My 2 cents on the considerations: the blades were edged to the guard as to avoid being grabbed. The swordsman would pull out slicing the grabber’s hand. Also I do not believe one would try to hit armor or helmets with swords as they knew it was uneffective. Swords were used as we use handguns today, in more “peacetime” ways against preferrably unarmed opponents. At war it was a sidearm, polearms were used for most of the fighting
When he was talking about guard damage i had some old sword French sword that the blade end was broken off on and by the way it was broken you could tell it was battle damage. But the nastiest part was the guard was broken in half part of it missing and the wood on the grip had a deep gash in it. Inside the gash i actually found a very small sliver of bone! from the location on the grip i assume with some level of certainty that bone slaver was from their ring finger. When it happen is impossible to know for sure but how it happened well better than even chance it happened during real combat 2 people were absolutely trying to kill each other. I would suspect the person who had my sword was on the losing end as losing a finger like that would likely result in the sword being dropped
Wow that's nasty 😄 Maybe a lesson to not rely so heavily on your guard, one of mine's a highland baskethilt broadsword and I'm fairly new to their historical use but they do lead with the basket more than I'm comfortable with 🫤
Nah much more likely that was a practice accident. A very vintage unrecorded Historic EMA practice accident. How else would the broken weapon have been saved? The loser of the duel or battle wouldn't have gotten to keep it (or certainly wouldn't have wanted to) and the winner, I suppose you could speculate as to why they'd keep only half of the blade? Overall it doesn't make sense. The man who lost the finger while knocking about with his friends though, might have kept it around to hang on the wall and explain to his kids why not to play with sharp things and tell the tale of his missing finger to his grandkids.
I have to imagine that rust will infiltrate stress fractures faster than the surrounding metal. This could be the cause of large chunks missing from archaeological finds. A relatively small nick on a blade could have many microscopic stress fractures attached to it.
12:30 A lot of Japanese swords in museums had evidence of being shortened, especially when you get towards the smaller end. Much of this could be conversion of damaged blades.
A huge part of that was war standardization too. Many, many family blades were brought in for shortening for standardizing, and many of these were done quite crudely. Some were "repaired" (Cheaply due to war costs) afterwards, but many were not and instead donated to museums as is.
I've only seen a few Japanese swords that weren't shortened, and it's uncanny to see something like a Sengoku period sword at a similar length of a longsword.
10:10 - 'It probably did decades ago' - not a sword but this is how Jan III Sobieski's 'karacena' armour was destroyed by a museum in Dresden. It was covered in blue corrosion which beautifully constrasted with the golden crosses on the plates. Some decades ago a curator decided to remove the corrosion with acid and throw away old feathers from the helmet. It wiped out the original golden finish in the process.
@@dannyeckerd9324curators of the past were not that careful or responsible compared to today. There were no standardised practices or ethics, just whoever had enough claimed expertise.
You know, the way a lot of armchair HEMA "experts" talk, European swords never broke or chipped while Japanese swords snap if someone looks at them too hard. So it's always nice to see the real experts correct them like this. Nice job both of you!
It's a problem with trying to correct myths like the whole "katanas rule, longswords drool" nonsense: it's all too easy to over-correct. Having said that, in general, Japanese sword edges _are_ substantially more fragile than European swords of similar quality.
@@irrelevantfish1978 Substantially is not the word I'd use. They do chip more than they do roll, but that can limit the edge damage to a smaller area. However, due to being harder they may also dig into the edges of a softer blade.
People are still on that? I thought the armchair experts had all moved on to insisting that historical soldiers exclusively used polearms, and swords were just pieces of jewelry that nobody poorer than a baron could ever afford...
@@GaelicMongrel2023 I'd urge you to watch some of Matthew Jensen's destructive testing videos of both through- and differentially hardened katanas. After doing so many heinous things to so many swords, the man's as expert as any living person on the matter, and his experience agrees with what materials science would predict: harder edges handle gentle use better and harsh use worse. You see, even half-hearted metal-on-metal contact _will_ exceed the fracture toughness of a traditionally heat-treated katana edge, and brittle fracture dissipates energy more destructively than ductile deformation. The chipping of a differentially hardened edge is often deeper and almost always wider than that of a softer, through-hardened edge, with repair generally requiring more grinding on a weapon able to tolerate less before being rendered useless. Worse, chipping tends to cause greater stress concentration than deformation, meaning that until it's repaired, a damaged, differentially hardened blade is more likely to fail catastrophically on subsequent impacts.
