. Curved blades binding is verry rare, also thrust and no one want to grabb a swinging blade. Expirences like that could make a difference in some cultures to prefer the curved blade, but other arguments like chavalry, stuck-prevent and other are also true. In my opinion, the sabre and also other more cut-likley-swords need not so much training to be effektiv (my own expirence) its like the spear, easy to learn hard to master. And because you have to hit other blades instead of easy blocking (specialy by strong curved versions) your fighting stile is more aggressive. every weapon has its stiles and cuttingpower is only a part of argument for a sword. I like shortswords with leafblades and macheteforms like the copis. You have a curve for the tiny-edge-space-hitting, a straight blade for trust and binding, and the very low lever-effekt on short blades gives me a great advantage in bindings and they are very nimble. but sometimes...these swords are not long enough^^. Nothing is perfect.

A curved sword also has the advantage of being harder to block since it can bend into and behind the defenders weapon during a parry. The thrust could then be turned into a cut when an unexperienced defender blocks or parry the sword away. Twisting a curved sword allows the attacker to also chose between vertical, horizontal or any range of diagonal during a parried trust.

Hey shad. Food for thought about you saying overkill on cutting ability. If I'm in a fight and the sword is capable of going completely through a body part that does two things for me. The first being that it reduces the amount of shock placed on my body from delivering the cut. I don't get An immediate stop on the blade when I connect with bone. Which will in turn take a toll on my body. The second is I don't want my blade stuck in some dude and me needing to remove it before I can continue fighting. If the blade goes all the way through I'm immediately back to my stance and can fight his friends but if not that extra second it takes me to remove the blade could get me killed.

Love your puns Shad.

You make a lot of good points in this video. For my own two cents, I would think that a balance between the two would be preferable. I agree some swords have a lot less viability based on the amount of curve or the lack thereof. It would largely depend on my role in combat. If I were on horseback and just plowing through an infantry line, I'd go for a saber or scimitar, but with preference to a saber, as there is the possibility of being unhorsed. I'd want the curved blade for the cutting as it's easier to get the blade out from a cut at that speed as opposed to a thrust. If I'm on foot, I'd go for a more balanced arming sword, or a katana. I might go for a shorter long sword, like a bastard sword over the arming sword. I mention the katana, because I feel that it would still have enough thrusting capacity to get a kill in against most armors with the exception of full plate. As you said with cutting, if it does it well enough, then it does it well enough, and I feel this applies to thrusting as well. I don't really think the thrust is the end all. If you really think about it, a thrust is just an extended punch. A smart fighter isn't just going to block with his weapon; he's also going to get out of the way, and go for a better position. Sure the other guy will do the same thing, but it'll take time to recover from performing the thrust. Not a lot of time, but time enough for the smart fighter to force the attacker onto the defense or to execute a joint lock, or d various other things to disable and then finish off the opponent. I also don't think cutting is always the best option either. If you go to cut, you're going to generate momentum, which can easily be used in a throw. Both attacks have there downsides. Thus I prefer a whole body approach. Immobilize joints, get the opponent onto his or her belly, or just hit them really hard. Look at the weapon as a tool to strike, OR as a tool to get past your opponent's weapon and bring the hurt in close.

Your last idea, that excellent cutting power could be especially useful versus a bunch of peasants, made me think back to the Flail. I figure that a Flail might had been a good choice in one particular, horrible situation: terrorizing a crowd. If a bunch of unarmed, unarmored peasants are rioting, a Flail would be a particularly frightening and intimidating weapon that could do more to quell the riot than more effective but less scary-looking weapons.

@shadiversity reasons for a specialized cutting sword. when cutting, it is very easy to recover into a guard. stab wounds often require infection and longer term internal bleeding to end someone, where as a cut has more places it can rapidly exsanguinate someone from. being able to cut people down through heavy winter clothing things like tulwars and sabers were developed after the advent of muskets, so heavy armor was less of a thing (certainly full body armor) Curved swords like a katana or a tulwar are not necessarily tremendously better in the chop than a longsword, but they do have a vastly more forgiving draw cut that is less likely to get stuck in somebody. while a 5 cm deep cut might kill someone, cutting through someone's limb will take the target out of action much more rapidly. it is easier to recover from a cut than a thrust. in a fight to the death, a thrust might get trapped in a not immediately lethal part of the body like the hand.

I don't know how I laughed at that opening joke... I had my guard lowered I guess.

Cavalry, or any swift horse riding units used sabers, as while riding you can hardly stab someone and cannot afford that the sword might get stuck in the body, you have just stabbed. Slicing while riding has the advantage that you can kill your enemy easily with out the sword getting stucked and go right tot he next kill. Also as a one-hander, saber/scimitars are lighter and easier to handle.

Good day, i'm not a native english speaker but i like your channel but lately your videos are very long but this one was perfect, and i know it's like 6 years late but as my regard something i think about cutting capacity, is the more you have the vicious and messy wounds would be capable of doing, and that exactly in war can make a difference in the moral of the troops who´s ally have been cut down in a single cut and now is bleeding and if not killed outright, probably screaming in pain or in shock, just saying it's like those movies called slashers, is not the monster or killer is the wounds it makes what scares the hell out of people!!

16:56 "You know, I might have upset those people who love really big cutting swords, you might even say I...cut them to the core." As a Falchion fanatic, I wasn't upset by the solid logic and reasoning of this video at all... ...until you made that god damn joke.

Yeah I can think of a reason why you would want to chop limbs off instead of just doing enough to kill: shock value. If you're fighting and you see someone next to you get their whole arm or head sliced off, it'll cause a different reaction than just seeing them basically get hit with the sword and falling down still in tact. Intimidation, psychological manipulation and morale are important factors in battle too.

Cavalry warfare favours curved blades over longswords and arming swords...