I read these discussions when different parties use excerpts of rules in a duel of the texts. It is not surprising that I got confused in this battle of the rules. So I asked an expert to wade in the discussion and here are his comments. As usual I am grateful to Maestro Bernacchi for his time and his teaching. I hope you all may enjoy this as I did. Are there differences between foil and saber ROW? There are NONE since BOTH weapons are conventional. The rules to gain ROW are exactly the same, without any difference.
There are however two factors which must be taken into consideration.
1. To go after the rule book it is not a valid approach nor can it be used to answer the question,
because in practice the rule book is never applied literally. In modern fencing it would be impossible for a referee to evaluate whether the arm moves in synchrony with the legs, within the fencing times of the action. There is no referee in the world who could ignore the general principles of the rules, or who follows the rules exactly as they are written (in French) without being laughed off by the current referees community. [Just think about that article in the rule book which states that the sabreist's arm constitutes a threat if it is bent by at least 35 degrees ... the referees should all go around with a protractor!]
2. The FIE rules, the part relative to the evaluation of ROW in foil and saber, are written differently because the nature of the weapons is different. Even if one wanted to follow the written rules to the letter -- as seems to be the case in this thread -- you end up getting confused and believing that there are differences between the two weapons.
In the foil section of the rules there is no mention of foot movement and it says that the only requirement is for the arm to be fully extended before the conclusion of the attack. In the saber section it talks about to the foot, stating in essence that the attacker must touch before the front foot extended in the lounge touches the ground, or at the most at the same time.
This is because there is a difference in handling a saber or a foil. In saber, the arm-leg coordination is very different than in foil. In foil, the tip must be pushed forward with the assistance of the legs, therefore arm and legs arrive almost always at the same time. [In modern foil, this has changed, but remember that the rules were written in 1918.]
In saber practically only the arm executes the slash, without the essential assistance of the legs, but for reducing the fencer's distance from the target. This is why a saber Maestro should teach his student to slightly delay the arrival of the front leg with respect to the touch (slash), to render his movement the most fluid and efficient. The foil Maestro instead should emphasize the precedence of the tip, but if he follows the classic technique, he will insist that arm and front leg arrive together.
Because of the different characteristics of each weapon, to maximize the fluidity of the movement, the rules, when they were written, had to express in different terms the same convention. The foil rules don't talk of foot movement because this would be redundant -- at least then. But in saber the rules are specific about foot movement to avoid confusion.
To repeat one more time, the convention is absolutely the same, one expressed in the foil language, the other in the saber language.
Now with the development of foil, with the flicks and other things and the increased speed in the athletic action, the difference with saber remains in the technique, but it has certainly changed as far as what vision the judge has of an action. This is why a too strict adherence to the rules can be limiting. Remember that when these rules were written, the mobility on the strip was much less than today (legs in the en garde position were much more wide apart and much more flexed) and when one lost ROW according to the convention, he would stop without his action. To continue and hit, i.e., get a questionable touch, was considered something in very poor taste.
Nowadays, even according to the rules and their underlying principles which determine the ROW, there is a commonly accepted way to referee (hopefully!) which in saber gives more weight to legs movement compared with arm movement and therefore, the advancing fencers will almost always be right.
In foil one looks more at the arm which must be extended. In the most blatant cases -- arm arrives quite noticeably after the foot in saber, arm extremely bent in foil -- one can go back to the basic principles of the rules. This happens in low level fencing where the ROW mistake is there 100% or not at all, for everyone to see.
In case however of high or the highest level of fencing, the boundaries between a right touch and one outside the convention are pushed to the limits because of the speed and tactical abilities of the super athletes. Therefore the decision of the referee is made on the
"feeling of the touch" which is
the capability of the referee to apply a rule understanding the context of the action and its interpretation.
In conclusion, if one notices differences in refereeing -- and therefore in ROW -- between foil and saber, this is because of the different experience of each fencer/observer, not differences in convention.
It is interesting to notice that this thread was started by a sabreist who states that he has little or no experience in foil and therefore he sees differences between the two weapons in ROW. As a sabreist he does not understand the visual language and the way to read the action of a foilist, and he doesn't realize that the rules are exactly the same, only expressed in different lingos. Ditto for a foilist trying to read a saber phrase.
Don't you all LOVE epee now? 
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