will swords be used in the future?

[Queeb Salaron]

When you say broadsword, what kind of sword are you referring to exactly?

One of the massive 5' steel blades hanging in my closet. I'm a renaissance LARPer. They come in useful.

[Hobot]

Is it a claymore?

[Queeb Salaron]

Is it a claymore?

"It?" I think you mean "they."

And no, they're not. I have three, all of which I use in sword-to-sword combat. I'm just now starting to actually COLLECT swords. I've amassed a rather comprehensive collection of knives and daggers, and a few katana sets, but I don't have any SHOW broadswords. I have my eye on one Claymore, though. It's a big leather-hilted piece with a swordbreaker in the first foot or so of the blade. I could never use it in battle (at the bottom of the swordbreaker, the blade is only 2" across and would probably snap if I parried too high or caught a few good blows to bring to thigh,) but it's a menacing sword. Really gothic carvings on the hilt. A good piece.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Yadda. My personal theory is when personal or suit armor manages to outpower the ranged weapons of the day, then swords will be useful, as they may be more easily designed to cut through armor.

No. If soldiers today were given invincible armor, bullets would still injure.

Also, in shipboard combat swords and daggers prove to be useful, especially if you plan on taking the ship without blasting through the hull and losing cabin pressure. This is among one of the main reasons why al-qaida used knives to take over the aircraft on that fateful day about a year and a half ago.

It's called low penetration bullets.

[Hobot]

Yes, I meant "they"

I was just asking because I find a lot of people tend to use the term "broadsword" incorrectly. They often use it when referring to medieval swords when it's really at 17th century sword (and funnily enough is not as wide as a longsword or warsword).

[Shinova]

I think swords might still be a little useful if you could compress them like how you compress the Minbari fighting pike. Your captors think you're disarmed and suddenly you slash their chests open or decapitate them.

[Queeb Salaron]

Yes, I meant "they"

I was just asking because I find a lot of people tend to use the term "broadsword" incorrectly. They often use it when referring to medieval swords when it's really at 17th century sword (and funnily enough is not as wide as a longsword or warsword).

Technically, you're right. The term "broadsword" was really used to describe what are now more commonly referred to as rapiers (similar in grip and length to fencing foils). But those are sissy swords. I use the term "broadsword" loosely, because it's so much easier than calling it a Medieval sword, and they're not warswords or longswords. Logswords reached up to 6' in length, and were carried by the king. Warswords only got to be about 3.5', as they were much quicker and easier to manage on the battlefield. I use what were more commonly referred to as Knightsarms or Knightswords. These swords had 4' blades, and were only carried by the strongest of the warriors, who also often rode horseback.

Alas, I have no horse.

[Queeb Salaron]

This isn't the claymore I was talking about earlier, but it's a similar cheap knock-off.

Apocalypse Rider Sword

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

I think swords might still be a little useful if you could compress them like how you compress the Minbari fighting pike. Your captors think you're disarmed and suddenly you slash their chests open or decapitate them.

Do you people think?

[Queeb Salaron]

I think swords might still be a little useful if you could compress them like how you compress the Minbari fighting pike. Your captors think you're disarmed and suddenly you slash their chests open or decapitate them.

Do you people think?

It's been tried before, with no success. The thing with swords is that they're extremely high-impact weapons. They're made to stand up against shield deflections, armor hits, and parries. The joints needed to make a blade retract could never stand that kind of wear-and-tear. The pikes are a bit easier, as they're simply piercing weapons, and the impact is only one-way. It's easy to reinforce collapsable joints with the movement is only going in one direction. Because of the variety of possible attacks with a sword, though, the unreliability is much higher.

Besides, when parrying an attack, I don't want to have to worry about the other guy's sword getting caught in one of the retracting joints and disarming me or breaking my sword.

[Raptor 597]

No, no, no. I prefer to make my enemy's head explode. Example: that duck that lost it's head when I went hunting.

[Queeb Salaron]

No, no, no. I prefer to make my enemy's head explode. Example: that duck that lost it's head when I went hunting.

Umm... are ducks the enemy?

Man, and here I was shooting the invading squirrels. Boy, do I feel dumb.

[Lord Pounder]

I like the idea of Swords comming back into war and ranged weaponary going the way of the dodo. I would depend on the concept of honour comming back into battle. Even a boy can pull a trigger or press a red button but it takes a man wo weild a full sized sword and kill in single combat.

[Ted C]

I think swords might still be a little useful if you could compress them like how you compress the Minbari fighting pike. Your captors think you're disarmed and suddenly you slash their chests open or decapitate them.

The pikes are a bit easier, as they're simply piercing weapons, ...

The "pike" Shinova is describing is a blunt instrument, wielded like a quarterstaff.

[Queeb Salaron]

The "pike" Shinova is describing is a blunt instrument, wielded like a quarterstaff.

