Short Sword?

I have an affection for short swords and have examples of wakizashis, parangs, bolos and other big knives/short swords that are devastating. The big problem with short swords, in addition to carrying something 18+inches long, is the price. A real weapon of that size breaks $100 immediately and goes up quickly.

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You got that right. I read a long time ago in I think it was Combat Knives about a guy in Washington state who made his own wakizashis and they were extremely popular in Japan, but also *extremely* expensive. We're talking like high-4 to 5-figure range. But if you think that's just decoration, it ain't. The guy said that his best short swords would cut *free-hanging* steel cable, the kind they use to stabilize telephone poles. He said not all of his swords would cut it clean through, but the best ones would.

I was blown away.

Lots of cool info here: http://www.toyamaryu.org/index.htm

While it sounds like the OP may have found what he's looking for, I'd like to throw one more design into the mix :

http://www.got-kilt.com/sitebuilder/images/Mongolian_short_sword-317x229.jpg


If the stories are correct ( Hso may know this lore better than I ) Horseman had a lot less use for long pliable swords than shorter stout ones that could reliably double as effective tools.

This design is fairly indicative of such a tool, and combines a great handle length for the two-handed jobs with a wide tipped cutting edge for the "meatier" work.

tuj said:

The guy said that his best short swords would cut *free-hanging* steel cable

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I'm skeptical... did he substantiate this? Obviously (if he is talking about a fairly thin blade cutting it in a single swipe) this would be exceptional to say the least, and he could make millions of dollars sharing his techniques with us dumb Westerners with our silly reliance on science, instead of just selling knives in Japan. The ability to produce tools that could do this would potentially be a major leap forward in a lot of fields other than bladecraft.

I'm skeptical... did he substantiate this?

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Unfortunately this was in a long-lost copy of a knife magazine I had back in the 90's. He claimed he used some sort of "L" motion swipe that was traditionally used in cutting bamboo. I too was skeptical of the claim, but this guy was well-respected by the editors of the magazine (if I recall correctly, one of the editors was Massad Ayoob, or at least he was a contributor) and not only did this guy make his own blades, he made his own STEEL in his own kiln/blast furnace. I forget how many times he said he folded the steel, but I want to say it was at least 100 per sword. He talked about covering the edge of the blade in clay to get the curve the traditional way. Seemed like he knew what he was talking about, but IANASM (I am not a sword maker).

Maybe the guy was telling a tall tale, I don't know. But I do know that the wakizashi-length sword is/was very popular in Japan amongst high-end businessmen not so much as a decoration or status symbol, but a legitimate self-defense weapon. Makes sense when you consider the lack of firearms ownership combined with the potentially devastating results a quality short-sword can unleash.

One of the things that I saw emphasized in both Combat Handguns and in some of the knife magazines, was that it doesn't take a big blade to do a lot of damage. There are a number of places on the body where a 1" blade like a scalpel can inflict grievous damage. The moral of the story was to take every blade seriously, no matter how big or small.

According to this site (http://www.katsujin.org/usntk/shinkendo.htm):

What is unique about the Japanese sword is its awesome cutting ability. Japanese swords have been tested on steel cable, blocks of wood, steel helmets, nails, sheet steel, and, in the old days, the bodies of condemned criminals. The record for a sword cutting through bodies is seven!

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Phil Hartsfield made a hell of a short sword, but just to "polish" one he got $100 per inch !
RIP Phill .
http://www.phillhartsfield.com/gallery.php

My question remains - any place to get a good working repro pf that Confederate bowie pictured a page back? That's an excellent looking short sword style of blade I would love to own.

Stephan Fowler might make you one but it will cost, after what it took to make mine. Ask him.

Was hoping for something a bit less pricey, but thank you very much.

Armored man, here ya go. Very nice but of course not the best in the world!
http://laforgeweapons.com/?wpsc-product=dagger

This is a particular favorite subject and

I have a list :

Macdonald Armouries : Fairbairn Cobra
Cold Steel: Magnum Tanto XII
CRKT : Hisshou
Only on Facebook, Pekiti Tirsia Kali Organizer : Dahon Palay
Kiku Matsuda : KM-910 Wakizashi

The criteria for this selection is, a useful short blade that doesn't weigh too much
and that's long enough.

