The Sabre

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Lloyd shares what he has learned about the sabre after wielding his Moghul Indian tulwar — namely that curved one-handed swords are not equivalent to straight ones:

Sabres are next to useless for fencing. The curve of the blade makes the whole thing amazingly unwieldy. To hack, and then get the blade back into position for parrying is very difficult and slow. The curve does not make thrusts impossible, but thrusting with a straight sword is much easier.

Remember that these curved weapons were used by cavalrymen. If a cavalryman rides up to an infantryman and stops, and then fences with him, he loses almost all his advantage. Horses are very large and very scary, and the momentum which a moving horse adds to a blow makes a slash from a passing horseman terrible indeed. But if a horseman were to sit and fence, then his horse’s head would be in his way, and his horse would offer a huge fleshy target which he could not protect with his parries, and which might buck or bolt at any moment. The rider would only have one angle of attack: downwards. He would find it difficult to fight opponents behind him or to his left, and would find it difficult to attack the lower halves of his foes. The infantrymen could get round him, and attack his immobile legs, his horse’s legs, and (especially if he had no shield and used reins, as Napoleonic cavalrymen did) his left arm. He would be in big trouble.

Cavalrymen would ride at infantry, take a hack at them as they passed, and then use their speed to get past and away. Cavalry were good at attacking disordered and routing footmen, but much less good at attacking well-ordered troops, especially if those troops had long weapons such as spears or muskets with long bayonets on them. Against a formed body of infantry, they would rush at them and attack the ends of lines, gaps and weak points, hoping to get round a flank. If the infantry held, the cavalry would ride away and regroup and try again. Often the infantry would break formation, and then the cavalry had a good chance. A mass of cavalry thundering across the battlefield takes a lot of nerve to face. What cavalry did not do, was ride up to the infantry head-on, halt, then try to whittle away the numbers of the enemy by fencing on the spot.

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