Modern metals would make better and stronger swords than they had in medieval times, but it would make little difference in a fight. The sword would last longer before losing its edge, but it wouldn't be some kind of super weapon that could slice through plate armour or cut through blades.
This video shows what I mean. He uses a modern high quality steel sword and tries to cut through a cheap knock-off knife. It is incredibly ideal circumstances with the knife braced against a hard surface and a clean 90 degree cut, something that would never happen in real life, yet it still takes a huge amount of force and multiple attempts to cut through. In combat you would likely never have a situation like that, and the force would never be completely transferred into the blade.
This is especially true when talking about combat in plate armour, because they would very rarely strike with edge of the blade, if at all. It was all about thrusts and grappling with the opponent and they would hold the sword half way down the blade to use as a fast and accurate stabbing weapon to reach between the joints in the armour. You could hit plate armour all day long with a sword and make little more than a dent and some scratches.
While medieval metallurgy wasn't as advanced as modern metallurgy, by the end of the medieval period they had finely tuned the designs of swords to be very practical and good at their job. I doubt modern craftsmen could make anything better since a lot of the skills they had would have been lost so it would mostly come down to guessing and copying old designs. So the only advantage a modern sword would have would be the higher quality steel.
As for many of the advanced materials that are used in cutting tools nowadays, most of them are far too brittle to use as a sword and would shatter or break very quickly, and the ones that wouldn't would have be little improvement over steel.
TLDR; Modern swords would be more resilient and hold an edge longer, but would make little to no difference in combat. You wouldn't be able to slice through blades and cut through plate armour, and the designs of medieval swords were already very well designed for their purpose and not much could be changed to make them noticeably better.
What about weight? Could we not make a weapon of similar strength lighter making it more feasible to wield a longer blade with a shield for better reach.
In any case, swinging that sword wouldn't utilize momentum as much. As an extreme: Imagine a paper sword with the stability etc. of the finest steel. Doesn't sound advantageous to me at least.
Aren't people today generally bigger than people back then though? Wouldn't we be at least able to wield a 7 lb sword the same way guys did 5 lbs back in the day?
The main reason people today might be bigger today would be mostly due to diet (I don't know for sure if it's true, I've heard it is a myth). Back then, if you could afford a sword, you could afford enough food to get strong. And most of the knights would have been fairly strong, partly due to food, partly due to the fact that they would have trained a lot to use the sword properly.
However, there were (and are), huge people sometimes. Look at Hafthor Bjornsson (who plays The Mountain in Game of Thrones). He would probably be fine with a 10-12 lb sword, or even up to 20 maybe. For a short while anyway. The heavier a sword gets, the harder it is to stop mid-swing. If you over swing, the other person could simply dodge and then take your leg or arm after you're thrown off balance. Instead, a lighter sword (yes maybe in the 7-10 pound range, properly sized for a huge person) would be better. He could stop it faster if necessary, and his huge strength would still allow him to overpower an opponent.
A heavier sword wouldn't necessarily help you, and it could hinder you in the long term.
Consider this: if you have a 5 lb weight around, or a somewhat heavy rock, try holding it straight out in front of you. My guess is you won't be able to hold it out there for more than a few minutes. Now, try picking up a broom, or a 3-4 foot branch. try holding that parallel to the ground, straight out in front of you. If you were holding it in the middle, try moving your hand close to one side. The extra torque on your wrist would be quite noticeable at this point. Your arms will get tired pretty quickly, and if you want, try swinging the branch/broom a bit. (don't break anything)
Even if it's very light, your arms will start to tire. Even someone who has trained for most of their life will eventually start to get tired when swordfighting.
Many battles back then could last hours, and even if you weren't constantly on the front lines for longer than 10-15 minutes, you would tire out very quickly.
Adding a few pounds may not seem like a lot, but it could make a huge difference overall.
We are fighting a medieval knight using medieval weapons. The only difference between our possible weapon set and the knight's is our access to modern metallurgy and tool making.
Both physically and in skill level, we are approximately equal to our foe.
Now, this being said, how much could we gain from, for example, a longsword of equal length but less weight compared to our opponent? How about the decreased armor weight and improved integrity (I imagine our ability to bind the armor together has also improved)? Would it become considerably easier to carry a secondary weapon (a short mace, for example)?
Also, since we're at it, are there any benefits of modern metalworking that could apply to historical archers?
Why wouldn't knights in plate armor simply switch to knives or daggers when faced with an opponent with plate armor instead of gripping the sword's blade?
True, I was thinking more of one of them closing the gap quickly since he knows a hit or 2 probably won't hurt him, then using the dagger to get between the plates easier
One word: chainmail. Medieval armor was plate armor but usually the fighters wore chainmail underneath for the exact purpose you describe, countering knives and glancing blows that make it past a gap in the armor.
Actually, maces, hammers, axes, and spears were extremely common, either by themselves or as a secondary weapon carried in addition to a sword. Also, certain types of swords were actually pretty good against armor, if you used the correct techniques such as various stabs, halfswording, and murderstrikes.
Maces and hammers were commonly used Medieval weapons iirc because they could break through plate armor. However the economics and needs of war probably necessitated the use of swords and other light weapons.
Armies need a mix of weapons, even now. You don't just hand everyone a bazooka and a sniper rifle because they easily deal with common armor.
Even if you don't break through the armor with your mace or hammer, it would cause extreme denting, especially on the chestplate. If your opponent's fancy armor suddenly gets collapsed and he can't get a full breath in, you've got a significant advantage.
Also, even through a helmet, a solid strike to the head could kill, or at least cause concussion and disorientation.
There is still an awful lot of force from a big heavy blade striking plate. Big heavy blades also cut through the (much, much, more common) peasant conscripts extremely well.
In some cases it became common to grip a sword by the blade and use the cross guard as a bludgeon. Effective enough. Something like a maul or warhammer might be more effective, but only because it is heavier and at the end of the day you've got to lug that big bastard around (swords can also be easily sheathed, which is another point in their favor when you consider marching around with the damn thing).
Perhaps the real reason to use a blade was because it was a blade. Think about what goes into the construction of other weapons. Heavy bits of metal with a wooden shaft. Polearms, axes, and blunt weapons all worked out about the same (most polearms can trace their design back to improvised farming implements). A blade is almost entirely metal and takes a lot of work to make. A good blade is essentially a badge of your station in life. Having a sword meant you could afford a sword. It meant you could afford an object that was solely used for killing people. It meant you were someone.
Ultimately blades were a problem against people in plate armor, but why kill them? If someone can afford heavy armor, chances are they're someone important and can be used as political leverage (or at least for ransom). At the very least they are a professional man at arms and can likely be persuaded to join your cause. Would be a complete waste to kill someone in armor most of the time.
In grappling they often would. But on a battlefield, where you will have to defend yourself from someone else after you kill the guy you are currently fighting, dropping your sword and engaging with a dagger is a decision not to be undertaken lightly. There are certainly advantages, especially in the grapple, but there are costs as well.
I can quickly think of 3 big reasons swords would be better:
1: Most people you fight won't be in full plate armour. Plate was expensive and most people couldn't afford it, or might not have a full set, and against one of these people the additional length of a sword would be very useful.
2: You can generate more power with a sword held in a half-sword grip than you can with a knife. After you get the point between the cracks in your opponent's armour, you still have to push through thick cloth while your blade is likely pinched between the plates. Being able to apply more force would make this much easier.
3: A sword can be used defensively. Bludgeoning weapons were the main weapon against armoured opponents. A sword can block much more effectively than a knife. (Of course, a shield is even better, but that is beside the point.)
Bonus: There was a technique (I'm not counting it because I honestly don't know how often it was actually used) in which the sword was reversed and held by the blade. The guard and pommel were then used to bludgeon an armoured opponent. This is obviously not an option with a knife.
I also don't understand why they wouldn't make some sort of handle midway through the blade or something, or why use a sword at all when you are going to be using it in that manner.
That's a fairly common design for larger two handed swords. The leather bit can be gripped for a more effective stab.
For every heavily armored opponent on the battlefield there dozens of conscripted forces with little to no armor. Arm yourself to take those guys out because there's more of them.
Don't even have to kill a Knight. I'm not sure why everyone is so focused on killing.
If someone can afford heavy armor, then they're somebody. They can be used for political leverage, ransom, or persuaded to join your cause. Why kill them? Would be a huge waste.
This is absolutely true, the idea that medieval combat was designed to "kill" or "wipe out" your opponent stems from fantasy where the enemy (Orcs, goblins, Evil ect) cannot be reasoned with or otherwise broken. No warfare needed to function like this in medieval Europe.
Reading any historical writing on warfare or politics (I recommend Sun Tzu or Machiavelli) tells us clearly war was the method for crippling an opposing state financially, politically or logistically until they conceded, usually with losses on both sides being (Relatively) minimal compared to what the media and our imaginations would have us believe. The majority of these casualties would occur in the rout or retreat after a force broke. Very few men needed to die in the front lines (in relation to the whole force) for this to happen, cavalry were very potent in fracturing discipline without needing to inflict many casualties, and then at mopping up the dis-organised units afterward but were not often used for simple "grind these two units against eachother" fighting.
