How much has the quality and accessibility of steel changed throughout history? How would a steel sword differ throughout the ages? From a sword made today with modern materials to a steel sword made in the iron age or early medieval era?
Are there any RPGs that go into this kind of nitty gritty detail?
>>45771591
I think there is a lot on how you work your steel. Got shit iron with too much carbon? Beat it until the carbon is burned off and you got a good ratio. There are many techniques that probably were lost. Also we don't have much reason to make an overly expensive and laborious sword today. We compensate that with better materials so our swords are better than the average sword back them I think but slightly better swords might have existed.
>>45772436
I think the perfect "modern" sword has yet to be realized in the same way the compound bow is the modern refinement of its pre-modern ancestor. We've seen people reproduce functional versions of many historical swords to parity, but never something that could undeniably be said to be a net improvement over its earlier counterpart; largely because swords have limited utility compared to knives or bows or various other early weapons which have some other utility purpose.
Basically, early swords were highly variable in their quality, due to people not really understanding the chemistry and physics. They used trial and error, which often resulted in surprisingly good metal items but also produced some very flawed ones. The main cause of problems was impurities forming weak spots in the steel which led to breakages.
It wasn't until the eighteenth century that we really understood how to produce good steel in a controlled fashion from indifferent ore, but once we got the hang of that the average quality of swords went up a lot. The best were no better than they had been for centuries, but the lower quality stuff got significantly better.
>>45771591
Read upon metallurgy.
We can do shit that was impossible to people in middle ages.
Our industrial grade steel is as hard as Damascus one. And simpler to make.
We can now literally calculate theoreticslly best kind of material for blades, fit in nearest existing equivalents to achieve grand results.
Heck, we could do the same for shape of the blade - femap has a algorithm for finding best shape to whistand pre-determined forces.
Not to mention that now we know what effect adding chrome, carbon, zinc, or any other compound will have on alloy properties, and we can purify iron/steel - something that was impossible back then.
The biggest breakthroughs were in 19th century.
>>45771591
In terms of damage probably not to much in terms of durability modern would be exceptional masterwork quality.
>>45771591
> How much has the quality and accessibility of steel changed throughout history?
Heaps. Quality improved in general, but was really shaky and regional. Articulated plate armor didn't exist until steel was good enough to make thin plates, in the 1400s. It's a lot later than a lot of people intuitively expect - plate armor is contemporaneous with gunpowder.
Accessibility has a bit to do with how organized society was at the time (quality metals were more available in the Roman empire than the early medieval period), but also improved with easier steelmaking processes. Particularly notably, the Bessemer Process in 1855 made steel a lot cheaper. (Also it's the one the dwarves appear to use in Dwarf Fortress.)
> How would a steel sword differ throughout the ages?
Later swords would mostly be more flexible and less brittle. They can be lighter - the metal is durable enough that a sword with less material still works - but weight is actually a desirable property a lot of the time, so not all swords will be made that way.
> From a sword made today with modern materials to a steel sword made in the iron age or early medieval era?
If you grabbed a hunk of modern steel and tried to turn it into a sword, you'd most likely get garbage. But if you sat down with a materials scientist and made a batch of steel specifically for swords, you could make something better than anything from ages where swords were relevant. Modern technology can get you exactly the mixture you want for an alloy.
>>45772915
>Our industrial grade steel is as hard as Damascus one.
From what I gather, Wootz is pretty damn soft as far as steels are concerned.
>>45771591
If you had 300/400 steel 200 years ago you would dominate the world
>>45772999
Modern steel comes in a huge variety of forms, pretty sure you could find one that suits the needs of swordmaking already.
Swords today can be extremely high quality. Similar in style to the sword in the OP, a kriegsmesser, this is one made by Albion, the Knecht.
Albion Page: http://www.albion-swords.com/swords/albion/nextgen/sword-kriegsmesser-knecht.htm
Sword Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjoWAg1HJKw
Swords in the past were made with a lot more variable steel, but quality could be reasonably high. The main difference between the past and now is that it's much easier and quicker to make a sword, what would have taken months to do can be done in a day, with high quality steel that doesn't need to be further improved.
>>45772472
Incorrect
http://www.coldsteel.com/
>>45774220
Cold steel are awful. If you're actually looking for affordable swords that aren't trash, Hanwei are much better.
