True Combat Value of Wootz

[Emanuel]

Hello,

This is a wonderful discussion, thanks to all the metallurgists for the great information!

In "Armes blanches du monde Islamique" by Alain Jacob, I think, I recall an account by a French officer in Napoleon's army who commented on Mamluk sabres. He gave an account of the way Mamluks trained: they would ride at full speed towards a block of wood on which was placed a turban. They would have to slice the turban in half without displacing it off the block, careful not to hit the block of wood as it would break the sword and cause great shame. I don't recall if he characterized the blade as Damascus, but the passage indicates that these blades could hold a magnificent edge, but were extremely brittle. Would such blades exhibit a high austenite content?

Regards,
Emanuel

[tsubame1]

Originally Posted by Manolo

Hello,

This is a wonderful discussion, thanks to all the metallurgists for the great information!

In "Armes blanches du monde Islamique" by Alain Jacob, I think, I recall an account by a French officer in Napoleon's army who commented on Mamluk sabres. He gave an account of the way Mamluks trained: they would ride at full speed towards a block of wood on which was placed a turban. They would have to slice the turban in half without displacing it off the block, careful not to hit the block of wood as it would break the sword and cause great shame. I don't recall if he characterized the blade as Damascus, but the passage indicates that these blades could hold a magnificent edge, but were extremely brittle. Would such blades exhibit a high austenite content?

Regards,
Emanuel

Emanuel, have you realized that hitting a wooden block at that speed would have meant to cut into the block itself making angled leverage on the blade during the very few seconds of gallopping away ? This would break *every* sword or bent a too soft one. Never cut, eh ?

[S.Al-Anizi]

Originally Posted by Manolo

Hello,

This is a wonderful discussion, thanks to all the metallurgists for the great information!

In "Armes blanches du monde Islamique" by Alain Jacob, I think, I recall an account by a French officer in Napoleon's army who commented on Mamluk sabres. He gave an account of the way Mamluks trained: they would ride at full speed towards a block of wood on which was placed a turban. They would have to slice the turban in half without displacing it off the block, careful not to hit the block of wood as it would break the sword and cause great shame. I don't recall if he characterized the blade as Damascus, but the passage indicates that these blades could hold a magnificent edge, but were extremely brittle. Would such blades exhibit a high austenite content?

Regards,
Emanuel

Hi Manolo,

this practice technique is in the furussiya manual, and is the basis of mounted sword use. It advances onto a stage where a mamluk has to cut his way through a series of turbans, not just one, on his left and right. The manual also states that training swords, and I assume, the ones used here are, incredibly sharp and brittle, but are not to be used in real combat.

[Emanuel]

Carlo and Saqr, thanks for your replies.

The short passage concerning this training exercise had merely stated that the sword would break -presumably on impact...I really don't recall its details but I will get the book from our library and read it again.

You're right about the angled leverage Carlo, and I understand it. Lateral stress can easily snap metal, one can even break some bars over one's head assuming proper training.
My thought was in regards to the discussion in this thread about wootz swords cutting through armour and chains. "If a sword were to snap on a direct edge impact with hard wood, how could it withstand metal?" I thought. But since we are talking of different swords for different purposes, the question is moot.

Emanuel

[Chris Evans]

Hi Manolo,

Originally Posted by Manolo

..... Would such blades exhibit a high austenite content?

Thank you for your appreciative words. I think that both Ann and Greg,as well as the others deserve a special thanks for their extermely valuable contribution. I certainly learned a lot about Wootz from this thread.

Now for your question: It is hard to explain all the ins and outs of the heat treatment of steel within the constrains of a thread like this, but I'll try, albeit at the risk of oversimplification.

Carbon steel at room temperature consists of a mixture of near pure fairly malleable iron, known as Ferrite, and very hard iron carbides, known as Cementite. In this state, steel is moderately soft and can be bent and worked fairly easily.

Hardening by Quenching and tempering:

Steel is heated to a temperature at which its crystal structure changes and becomes as soft and malleable as lead. This structure is called Austenite and it can dissolve all of the carbides that we mentioned above, forming a solid solution of carbon in iron. Here I should mention that solids can dissolve in other solids, not just liquids - Hard to believe, but the process is complex and you'll have to take my word for it.

When heated Austenitic steel is rapidly cooled, as when quenched in water, the carbon cannot come out of solid solution, as it would under slower cooling, and the Austenitic crystal structure changes to one that is very resistant to deformation, on account of the carbon atoms trapped in it.

This new crystal structure is called Martensite and it is very hard and brittle.To render it usable, it is usually tempered by reheating, so as to allow some of the carbon atoms to come out of solid solution and thus reduce both its extreme hardness and brittleness. The carbon that is thus removed from the Martensite forms tiny spheroids of Cementite and results in a structure sometimes known as Sorbite, but more commonly called tempered Martensite. If Martensitic steel is tempered at high temperatures for a very long time it reverts to its original unhardened structure of Ferrite plus Cementite.

OK - Those are the raw basics. Now for the problems.

Plain carbon steel (without additional alloying elements) with less than about 0.4%C cannot be cooled fast enough to transform the Austenite into Martensite, but between 0.4%C and 0.8%C there are no great problems.

However, once the carbon content exceeds 0.8%C, known as the eutectoid composition, then upon quenching the tendency of the Austenite is to stay as it is and not transform into Martensite - Contrary to its usual high temperature `habitat', this Austenite remains as such at room temperature and is known by metallurgists as `retained Austenite', that is retained after the quench.

If we quench hypereutectoid steel (>0.8%C) not all of the steel remains as Austenite. In practice, depending on by how much the 0.8%C is exceeded, we tend to get a mixture of Martensite (hard and brittle) together with retained Austenite. Now remember that as I said at the start, Austenite is very soft and malleable. At the risk of gross oversimplification, now you should think of the retained Austenite as if it wasn't there, because it is so weak. The net result is a Martensitic sword blade with what amounts to all intents and purposes as `strength gaps' all over and inside it. Really disastrous for strength. Of course, the real picture is more complex, but at this level we need not overly concern ourselves with metallurgical minutiae.

In the heat treatment of modern high carbon steels there are strategies to minimize the problem posed by retained Austenite; For example with cutlery high carbon stainless steels such as 440C, any retained Austenite is converted into Martensite by cooling to very low temperatures.

However, the ancients, not understanding what went on inside the steel, would have had only two options (that I can think of):

a) Stick with hypoeutectoid steels (0.4%C-0.8%C), not easy to do as they could not analyze for carbon, nor knew about its critical role; And

b) if having to heat treat higher carbon content steels, they would have had to be extremely careful to quench from the lowest possible temperature at which Austenite forms. This so as to minimize the dissolution of the segregated carbides back into the Austenite and thus raising its carbon content, which would lead to retained Austenite. I imagine that by trial and error this temperature could be judged by the colour of the hot steel, but my guess is that they would have turned out a lot of bad blades.

I hope that this helps. If you would like to obtain more information see the entries in Wikipedia, as it gives a fairly good account.

I also hope also that you can see why the manufacture of a well hardened sword was more often than not a stroke of luck and why such swords had such exalted and legendary status.

Cheers
Chris