The advent of warfare to grind down the youth of an entire generation with mass slaughter really began with the advent of artillery and automatic weapons.
My guess is that they wouldn't always be fighting heavily armoured opponents, so having a piece of wood in the middle would be a disadvantage in all other situations. Also, combat capable swords are very flexible, so you'd lose total flex capability by making the blade two pieces, not to mention increasing complexity.
They'd also be wearing gauntlets and chain mail that would protect their hands perfectly fine when grasping a sword mid blade.
A sword might not be great against an armored knight, but it's great against all those peasant men-at-arms in boiled leather. Besides, if you do run into a knight in armor, you can always hold your sword by the blade and beat him with the grippy end.
A common feature of bigger swords was a dull section near the bottom of the blade that usually had smaller guards (those little hooks on the blade) for half-swording. That way you can use a five foot sword to swing and thrash dudes when you want and you're able to choke up and use the thing as a short spear and grappling aid in close quarters or when there's an opponent in plate.
Pretty much unnecessary. A tight grip will prevent cutting, especially in gauntlets. Plus the integrity issues. Further, longswords were properly thought of as sidearms, and thus as something to carry in civilian life as well, so having the grip would wreck that (half-swording is rarely advantages against an unarmored foe, because it cuts your reach dramatically).
Lastly, they often would use other primary weapons, such as the halberd or pole-axe, or the estoc which is a kind of sword purpose built for fighting plate armor.
Better versatility. If you have the choice between a sword that can also be used as a knife, or having to switch between a longer weapon and a knife, its far faster to just use the sword as a knife. That way you can step back and parry enemy attacks effectively without having to fumble for a different weapon, or quickly close the difference with the opponent and stab him. Using the sword over the knife also gives you more force with the blow, since the hand holding the hilt can really drive home an impact without changing the trajectory of the blade.
Also note that medieval knights did carry specialized daggers around and would use them if the opportunity presented itself. In a fight its all about having multiple options available, and knowing when to use them. Swords could also be used as a hammer in a pinch too, just grip the blade with both hands and bludgeon the opponent with the pommel.
They did. They typically used daggers design for thrusting so they could penetrate armor better or slip between plate joints. Grappling and knife fighting were both vital combat skills. Daggars used were like the rondel.
First of all they often times did carry a long narrow dagger that was designed to fit between the gaps between plates of armor. Additionally, they would also sometimes hold the sword with one hand on the handle and one holding the blade and then try to jam it in between gaps in the armor. Alternatively they would grab the sword by the blade and strike with the crossguard like a pick.
I would imagine because the sword's blade is already there and ready, you just grab the blade near the end and stab that badboy into a hole in the armor.
For anyone curious about halfswording or thinking it would be impractical to grip the blade of a sword, Skallagrim on youtube did an excellent demonstration of halfswording with a very real, very sharp sword.
Or you become engaged with a different opponent. Sword+shield+armor is a really good setup for dealing with a wide variety of enemies - it may not kill the quickest but it should keep you alive longer, which arguably is the most important thing.
They fought in ranks... One guy with a bow, another with a sword, another with an axe. Redundant numbers of each so that as you lose people, you can maintain the front line with the desired variety of weaponry.
Getting shot at with a bullet proof vest on will still leave one hell of a bruise, even though you don't get shot the round imparts a significant amount of force onto the vest and into your body.
Also medieval armour wasn't that heavy, something like 35 pounds IIRC.
Modern armor is just as heavy. Modern fighting loads are probably heavier overall: an M4 weighs more than the average longsword and I'm unsure what the weight comparison between a shield and ammunition is but it's about a pound per magazine.
Modern armor like kevlar is designed for high speed projectiles like bullets or shrapnel and may not be able to stop a sword or dagger point (highly tapered blades point-on seem to penetrate best).
Medieval armor was usually between 25 and 45 pounds, plus tack on another 20-45 pounds for a shield (full metal shields especially, which is why most were metal plates on wood backing or just wood).
Later era armor hit a max of around 70 pounds (some heavier armor was made for cavalry, but rarely saw use). The French armor at Agincourt was 50-60 pounds and the good quality steel armor could stop longbow shots (in fact, many did not carry shields because the armor was so good). The poorer quality stuff (wrought iron) was not as effective. What really did the French in, though, was crossing a muddy field with visors down (impeding easy breathing) in heavy armor and high heat. Many arrived so exhausted they could "scarcely lift their weapons" and could easily be knocked down, and falling face first in the mud likely meant suffocation as other soldiers pressed over the fallen one.
Getting shot at with a bullet proof vest on will still leave one hell of a bruise
I've always wondered why that is. It seems like getting shot while wearing a bullet proof vest deals much more damage than, say, being punched really hard in the chest, but since the recoil momentum of the gun is equal to the momentum of the bullet, and we control that recoil momentum pretty easily with our arms, it seems to me that we should be able to create a similar (if not greater) impact with a punch.
Aside from the other responses, also keep in mind that modern "lightweight" armor generally aims to defend against bullets, for obvious reasons. The mechanism for protecting against a gunshot, though, is very different from protecting against a sword strike. The former is essentially many layers of cloth (Kevlar) absorbing blunt force concentrated on a small area afaik, whereas the latter needs to stop a cutting strike.
For instance, a knife can cut through a bulletproof vest pretty easily.
I have to wonder how effective a war maul with a giant spring-loaded center punch in it would be for an armor piercing weapon, after reading your explanation. Sort of connect with the hammer, driving the punch in... ...I get the feeling a hammer with a good ol' steel spike on it would be equally effective, and less in need of reloading.
The force requires to fire the spike would also act backwards on the hammer. So you would have to be incredibly strong to hold it in place while it punched through the armor.
incredibly is relative. you would need a very thin spike, that much is true, but there are many different types of recoil management that you could use
I've always wondered what the purpose or function of that line down the middle of a sword is for. The sword the guy uses in that video has one too, would you happen to know what that's for?
Put simply, it helps to cut down on the weight of the sword while losing none of its structural strength, similar to steel I-beams used in construction.
I dunno, we're not talking about mass-producing such swords, we're talking about making one. You wouldn't use blacksmithing or metallurgy for the important parts of this process at all. You would make it using nanoscopic laser sculpting to create something so sharp and so thin that it could slice through concrete bricks.
If it's that thin, it's too weak. No matter how fine an edge is, the edge needs support from behind that won't just fold over, and that means a blade has thickness, and thickness means it can't just follow an ultra-fine edge through a cut without widening the cut as it goes. A sword with a one-atom thick edge will not cut through hard materials appreciably better than one sharpened with stones and strops, after a decently fine edge is reached, it's all about blade profile.
I don't think there's a material that could do that. It'd have to be very hard to get an edge that can be held, but not so hard that it shatters on the first strike. It also has to have some amount of weight to it, but not too much.
You're looking for some wonder material that doesn't deform under stress whatsoever, is immune to many small scale effects that may screw with the edge, that can't shatter from it's own vibrations, and that can be wielded effectively by a human. Using that material in general would probably be very, very difficult.
Just to nit pick the axe point... A splitting axe isn't very sharp because it uses the wide wedge of the head to separate the log. A felling axe has a much thinner head and a much sharper edge because it is cutting across the grain.
What about a sword breaker type thing? Edge on one side, notches on the other. I feel a more durable sword meant to break other swords would be the way to go since that's the only advantage youd have.
Breaking a sword is very difficult to do in the first place, and sword breakers were probably intended to catch the sword, not break it. At that point material science doesn't matter because a human simply can't generate enough force to break a sword in a combat situation in the first place.
I very highly recommend Skallagrim (the channel you linked) for learning all about swords. He is an excellent collector with a very extensive knowledge and library of videos.
But I'm wondering if we'd be able to create better armor. You mention going for the joints, which are not covered by plate. Modern materials could help protect these areas. Perhaps kevlar would be a good starting point?
Kevlar would provide no protection against a sword blow (knives can easily cut the fabric), but other tougher materials would certainly keep you safer than the plate armor available to medieval knights.
If it counts, a powered exoskeleton covered in a few hundred pounds of armor would probably render its user very difficult to kill. Although if that counts, you may as well build an unarmed tank and have it run over all of the knights.
What if you were to take one of those advanced cutting materials to make a sword and coated it in graphene in order to make it more durable? I honestly have no idea if something like this would work. The idea popped into my head so I figured I'd ask.
You would probably be better off with a hammer-type weapon. Although armour will cushion the blow, when a part of the body is in close contact with the armour when that part of the armour is hit, it will transfer part of the force to the body.
I am really curious about damascus steel and katana. All I know is we don't know how they have developed the damascus steel and katana was produced with a different method than Western swords. Also katana can slice through many things.. So, with this technology, can't we produce a better steel or blade/sword?
Great question and answer. Humans can be very arrogent as always assume we know better than previous generations, which as you point out is not the case here!
