When you have players, when you're a 16 year old GM, who are masters and doctorate candidates in science and engineering...
You learn how things are done.
Two things that keeps coming up over and over when watching Hollywood and swords...
First: Swords made from steel are NOT cast. While crucible steel is molten, it's never seen as a liquid by the smith.
Second: The sparks are from hammering out impurities. Good steel is done with that by the time you're forming the blade.
There's numerous recreations of the historical processes out there for Hollywood to look at.
I really wish they would!
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Oh, that and everyone's fascination with Damascus steel. The reason Europeans didn't use Damascus steel is that, by the Crusades, Euro-steel was better, faster, stronger. Euro-blades were sandwich-construction, with hard edged sandwiched by a softer steel, and capable of bending, flexing and pretty much trashing any armor south or east of Constantinople.
ReplyDeleteThat horrible '13th Warrior' movie just about made me barf. Grinding a perfectly good bog-iron and meteoric-ore blade into a pseudo scimitar... just wrong, so wrong. That was the icing on bad things in what would have been a good movie (armor, hair styles, clothing, showing the Norse-Scandinavian-Danes as total barbs when they weren't and so much more...)
I have one word for most of the people masturbating over Damascus and pattern welding: Ulfberht.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulfberht_swords
Nova did an excellent episode on this. Wonderful explanation of the difference between bloomery iron and crucible steel too.
DeleteYup. That Viking sword is stronger and better able to handle shock than any scimitar or katana.
DeleteThose are made for cutting flesh and cloth. Euro-blades are made for destroying armor. Muhahahahaha.
The Nove episode I referred to showed a katana cutting a rolled up tatami mat, which is supposed to demonstrate how good it is at cutting...
DeleteThen they took an arming sword to the mat after showing how dull it was. Same cut.
Yup. Old story, most likely false.
DeleteRichard the Lionhearted meets Suleiman outside of Jerusalem, and work on a cease fire. Suleiman tosses a silk scarf up and cuts it to ribbons with his scimitar. Richard tosses a silk scarf onto the bronze chair and cuts the chair in two with his sword, and picks up the mostly undamaged scarf.
Tatami mat challenge is all about not cutting it square, but cutting at an angle and cutting through the target (aiming about a foot or two or more past the mat.)
Then there's James Burke who used a two handed sword to demolish a telephone pole on one of his shows. Very impressive.
I love watching Forged in Fire. I discovered it when my brother and I were down in Iowa City for my cancer surgery a few years ago. I wish I could do those things.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had those tools. Power hammer, 72" belt grinder with all the fixings, power saws, real Beverly shears, welding gear, the whole kit-n-kaboodle.
DeleteSigh.
So, instead, I live vicariously through others on the tv...