On the durability of rapiers

[LaCroix]

I believe this is the first time some deliberately tried to test the breaking point of a rapier blade when hit by other weapons.



I was pretty sure before that breaking a rapier under normal condiditons was very unlikely, but now I know for sure that unless the balde was of very poor quality or held in place by some objects that don't give like a human arm, no hit would have destroyed it.

I really liked that test.

[Thanas]

To be honest, I never heard of this supposed problem until I went on the internet. Nothing in print supports this notion that blades regularly broke and even the specialized "Klingenbrecher" are designed to wrestle the blade away/out of the grip of the rapierist.

[LaCroix]

Indeed, but you always get some people (mostly "Katatanafanboys") claiming that any good blow from any weapon would cleave the rapier in half. Finally, we have visual proof for these people (who are most probably unable to read the books on the subject).

[Lord Revan]

I think it boils down to (especially with the "Katana fanboys") the notion by these people that European swordsmithing as inhertly inferior to other places to the extent that european swords are either barely sharpened bars of metal that knights use to bash each other or thin needles that break if you look at them meanly.

[Elheru Aran]

The popular history of swords is a curious thing... Anyway, the breaking bit is probably mostly derived from modern-day foils and epees, which can and do break on occasion when over-stressed. But they're also much thinner and designed differently from proper swords.

I still remember the first time I picked up my Hanwei-Tinker Norman sword and swung it around, thinking "man, *this* really feels like a sword"...

[LaCroix]

I think it boils down to (especially with the "Katana fanboys") the notion by these people that European swordsmithing as inhertly inferior to other places to the extent that european swords are either barely sharpened bars of metal that knights use to bash each other or thin needles that break if you look at them meanly.

Which is especially funny, as the only really documented contact (Cagayan battles) between Katana wielders and Europeans using swords (rodeleros, wich used side-swords, a predecessor of the rapier, and bucklers) in close combat was a very one-sided affair where the Europeans practically slaughtered them.

Ps: I love how you can simply look at any european sword (like that side-sword) and immediately tell how it was most likely used (with/without shield, Preferred fighting stance...) The evolution of western sword blades and hilt styles and the resulting changes to fighting stlyes is a fascinating area.

[Elheru Aran]

To my understanding the development of the katana myth has a hell of a lot to do with Highlander and the growing exposure of the West to Japanese culture (martial arts, film and anime especially) in the 80s-90s. Western blades, on the other hand, were mostly relegated to the occasional knight-in-shining-armour or barbarian film, Renaissance faires, and a few fairly select makers. As well, Chinese blade factories were able to crank out functional katana for quite cheap by the thousands; Western swords, by contrast, were uniformly of fairly low quality (aside from the few makers I mentioned) until pretty recently (maybe a decade or so ago). The recent growth of HEMA and similar hobbies, and the more 'realistic' taste of shows on TV and film (LOTR, Game of Thrones to name a couple) have contributed strongly.

Del Tin Armi Antiche, Arms and Armour, and Albion Swords were all around in the 80s... but they were much more niche then than they are now. Windlass Steelcrafts was (and is) one of the only producers of decent quality cheap swords... but nobody really knew much about them outside Ren Faires and the catalogs. So probably the #1 contributing factor to the whole thing (in both directions) is the Internet. Ain't technology wonderful.

[Sea Skimmer]

The katana myth goes back in part to at least to WW2, when Japan was insane enough that they actually made some propaganda posters and reels about how awesome the warrior's blade was. Many of these were captured and circulated among US troops and back to the states, alongside thousands of real katanas, as well as thousands of stamped steel replicas used by Japanese officers who didn't have family swords to carry. Many people still don't know which they have, the replicas were still meant to be credible weapons.

Western blades meanwhile, and so much about making and the arts of using them was seemingly pushed aside as soon as guns were able to push them off the battlefield. Only a few models kept being produced as officers swords, and with armor off the battlefield the type of sword carried was no longer important. A lot of modern era replica blades were and some still are low quality on purpose so it could be contended they were not actually weapons and for display only, in response to bans and restrictions on edged weapons in various countries and US states and cities.

