Magadha Swords Unrealistic ?

**Lucarius** · July 15, 2010, 10:47 AM

Hey there ROP Guys,
i have a question about the swords of the Magadha units.
- Royal Gaurds
- Archers
- Horseman
etc. etc.

i switched to melee mode and there swords looked really big !
is this realistic ? i dunno.
if you guys don't know where i'm talking about then i will upload a screenshot.

Thanks,
~Lucarius

**Lucarius** · July 21, 2010, 09:12 AM

please awnser me

when i'm back from vacation i will post a screenshot.

**rez** · July 21, 2010, 11:01 AM

Sorry, I forgot about this topic.

I can assure you the size of the swords is in fact realistic. FliegerAD was in charge of the Indian research but the quality of Indian mettallurgy was quite famous.

**Lucarius** · July 25, 2010, 07:40 AM

Thank you so much

!
this is something i was looking for.
i still have to learn alot about ancient "eastern" history,

**Spartan198** · July 25, 2010, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by Lucarius

i still have to learn alot about ancient "eastern" history,

I'd start with an Indian campaign in ROP...

**FliegerAD** · July 25, 2010, 03:13 PM

I may add that people often grossly overestimate the weight of swords. In this year's International Medieval Congress in Leeds was a paper about the recreation of medieval sword fighting techniques. The speaker made clear that the main problem is finding accurately weighted swords, since even the best replica are way to heavy. Good swords are extremely light.
Keeping this in mind, the Indian swords don't seem impossible, although still unwieldy compared to European or Middle Eastern long swords. However as the Indian sword was neither used in tight formations like the Spatha nor a dedicated cavalry sword required to be perfectly balanced and light, but a sword for single combat the raw power of the increased weight may found more use than balance. But that is just an idea of mine...
Anyway, our historical information clearly says big, broad swords (Nearchos via Strabo if I call that correctly) and we have ancient Indian depiction of them (Sanchi e.g.). So we have not made that huge sword up, even though for the sake of skepticism we could have made them smaller. But I was not skeptic enough after considering all evidence.