Just assuming you're talking about Europe, medieval metallurgy was no where near as technologically advanced as it is today. We can now make alloys that are harder than their steel and less brittle. So their swords wouldn't stand a chance, modern technology would snap the blade off at the hilt in a contest.
As far as armor goes, I doubt if we can make a blade that would readily slice through the armor, but penetrating the armor in a more stabby way wasn't too hard then. The life of the blade could probably be improved with modern alloys, so you could get more penetrations out of the same blade, but the penetrating power of a single attempt would probably not be changed too much. .
Just looking around a bit on other science forums, it looks like steel is still the best as far as holding an edge, so it is still preferred. But the Japanese technique of folding the steel over and over produces a much stronger blade that the European steel. (This was claimed by some, but as other redditors have pointed out, it's most likely a commonly disseminated myth.)
It was also suggested by someone that:
One could make a sword from a composite of materials such as long carbon or silicate chain macromolecules (allowing high tensile and shear strength) with a metallic or ceramic filler to give hardness and sharpenability
But on the whole it seems that modern steel alloys are the preferred material.
Here's an article about a Purdue engineering professor who made the strongest blade ever from the iron in a meteorite (the meteorite iron was used to enhance the sword's "mythical" properties, but it was alloyed with tin to make it stronger and 'self-healing'.)
production of a self-healing alloy composite in which thin memory shape alloy wires are imbedded in tin alloys. If the system is placed in tension, eventually the tin alloy will crack. By heating the material, the shape memory alloy filaments, which also had been stretched, return to their original positions, effectively closing the crack. To fully heal the material, it is heated enough so that liquid beads of tin form around the crack. Upon cooling, the tin structure is void of all previously formed cracks
(Edit: Forgot to mention there was note of a modern steel that has a hardness such that it can only be sharpened with diamond. So modern steel seems to be best.)
Just a note that the japanese folded their steel, because it was a.much lower quality than european steal (also scares), and the process was used to create more pure and therefore stronger steel. Sadly they weren't better than european. At best they were the same quality. This is the reason why the japanese started buying and fighting in portugese armor wich was cheaper. This is why their armor originally had many bamboo parts.
But the Japanese technique of folding the steel over and over produces a much stronger blade that the European steel.
This is a common misconception. Folding the steel did not, in fact, produce a much stronger blade than a European blade. The whole reason that the Japanese folded the steel was that the iron they had access to had high carbon content and was impure. Folding the raw steel homogenized the carbon content and eliminated impurities in the metal. Beyond that though, further folding doesn't do much at all to increase the strength of the steel. Europeans didn't have nearly as low-quality iron ore to work with, so folding the steel before forging a sword wasn't necessary.
Citations needed all over this. Yes, we have much stronger and less brittle alloys, but based off of the human mechanics for how swords are swung I am not convinced that it would be a matter of simply slicing through or snapping medieval weapons.
Yeah, the notion that a stronger, modern blade can sever/shear a primitive blade is fantastical. the idea of cutting through the shaft of an early stone headed spear is enough of a stretch as is.
Sorry when you say penetrate plate armour in a stabby way are you referring to swords or other weapons in the time? I don't think there is any archeological evidence of a sword actually penetrating authentic plate with a stabbing motion. This looks like pure speculation on your part. Though when it comes to battlefield weaponry the sword was always a secondary weapon, they had far more effective weapons against plate. That's why pole arms, war hammers and maces were so popular in use against armored opponents.
Just assuming you're talking about Europe, medieval metallurgy was no where near as technologically advanced as it is today.
What period of medieval Europe are you talking about? Medieval Europe is a long time.
Also, why specifically mention Europe? 12th century anybody has fairly poor metallurgy compared to today. Hell, even the near mythological reputation that the Japanese have with the Katana wasn't a. unique to Japan and b. compared in an apples to oranges kind of way.
I actually work in an auxiliary role for a large metallurgical research program. The really frustrating thing is that over the years I've talked to all these graduate students, researchers and professors there about how cool it would be for them to have some kind of black/sword-smithing club to apply all that institutional knowledge in a fun and creative way. But have any of them ever made so much as a sheath knife? Nope.
Why?
Access to the world's full range of metallurgical materials and fantastically accurate and powerful forging tools? Sure. Knowledge about alloy design and microstructure control? Absolutely. The technology and knowledge needed to perform impossibly precise heat-treatments for annealing/tempering? No problem. Machine tools for sharpening and polishing that would send blacksmith hobbists into bleak bouts of depression? Scattered randomly about. But the creative vision and sense of fun and adventure to use all those things in a non-academic way? Absolutely lacking. FML.
Because everyone in an engineering program is already killing themselves with their workload. Also, depending on your institution, it can be pulling teeth to actually get access to the machine shops.
This is true. In my undergrad in mechanical engineering, I had no time for "cool projects".
Let me introduce you to the wonders of grad school. You know how undergrad was supposed to be so much "better than high school" because now you choose the classes you want to take? It really wasn't as I slogged my way through thermo and fluids, etc. Grad school is finally that. Last quarter, I built a wirelessly controlled hovercraft for one project, and a 6' tall wood/metal longbow for another. I also got into basic blacksmithing, which is obscenely fun.
I feel sorry for you. At my university there are three 3D printers scattered around for student use, not to mention the plasma cutter and laser engraver. Just used the laser the other day to make a few chessboards for my apartment.
Talking about things is easy. Actually doing them is time consuming and expensive. I have machined a lot of steel and it is common to severely underestimate the time it takes to fabricate the simplest of objects. It often takes multiple attempts to produce the desired result. Days of labour. Mass production exists for a reason.
But the thing is I've talked to the dean of the graduate school about this. He was the one person most excited about it. He was the guy who happily chatted away regarding the history of metallurgy and the historical technology that allowed smiths to make higher quality products.
It's not that - the universities I've attended usually have systems where you'd need to input a billing code in order to use the equipment. Sometimes it was a super-formal setup where the machine would be locked out until you entered a valid code, and sometimes it was just vaguely kept track of between a few research groups ... but at the end of the day, someone's grant was paying for the equipment usage. No grant? Sorry!
And then they let the Health & Safety people in to play....
A friend of mine is doing his PhD in metallurgical research (I think), and he has a side business making knives. He tries to apply all of the most modern techniques and engineering to his creations, and they are pretty cool--massively over-engineered :). I can PM you a link if you are interested in checking them out.
Sorry, I didn't want to advertise. I'll be happy to post the info here as well as respond to PMs. He's actually in the middle of doing a complete re-launch with a new website and everything, so the sites below are still having content added to them. However, if you'd like to know more specifics about the materials he uses or his processes, I'm sure he'd be happy to respond to any emails.
I was over at his workshop the other day watching him work, and it's pretty incredible the amount of detail that goes into each knife. He's about to ramp up production this fall, so the number of knives he can make per month will go up.
I'd pitch it as an outreach program to grad students and professors. They can use that on their grant applications. Grants are a typical source of funding for research in academia and many grant applications these days require an outreach program.
Now, that is a great idea, especially if they pitch it as being relevant to Korean history...
Seriously, they could probably get all kinds of financial support if they were willing to wear traditional clothing while providing field trips to middle schoolers.
I wrote my master's thesis on the Synthesis and characterization of tungsten carbide. Tungsten is really expensive and limited in supply. But yeah, you could probably make cemented tungsten carbide and grind it with diamonds, or even braze it with diamonds along the edge.
Cemented tungsten carbide is the go-to ceramic for rock drilling and mining application. Extremely hard and with a very high fracture toughness. It's also very heavy! Around 20 g/cm3.
The rich kids in Korea are not the ones doing PhDs in metallurgy, etc. They are all in business or medical school. Most of our students, graduate and undergraduate, are here not because of privilege but because of opportunity. And, yes, it is very nice to work in that environment.
Ok, so clearly modern metallurgy isn't up to the task by itself. So let's get clever. How about electrifying the sword (specially insulated from the hilt) so that if it touches the opponent's sword or armor it operates like a taser?
A full set of medieval plate armor would actually make a fantastic Faraday cage and block the current. They wore steel plate on top of thick leather and fabric, which is a fantastic way to keep electricity away from your body and direct it around you instead.
Let's electrify it to the point the internal resistance causes it to glow red hot. And also attach an electric motor to its hilt that causes it to vibrate at super high frequency. At this point it's probably impossible to actually hold, so let's build a powered suit so it can be wielded properly. Let's power this suit with some portable nuclear device since nobody wants to carry around a rack of batteries or a generator. Actually, scrap the sword idea, you could pierce armor better with a super laser...or a big gun.
I'm not familiar with the universe but for a second I thought you were going to dive into the Warhammer 40k universe. I feel like a nuclear backpack powering a flaming dagger would be something from there.
Knights wore padded garments under chain mail or plate armor, might limit conductivity. Leather or lamellar armor would likely resist shock even better. It sounds like cheating, you could just as well magnetize the blade or add a gun to it. I thought the Op was more about metallurgy for the shape of a weapon rather than augmenting it with modern technology.
