Reasons to use melee weapons in a science fiction setting

[ShieldWife]

Lots of people love sword fights and quite often we find sword fights placed into science fiction settings. Two prominent justifications I can think of are from Star Wars where light sabers and the skill of force users make sword fighting useful in some circumstances and Dune where shields make knife fighting useful.

What are some other good reasons why sword fighting might be something common in a science fiction, or maybe even a modern, setting?

 

[Nitramy]

Minovsky Particles in Gundam which fuck up radar and long-range detection.

Up-close-and-personal battles become the norm, not the exception.

 

[Deleted member]

Active defence systems becoming just as good at intercepting incoming ranged fire as Dune shields were as a passive defensive mechanism. So people in human-sized power armour are fighting with melee weapons because their head-mounted laser system can simply instantly shoot down any bullet shot at them. It's at least possible.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Guys with either advanced technologies or near physical superhuman-ness providing durability, reflexes and/or speed to close the gap even whilst being shot at

 

[S'task]

For more low tech reasons: in setting with more realistic spacecraft, narrow and tight corridors might well make larger firearms less effective or even be risky due to potential for causing damage to the ship or uncontrollable ricochet. Provided Pistols and short barrel shotguns might also be effective in such conditions, but large knife / machete / ax type melee weapons would be somewhat viable there as well.

 

[Deleted member]

For more low tech reasons: in setting with more realistic spacecraft, narrow and tight corridors might well make larger firearms less effective or even be risky due to potential for causing damage to the ship or uncontrollable ricochet. Provided Pistols and short barrel shotguns might also be effective in such conditions, but large knife / machete / ax type melee weapons would be somewhat viable there as well.

Especially if you have a three-dimensionally rectified sense of balance, like the Abh in Seikai no Senki; their children learn to make sport of a game where two Abh float in zero-gravity, linked by a chain to make it a game of cancelling momentum, and thus affixed to each other, duel with swords.

 

[Marduk]

A common one is simply the nature of warfare against opponents with very different way of fighting than the more "conventional" faction would. In such assymetrical scenario, even if one side uses normal guns/artillery kind of fighting style, if it's fighting a very different opponent that is going to charge at them and get into melee range despite the risks and losses that will come it, and some of them will manage to survive the process through sheer numbers and/or toughness, then suddenly it may not be such a bad idea to have a secondary melee weapon, which is what swords are a perfect fit for. 40k Orks and many, many typical sci-fi "space bug" factions fit within this scenario.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Knives also don’t have the same reach or sort of attack power, I think

 

[Marduk]

Reach, obviously, "attack power", that's complicated.
One thing that needs mentioning is parrying. Swords are meant for it, knives, not exactly.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

then suddenly it may not be such a bad idea to have a secondary melee weapon, which is what swords are a perfect fit for.

Does a sword actually have any advantages over an assault rifle up close?

 

[Marduk]

Does a sword actually have any advantages over an assault rifle up close?

Depends on how close is up close, and whether the assault rifle's magazine is empty yet, because trying to reload while something is trying to engage you in melee probably won't end well.
Empty, even if bayoneted, i think it favors the sword. Massively so if the user is skilled with a sword. Depending on the sword's length, tight confines also may favor it over a rifle+bayonet.
Either that or it's so up close you want a knife instead.

 

[S'task]

Does a sword actually have any advantages over an assault rifle up close?

Up close? Yeah, a lot. Assault Rifles are at best awkward short spears up close (assuming bayonet attached) or barely usable clubs. Within something like 5 - 10 ft, the time it takes to shoulder, aim, and trigger a rifle is actually greater than it takes to close and swing a sword, and the sword grants much MUCH better balance and control in short range, meaning that they will more easily parry and attack than the rifle. A rifle with bayonet has very limited attack moves, and because of it's grip and design it cannot be moved as easily or rapidly in close confines as a sword can.

Think about how a sword is used in melee, it's most forearm and wrist work and it's specifically balanced to work as a lever that allows the point to move quite fast and far with little motion by the hand and arm. Rifles, meanwhile, aren't designed for that, so in melee the person with a rifle needs to move a LOT more than the person with a sword, which slows reaction time. Perhaps the best example is think of a straight thrust towards the heart with a sword. To parry that with another sword, assuming a standard forward guard stance, is a simple matter of rotating the wrist, perhaps with a bit of forearm movement. If you have a rifle, you have to move the entire rifle using both arms to knock such a thrust away, plus you have to have more follow through on that motion due to the shorter reach of the rifle in melee, a much larger movement overall and thus slower. Plus then you have recovery time FROM such movements, the sword can be back to a guard / attack position after getting parried by the rifle in much less time than it takes for the rifle to get back to center, meaning the next attack comes before the rifle is ready.

Further, AIMING a rifle in melee is also a gross body movement, having to adjust the torso and arms to sight, while a sword within reach can push the rifle away or allow the wielder to pivot and keep the line of the barrel off them.

Now, granted, if you're at ranges over 15 feet, the rifle has a very good chance of getting a shot off before the sword can close, which is why we're only talking in tight confines or as a secondary weapon, not a primary.