I'm not surprised that you would both collaborate really well and you picked a really good point 🙂 A good number of the things we choose to show in our museums are spliced recreations posing as representatives instead of the real things, the more you travel in Europe the more you'll be able to see the attitude of the curator, I've seen clearly original archeological finds in Norway and clearly recreations made of modern materials in Italy. I think not many people in this day and age are likely to be drawn in unless it's mirror polished, perfectly tapered and straight without any toolmarks, movies and games have given us this unattainable expectation 🙂 Well I always enjoy hearing both of you speak so please do more like this, come visit us Skall 😋
This is great! I can’t remember the last time these two collaborated. I’d imagine modern steel has somewhat spoiled us and historical steel would’ve varied in quality and may have been more open to deep chips. I always imagined historical people would repair their swords if necessary but I never could’ve imagined they were repaired as recently as the 1970s! That blew my mind! I really hope to see more collaborations with other great sword channels in the future. (Personally I’d like to see Matthew Jensen)
@@johndododoe1411 Some armies yes, some armies no, and sometimes it is a mixed bag. The entire US military is like the definition of "Accounting Privates for empty mags and losing entire warehouse of munition" at the same time.
@@keirfarnum6811 I wish. People say "Smuggled to proxy war" but then some drunk idiot stumbled on abandoned building full of explosives. Literally more than dozen times.
I’m reminded of the dandaofa xuan treatise. Its a two handed dao treatise - a European counterpart might be a kreigsmesser with a longer handle. In that book they very explicitly state that you should parry/block with the back of the sword when interacting with hard objects to preserve the edge because if the edge gets damaged it will no longer cut and you can no longer kill the other guy.
@@scholagladiatoria I'm sorry for bothering you, but I've noticed that my comments on your channel had suddenly become invisible to anyone but myself. I've been a long-time (8+ years) subscriber and hopefully helpful contributor to the community.
One of the reasons i love my Easton Mk3 sabre, is because of that lobed/barbell shaped edge. It seems way more resistant to developing burrs than the more traditional rectangular shapes. Burrs you need to take off with a file, whick removes material.
It's just like the movies, though. Albions are always delivered by that bath-tub lady with the music, Deepeekas are delivered by the scary woman who comes through the TV screen.
I love this video! I hope to see more of it. I think one thing a lot of people miss about discussions on this topic is how long a soldier (knight or not) was actually expected to fight per battle. Battles & skirmishes with big melees were not as common as people think because they were inherently more risky for commanders. This is because battles required either one side being stupid enough to be cornered/surrounded, or more likely, both sides believing their was a decent enough chance of victory to be willing to engage in a battle, which means both forces were at least comparable to each other, which is not super common. All this means that sword wielding troops often had fewer opportunities to test the actual durability of their weapons. And since battles were rare compared to sieges in the medieval period (with sieges being 90% a bunch of waiting with some ranged combat), it was even rarer to have a second battle immediately afterward without time for you as a soldier to visit the camp blacksmith to have your sword fixed up. All of this means that, practically speaking, is that a sword in the medieval period only had to practically be durable enough to be usable for one battle. Any damage suffered can be either fixed or replaced (in more extreme cases) afterwards. So how much sword swinging does a soldier actually DO in a battle? Well this is a far more difficult to answer question. Not just because the answer is so varied based upon what type of soldier, how unique the circumstances are, where you are in your formation, how smart your commander is, etc., but because this question changes over the course of just this period of history. I think a more narrow and helpful question "what is the maximum amount of time you could expect a soldier to run around and swing his sword with intent to kill?" as this gives you the upper bound for what you could expect a sword to deal with in the one battle it is expected to last. Fighting for your life, maneuvering formations, and even running down fleeing troops, is an absolutely exhausting affair . You are carrying around heavy gear, probably didn't get much sleep the night before, who knows when last you had a good meal, possibly have metal in front of your mouth blocking airflow, are pumped full of adrenaline, are scared, and probably are swinging your sword with less efficiency than your training (as people tend to be less energy efficient with their movements when in extreme danger), and are probably running to take better positions on the field. Even with an athletic lifestyle growing up AND lots of physical training, there are fundamental limits on how much energy human body can exert at one time before they HAVE to rest. And you have to consider becoming a casualty, as every engagement is a gamble if you are going to survive, and it's no use having a sword that is durable enough to survive 10,000 sword clashes if you have a .00001% chance of even surviving to use it that many times. So how many fights does a sword have to deal with, considering all this? 1 fight? 4 fights? 10? can breaks between skirmishes extend this number many times over? How good are soldiers at running down fleeing troops? I don't know and I'd love to see some simulated testing to really try to establish how long a soldier could practically fight in a medieval melee. However, the best thing I can say is this: a sword only has to be durable enough to remain usable in 1 battle just barely longer than your own "durability" as a soldier. A sword only has to outlast it's wielder. I know that's not the most tangible of conclusions, but it's absolutely fascinating to think about. Anyways, I really enjoyed this video and I hope to see more of it.