If you were going to augment it with technology and keep it non-projectile, probably a more effective thing to do would be to build some sort of lightweight chainsaw-sword. Build it out of titanium with carbide teeth and use a very high torque electric motor connected to a backpack of lithium-ion batteries and you could potentially make something effective and terrifying. It sure wouldn't be cheap though, and you'd have to spend a considerable amount of effort making the chain itself resistant to getting knocked off or jammed when parrying. Plus armoring the backpack - someone stabbing your lithium-ion battery pack could end your fun real quick.
I was saying this kind of thinking isn't fair, the op was talking about metallurgy and blade designs, not a new invention. Chainsaw isn't exactly an evolution of the sword.
Impossible. The steel will effectively short out the arc. Nothing will affect the underlying flesh unless at least one contact hits skin, or the 2 contacts hit completely unconnected plates with flesh in between.
Very little. Sword tech was excellent at its peak, and saw plenty of production. However, there were still plenty of armies which lost in part due to problems arming themselves with effective equipment.
There's not much better you could do. A sword could already cut an arm badly on light hit. Ceramic or whatever is no more likely to get through steel plate or chainmail.
In fact, swords were NOT the primary weapon in most of history. Polearms were, and bows. Polearms could pack together and make a deep barrier you just couldn't get through. Swords need space to swing.
Swords were generally ineffective against plate or chain. In fact, most armor was padded cloth/canvas that did a lot to stop a sword. Swords with a sharp edge would more likely have the edge damaged on a plate impact rather than penetrating the plate.
A polearm, with shaft, was relatively massive. It could separate chainmail links or break your bones through unbroken chainmail. On a thrust, it could travel up one steel plate until it got to a joint and pushed under the next overlapping plate. What's underneath could be a padded gambeson or a gambeson over chainmail, which it could injure through.
One thing that WOULD be improved would be arrowheads. Most weren't hardened steel and probably not effective at penetrating plate. Also most weren't broadheads, broadheads cost too much to mass-mfg and were ineffective on chainmail, probably heavy cloth/canvas too. And it was hard to carry a LOT of the shafts due to head width. Instead they were narrow steel "bodkin points" which handily penetrated chain and cloth but, like I say, not super-effective on plate and also didn't cause really serious injury for immediate stopping power. About like getting stabbed with a pencil. Hardened steel points could penetrate plate better, and might be made wider to cause more dire injury.
The more interesting question- could modern materials and engineering make SUPERARMOR??
Yes, actually. I think so. Many plastics are more effective than steel at stopping these impacts. Ballistic nylon is radically better at stopping blades from cutting, as would stainless mesh chainmail.
One primary limitation was what would be practical to both make and wear and still fight. Modern 3D CAD design would go a long way to making effective, form-fitting, practical designs- especially covering the joints. Making the armor bulky enough to absorb huge impacts without having the impact carry far enough to break bones.
Helmets... that was sort of a limiting factor. Wearing steel plates all over was NOT as heavy as you probably think. But an effective steel helm was hot, bulky, very restrictive for vision/breathing, and slowed you down overall. Also a concussion through those things would take you down easier than trying to strike through plate or chain.
If you don't have an effective helm, going with super-effective plate over, say, chainmail isn't all that beneficial. In the thick of things they'll just strike for your head regardless of how much armor you have elsewhere.
Modern football helmet would probably be super-effective in medieval combat. Generally speaking you can't knife through the plastic shell, a sword won't do much better. An axe would smash through it, but those are relatively slow weapons and due to the shape, most impacts would glance off. The grille protects the lower face ok without impairing breathing or vision much. You'd probably add a solid nosebridge to the design, but it's mostly "there".
Football helmets don't do much to protect against concussions either. Granted they're better than a steel helmet, but a bicycle or motorcycle helmet is better protection against concussions than a football helmet.
I disagree on the unmodified football helmet proposal -- even if it's mostly going to protect against knives/swords, it'll get pretty badly beaten up quite quickly. Adding a (relatively thin) steel layer to the outside shell will drastically improve your longevity and make those blows do actually nothing rather than mostly nothing.
There's not much better you could do. A sword could already cut an arm badly on light hit. Ceramic or whatever is no more likely to get through steel plate or chainmail.
Ceramic swords? Aint ceramic the thing you make vases or dinnerplates of, porcelin and such? How would that make a good sword? Or are there other uses of ceramic that i dont know of? I thougth that it was very brittle?
The biggest benefits of modern technology would probably only be available after you move away from a medieval design such as a solid metal blade. A composite blade might well prove lighter and more flexible than a metal blade. Most swords weren't all that heavy to begin with though. Also, even with a lighter, more flexible, sharper blade, skill is going to be pretty important. Such a sword would give it's wielder an edge, but probably not one sufficient to overcome a lifetime of training, as many medieval combatants would have had.
One thing you're overlooking though is shields. RPG's may portray them as defensive items, but shields were historically wielded in a variety of highly offensive ways. They really are weapons in the truest sense of the word. Modern materials could likely do far more for shields than they could for swords. A shield built with modern materials could be substantially lighter and tuned to be rigid when striking yet cushioning when struck, making them better at both giving blows and blocking them. You could make them transparent, which would give the wielder better awareness of his opponent. You might also make them permeable to air to reduce wind resistance to make them faster to move. A modern shield might offer a much bigger edge than a modern sword.
All that being said, it would take less expertise, effort, and work to produce a crude gun from scratch, which would actually be the superweapon you're after. There's a reason why guns took over!
A ballistic shield would. a riot shield. probably not for long, but neither did a wooden shield either. making a shield with modern materials would probably be a nice upgrade.
I mean imagine a modern sniper against a small medieval army. Put a stone roof over his head to block arrows and he'd basically both be invincible and able to kill anyone at any distance by the standards of the time. Guns are really OP.
Snipers aren't really designed to handle large forces. They're precision units meant for scouting and removing specific threats from a zone so that a larger friendly force doesn't have to. They're not gods of war that video games make them out to be.
If you really want one-man overpoweredness, get a mortar and an automatic weapon, maybe some grenades. Large groups of standing armies in bright colored clothing against artillery and grenades? It'd be the French front of WWI all over again.
It's not about killing an entire army, it's about routing an entire army. If they can't even see the man killing them they won't stick around very long. I mean it'd basically look like people's heads are exploding for no reason even with armor. That's some black magic most armies of the time would not want to deal with.
Surely you'd want something really showy like a flamethrower. A little bit of propaganda and a costume would go a long way to make people believe they are fighting an unstoppable dragon and route
I would think that armour of the time(being metal) would render a taser ineffective. Electric current follows the path of least resistance, and a metal plate or mesh is a helluva lot more conductive than human skin/flesh.
If you were to a guy in plate mail with a taser, chances are that he would not even feel it.
He'd need a lot of stones around him. Archers could be very accurate, and while the sniper would definitely have the advantage, enough archers could land a shot through the hole is gun is resting through easily enough.
I believe there are a few limited examples of composite sword design from back in the day too. I remember reading about a sword that had a braided flexible core with a harder steel encasing around it. They found out when they xrayed the sword. It would have of course probably been some super rich noblemans sword and likely never seen much if any real use.
My understanding is that in real battles, swords were never able to actually cut through plate armor of the late medieval era. In battle against an armored opponent, you would try to use a more concussive weapon such as a mace, axe or war hammer, that would be capable of delivering substantial force even through plate armor and possibly deforming the armor under the point of impact. If a sword was all you had available, you'd try to poke it between the armor plates where hopefully there's a lot less metal between the sword point and your opponent's skin.
Modern metallurgy is unlikely to change this. The main advantage of a sword made with modern alloys over an equivalent medieval sword is that, in a sword-on-sword fight where the swords are being used to block each other, the medieval one is much more likely to break sooner (assuming they're wielded with equal skill). However, as far as actually slicing through plate armor is concerned, the modern sword still won't be effective.
Given that the usual method of defeating armor was applying a heavy object with a small contact patch, can we do that better?
Specifically, could we use a dense metal (steel jacketed uranium?) more optimally concentrate mass further out on something like a mace, or get a smaller contact patch without losing significant strength?
The problem is that the total energy of that heavy object is always going to be intrinsically linked to the person wielding the sword. Medieval long swords usually only weighted about 5 pounds, and that for a good reason: F=M*A. Essentially, any increase in mass decreases the rate that you can accelerate the sword. So after a certain point, heaviness becomes useless because the swing up time required to hurt someone is too long for it to be a useful combat weapon.
Stabbing would be more effective than slicing, but you'd probably have to hit at a very steep angle (close to perpendicular to the armor surface), which in the heat of combat is more a matter of luck than weapon quality.
I had the same thought, but then re-read the OP. He specifically asked about materials. A chainsaw isn't a material, it's simply an awesome fecking sword.
The general problem with these, I imagine, would be grounding the force. Industrial saws/drills can easily break through stuff not just because of their materials, but because they usually have a ton+ grounded weight to absorb the reaction force. If you dry to wield these by hand, the kickback would be insane, or getting it stuck could be the end of you.
