Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Could the Buster Sword be used in combat?
VSauce thinks so
...I figured it would be better to give this it's own thread as huge unweildly swords
Comments
inb4 Alex.
because someone was going to say it, so it might as well be me.
dis gun be good
^^ Why do you think I gave it it's own thread instead of posting in IJBMer Updates?
I think it's plausible enough for Cloud to be able to swing the sword around. I mean, outside of the weight and length of the sword, Cloud is explicitly superhuman, and he has the strength and speed to be able to wield such a massive sword with ease.
Whether it makes sense for him to actually want to wield such a weapon is another question. It's circumvented entirely if you know much of the extended reasoning of the series (with Cloud getting the sword from Zack, who was a SOLDIER 1st Class and had mako enhancements, and him using it because he crafted his persona from Zack's character).
So I guess I look at it from two perspectives; could Cloud wield it, and does it make sense for Cloud to want to wield the sword?
The answer is yes in both cases, so okay then. Case closed as far as I'm concerned.
Of course, then the question shifts to whether Zack should've been using such a sword. Being superhuman certainly makes it more viable than it would be otherwise, but in which circumstance would it make sense to pick such a sword over a regularly sized/shaped one.
Zack was given the sword by Angeal in turn. :P
Angeal's father made him the sword when he entered SOLDIER. He does have a normal SOLDIER sword too, which he uses most of the time, only using the Buster Sword on special occasions as he believes that it represents his honour, and therefore damaging it through use would represent damaging his own honour or somethin'.
SOLDIER is not an acronym.
Cloud does not ever actually use much flexibility with it. He mostly uses it like... you would expect anyone to use a giant hunk of metal; he bashes things with it until they die. In fact, that's the purpose of the blunt side of the Buster Sword; Zack uses it quite often.
But in a real swordfight with someone with a normal sized sword, they'd probably just kick sand in your eyes, tackle you, and gutsfuck you with a knife before you could even think about straining to bring that gigantic thing up for any meaningful defense.
With Zack and Cloud, though? Yeah, it's a practical weapon, no doubt.
Yeah, you definitely need Cloud/Zack/Angeal's enhancements before that weapon becomes anything even approaching practical.
Ugh, the video references John Clements. Now I'm just in a bad mood.
Eye lasers bad mood or throwing your spear into the battlefield and having it split into a thousand different spears and impaling everybody and growing spikes inside their bodies bad mood?
Throwing my spear into the battlefield and having it split into a thousand different spears and impaling everybody and growing spikes inside their bodies bad mood, but all the spears are irradiated and it is raining the fetid tears of a dead god.
Yeah I gotta go with consensus here that it actually works for Zack and Cloud explicitly because they're magic doombots, but for anyone else it's stupid just because a fucking 20-pound sword would be too unwieldy for any sort of quick combat. But I get the feeling JRPG writers don't usually think that far ahead when making unreasonably huge swords.
Then again, western ones aren't much better.
For someone strong enough to wield it, yes.
I mean, it isn't a very good weapon even then (after all, if you're strong enough to wield an impractical weapon, surely you'd be even better at wielding a practical weapon), but someone who can use it can use it.
Aren't blades that big why polearms exist?
On a related note, apparently you can use a zanbato in Scribblenauts.
It's not the length of the Buster Sword that's the issue so much as the overall mass. The weapon we colloquially refer to as the "zweihander" could be as light as 2kg, which is about the same weight as a heavy longsword, and even those weapons never exceeded 3.5kg, except for those constructed for ceremonial purposes.
Polearms are excellent weapons because they're essentially commentary on the staff, which is the most versatile and adaptable weapon ever. They're also economically powerful, being highly effective when compared to the cost of actually making them. They also require less expertise to make than something like a sword, since you can affix simpler axe blades and thrusting spikes to the end of a wooden pole. So polearms can be produced at high speed, low cost, and have excellent general combat application. Weapons like the poleaxe and naginata are probably some of the most genius of human history.
