I bet a foil is ten times more efficient than a Batlev (sp?). I always thought that the batllev combat scenes looked clumsy at best.
Bat'leth bashing
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
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Practical weapons are for weaklings and cowards! 
But they look cool.
Seeing as a foil is designed not to injure, I'll go with the Bat'leth if we ever duel.
For what it's worth to the discussion, an M-16 rifle with a full mag is 3.99 kg.
When it comes to Klingon edged weapons, the d'k'tahg and mek'leth are practical and make sense. The Bat'leth is a clumsy, impractical weapon in real world situations. The way I see it, if a design similar to the Bat'leth made sense, we would have seen one invented at some point in human history. That said, I think the Bat'leth does look pretty cool, and I would never say it was the worst weapon in sci fi history. This article sounds more like this revisionist, hate-on-the-TNG-era-Klingons mentality I have seen popping up in recent years.
The way I rationalize the Bat'leth is something like this. In the Day of the Dove, it's established the Klingons maintain a "dueling tradition." The Bat'leth (AKA the sword of honor) therefore, is a ceremonial weapon, much like the Vulcan lirpa, and is the weapon Klingons chose to mainain the dueling tradition. The difference is the Klingons know it is a clumpy weapon, but that is actually the point of it. From a Klingon point of view, they feel if they can master the use of a Bat'Leth, and kill effectively with it, then they are "true" warriors. In a way, it's like fighting with one arm behind your back, and still kicking someone's ass...you can therefore brag about your own badassery.
The way I rationalize the Bat'leth is something like this. In the Day of the Dove, it's established the Klingons maintain a "dueling tradition." The Bat'leth (AKA the sword of honor) therefore, is a ceremonial weapon, much like the Vulcan lirpa, and is the weapon Klingons chose to mainain the dueling tradition. The difference is the Klingons know it is a clumpy weapon, but that is actually the point of it. From a Klingon point of view, they feel if they can master the use of a Bat'Leth, and kill effectively with it, then they are "true" warriors. In a way, it's like fighting with one arm behind your back, and still kicking someone's ass...you can therefore brag about your own badassery.
But you're still comparing it as a sword. Maybe the point (pun intended) isn't cutting. It's like saying a sword is impractical compared to an M-16. Try out a bat'leth vs a bat'leth and see if it is impractical vs itself.
No, because no matter what you compare it with, it's still a unbalanced, overweight piece of steel. Two bat'leths against eachother looks cool, but that's it. You can't react fast, it'll tire your arms and upperbody fast. Let's say you go into battle, and you face several other Klingons, with different kinds of weapons, inlcuding mek'leth and the type of sword Duras used. You're going in with a disadvantege. Sure, any bladed weapon will have pro's and con's. But in real life, with the weight, lenght and dimensions of the bat'leth, it is basicly only cons.
I agree with Timo, it does look like a farm implement. The coolest looking, most badass farm implement ever.
Well, the stated weight was probably no more than uninformed jibberish on the part of the writers. Even so, it would be too heavy to use in a sustained battle. Perhaps the more interesting question is how it would have evolved if it had been used in warfare and not invented in a vacuum. I suspect it would start to look more like some Chinese swords with, perhaps, a pike at one end.
There's another example of kilograms and Klingons making for a weird combination. In "Past Prologue", the payment for the Klingon explosive is a bagful of gold-pressed latinum..."13 kilograms" of it. The way that bag is tossed around, the Duras sisters either must be stronger than comparable humans, or then Klingon Kilograms are only half as big as human ones...
One wonders how bat'leths are supposed to have been manufactured originally? Punching holes in boilerplate with a cutting machine of some sort?
Timo Saloniemi
I always wondered why they abandoned the crazy glove in the Where Silence Has Lease or the the twisted organic looking sword later used by Worf on the holodeck
Seeing as a foil is designed not to injure, I'll go with the Bat'leth if we ever duel.
Alright, I meant the lethal equivalent of a foil. I don't remember how it's called.
In any case, the Klingons obviously appreciate the value of beamed weapons that can kill from a distance.
I believe the rapier would be an equivalent for actual combat, as sport fencing evolved from Italian rapier swordsmanship.
In terms of practicality of the bat'leth, what is "practical" to extraterrestrials with different physiology and mentality won't necessarily be the same as what humans would consider practical.
Kor
Maybe, but when you compare visually a fencing fight between people using rapiers and two people using bat'leths. The latter seem to move in slow motion by comparison. It seems that before the bat'leth wielding guy could make a move he'd be stabbed about half a dozen times by the guy holding a rapier.
At least, that's how it seems to me.
Again, the bat'leth is designed for close in and personal fighting, which is the Klingon's cultural preference.
It would not take long for someone to realize that distance and reach are their friends.
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