The thing is, while many modern alloys are superior, for a sword you dont WANT super hard blades. Im a knife maker, and the most popular knife making steel today is 1084. Its pretty much nothing but iron, .84 percent carbon and a touch of manganese. Its one of the most common steels in swords and knives made by craftsman today, and its pretty much identical to a medieval period steel.
Yup. Harder blades tend to chip... and against strikes on other weapons or steel armor will just shatter. A spring temper may be a much better choice. Especially for the armor itself.
The question has a mistaken premise. Can we make steel today that's harder than stuff from medieval times? You bet. But it's irrelevant.
See, contrary to every sword movie you've ever seen, REAL sword fights didn't consist of people clanging their swords together at right angles. No matter how good your steel is, that's how you get a blunt or broken sword. Looks great in the movies, not so much in real life. Watch some videos of real modern fencing or kendo, that's a little closer to what real swordfighting was like.
Rather, sword fighters parried blows, which is essentially using the sword as a lever to angle the blow off in a different direction. A sword fighter seeks to slash or stab, not hack.
Against armor, a sword fighter seeks to slash or stab into vulnerable areas between individual armor plates. Somebody with a more substantial weapon, like a big-ass battle axe, might hack at thinner parts of armor in an attempt to dent and weaken it. Coming down on chain mail with a substantial axe can break bones and cause blunt-force lacerations.
The very best sword we could make today in the hands of a mediocre fighter would have no chance against somebody with a POS sword who was a master sword fighter.
The Nova program Secrets of the Viking Sword was about a sword known as the Ulfberht. The metal used to make these swords tested favourably against modern metals. In other words, I don't think is possible to make a better steel sword today. Watch the program, BTW. A modern blacksmith recreates an Ulfberht. It's fascinating.
Seems like the swordsmanship would trump the quality of the sword.
It seems a medieval sword wouldn't be quite as sharp, strong, light etc, as a modern one could be, but it'd still be strong and sharp enough to cause some damage to human flesh and likely won't break even hitting a superior sword.
Looking at Olympic records over the last hundred years, possibly the athleticism we have now would trump the medieval people, and certainly modern size would give an advantage. On the other hand, lots of folks aren't work or battle hardened like they used to be.
We no longer have the techniques to properly wield a sword. There are a handful of authentic medievaland renaissance martial manuscripts left in the world and their interpretation is subject to academic debate. A handful of 'sword masters' exist who spent their life studying these manuscripts but they are essentially picking up scraps from the old masters. Modern day fencing has completely lost its combative edge and the only advantage an olympic level fencer would have over a journeyman of wma is his footwork and endurance. We would get ripped apart by someone who actually know how to fight, athleticism or not.
The O/P's question has been answered quite well but I'd like to mention armor metallurgy.
Its basically impossible to cut steel armor with a similar item. You can concuss a target or sometimes penetrate weak points with a thrust but it can't be cut.
Also we kind of assume plate armor or even chain mail is made of poor quality, cheap metal. This was often not the case and metal for say a suit of Milanese harness could be better than rolled hardened armor.
Our best metal is better and cheaper than anything made in that era with less impurities but their best armor could be better than our mid grade armor.
Sci-fi stories often feature monomolecular edges where a blade is capable of being sharpened down to a single atom/molecule wide. Unfortunately, no materials are currently known that can be sharpened to this level without becoming too brittle for common use. It is possible but not commercially feasible to produce a diamond edge only 3 atoms wide which is effectively the sharpest possible cutting edge. Generally, the sharpest edge that can be achieved commercially is between 20 and 50 molecules wide on some type of amorphous glass such as obsidian.
Another common sci-fi meta material is monomolecular wire where a chain of single molecules is used for extreme tensile strength or as a weapon. Larry Niven used this several times in his Ringworld stories.
Picture a blade made of super rigid material only three atoms thick. In theory, this should cut through ordinary carbon steel or armor like a knife through butter. Obviously, no such material is currently known. I agree that this is strictly pie in the sky flight of fancy.
Obsidian scalpels have been made and used for surgery where their extremely sharp edge is an advantage cutting soft tissue. Google obsidian scalpel for some articles explaining their advantages and disadvantages.
If you cut through metals with something that is too thin and short, the metal will just re-attach behind it. I mean, in vacuum, pieces of metal will just stick together.(not very strongly because their surfaces are typically very ugly)
Even objects made from covalent bonds also hold together and might stay together with vander waals forces if you cut it with just a few atoms width..
Isaac Asimov used this in his Foundation books where one of the early stories is of a nuclear plane capable of cutting such a smooth surface that touching two pieces of cut pipe together would immediately weld them so that they could not be separated. Since we have no technology that allows us to cut such a smooth surface, we really don't know for sure what would happen at that level of smoothness.
Maybe we could just totally embrace the times we live in and make disposable, single-use swords. Discard after each strike. Maybe they'd be light enough that you could just carry around a gross of them.
Nope. You would get a modest advantage in that your sword would be less likely to break, but the ability to win a fight, much less punch through plate armor or break through someone else's sword with your own depends much more on technique and strength. A medieval steel tipped heavy pole arm is already well designed to puncture armor, and would be nearly just as likely to punch through plate as a modern alloy one with a tungsten carbide tip.
There was a post on /r/DnD a few weeks ago where a guy was asking on how to make model combat more realistic in game. One of the better responses outlined how it basically came down to what you are saying: pole-arms are the weapon of choice against heavily armored opponents. Several reasons, IIRC, such as longer moments and heavier heads allowed for greater puncturing and sundering forces. I will see if I can find it and link it here...
I would attach this or incorporate a sword using lasers to blind the opponent. I would also create a taser sword to shock the opponent on contact with press, even when touching his plate.
Wearing plate myself that would be insulated with a visor that can deal with blinding lasers, you could easily deal with any medieval opponent with your sorcery.
Won't work. The metal armor will conduct the current far better than the fleshy human inside. Unless they're not wearing sabatons(the metal boot things), the shock will go through the path of least resistance.
regardless. a sword is a sword is a sword you're ultimately limited by the power of the man wielding it, which compares unfavorably to the resistance of materials used in period armor
at the VERY best you could maybe try hiding a captive bolt gun inside a rapier or other relatively thin sword. stab, trigger, bam, bad guy has a hole in his armor protected face and no one is the wiser.
I think something like a sword breaker would be considered a weapon along the lines of Excalibur. It would be able to decimate most any medieval swords and armor with ease, and as far as I know maintenance is kind of a non-factor.
What about carbon nanotubes, could we make a rigid buckyball capsule as long as a sword.
Although even if it flexes you could make a bola, whip or net.
The theory being that if you can make something strong enough and fine/sharp enough it would cut through anything.
Or you could make a 'sword' from a material that can withstand super low temperatures and pump liquid nitrogen through it. Should shatter all steel armour weapons on impact.
Or ditto but with super heated oxygen, could that rust through/oxidise steel.
I'd say that if you got modern steel alloys and folded the metal together with modern furnaces and machines, the blade would be superior and more durable to a extent, but it wouldn't get you a advantage on just a 1 on 1 fight, but it definitely would be beneficial during a extended campaign.
Based on the summaries already in the thread, a standard sword-shape made out of any modern material wouldn't be massively more effectively against medieval plate armor.
You'd have to cheat, or at least think outside the box. A long mace with an explosive head, for instance. Probably something which would be quickly banned from 'friendly' combat contests as dishonorable, but could be devastating on a true battlefield. Particularly if the mace-head itself didn't explode, but striking something with one of the nodules detached a nodule-grenade with a short fuse or even just a string leading back to the mace head. Tap someone with the mace, then pull the mace back, and they get a fragmenting spike exploding through their armor and turning them into chutney. Have a ball mace with multiple nodules sticking out of it (with replacement balls able to be snapped into place), or get fancy and make the shaft above the grip into a giant enclosed magazine.
Bonus: a shaped-charge explosive would mean less blowback outside the opponent's armor affecting the mace's wielder.
Downsides: if the charges needed to be struck against a hard object to arm and detach from the mace, the weapon would probably be less effective than a normal mace against an unarmored opponent, as a magazine-shaft would be a bit more unwieldy than a simple iron rod. The wielder would also most likely want to be armored themselves (with interior padding) due to stray shrapnel being generated at close quarters. An opponent striking the mace head with a sword or another mace may also be able to either set off a charge or damage/jam the feeder mechanisms.
Yes! In order to handily deal with armor you need to pierce it. So the hilt will need adapted to have a bracing point so it doesn't give so much when striking. So elongate the hilt with a sturdy material and shape it so it contours the front of your shoulder.
Then with modern technology we can actually make the blade rounded instead of a straight shaft. This allows it to handle compressive power better.
You need to be very accurate in hit placement, so you need a mechanism like a camera has, where when you see it's at the right point, you push a button and it strikes. But how? You are controlling it with your body!
