Scadrian Shardblades

[Gasper he/him]

So this started out as a thought experiment and I wanted to get input on it from the Shard. It is only a matter of time (in my opinion) before we see a coinshot or mistborn running around with a shardblade. If my theory is correct, then scadrian shardblades will be keyed to one of the 16 allomantic metals. What would each metal's blades look like? would they act like the Bands of Mourning and grant the powers of that metal? Or would they do something else? Please give me you input.

[Weltall]

There seems to be a missing step here: Why would you assume that a Shardblade on Scadrial would manifest as an ordinary metal? The system that's 'designed' to make Shardblades has them be made of the godmetals of Roshar and if you could turn a Seon or Skaze into a blade (which is possible) they'd presumably be the same since they're Splinters of Devotion/Dominion. The only one we know of that isn't a godmetal is Nightblood, whose creation has many unanswered questions. We know that just dumping a lot of Investiture into a metalmind wouldn't work for the Metallic Arts and we aren't certain that there even is a way to make a Shardblade out of those systems. This also kind of nixes the idea that a 'Scadrian Shardblade' would function like an unsealed metalmind; rather what you'd get if you tried to make one that way would be 'a metalmind that just happens to be sword-shaped'.

 

[Calderis he/him]

I don't think we'll see a Scadrian Shardblade personally. Not that I think they couldn't develop one (the magic is foreshadowed and hinted in wob to be far more complex than we've been show). I just don't see an incentive for them to develop it. They have entered an age where warfare is not focused on melee tactics. Their weapons tech will be more range focused. 

[MountainKing]

I feel like using Hemalurgy you could make a shardblades, with maybe a little Feruchemy.

[Quantus he/him]

Depends on how much of the Shardblade functionality you are after.  Any reasonably invested Spike or Metalmind will function as a Half-shard and be able to block shardblade attacks.  Unkeyed/Unsealed Metalminds could reasonably approximate the Honorblades for all but the Shardic Spirit Attack.  For that the closest thing that exists in the Metallic Arts is a Hemalurgic spike, but that would have as much to do with where you hit them as with what you are using to attack.  And then if you are going for full sentient Sprenblade levels, I really think that will be outside the Metallic Arts as both Shards involved wouldnt be all that compatible with that sort of original Creation (Preservation likes what already exists, and Ruin doesnt make new things); the closest you might get is some sort of Kandra-Blade, but I think they'd still need biological components. 

[LiquidBlue]

The problem with a scadrian shardblade is that I am not sure that we have seen splinters of Preservation/Ruin/Harmony. The Radiant spren are splinters of Honor and Cultivation (and even a little bit of Odium), the Seons and Skase are splinters of Devotion and Dominion. Nightblood isn't really a shardblade, but the investiture used to make it was the little pieces of Endowment put into the Nalthis people. The Divine breaths are splinters of Endowment, and might be capable of being manifested as shardblades, but are different from the spren, seons, and skase because they are not self aware.

But we haven't seen splinters of Preservation and Ruin. That being said, the shardblade is basically the splinter being manifest in the physical realm as a god metal. And there is Preservation/Ruin/Harmony god metals available on Scadrial. So maybe the shardblade could be created in the opposite direction. Gather a sufficient quantity of Scadrian godmetal together, then somehow cause it to transform into a splinter, which might then be able to manifest as a shardblade.

(I now wonder if a Divine Breath can be manifest as a shardblade, it isn't self-aware, unless maybe the Returned counts as the splinter's awareness. What if Vasher could manifest his divine breath as a shardblade? Or, maybe transform himself into a shardblade?  )

[MountainKing]

1 hour ago, LiquidBlue said:

The problem with a scadrian shardblade is that I am not sure that we have seen splinters of Preservation/Ruin/Harmony. The Radiant spren are splinters of Honor and Cultivation (and even a little bit of Odium), the Seons and Skase are splinters of Devotion and Dominion. Nightblood isn't really a shardblade, but the investiture used to make it was the little pieces of Endowment put into the Nalthis people. The Divine breaths are splinters of Endowment, and might be capable of being manifested as shardblades, but are different from the spren, seons, and skase because they are not self aware.

