Talk:Myrtenaster/@comment-96.8.204.173-20150719053619/@comment-6582316-20150720042138

Well both anonymous and LiveandSound do have valid points there are a few things that should be added.

1. Rapiers were not simply dueling weapons, although they were the premire civilian sword for a variety of reasons, several militaries used versions of the rapier (generally sturdier as the civilian rapier was designed to flex like a spring) such as the French Muskateers, Spanish Conquistadores, and the Portugues mercantile guards. Rapiers were also widely used by the Italians and I believe the dutch as well. In a battle senario the rapier was great for getting at the chinks in opponents armor, and it is one of the best swords to use against an unarmored target if you are on foot, hence sea-fareing people liked them. The most probable reason more pirates and the British did not use them are as follows: Rapiers are expensive if they arenot flooding the market and pirates are generally poor and desperate, so cutlasses are avery good alternative especially because they are reletivly easy to use. The British are most famous for their musket and bayonette work, and used that in their navy for boarding and such, but since their officers were almost always on horseback they generally used a curved sword, so both capitains on boats and on land used them because they were issued as part of rank.

2. While rapiers are primarily stabbing weapons, (it was common to sharpen only the last two inches on civilian blades) they can deliver quite deadly cuts. While the historical manuals are divided on how good an idea this is to do cuts have always been an important part of historical rapier fencing, though usually for defence. I wouldn't say the cuts aren't useful though, if you have enough flesh exposed to cut a slice from a rapier to the throat, wrist, belly, or ankle could be deadly or at the very least crippling. Especially the hardier rapiers designed for military encounters, they were slightly heavier and more rigid, and were often sharp allthe way down the blade, while they could not decapitate or dismember you they could certainly lop off your hand. I would also argue that the rapier was a very practical blade in combat, it got past the armor of the period, was sufficiently deadly and had a number of advantages such as superior reach, easier matenence, and a lower likelyhood of breaking in combat.

3. Rapiers generally didn't shatter, they tended to be made from softer steel treated to be very flexible while still mantaining its shape (so as the tip encountered resistance the rest of the blade became a spring pushing the sword deeper) if somthing like a broadsword did strike it it would likely send ripples up and and down the blade, maybe even shaking the sword from the hand but probably not shattering it.

4. Rapiers dominated the 1500's through to the late 1600's, they started to go out of fasion once guns became very reliable and cheap (one downside to rapiers definately not cheap) really rapiers were the last widly used sword for the foot soldierpike formations had long ago gone out of style with the introduction of cannon and muskets around the 1500's, that meant lighter armor, making thrusting swords more effective. Plus more and more battles were fought in and around colonies, on ships. Often there wasn't a dedicated weaponsmith there, and weapons had to be imported or brought with settlers, same with armor. And many battles were fought on boats or on beaches coming from boats, where heavy armor was too dangerous due to the risk of drowning. These factors combined to make the enviorment the rapier existed in a largly armor-free one, or at least armor light. That is part of the sucess of the rapier as it is fantastic at penitrting guards to hit chinks in armor or exposed vitals. Really if given a choice people would have prefered rapiers to knives or daggers (those would go in the off-hand, or failing that a buckler) since it is far more useful in combat. Polearms are great and all but inconvienient for daily use, and not often used on ships unless you count nethooks as polearms. Really cutlasses were the only other dedicated weapon in direct competition with rapiers (on the seas, which is really the only place cutlasses were used), and one could easily argue that rapiers were far more widely used. Cutlasses were primarily made famous by the British, while rapiers were used by pretty much everybody else (which is why all the old pirate movies have swashbuckling with rapiers, also why Wesley picks up fencing on a pirate ship).

In conclusion out of the four weapons Team RWBY weilds she has the second most historically practical, next to Blake's Katana (? Huh, I don't know what I thought that was but it wasn't that), Ruby's scythe was never used in battle as a curved scythe blade, and battle scythes were used only briefly, and Yang's gauntlets are the only true dueling weapon in the line up (they seem partly inspired by the Roman Cestus used by gladiators, or boxing gloves). So really Weiss has quite the practical weapon.