How are swords still have a sharp edge after blocking so many direct slashes from a sharp tempered blade.
Imo sword should look like saws after even one session of blocking really anything made of metal.
In: 1711
Sometimes they can. There’s an example of a cavalry sword in a museum that is covered in nicks. But realistically you aren’t blocking other swords with the edge, but with the flat. And unless you smack the edge into a sharp, focused hard point, you’re not going to nick it. The edges will dull during use, as they cut through armor and flesh, but nicking requires pretty specific circumstances.
Swordfighting doesn’t look like it does in the movies. Swords should not be hitting swords. It’s horrible for them. If you do feel compelled to block another sword with yours, you’ll want to use the blunt side so as not to damage your edge. This will also damage your opponent’s edge less, although that probably doesn’t matter to you.
It’s likely swords used in actual melee combat rarely were ever used to parry/block blows. Mostly hacking limbs and stabbing. Any blocking would likely be done with a shield.
Something else to keep in mind is that training swords designed for sparring have blunted edges that are hard to nick like that. Otherwise they would’t be able to be reused even when actively avoiding edge contact. Which swordmen are trained to do.
Swordfights with a real edged sword historically would last maybe something like 3 exchanges max unless you had two skilled people going at it in which case both would break of and go find someone squishier so they don’t get randomly shanked by one of the other guys buddies.
Afterward if a sword does end up with a couple nicks in it, instead of letting it build up more it’s changed out cause why would you trust your life to a damaged sword.
They didn’t block with their swords like that. That’s what shields are for.
You know how, in the Rocky movies, he just stands there and absorbs punches with his face? Real boxers try to dodge and slip the punches. Same with swords.
Not everything works like it does in the movies. Real sword fighting looked basically zero percent like the movie version.
The kind of blade on blade blocking you see in films would be a desperation move in real life. Well executed parries guide the opponent’s weapon away without that kind of impact. And even as a desperate move it’s risky – your sword could break and then you’re fucked.
You don’t see that a whole bunch in surviving antiques because if they got all dinged and blunted they got rid of them 🤷
And if it helps make sense, I’ve worked in plays and movies where we used swords. In between takes/performances we’d have to file down the snags, even on the mostly blunted weapons we used in the actual fights. (For film closeups we’d have “hero” weapons, clean ones with the pristine edges) But it was always on our minds to avoid sword on bare skin in the choreography – you could get a snag during a sequence then draw a supposedly blunted edge along skin and cut the shit out of someone. As it was we would tear up costumes pretty regularly.
Sword blades *were* damaged from use. However there are several factors that prevented them from turning into saws. The main reason as that blades tend to just dull or accrue relatively small nicks even when striking very hard surfaces. Even a particularly worn blade wouldn’t really look like a saw, it would break altogether before that.
Other factors explain why swords weren’t always ruined after a single battle. For one thing swords were predominantly used with a shield in most places for most of history which meant that the sword itself rarely received the punishment from defending against incoming blows. Usually the punishment they did take was from making attacks, however slashing at metal armor is generally pointlessly ineffective so aiming for less protected areas, often while thrusting, was the norm.
Also keep in mind that even when used to defend swords are ideally used to redirect the energy of the attack away rather than to statically absorb it which helps mitigate the abuse they take. This meant that swords wouldn’t necessarily take as much abuse as you might think even when used without a shield.
Another major limit to the damage blades sustained in battle is that in most places in most time periods swords were a sidearm, not a primary battlefield weapon (polearms and missile weapons filled that role). This meant that the swords were not typically used for the whole battle. Indeed a warrior carrying a sword may never draw it at all in a given battle.
Swords didn’t retain a nice edge after an extended fight, but it’s relatively trivial to grind out the imperfections/nicks and put an edge back on the blade. While the nicks would certainly be noticable if you’re looking without that maintenance, the edges will usually be softer than the the middle, allowing for deformation rather than outright breakage.
As an aside, in my reading (mostly Fiore via Guy Windsor), if you’re dueling (i.e. no plate armor or the like) you’re going to parry with an attack of your own using the edge of your blade, not the flat (that’ll shatter your weapon worst case), while if you’re in armor you’ll half-sword (to get accurate, powerful thrusts at gaps), or grip by the blade and use the pommel as a blunt weapon, since it’s kinda tough to cut through plate or chain.
To add to the other excellent comments here: There where a variety of fighting styles that included offhand defense of some sort, either a shield like a buckler or a second blade like the main gauche used in conjunction with the main hand weapon.
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