Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[USEC_OFFICER]

I know curved weapons were around in Europe as well as their prevalence with calvary during the gunpowder age. But at the height of the gothic age if they fell out of style does that mean that curved weapons are inherently inferior to straight ones?

No. It just means that soldiers were overall better armoured so straight swords were more effective. Against un/lightly armoured targets, curved weapons are better then straight ones for cutting.

[Loud Whispers]

The best sword would probably be the one that would be able to decently function in every combat situation possible, not any specific design. An adaptable sword.

Unless it has whirring chainsaw bits of course.

[Delta Foxtrot]

I've always viewed it as an eastern type weapon is that because of the lack of quality armour and the heat or because of the movies and shows i've watched as being biased towards westerners?

What does this mean? Some shows like to stay true to history as much as possible, others prefer historic license with magic plot device swords. This what you mean? Because slashy weapons aren't really unique to any one culture at any point in history. If you include macahuitl anyways...

I believe what he means is that every medieval film ever has had Arabs with slick, curvy swords while the good guy Europeans have hacked them away with straight longswords.
You know, how every evil Murrica hating terrorist everywhere uses AK-47 since M16 is reserved for the good guys.
Andrew, have some eastern straight swords:
Pre-Islamic arabian swords
ca. 7th century
ca. 8th century
ca. 12th century
ca. 13th century
ca. 14th century
ca. 15th century
ca. 15th century
ca. 16th century

I know curved weapons were around in Europe as well as their prevalence with calvary during the gunpowder age. But at the height of the gothic age if they fell out of style does that mean that curved weapons are inherently inferior to straight ones?

Weapons are tools. Do you hammer a screw, or screw in a nail since one must obviously be superior to the other? No, you don't. As has been said, straight swords made it easier to pierce through armour, which was all the rave in late middle ages/renaissance. Therefore a European's sword of choice in that time period would be one that excelled in piercing armour.

The problem with talk of "superior" or "best" weapon is that there is no such thing. Bows outranged and vastly out rapid-fired early firearms, yet armies started using firearms in increasing amounts. An individual bow, used by a skilled individual bowman may have outfought an individual arquebusier, yet it was easier to assemble an army of the latter, rather than former. Heck, Sweden even utilizied an increasing number of pikes when most of Europe had already decreased their pikes to muskets ratio, because for Sweden in that time and place, increasing the number of pikemen worked. "Best" is highly relevant to the situation at hand, and therefore you can't go making sweeping overgeneralizations about superiority of one weapon above the other.

[USEC_OFFICER]

"Best" is highly relevant to the situation at hand, and therefore you can't go making sweeping overgeneralizations about superiority of one weapon above the other.

Well, unless you're comparing tanks and spears or something along those lines.

[Nerjin]

"Best" is highly relevant to the situation at hand, and therefore you can't go making sweeping overgeneralizations about superiority of one weapon above the other.

Well, unless you're comparing tanks and spears or something along those lines.

Spears are easier to produce, are more capable in pure jungle, where height is required, where collateral damage is unacceptable, etc.

Best is subjective.

[GlyphGryph]

Traditionally, bows were the best battle weapon, and spears the second best, with swords, axes, and warhammers all filling more specialized roles on the field.

Swords tended to dominate for "casual" weaponry, since they could be easily carried around in a sheath while offering many of the same benefits of spears. A soldier might use a spear in battle, but have a sword by his side as a backup weapon that could be quickly drawn and brought to bear.

But there's a reason the traditional primary weapon of the Samurai was the bow, the primary weapon of England and the reason they kicked so much ass was the bow, and there's a reason the Mongols rode roughshod over everyone. Again - the bow.

Bows give you several chances to kill before the opponent gets one. For pre-firearm weaponry, if you had to go to war with only one weapon, I wouldn't hesitate to say that's the one you'd want.

[Zrk2]

Gonna plug the khopesh here, because it's brilliantly designed.

[Doomblade187]

The main issue with the bow was learning to use it- Longbows took a while, to say the least. However, then came along crossbows and solved that issue, though bows were still better in many ways- crossbows were like muskets, just point and shoot. And then reload, but still.

[Nerjin]

Aesthetically speaking I find it odd. Not sure of its capabilities in combat though.

[Doomblade187]

Aesthetically speaking I find it odd. Not sure of its capabilities in combat though.

I forget whether the blade is on the inside or the outside.

A tool-cum-weapon of note is the Kukri (english spelling, I think). It's a general tool, an excelent weapon (Ghurkas use it to great effect, at least I think it's them.), and is good at whatever it does.

[Andrew425]

I've always thought of projectile weapons were much worse then melee weapons. Decent armour and a shield reduces casualties to a small percentage of total. This combined with the fact that archers and peltasts were incredibly vulnerable to horsemen or a sudden unexpected charge.

Combined with the amount of skill it takes to use them and I think they're a support weapon. Of course if you have a god longbow and a large pool of archers they might be more then that.

As for the curved sword in arabia I knew that they had straight ones I was just wondering the prevalence of them in the army. Maybe swords were viewed as a back up weapon so it didn't really matter?

[Nerjin]

I've always thought of projectile weapons were much worse then melee weapons. Decent armour and a shield reduces casualties to a small percentage of total. This combined with the fact that archers and peltasts were incredibly vulnerable to horsemen or a sudden unexpected charge.

Archers tended to be more well defended than JUST having bows. People on foot were almost always vulnerable to horsemen either way. Plus someone already mentioned armor-piercing arrows... So... Either way simply looking at history and what we have now we can proove that ranged weapons are much better death machines.

[PanH]

Well, archers were often protected by pikemen (well, melee soldiers). It's not like they were in front line.
Archers unit were also trained to fire in volley rather than accurately. A rain of arrows will always kill a decent amount of people, regardless of their armor.

On another note, this thread has made me playing MB again.

[Jacob/Lee]

Were there actually any armies in ye olde days that used swords as the standard weapon? It's something that you seem to find everywhere in the modern media yet the only military I can think of are the Romans, though the gladius is mainly a thrusting sword anyway.

[Loud Whispers]

Were there actually any armies in ye olde days that used swords as the standard weapon? It's something that you seem to find everywhere in the modern media yet the only military I can think of are the Romans, though the gladius is mainly a thrusting sword anyway.

And even then the primary weapons were the Hasta until thrown.

Aesthetically speaking I find it odd. Not sure of its capabilities in combat though.

Yoinks ya shield and stabs ya face. Goes around shields and weapon guards too, which is rather nice.