Great video man! On a previous video about recommended swords to buy there was a mention of the TFW Bastard Sword. You had said that you ALMOST bought it and I'm highly considering it. Was wondering if you'd ever consider a review on it? It looks gorgeous but I'm curious as to the quality.
Excellent discussion. Always glad to see Skall playing nice with the boys across the pond(s), vice versa. I remember in one of my early HEMA classes some 2 decades ago having a piece of blade whiz by my face during a drill, with very blunt swords. The instructors told us there was a greater chance for some chipping with mixed blades of different material, but they'd never seen something just outright break, certainly not like that. The swing caused the tip to fly off across 2-3 of us lined up, and we had no idea what it was till the guys a bit far noticed the steel practice blade was broken... by all things... against the aluminum blade, which shocked everybody. In response, we made sure to pair up against the same metal from then on.
That two TH-camrs who know of each other and share the same interest team up is unexpected? 🙄 The world must be a perpetual source of wonderment to you!
I love the video because a lot of "debunking" or trivia sites like to claim that parrying and blade contact in general during battle was not a part of historical combat at all because of the possibility of blade damage and swords being too expensive to risk breaking like that. Thanks for addressing that a sword used in combat was likely mass produced and cheaper relative to ceremonial or dress swords that survive in art collections so it would be chewed up until it couldn't be repaired and then recycled or thrown away.
Great discussion lads. Need to have more swordfriends getting together as these talks always bring about great points and information that may otherwise had been overlooked.
I was a chef (meaning I have made MILLIONS of blade strokes under various real conditions), and I can absolutely verify that steel blades, regardless of whether they are made stiff for long-time resiliance or more pliable for daily re-workability, do in fact get plenty of edge damage and end up being resharpened or reshaped many time... and that's just from carrots and ham bones. If you actually use a blade for daily tasks, those complex-covalent metal/chemical bonds and semi-crystal material packets do give way in various ways, and any kind of mishaps or heavy work just make it more inevitable and more often. Any knife edge that is still pristine decades after it was made, is one that was never really used. Even enough strikes on and strokes along a "soft" cutting board will eventually take its tolls on the steel. All metal is in some ways similar to a liquid, and forged/tempered metals are in some ways also like a gemstone. Depending on the temperature, pressure, and contact surfaces, metal will flow, bend, splash, chip, splatter, warp, fatigue, and even shatter like glass. It is subject to both steady force and harmonic reverberations in various ways. Metal has a spirit, you might say, a breath and a blood, and it must be cared for like a living being to get the most out of its lifetime. This is the essential wisdom of the "cult of blades" since ancient times, which has continued to this day. To see the "liveliness" and vulnerability of steel at a grand scale, check out footage of [Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse "Gallopin' Gertie"] of 1940, which had reinforcement i-beam girders over 2 meters tall, plus hundreds of suspension cables. It was destroyed by a simple coincidental resonant wind frequency... hard steel undone by a breath of air.
For those types of cutting tasks you would use an appropriate steel. Something with a high chromium percentage that is very corrosion resistant. M390, LCN2000, Elmax to name a few.
It would be worth looking into whether there was, at least on occasion, some sort of trade of cash plus old sword for a new sword. The steel can be recycled, often back into a sword or daggers of similar quality. One observation I made over a career in archaeology, working on both historic and prehistoric sites, is the odd absence of old metal tools. I am also a woodworker and have several generations of woodworkers and especially finish carpenters behind me. Also, I grew up on a small ranch. Woodworkers, particularly finish carpenters and cabinetmakers, have lots of tools. Some of those tools contain a lot of metal. Similarly, ranches usually have a shed or barn where there is a work bench, and, generally, many tools used to repair things and cobble together useful objects. But in the 19th century sites I have worked on, where I would expect many tools to be worn out and replaced, there are hardly any tools. The conclusion is they are carefully maintained, repaired, retasked, and recycled, rather than letting useful metal be discarded, This pattern reaches back into history and is also seen in European, Middle Ages and earlier "hoards" of useful metals such as the Mästermyr tool chest.