[Vendetta]

The katana myth goes back in part to at least to WW2, when Japan was insane enough that they actually made some propaganda posters and reels about how awesome the warrior's blade was. Many of these were captured and circulated among US troops and back to the states, alongside thousands of real katanas, as well as thousands of stamped steel replicas used by Japanese officers who didn't have family swords to carry. Many people still don't know which they have, the replicas were still meant to be credible weapons.

And probably earlier than that, I would guess the myth of the katana started arising sometime after the sengoku jidai when for reals warring* had died down (and guns were banned, before that there were more guns used in warfare in Japan than in Europe at the time), but there was still duelling between samurai.

The myth probably arose in part because duelling between unarmoured people showcases the greatest strength of the katana which is cutting through unarmoured flesh.

Also probably due to the effort required to make a non-terrible katana with the low quality steel available in Japan at the time making them expensive.


* During most of this period a samurai would predominantly fight with bow and spear, the katana was the weapon of last resort for a samurai in wartime.

[Sea Skimmer]

I wonder if it dates to about the 1870s rebellion in Japan? At least I'd bet that was when the notion first circulated.

Europe was a bit lame on war's at the time (and full of delusions about the Franco Prussian War), and contrary to the awesome Tom Cruise movie both sides had guns and major warships, and yet both sides still fielded major units of swordsman (legit useful for boarding ironclads!) that conflict got a lot of attention in Europe and America. The growth of telegraph cables helped. But meanwhile the sword was by then already centuries out of style in the west, certainly diminishing the collective memory and understanding of western blades. So for common people and even the militarily educated the Katana would have been something a bit exotic and certainly different.

While I have no proof of it in this context, and no interest in finding any because it'd be a thesis level exercise I'm not yet ready to embark on, one thing I will throw into this is that military memory is very short, and in the modern era we certainly can prove it is. If lessons and experience do not make it into written formal manuals drilled into the officer corps, they will be lost within a few years. The turnover in officers and enlisted is simply too constant and too rapid for it to be otherwise. Even in the militaries of old which had crazy stuff like 17 year conscripts, that only extends us to a single generational timescale. This means that old methods and means, once obsolete, will be lost rapidly if not formally recorded. So rapidly that by the time someone realizes they are being lost, it may be too late to do anything about it. That has happened plenty of times in the mere past century and a half. That means that when the socket bayonet appeared just about 1700 and all surviving melee weapons were swept away with it it is exceedingly probably that a vast school of information, thought, experience and common understanding just totally evaporated with it. What reason did anyone have to care about how to murder other people less effectively? So the end result is a huge information bias problem, in this case strongly favoring the Katana.

[LaCroix]

Certainly. There are only some scarce surviving books on this topic, which only show static depictions of the start or result of a technique, but lack crucial components of the in-between. This leads to a lot of diverging ideas in modern HEMA about how they did fight - were you standing a lot, changing stances until one makes an opening? (Aka "Conan posing") Constant probing out of varying stances? Nobody knows for sure. (Now we do get a good idea what works when we try, but often in martial arts, a minor detail may render a useful technique useless to the novice.)

A lot of lore is forgotten, though, especially most of what happened before the invention of the rapier - for example, most we know about how one fenced with sword and buckler is basically from one german manuscript without title or author know, generally referred as the "Tower of London manuscript I.33". We can learn a lot of that, but it's only ~30 pages, which is not quite a lot to describe a fighting style. I'm sure that a military manual for rondelos would be quite different form that (probably personal defense) manual.

Same for MS 3227a, which has descriptions, but lacks illustrations.

[Elheru Aran]

That's an interesting thought. It should be noted that the Chinese frequently used swords as well into the modern era, but there is less serious Chinese weaponry around. Possibly a lot of this is due to more 'silly' kung-fu films and a general lack of exposure, though.

[madd0ct0r]

Point of order. Over-forged rapiers that broke didnt last to the present day.

Metal fatigue might be an issue, if the connection to the hilt was poorly detailed or sharp corners.

[Elheru Aran]

That's possible. Swords have always broken in use and otherwise, and there's no question that it did happen with rapiers. There's only so much that a skinny blade like that (albeit they were rather thick, had to be) can take. However, in general I think it's a *fairly* safe assumption that a rapier, if made to a reasonable degree of quality, wouldn't break in normal use.