>>45774220
>Cold "Dads With Swords" Steel
>Not VA, CAS Iberia or even fucking Chen.
Come on now peasant.
>>45774267
I mean, if you're a mall-ninja, it's probably what you're looking for.
>>45772915
>Our industrial grade steel is as hard as Damascus one.
So, not remarkably hard then?
>>45771591
>>45772867
>>45772915
>>45772999
Shit's complicated, pretty much.
Modern steel is produced in ways that make it far better mixed, with alloying materials like carbon in tightly controlled amounts and evenly spread though the iron. Varying how much gives you different properties.
Just as important, modern production allows for extremely good control of heat treatment.
Heat treatment is vital to the strength of steel because a large part of steel's strength is the structure it assumes as it cools, forming crystals. The size and distribution of these crystals within the metal determines much of the properties, like hardness and durability.
Steel used to be much more expensive. It was most expensive when it had to be made from small ingots and hammered into larger objects and became cheaper as new processes allowed larger ingots of steel to be produced and automated the work of processing it (like water powered hammer mills).
>>45773413
Nah. Contrary to popular perception, the quality of the individual soldier's equipment is generally pretty secondary to the outcome of an overall war. Unless you're looking at a generational difference (e.g. smokeless-powder repeating rifles vs. black-powder muskets), the soldier's personal equipment is a very minor factor. More often than not it boils down to simple logistics and strategy.
>>45773413
>>45774765
In 1816? I don't think so. Yeah, it's good metal, but you'd be hard pressed to make much use of it. Bullet proof but heavy breastplates and helmets would be nice, but it would not do much to improve personal firearms.
Equipment matters a huge amount, making soldiers work with inappropriate tools considerably reduces their effectiveness. (The US in world war 2 had some serious initial problems with a lack of compact weapons like carbines and submachineguns.)
In the early modern and middle ages equipment mattered even more. Heavy cavalry shaped the battlefields of Europe for most of a thousand years while driving the whole feudal system.
>>45774843
Equipment only really matters a huge amount in the past 400 hundred years or so. Prior to that, yeah, sure, better equipment provides an advantage, but for the most part it isn't a decisive advantage. You could magically transport an army from the eleventh century a thousand years into the past and they wouldn't perform terribly more effectively than contemporary forces of that day.
>>45774843
>Heavy cavalry shaped the battlefields of Europe for most of a thousand years while driving the whole feudal system.
There are a number of problems with that theory, the least of it being that heavy cavalry existed in antiquity and the lesser ones being that Feudalism isn't about dudes on horses but about privatizing and sub-leasing political powers and rights and that the majority of battles fought in the period in question were apparently sieges.
>>45774220
Their vids are great, but their products are considered US consumer-safe. Meaning over-engineered just to be on the safe side when it comes to dumb white people doing dumb shit and suing them over it afterwards.
>>45772999
>Accessibility has a bit to do with how organized society was at the time (quality metals were more available in the Roman empire than the early medieval period)
To develop that a bit further, trade and the social context could greatly influence the quality of weapon production.
In Europe atleast, during antiquity and the Middle Ages it seems that sword production was concentrated in certain areas where workshops clustered together. The Rhineland, Toledo and Noricum are the most famous examples.
Contrary to the modern notion of the simple village blacksmith haphazardly making a sword, the majority came from these specialised workshops churning out swords which were then exported all over Europe. In many cases it was only the blade that was completed in the workshop and the hilt constructed by another specialist craftsman in the local style of wherever the blade was traded to. Anglo-Saxon London had a small community of hilt-makers providing fittings to Frankish blades brought over the channel. The Rhineland weapons trade is fairly well-documented during the Viking Age, with a lot of attention given to inscribed swords (particularly the ULFBERHT blades) that have been found across Europe.
How does this relate to steel quality? Essentially during the post-roman collapse of long-distance trade in Northern Europe the supply of high quality iron feeding the production centres ceased. Migration-era swords are pre-dominantly pattern-welded (folded over 1000 times!) due to difficulties of working with locally sourced iron, usually of an inferior quality. The result is visually stunning but incredibly expensive and time-consuming to produce.
The resumption of swords (and helmets) forged from a single piece of iron in the 10thC is partly the development of techniques in these production centres, but also credited to a renewed supply of high-quality ore made possible by the formation of organised states and the consequent stabilisation of long-distance trade.