In an issue of Usagi Yojimbo, there was a local peace-officer who used a kinf of club with a parallel bit. The idea was to trap a sword and there and, if you wanted, do a fast twist of the writst and break the sword. I don't know if they were really that fragile, but that you could have that in a story suggests the potential, particularly with a cheap blade.
It’s true about reusing broken swords, most japanese wakizashi and tanto are just a section of a previously broken sword, because swords were incredibly expensive.
Reading this title.. all i had to say was. YES ABSOLUTELY. Ive snapped two perfectly heat treated swords because i was swinging too hard against other swords.. Some bend. Some dent, some glint, some snap, some explode even lol. And no im not joking. Theres been faults within the metal that if you hit it the wrong angle.. it just busts into splinters and shards. However i dont know what its called.. fragmenting.. or something. I dont remember now fuk lol
Watch part 2 on Matt's channel: th-cam.com/video/6uHLt7uFuj4/w-d-xo.html
@PaMuShin 😐
My 2 cents on the considerations: the blades were edged to the guard as to avoid being grabbed. The swordsman would pull out slicing the grabber’s hand. Also I do not believe one would try to hit armor or helmets with swords as they knew it was uneffective. Swords were used as we use handguns today, in more “peacetime” ways against preferrably unarmed opponents. At war it was a sidearm, polearms were used for most of the fighting
When he was talking about guard damage i had some old sword French sword that the blade end was broken off on and by the way it was broken you could tell it was battle damage. But the nastiest part was the guard was broken in half part of it missing and the wood on the grip had a deep gash in it. Inside the gash i actually found a very small sliver of bone! from the location on the grip i assume with some level of certainty that bone slaver was from their ring finger. When it happen is impossible to know for sure but how it happened well better than even chance it happened during real combat 2 people were absolutely trying to kill each other. I would suspect the person who had my sword was on the losing end as losing a finger like that would likely result in the sword being dropped
Yikes... that sounds unpleasant.
Wow that's nasty 😄
Maybe a lesson to not rely so heavily on your guard, one of mine's a highland baskethilt broadsword and I'm fairly new to their historical use but they do lead with the basket more than I'm comfortable with 🫤
@@valandil7454 one of my friends told me about his protective gear to "trust it, but don't realy on it"
that can apply here too.
Hand attacks are extremely effective lol
Nah much more likely that was a practice accident. A very vintage unrecorded Historic EMA practice accident. How else would the broken weapon have been saved? The loser of the duel or battle wouldn't have gotten to keep it (or certainly wouldn't have wanted to) and the winner, I suppose you could speculate as to why they'd keep only half of the blade? Overall it doesn't make sense.
The man who lost the finger while knocking about with his friends though, might have kept it around to hang on the wall and explain to his kids why not to play with sharp things and tell the tale of his missing finger to his grandkids.
I have to imagine that rust will infiltrate stress fractures faster than the surrounding metal. This could be the cause of large chunks missing from archaeological finds. A relatively small nick on a blade could have many microscopic stress fractures attached to it.
A nick is also just a place where mechanical stress can concentrate into, this creating a weakpoint in an otherwise fine blade
12:30 A lot of Japanese swords in museums had evidence of being shortened, especially when you get towards the smaller end. Much of this could be conversion of damaged blades.
A huge part of that was war standardization too. Many, many family blades were brought in for shortening for standardizing, and many of these were done quite crudely. Some were "repaired" (Cheaply due to war costs) afterwards, but many were not and instead donated to museums as is.
I've only seen a few Japanese swords that weren't shortened, and it's uncanny to see something like a Sengoku period sword at a similar length of a longsword.
Great fun chatting Skall! My Part 2 is now live.
Matt Easton: From zero to context in under 2 minutes! xD
- I love this collab, off now to watch the second half.
Well, to be frank, everything in life does involve context.
What is current WR Matt Easton context any% speedrun?
A new record!
@@andrewbattleship24200s
10:10 - 'It probably did decades ago' - not a sword but this is how Jan III Sobieski's 'karacena' armour was destroyed by a museum in Dresden. It was covered in blue corrosion which beautifully constrasted with the golden crosses on the plates. Some decades ago a curator decided to remove the corrosion with acid and throw away old feathers from the helmet. It wiped out the original golden finish in the process.
Oh man, that hurts...