The last is pretty custom (expensive)

I'd like to find something like a gladius, but a really short one, closer to 18"

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. This sounds like what you want: http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=401392&name=Roman+Wood+Handled+Dagger

Browsing their site hadn't seen this one before:http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=AH6251B&name=Bone+Hilt+Gladiator+Dolch

This one is longer than you want but would be easy to cut down. And hard to beat the price: http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=400164&name=Qama

Check out http://www.sword-buyers-guide.com/sword-forum.html for lots of reviews and an interesting forum. They focus on swords under $200.

Dang! Looked up the Confederate Bowie, what would posses someone to make a knife that big and give it to a soldier already carrying a whole bunch of stuff?

Frankly I think there were a lot of folks in the early 1860s that just didn't know what they were getting into as far as that particular war was concerned. And when the reality finally dawned on them, they found out that their pre-war expectations were about as out of touch with reality as those big heavy knives. More than just knives got tossed in those ditches along the routes of march, a lot of naivete went with those blades. How much good would a big dirk really do you, when pretty much everyone on the battlefield had a rifle about as long as they were tall, with a couple of feet of pointy steel affixed to the end of it to boot? You'd need arms longer than an orangutan for even a big knife to do any good against a bayonet or a clubbed rifle.

And it wasn't just Confederate rank and file soldiers who had unrealistic ideas about what that war would bring, either. The best military minds of the day had not properly allowed for the effect of the rifled musket plus the Minie' ball on the battlefield formations and tactics of the day. While the older smoothbore musket - many of which were still in use in the early days of the war - was hard put to hit a man sized target at 70 yards, the rifled musket/minie' combination could get hits, especially on area targets, out to about 600 yards.

The infantry manuals in use at the time tried to make up for this significant increase in effective range of the common infantry weapon by increasing the length of the pace of a marching soldier, and increasing the number of paces per minute. It took a surprising amount of time for senior leaders on both sides to figure out that moving a formation of men only 50% faster (which is probably generous) across a beaten zone that was up to 600% longer was a tragedy in the making. Wikipedia's entry puts it like this-

Many generals, particularly early in the war, preferred to use Napoleonic tactics, despite the increased killing power of period weaponry. They marched their men out in tightly closed formations, often with soldiers elbow-to-elbow in double-rank battle lines, usually in brigade (by mid-war numbering about 2,500-3,000 infantrymen) or division (by mid-war numbering about 6,000-10,000 infantrymen) strength. This large mass presented an easy target for defenders, who could easily fire several volleys before his enemy would be close enough for hand-to-hand combat. The idea was to close on the enemy's position with this mass of soldiers and charge them with the bayonet, convincing the enemy to leave their position or be killed. At times, these soon-to-be outdated tactics contributed to high casualty lists. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_in_the_American_Civil_War

Last time I was home, I passed by the grave of the author of one of the more popular of those manuals on both sides, William J. Hardee. While I read his tombstone, I couldn't help but think of the thousands of men who died in that war, in part because of the tactics of the time. You can see a short biography and pictures at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8762 if you wish.

I like to follow these blade threads, though I don't often contribute since I'm not much of a collector.

I just re-read Bell Irvin Wiley's, The Life of Johnny Reb, for the 3rd or 4th time. He discusses at length this early war phenomena of the big dirks, daggers, Bowies and even "scimitars" carried by Confederate troops. As Fred mentions above, those implements were sold or thrown away in the first campaigns. They also threw away their bayonets and sold off their revolvers to any cavalryman who wanted them, along with canteens, cooking pots and anything else not absolutely necessary for day to day survival.

Throwing away the bayonets was infuriating to officers, but as it turned out bayonet charges were pretty much a thing of the past and both sides preferred swinging their rifles like clubs instead of sticking people with the bayonet - or a Bowie for that matter.

"You'd need arms longer than an orangutan for even a big knife to do any good against a bayonet or a clubbed rifle."

