On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 9:01 PM, Greg Chalik <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

> European use of swords was also designed to kill quickly.

Well, sort of.  I mean, it's a simple machine, long skinny wedge to
improve leverage and slice.  The bigger differences are HOW they are
used.

> All the swashbuckling stuff is Hollywood.

Mostly.

>Sabre duels were later confined to epee
> (reducing fatal damage),

Er.  Sabre and epee are different weapons.

> and made illegal entirely not for any moral
> considerations, but because of the sheer death toll of people who were bad
> at it, but felt compelled to defend their honour, but not being able to find
> or afford a competent substitute. I think in France it got so bad that at
> one time casualties of duels were outnumbering annual graduation of
> lieutenants! It became organisationally, socially and economically
> unsustainable.

This is more the late 1400s/1500s transition from striking weapons to
stabbing weapons, along with a shift in technique from primarily
hacking (which generally produces peripheral wounds, generally
survivable) to stabbing (which produces puncture wounds, which are
more likely to be fatal, given the lack of antibiotics, anesthetics,
transfusions, and limited surgical techniques.)

Weapons evolve to work with technique as techniques change.

Dan

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan