Pugio grips - why so thin?

[Tarbicus]

imagine yourself in the Teutoburg forest, small guerrilla ambushes, suddenly, you're alone, when a big german warrior runs toward you waving a long sword;

Do as you're trained to do with the gladius; the short sword is best within the reach of the longer one. No way are you going to throw it. Whether it's Kalkriese or a normal battle, you don't throw away your remaining defence. I think you're clutching at straws there.

the scutum you carry on your back is packed in tegimentum, rather useless.

Romans have fought before with the cover on their shields, even bigger shields at that. They trained with double weight scuta, so I don't see what the problem is. You're also making assumptions about how the scutum was carried, in that it can't be quickly released. To suggest the pugio is a throwing knife because of your above reasons is so unusual that you may as well not bother with the pugio at all.

And the throwing knives have two fully concave indents, and are very very thin. They're utterly different to a pugio.[/quote]