Flexible Blade and what it indicates
Hey Bill,
Seems one could make a case for the relationship of a pata to a katar based on the grip shape. The katar has a rigid blade sometimes with an armor piercing tip that is clearly able to deliver a substantial forward impact concentrated into the tip of the blade. The transverse grip would allign the arm and wrist to best absorb impact from a forward thrust. There have also been studies that a straight punch delivers the most force.
The pata has the same transverse grip with the addition of an enclosed guard, there the similarity ends, for it is coupled with a much long sword blade that is normally flexible. The flexible blade would be opposed to thrusting use and indicate a cutting or slashing style of use that could better absorb impact without breaking.
There are also studies on what shapes of blades would better cut through bone. The shamshir and tulwar have references for cutting through armour, limbs and horse, not familiar with any accounts of a pata doing the same.
There are known uses of the pata by a maharaja during battle so it must have been considered a valuable and dominate weapon at times by the people using it. There is an account of two patas being used florentine (one in each hand) by a raja until he had one arm severed in battle.
rand
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