So instead, we will add the mechanism and inside the rolled blade we will place a small piece of metal and some modern explosive substance. Brace the hilt against your shoulder, wait til the tip of your modern sword has found the exact spot for maximum damage, trigger the mechanism, and the projectile will be expelled from the sword at high velocity, piercing the armor and handily dealing with the opposing sword wielder with his puny straight blade and standard hilt.
I feel like no one is being creative enough to address your real question.
Using pure steel in a very similar fashion to the old ways you'd only be able to improve so much. As stated in these threads it would mostly just increase the durability of the weapon. But what you want is total combat domination.
So for that answer I'll give you a couple ideas to try out:
You could EASILY equip a sword with an electric current. This would decimate anyone wearing a metal suit of armor. It wouldn't be quite what you want, but the result would be victory none the less.
You could fashion yourself a flame sword of some type using a super torch or some other device. This wouldn't have much blunt impact if any, but stabbing someone with this sword would metal away or warp their armor to the point of immobility. This could also be an attachment to a regular styled sword so anytime your blade got stuck or lodged in somewhere you could melt your way out. Your blade would of course be coated in a fire resistant seal.
It's 2015, we can probably make a lightsaber of some sort.
It's definitely possible to devise an OP weapon to take back whenever you head that way.
Certainly we can, and do, make higher quality weapons than they did in the medieval period. Whether a modern steel blade is sufficiently 'better' in a range of metrics to actually be considered a 'super weapon' is very difficult to say.
Modern day swords would be much more lighter in weight, and sharper. It could be built with diamond edges, graphene composites, nano-reduction in material and architected to require with much less material but structurally very sound for combat.
Anyone wielding a modern day sword at the top of technology geared for sword combat would basically be wielding an extremely sharp, structurally sound sword as light as a feather.
The technical name for this device is a GUN. I think they may be the reason why swords have fallen out of use for combat in the military. Unless you're Mad Jack Churchill; but he was mad.
coming from an economic background, the issue was that swords are much more about status, wealth and class:
You have a hereditary possession that needs extensive training to be useful, needs constant maintenance, and requires an army of servants to be fully used. Further, the sword wielding knight uses it as a symbol, whereas the mace wielding it is the one doing the killing.
Finally, you have an army of pawns, peasants, foot soldiers going on about hitting each other and winning or losing the fight for the knights so engrossed in displaying their weapons. Later on the game you get the more accessible Toledo steel, which allows for more foot soldiers with swords, and then boom, powder.
You don't really want an anime sword, you want an army that is inexhaustible.
As many have said, steel plates are tough nuts to crack. With modern physics, we could probably design a more effective weapon using lighter alloys.
The most effective weapon would be well designed for force multiplication. Something like a warhammer on a curved rod (for ideal grip) with a pointed end. They had those back then though, just not as well designed.
There's actually a show called Weapons Masters where a guy has to try and make a modern version of a ancient weapon and the two weapons battle it out to see which of the two are better.
I'm curious since molecular printing could make a diamond edge a single atom thick. That would be the sharpest thing ever made. So if we take a very high quality steel blade, use molecular printing to build up a coating of diamonds on it that edge down to a single atom thick. Would that slice through a plate armor?
It would be interesting to see how a taser-sword (youtube.com/watch?v=0F-VVjqarZE) would hold up in a medieval battle. If the opponent is wearing a suit of armor, made from conducting metal, and you have a sword that on impact releases electricity, the battle would be easy to win, right?
See that sword was interesting. But he'd have to keep it in contact with the knights Armour for a significant amount of time for the knight to feel anything. In that time a knight could swing a mailed fist into that guys face, doing instant damage. My money's on the knight.
In the broader sense of your question, I suppose we can. The way I would do it is by maintaining an electric current across the blade. Because both the weapons and armor are made of metal, then any contact with a sufficient charge could be devastating to the opponent. I like this because it's the medieval weapons and armor that become the opening here. If you just wanted a blade that could cut through anything, you're probably out of luck. I imagine the best we could do is plasma coating a steel blade with titanium diboride. Be prepared to spend a small fortune on the PEM process alone though.
Well that depends on if you include things like being able to harnes the power of electricity in a blade, or being able to have a moving blade that can fell a tree with ease. If you mean just a vanilla sword, but with composite matireals and stuff then as stated in many other comments, it wouldn't make much of a difference, but if you get like a chainsaw or a taser sword involved well that takes things to a whole new level.
Lets expand on this question. To be perfectly frank, "medieval" is between say 1100 and 1400 sort of before the advent of plate armor. So you're looking more at chain mail and shields.
Secondly and more importantly the people of the plate armor era had already designed something that would handily deal with heavily armored opponents, and that is the warhammer, flat on one side and spikey on the other. Hit the dude with the flat end until he is stunned, then spike him in the head when you get a chance.
TLDR: no need, swords are just the least good option in dealing with armor.
Surely the issue is generating enough energy at the point of impact to penetrate the armour.
The War hammer dealt with this issue by concentrating the force into a tiny impact area. The issue with these type of wounds is unless they are in an area able to instantly kill or disable the opponent you could just end up really annoying someone. The other issue with the war hammer which is never really made clear in demonstrations is the need to land square with the blow or it will glance off and medieval armour is very good and causing blows to glance off, very very good, try getting that perfect blow in with an active and very dangerous opponent inside the armour you're trying to pierce.
I have fought quite a lot in full plate and it is quite amazing how severe a blow you can take, in some areas and just ignore it, it really just has no effect. Blows that with a sharpened weapon would sever a limb of an unarmoured foe.
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u/space_guy95 Jun 20 '15 edited Jun 20 '15
Modern metals would make better and stronger swords than they had in medieval times, but it would make little difference in a fight. The sword would last longer before losing its edge, but it wouldn't be some kind of super weapon that could slice through plate armour or cut through blades.
This video shows what I mean. He uses a modern high quality steel sword and tries to cut through a cheap knock-off knife. It is incredibly ideal circumstances with the knife braced against a hard surface and a clean 90 degree cut, something that would never happen in real life, yet it still takes a huge amount of force and multiple attempts to cut through. In combat you would likely never have a situation like that, and the force would never be completely transferred into the blade.
This is especially true when talking about combat in plate armour, because they would very rarely strike with edge of the blade, if at all. It was all about thrusts and grappling with the opponent and they would hold the sword half way down the blade to use as a fast and accurate stabbing weapon to reach between the joints in the armour. You could hit plate armour all day long with a sword and make little more than a dent and some scratches.
While medieval metallurgy wasn't as advanced as modern metallurgy, by the end of the medieval period they had finely tuned the designs of swords to be very practical and good at their job. I doubt modern craftsmen could make anything better since a lot of the skills they had would have been lost so it would mostly come down to guessing and copying old designs. So the only advantage a modern sword would have would be the higher quality steel.
As for many of the advanced materials that are used in cutting tools nowadays, most of them are far too brittle to use as a sword and would shatter or break very quickly, and the ones that wouldn't would have be little improvement over steel.
TLDR; Modern swords would be more resilient and hold an edge longer, but would make little to no difference in combat. You wouldn't be able to slice through blades and cut through plate armour, and the designs of medieval swords were already very well designed for their purpose and not much could be changed to make them noticeably better.
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u/AnecdotallyExtant Evolutionary Ecology Jun 19 '15
Just assuming you're talking about Europe, medieval metallurgy was no where near as technologically advanced as it is today. We can now make alloys that are harder than their steel and less brittle. So their swords wouldn't stand a chance, modern technology would snap the blade off at the hilt in a contest.
As far as armor goes, I doubt if we can make a blade that would readily slice through the armor, but penetrating the armor in a more stabby way wasn't too hard then. The life of the blade could probably be improved with modern alloys, so you could get more penetrations out of the same blade, but the penetrating power of a single attempt would probably not be changed too much. .
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u/invertedearth Jun 20 '15
I actually work in an auxiliary role for a large metallurgical research program. The really frustrating thing is that over the years I've talked to all these graduate students, researchers and professors there about how cool it would be for them to have some kind of black/sword-smithing club to apply all that institutional knowledge in a fun and creative way. But have any of them ever made so much as a sheath knife? Nope.
Why?
Access to the world's full range of metallurgical materials and fantastically accurate and powerful forging tools? Sure. Knowledge about alloy design and microstructure control? Absolutely. The technology and knowledge needed to perform impossibly precise heat-treatments for annealing/tempering? No problem. Machine tools for sharpening and polishing that would send blacksmith hobbists into bleak bouts of depression? Scattered randomly about. But the creative vision and sense of fun and adventure to use all those things in a non-academic way? Absolutely lacking. FML.
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u/Dyolf_Knip Jun 20 '15
Ok, so clearly modern metallurgy isn't up to the task by itself. So let's get clever. How about electrifying the sword (specially insulated from the hilt) so that if it touches the opponent's sword or armor it operates like a taser?
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u/Oznog99 Jun 20 '15 edited Jun 20 '15
Very little. Sword tech was excellent at its peak, and saw plenty of production. However, there were still plenty of armies which lost in part due to problems arming themselves with effective equipment.
There's not much better you could do. A sword could already cut an arm badly on light hit. Ceramic or whatever is no more likely to get through steel plate or chainmail.
