Reducing melee weapon weight

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Unclear; depends how much thrusting damage is based on the kinetic energy of the weapon itself, vs energy transfer from your arm and body. Realistically, I think the energy transfer from arm and body mostly only happens if you penetrate armor.

Horsfal et al. disagree; their knife had more KE than the mass and velocity of the knife predicted. (In my experience, there is a big difference between a thrust which is properly supported by the body, and one which is fast but not supported). In any case, I have never seen serious KE measurements for weapons of different weight used by the same person. Horsfal et al. just tested one knife used overhand and underhand.

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Remember however that GURPS Low-tech weapons are heavier than real world ones.
An axe weights 4lbs in GURPS, a combat axe IRL almost never reaches 3lbs.
A broadsword weights 3lbs in GURPS, a sword IRL is around 2lbs.
A halberd weights 10lbs in GURPS, real life ones are around 6lbs.

That was true in the Basic Set, but according to MA and LT, the Axe is a huge job which should really be used two-handed, the Broadsword includes the belt and scabbard, and the Halberd has been depreciated for weapons built around lighter polearms. Now this is a bit more complex ...