Pretty sure that has more to do with the effectiveness of shields than the effectiveness of bronze vs. steel, Silverlion. Shields good.

From what I know of history, Iron is generally superior to Bronze, and that the early dominance of the Assyrians was due to their skill in working Iron. Bronze is actually a range of materials due to being an alloy, and as such its properties can vary greatly.

In general though later period Bronzes with sufficient metallurgical knowledge would be comparable to Iron, but not to Steel. Steel is likewise an alloy, and thus rare kinds such as 'Damascus' due to trace metals can be much harder and stronger.

In terms of gaming, I would probably use a sliding metric of some kind based on the generally available technology. That is to say, bronze would function per the PHB in the bronze age, but would have a penalty compared to iron, and likewise a bonus against stone, bone or obsidian.

Quote from: Imp;557746Pretty sure that has more to do with the effectiveness of shields than the effectiveness of bronze vs. steel, Silverlion. Shields good.

Possibly true--but a viking shield or a knight one wouldn't hold up to that blow...

Of course they were dealing with vastly different weapons too..so they didn't' need it.

Nothing to add beyond this thread is literally a history lesson for me. Please do continue.

Quote from: Thalaba;557668Meteoric iron (from fallen meteors) was known since very early days and was used as a decorative metal or for light tools. But it didn't have enough carbon in it to give it strength, so it was brittle.

?? Pure iron is soft and bendy! It's the carbon that makes it hard and brittle.

'Steel' is used to refer to iron-with-carbon alloys today, but early 'iron' smelting resulted in excessive amounts of carbon, unevenly distributed, making it brittle. The trick was to forge steel with the right amount of carbon to make the steel hard but flexible. Not an easy trick. Also for a weapon you want a hard edge for cutting, but a soft core for toughness so it doesn't shatter on impact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel

Quote from: S'mon;557803?? Pure iron is soft and bendy! It's the carbon that makes it hard and brittle.

Woops! That's what you get for not fact-checking your memory before posting!

See this page for details about bronze sword making and how well made bronze swords fare against iron swords from the same period.  

My suggestion would be to not differentiate between bronze and iron but to differentiate between steel and non-steel.

Quote from: John Morrow;557848See this page for details about bronze sword making and how well made bronze swords fare against iron swords from the same period.  

My suggestion would be to not differentiate between bronze and iron but to differentiate between steel and non-steel.

Yes i think that sounds right.

Great link!

Pete

What is it about bronze and early ironwork that skews production towards short blades? Was it because of some intrinsic property (or lack thereof) of the material, or did it have to do with tactics and weapon choice?

Alternatively, was anyone crafting long (75cm+) blades before the Roman spatha? And what was their metallurgy like?

Well, bronze was bendy, so longer thinner blades were impractical. Early iron work was using casting methods more suited to bronze, and a long iron blade would break.

Still, the common bronze age swords were necessarily all that terribly short.  No great hewing zwiehanders that I'm aware of, but you wouldn't call them really long knives unless you were talking from some agenda.

The Roman use of shorter blades was purely strategic, though we are talking Iron age, not bronze here. The Celts uses long swords (in fact, they buried their warriors with their swords bent to prevent looting, which the Romans considered a sign of inferior craftsmanship, rather than the mark of respect it was).  With short stabby blades, you could back a formation shoulder to shoulder. The Celts and Gauls and various germanic tribes would swing great honking blades, requiring some five feet of clearance between warriors, allowing the Romans to gang up on each warrior, some three or four to one.

Bronze age swords had something like a two foot average length, maybe evne 30 inches, quite respectably swordy, though don't quote me on that.

Quote from: The Butcher;557901What is it about bronze and early ironwork that skews production towards short blades? Was it because of some intrinsic property (or lack thereof) of the material, or did it have to do with tactics and weapon choice?

Casting skill/technology, at least for bronze. Earlier thrusting swords had the hilt riveted on so that the blade could have maximum length. Sickle swords, which were used for slashing like an axe, had an integrated hilt and so were done all in one cast. I've seen a few Egyptian models in museums and all are about 60cm/24" in length, including the hilt.

This page discusses this a little more (but still doesn't quite get at what would happen if one tried to make a longer weapon): http://www.bronze-age-craft.com/swordcasting.htm

Most samples of bronze age swords I've seen were all of one piece. Grips might be riveted to a tang, but the tang itself was part of the blade

Quote from: Spike;557930Most samples of bronze age swords I've seen were all of one piece. Grips might be riveted to a tang, but the tang itself was part of the blade

You can find a lot of examples on this page.

Quote from: The Butcher;557901What is it about bronze and early ironwork that skews production towards short blades? Was it because of some intrinsic property (or lack thereof) of the material, or did it have to do with tactics and weapon choice?

Alternatively, was anyone crafting long (75cm+) blades before the Roman spatha? And what was their metallurgy like?

The Chinese were crafting 90 cm  double edged blades with handles long enough to fit two hands from Bronze during the Qin dynasty, which were very high quality swords for the time period.

They were also creating very early steel swords (about as low on the scale of steel as you can get, but it still was steel in classification) that were about a meter in length. This was from about 220-207 BC. Han dynasty smiths later developed the differential heat treatment, and they also developed the blast furnace, which was making high quality steel tools and weapons (for the time at least) by the 1st century BC.

Quote from: John Morrow;557959You can find a lot of examples on this page.

Yeah, that page references the Type A, which as I recall from research last year is the single most common* design of bronze age sword, at being a meter long.




*Provided I'm not completely off my rocker about which sword design, its is more accurately the most successful of sword designs, due to geographic distribution, number of artifacts recovered, and length of time in use.  No other weapon design in history can match its run for popularity, or so I recall.