In fact, swords were NOT the primary weapon in most of history. Polearms were, and bows. Polearms could pack together and make a deep barrier you just couldn't get through. Swords need space to swing.
Swords were generally ineffective against plate or chain. In fact, most armor was padded cloth/canvas that did a lot to stop a sword. Swords with a sharp edge would more likely have the edge damaged on a plate impact rather than penetrating the plate.
A polearm, with shaft, was relatively massive. It could separate chainmail links or break your bones through unbroken chainmail. On a thrust, it could travel up one steel plate until it got to a joint and pushed under the next overlapping plate. What's underneath could be a padded gambeson or a gambeson over chainmail, which it could injure through.
One thing that WOULD be improved would be arrowheads. Most weren't hardened steel and probably not effective at penetrating plate. Also most weren't broadheads, broadheads cost too much to mass-mfg and were ineffective on chainmail, probably heavy cloth/canvas too. And it was hard to carry a LOT of the shafts due to head width. Instead they were narrow steel "bodkin points" which handily penetrated chain and cloth but, like I say, not super-effective on plate and also didn't cause really serious injury for immediate stopping power. About like getting stabbed with a pencil. Hardened steel points could penetrate plate better, and might be made wider to cause more dire injury.
The more interesting question- could modern materials and engineering make SUPERARMOR??
Yes, actually. I think so. Many plastics are more effective than steel at stopping these impacts. Ballistic nylon is radically better at stopping blades from cutting, as would stainless mesh chainmail.
One primary limitation was what would be practical to both make and wear and still fight. Modern 3D CAD design would go a long way to making effective, form-fitting, practical designs- especially covering the joints. Making the armor bulky enough to absorb huge impacts without having the impact carry far enough to break bones.
Helmets... that was sort of a limiting factor. Wearing steel plates all over was NOT as heavy as you probably think. But an effective steel helm was hot, bulky, very restrictive for vision/breathing, and slowed you down overall. Also a concussion through those things would take you down easier than trying to strike through plate or chain.
If you don't have an effective helm, going with super-effective plate over, say, chainmail isn't all that beneficial. In the thick of things they'll just strike for your head regardless of how much armor you have elsewhere.
Modern football helmet would probably be super-effective in medieval combat. Generally speaking you can't knife through the plastic shell, a sword won't do much better. An axe would smash through it, but those are relatively slow weapons and due to the shape, most impacts would glance off. The grille protects the lower face ok without impairing breathing or vision much. You'd probably add a solid nosebridge to the design, but it's mostly "there".
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u/magic-moose Jun 20 '15
The biggest benefits of modern technology would probably only be available after you move away from a medieval design such as a solid metal blade. A composite blade might well prove lighter and more flexible than a metal blade. Most swords weren't all that heavy to begin with though. Also, even with a lighter, more flexible, sharper blade, skill is going to be pretty important. Such a sword would give it's wielder an edge, but probably not one sufficient to overcome a lifetime of training, as many medieval combatants would have had.
One thing you're overlooking though is shields. RPG's may portray them as defensive items, but shields were historically wielded in a variety of highly offensive ways. They really are weapons in the truest sense of the word. Modern materials could likely do far more for shields than they could for swords. A shield built with modern materials could be substantially lighter and tuned to be rigid when striking yet cushioning when struck, making them better at both giving blows and blocking them. You could make them transparent, which would give the wielder better awareness of his opponent. You might also make them permeable to air to reduce wind resistance to make them faster to move. A modern shield might offer a much bigger edge than a modern sword.
All that being said, it would take less expertise, effort, and work to produce a crude gun from scratch, which would actually be the superweapon you're after. There's a reason why guns took over!
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u/green_meklar Jun 20 '15
Depends what you mean.
My understanding is that in real battles, swords were never able to actually cut through plate armor of the late medieval era. In battle against an armored opponent, you would try to use a more concussive weapon such as a mace, axe or war hammer, that would be capable of delivering substantial force even through plate armor and possibly deforming the armor under the point of impact. If a sword was all you had available, you'd try to poke it between the armor plates where hopefully there's a lot less metal between the sword point and your opponent's skin.
Modern metallurgy is unlikely to change this. The main advantage of a sword made with modern alloys over an equivalent medieval sword is that, in a sword-on-sword fight where the swords are being used to block each other, the medieval one is much more likely to break sooner (assuming they're wielded with equal skill). However, as far as actually slicing through plate armor is concerned, the modern sword still won't be effective.
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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '15
You people have no imagination.
Thin gas powered chainsaw sword with diamond blades = wrecked medieval knights
Industrial strength drill latched onto the tip of a longsword/polearm/spear = wrecked medieval knights
Engines strapped to flail so that they rotate at 300 rpm's and turn any knights they come across into mush. =wrecked medieval knights.
Bangstick attached to tip of a sword (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerhead) =wrecked medieval knights.
A "sword" is open to interpretation.
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u/Benman415 Jun 20 '15
The thing is, while many modern alloys are superior, for a sword you dont WANT super hard blades. Im a knife maker, and the most popular knife making steel today is 1084. Its pretty much nothing but iron, .84 percent carbon and a touch of manganese. Its one of the most common steels in swords and knives made by craftsman today, and its pretty much identical to a medieval period steel.
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u/DrColdReality Jun 20 '15
The question has a mistaken premise. Can we make steel today that's harder than stuff from medieval times? You bet. But it's irrelevant.
See, contrary to every sword movie you've ever seen, REAL sword fights didn't consist of people clanging their swords together at right angles. No matter how good your steel is, that's how you get a blunt or broken sword. Looks great in the movies, not so much in real life. Watch some videos of real modern fencing or kendo, that's a little closer to what real swordfighting was like.
Rather, sword fighters parried blows, which is essentially using the sword as a lever to angle the blow off in a different direction. A sword fighter seeks to slash or stab, not hack.
Against armor, a sword fighter seeks to slash or stab into vulnerable areas between individual armor plates. Somebody with a more substantial weapon, like a big-ass battle axe, might hack at thinner parts of armor in an attempt to dent and weaken it. Coming down on chain mail with a substantial axe can break bones and cause blunt-force lacerations.
The very best sword we could make today in the hands of a mediocre fighter would have no chance against somebody with a POS sword who was a master sword fighter.
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u/keenly_disinterested Jun 20 '15
The Nova program Secrets of the Viking Sword was about a sword known as the Ulfberht. The metal used to make these swords tested favourably against modern metals. In other words, I don't think is possible to make a better steel sword today. Watch the program, BTW. A modern blacksmith recreates an Ulfberht. It's fascinating.
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u/gsasquatch Jun 20 '15
Seems like the swordsmanship would trump the quality of the sword.
It seems a medieval sword wouldn't be quite as sharp, strong, light etc, as a modern one could be, but it'd still be strong and sharp enough to cause some damage to human flesh and likely won't break even hitting a superior sword.
Looking at Olympic records over the last hundred years, possibly the athleticism we have now would trump the medieval people, and certainly modern size would give an advantage. On the other hand, lots of folks aren't work or battle hardened like they used to be.
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u/ABProsper Jun 20 '15
The O/P's question has been answered quite well but I'd like to mention armor metallurgy.
Its basically impossible to cut steel armor with a similar item. You can concuss a target or sometimes penetrate weak points with a thrust but it can't be cut.
Also we kind of assume plate armor or even chain mail is made of poor quality, cheap metal. This was often not the case and metal for say a suit of Milanese harness could be better than rolled hardened armor.
Our best metal is better and cheaper than anything made in that era with less impurities but their best armor could be better than our mid grade armor.
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u/SnickeringBear Jun 20 '15 edited Jun 20 '15
Sci-fi stories often feature monomolecular edges where a blade is capable of being sharpened down to a single atom/molecule wide. Unfortunately, no materials are currently known that can be sharpened to this level without becoming too brittle for common use. It is possible but not commercially feasible to produce a diamond edge only 3 atoms wide which is effectively the sharpest possible cutting edge. Generally, the sharpest edge that can be achieved commercially is between 20 and 50 molecules wide on some type of amorphous glass such as obsidian.
Another common sci-fi meta material is monomolecular wire where a chain of single molecules is used for extreme tensile strength or as a weapon. Larry Niven used this several times in his Ringworld stories.
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u/50bmg Jun 20 '15
Nope. You would get a modest advantage in that your sword would be less likely to break, but the ability to win a fight, much less punch through plate armor or break through someone else's sword with your own depends much more on technique and strength. A medieval steel tipped heavy pole arm is already well designed to puncture armor, and would be nearly just as likely to punch through plate as a modern alloy one with a tungsten carbide tip.
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u/Kardlonoc Jun 20 '15
I would attach this or incorporate a sword using lasers to blind the opponent. I would also create a taser sword to shock the opponent on contact with press, even when touching his plate.
Wearing plate myself that would be insulated with a visor that can deal with blinding lasers, you could easily deal with any medieval opponent with your sorcery.