[Thanas]

Point of order. Over-forged rapiers that broke didnt last to the present day.

Metal fatigue might be an issue, if the connection to the hilt was poorly detailed or sharp corners.

That is true, but most good rapiers had blades that were made by production centers that had hundreds of years of expierence at this point, like Solingen or Toledo.

[Elheru Aran]

Also while civilian duelling frequently involved rapiers, actual warfare tended to be conducted with more robust blades. Many types were often hilted almost identically to rapiers and it's easy to confuse them, but the primary difference is a matter of balance and blade geometry. This is the same historic period where you see George Silver complaining about rapiers and advocating the broadsword, after all.

I recall (though don't ask me where I saw it, possibly MyArmoury or an Oakeshott book) seeing an, I think, Elizabethian city regulation that rapiers above a yard along were to be broken off at that length by the gate-keepers of that city. It probably involved an anvil and an heavy hammer or something along those lines rather than just whacking it with another blade. The obvious deduction is that rapiers aren't just going to break when you hit them with another sword, because hitting them with another sword is what they're supposed to do anyway...

[madd0ct0r]

nah - just hitting with another sword would break it near the hilt - that's the point of greatest bending moment.

Have you got a good hilting detail or cross section for me to play with? I'd google, but don't know enough to trust the results.

[LaCroix]

nah - just hitting with another sword would break it near the hilt - that's the point of greatest bending moment.

Have you got a good hilting detail or cross section for me to play with? I'd google, but don't know enough to trust the results.

Care to explain why you think it would break upon being hit with a sword? That's exactly what you hear again and again in the internet - even right after the OP video proves the exact opposite? That a rapier won't break, even when deliberately hit to break it, with a two-handed sword? The human hand simply cannot hold it steady enough.

Did you even bother to watch the video?

The only rapier I've ever seen breaking was when someone stumbled and fell, ramming it right into the wooden floor and bending it like a U (and beyond) while he went down.

redit: Oh, and when any sword gets hit, the point that experiences the biggest bending moment is in the middle or pointside third. The hiltside third is called the "forte" for a reason. A sword barely ever bends there.
A sword that breaks usually breaks in a way that leaves most of the forte intact. A break at the hilt is almost unheard of.

[Sea Skimmer]

Rapiers taper down the entire length too which is not true of many other swords, it'd be mighty illogical for a break to occur at the thickest point!

[Lord Revan]

for a sword to break at the hilt the tang (or the part that goes inside the hilt) would have had to been made poorly and snapped, for the actual blade to break at the thickest and most wide part seems unlikely.

something that the internet seems forget really often is the tang or more specific that the blade isn't just glued onto the hilt but there's a part of the blade inside the hilt, bare in mind that this is true of pretty much any blade even a kitchen knife or a good quality eating knife with a decortive handle.

[Thanas]

The only rapier I've ever seen breaking was when someone stumbled and fell, ramming it right into the wooden floor and bending it like a U (and beyond) while he went down.

I had that happen to me as well when blades got locked and I got outwrestled - but my rapier didn't break, instead it nearly broke my rips as I landed on it. Blue and black for several weeks. Not fun.

[LaCroix]

The only rapier I've ever seen breaking was when someone stumbled and fell, ramming it right into the wooden floor and bending it like a U (and beyond) while he went down.

I had that happen to me as well when blades got locked and I got outwrestled - but my rapier didn't break, instead it nearly broke my rips as I landed on it. Blue and black for several weeks. Not fun.

Lucky you. That's the (thankfully rare) occasion where you really are reminded why you need to put all this protective stuff on.

That guy with the break also was incredibly lucky, as he was wearing a long-sleeved gambeson for training. There were some nasty cuts in it after that fall. He might have rammed the broken tip straight through his arm if he hadn't.

[madd0ct0r]

nah - just hitting with another sword would break it near the hilt - that's the point of greatest bending moment.

Have you got a good hilting detail or cross section for me to play with? I'd google, but don't know enough to trust the results.

