The rules in sabre have changed a lot but the techniques are the same- the fencers have little trouble adapting-so not an issue.
Not an issue for you because you've got an emotional investment.
are you saying that the english cut was more effective than the french thrust?
No. Exactly the opposite.
The English cutting sabres were particularly infamous for causing grievous wounds and most probably immediately incapacitating, but often as not, the wounds they caused were battlefield survivable. The English trained for stiff, wide armed cuts, aimed for the head, shoulders and arms. The results have been written about in many sources, including stories of men surviving missing parts of their skull, etc.
On the other hand, the French emphasized the thrust and had adapted their weapons to match their mentality. The French aimed for the torso and while the wounds caused by the thrust looked much less fierce, these wounds were much more likely to cause death.
This fits with my experience and what I've seen in terms of machete wounds vs knife wounds. It also leads to something I mentioned in
this thread : Who else carries a blade at all times?.
I've seen people survive horrific machete wounds, so long as the skull wasn't laid completely open and the torso wasn't deeply pierced. Unless the blow lands directly on someone's exposed neck, there are very few places to cut someone that will result in immediate death. The ribcage, due to it's structure, provides a remarkable amount of protection - which is something that the samurai knew. Any of you who have done kendo, iaido or related jutsu forms in kata have practiced the diagonal upstroke, which is specifically meant to ride the gap between ribs.
Anyway, that's for assaults. It changes when it's mob violence, because then it's people chopping downwards on a person who's on the ground. Even then, I've seen people survive very serious machete mob violence, depending on the country and the type of machetes that are commonplace and whether or not anybody had the presence of mind to stab with the tip. Then the rules change. I alluded to this in a post in this thread earlier.
OTOH, knife wounds tend towards stabbings aimed at the torso and these tend to be much more serious in an immediately life threatening way.
I think this post is long enough, so I'll stop here.