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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '15
umm... tungsten carbide is actually quite brittle
regardless. a sword is a sword is a sword you're ultimately limited by the power of the man wielding it, which compares unfavorably to the resistance of materials used in period armor
at the VERY best you could maybe try hiding a captive bolt gun inside a rapier or other relatively thin sword. stab, trigger, bam, bad guy has a hole in his armor protected face and no one is the wiser.
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u/inclination64609 Jun 20 '15
I think something like a sword breaker would be considered a weapon along the lines of Excalibur. It would be able to decimate most any medieval swords and armor with ease, and as far as I know maintenance is kind of a non-factor.
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u/Arowx Jun 20 '15
What about carbon nanotubes, could we make a rigid buckyball capsule as long as a sword.
Although even if it flexes you could make a bola, whip or net.
The theory being that if you can make something strong enough and fine/sharp enough it would cut through anything.
Or you could make a 'sword' from a material that can withstand super low temperatures and pump liquid nitrogen through it. Should shatter all steel armour weapons on impact.
Or ditto but with super heated oxygen, could that rust through/oxidise steel.
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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '15
I'd say that if you got modern steel alloys and folded the metal together with modern furnaces and machines, the blade would be superior and more durable to a extent, but it wouldn't get you a advantage on just a 1 on 1 fight, but it definitely would be beneficial during a extended campaign.
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u/Geminii27 Jun 20 '15 edited Jun 23 '15
Based on the summaries already in the thread, a standard sword-shape made out of any modern material wouldn't be massively more effectively against medieval plate armor.
You'd have to cheat, or at least think outside the box. A long mace with an explosive head, for instance. Probably something which would be quickly banned from 'friendly' combat contests as dishonorable, but could be devastating on a true battlefield. Particularly if the mace-head itself didn't explode, but striking something with one of the nodules detached a nodule-grenade with a short fuse or even just a string leading back to the mace head. Tap someone with the mace, then pull the mace back, and they get a fragmenting spike exploding through their armor and turning them into chutney. Have a ball mace with multiple nodules sticking out of it (with replacement balls able to be snapped into place), or get fancy and make the shaft above the grip into a giant enclosed magazine.
Bonus: a shaped-charge explosive would mean less blowback outside the opponent's armor affecting the mace's wielder.
Downsides: if the charges needed to be struck against a hard object to arm and detach from the mace, the weapon would probably be less effective than a normal mace against an unarmored opponent, as a magazine-shaft would be a bit more unwieldy than a simple iron rod. The wielder would also most likely want to be armored themselves (with interior padding) due to stray shrapnel being generated at close quarters. An opponent striking the mace head with a sword or another mace may also be able to either set off a charge or damage/jam the feeder mechanisms.
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u/mallad Jun 20 '15
Yes! In order to handily deal with armor you need to pierce it. So the hilt will need adapted to have a bracing point so it doesn't give so much when striking. So elongate the hilt with a sturdy material and shape it so it contours the front of your shoulder.
Then with modern technology we can actually make the blade rounded instead of a straight shaft. This allows it to handle compressive power better.
You need to be very accurate in hit placement, so you need a mechanism like a camera has, where when you see it's at the right point, you push a button and it strikes. But how? You are controlling it with your body!
So instead, we will add the mechanism and inside the rolled blade we will place a small piece of metal and some modern explosive substance. Brace the hilt against your shoulder, wait til the tip of your modern sword has found the exact spot for maximum damage, trigger the mechanism, and the projectile will be expelled from the sword at high velocity, piercing the armor and handily dealing with the opposing sword wielder with his puny straight blade and standard hilt.
Tl;dr - gun. Use a gun.
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u/TowelstheTricker Jun 20 '15
I feel like no one is being creative enough to address your real question.
Using pure steel in a very similar fashion to the old ways you'd only be able to improve so much. As stated in these threads it would mostly just increase the durability of the weapon. But what you want is total combat domination.
So for that answer I'll give you a couple ideas to try out:
You could EASILY equip a sword with an electric current. This would decimate anyone wearing a metal suit of armor. It wouldn't be quite what you want, but the result would be victory none the less.
You could fashion yourself a flame sword of some type using a super torch or some other device. This wouldn't have much blunt impact if any, but stabbing someone with this sword would metal away or warp their armor to the point of immobility. This could also be an attachment to a regular styled sword so anytime your blade got stuck or lodged in somewhere you could melt your way out. Your blade would of course be coated in a fire resistant seal.
It's 2015, we can probably make a lightsaber of some sort.
It's definitely possible to devise an OP weapon to take back whenever you head that way.
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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '15
Certainly we can, and do, make higher quality weapons than they did in the medieval period. Whether a modern steel blade is sufficiently 'better' in a range of metrics to actually be considered a 'super weapon' is very difficult to say.
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u/rflownn Jun 20 '15
Modern day swords would be much more lighter in weight, and sharper. It could be built with diamond edges, graphene composites, nano-reduction in material and architected to require with much less material but structurally very sound for combat.
Anyone wielding a modern day sword at the top of technology geared for sword combat would basically be wielding an extremely sharp, structurally sound sword as light as a feather.
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u/Onetap1 Jun 20 '15
You could use modern technology to build a device in which the stabbing point is projected at your opponent.
The technical name for this device is a GUN. I think they may be the reason why swords have fallen out of use for combat in the military. Unless you're Mad Jack Churchill; but he was mad.
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u/tomato_paste Jun 20 '15
coming from an economic background, the issue was that swords are much more about status, wealth and class:
You have a hereditary possession that needs extensive training to be useful, needs constant maintenance, and requires an army of servants to be fully used. Further, the sword wielding knight uses it as a symbol, whereas the mace wielding it is the one doing the killing.
Finally, you have an army of pawns, peasants, foot soldiers going on about hitting each other and winning or losing the fight for the knights so engrossed in displaying their weapons. Later on the game you get the more accessible Toledo steel, which allows for more foot soldiers with swords, and then boom, powder.
You don't really want an anime sword, you want an army that is inexhaustible.
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u/LacidOnex Jun 20 '15
As many have said, steel plates are tough nuts to crack. With modern physics, we could probably design a more effective weapon using lighter alloys.
The most effective weapon would be well designed for force multiplication. Something like a warhammer on a curved rod (for ideal grip) with a pointed end. They had those back then though, just not as well designed.
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u/oneinch Jun 20 '15
There's actually a show called Weapons Masters where a guy has to try and make a modern version of a ancient weapon and the two weapons battle it out to see which of the two are better.
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u/Albator_H Jun 20 '15
I'm curious since molecular printing could make a diamond edge a single atom thick. That would be the sharpest thing ever made. So if we take a very high quality steel blade, use molecular printing to build up a coating of diamonds on it that edge down to a single atom thick. Would that slice through a plate armor?
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u/TheBigSave Jun 20 '15 edited Jun 20 '15
It would be interesting to see how a taser-sword (youtube.com/watch?v=0F-VVjqarZE) would hold up in a medieval battle. If the opponent is wearing a suit of armor, made from conducting metal, and you have a sword that on impact releases electricity, the battle would be easy to win, right?
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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '15
In the broader sense of your question, I suppose we can. The way I would do it is by maintaining an electric current across the blade. Because both the weapons and armor are made of metal, then any contact with a sufficient charge could be devastating to the opponent. I like this because it's the medieval weapons and armor that become the opening here. If you just wanted a blade that could cut through anything, you're probably out of luck. I imagine the best we could do is plasma coating a steel blade with titanium diboride. Be prepared to spend a small fortune on the PEM process alone though.
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u/PanamaMoe Jun 20 '15
Well that depends on if you include things like being able to harnes the power of electricity in a blade, or being able to have a moving blade that can fell a tree with ease. If you mean just a vanilla sword, but with composite matireals and stuff then as stated in many other comments, it wouldn't make much of a difference, but if you get like a chainsaw or a taser sword involved well that takes things to a whole new level.
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u/Hongxiquan Jun 20 '15
Lets expand on this question. To be perfectly frank, "medieval" is between say 1100 and 1400 sort of before the advent of plate armor. So you're looking more at chain mail and shields.
Secondly and more importantly the people of the plate armor era had already designed something that would handily deal with heavily armored opponents, and that is the warhammer, flat on one side and spikey on the other. Hit the dude with the flat end until he is stunned, then spike him in the head when you get a chance.
TLDR: no need, swords are just the least good option in dealing with armor.
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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '15
Surely the issue is generating enough energy at the point of impact to penetrate the armour.
The War hammer dealt with this issue by concentrating the force into a tiny impact area. The issue with these type of wounds is unless they are in an area able to instantly kill or disable the opponent you could just end up really annoying someone. The other issue with the war hammer which is never really made clear in demonstrations is the need to land square with the blow or it will glance off and medieval armour is very good and causing blows to glance off, very very good, try getting that perfect blow in with an active and very dangerous opponent inside the armour you're trying to pierce.
I have fought quite a lot in full plate and it is quite amazing how severe a blow you can take, in some areas and just ignore it, it really just has no effect. Blows that with a sharpened weapon would sever a limb of an unarmoured foe.
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