An interesting and important twist to the story was provided by Aleksej Kurochkin ( here participating as Mercenary). He unearthed an old ( 1757) Persian manuscript describing battles of Nader Shah with the Afghanis.
Here are couple of illustrations: some fighters carry typical Persian Shamshirs with hand guards, but some carry clearly guardless sabers. I cannot be certain whether the latter belonged to both sides or only to one of them. I may only cautiously assume that to both, based on head covers: helmets vs. white turbans.
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