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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
This brings the next observation. Would these deeply indented blades not be compromised themselves in trying to break a blade, let alone trying to thrust into an opponent?
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First of all, I'm assuming that the European sword-breaker here is the "saw-like" ones, and not the trident main-gauche. (I have seen the latter described as a sword-breaker before, so it felt best to make sure we were all on the same page.)
The indentations, especially if not properly rounded off in the bottom, would certainly make for stress raisers, and thus weaknesses in the blade. I wonder if the torque of trying to break another blade might not be worse than the linear stress from a thrust though, but that's mostly speculation.
One possibility perhaps is that these sword-breakers are akin to many if the odd combination weapons lying around, ie more or conversation pieces and the smith showing off what he could do than anything seriously intended as a weapon? (I hope I'll never have to eat somewhere where flintlock cutlery would seem like a necessity.)
Also, in regards to so-called sword breakers in general, regardless of culture. These tend to have shapes which would be quite suitable for catching the opponents blade (as it'd be hard to break it otherwise). However, if you can catch and control your opponents blade for a moment, then breaking it might perhaps be unnecessary in many cases, in that you can then simply run him through instead (that supposedly often being the ultimate goal of it all). So while some rather exotic things may have been made with the intent of being good at catching the sword of an opponent, the idea that one should then break the opposing blade apart may have been slapped on later, at least in some cases.
Finally, I'd wonder a bit about the tempering about a sword which can be broken just by a twist of the wrist like that. Not having tried it I guess the leverage might be larger than I think, but it still strikes me as odd.