But we haven't seen splinters of Preservation and Ruin. That being said, the shardblade is basically the splinter being manifest in the physical realm as a god metal. And there is Preservation/Ruin/Harmony god metals available on Scadrial. So maybe the shardblade could be created in the opposite direction. Gather a sufficient quantity of Scadrian godmetal together, then somehow cause it to transform into a splinter, which might then be able to manifest as a shardblade.

(I now wonder if a Divine Breath can be manifest as a shardblade, it isn't self-aware, unless maybe the Returned counts as the splinter's awareness. What if Vasher could manifest his divine breath as a shardblade? Or, maybe transform himself into a shardblade?  )

Nightblood is a shardblade, just not a Rosharan shardblade so not all the rules are the same. Some on on Sel could make the seons into shardblades that work the pretty much the same as Rosharan shardblades or they could use Aons to make a Selish shardblades that would work differently then a Nathisian or a Rosharan shardblade.

[LiquidBlue]

Yeah, now were getting down to definitions. I just strolled through Arcanum. There have been a lot of questions about Nightblood and shardblades. To summarize, it looks like Brandon says that they are pretty much the same things, except that they're not. Nightblood is a cracked, vastly more powerful, twisted imitation of a shardblade. A bunch of investiture shoved into a sword and awakened to sentience and purpose not a splinter manifesting as a blade in the physical realm.

That's why I said Nightblood really isn't a shardblade, because pretty much every time he is asked, Brandon tends to point out how Nightblood is different from shardblades.

In my post, I was using an unstated definition of shardblade. A shardblade is a splinter manifesting as a blade in the physical realm. I think we can also add that the shardblade form and function is defined by a pre-existing template or prototype.

The definition for shardblade that I used might not be the most useful one. Nightblood can be rightly considered a shardblade, but he kind of isn't as well.

[Calderis he/him]

Nightblood is a Shardblade made by different mechanics. Brandon does iterate the differences and attributes those to the manner of his creation. He's also called him a "third generation" Shardblade. 

Quote

18th_Shard

Does a Herald using an Honorblade consume the same "dangerous" amounts of Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Honorblades are less efficient; this doesn't change when a Herald uses them. (But they have other advantages.)

uchoo786

Are honorblades closer in power to Nightblood than they are to shardblades made from Spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Hard to say. They're all similar, but at the same time, very different. And in a way, Nightblood is what you might call a "Third Generation" blade.

uchoo786

Ah gotcha. And in this analogy, Honorblades would be 1st gen and Sprenblades would be 2nd gen?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

source

Honorblades are first generation Shardblades, and aren't "spren" at all, even by the loose nature of that word that we've seen, because they don't have a mind. 

As to Scadrian Shardblades in relation to Splinters, there are no Scadrian Splinters. 

Quote

Argent (paraphrased)

Are there still no Splinters on Scadrial, after the events of The Alloy of Law?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, there are no Splinters on Scadrial. Unless they've been brought. There are no Splinters of Ruin or Preservation.

source

I think this is because of how much more of Ruin and Preservation are bound up in the planet itself due to its creation. Splinters normally develop due to "free" investiture gaining sentience. Most of that free investiture with the Scadrian shards has always been bound up in the planet itself, the godmetals, and the mists. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 7/23/2018 at 7:34 PM, Quantus said:

Depends on how much of the Shardblade functionality you are after.  Any reasonably invested Spike or Metalmind will function as a Half-shard and be able to block shardblade attacks.

Why would you bother with that if you already had the alloy used in aluminium guns?

[Quantus he/him]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Why would you bother with that if you already had the alloy used in aluminium guns?

Well, guns are generally terrible at blocking giant swords

Pure Aluminum guns (since alloys like duralumin at 95% are considered different metals and would likely loose their inertness) are going to be relatively bulky and only be useful to resist allomancy, surges, etc on itself, not the bullets.  Other than than there is only a little practical difference between aluminum and a charged metalmind. The biggest is that  aluminum just counters the Magic/realmic soul-cutting bit, it is still left as a soft metal that has to contend with a giant blade made out of a godmetal (that presumably has better physical traits, hardness, etc).  With charged metalminds your options for the base metal are more open, so your final product can be a more functional weapon (aluminum swords are going to suck any way you slice it).  Similarly, an aluminum bullet is not going to punch through shardplate like magic (though it will do better than probably any non-invested object), it would still have to overcome the metal.

