For example, what is the advantage of a Scimitar over other swords? Or does it just look cool?
Obviously smaller swords like rapiers have the advantage of speed while larger ones like broad swords have the advantage of doing alot of damage when it hits. BUt it can’t just all be related to mass.
So there.
Big, big subject here, so I’m just gonna throw out a load of stuff.
The design of many kinds of sword come from the role they were to fulfil and from the knowledge of metallurgy available to the people making them.
A curved sword will, all things being equal, be better at delivering deep slashing cuts, but is pretty useless for thrusting so the user has to get close to his target. Cavalry swords have tended to be curved since their job was to ride around swiping at the enemy’s head.
Alternate, straighter, designs of cavalry swords were designed to be used in a charge, driven point-first into the opposition. These swords are characterised by being much narrower and pointier than traditional sabres. The blade tends to have a slight “kink” about a third of the way down and the hilt has an attached lanyard allowing the wielder to gallop forwards, impale his target and then release the sword before the impact breaks his wrist. The lanyard will then drag the weapon free as he rides on past. The blade’s shape prevents it from getting stuck or shattering due to the lateral strain.
Rapiers came along later than the medaevil broadswords. This is mainly because a sword like a rapier couldn’t have been made effectively when the broadsword was in fashion. They didn’t have the knowledge of metalworking to make a strong, flexible blade that wouldn’t break. Early broadswords weren’t really all that sharp - they could either make the metal hard enough to hold an edge, or strong enough not to break in a clash of arms. Generally they went for the “not breaking” option and equipped themselves with what was basically a narrow metal bludgeon.
Japanese swords, contemporary with European rapiers, used an interesting technique of coating the untempered blade with carefully graded thicknesses of clay so that when it was quenched from the final firing sections would cool at different rates. This technique, when mastered, created a sword with a tough, almost springy, back and a hard leading edge that could stay sharp.
Chinese weapons (and I realise I’m neglecting Korea here, in between China and Japan) took yet another approach, grading the thickness and temper along the length of the blade rather than across its width, creating the characteristic “whippy” wushu-steel Tai-Chi swords.
Essentially there are a lot of ways to make swords. Some, like cavalry weapons, are highly specialised for a specific job. Others are a product mainly of limited manufacturing technology. Yet more are just different answers to the same problem and have no overall advantage over each other.
Arab swords show many features that never developed anywhere else- for example, Omani tribesmen have carried blunt swords since the sixteenth century. While useless if you just poke someone with them, if you set the blade vibrating they will cut through almost anything, thanks to irregularities in the slightly curving edge. The idea was that the sword would only vibrate in the necessary fashion if you hit your opponent’s sword before him- thus enforcing a sort of honor code where killing an unarmed opponent was nearly impossible.
i think one of the reason curved swords were developed was to decrease the area of the sword that contacted the person in a slashing fashion.
My math isn’t great, but a curved sword where only an inch or so of the sword contacts the skin on contact will have more pressure exerted than a straight slashing sword which will have much more of the sword making contact during a slashing.
Curved swords, or at least the Japanese Katana are curved so as to improve the speed at which they could be drawn. Try it sometime. Draw a 40in straight sword from its scabbard and then do the same with a slightly curved 40in sword. Much more natural.
What about those giant swords called Paladins. How strong would you have to be to wield one of those effectively?
I’m not familiar with giant Paladin swords. The classic giant sword is the one used by some of the German Landsknecht mercenaries. These were six feet or more in length (though often more than half of this was “handle” both in front of and behind the wide guard).
The Landsknecht were primarily pikemen and generally carried a short sword called a Katzbalger (“Cat-gutter”). A few of the strongest would carry the giant swords so that they could attack an advancing pike line or even an oncoming cavalry charge(!). I wouldn’t like to say how strong you’d need to be to effectively wield such a weapon, but my wild guess would be “very, very”.
I had understood that the Katana’s curve was partially an accident. Before the invention of the variable temper on katana blades, Japanese swords were straight. The method of tempering a katana naturally introduces a slight curve into the straight blank.
With the lengths to which the Samurai took sword fighting though it’s not surprising every advantage like a quicker draw would be used. I would note though that traditional katanas aren’t all that curved. A curved sword, when held in the defensive Chudan guard, reveals its length more clearly than a straighter blade, making it easier for your opponent to judge your reach and exploit the ma-ai (correct striking distance). If you hand a skilled opponent an advantage like this it may cost you your life or, at least, a few points.
Okay, let’s say I was to get in a swordfight. All things being equal (size, strength, skill), what sword would I want to kill my opponent?
The best sword, if you will.
Sorry. You don’t get off that easy. Are you wearing armor? Mail? Plate? Leather? Carry a shield? Full-length Norman or Roman? Mongol target? How is your opponent armed?
Different advantages to different approaches.
