Melee weapon

Melee weapons were weapons designed for close- to medium-ranged combat. Such weapons included clubs like the gaderffii used by the Tusken Raiders of Tatooine, swords, and vibro-axes. In the sparring gym of his flagship, the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Chimaera, Grand Admiral Thrawn kept a number of melee weapons, which he used against Imperial sentry droids to train his fighting skills.

By the time of the cold war, people usually preferred to fight from long range, using rifles and blasters. As a consequence, physicians were not used to treating wounds inflicted by melee weapons such as lightsabers.