My inner pierogiboo just died a little bit
That's why there should never just be one curator and actions like these should be voted on by a knowledgeable committee
@@dannyeckerd9324curators of the past were not that careful or responsible compared to today. There were no standardised practices or ethics, just whoever had enough claimed expertise.
You know, the way a lot of armchair HEMA "experts" talk, European swords never broke or chipped while Japanese swords snap if someone looks at them too hard. So it's always nice to see the real experts correct them like this. Nice job both of you!
It's a problem with trying to correct myths like the whole "katanas rule, longswords drool" nonsense: it's all too easy to over-correct.
Having said that, in general, Japanese sword edges _are_ substantially more fragile than European swords of similar quality.
Even the foils in my old fencing class had bits of damage.
@@irrelevantfish1978 Substantially is not the word I'd use. They do chip more than they do roll, but that can limit the edge damage to a smaller area. However, due to being harder they may also dig into the edges of a softer blade.
People are still on that?
I thought the armchair experts had all moved on to insisting that historical soldiers exclusively used polearms, and swords were just pieces of jewelry that nobody poorer than a baron could ever afford...
@@GaelicMongrel2023 I'd urge you to watch some of Matthew Jensen's destructive testing videos of both through- and differentially hardened katanas. After doing so many heinous things to so many swords, the man's as expert as any living person on the matter, and his experience agrees with what materials science would predict: harder edges handle gentle use better and harsh use worse.
You see, even half-hearted metal-on-metal contact _will_ exceed the fracture toughness of a traditionally heat-treated katana edge, and brittle fracture dissipates energy more destructively than ductile deformation. The chipping of a differentially hardened edge is often deeper and almost always wider than that of a softer, through-hardened edge, with repair generally requiring more grinding on a weapon able to tolerate less before being rendered useless. Worse, chipping tends to cause greater stress concentration than deformation, meaning that until it's repaired, a damaged, differentially hardened blade is more likely to fail catastrophically on subsequent impacts.
Skall AND Matt Easton in a video?? Awesome!!
2nd opinion: a hairy guy and a hairless guy coming together over a shared interest? Absolutely epic!!!
Makes you wonder, if Matt ever had any hair on his head.
I'm not surprised that you would both collaborate really well and you picked a really good point 🙂
A good number of the things we choose to show in our museums are spliced recreations posing as representatives instead of the real things, the more you travel in Europe the more you'll be able to see the attitude of the curator, I've seen clearly original archeological finds in Norway and clearly recreations made of modern materials in Italy.
I think not many people in this day and age are likely to be drawn in unless it's mirror polished, perfectly tapered and straight without any toolmarks, movies and games have given us this unattainable expectation 🙂
Well I always enjoy hearing both of you speak so please do more like this, come visit us Skall 😋
Awesome. I love seeing Matt lend his expertise to the topic. Great to see you two collaborating, Skall!
This is great! I can’t remember the last time these two collaborated.
I’d imagine modern steel has somewhat spoiled us and historical steel would’ve varied in quality and may have been more open to deep chips. I always imagined historical people would repair their swords if necessary but I never could’ve imagined they were repaired as recently as the 1970s! That blew my mind!
I really hope to see more collaborations with other great sword channels in the future. (Personally I’d like to see Matthew Jensen)
How dare you educating me 😡 i wanna stay dumb
Are you saying that current armies no longer keep their weapons in working order?
@@johndododoe1411 Some armies yes, some armies no, and sometimes it is a mixed bag. The entire US military is like the definition of "Accounting Privates for empty mags and losing entire warehouse of munition" at the same time.
@@ZeroXSEED
Don’t you know those lost warehouses of munitions are really being used up in the secret interstellar war with aliens? 😂
@@keirfarnum6811 I wish. People say "Smuggled to proxy war" but then some drunk idiot stumbled on abandoned building full of explosives.
Literally more than dozen times.
I really like the discussion on this "secondary" topic. There is always more to learn. Hopefully we'll see more of this in the future.
The museum I work in has at least one sword on display that has visible damage from a clash on it.
People don't want to sit through too much? I'd sit through a whole series of two of my favorite youtubers chatting about stuff!
17:58 someone memed that at shad and he said it was depicting violence against him.
Even better it was artwork made by a human drawing every line themselves, no hint of "AI Art" at all.
This is a really really good conversation, thanks for sharing
I have been waiting for this crossover event for so long 😂
Me too. I have been waiting for such a crossover since I started following Skal and Matt in 2015. Great that finally happened.
