The Secret Of The Persian Shamshir

[mariusgmioc]

Hello Roland,

Very interesting analysis, but I believe it has some shortcomings.

Of course the shamshir has way better cutting properties than the more recent sabres as it was designed almost exclusively for cutting, being almost useless for stabbing.

However, the European sabres were designed to be usable both for cutting and for stabbing, hence they have much less curvature. Moreover, when using European sabres for cutting, one must use a combined movement of striking and pulling the blade (like the use of the katana). If you simply hit the target with a direct blow, you won't achieve the cutting effect (and that's exactly what happened in your test).

Even so, the cutting performance of the shamshir is significantly inferior to that of an Ottoman kilij/pala or a Japanese katana. While in the case of the Ottoman kilij/pala the improvement comes from moving the area of optimal stike further towards the tip of the blade (see photo), in the case of katana, the superior performance comes from the combination between the geometry of the blade and the cutting technique used.

PS: How effective do you think a shamshir can be against plate mail.... or even against chain mail?