Care to explain why you think it would break upon being hit with a sword? That's exactly what you hear again and again in the internet - even right after the OP video proves the exact opposite? That a rapier won't break, even when deliberately hit to break it, with a two-handed sword? The human hand simply cannot hold it steady enough.

Did you even bother to watch the video?

The only rapier I've ever seen breaking was when someone stumbled and fell, ramming it right into the wooden floor and bending it like a U (and beyond) while he went down.

redit: Oh, and when any sword gets hit, the point that experiences the biggest bending moment is in the middle or pointside third. The hiltside third is called the "forte" for a reason. A sword barely ever bends there.
A sword that breaks usually breaks in a way that leaves most of the forte intact. A break at the hilt is almost unheard of.

Dude, chill the fuck out. I was responding Elheru Aran's anecdote about snapping rapiers shorter and wether that was done on an avil (probably) or by hitting it (definetly not). Bending moment =/= radius of curvature.

Skimmer - most versions of swords I've seen have a tang narrower then the base of the blade - that transistion point (especially if badly filed or notched) is where I'd expect the greatest stress in the outside layers of material.

Again, if anyone can provide a decent cross section I'm happy to do an FEA anaylsis

[LaCroix]

Use quotes, then - all who replied to you assumed the same intent that I did...

Again, if anyone can provide a decent cross section I'm happy to do an FEA anaylsis

Anybody would be quite happy to have that, sadly, that's pretty much trade secret. No blacksmith is giving these away, and most other people lack the patience to make a cross section diagram, as a rapier is tapered distal and profile, both gradual and acute, and even the cross section changes multiple times.

One thing is sure - the position where you assume the most bending moment is the place that is the least stressed.



Swords breaking due to impact usually break close to the spot marked as Aft Pivotpoint in the middle of the blade. Basically, that's the point a blade wants to rotate around if one end is accellerated. (Depending on how you hold the grip the actual pivot point is somewhere between Forward and Aft point, but usually it stays close to the Aft point due to the center of gravity, pommel mass and the mass of your hand also effecting everything.)

So, if some force acts on the blade on the tip side(as in hitting something or getting hit way too hard), it wants to rotate. The fact that the user holds the grip means that the sword flexes, and the pivot point is where the of that flex will happen. (While an impact hiltside will shove your sword and arm aside, together, with the tip lagging behind for a moment, thus creating the same mending moment.)

The blade now acts like a fulcrum that is overloaded - both ends will bend as far as they can, until the force is lifting one end, or one end snaps.
Now, the grip side part of the blade is much stronger and stiffer, so it will bend less. Thus, if it breaks, it will break where the cross section is the weakest(in tapered swords) and lever the longest(tapered and straight swords, both) - close to the pivot point.
The tip side, on the other hand, is much more springy due to blade geometry and size and can bend quite well before snapping might occur. It will snap where it is stiffest or the lever is the longest - again, close to the fulcrum.
Due to that design, if a blade happens to fail, it usually gives somewhere close to the pivot point of the fulcrum.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, I don't know how much this will help for period pieces as these are modern reproductions, but they're from two excellent companies: Arms & Armour and Del Tin Armi Antiche. Both are well known for making good reproductions with accurate form and balance, so we can assume fairly reasonably that these are close to historic originals.

Numbers are from Kult of Athena, an online sword retailer. The larger number is measured just above the guard IIRC, then the other is some distance below the point; I think perhaps 3" but I can't be certain. Then width of the blade is measured at the base, but no other width is given, unfortunately. So I don't know how useful these will be but it's a start.

Arms & Armour German rapier: 6mm thick to 5.2mm, 22.1mm wide at base of blade.

Arms & Armor Gustav Vasa Rapier: 5.8mm to 3.7, 29.9mm wide at base of blade. Note that this is a slightly older version of the rapier that could qualify as a 'reiterschwert' as it can cut as well as thrust with a wider blade.

Arms & Armor Serenissima Rapier: 6mm to 3.6mm, 29.8mm. A fairly early version, again a cut-and-thrust type.

Del Tin 17th Century Cup Hilt Rapier: 4.8-3.3mm, 22.9mm wide. This is a late period rapier, a clear ancestor of the modern epee.

There are plenty more at KoA, just search 'rapier' or whatever.