>>45771591
The advantage of modern materials are mainly in purity. The less inclusions of slag or uneven distribution of whatever is in the alloy you have, the lower the chance of weak spots.
Modern metallurgy is also able to much more reliably heat treat metal for a specific hardness, for a lot of history it was a bit touch and go, and craftsmen often erred on the side of caution and didn't harden weapons to the max simply because they preferred something that was tough over something that might snap or chip.
But modern technology doesn't make enough of a difference that you could make a steel sword that cuts through armour or historical swords, we're not in an anime.
>>45774906
Many of those battles were sages because that was one way to defend yourself from heavy cavalry.
Heavy cavalry did exist elsewhere..
And mostly had similar effects, with the class that provided them being the interface between rulers and the lower orders, provided with privileges and wealth in return for military service. cataphracts, daughas Hippeis..
People mistake that heavy cavalry charges were not constantly, absolutely decisive when overlooking that every fortification and army had to be built around the looming threat of a heavy cavalry assault.
>>45774882
>Army from 1200CE in 200CE
They'd go though pretty much anything like a chainsaw though butter, and make a comparable mess. There was no army on earth in 200CE that could withstand a late middle ages heavy cavalry charge and once the front broke it would be a rout and a slaughter.
Heavy, high quality chain mail would be the armor of choice on either side but the future men would have horses 200-300 kilos heavier and be using much more advanced shock tactics, focused on opening a breach to exploit with a lance. They'd also have, in general, considerably better armor and better weapons and vastly better saddles.
As to auxiliaries, future men would have better weapons at range, with a choice between some very impressive bows and crossbows or pirmative firearms. Infantry would be the closest to comparable, with spear and pike armed men. The past army might well have a higher proportion of heavy infantry.
>>45775089
>>45775089
>People mistake that heavy cavalry charges were not constantly, absolutely decisive when overlooking that every fortification and army had to be built around the looming threat of a heavy cavalry assault.
Fortifications were a thing even in the Americas, Anon. People built them in Eurasia well before horses had been domesticated too. Proposing that there's a connection between them and horses doesn't check out at all.
>>45771591
>>45772472
>>45772915
>>45774580
Here's the thing, as long as you're talking about steel weapons, there's a limit to how much modern technology can improve on a sword.
Heat treating steel is a tradeoff between hardness (keeping an edge, being able to cut harder materials) and toughness (not chipping, snapping or shattering under impact, pressure and stress in various directions)
What this means is that you're not going to be able to make something that looks like a normal sword but cuts one gorillion times better than a historical one because science, because you're limited by having to balance it between being impossible to break but too soft to be a good cutter, and having the MAXIMUM HARD EDDDGE but shattering like glass if you hit something with it.
What this means is that modern technology will mainly give you the advantage of:
1: Purer materials. With less slag and with better distribution of the elements in your alloy, you have a reduced risk of creating something with weak spots that might result in catastrophic failure (as in breaking)
2: More reliable heat treating. With modern equipment you can very precisely monitor the temperature of the steal during the tempering and the temperature of the quenching medium, which means you'll get exactly the hardness you aimed for, instead of ending up with something slightly softer or slightly harder than you intended.
So. Steel swords made with modern tech will break slightly less often and be right where you want them to be when it comes to the tradeoff between hardness and toughness, but you're not making some kind of steel lightsaber that goes through everything, the physics involved simply makes that impossible.
>>45773390
Historical swords were softer than a kitchen knife simply because if they had been maximum attainable hardness they wouldn't have been able to handle fighting without breaking. So "hardness" is not a good indicator of quality.
>>45775274
>Historical swords were softer than a kitchen knife simply because if they had been maximum attainable hardness they wouldn't have been able to handle fighting without breaking. So "hardness" is not a good indicator of quality.
Kitchen knifes generally are made from stainless though, which is apparently lot more brittle that regular steel.
>>45775310
That's not the main thing, the main thing is that a kitchen knife is made to be maximum sharp without worrying about things like cutting super tough materials or high impacts. It's the same with a whittling knife. My woodcarving tools are made to cut wood, they're super fucking sharp and keep their edge forever because they're hardened to a very high degree of hardness. But if I misused them I could snap the points off or chip the edges very easily.
It's the same with carbon steel.
