Size matters (or, the size of knives)

[stranger38]

Been reading MA lately and something caught my attention. Knife sizes... the Large knife is between 15'' and 23'', but what's the size of a small knife or a large knife?

[Polydamas]

GURPS has always been vague about weapon sizes, perhaps deliberately. I imagine a Dagger as the smallest knife which makes a reasonable weapon, up to 15 cm from one end to the other; a Small Knife as a more substantial 20-25 cm blade; and a Large Knife as a weapon about 30 cm long. I would stat most low-tech fighting knives as Large Knives or Long Knives.

[stranger38]

Hm, make sense. I just thought oposite: small knife: from 7cm to 15cm, and large knife from 16cm to 36cm (since a long knife is 37cm...)

[Icelander]

I've always seen most combat knives as 'large knives', which means that anything with a 7" blade or more definitely qualifies.

The 5-6" blade is on the dividing line and the one I have the most trouble with. It's clear that a 4" blade is a small knife if it has a slashing edge and a dagger if it has not, but it's less clear what a blade that's smaller than a KA-BAR but clearly larger than most concealable knives is.

[stranger38]

Yeah, read that somewhere. i guess it was Action 1 i guess. there's the commando knife and it's a large knife.

[Polydamas]

I would not worry so much about exact lengths, because blade thickness and sturdiness matter too. A santoku knife or a Roman pugio might count as Large while a slender-bladed knife the same length counted as Small.

I see a Dagger as a weapon that is too short and light-bladed to do powerful slashes; it can still Tip Slash for thr-3 cut (after all, other than some rondels and other fighting knives, every knife has an edge). Of course, the three types of knives date back to Man to Man, so its best to just pick the set of stats that fit the effect you want and not worry too much about why things are the way they are.

[stranger38]

good point Poly, good point.

[Bruno]

I've always treated the line between small knife and large knife as a rather fuzzy thing based on impressions.

If I think "I could sharpen a pencil or whittle wood with that without cutting off my fingers", it's a small knife (I'm a bit clumbsy - it's good to know your limits). Of course most combat blades aren't good for either purpose, but that's the general category. Hard-duty utility knives are Small Knives, box-cutters and exacto-knives are something even smaller that is sort of a reverse dagger, doing cut on a thrust instead of imp.

If I think "that looks like you could gut a deer or carve meat with it", it's a large knife. Not A Precision Tool Here, but the kind of thing I would see sold in a hunting supply store. If it has a compass in its handle, it's almost certainly a Cheap Large Knife sold to idiots.

If I think "Holy Crocodile Dundee, he's overcompensating for something!" it's a long knife.

[Kromm]

And FYI, Martial Arts doesn't put the large knife at 15" to 23" . . . that's the long knife, which is in fact a short shortsword. As others have said, size is only part of the issue, with width, tip and edge design, and thickness all mattering as well. Inasmuch as you care about length, though, large knives are supposed to be smaller than long ones, and probably in the 7" to 14" range, which encompasses most of the more common combat knives and bayonets from the mid 20th-century on, including the KA-BAR (7"), Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife (7"), M9 Bayonet (7"), and OKC-3S Bayonet (8").

[Anthony]

It's probably fair to say that any resaonably solidly built knife with a weight over 12-13 ounces should be considered a large knife, since the game statistic we do have is a weight of 1 lb.