Hank Reinhardt's The Book of the Sword (8 page)

Another way to overcome the resistance that the blade will encounter is the hollow ground blade. Although we usually think of a hollow ground blade in terms of a razor, many of the old blades are also ground this way. This type of grind has certain advantages. It lightens the blade, yet keeps it stiff and strong. On a double-edged blade this allows for an excellent cutting action, while keeping the rigidity needed for effective thrusting.

Cross-sections of hollow ground blades.

In Westminster Abbey there is a truly beautiful little sword that is believed to have belonged to Henry V. This sword has a flat blade with a ridge in the center, and the grind that is called hollow ground. It is a very fast sword. I had an exact copy made for me, and the little blade is unbelievably fast. It would be quite effective against mail armor. One must always remember that not everyone on the battlefield wore plate.

Reproduction Henry V sword. Photo by Peter Fuller.

Reproduction falchion. HRC74.

Reproduction sword; note the fuller. HRC53.

But any flat or hollow ground blade will generally not be as strong as a blade with a greater thickness and more support for the edge. As with everything in life, you have a trade-off. The thicker the blade the stronger, but thickness comes with an increase in resistance and greater weight. The secret is, of course, a compromise between the two.

This is why many European swords have flat grinds. The single-edged swords, such as a falchion, are almost always flat ground, with wide, flat blades. The double-edged knightly sword, if it has a fuller—a groove down the blade—will have a flat grind from the fuller to the edge.

The fuller, by the way, has nothing to do with channeling blood from your enemy. It is there to lighten the sword blade, while still leaving enough metal to support the edge.

The Japanese did an excellent job of combining cutting power and strength. On most European swords, the blade is ground almost to the edge. Then a different bevel, called the cutting bevel, is put on the final edge. The Japanese forego this last step, and grind the blade down to create a very sharp edge.

Now that we have named the parts of the sword, we can take each type of sword in turn. But we must also look at how the sword is intended to be used, since form follows function. Swords can be roughly broken down to: cutting swords, thrusting swords, and cut-and-thrust swords. Actually they can be broken down much, much further, but that isn't necessary in a discussion of design.

In thrusting swords, and in cut-and-thrust weapons where the thrust is the dominant feature, care must be taken that the point is effective. In many swords that are designed to go up against both plate and mail, you will often have a point that is thicker than the rest of the blade. This reinforced point is excellent for splitting the links of mail, both butted and riveted. It can also find the small openings in the plate armor and force its way in. This reinforcement is found on swords, but also in spears and the spikes of many polearms.

Sword with point thicker than rest of blade: top view is side-on; bottom view is silhouette as seen from above.

Reinforced point on polearm. HRC70.

The point acts as a wedge and, due to the small surface area, will exert many tons of force on a small area. But the point must also have the support of a stiff blade in order to exert the force needed to penetrate. Even the unarmored human body can offer a surprising amount of resistance if the thrust is not straight on or a bone is hit.

The most obvious sword that one thinks of in regards to thrusting is the rapier. Hollywood has made it seem that the rapier must have a highly flexible blade. How many times have you seen the hero flexing his rapier before engaging in a deadly duel with the villain? Hollywood was so in love with fencing that it borrowed many fencing conventions and passed them off as real combat methods. Many fencers
will
flex their blades before a bout. This limbers up the blade, and it will also give it a slight set. This slight bend will allow a fencer to go over an opponent's blade, while it will also assure that the blade will bend, which you want in a sport fencing blade. Fencing swords are designed not to hurt people, exactly the opposite of real swords. A good fighting rapier needs to be stiff enough to puncture, but not so stiff as to be brittle should the sword be hit a hard blow in a parry to drive it aside. This combination of stiffness and flexibility must be achieved through tempering. Merely adding material to the sword blade to make it stiffer only adds weight, and this would slow down a rapier.

Spanish cuphilt rapier, circa 1750, 47 inches overall length. HRC25A.

As the rapier became established as the European civilian weapon of choice, starting in the 1500s, efforts were made to improve it. This led, at first, to extremely long rapier blades, swords with a blade length of 54 inches, or even more. The idea was that if your blade was longer, then you had a chance of hitting your opponent before he hit you. This is only partially correct, as a slightly longer blade helped, but not a great deal. It was found that they were quite clumsy, and an opponent could close inside the point and then you were at his mercy. Just as bad, and maybe even worse, they were damnably hard to wear, as you were forever knocking over things and causing people to trip. Having attended some events where many were wearing rapiers, I can testify that they can be quite annoying when the wearer does not hold it close to his body.