Great to see you and Matt having a good chat, greatly enjoyed it! You guys should do it more often! Cheers Skall
So much interesting info here and I would've never even considered the "children playing with them" example, got a good chuckle as well
An excellent collaboration. Interesting from start to finish, so I hope there's more to come.
I’m reminded of the dandaofa xuan treatise. Its a two handed dao treatise - a European counterpart might be a kreigsmesser with a longer handle.
In that book they very explicitly state that you should parry/block with the back of the sword when interacting with hard objects to preserve the edge because if the edge gets damaged it will no longer cut and you can no longer kill the other guy.
Yep, the ability to use the spine is one of the upsides of a single-edged sword.
the sword community really needs to do more colabs.
PS: you two have great dynamic, great to listen to.
You're wrong Skall... I think people would easily sit through an hour or two of you and Matt talking blades.
Well, maybe we can do a stream like that, those are always unreasonably long. :)
@@Skallagrim I'm more than happy to do a stream hangout and just chat about random things 😊
@@Skallagrim says you
@@scholagladiatoria I'm sorry for bothering you, but I've noticed that my comments on your channel had suddenly become invisible to anyone but myself. I've been a long-time (8+ years) subscriber and hopefully helpful contributor to the community.
All within context, of course... XD
Wow! One of my favourite videos recently. Learned a lot!
This is absolutely fascinating! Thank you gentlemen for covering this topic so thoroughly!
what a nice surprise to see matt here
Sharp is more fragile that blunt.
Absolutely Matt.
Great collab Skall, never seen Matt on YT but just subbed.
Thanks
Brilliant collaboration. I could listen for hours.
Now this is a cross-over episode ive been wating for, great video broder, skål!
What a great conversation. Thanks guys!
love this collaboration! you and Matt are my go to's when it comes to information on medieval weapons this was cool to see
Awesome to see you guys team up.
What a pleasant and educational interview nice to see and educated dialogue about a shared interest
One of the reasons i love my Easton Mk3 sabre, is because of that lobed/barbell shaped edge. It seems way more resistant to developing burrs than the more traditional rectangular shapes.
Burrs you need to take off with a file, whick removes material.
You two have some of the best rapport I’ve seen on the internet lately. Loved the video!
It's just like the movies, though. Albions are always delivered by that bath-tub lady with the music, Deepeekas are delivered by the scary woman who comes through the TV screen.
I enjoyed this collaboration thank you
Love seeing you guys together. Always happy to see the HEMA TH-camrs chat about history.
Great video! I could have listened to you guys talk for a while. The photos were great too.
Great to see Matt Easton
Still my personal favorite videos you do have a historical context. Love this stuff! Best wishes!
This is like a dream come true! Love it that you two teamed up for these videos! ❤
Stunning collaboration.. I’m in awe
Oh Skall and Matt, yes im watching
Great to see the two of you collaborate on a video and on such an interesting topic.
Probably the two best at this kind of content.
Heck yeah!
A conversation with the two people reasonable for reigniting my love for historical arms and armor!
Awesome video!
Cheers!
Lovely to see this collaboration. I watch both of you regularly.
I love this type of video, you bringing someone on and talking about this stuff
I love this video! I hope to see more of it. I think one thing a lot of people miss about discussions on this topic is how long a soldier (knight or not) was actually expected to fight per battle. Battles & skirmishes with big melees were not as common as people think because they were inherently more risky for commanders. This is because battles required either one side being stupid enough to be cornered/surrounded, or more likely, both sides believing their was a decent enough chance of victory to be willing to engage in a battle, which means both forces were at least comparable to each other, which is not super common. All this means that sword wielding troops often had fewer opportunities to test the actual durability of their weapons. And since battles were rare compared to sieges in the medieval period (with sieges being 90% a bunch of waiting with some ranged combat), it was even rarer to have a second battle immediately afterward without time for you as a soldier to visit the camp blacksmith to have your sword fixed up. All of this means that, practically speaking, is that a sword in the medieval period only had to practically be durable enough to be usable for one battle. Any damage suffered can be either fixed or replaced (in more extreme cases) afterwards.
