This is very interesting.
Thank you guys for the links to the historical thingies.
Ive learned a lot

"There is only so many ways we can repeat how these weapons were not at all heavy or ungainly"

http://www.thearma.org/essays/weights.htm

checkmate.

If you can barely life a four to six pound weapon then it's either a fake or you need to start doing some exercise.

The OP gave many links supporting his information.

"I have several battle ready replicas and have never done any exercise with dumbbells or work with heavy equipment in my life to realize swinging more then 5lbs for an extended period of time is exhausting and also don't realize my battle ready replicas are innacurate and made of [censored] alloys."

A friend of mine had a broke down old car so we used golf clubs and a 5lb sledge on it, just to see what we could do. A club weighing well under 1 lb. could tear apart solid metal fenders... the sledge was less effective overall because of the larger surface area and how much it fatigued the users. There is no doubt that if the armor was too thick for a golf club to penetrate that the sledge would cause more blunt force trauma though.

The problem with blocking with a one handed weapon wasn't the weight, it was the force of someone hitting your sword when you try to block. The leverage would be way off. I mean you could even use a shovel, hold it at the end with one hand and just have someone else push on the top. You wont be able to stop it, now imagine someone swinging as hard as they can at you it would kill you with your own sword.

There are light weapons and heavy weapons, that's just the way it is. A longsword isn't too heavy, but it depends on the material and make (and time period). Light weapons are generally around 2-5 pounds, heavy weapons usually 5-10. Remember, heavier means more force; more damage to armor and person--so there were legit uses for such weapons.



But even a "light" weapon will tire you after you swing it around for a while. Just try waving your arm around up in the air WITHOUT holding anything, and you will get tired pretty fast because of gravity. Now do that with a 5 pound bar.




Trust me, I'm an expert. I just did a google search :tongue:

Yes, because fighting with something you barely can hold up makes sense

Yeah im sure the knights of midieval times where stronger then modern men. Logically i dont see why a sword would need to be so heavy, it's not like you're aiming to chop off their legs clean off, or split their skull in half, or whatever ideas some people might have. A sword dont have to be all that heavy to do damage, i think i probably would do more damage by hitting someone with a stick then with a chair (unless i swing it over my head using gravity to gain momentum or like hold it out and spin a few times before i hit them) I mean, if it's too heavy i cant get any velocity with it, on the other hand if too light can't get enough mass behind it. Obviously you hit the ideal weight at some point, and that shouldn't need to be very heavy, atleast from what i think.

Also someone is going to be swinging that sword, people get tired.

And what english swords do they have? Where they made for war and fighting? What time are they from? If i was from england and made a sword, would that be considered a real english sword?
But im definitly no expert on the subject, just looks like those suporting OP have more facts behind them and those who doesn't mention they held a heavy sword etc. I can't even know for sure if they have or is just making up, wether the sword is authentic or not, wether it was intended for combat or for some other means.

And about warhammers, think about how much damage a simple modern claw hammer could do if swung at someone. You don't need to add 10 lbs for it to do damage that would just to me kind of make it akward to swing it around considering you're trying to hit people, not a pole in the ground. It really not made to shatter the plate armor from how i understand it. If you hit someone with plate armor with it, sure to hurt. You wouldnt let me hit you in the head with a normal hammer aslong i hold a metal plate between the hammer and your head. Despite its weight only being 1lb

YOU DO REALIZE that people in the medieval world were not as well fed and well treated as we are now, and obviously all the real swords weren't that heavy because REAL PEOPLE COULDN'T HANDLE THAT WEIGHT or something but I'm sure you realize...

Unlikely.

Your average person of european decent nowadays is liable to be bigger than your average man from the middle ages. Carbohydrates were a staple diet back then, now most people have an abundance of meat and protein in their diet. People are either the same size or bigger than they were in those times.

Bigger generally = stronger.

Seriously, WHO GIVES A ****!!!!!

Knights wheren't exactly avarge persons. Usaly sons of powerfull people and lived in a different enviorment then the avarge of those back then.

On average, you're right. However, the knights were the top 1%, in equipment, training and nutrition. For this reason, they were also generally a head or so bigger than the peasants.

Complete nonsense. Weapons weighed at least twice that. As comparison, I heard that the sword used by Arnold in Conan weighed about 10 pounds. The only weapons that were reasonably light weight were the Japanese swords, and much later the cavalry sabers of modern Europe.

Edit: I found the specs on the sword -- it wasn't quite as heavy as I though, but you get the picture. Medeival weapons were a LOT heavier that the OP claims
Measurements and Specifications:
Weight: 7 pounds, 12 ounces
Overall length: 38 7/8 inches
Blade length: 28 1/8 inches
Grip length: 5.35 inches
Profile taper: 3 inches to 2.1 inches at final curve to point
Distal taper: .24 inch at base; 50% taper to point
Point of Balance: 4.5 inches from guard
Source: http://www.myarmoury.com/review_alb_atlantean.html

No offence, but who cares? This is set in the Elder Scrolls universe, whereas the developers decide how much things whey and stuff. There could even be a differant gravity in Nirn.

I see this pop up quite regularly on RPG forums, and it isn't even a debate. Why do so many people think weapons weigh(ed) so much? Because games are primarily made and played by people who 1) are relatively weak, 2) have never tried to swing around something weighing 5-10lbs+ for any length of time, or 3) both.