[Jace21 he/him]

I think the point being made is that Scadrial considers firearms the better weapon to begin with.

If I already have access to bullets that can't ve effected by investiture and interfere with healing if they stay in the body, why would I want a sword?

The only situation where any kind of sword is more useful would be against shard-plate and thats what explosives are for.

Edited September 26, 2018 by Jace21

[Quantus he/him]

1 minute ago, Jace21 said:

I think the point being made is that Scadrial considers firearms the brtter weapon to begin with.

If I already have access to bullets that can't ve effected by investiture and interfere with human if they stay in the body, why would I want a sword?

The only situation where any kind of sword is more useful would be against shard-plate and thats what explosives are forr.

Right, my point is that they'd be wrong, at least on the day they saw first Shardbearers closing on them, because they're from a world where wearing any metal is usually a liability rather than an advantage so they gave up on armor long before they reached the fire-arm level of tech.  Plate would still stop aluminum bullets handily, at which point they have an enemy in their face with a six foot allomancy-proof blade and armor and no way to meaningfully affect either.  With enough planning, distance, and/or suicidal tenancies you might be able to get explosives to work (big ones, plate is crazy tough), but that's far from a tactically balancing counter-measure. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Just now, Jace21 said:

If I already have access to bullets that can't ve effected by investiture and interfere with healing if they stay in the body, why would I want a sword?

You wouldn't. But if you are facing an enemy that has access to the surges, you might still want armor.

But that is the point. Wax identified "eka-boron" in the alloy. That is probably scandium in our terminology. If you can make guns out of that alloy, why not armor?
It can be industrially massproduced, unlike invested armor.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Just now, Quantus said:

Plate would still stop aluminum bullets handily,

Plate has an eye slit, hence it is not air-tight. That suggests nerve gas. Flamethrowers might also work. It probably wouldn't kill a Knight Radiant, but an ordinary shard bearer would be in trouble.

[Jace21 he/him]

3 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Right, my point is that they'd be wrong, at least on the day they saw first Shardbearers closing on them, because they're from a world where wearing any metal is usually a liability rather than an advantage so they gave up on armor long before they reached the fire-arm level of tech.  Plate would still stop aluminum bullets handily, at which point they have an enemy in their face with a six foot allomancy-proof blade and armor and no way to meaningfully affect either.  With enough planning, distance, and/or suicidal tenancies you might be able to get explosives to work (big ones, plate is crazy tough), but that's far from a tactically balancing counter-measure. 

We dont know how Plate would hold up against any kind of bullet.

There have been threads but I dont think a consensus was ever reached, particularly when you factor Aluminum into the equation.

I see things like explosives, weight of fire, heavy caliber weapons, artillery, pewterarms/feruchemists as being effective enough that they do to need to develop Shardblades.

[Quantus he/him]

@Jace21, @Oltux72, Dont get me wrong, I fully believe that modern industrialized warfar is going to defeat anything built around swords and armor, and for that matter I think that it would take some lucky tactics (or Powers we havent seen) for Rosharan Knights to have any chance against Era2 Scadrians with Metallic Arts, in the classic "Which Shardworld would Win" scenario's.  But the OP question wasnt asking about it's tactical value or the likelyhood that Scadrians would bother, just whether it was possible to replicate s Shardblade with Metallic Arts the way it's more or less possible to replicate one with Awakening. With that, I think the closest you ca get is a Half-shard level via Charged metal object (metalminds being the easiest) and the main tactical advantage that has over aluminum is that it could be made of better/stronger metals than aluminum (which I believe would have to be of 95% or greater purity).  We know per WOB that an aluminum sword vs shardblade would just come down to their metal characteristics, and aluminum makes terrible blades when steel is around.  The Supply question is also reasonable, though that's going to be really circumstantial and in Era2 Scadrial that's going to come down to how much aluminum you have around vs Medallions. 

  On the Plate side I am assuming that the Shardblade godmetal is a general steel or iron analog in terms of its base physical characteristics, but I realize that's 100% assumption with no real basis I can point to.    If it's steel-ish, it would (I think) take cannon-balls to deliver enough of a punch to break through the plate in any sort of devastating single hit, at least from the sort of distance Id want to have between my unarmored self and a nightmare knight with a Buster Sword.  Big Bore and/or close range would make it more damaging in general terms, though Id need some reference point on Plate v. Aluminum to quantify it. 

