[Frank F.]

I have found the full passage on Google Books. What an amazing resource. Here it is:

To give an idea of the temper, sharpness, and weight of the swords of all these men (who had all drugged themselves with "bang," a species of opium, for the encounter), I have only to mention that the barrel of one of the men's muskets was completely cut in two by one stroke. The musket was many years preserved, and shown as a curiosity.

Link:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=_iekGovbUncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

So apparently the men were drugged up. This is very interesting as it shows how much we don't understand about the powers of our own bodies. One thing that many HEMA practitioners agree on is that while practising technique and sparring is integral to helping us understand how people fought historically, one thing that cannot be simulated is the intensity of close combat battles, being in the midst of melee and their changes to one's mentality and physicality. There are many modern day examples of hysterical strength, where women who have never done strength training in their life were able to lift an entire CAR that weighs more than a ton because their loved ones were trapped underneath. I wouldn't be surprised if the desperation of battle was also able to unlock or invoke some of these powers that our bodies have hidden.

[Dan Howard]

The writer was drugged up too.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

As far as cutting pikes go, note that Sancho de Londoño, writing sometime before May 1569 but published later, gave around 2.7cm (1.06in) as pike diameter at the point. 1in of ash is a lot easier to cut through than many of the poles folks test their swords against these days. Skallagrim, for instance, tested a 1.25in hickory pole. The best hickory is significantly harder and tougher than ash or oak; that's one of the reasons why axe handles and such are typically hickory today. Medieval and early modern European armies probably would have used hickory for polearm shafts (but not for pikes) if they'd had it available, but they didn't.

[Ken Speed]

This is one of the silliest discussions that I've seen here in a very long time! If it were easy for the wooden hafts of spears and pikes to be cut through with swords and battle axes in one strike wooden hafted weapons would be exceedingly rare, right up there with rainbow colored unicorns! If one were to take a round piece of ash or oak or hickory and support it at the ends before striking it with a sword or axe it would likely be partially cut and then break but for a human to hold a wooden haft firmly enough for the same thing to happen is about as close to impossible as I can imagine!

One thing that isn't being taken into account is the structure of the wood. Today wood is sawn out of a tree trunk but in the eras under discussion wood was either taken from a small tree and trimmed down or split out of a larger tree and trimmed to shape; either of these will yield considerably stronger hafts than those taken from sawn lumber.

Cutting through a musket or rifle barrel and stock is strictly for bad Hollywood movies and comic books and even the writers of those should be ashamed of themselves!

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Ken, so then how do you explain the mention of cutting pikes as a battlefield tactic by both Raimond de Fourquevaux, in the middle of the 16th century, and by Lord Orrery, about a hundred years later? (Giacomo di Grassi also mentioned cutting pikes, but with a partisan rather than with a single-handed sword.) Note that they were talking about cutting pikes in the context of massed troops in formation. Joseph Swetnam did not recommend cutting your opponents staff as a technique for single combat.

Finally, the existence of langets supports the notions that edged weapons could cut through wooden weapon shafts.

[Dan Howard]

So show us a video of someone doing it,.

Langets increase the durability of the shaft so it is a lot harder to break after extended abuse.

[Ken Speed]

Repeated cuts will eventually cut through a piece of wood, I'm confident that we all know this to be true but a single cut is another story indeed especially if the wood isn't very firmly held in place. Anyone who has had any experience using an axe or a machete will have learned this.

Langets are put on pole arms to protect the shaft from breaking from REPEATED cuts.

Writers exaggerate and some outright lie; just ask Jesse Ventura. The problem with these "alternative facts" is that other writers read them and accept them as gospel. These factual errors eventually became accepted truths because they were never empirically tested.

By sheerest coincidence I happened upon a video by Skallagrim on Youtube testing out this very thing after I wrote my post yesterday and his results using a variety of swords bear out what I said.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Geoff Wood]

Minor observation, based on trimming trees (and trimming trimmings). It is easier to cut thin wood the closer you get to cutting with the grain. Cutting perpendicularly to the grain is hard, getting easier the further you get away from 90 degrees (despite having to cut through a greater amount of wood (as in a greater area of cut surfaces). When the stuff is still attached to the tree, there is less tendency to just knock aside the further you get from perpendicular cuts (rather like the comments already made about how securely the target is held), but it also seems to apply to cutting stuff you're holding (the trimming trimmings, as first noted). Of course, this is with green wood, rather than seasoned, which makes cutting easier (as I seem to remember someone saying is also the case with live bone versus dry bone), so it may not be of much benefit to the discussion. Anyway, for what it's worth ......

Geoff

[Frank F.]

Some further musings on Colonel Bayly's claim of tulwar cutting through barrels.

The Brown Bess musket, which was used during the Anglo-Mysore War (where the tulwar supposedly cut through the musket in one stroke) has a barrel that is made entirely with wrought iron. That means that it could not be hardened by water quenching, contained slag and other impurities, and is weaker than mild steel, as you probably know.