I haven't done any fighting with medieval weapons, but I regularly split wood using a woodsplitting maul; weight: 8lbs. I'm stronger and fitter than the average guy, and while I can work with it fairly comfortably for an hour or two, I wouldn't want to fight with it for long, and if you asked me to wield it in one hand I'd laugh at you.

All the sources are there; weapons made for war weren't very heavy at all. Remember, in the real world, the people fighting, and designing weapons for fighting, were being as practical and as effective as they possibly could be. They weren't trying to look good, or impress anyone, or try a different style; they were just trying not to die, and I can bet the vast majority of those men wished they were somewhere else. Fearless, bloodsoaked heroic warriors in history are about as realistic as 30lb weapons.

As for how strong people were back then... I dunno. I'm not a historian of any kind, but I do know that modern people (at least here in the opulent west) are, on average, in absolutely horrible physical condition, and eat crap they call "food." I'm 5'7", and I bet I'm much stronger than the average 6' guy who doesn't train; I'd give the small, malnourished soldier of history the benefit of the doubt over the tall, unconditioned office worker of today, any day.

tl;dr- the OP is correct. If you doubt him, pick up something that weighs 10lb+ and swing it around for 15 minutes. Don't hurt yourselves.

In the most excellent, 1930`s book, "The Crusades: Iron Men and Saints" by Harold Lamb, one of the points that is made is how powerfull and strong these early knights were compared to modern man. They literally were a lot stronger and possessed amazing endurance through the years of training in weapons and wearing heavy armour.
Something that comes across as obvious when your read of the accounts of the knights wearing full battle armour riding into battle in the searing desert heats.

I have a collection of swords, including a 6ft claymore and to be honest they are not particularly heavy. I can wield 2 handed in 1 hand without great difficulty, not as accurately though.
Where the reall challenge comes, is the stamina , how long can you continue to swing at targets..

Well said sir.

M'aiq: M'aiq once held a 100 pound hammer. M'aiq thinks the only good hammer is a heavy hammer.

They are not listening still perhaps they they never will.

I strongly suggest watching the history channel shows on such weaponry as they explain why MOST swords were so heavy.

Most modern day sword fans just have no clue what was behind the design of most of the swords of that age. Its like someone 500 years from now saying everyone drove around in lambos and buggatis.

Wow. I can't believe people, even after being shown sources stating otherwise, keep insisting medieval weapons were heavy. When I saw the thread, I was gonna post "lol, of course they are not heavy, we all know that". But this is just... scary.

Edit: I've seen this discussion in just about every role playing forum. The guys saying swords are light always win due to better sourcing. But go ahead, perhaps we'll see a surprise here.

Also, make sure you got the definition of warhammer right before complaining about the example being too light. War hammers did NOT in the least look like sledge hammers. They looked more like your average hammer, just with a longer pole.

Err... if your only counter-example is a movie prop from Conan the Barbarian, maybe you want to do some more research. The OP was expressing the hope that Bethesda design Skyrim's weapons to a more realistic aesthetic (which would result in significantly lighter weapons than fantasy's many unwieldy examples).

More on-topic for Skyrim: I somewhat agree, but I like a good over-designed fantasy weapon sometimes, too; perhaps reserved for artifacts or magic weapons. And of course, our heroes can be significantly stronger for their size than historical warriors (I mean, look at my avatar; she's probably strong because her mother[?] was an Aedra, or because she has a lot of magicka, or just because her varliance is brighter than weaker, bigger people's[!?]).

Swords are not designed to hack. Depending on the shape of the sword, it's best either for thrusting or slicing. Think of human flesh as a tomato. Have you ever tried to cut a tomato? If you have, you probably know that if you try to press the knife down on the tomato, the skin will just sink down but won't yield. The only way you can defeat a tomato skin is either stab it with the tip of your knife, or use the "slicing" motion. An extreme to thrusting is a rapier, while an extreme to slicing is a japanese katana, both look rather too fragile to hack like an ax. In either way of using a sword, weight does not matter, but rather agility and speed in order to repeat the slicing and thrusting motion precisely and quickly.

Thus comes the "balanced" part of sword quality. The pommel of a sword is used to counter the weight of the blade, and makes repositioning the sword for the next attack an easy task.

To block a blow with a sword, likewise, is not depending on the weight of the sword. When you block with a sword, you aren't really trying to stop the motion of the enemy's weapon. Your goal is to change the direction of the enemy's blow, which if done correctly, requires very little force to accomplish. Think of when an object comes at you in the X direction. Instead of trying to stop it, you give it a force towards the Y direction, thus the object won't hit you while it continues on its motion. It's a subtle and challenging task and only the fighter himself knows how it works, while bystanders like us can't really see what's going on.

I've never fought with a sword, but this rings true, if only because the same principle usually applies in martial arts (you don't want to take the full impact of a punch or kick on any part of the body, but rather divert it in a harmless or less-harmful direction). And this is another reason why the argument against one-handed blocking with weapons vexes me, a bit; you don't just go CLANG! and hope your stance, your arm, and your weapon is much stronger and/or heavier than your opponent's.

Hollywood's got a lot to answer for...

I let out a quiet groan when I saw the screenshots of the swords in Skyrim. Bethesda have gone for the chunky aesthetic again. I ended up using the Blackwater Blade through most of Oblivion because it was one of the few swords that felt plausibly balanced. I don't know why Beth have taken this path - the swords in Morrowind felt like swords.

Medieval swords were carefully balanced by skilled sword smiths, they were NOT heavy and unwieldy. An arming sword was expensive, used by knights. The peasant infantry conscripts used scythes or bills.