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Originally Posted by Sorenant
Interesting, I never heard of Highlanders (which I identified with mostly claymores) using this kind of setup, nor about basket hilt claymored. I'll be looking it up, thanks.
it.
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The "basket-hilted claymores" of the mid 1700s would be known to various Gurps books as "Backswords" in the weapon table entries under Broadsword Skill and were common cavalry weapons in the English Civil War period of the previous century.
Since civilians of the period were well into the Smallsword period it was still a preety big sword by comparison but the Scots can probably be excused for reusing the Gaelic for "great sword" (pronounced more or less as "claymore" though spelled in a complicated and eccentric fashion) rather than coining somehtign new that translated as "pretty big sword".