For example, one sword that was not mentioned, above, was the extremely lethal Roman short sword. With a reach of only twenty inches (51 cm), it would have been hopelessly outclassed for single combat by any of the previously mentioned swords. However, as an extremely maneuverable weapon that could be thrust out from behind a shield wall without entangling the swords of one’s companions, it was, for many years, the most victorious sword in the Western world.
There is no one ‘best’ sword. There are too many variables to consider that could affect your chances. That said a rapier is quite effective in skilled hands. You get speed and accuracy in one package and it’s strong enough to deflect most blows from opposing weapons.
Are swords still being improved in modern times?
I once read an article, a few years ago, about a group of people who were trying to create a sword using modern materials and methods, aiming to make it into some sort of modern-day Excalibur, but I don’t know what became of the project.
Given the technology we have today, could we create a better (or even “best”?) sword?
Sure but it isn’t as clear cut as you might assume. You might think a titanium sword would be great but the reality is something different (see link below). It would seem steel is about the best you will do if you want a sword. Of course there are different steels and if cost is no object I suppose you could come up with a superior sword but it won’t dominate other swords. In the end it is mostly up to the person weilding the sword that is the difference and where effort is most profitably spent.
You might find this link very interesting:
Cool… thanks 
They say that broadswords are good for attacking armored opponents. Even if you don’t penetrate the armor, the blade is heavy enough to deliver a hell of a blow.
In addition to questions of your equipment and your enemy’s equipment (one does not kill an opponent, one kills an enemy), there is also the matter of what training you have. The sword that suits your training will work best for you (barring prohibitive physical situations, like wielding a smallsword against a Doppelsoldner.
As for a sword called a “paladin”, I have never come across mention of any such weapon in any work by any of the major scholars. Could the fellow who asked about it give a cite for where he saw it mentioned? The word “paladin” does have historical use, but it refers to the companions of Roland/Orlando, who fought against the Moors in Iberia. Their swords were probably of ordinary medieval design, better or worse depending upon the owner’s wealth.
Upon further investigation, I realized that the sword I had in mind was the Claymore, and it does seem that a paladin was a type of warrior, not a sword. Although, this site has a blade called a Paladin sword:
I suspect that particular sword is called a “Paladin Sword” simply because they needed something cool to call it. It looks like a broadsword to me, although it’s hard to get a real idea of its length without something else in the picture to give it some scale.
The Claymore was a Highlands weapon, a great big honkin’ long two-handed sword requiring considerable strength and no small amount of training and skill to use properly. The idea was largely to wave it around so hard and fast that it was suicide to get too CLOSE to you, due to the speed and mass of the cutlery you were waving around, and the fact that you had six to eight feet of REACH with the thing. One-on-one, with little or no armor, a guy with a Claymore and some skill with it could knock the doodle out of anyone who didn’t have one.
You or I, on the other hand, would get filleted if we tried that, due to the fact that I haven’t made a point of working out with a twenty pound sword three hours a day for the last five years, and neither have you.
Definitely a specialist’s weapon… but quite a sight to see, in skilled hands. Fell out of favor due to the extreme difficulty of using them while operating in RANKS – the Highland Scots were never big on regimentation, at least not before the English knocked the poop out of them, and the English proved that a team of drilled, disciplined men could, as a general rule, beat a wild-assed mob fighting one-on-one instead of as a unit… even when the mob was made up of better, tougher fighters.
As to “Excalibur”… hell, some of the best swords ever made are being made right now. We know more about metallurgy, physics, and weaponsmithing today than at any point in the past. Unfortunately, our technology has also encompassed far more efficient ways of killing each other than swords.
But swords are, at least, COOL. Even when you’re not actually trying to kill each other with them. I mean, swords are so cool, we invented a sport, Fencing, in which we duel with swords. Can you imagine trying to do that with .45 automatics? Mortars? Cruise missiles?
It is important to note, however, that many of the improvements being made today on modern swords are NOT intended to make the swords better weapons. Most cutlery you can buy from catalogs and the Internet is more for show than for any kind of serious use. Many of the improvements are to decrease the amount of required maintenance, and to make the weapon in question look more attractive…
My mistake, by the way. I exaggerate. The typical Highlands Claymore, I’m told, averaged between ten and fifteen pounds in weight.
Ten and fifteen pounds is about twice as much as the biggest swords used in combat weighed. One-handed swords generally topped out at three pounds. Sword design has always been tension between making it as light as possible vs. heavy enough to do the job. Too light, and it won’t work properly, too heavy and it’ll essentially kill the guy wielding it.
That being said, one can find ten to fifteen pound swords. These are display or parade pieces.
You could well be right; my sources aren’t the best.
On the other hand, howthehell do you make a five-and-a-half-foot-long broadsword that only weighs seven pounds? From what I understand, Claymores were as much about getting thwacked as they were about getting cut…