why sabre ?

[tom hyle]

Go ahead. But the reasons stated by experts may not be entirely in line with the real superiorities/capabilities of the swords, of course; it is important to factor in the forces of cultural dogmatism concerning "scientific fencing"/thrusting superiority. It is important to remember that by the time in which European soldiers were criticising cutting they had evidently forgotten how to cut well (and this is quite noticeable in reading one of their famed swordsmen; Richard burton, whose understanding of the cut was, and I hope the English don't come after me, quite rudimentary.), so any experiments they did might only prove that cutting poorly doesn't equal thrusting well....they were routinely shocked by the cutting power of Tartars, Arabs, etc. (and you can read of this in period accounts) who knew how to cut; maybe they should've gotten carpenters and butchers to train the soldiers to cut; the common working folk in Europe never forgot this, much as they kept using the old style laminated/differentially hardened blades. They seem to have somewhat given up proper sword-cutting when the armour reached its best, and never readopted after guns alleged to make armour obsolete (it's back now, and it's for bullets).
I find that the circularity of the (pardon me) proper cutting motion makes a nice combination with a curved blade, too.....