[Ashertliden]

We know that Shardplate can be cracked by blunt objects, so I figure that a barrage of coinshots sending blunt metal objects at fast speeds would be able to take out a shardbearer from afar. At this point, allomancers would be able to get their own Shardplate from the bodies of the fallen, and groups of Thugs in Shardplate could take out Rosharan shardbearers with massive clubs. 

 

Surgebinders in shardplate may be a different story, however. 

Edited September 26, 2018 by Kal-Eldin

[+Oltux72 he/him]

8 minutes ago, Quantus said:

With that, I think the closest you ca get is a Half-shard level via Charged metal object (metalminds being the easiest) and the main tactical advantage that has over aluminum is that it could be made of better/stronger metals than aluminum (which I believe would have to be of 95% or greater purity).  We know per WOB that an aluminum sword vs shardblade would just come down to their metal characteristics, and aluminum makes terrible blades when steel is around.

 

1. Most feruchemic metals have severe drawbacks as materials for swords and armor. Gold armor would be unbearably heavy for example.
2. If you use aluminium there is no need to build the whole armor or weapon out of it. A surface layer would do the job.
3. It is unclear how good a steel you would be allowed to use. An alloy with a lot of manganese or chromium likely won't work feruchemically.

[Jace21 he/him]

Sure, with respect to the OPs question, I agree that with our current understanding of the metallic arts, creating a shardblade would be impossible.

For guns, most modern rounds would penetrate medieval armour. While Shardplate in particular has many advantages over medieval plate, it would be easier use weight of fire to break the plate than an incredibly accurate cannonball.

With respect to which would be better, a sword-shaped metalmind or Aluminium sword, that is a difficult one, but in the Cosmere I still lean toward Aluminium.

Historically swords are non good anti-armour weapons at all, so I'd rather have the ability to leave my sword in until they die to prevent healing than a weapon that was still bad (if slightly better) against armour.

But yeah Era 2 Scadrial vs Roshar is far from a fair fight at the moment.

[Quantus he/him]

4 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

 

1. Most feruchemic metals have severe drawbacks as materials for swords and armor. Gold armor would be unbearably heavy for example.
2. If you use aluminium there is no need to build the whole armor or weapon out of it. A surface layer would do the job.
3. It is unclear how good a steel you would be allowed to use. An alloy with a lot of manganese or chromium likely won't work feruchemically.

1. I mean, sure, Id go so far as to say most of them would be awful (Gold Swords and Armor have NEVER been a good idea even when they've existed) and some of them (Im looking at you, Bronze) are only good options when the others are not available.  That doesnt eliminate iron and steel that are the obviously superior choices. 

2.  What are you trying to acomplish?  Alimunim stops the supernatural trans-realmic cutting of a shardblade, but per WOB it can then still just cut through the physical object like any other sharp physical object can.  And once it gets past the thin layer it would start realmically cutting again.  So it's still inferior to a sufficiently charged steel armor.

3. Technically true but practically irrelevant, you can still charge "bad" alloy ratios to some extent, they jusst dont work as well or as efficiently; but when all you care about is how much free investiture you can cram into it, you dont need to worry about efficiency of filling it (thanks to compounding) or the usefullness when you try to tap it. And setting aside steel entirely, Im pretty sure both Iron and Bronze would out-perform Aluminum.

 

3 minutes ago, Jace21 said:

Sure, with respect to the OPs question, I agree that with our current understanding of the metallic arts, creating a shardblade would be impossible.

For guns, most modern rounds would penetrate medieval armour. While Shardplate in particular has many advantages over medieval plate, it would be easier use weight of fire to break the plate than an incredibly accurate cannonball.

I think you are underestimating how well armor did perform against guns.  Armor lasted alongside firearms in combat for a very long time, and the reasons they dropped it had more to do with economics of equipping an army (and marching them in metal cloths) than it's practical performance.  Same as now, we can make crazy Batman super armor, we just dont pay to equip all of our base infantry with it.  The term "Bullet-Proof" comes from old armorsmiths who, in order to prove that their armor could stop a bullet, would shoot it at point blank range leaving a visible dent that was it's "Bullet Proof".

