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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 2350710" data-attributes="member: 1879">Did you miss or ignore the part where he mentioned that the roman primary weapon was the gladius, or the piercing damage short sword. Besides which by late period the romans had A) Lost most of their famed discipline and B) Switched to using longswords modeled after those self same barbarians blades, mostly because effective use of the gladius requires that recently misplaced discipline.Good lord what a pile of nonsense. With regards to the relative deadliness of a slashing blade vs a piercing one I'll offer you a choice. Would you rather let me whack you in the arm with a machete, or poke you in the gizzard with a dagger? Supposing that a trauma team is at least an hour away? Personally I'd rather risk losing the use of an arm then take a dagger to the liver. And if the sword out classes a spear by such a large margin why is it late renaissance armies fielded with musket and pike rather than musket and sword? Or why did those swiss mercenaries brave enough to use a sword on a field of pikes draw triple pay? The sword is superior in the tight press (though the most famously effective close combat sword, the gladius, is a piercing weapon, not a hacking one.) And it is a hell of a lot easier to carry about town. The sword was the weapon of nobility because it was the most convenient weapon to walk about with on a daily basis. That and it was the stock weapon of cavalry because you lost your lance in the first charge, whereas you could retain a sword, and calvary was the nobles job. And re a single swordsman vs a single spearman. First off, that argument has almost nothing to do with historical usage as both were weapons of war, and secondly I've been studying swords in one form or another for 19 years and I have a hell of a time getting past a spearmans guard without taking a hit. Is the spear a more primitive weapon? Obviously. It is a stone age weapon and the sword is not. (Discounting the aztec obsidian and wood blades.) Is it a more effective weapon in mass battle? Given that every army from 3000 BC to 1700 AD employed them (And they were phased out in favor of the bayonted musket, which is functionally a spear) I'd say yes. It's only problem is that in a tight press you need to cut the handle down to keep it wieldy, and once you cut it far enough, you end up with a sword. Which is why the romans had the gladius for the front line, and everyone else poked over their shoulders with spears/pikes.</blockquote>

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