The only time I got into a serious knife fight wuz with a crazed 300 pound Islander with an m-14 with sharpened bayonet and me armed with an 8" Randall # 1 which I always carried at the time. By stepping to the inside and parrying the rifle with the left hand push I wuz able to slice the left arm off the rifle , the almost severed left arm caused the drunk out their mind agressor to drop the weapon, grab the dangling appendage and sit on the floor and howl. Now I suppose a bayonet thrust from a sober person on the run at you would be more difficult to parry , but with technique a large knife like a Confederate short sword or Bowie would come in real handy even as a make do entrenching tool. I think all the discarded stuff wuz due to shell shocked and defeated troops in retreat. Yes a knife or sword or pike sure doesn't help against arty or rifle fire !

I think all the discarded stuff wuz due to shell shocked and defeated troops in retreat.

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Not according to Wiley, who wrote the book after 40 years of interviewing the remaining Confederate veterans. Those troops just spent so much time marching and counter-marching that everything not needed right now just became superfluous weight. The most prized treasure found on the field was not a sword or revolver, but a pair of boots pulled off a dead union soldier.

If you think about it, an unloaded Springfield or Enfield was a five foot long, nine pound club. You're not going to throw that down to draw a Bowie in a melee.

Ever since I first saw then-MAJ Art Alphin deliver his Components of Firepower series of lectures at West Point* through the good offices of the video camera back in the early 1980s, I had a more basic understanding of the degree to which technology drives tactics.

Well, eventually anyway, especially where stodgy military organizations are concerned . See http://bowieknifefightsfighters.blogspot.com/2011/11/sword-or-pistol-for-us-cavalry.html for one more example.

What Johnny Reb didn't understand when he marched off to war with the huge dirk the local blacksmith had forged for him were the realities of that war. The new realities of the technologies that were either fully realized at the time, like the caplock rifled musket/minie' combination, or being developed, like fixed cartridges and breech-loading single shot or magazine-fed repeating rifles, would make big 'side knives' pretty much useless weight. And the evolution of tactics eventually driven by those technologies would only contribute more to the abandonment of big knives for the average foot soldier.

In more modern times of mechanized infantry or airmobility, 'the soldier's load' works out somewhat differently than it did in times when most movement to, from and on the battlefield was on foot. Remember what Hardee's answer to the increased effective range of the rifled musket was - take longer paces, faster. The manual states in part:

114. The double quick step may be executed with different degrees of swiftness. Under urgent circumstances the, cadence of this step [33" pace -f] may be increased to one hundred and eighty per minute. At this rate a distance of four thousand yards would be passed over in about twenty-five minutes. -- http://www.drillnet.net/1862/1862SotS.htm

Remember that this is for a formation of several hundred to several thousand infantrymen, not just one soldier. There are sufficient diaries and letters from individual soldiers describing what life was like to allow drawing reasonable conclusions, and by far the most of them stripped down their gear to the minimum possible weight (http://www.wtv-zone.com/civilwar/soldier.html ). There just wasn't sufficient need or use for the big side knives to warrant keeping them, once soldiers experienced the reality of war.

*Now available on DVD - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...mp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0013LPRQM

LTC Art Alphin made me this .358 Norma Hannibal in the mid 80s. I think now he makes ammo only in Montana. He certainly knows his military history! I could see that the soldiers would strip down for 33" double timing for 25 or more minutes!

I've read a lot of primary source accounts of combat from the CW over the years, but I come up blank trying to remember any account of short blade use. Other than in the surgeon's tent, that is. Those guys hacked off hundreds of thousands of limbs.

I forget how many times he said he folded the steel, but I want to say it was at least 100 per sword.

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OK, let's say he did this. Is he *really* going to take such a blade with so many hours of work in it and use it to hack steel cable? Because even if this is some Hanzo razor that can cut through the cable, physics is physics and it will leave some nasty nasty scrapes across that pristine high end Japanese blade.

Those kindjal and qama style blades have long interested me.
Historical qamas I've seen don't always look so gladius like..
the blades aren't as wide and they are pointier.

http://www.atlantacutlery.com/p-1323...l-kindjal.aspx

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Whoa. Mikey likes it.

Would rather it be 18" OL, but still ...