Lancelot Supreme-Cutter™ Compact Edition

 Further pressure testing the Musashi grip powering technique. This time I used the lightest Supreme Cutter, the Compact version, to cut through multiple layers of fabric covered thigh target!!! 

Supreme Cutter Compact

German Battle Sword

Supreme Cutting Classic 

Why cutting is so important?

According to medieval German longsword swordsmanship, there were three sword strikes: cut, thrust, and slice. When a cut missed, it could become a thrust. When a thrust missed, it could become a slice.   However, if we consider “stopping power”, both slicing and thrusting would not stop a frenzied opponent right away. There are many historical records depicting duels that ended with mutual kills, with both parties inflicting the opponent with plenty thrusting wounds and together bled to death.   

George Silver, the 16th century British sword master, criticized Italian rapier swordsmanship for causing the death of many brave young Englishmen in duels. It was partly because thrusting wounds, while they would eventually kill, were unable to stop the opponent right away and protect oneself.  

The slicing attack was also not enough to stop a drugged opponent. There is video footage of villagers defending their home against gangsters, while the latter wielded glaives. The villagers were wounded several times in the fight. Hamstring and thumb were cut, but the brave villagers fought on. Also, there is footage of a modern European swordsmanship group which practiced with sharp sword sparring, and one of the participants was cut at the elbow, forming a gaping bleeding wound, yet the fencer did not even acknowledge the hit. It was his partner who pointed it out so they could stop the practice and tend the bleeding wound.   

As a result, the only reliable way to stop the opponent in their tracks, was a physical removal of the opponent’s appendage. This works on drugged, frenzied, zealous, or even undead opponents like zombies. Moreover, it was also the only way that one can threaten multiple opponents, cutting through the first target and still capable of threatening the next one.   

So, it was very important to have a design that can facilitate supreme cutting power that would not have the blade getting stuck in the target and let the user become defenseless.   

From my 23 years of test cutting, I have used swords from various cultures and taken notes on all the factors that would contribute to good cutting power. Yet, it was only recently, with the use of high FPS camera, that allowed me to pinpoint the problem of blades losing penetrating power during a cut, and later develop two solutions to mitigate it. One will produce a more agile and powerful sword, at the cost of requiring the users to have extremely high skill level. The other is more user-friendly that allows higher user error tolerance, but would perform less spectacular. I chose the former one to realize in this design.   

In the end, “Supreme Cutter” is designed as the answer to maximize cutting power and minimize the probability of the blade getting stuck in the targets.