I agree - making a proper Japanese katana or a high end sword is not likely to be found anywhere - but look the amount of fair quality swords being peddled on the net. A functional ,properly tempered, high carbon steel sword of most any given historical period can be had from say 50 to 250 US dollars. Not to mention the spears,axes,maces etc etc . Swords in the 100 000s or millions are out there.
In a world where ammo is precious melee and missile weapons would be coming back. As for making a brutal chopper that can take abuse thats about an EASY task imo. Truck springs, construction materials mechanical parts - steel is plentiful to scrounge. Making it from scratch is totally different - and would only be possible where you have certain factors present - ore, know - how, resources etc.
Historically the bayonets and "sidearm" / melee weapons issued grew smaller and less important as firearms evolved. Look at a bayonet from 1850 and one from 1950 - the older is more like small sword. The newer more like a knife. Today our unit is not even issued the bayonet. Come T2k and ammo rationing the bayonet would return, it would grow in size and eventually troopers would carry a melee weapon that is carried in its own right -like a D-guard Bowie, a mace / trench club or basillard. Or even a sword or a lance - according to enviroment and tasks at hand.
all imho - h for humble as always.
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Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
Personally I don't think you would see many reproductions of various swords being made. Blacksmithing is almost a lost skill and swordsmithing is a high art compared to blacksmithing - there would be very, very few people left capable of producing a good basic, no-frills sword and I would argue that there would be close to none who could make a reproduction of some of the swords mentioned.
Instead I think you'd see people trying out all those soft metal replica swords from the militaria shops and finding that they are totally useless and then looting whatever museums they could for genuine swords. For those who miss out, they'd resort to shaping either stabbing swords or heavy chopping blades like machetes out of such material as the steel plate used for ships or from steel girders and suchlike.
A basic sword or hatchet cut from a steel girder is crude but easy to make, knowing enough metallurgy to find/refine/use the right material to then cast a proper sword is a whole level of difficulty above what 95% of people in the modern world can do.
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