My point was that both modern day manufacturers and historical craftsmen make a choice between hardness and toughness based on what the item is going to be used for. Something that's cutting soft materials can be made super hard so that it stays sharp longer, something that has to withstand random rough use should be a bit softer, it's better to resharpen it more often than having to get a new one because the last one snapped, and something that has to withstand high impacts generally wants a hard point or edge backed up by a lot of mass or softer material, like an axe or a sword.
>>45775310
>Stainless steel kitchen knives
Stay pleb.
>>45775225
Not that anon, but:
You are right, fortifications are a pretty good idea to keep you and yours safe even without the threat of cavalry looming over you.
However, it does seem popular at the moment both on /tg/ and in the wider pop-history to deride heavy cavalry as ineffective.
This is partly the fallacy of "Heavy Cavalry (knights) are not invincible ergo they are shit". It is true that there are situations where tactics, equipment and terrain can limit the utility of heavy cavalry- decisively so in some cases.
I personally think that the other large part of it is about feeling superior to those daft knights who couldn't even get up if they fell over in armour.
Heavy cavalry was an important role in militaries across the world for thousands of years. Instead of thinking that perhaps this indicates some level of effectiveness that would justify the massive expense of resources and training needed to maintain heavy cavalry units, it becomes a way of scoring points over people dead for hundreds of years.
"As an Enlightened Gentleman I know that a handful of plucky peasants with spears can stop dead a charge!" The thinking goes "people used cavalry in the past, I can think of ways to counter the effectiveness of cavalry- ergo I am smarter than everyone in the past who used cavalry".
The same argument is presented everytime we have an A&A thread and people say "just aim for the face" or "use a mace" as if this is some magic anti-armour panacea. There is probably an element of classism to it as well, showing how a "commoner" with brains can get one over those drooling morons with their armour and their horses. The knight is armour is a comical figure instead of a deadly opponent.
This is a tangent to the discussion about steel quality, but it really grinds my goat.
>>45775441
Joke's on you. I switched to a chinese kitchen knife years ago.
>>45775480
>Chinese
Most kitchen knives are made there anon.
>>45775443
Well, it's changing the subject from anon with the ridiculous hero mindset that an appropriately armed soldier from the future could easily defeat any other soldier and thus "take over the world".
In most cases 5 soldiers from the Bronze Age against one soldier with modern steel would probably still loose to the Bronze Age soldiers just because numbers DO matter in physical combat even more then they do today, to say nothing of considering equipment literally the only determining factor when there's a number of historical generals who have proven that you can loose literally every single battle and yet win an entire war.
>>45774267
>CAS Iberia
>>45774103
Generally, spring steel is considered the best steel for making swords because it's flexible and tough, as was desirable in anything that's gonna see a lot of abuse.
>>45775443
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAibbSOlGZ4
Pretty much how shit played out.
>>45775569
Aaaah Fabian tactics.
The warfare strategy everyone at the time of it's use seems to hate, but historically has a higher success rate then any other type of strategy.
People REALLY want their side to win through climactic battles and "significant victories" I guess, because it's always really unpopular when it's implemented but always really effective when it is.
>>45771591
>Are there any RPGs that go into this kind of nitty gritty detail?
No, thank god. it would make for miserably dull gameplay.
the rest, I'll reply later, as this is close to being bumped off page 10.
>>45771591
Modern steel would be slightly softer due to lack of tempering but more elastic due to the complete absence of slag.
Even the relative softness can be fixed with face hardening. Just keep in mind that the steel of an I-beam is engineered to be structurally strong, not hard.
>>45775660
To be fair Fabian profited from the enemy's avoidable mistakes. If Hannibal had pressed on Fabian might be a minor footnote of our ancient Carthaginian history classes.
>>45775443
>not being able to get up after falling down while wearing armor
People in full plate could get up pretty fucking quick.
>>45775569
Not that guy but 5 guys with bronze swords and armor vs 1 guy with an assault rifle will definitely end with the 5 guys losing. 9 times out of 10.
A knight in plate armor could probably take on two bronze fags at once, maybe 3 if he's skilled enough.
>>45775409
This information goes into my next fantasy game, Anon.
>>45779464
In most cases Hannibal couldn't without a huge tactical disadvantage; Fabius always positioned himself against VERY superior terrain where Hannibal had no room to properly maneuver, always positioning his forces to limit Hannibal's own movements.
If Hannibal had room to maneuver then there's a high likelihood he would've attacked given how he once managed to surround a larger force then a smaller one.
