Talk:Flame-bladed sword

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Military history: Technology / Weaponry / Early Modern

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Pronunciation[edit]

Someone please add pronunciation guide. How do you say it? "Flam-BURJ", rhyming with English "verge"? Or "flam-BEHRZH" as in French? (I don't know if my pseudo-phonetics are even understandable...) Someone please help. SpectrumDT 22:28, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it is pronouced "FLAM-BURJ"

In French and API (I'm not used to this americain phonetics system), it is [flɑ̃bɛʁʒ]
David Latapie (✒ | @) 11:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

C$ 15:04, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect[edit]

The article itself states that the more proper term for a wave-bladed longsword is flammard or flambard. I have read in several places that flamberge were historically rapiers (Image)(by whatever definition) only. Perhaps a redirect to 'Flame-Bladed' or 'Wave-Bladed' Sword is in order to encompass all three terms? -- Xiliquiern 17:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me. Since you (or someone else? I'm too lazy too check) are working on it, I do not modify it but I propose you clarify the fact that flambard is a blade, not a weapon (like the colichemarde or the curved blades) and that it is only by a synecdoche that we use one term for the other.
David Latapie (✒ | @) 01:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I plan on doing just that. Each name will receive individual attention and be addressed as an individual topic. Time right now, however, is tight, so it may be a week or so before I get some proper cited edits up. -xiliquiern^talk 01:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Undulating blade[edit]

"Contrary to popular belief, the undulating blades on these weapons do not impart a significantly greater or lesser ability to cut, slice..."
What makes you think so? Knives and swords cut and cleave by applying a given force onto a small area (the cutting edge). Curved blades like for example a scimitar or a katana are well-known to inflict much deeper wounds. The main reason for this is that the curvature concentrates the applied force yet onto a much smaller area, as only a small portion of the blade has contact to the tissue. The same holds true for a Flambard sword or a modern bread knife. The reason why good bread knives are undulated is that you need significantly less force to penetrate the crust, so the crumb will be cut, not squeezed.

Apart from that, an undulated blade has another "positive" property. If the cut is not made properly in a straight move, it will often have an irregular border with multiple side incisions. This type of wound has a much greater risk of infection, takes longer to heal, and leaves a much larger scar. Long-term incapacitation or even death due to infection following a lesser wound was no rarity in the middle ages, Henry V and Andrew de Moray being two well-known examples. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.35.152.21 (talk) 13:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I'm going to edit this there is no basis for stating that the cutting edge does not enhance slicing, it very likely does. If there is evidence of this it should be cited in a reference. Drifter bob (talk) 19:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to propose that the curves of the blade are used to give the sword wielder greater control over his opponents weapon while that weapon is in contact with the sword. By twisting the blade back and forth, the blade can move a shaft up or down in a motion similar to an Archimedes screw. The book "Swords: an artist's devotion" by Ben Boos (ISBN:9780763631482) states this as a principle use and the book cites other books (which I have not read) in its biliography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.119.217.14 (talk) 00:22, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When I visited the Freemason's Hall in London, they have a flame-blade sword there and the staff told our tour that the flame-bladed sword was supposed to be better at penetrating chainmail, but overall was not an effective sword hence its not common. IceDragon64 (talk) 22:32, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fluke?[edit]

Fluke, used to describe an element of a sword in this article is not a usage listed on the disambiguation page linked to.(Drn8 (talk) 23:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC))[reply]

German spelling: flamenschwert or flammenschwert?[edit]

The German word for flame is flamme, so the spelling should remain constant, right?

German-English dictionary

In tightly packed formations, there is a lack of space to swing a sword. By having ridges on the blade, one could simply press the blade against a foe and slide the blade.[edit]

" In tightly packed formations, there is a lack of space to swing a sword. By having ridges on the blade, one could simply press the blade against a foe and slide the blade. "

in addition to having no citation after it, this is just plain dumb. A normal sword can draw cut just as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.194.198.194 (talk) 10:07, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There might be a useful meaning to this. One of the purposes of curves, such as in leaf-blades, is to improve slashing, so maybe a series of small curves might at least have been INTENDED to draw cut better, even if they didn't.

IceDragon64 (talk) 22:37, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Article insufficiently intelligible[edit]

Contextualization, historical depth and broadening background, lacking. Flame-bladed daggers and flamberge two-handed broadswords are both equally allowable as representative of the concept if the essential core meaning of the notion is merely curvature of the blade. WHAT IN FACT IS THE PRE-MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF THE MATTER? WOULD THE PRE-MODERN EUROPEAN ARMS SPECIALIST ACCEPT WAVE/CURVY-BLADED DAGGERS/SHORTSWORDS AS RELATED TO THEIR OWN UNDERSTANDING OF "FLAMBERGE"?

Indeed, the Asian "Kryss" dagger-type weapon is referenced at the end, only to make one wonder what is actually coherent and sensible to take from the article. What are we talking about here? The vague, disorganized associational chains of loosely connected categories and notions is not scholarly, educative, but schizo-mimetic, senescence of cognition.

Worse: Childish confusion between demotic, dream-like objects like mythological "flaming swords" as found in pop-mythologies and exoteric religions even globally and the concrete subject of discussion of the article, rendering further unintelligibility. Failure to properly highlight and separate conceptual and intellectual schemata. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:4CD0:1420:FCFD:A234:4D18:1B07 (talk) 08:21, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Freemason Flame-bladed swords[edit]

Despite lots of references to Masonic Freemason's flame-bladed swords I found it hard to get concrete sources to use as reference. If you doubt it, please join me in finding them- you probably aren't supposed to photo them! Trust me, I've seen the one in the London museum. IceDragon64 (talk) 23:08, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]