Reducing melee weapon weight

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I think it depends heavily on the weight of the weapon.

The basic problem is that the total force that can be applied is limited by your grip strength, unless the weapon is structured so that you hand physically cannot slip forward (which runs a risk of injury if you hit something hard) -- you can only transfer your arm kinetic energy if your grip doesn't slip, and you can only transfer your body kinetic energy if your arm doesn't yield.

Typical armor requires 30-150J to penetrate to a depth of 10mm or less, meaning the force required is 3,000-15,000N. That is far more than human grip strength or arm strength. Flesh is much much less resilient, and grip/arm strength is reasonably likely to be sufficient.