Looking at two HEMA clubs. Thoughts?

Rapier is very much a civilian weapon, it was derived from the court sword and was used for dueling. George Silvers main rant was that it was no good for military use unlike the heavier weapons he preferred.

You're right about the tactics being the main thing about the battlefield I'd say.

Rapier is pretty cool, but I prefer the sabre, more cutting ability. I would love to do some armoured sword play, it looks so cool.

 

Wasn't sabre developed mainly for mounted combat?

 

They seemed to have been brought in by the slavic peoples in the 16th(?) century as calvary weapon, I'm not sure when they became a dueling weapon but the two types were fairly different in form. There was a pretty big debate in the UK over whether the straight sword or the curved sword was better for the cavalry with Heavy Cavalry generally going for straight while light went for curved.



This is one of my favourite models
http://abitofhisory.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/the-british-pattern-1803-infantry.html


The 1796 light cavalry sabre is pretty awesome too.

 

Wouldn't it depend more on the armour of the enemy?

Found this little video, thought it might be of interest:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDFPiF3xXCQ"]Royal Armouries history of British Cavalry sword film clip - YouTube[/ame]

 

Given the amount of different opinions the military went through I'd say it was alot harder than that. By the time sabres came about I don't think the amount of armour was particularly important in this regard

 

In Western Europe maybe, but there's a picture of a 12th Century szabla here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre

 

If you want to go back in history then Charlemagne supposedly had a sabre, that's what 8th century?
Plus the Xenophon was recommending the curved Makhaira back in the 4th century BCE. But it was shaped like a kukri rather than a sabre.

 

The rapier is evolved from the side sword which evolved from the arming sword. All three were military weapons. That's not to say that the rapier wasn't a popular civilian sidearm, but it certainly saw use as a military sidearm although in a fairly short historical period. To be fair though it does depend on how narrow your definition of rapier is. It wasn't a term used at the time and as such can be a bit vague. The rapier predates the court/small sword (which is a duelling weapon) by a good century and it is not light. It weighs the same as an arming sword, a backsword or an infantry sabre.
Silver was hardly an unbiased source, and the subsequent evolution of swords and sword styles suggests that most people didn't agree with him.

 

Fun fact, after the Crimean war the British infantry sword had to be re-designed because it hadn't been stiff enough to penetrate the Russian issue great coat reliably.

 

Cavalry sabres and infantry sabres are similar yet distinct weapons. In the West cavalry sabres were adopted in the 18th century as a part of the adoption of Austro-Hungarian light cavalry tactics. The sabre is the optimal design for cutting, hence why it's the dominant sword shape in most of the world. However the cavalry sabres are optimised for mounted use, too long and heavy for infantry use. As the effectiveness of sabres for cutting became apparent backswords were redesigned with similar blade shapes creating infantry sabres.

 

Like I said, in the late 18th century there was a vogue for Austrian light cavalry tactics. For heavy cavalry the sword was almost a short lance, but light cavalry were intended to hack at the flanks of opposition formations. If you look at the 1796 pattern swords the light cavalry had a sabre, the heavy cavalry had a heavy straightsword and the infantry had a cut and thrust sword.

 

That would suprise me.

I would have thought it much more likely to lose your weapon stabbing from horseback.

Here's a great account of a WWII Cossack talking about cutting excercises:

http://www.hroarr.com/russia-test-cutting-practices/

Seems cutting is the preferred method for them.

 

Yes the rapier evolved from the arming sword, which became the espada ropera from spain which then evolved into the rapier. The rapier later evolved in the small sword. While they were used occasionally on the battlefield it was fairly uncommon. Back swords, side swords, sabres, schiavonas, scottish basket hilted swords were all far more common military weapons.

The weight of the weapon is not the issue, but rather what it is optimised to do and that is stab even if many can perform basic cuts. Every HEMA source I have seen says that the Rapier was a civilian self defence and dueling weapon that was only rarely used for war, and on those occasions when people took them to war they were quickly discarded for a wider bladed sword that was better balanced for cutting.

 

David, here is a decent article that talks about the evolution of the cavalry sword
http://www.swordforum.com/forums/content.php?122-CAVALRY-COMBAT-AND-THE-SWORD-Sword-Design-Provision-and-Use-in-the-British-Cavalry-of-the-Napoleonic-Era-by-Martin-Read

 

Thanks for that, Boards.

Looks like the hussars had it right.

Interesting about them bracing their straight sword against their knee to thrust:

"Some, in addition to the sabre carry a long thin sword which they do not carry at their sides but rather place it along the sides of their horses from the breast to crupper… (these) they use to spit the enemy;… when they employ them, they rest the butt against the knee"
- http://www.swordforum.com/forums/co...-Cavalry-of-the-Napoleonic-Era-by-Martin-Read

Just before you posted the above link, I was reading about swords in WWI:

"According to Patton, the saber had to be used to thrust and cavalry had to be used as shock troops, which had to chase away the enemy, with what Patton called 'Offensive cavalry spirit'. Maybe because the recruits didn't have time to train with this weapon and also because the war consumed soldiers at a very high rate, Patton focused his training on the thrust, which needed less practice than cutting. Research did show however that a full thrust from horseback causes a horseman to undergo two different things: "or he falls from his horse or he breaks his wrist..." (Amberger, 1999, p. 43) Hence the soldiers called their M1913 "old wrist breaker" (Cohen, 2010, p. 222)."
- http://www.hroarr.com/the-use-of-the-sword-in-the-great-war-faded-glory-or-deadly-efficiency/

 

Turns out there's a HEMA group in York I didn't know about.

http://www.yorkfreefencers.co.uk/

So tempted...if only there was more time in the week to fit things in.

 

Like I say, part of the problem is that rapier was not the name used by the people who actually used them, therefore there aren't hard and fast definitions for the sword. For example Marozzo is usually considered an early rapier text yet many modern writers would consider the weapon illustrated to be a side sword. In the mid rapier period the line between side sword and rapier becomes very blurry, and indeed it's unclear if such a distinction was made at the time.
If you look at military art from the seventeenth century a rapier type sword appears to be a common military sidearm. Now you can argue that these were broader bladed sideswords but that may well be a false distinction. Indeed it might be better to say that military rapiers were a bit broader bladed than civilian ones but were essentially the same weapon.
The distinctive thing about Western European infantry swords in the 18th and 19th century is that the dominant sword types were primarily thrusting weapons. If rapiers had been abandoned by soldiers then why were thrusting swords so dominant in the next generation of swords? Indeed when a light sabre was adopted by the British army for infantry officers in the mid 19th century it was constantly criticised and eventually replaced with a thrusting sword again.

 

just popped up on my what to watch feed
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR8I6YthMsE"]Fencing: Medieval arming sword to renaissance sidesword and rapier - YouTube[/ame]