[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

In one of my recent discussions with Carlos Cordeiro we were comparing the performance of type XVa and XVIIIb longswords (a quick tip: the former type is Black Prince's, the later the Munich's), but I was surprised with his claim that your typical type XVa longsword thrusts better than any XVIIIb could ever hope for, while XVIIIb were notably better cutters than any type XVa.

His argument is that cut performance is takes the center of percussion as reference: while XVa starts wider at the crossguard, by the CoP she's always slimmer than the XVIIIb, which doesnt tapper to much whatsoever, either distal or profile-wise. And since it doesn't taper much, the point is more acute in XVa than in XVIIIb, so the XVa is the better thruster;

An example he made: "one XVa can have 8mm of thickness and 50mm of width at base, and have 6mm of thickness and 15mm of width near the point. The XVIIIb can have the same 8mm of thickness and 50mm of width near the base, but it's going to have the double of width and half of the thickness near the point. It's an issue of mass distribution. Type XVIIIb are duck swords, can be decent at cutting and thrusting, but never as good as specific cutting and thrusting longswords;

What's your thoughts?

[Blaz Berlec]

Since the criteria for assigning a sword to a specific Oakeshott type isn't really that exact, this isn't so simple. For instance Peter Johnsson and Albion classify National Museum of Slovenia sword N4516, and it's replica Albion Ljubljana as Oakeshott Type XVIIIb. I guess the main criteria for assigning it to this type is a slight widening of the blade near the tip, and the curve towards the tip. I think this is a bit more prominent on the replica, Albion Ljubljana as it is on the original, but this might be Peter Johnsson's reconstruction of original shape of the blade due to the angles in cross section and evidence of reshaping in it's working life, probably due to damage.

But National Museum of Slovenia sword N4516 and it's replica Albion Ljubljana are much more typical thrust oriented sword than typical Type XVIIIb - it has a very strong profile taper, while the blade thickness remains very high, so the cross section at the Centre of Percussion, although it is quite back, isn't very cut optimized.

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

[Blaz Berlec]

Well, the National Museum of Slovenia sword N4516 doesn't fit any of the Oakeshott typologies neatly, and that's why it could be placed in many of them - with notes on how it differs from the type standard.

It might look on some photos like Albion Ljubljana is different than Slovenia sword N4516, but it's mainly just due to different lighting, corrosion and patina on the original that sometimes masks the shape or makes it look different than it is. The " fillet/ridge/spine in the center much like the ones seen in estocs/panzerstechers" is the ridge on the wider part of the blade between the two shallow fullers. The general cross section shape is that of a diamond throughout.