So how much sword swinging does a soldier actually DO in a battle? Well this is a far more difficult to answer question. Not just because the answer is so varied based upon what type of soldier, how unique the circumstances are, where you are in your formation, how smart your commander is, etc., but because this question changes over the course of just this period of history. I think a more narrow and helpful question "what is the maximum amount of time you could expect a soldier to run around and swing his sword with intent to kill?" as this gives you the upper bound for what you could expect a sword to deal with in the one battle it is expected to last. Fighting for your life, maneuvering formations, and even running down fleeing troops, is an absolutely exhausting affair . You are carrying around heavy gear, probably didn't get much sleep the night before, who knows when last you had a good meal, possibly have metal in front of your mouth blocking airflow, are pumped full of adrenaline, are scared, and probably are swinging your sword with less efficiency than your training (as people tend to be less energy efficient with their movements when in extreme danger), and are probably running to take better positions on the field. Even with an athletic lifestyle growing up AND lots of physical training, there are fundamental limits on how much energy human body can exert at one time before they HAVE to rest. And you have to consider becoming a casualty, as every engagement is a gamble if you are going to survive, and it's no use having a sword that is durable enough to survive 10,000 sword clashes if you have a .00001% chance of even surviving to use it that many times. So how many fights does a sword have to deal with, considering all this? 1 fight? 4 fights? 10? can breaks between skirmishes extend this number many times over? How good are soldiers at running down fleeing troops? I don't know and I'd love to see some simulated testing to really try to establish how long a soldier could practically fight in a medieval melee. However, the best thing I can say is this: a sword only has to be durable enough to remain usable in 1 battle just barely longer than your own "durability" as a soldier. A sword only has to outlast it's wielder.
I know that's not the most tangible of conclusions, but it's absolutely fascinating to think about. Anyways, I really enjoyed this video and I hope to see more of it.
Very enjoyable collaboration, and nicely balanced!
The pommel always brings on a smile for me. Always. Thanks Skall.... gonna watch Part 2 now.
Nice having both of you there guys!
Great video man! On a previous video about recommended swords to buy there was a mention of the TFW Bastard Sword. You had said that you ALMOST bought it and I'm highly considering it. Was wondering if you'd ever consider a review on it? It looks gorgeous but I'm curious as to the quality.
Oh cool. A collaboration with Mr. Matt.
Nice to see.
Awesome crossover
Beautiful collab! Cheers, mates!
That's pretty cool to see youtubers we appreciate collaborating like this.
It only took you guys 10 years lol this is awesome tho, hope there's more to come
I'm looking forward to more crossovers, collabs, and convos, Skall! This is great!
Great discussion!
YOOOOOOO I actually requested this in the comments of one of your videos, thank you so much!
Great collaboration. I'd love to see more of this.
These two getting together is like having Kirk and Picard get together and talk about Enterprises! Priceless!
I'm Picard, right? ;-)
Seriously though, thanks.
Which ever one you choose! They're both amazing and so are you guys! I truly appreciate all I've learned from you!
@@scholagladiatoriaPicard was rather British for a Frenchman.
Glad to see recent events havent put you off collaborations entirely.
@@scottmacgregor3444what recent events?
Loved the discussion format! It's dynamic, and covers different aspects.
This is the collab we needed 😁
Excellent discussion. Always glad to see Skall playing nice with the boys across the pond(s), vice versa.
I remember in one of my early HEMA classes some 2 decades ago having a piece of blade whiz by my face during a drill, with very blunt swords.
The instructors told us there was a greater chance for some chipping with mixed blades of different material, but they'd never seen something just outright break, certainly not like that. The swing caused the tip to fly off across 2-3 of us lined up, and we had no idea what it was till the guys a bit far noticed the steel practice blade was broken... by all things... against the aluminum blade, which shocked everybody.
In response, we made sure to pair up against the same metal from then on.
Great video, discussion and collaboration!
Awesome collab. Would love to see more of these!
Thanks for the crossover episodes Skall! ❤
when skall said "someone who has seen more historical swords/been to more museums than me" I was already like "no way is this actially happening" lol
Whoa!! Unexpected Crossover Event!!
That two TH-camrs who know of each other and share the same interest team up is unexpected?
🙄
The world must be a perpetual source of wonderment to you!
MOM ! THE NEW CONTEXT JUST DROPPED !
I love the video because a lot of "debunking" or trivia sites like to claim that parrying and blade contact in general during battle was not a part of historical combat at all because of the possibility of blade damage and swords being too expensive to risk breaking like that. Thanks for addressing that a sword used in combat was likely mass produced and cheaper relative to ceremonial or dress swords that survive in art collections so it would be chewed up until it couldn't be repaired and then recycled or thrown away.
very happy to see this collaboration
This wold be good as a podcast
Excellent video, fascinating and informative. Thank you guys!
