Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia
Mon 01 Nov, 2010 8:52 am
I've crawled through tunnels many times with a pretty big rifle (a FAL), and guess where I put it? Down the front of my body, with one end (preferably the muzzle) cradled in my arms. Slung on my back, the rifle is likely to snag against the walls of the tunnel and impede my forward progress, but when it's in front of me I can control where it goes with very little additional effort. I suspect the same principles would apply to carrying a sword while crawling through a tight space.
Torches and digging tools? Red herrings. If you have to hold a torch or dig your way ahead while crawling, you wouldn't be carrying a sword in the first place. Most probably you'd rely on your dagger, and you sure as hell aren't going to carry
that with the hilt sticking up past your shoulder.
As for climbing, I've never done that with a sword on me, but if I ever do so I'd probably want to hang the sword down my front rather than my back, too. It's the controllability issue all over again. And, now that I think of it, I
have done wall-climbing once with an unloaded carbine slung across my chest just for the fun of it. It got in the way a bit, but I suspect a weapon slung on the back would have been even more bothersome since it'd have more freedom to swing around and mess up your control over your
center of gravity.
BTW, when it comes to historical examples to swords being carried on the back, we
do have a very recent example: the sword-bayonets of some WW1 and WW2 American soldiers. I've seen some of these soldiers carry their bayonets along the left or right side of their knapsack (not across the face of the knapsack, of course!) so that the hilt sticks vertically up behind one shoulder. This makes sense for them since 1) the bayonet is short, 2) they have the knapsack to help them pull it off, and 3) a draw from this position puts the bayonet in a perfect position for fixing onto the muzzle of a gun. But that's pretty much the
only example I know of a sword-like weapon being mounted on the back with the intent of being drawn over the shoulder, and doesn't validate the use of a back-mounted scabbard in other contexts!