Hmm. Retractable quarterstaffs? I can't imagine they're very effective.

OT: Minbari is just one letter-shift away from "minibar."

[Homer] Mmm... minibar... ::drools:: [/Homer]





EDIT: Fix quote. Again. ::kicks quote fct.::

[Raptor 597]

No, no, no. I prefer to make my enemy's head explode. Example: that duck that lost it's head when I went hunting.

Umm... are ducks the enemy?

Man, and here I was shooting the invading squirrels. Boy, do I feel dumb.

Yes, everyone is the enemy. Didn't the College of Future Paranoid World leaders teach you anything?

[Rye]

The answer to this thread is simple anyway...sharp things kill faster than blunt things. Sharp things will therefore be used to kill people in future times.

[Queeb Salaron]

Yes, everyone is the enemy. Didn't the College of Future Paranoid World leaders teach you anything?

Yes. That school is the enemy. So I stopped going.

[Shinova]

I think swords might still be a little useful if you could compress them like how you compress the Minbari fighting pike. Your captors think you're disarmed and suddenly you slash their chests open or decapitate them.

Do you people think?

I think enough to assume that "Future" as the thread title indicates, could mean any length of time.

Just cause it's not possible or feasible today doesn't mean it's still not a thousand years later.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Yadda. My personal theory is when personal or suit armor manages to outpower the ranged weapons of the day, then swords will be useful, as they may be more easily designed to cut through armor. Also, in shipboard combat swords and daggers prove to be useful, especially if you plan on taking the ship without blasting through the hull and losing cabin pressure. This is among one of the main reasons why al-qaida used knives to take over the aircraft on that fateful day about a year and a half ago.

A) Wrong. With the armor, you're eventually going to smack right up against the limits of what you can do with alloys or composits and still have a soldier that can have some hope of walking around. And I can still unload an AK-47 clip into the soldier of the future and knock him or her down and make life distinctly unpleasant for that soldier. And there's that little problem of the sword suffering from the same materials restriction, and that other little problem of a sword carrying nowhere near the kinetic energy of a bullet.

B) Swords would be useless in the close-quarters combat you'd see aboard ships with relatively narrow corridors. Unless you're talking something as small as, say, a Roman gladius, a Nepalese kukri, or a Marine K-Bar. You can employ other technologies, such as low-frequency sonic weapons, microwaves, blinding lasers, and non-penetrating rounds, such as rubber/plastic bullets, 'beanbag' rounds, and glue rounds to subdue potential boarders onboard a spaceship.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I think swords might still be a little useful if you could compress them like how you compress the Minbari fighting pike. Your captors think you're disarmed and suddenly you slash their chests open or decapitate them.

Do you people think?

I think enough to assume that "Future" as the thread title indicates, could mean any length of time.

Just cause it's not possible or feasible today doesn't mean it's still not a thousand years later.

But a sword is completely unsuited for just about any combat scenario you could think of in a high-tech scifi world. Sure they might come back into vogue someday as primary combat weapons, but in that case, you'd have a Fallout-style low-tech post-apocalyptic wasteland sort of future.

[LadyTevar]

I like the idea of Swords comming back into war and ranged weaponary going the way of the dodo. I would depend on the concept of honour comming back into battle. Even a boy can pull a trigger or press a red button but it takes a man wo weild a full sized sword and kill in single combat.

Join the SCA, my friend

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

I think swords might still be a little useful if you could compress them like how you compress the Minbari fighting pike. Your captors think you're disarmed and suddenly you slash their chests open or decapitate them.

Do you people think?

I think enough to assume that "Future" as the thread title indicates, could mean any length of time.

Just cause it's not possible or feasible today doesn't mean it's still not a thousand years later.

A thousand years later, people won't suddenly forget to strip prisoners of weapons.

[Peregrin Toker]

Actually, swords may be used in the future....

IF CIVILIZATION COLLAPSES AND HUMANITY REVERTS BACK TO THE IRON AGE. Otherwise, as combat weapons they're as dead as the dodo.

[Coyote]

... will probably never see Vietnam or Gulf War reenactments, simply due to the fact that there have to be planes and helicopters involved. LARP groups often don't have the resources to get military aircraft involved in faux battles...

Well, it is difficult but it happens. A friend of mine was in a WW2 reenactment where some of the local Confederate Air Force guys brought a couple of P-51s to play, and the German side had a SdKfz 250/1 half-track... I've heard tales of a Vietnam reenactment group with a M-113 APC but no aircraft as far as I know.

Still, there are a lot of period aircraft restored out there, Douglas A-8 Skyraiders and others, even a few MiG-21s and SkyHawks. It could happen, but the cost makes it prohibitive to do a lot of time on target play. The pilots don't really get to do much 'cept buzz around, and at that point it becomes an air show. Plus, local FAA regs prolly won't be friendly.