That said, there are firearms that still work very well in those close ranges. Pistols and short barrel shotguns are both quite dangerous there, since you can aim and control them in the tight confines better, and they don't necessarily require the gross body motion to bring to aim that a rifle does. Again, this is why I specified circumstances where you might not want to damage your surroundings due to misses or fear of ricochets.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Depends on how close is up close, and whether the assault rifle's magazine is empty yet, because trying to reload while something is trying to engage you in melee probably won't end well.

Well, Swords are as big as assault rifles, and take a while (and a lot of space) to draw, especially if you've got something in your hands already.

Empty, even if bayoneted, i think it favors the sword. Massively so if the user is skilled with a sword. Depending on the sword's length, tight confines also may favor it over a rifle+bayonet.
Either that or it's so up close you want a knife instead.

Well thats the thing, empty. You're comparing an assault rifle + nothing to an assault rifle + sword. Further, you're comparing drawn sword to empty rifle, hardly an even comparison. I'd give a soldier drilled in reloading exercises even odds to get a new mag in his gun and fire in the same timeframe a soldier might throw down his rifle and draw a sword.
And even if drawing a new full length weapon is faster, considering you have to draw the sword, you could just as easily have another loaded gun, and bring it to bear in comparable time. An M4 carbine (rather beefy as a backup) only weighs seven or eight pounds loaded? Even a Saber is going to be four or five pounds at least considering belt and scabbard, and may very well be longer.


Certainly, if we extend this argument to pistols, the point becomes clearer.

 

[Marduk]

Well, Swords are as big as assault rifles, and take a while (and a lot of space) to draw, especially if you've got something in your hands already.

Nope. Not every sword is a freaking zweihander. For secondary weapon, we're probably talking something along the lines of a gladius, or arming sword equivalent.
On length dimension maybye the size of a compact carabine, but in terms of bulk, other dimension, and general mass, considerably smaller.
The same applies to drawing it and reloading a gun.

And even if drawing a new full length weapon is faster, considering you have to draw the sword, you could just as easily have another loaded gun, and bring it to bear in comparable time. An M4 carbine (rather beefy as a backup) only weighs seven or eight pounds loaded? Even a Saber is going to be four or five pounds at least considering belt and scabbard, and may very well be longer.

Handgun, machine pistol, or PDW, yes. But those also run out of ammo, may lack firepower, and those who do have it run out of ammo very quickly.
A carabine, you can't really put that in a hip holster or something like that, so that's a whole another level of trouble when it comes to storage and quick access.

Also weight wise, for comparison a gladius generally weights less than 2 pounds.

Then it comes down to opponent's nature, tactics and circumstances. A handgun or PDW as a secondary lets you unload lots of pistol to near intermediate (in heavier PDW's) rounds into an opponent. What's that worth? Depends on circumstances and the opponent. If you're fighting say, Tyranid rippers, that may not be great - you got a few down, few wounded, and the rest shred you to bits while you try to reload.
A sword opens up some other opportunities. You can fend off opponents with it, keep them at a distance, and strike indefinitely, and use it for protection while at it, at least until you get too tired.
OTOH with some melee opponents that will generally crash through a a mediocre swordsman on sheer size, reach or speed, or for other reasons may be hard to fight with a melee weapon, a PDW may be a better idea, like, say, with a xenomorph.

 

[Deleted member]

We know from history that Chinese cleaver-sword armed regiments could successfully storm Japanese positions defended by machine-guns and bolt-action rifles as part of a coordinated action with firearms troops; once they were amongst the Japanese positions they had the advantage.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Does a sword actually have any advantages over an assault rifle up close?

Inside 12 feet a knife in the hands of someone decently fit will tend to beat anyone with a gun not already in at least Condition 1.

With a gun in hand already, it's a toss up that favors the one with the gun (although the gun wielder will still probably end up dead).

 

[Deleted member]

Inside 12 feet a knife in the hands of someone decently fit will tend to beat anyone with a gun not already in at least Condition 1.

With a gun in hand already, it's a toss up that favors the one with the gun (although the gun wielder will still probably end up dead).

Exactly this. In the close confines of a space like a second-story bedroom with a complicated entry profile, someone defending themselves with a sword against an armed intruder would not be as good as a handgun, but it would be much closer than someone might think.

 

[Scottty]

There's another aspect to it: stealth. A gun makes a lot of noise. Futuristic energy-weapons might too.

Also: you might not want to go shooting at people with a disruptor-pistol while in the engine room of a spaceship.

 

[Deleted member]

There's another aspect to it: stealth. A gun makes a lot of noise. Futuristic energy-weapons might too.

Also: you might not want to go shooting at people with a disruptor-pistol while in the engine room of a spaceship.

Stealth is always a reason to use low tech weapons.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

Probably the same reasons we still use knives, bayonets and entrenching tools. They're light, deadly, good in close quarters and do not run out of ammo or require power packs. They also work underwater, and in a vacuum, though zero-g momentum issues are a right royal pain to deal with.