Nice collab :)
You two brought up a lot of very interesting points.
Matt still got in the word "context" in less than 2 minutes. Great job, Matt!
Two experts talking and educating; more, please!
I see myself as an entertainer, not an expert. "Professional geek" maybe. :)
Great discussion lads. Need to have more swordfriends getting together as these talks always bring about great points and information that may otherwise had been overlooked.
Love it when my two favorite sword TH-camrs come together!
I was a chef (meaning I have made MILLIONS of blade strokes under various real conditions), and I can absolutely verify that steel blades, regardless of whether they are made stiff for long-time resiliance or more pliable for daily re-workability, do in fact get plenty of edge damage and end up being resharpened or reshaped many time... and that's just from carrots and ham bones. If you actually use a blade for daily tasks, those complex-covalent metal/chemical bonds and semi-crystal material packets do give way in various ways, and any kind of mishaps or heavy work just make it more inevitable and more often. Any knife edge that is still pristine decades after it was made, is one that was never really used. Even enough strikes on and strokes along a "soft" cutting board will eventually take its tolls on the steel.
All metal is in some ways similar to a liquid, and forged/tempered metals are in some ways also like a gemstone. Depending on the temperature, pressure, and contact surfaces, metal will flow, bend, splash, chip, splatter, warp, fatigue, and even shatter like glass. It is subject to both steady force and harmonic reverberations in various ways. Metal has a spirit, you might say, a breath and a blood, and it must be cared for like a living being to get the most out of its lifetime. This is the essential wisdom of the "cult of blades" since ancient times, which has continued to this day.
To see the "liveliness" and vulnerability of steel at a grand scale, check out footage of [Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse "Gallopin' Gertie"] of 1940, which had reinforcement i-beam girders over 2 meters tall, plus hundreds of suspension cables. It was destroyed by a simple coincidental resonant wind frequency... hard steel undone by a breath of air.
I'm sure knives that are used to cut ingredients with particularly strong acidic/base content may need to be checked for corrosion.
For those types of cutting tasks you would use an appropriate steel. Something with a high chromium percentage that is very corrosion resistant. M390, LCN2000, Elmax to name a few.
It would be worth looking into whether there was, at least on occasion, some sort of trade of cash plus old sword for a new sword. The steel can be recycled, often back into a sword or daggers of similar quality. One observation I made over a career in archaeology, working on both historic and prehistoric sites, is the odd absence of old metal tools. I am also a woodworker and have several generations of woodworkers and especially finish carpenters behind me. Also, I grew up on a small ranch. Woodworkers, particularly finish carpenters and cabinetmakers, have lots of tools. Some of those tools contain a lot of metal. Similarly, ranches usually have a shed or barn where there is a work bench, and, generally, many tools used to repair things and cobble together useful objects. But in the 19th century sites I have worked on, where I would expect many tools to be worn out and replaced, there are hardly any tools. The conclusion is they are carefully maintained, repaired, retasked, and recycled, rather than letting useful metal be discarded, This pattern reaches back into history and is also seen in European, Middle Ages and earlier "hoards" of useful metals such as the Mästermyr tool chest.
In an issue of Usagi Yojimbo, there was a local peace-officer who used a kinf of club with a parallel bit. The idea was to trap a sword and there and, if you wanted, do a fast twist of the writst and break the sword. I don't know if they were really that fragile, but that you could have that in a story suggests the potential, particularly with a cheap blade.
Very cool technical info! Thanks!
Great conversation, but it might help Matt a bit if you add his channel in the tags
You mean hashtag? I put it in the regular tags, but I can add that too, yeah.
Cool vid and super guest! Learned lots. Thank you.
hey i love this, just wish it was longer
Nice to have the two of you in one video.
Really enjoyed the video. Great collab.
Brilliant episode. Thank you chaps.
You guys need to do more collaboration with each other again. Great two videos!
this was really good
It’s true about reusing broken swords, most japanese wakizashi and tanto are just a section of a previously broken sword, because swords were incredibly expensive.
Reading this title.. all i had to say was. YES ABSOLUTELY. Ive snapped two perfectly heat treated swords because i was swinging too hard against other swords..
Some bend. Some dent, some glint, some snap, some explode even lol.
And no im not joking. Theres been faults within the metal that if you hit it the wrong angle.. it just busts into splinters and shards. However i dont know what its called.. fragmenting.. or something. I dont remember now fuk lol
I love the way Matt instantly identifies the examples Skall shows him
Excellent video Skall!!