View Single Post
Old September 10th, 2005 #3
einzelwesen...
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 318
Default

_____
Before I start, here's a few things that struck me (har har) reading this.

Your 'pros' are all right enough, but I wanted to comment on your 'cons' list.

1: This is why footwork is doubly, hell, quadruply important with duelling weapons: when you thrust at someone, you can only really do it from the 90 degrees in front in them. I would say that this is also why footwork is so, so important in boxing, as well.

2: Thrusts are a lot harder to block or redirect than slashes (assuming that you are using a suitable weapon, i.e.: not trying to block a sweeping blow of a claymore with a rapier).

3: A thrust is actually (at least in potential) a lot, lot quicker than a slash, and has a lot quicker recovery time to get back in guard: it travels less distance and it's a much more efficient motion.

4: This is why you have to never thrust so far that your elbow is completely straight and locked. Not to mention, doing so tires your arm out in no time.
_____

Now, reading this, you might think that my view is that stabbing weapons are just... better, in most respects, than slashing weapons.

And that would be absolutely true, if not for one vital aspect of a slashing weapon: you can engage multiple opponents with a slash, whereas it's in the nature of a good thrust that it's intended to dispatch ONE person at a time.

As far as that goes, you can see how this would work with the prototypical Romans versus Northern 'Barbarians' situation: the Romans would almost always have an advantage in logistics and therefore in troop concentrations possible, so they found the thrusting weapon, whether the pilum or the gladius, to suit their armies best.

Whereas the tribe in question would generally be at a numerical disadvantage, and so would be more likely to employ thrusting weapons in a first charge on Roman formations, then to plunge into the Roman ranks and set to with swords or axes (or whatever else).

That's also why thrusting weapons became supreme when swordsmanship for practical matters, being eclipsed in warfare by gunnery, became mostly a matter of settling one-on-one disputes.