So a rapier "can cut" but what would/could actually

>>2308416
Slashing wounds in general aren't as dangerous as deep puncture wounds tend to be, combine that with a blade that is not primarily designed to slash and what you get is a higher chance of superficial damage from said slashing wounds.

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>>2308416
Death by a 1000 cuts?

Isn't the rapier a specialist's weapon, where they locate points on the body that are weak points, that is; puncture wounds to joints or arteries that cause death or disabling of the opponent.


On a related note, the Irish produced rapiers around 1500BC, would they have used them like modern rapiers?

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>>2308416
You don't need to cut through limbs to harm someone. If you cut deep enough to shear into muscles, tendons, arteries, it's enough to incapacitate your opponent.

>>2308416
A good draw cut to the inside of the wrist is pretty much a guaranteed death as you bleed out crazy fast from there, same if you get it in the forearm's arteries, check Fairbairn's Timetable of Death for that. I remember a japanese fencing master who said that gettting cut there, even without a lot of power is pretty much the same as getting stabbed through the heart.

Other than that, I guess cuts to the legs can quickly reduce mobility, though to which degree it's hard to know. Everywhere else (torso and upper arms), it's going to sting but you should better just thrust.

he would fucking die to death

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>>2308429
A rapier is a weapon the evolved from the 16th century side-sword (pic), which was essentially an arming sword with a complex hilt. The demarcation line between arming swords and rapiers is anything but clear though as these weapons were contemporaries, often rapier only meaning a civilian (and thus more ornate/fashionable) version of the side-sword meant to be worn for self-defence. Approaching the 17th century, civilian rapiers became longer, narrower and more focussed thrusting weapons - these weapons are which most people have in mind when they hear the term rapier, and which is depict in OP pic. These were however by no means "specialist's" weapons, they were a fairly common weapon used literally all over Europe for self-defence purposes in civilian life.
These Irish rapiers don't have much in common with the later rapiers. The name is something an archaeologist came up with who saw some superficial resemblance, but their properties as weapons would have been quite different. The vast majority of them were significantly shorter than the early modern rapiers, resembling more dagger or "short-sword" kind of weapons. The longer kinds of these weapons were probably more experimental (possibly ceremonial) in nature as the material wasn't up to the task of making long, acute weaponry from it that would also withstand the stresses of serious combat sufficiently. 1000 years later, when metallurgy had improved and high quality steel was around, things were different though.

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>>2308429
Curiously, similar weapon existed in Mycenaean Greece.

Is there anything more autistic than caring about swords

It annoys me some so much that there's that Cold Steel video where they stab meat with a rapier over and over again but never cut at all. Duh, of course any reasonably pointy sword will pierce meat, what we'd need to see how well it would cut.

>>2308567
It's nothing like it, the Irish Rapier is near twice as long as that.

>>2308416
>Would it just be painful?
For you.

>>2308734
>people on the history board are interested in historic weapons
>must be autism

>>2308734
Ikr...

>>2308416
>what would/could actually happen to an unarmored opponent when you cut him with it

lacerations and bleeding