In terms of historical European combat, polearms were generally used as formation weapons or anti-armour weapons, depending on which one you're talking about. The halberd is an excellent example of a strong balance between both elements; no axe blade is going to be particularly powerful against solid plate, but axes are effective against mail, and the halberd also has a thrusting blade and a hook for grappling actions in combat. It's also very long for a general-use polearm, allowing it to strike with initiative against both heavy and light infantry, and even being moderately effective against cavalry.
Long polearms are more difficult to control, though, and have the significant disadvantage of operating poorly in close confines and therefore during grapples and other forms of true hand-to-hand combat. Enter the late medieval longsword, which was popular and effective because of its versatility. It could be used like a sword or a polearm, with great effectiveness when both thrusting and cutting, but it was also short, well-balanced and light enough to make it an effective weapon during grapples. This meant that, unlike something like a halberd, you didn't have to drop the weapon to successfully grapple and throw an adversary. Grappling in general was the primary form of battlefield hand-to-hand combat in the Middle Ages (and is today, for that matter), so having a weapon that supports grappling actions was important. This is also a reason daggers were relevant battlefield weapons; their short length and lightness meant that they were no obstacle for their wielder in the case of a grappling action.
The downfall of something like the Buster Sword, even the in the hands of a superhuman, is that it's too bulky to support a grapple or even a decent cut at closer ranges. Its lack of a crossguard or proper pommel also prevents it from having additional functions such as trapping potential or use as a mass weapon. The only thing it would be particularly good at is cuts at the extension of its range, but even then, there are plenty of lighter weapons that would do that better at less cost to the wielder. At no surprise to anyone, the Buster Sword is essentially an indulgent showpiece.
Magic 8-Ball, can the Buster Sword actually be used in combat?
More like, that sort of realism just isn't a concern, since JRPGs are generally aiming more for "shounen battle manga" than "realistic fantasy."
The other essential question is whether the Buster Sword is, in fact, a sword or not. It might just be sword-shaped.
Here's the basic shape of a late medieval longsword:
There's a few key points on any sword that allow us to determine whether the object actually functions as a sword or not, so I've used my fabulous MS Paint skills to point them out on the image, as shown below:
Point A and Point B are what I'll refer to as "points of balance". Point C is the point of the sword itself, and is relevant here mostly in terms of comparativeness and overall synchronicity of the weapon. Point A is the pommel of the weapon, and provides balance at its lowest point, much like a counterweight. Point B is roughly where the balance of the sword's blade is located, although this can vary quite a bit depending on the make of a particular sword. You might notice that your hand, or both of your hands in this case, rest between these two points on the grip. This is important, because it means your hands are manipulating the energy of a moving object between two points of balance.
You see that when you make a cut, the energy is circular -- basically, all your labour is working between those two points and feeding back into itself, meaning that a sword, by design, conserves the energy of its wielder by using existing energy to power itself after the first cut rather than demanding an entirely new input. This has another result.
The mass between Point B and Point C is moving as a result of the labour and circulating energy imposed on the mass between Point A and Point B. That means that the labour cost for moving the mass between Point B and Point C is significantly reduced, providing a "free-floating" effect for the weight of that steel. This means that once a sword is in motion, it has a very low labour cost when it comes to keeping it in motion, allowing it to be used to make a flurry of fast attacks that other weapons may not support. This is what gives the weapon its reputation as the "speedster" of the medieval arsenal, and what they don't tend to explain to you in documentaries or videos like the one at the beginning of the thread.
But until we can get detailed information on the weight distribution of the Buster Sword's components, I guess we can't tell whether it's actually a sword or not.
The Buster Sword's weight distribution seems pretty clear -- it's a massive metal slab, attached to a little handle with no apparent counterweight.
Depending on the shot, it also looks about as sharp as a burrito.
In fairness, something that massive doesn't need to be that sharp to cause severe injury.
Granted, given the sharpness is generally used to allow an object that lacks pure mass to inflict wounds of a much heavier object.
More like Buster Slab.
Make that Burrito Slab.
GMH, it's "OUTLOOK cloudy"
But does Cloud use Outlook, or Thunderbird?
And now I'm hungry.