Talk:Myrtenaster/@comment-96.8.204.173-20150719053619/@comment-147.69.14.40-20150720093235

2nd anon again.

You make some valid points Mr Noroh perhapes I did not expalin myself a fully as I could have however I think you'll find were used during periods where heavy armour was used (there were less and less people wearing full plate though and eventually less and less armour altogether by the late sixteen early seveteen hundreds but it was neverthless in use, in fact some continued to wear full breastplates until the end of the Napoleonic wars). And I did say that despite lack of armour the fact that these potential targets are covered by armour fully removes them as targets and makes it far more difficult to finish off an opponent.

with regards to your statement about naval combat I must apologise as I did not make myself clear I do not dispute that rapiers were used in naval combat there are clear records of British and French naval officers using such weapons on board ships, and I also do not dispute the lack of armour use by the navy in this time period. I was speaking with regards to land battles in which rapiers were not used by the general mass of soldiers (their are some records of officers using them in later periods such as the Napoleonic wars when armour use had severly declined).

Next your statement that rapiers would never come up against formation weapons, while I do agree with this statement some of your reasoning as to why it would not happen I must question. you state that the users of polearms and zweihanders would not be mixed in amongst swordsmen this is indeed true but only because no footsoldier in this era went into battle with a single handed sword as his primary weapon, a single handed sword would have been the secondary weapon for when the formations break up which they would do eventually, my hypothetical example addressed what would happen should someones secondary weapons be a rapier. Additionally I feel I must address that you seem to believe that pikes an halberd were only used to counter cavalry which is simply not the case, there are numerous accounts of pike and halberd formations clashing and proceeding to fight with those weapons as well as discard them and draw their secondary weapons in order to fight in closer. Also while the zweihander was a specialised weapon for clearing pikes it could most definitely be used in open combat and if the user was skilled I'de say he'd give the rapier user a run for his money.

back to the rapier, you seem to have misinterpreted my statement about the rapiers strength when it comes to blocking blows. I don't denby that the guard of any make of sword would likely falter under the blow of a zweihander that was not what I was trying to get at I was saying the the guard of a rapier could be broken by many things that would not break that of a heavier one handed blade, for instance a halberd or most other polearms really, a regular two handed sword or even in some cases the strike of a stronger single handed sword (though this would be the most unlikely of those I have mentioned).

On the subject of rapiers being designed for a looser melee I have to state they were not designed for use in a melee of any kind even if people did use them for such a purpose, I will not deny though that they would be better in a loose melee and the type of sword that is best for a cretain situation is indeed completely dependent on th situation itself however, that does not mean they were widely used most musketeers and people in skirmish type combat would have still used a broadsword (also you stated that pike formations were useless on a renaissance battlefield but pike formations were used even more during the renaissance than they were during the middle ages!).

On the sword being grabbed a person attempting this technique would not be killed 9 times out of 10 unless you are moving in deeply when you do it which means they have performed it incorrectly and deserve to be stabbed, is someone simply steps forward and left to grab the blade they can still retreat if they fail to grab the blade.

finally you stated that the arguments I raised can be applied to most other kinds of swords this is true any sword can be grabbed (even a zweihander though I wouldn't advise that), all swords are shorter than polearms, all swords lose to guns and all swords can break during combat this doesn't make rapiers better though different swords shine if different circumstances. Rapiers are among the best duelling weapons and this is where they truely shine but they were not as good at cutting and they didn't have as much weight behind them these things mattered more on the battlefield than needle like points and bendyness which is why people simply didn't use them in battles.