 

3 minutes ago, Jace21 said:

With respect to which would be better, a sword-shaped metalmind or Aluminium sword, that is a difficult one, but in the Cosmere I still lean toward Aluminium.

Historically swords are non good anti-armour weapons at all, so I'd rather have the ability to leave my sword in until they die to prevent healing than a weapon that was still bad (if slightly better) against armour.

But yeah Era 2 Scadrial vs Roshar is far from a fair fight at the moment.

That's just not true at all, they were GREAT at it, in the sense that swords and armor progressed together and against each other in the arms race of warfar for basically all of human history.  Swords and armor were constantly adapting to each other, so there was no Perfect Armor that protected against all Sword styles and no sword that could pierce any type of armor, but that's a far cry from saying Swords sucked against armor.  A lot of the most iconic sword styles were specifically designed the way they were to overcome various types of armor. 

 

 

[Jace21 he/him]

21 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I think you are underestimating how well armor did perform against guns.  Armor lasted alongside firearms in combat for a very long time, and the reasons they dropped it had more to do with economics of equipping an army (and marching them in metal cloths) than it's practical performance.  Same as now, we can make crazy Batman super armor, we just dont pay to equip all of our base infantry with it.  The term "Bullet-Proof" comes from old armorsmiths who, in order to prove that their armor could stop a bullet, would shoot it at point blank range leaving a visible dent that was it's "Bullet Proof".

Sure, the time that armour and guns crossed, high quality plate could stop the projectiles of the era. But I specified moder. Firearms which changes things. The reason metal armour stopped being effective is because as projectiles changed (from balls to bullets for example) the only way to keep up was to make the metal impractically thick, hence the shift to polymers and ceramics. 

But as I said, Shardplate ignores a lot of the downsides, but still suffers from trying to protect against something it was not designed to do.

34 minutes ago, Quantus said:

That's just not true at all, they were GREAT at it, in the sense that swords and armor progressed together and against each other in the arms race of warfar for basically all of human history.  Swords and armor were constantly adapting to each other, so there was no Perfect Armor that protected against all Sword styles and no sword that could pierce any type of armor, but that's a far cry from saying Swords sucked against armor.  A lot of the most iconic sword styles were specifically designed the way they were to overcome various types of armor.

I am sorry but it is true. 

Take the middle/late medieval period in Europe, probably the most famous era of sword and armour warfare.

As metallurgy and smithing techniques improved, armour, particularly plate armour, advanced to the point where swords were rarelt ever used on the battle field against armoured opponents. 

The most common weapons were axes, maces, hammers, poleaxes etc. Slashing attacks were just not effective anymore, bludgeoning and piercing with something heavy were better options.

Occasionally swords were used, in two styles.

1. Half-swording, using your second hand part way up the blade to wield it like a short spear, targeting weak points in the opponents armour.

2. Using huge two handed swords. This happened sometimes but they were effective because of their weight, more to bludgeon than to cut.

So yes, plate armour developed to the point where the sword as a weapon was inferior in essentially every way to other weaopns when it came to piercing armour.

They were still used for style, ceremony, tournaments and cutting down unarmoured peasants but in serious combat between armoured men, not so much.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

41 minutes ago, Quantus said:

That's just not true at all, they were GREAT at it, in the sense that swords and armor progressed together and against each other in the arms race of warfar for basically all of human history.  Swords and armor were constantly adapting to each other, so there was no Perfect Armor that protected against all Sword styles and no sword that could pierce any type of armor, but that's a far cry from saying Swords sucked against armor.  A lot of the most iconic sword styles were specifically designed the way they were to overcome various types of armor.

True until the late Middle Ages. Then armor progressed to the point swords lost the race and we saw increased uses of warhammers and polearms. A sword as a piercing weapon has the basic disadvantage that it cannot be swung if you want to pierce. Thus something on a longer lever basically won.

Now shard plate is different. It cannot be pierced in a sense. The failure mode is shattering. Hence it is unclear to me whether the basic principle of a bullet, a lot of force on a small area, would work at all. You may need a lot of force, full stop. Unless you have a shard blade (taken from the enemy) the best option on Scadrial may be a gigantic hammer with aluminium plating to be swung by a pewterarm.

