[Chris Evans]

Hi Folks,

Some very good points made earlier in this thread, especially by Jim.

For my part, I would like to add that we have more than one issue here:

a) Quality of the steel used;

b) Edge imparted;

c) Sword blade design; And

d) cutting skill of the swordsman.


Contrary to popular perceptions, cutting with a sword, as opposed to merely bashing with the blade, is very difficult to master. The cut, to be effective, has to be made with the blade's center of percussion (COP) and without any lateral movement. The tendency for most is to impart to the sword a lateral movement as well as cutting with parts of the blade other than the COP. This greatly negates the effect of the cut and imposes great stress on the blade, often damaging it.

For those not familiar with the importance of a sword's COP, it is the point at which the blade vibrates the least when hitting the target. On sabres it is usually around 10" from the point. The thicker the blade, as with Japanese swords, the greater the "sweet-spot" around the COP. With deeply fullered Euro sabres and the like, the said sweet-spot is smaller, rendering cutting a more exacting task.

Even with the Japanese sword, an excellent cutter by all accounts, a considerable amount of training has to be undertaken before the swordsman becomes proficient. It is noteworthy that after the Meiji restoration, the Japanese army adopted European sabres and many officers trained in their traditional swordsmanship reverted to their native wares because they found the sabres too springy and difficult to cut with.

Of course European sabres went through a number of changes, starting out as very curved weapons and ending up, by the 1850s as much straighter. Many military fencing masters considered that the later patterns were neither fish nor fowl, that is poor cutters and poor thrusters. It is for this reason that the debate of point vs edge has raged in military circles right into the 20th century, with the point gaining favour by the end of the 19th.

Notwithstanding Nolan's enthusiasm, Richard Burton, who served in India, had contempt for Indian swordsmanship because, according to him, they neglected the use of the point. As for Nolan's 2nd hand assertion that those native swordsmen who inflicted those terrible wounds received no special training, I find it very hard to believe, save that they could have been merely lucky cuts delivered in a battle in which many more were totally ineffective, as was so often observed during the cavalry battles of Napoleonic era.

As for the matter of edges, a very keen edge on a sword will deliver spectacular cuts on unarmoured human targets, but will also render it extremely vulnerable to damage if inadvertently cutting into hard objects, an all too common occurrence.

Cheers
Chris