There are plenty of stories are there?
I'm sorry but I think you need to step away from the Hollywood movie propaganda. People do not survive multiple stab wounds from knives unless they are EXTREMELY lucky. And if you're going to factor in luck, then the same applies to being cut or shot or any other sort of injury.
I'm gonna stop you right there.
I don't really know enough about medieval weapons on the battlefield to argue those points with you. But I do know enough to tell you that you're flat out wrong here. I say this as someone with a fairly high degree of first aid training (basically, I have enough training to work as an entry-level paramedic).
Knives, blades, and even bullets are not necessarily that deadly. If they hit an artery or pierce an organ, you might be in trouble, but generally, the surface area of the blade is such that if you survive the shock from the initial impact, you'll be fine.
A knife is much less likely to, say, pierce past your ribs and put a hole in your lung than, say, a spear. Or a bullet. In fact, my father has been stabbed in the chest, and kept on fighting in the bar fight he was in. The blade couldn't penetrate the wall of fat that most human males have (it's almost an inch thick in many areas).
Getting cut or stabbed just once, pretty much anywhere, is enough to put 99% of people on the floor in agony.
Nope. When you are in a stressful situation, even very painful wounds are seldom felt due to the painkilling effects of adrenaline. Another fun story. My grandfather, in the second world war, was off the line. He was talking to some buddies while they cooked dinner and chopped firewood, when suddenly a german grenade was hucked in.
My grandfather ducked behind a woodpile when it went off, less than three feet away. His two friends were killed instantly. My grandfather thought he was unharmed, grabbed his Bren gun, and ran outside to kill the German who had crept up on him. When the german was dead, he got help for his friends. It was then that he realized his entire back had been punctured with shrapnel from the grenade. Something like thirty pieces were implanted in his back, and were never removed.
Or, personal experience, I was in a car accident and had my left hand rather seriously mangled up (as in, you could see bone). Did I feel a thing? Nope. I was too busy looking after my best friend, who had been slightly injured. I didn't even get any painkillers until a few hours after the accident, when I began to feel things.
The human body is remarkably tough.
And even just that wound is likely to kill most people as well unless they're exceptionally lucky for it to have missed any major organs or arteries/veins. And even then, whatever muscle it went into, if it was a limb you can consider that limb useless for a good couple of months afterwards. If you're stabbed anywhere in the gut or the torso, you're pretty much dead.
There is one major artery in the leg that, if severed, is probably gonna kill you (the femoral artery). If your jugular is sliced, you're probably dead. An aortic rupture will kill you within three seconds. However, failing any of those arteries or veins getting sliced, and you're golden - and they're positioned in places where, generally, they're hard to get to (almost like we were evolved to be tough little buggers).
There's a thick layer of fat that makes piercing the gut difficult. Most organs can take being pierced, too! I know people that have survived lung punctures (tension pneumothoraxes). As I've mentioned before, my father WAS stabbed. In the torso. And he didn't even get the wound fixed until a few hours later, and was out drinking the next night (oh, sailors...)
Another fun story. During my final exams for my first aid qualification, I was given a scenario I had to enact with a "patient" and everything. All the stats I were given were based off a real event. My "patient" had fallen onto a piece of rebar, and had the bar go right through his abdomen.
This was based off a real case. Guess what? My patient had no signs of shock, only minor bleeding, and my biggest worry actually had nothing to do with the puncture, and everything to do with maintaining C-Spine and checking for spinal cord injuries.
True story.
[/quote]Of course, this assumes that a stab wound penetrates more than at least about an inch. Otherwise it's not really a stab wound and more of an ouchie.[/QUOTE]
Agreed, but I'd say it's even more than an inch, due to the fact that your subcutaneous fat in most areas is around an inch. Unless it's hitting bone, in which case, you're lucky anyways.
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That's not to say that knives aren't dangerous. They are. But bigger blades are, generally, more dangerous, because the blade has a larger surface area. Meaning it's more likely to hit an artery that will bleed like crazy. Or if it pierces, it will pierce deeper and get more of the organ.
Also, the gladius was dangerous only when used in formation. the short blade existed because the formation was tightly packed. In single combat, the gladius was less useful, which was one of the reasons everyone tried to break up the formation before charging in.
If shorter blades were better, Samurai would carry tiny little knives and not Katana as their main weapon. Knights would charge into battle with their dirks rather than use their swords. And highlanders would be going around beheading one another with swiss army knives.