[Ashertliden]

5 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Hence it is unclear to me whether the basic principle of a bullet, a lot of force on a small area, would work at all.

A coin-shot boosted pewterarm round should definitely be enough to shatter shardplate. Furthermore, Scadrial has another advantage over Roshar in that airships are becoming a thing. I reckon that the equivalent of missiles or other explosive projectiles will be coming soon in Scadrial's history.

 

[+Child of Hodor]

It seems the proliferation of better handguns and was the main driver in swords going away. I would expect Era 3 mistborn and onward to have very little in the way of swords since Era 2 already has decent handguns.  A combat knife however ... 

Quote

Towards the end of its useful life, the sword served more as a weapon of self-defence than for use on the battlefield, and the military importance of swords steadily decreased during the Modern Age. Even as a personal sidearm, the sword began to lose its preeminence in the early 19th century, reflecting the development of reliable handguns.^[53]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword#Early_modern_history

Swords were an important part of combat even against foes in heavy armor. The focus became more on thrusting than hack and slash. 

Quote

http://www.thearma.org/essays/TopMyths.htm#.W6vccXtKhaQ

7. Weighty swords were at first needed to bludgeon and crush armor and only later when armor use declined did swords become lighter for skillfully thrusting with the point.

False. The notion that heavy swords were "necessary" to crudely bash and hack at combatants in heavy armor is a considerably inaccurate and misinformed one. Virtually all Medieval close-combat can be shown to have involved some sort of systematic basis and principled action involving cutting and thrusting techniques. These were optimized for the type of arms and armors encountered at the time. Thrusting has always been important in close-combat, especially armored swordplay, where it is actually the primary form of attack precisely because hacking and chopping are typically much less effective against armors. (It was after all following the era of armored combat that large curved chopping blades actually experienced a resurgence in European cavalries.) Cutting blades naturally require a certain mass to produced optimal impacts, whereas thrusting swords ideally benefit from lightness that permits an agile point. Quite often specialized swords developed as ideal for one situation or condition of fighting would prove disastrous if employed in another. The later development of much lighter single-hand thrusting swords therefore reflected a transition away from the more complex self-defense challenges of a military environment and more toward civilian concerns of unarmored single combat. Compared to modern featherweight versions, historical swords that for centuries proved effective and formidable fighting tools can therefore only be viewed as somehow "heavy" or "awkward" if you are unused to properly training with them at length following proper methods.

8. Swords were not primary weapons during the Middle Ages.

False. Swords were neither cheap nor easy to make and took considerably more training to wield effectively than did simple axes, spears, and club-like weapons. For these reasons swords were also associated with knights and men-at-arms more so than with common soldiers. Other weapons were certainly more numerous on the battlefield but the sword was still a primary weapon of choice for close-combat precisely due to its versatility and effectiveness against a range of different opponents, armored or unarmored, foot or mounted. The sword in its various forms was the most personal weapon, the most prestigious, and the most resourceful. While by the 16th century it did come to find a greater role in civilian self-defense than in war, its effectiveness was undeniable and reason why it persisted in so many different forms for so long. Although the sword is sometimes described as being a secondary weapon in the Middle Ages and even as one that was more a badge of nobility or authority than practical, this can confidently be dismissed as inaccurate. While the lore of the sword as a noble "knightly" weapon is unmistakable, the evidence for its use by non-knightly warriors in military and civilian self-defense during the period is considerable. Considering their ubiquity in literature and art throughout the 11th to 17th centuries, the volumes of material written on methods for fighting with these tools, the extensive variety of types produced compared to other weapons from the era, their versatility as fighting implements, and their military as well as civilian application, their value practical is self-evident. 

 

 

Quote

Over time, the blades of longswords become slightly longer, thicker in cross-section, less wide, and considerably more pointed. This design change is largely attributed to the use of plate armour as an effective defence, more or less nullifying the ability of a sword cut to break through the armour system. Instead of cutting, long swords were then used more to thrust against opponents in plate armour, requiring a more acute point and a more rigid blade. However, the cutting capability of the longsword was never entirely removed, as in some later rapiers, but was supplanted in importance by thrusting capability. http://www.medievalwarfare.info/weapons.htm

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2018 by Child of Hodor