Thrust vs Slash

[Juno]

Hello fellow saber users!

I'm working towards a new design of blade for swinging around but I need to an abstract idea of how it's going to withstand forces and tolerances, so I need to know what most combat style. I'm currently assuming that most dual worthy sabers are with slash strikes rather than forward lunges (Striking opponent with the tip of the blade)

But I'm trying to figure out any instance where one would do that in saber combat.

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

Most of the time, it's typically slashing, though both can and have happened.

[Cire Yeldarb]

As FJK stated, mostly slashes; but thrusts do happen (usually parried by a slash if not dodged)

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

From the perspective of the movies slashes would make more sense for a real lightsaber for 2 reasons:

1; a lightsaber being, unlike a real sword, a self-renewing [thus unbreakable] omnidirectional edge of infinite sharpness, it can instantaneously frictionlessly bisect most materials in the SW galaxy making meter long lightsaber slices cut out of any organism that isn't extremely large almost totally lethal.

2; a lightsaber instantly cauterizes most wounds making thrusts to areas other than the CNC less lethal than a conventional blade due to lack of the blood pressure loss and exsanguination mechanisms that makes thrusts effective with real swords.

An ideal penetrative wound [as in a bullet or a real blade thrusting] entering between ribs through lung that perforates both an atrial and ventricular cardiac chamber and continues on to also produce a dorsal exit wound thereby causing maximum speed internal bleeding pressure loss into both a lung and thoracic cavity as well as maximum speed external exsanguination through both an entry and exit wounds can still allow volitional movement for ~14 seconds; it has killing power but little stopping power [which is why ballistic engineers seeking increased stopping power add bullet expansion or fragmentation to increase or add trauma to surrounding tissue that simple penetration doesn't].

With a lightsaber that cauterizes the entire wound path of a thrust thus preventing any blood pressure loss internally or externally and no exsanguination from entry or exit wounds the time to loss of volitional action capability would likely be even worse...unless it was a direct thrust to the brain.

Compare a typical blade thrust to a lightsaber slash that could dismember or decapitate anything smaller than King Kong in a fraction of a section. Heck you could kill a charging T-Rex in one second SLASHING with a lightsaber [though without Jedi/Sith telekinesis to arrest its momentum its onrushing headless corpse might still crush you if you didn't dodge out of its path lol]

In the 'real world' I agree with Richard Francis Burton's observation [and extensive real combative experience of History's last great swordsman before advent of effective and reliable repeating firearms] in Book Of The Sword that "giving point" [with REAL blades] is tactically superior to slashing...but IF lightsabers actually existed the ability to INSTANTLY decapitate, dismember or even slice almost any opponent IN HALF would easily win over thrusting in almost any conceivable scenario, especially when cauterization eliminates bleeding out as a trauma mechanism.

That's why lightsaber slashes not thrusts are the norm in the movies; they reflect a realistic difference between the nature of an energy blade and a matter blade and the consequent difference in logical tactical application thereof: thrusts waste a lightsaber's combat potential - slashes optimize it.

So if we are building prop replicas and custom sabers to represent a hypothetical model of a theoretical energy blade weapon and wish to use it appropriately to its would-be nature rather than like a real matter blade sword that it wouldnt be then we would likely use slashes instead of thrusts in our 'saber dueling' simulations as well eh? Of course if one wants to thrust fine; it may seem more 'real world realistic' and would be with real blades...but wouldn't be with the kind of energy blade weapons our sabers are supposed to represent, if only they were real. So I stick with slashing.

The exception might be if one was cosplaying Count Dooku or another character using his preferred lightsaber combat Form III: Makashi which is more linear with a lot of thrusting or Darth Sidious whose personal style used a lot of thrusting as well.

As for safety/reliability of thrusting with our prop saber blades the now hobby-standard shoulder on the tip of blades bought from TCSS or reputable sabersmiths should largely prevent the blade tip from breaking if thrust into a soft target like an unarmoured dueling partner [they might not consider it so friendly to use bullet tips if you plan to duel that way though lol so I'd stick to the round tips for that kind of use] but if you repeatedly thrust our type of prop blade into hard materials it might crack the polycarbonate near the junction point and the tip fly off...shouldered tips are much less likely to do so than the unshouldered ones we had in the early days but polycarbonate while very strong is not indestructible. Personally I'd probably use a thickwall blade if I intended to thrust a lot to reduce that risk even more but that's just my opinion...YMMV.

[Tom Starkiller]

"Real" lightsaber combat, assuming that it's a one on one duel would probably be more like epee, maybe with a little kendo. I see where you're coming from, but since lightsabers can easily cut through just about anything without much effort, slashing away would be a waste of energy. Something tighter with more finesse would be far more efficient, and since there's no cutting "edge" you could still slice through limbs. Against multiple opponents, you're probably looking at something more along the lines of Kendo. More cutting than thrusting, but still tight and efficient.

Also, Makashi is form II, not III. ;)

Slashing is definitely more fun when playing, though. :)

[FenixFire]

He's interested in knowing how people spar with their LED sabers. He is working on a possible innovation but need to understand how they are really used.

Juno, there are several Saber Combat youtube channels and websites. I'm not going to list them because several also are linked to other stores.

[Juno]

Thanks, the general response and the searched footage shows that most blows are done with the sides (barrel) of the blade rather than the tip.

New question, because I'm somewhat lazy and do not want to make another thread: Since I'm designing a new blade, where would I put the sketches for commentary? (I've given up on the whole protecting bit) There's one for hilt design, but since this is a new type of blade would it really go there?

[Cire Yeldarb]

Thanks, the general response and the searched footage shows that most blows are done with the sides (barrel) of the blade rather than the tip.

New question, because I'm somewhat lazy and do not want to make another thread: Since I'm designing a new blade, where would I put the sketches for commentary? (I've given up on the whole protecting bit) There's one for hilt design, but since this is a new type of blade would it really go there?

If you're still planning to do EL tape on the inside, you could post it under "EL blade discussion" or just "Misc Topics" I would say

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

Put it in Misc Topics.