Furthermore, for the person who mentioned Mythbuster's test on a machine gun barrel.
Here's the barrel of the Browning M1919 which they tested:

Courtesy of m1919tech.com
Not to mention that it was made of steel rather than iron. These barrels are designed to withstand up to 600 rpm of fire, and even then they had to be switched often when it gets too hot.

Here's the barrel of a Brown Bess:

Courtesy of the user yulzari on yuku.com
Note however that the Brown Bess has a bigger bore size at roughly 0.75 inch to the Browning's 0.30 inch.

As you can see, the difference in thickness is quite substantial. I am still inclined to believe that someone, sometime was able to cut through a musket with a sword. Obviously it would've been neither common nor easy, and would require an extraordinary combination of circumstances, such as poor construction, impurities in the barrel, great strength, and/or perfectly placed cut.

[Dan Howard]

[Dan Howard]

[Ken Speed]

Ben,

Dan Howard and I are both telling or trying to tell you the same thing which doesn't necessarily mean that we're automatically correct but consider this; we share the same conviction and yet we come at it from entirely different fields of expertise. I don't know Dan well enough to try to write a resume for him but I do know he's a respected authority on arms and armor. I, on the other hand, come at this question from an adult lifetime as a furniture and cabinetmaker and a youth spent learning 19th century farming and life supporting techniques from my grandparents such as harvesting firewood without the aid of a chainsaw. I don't mean to belittle you but I'm as sure as I can be that we both know what we're talking about. Rather than continue to argue against what we're trying to tell you I suggest you get yourself a sharp implement of some kind, an axe, or sword, or machete and try cutting various types of wood supported in different ways. I can almost guarantee that you'll see the truth of what we're telling you in an hour or less.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

I don't have access to pike-length ash poles or even a sword at the moment. I'm also not in as good shape nor as good at cutting as an experienced 16th/17th-century soldier.

Instead of telling me to listen to y'all's expertise, y'all should attend to the primary sources I've provided from military manuals. I'm not arguing this because I particularly enjoy the aesthetics of swords cutting pikes, but rather because I value primary sources for understanding historical warfare.

Why would Lord Orrery lie about taking a fort by storm by [presumably cavalry) hacking the heads off of pikes with swords? There's no incentive, nothing to gain.

Finally, while I acknowledge Dan's expertise, I likewise know Dan has taken a variety of questionable positions in favor of armor, and on other subjects, over the years. Dan's (in)famous for these strident pro-armor positions. We've been debating various points on these forums and others for years.

As yet another primary source, here's a passage from Donald Lupton's 17th century A Warre-like Treatise of the Pike:

[Timo Nieminen]

It's in the same class as shooting arrows through armour. The important question isn't whether it's possible or not, but whether it's possible to do it reliably, on demand.

Yes, there are accounts of arrows going through armour. There are also many accounts of arrows being stopped by armour, and this appears to have been the normal outcome. If arrows went through too easily, the armour would have been improved or discarded. Why not make the armour completely arrow-proof? Weight matters. There will be an optimum thickness of armour, a compromise between protection and weight. This optimum/compromise should be expected to let exceptional/occasional arrows through.

Same thing for pike hafts. You could make them thick enough to be practically uncuttable in battle. I've seen a Chinese spear like that, much shorter than a pike, and it would have been an unwieldable monster at pike-length. Too thin, and the weapon is useless. So there will be an optimum thickness, a compromise between resistant to cutting off and weight. This optimum/compromise should be expected to result in some exceptional/occasional head-cutting-off, but to stop most attempts to do so.

[Dan Howard]

[Autumn Eule-Nashoba]

I don't know much but how much cutting could be attributed to flaws, knots and the like, in the shafts? My personal experience with wooden structure failures have always been joints or flaws, and 18 feet in long stretch to get flawless.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Ken Speed]

Ben:

You have every right to believe in rainbow colored unicorns if you want to but if you want me to believe in them you're going to have to provide me with a living breathing example of one.

You say you don't have a cutting weapon and you're not in great shape. OK, how about this; offer $100.00 American to anybody who can actually cut through the wide dimension of a standard 2" x 4" 48" long and supported at both ends with one clean strike. They can use any kind of sword they want.a That should be considerably easier than cutting through the barrel and stock of a musket . It has to be a clean single cut and not a break and have them film the actual strike. Does that seem fair?

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

If you're going to test claims in historical texts, it's best to be as precise as possible. For example, as Dan will tell you, shooting an arrow at mass-produced contemporary riveted mail doesn't necessarily tell us anything about period mail. If you want to test the musket-cleaving claim, then use a replica musket.

It's also important to factor in physical conditioning, training, experience, etc. The fact that I can't draw a 150lb bow doesn't refute the evidence that this was a common military draw weight in 16th-century England.