Fighting with a shorter sword?

[Jonathan_Kaplan]

Hi there! are there any guidelines or fighting styles that you have found that would work with shorter swords, or even a gladius? I was just wondering if anyone has tried to reconstruct something plausible for a fighting style to do with that. Thanks!

[Craig Peters]

Hi there! are there any guidelines or fighting styles that you have found that would work with shorter swords, or even a gladius? I was just wondering if anyone has tried to reconstruct something plausible for a fighting style to do with that. Thanks!

There's nothing on gladii, but see Fiore 0n the single handed sword; MS I.33, Talhoffer, Ringeck, Martin Siber on sword and buckler; and some of the 16th century masters like Giacomo di Grassi on an early modern form of sword and shield. This is by no means a comprehensive list- have a look at some of the historical manuals to find other instances of single handed swords.

[Jeffrey Hull]

...see Fiore 0n the single handed sword; MS I.33, Talhoffer, Ringeck, Martin Siber on sword and buckler; and some of the 16th century masters like Giacomo di Grassi on an early modern form of sword and shield. This is by no means a comprehensive list- have a look at some of the historical manuals to find other instances of single handed swords.

Good advice, just one correction: the Siber lore is for longsword. At first I admittedly made that mistake about his work, only to totally rework my interpretation of it for longsword when it became apparent that was the truth of the matter.

I would also suggest Henri de Sainct-Didier manual for French single sword (circa 1573).

Good luck in your training with shortswords all ye fencers.

[Stacy Clifford]

Any of the manuals that contain messer or dussack instruction should work for you also, since those weapons are in a similar range of length as a gladius. That said, I've been working on di Grassi for single hand cut and thrust recently and very quickly found useful advice that I can put straight into sparring. Much of his technique could be applied to shorter weapons as well with some modifications for range.

[Richard Strey]

I'd check Joachim Meyer's section on the Dussack and pull additional thrusting techniques/concepts from the Rappier section.

[Sripol Asanasavest]

Is this related to the Roman fighting style? Or did they came up with it independantly? Is it more lethal fighting with one handed sword since it is easier to use than the big one. I guess fighting with single hand sword would be more advantageous because you can carry a large shield or buckler in the other hand while the sword in the other, is this right?

[Stacy Clifford]

Is this related to the Roman fighting style? Or did they came up with it independantly? Is it more lethal fighting with one handed sword since it is easier to use than the big one. I guess fighting with single hand sword would be more advantageous because you can carry a large shield or buckler in the other hand while the sword in the other, is this right?

There may have been some connection to Roman combat styles back in history at some point, but since we don't have much in the way of Roman fight books, we really don't know exactly what the Roman fighting style was, we can only speculate. And one-handed swords are not necessarily easier to use than two-handed swords. Two-handers give you more reach, leverage and power (both cutting and thrusting) and a stronger defense, and if you watch our videos you will see they are not heavy and hard to use at all, but are actually very agile and fast in skilled hands. Single-handers do have the advantages of being even quicker and allowing an offhand weapon or shield, and they can be used very effectively against larger weapons, but because they are shorter and have a weaker defense, they require more speed and agility on the part of the fighter to work effectively.

What I'm trying to say here is that I can use a longsword to defeat a short sword or I can use a short sword to defeat a longsword because I know the strengths and weaknesses of both. It's a function of the fighter's skill and athleticism, not whether one weapon is better than the other one. The deadliest weapon in my hands is simply whichever one I can outfight you with.

[Jonathan_Kaplan]

Well, have any of you tried to figure out the physics of what is plausible with other earlier melee weapons? What sorts of things would you have to do differently with a period gladius? It's made of iron, not steel, right? And it doesnt have the hand guards? and it is shorter than most later "short swords", right?

I am aware that there aren't a lot of fight books... but that doesn't mean one can't figure out what works and what doesn't...

Also, what sorts of fighting styles work best as a unit? The idea of the gladius was that you could pack people together and they wouldn't be slicing each other... have you all tried to form cohesive units ever? Tried drilling?

[Stacy Clifford]

I totally agree that we can use our knowledge of Medieval fighting to figure out what works and what doesn't, that's exactly what I meant when I said we can only speculate. However, no matter how close we may actually be to the truth, it will always be only speculation without any actual source material to verify our theories against. Only the Romans can tell you how they did things so that you can compare to see if you are doing it the same way, otherwise you are making assumptions about them that you can't prove and hoping you reach the same conclusions that they did.

Think of it like parallel evolution. You start with the same equipment and conditions that have to be coped with, but in two different places and different centuries with no cross-pollination of ideas. The sandy deserts of America and Africa both have a two foot long viper that has horns over its eyes and sidewinds across the sand, because they cope with near identical conditions, but one has a rattle and one doesn't. Without having an actual Roman example, you can never know for sure if you added or left out a feature of combat that the Romans didn't, even if the rest is near identical. You'll have a similar animal, but not the same animal.

As for drilling and unit tactics, I don't think anyone in ARMA would be opposed to trying it, but the fechtbuchs we study don't really cover it much that I know of, most of our study groups don't often have the number of people really necessary for it (you need opponents to know if your group tactics actually work), and we all have longswords, not gladii, which are a totally different beast. If Roman combat were the focus of our studies, then I am sure we would be doing more of what you describe.

[Jonathan_Kaplan]

So what other groups are there that focus on some of these other things? Do you all have ties or info about other martial arts groups that have similar ideals?

[Stacy Clifford]

I don't look at outside groups much myself, but Gene Tausk is an excellent resource on all things Roman and can probably point you toward some groups and resources, but please PM him for that since that is getting off-topic for this thread.