Samurai Sword question

"A real [Katana] can literally cut an opponent in half with a single swing"

So can any good medieval longsword! Heh, heh. But it's always going to be pretty difficult to do any such "feat" in a combat situation.

Regards,
Matt
 
Iaido is a genuine Japanese art specializing in the fast cut or "fast draw' techniques. Often practice is from the rest or kneeling position. I too though am suprised by the belt classifications in a sword art. In our open hand style we too practiced in a similar mind, and style at times- and from kneeling positions.
Anyone who thinks a Katana is limited by the length of the blade knows little about the martial arts. The speed and timing of an expert can close distances very quickly and without apparent effort. Do not under estimate a truly trained martial artist in any form. Mall ninjas are not martial artists.
The Go rin no sho by Musashi is a strategy dissertation, not a fighting manual. but the tales do make entertaining reading. In the late 80's it was all the rage among the MBA crowd, and justifiably so.
Musashi eventually thought of himself as invinceable. This was much of the reason for his moving from katana to bokken. He was so aware of the skills of his enemy that he could intuitively percieve their movoments and immediately defeat them.
 
I am well aware that an average human can move over twenty feet in less than a second, and that a trained martial artist can move faster still. My point was simply that a katana is still not a ranged weapon.
 
"So can any good medieval longsword! Heh, heh. But it's always going to be pretty difficult to do any such "feat" in a combat situation."

True. But the longsword does it through sheer hitting power; the katana does it by mixing highly advanced metallurgical technology with hitting power.

Therefore, the katana is (A) cooler, and (B) more artistic. It doesn't just bisect, it bisects...with style.
 
Warning: Though what I am about to say is actually true, it is said in a tongue in cheek manner with smiley faces all around! :) :) :)

Striderteen said, “But the longsword does it through sheer hitting power..."

FALSE! Though a straight blade certainly cuts in a different manner than a curved blade it still cuts. Medieval swords were not dull, heavy, crowbar-like objects.

Striderteen said, “the katana does it by mixing highly advanced metallurgical technology with hitting power" (as opposed to the longsword)

FALSE! Though quality could vary with medieval swords (as it could with Japanese swords as well), a well-made medieval sword was not metallurgically inferior to a Japanese sword. In fact, the intense forging and folding process that Katana underwent was actually done to overcome the inferior Japanese steel which was full of impurities. In Europe they were able to find better iron/steel to start with, which made such folding unnecessary.

Striderteen then said, “Therefore, the katana is (A) cooler, and (B) more artistic. It doesn't just bisect, it bisects...with style."

A. FALSE! Everyone who knows anything about medieval swords knows they are way, way cooler than the over-hyped katana. Heh, heh. :p

B. FALSE! Medieval martial arts were (are) just that… martial arts. They utilize advanced techniques and skill. The myth of medieval combat being nothing more than hack and slash is… (You guessed it!)… FALSE!

Regards,
Matt Wallis

PS. Of course Kat’s are fine weapons and Japanese martial arts can be highly effective. I just want everyone to know that the same can be said of medieval weapons and arts.
M
 
Folks,

I'm an emergency nurse. I get to try to put folks who've been cut and shot back together. My observation with the edged weapon wounds are that 1) Most folks don't know where to cut. They manage to put some impressive wounds on their opponents...just not in the right place and 2) they manage to deal a mortal wound-in three to four hours...during which time the mortally wounded guy does a major number on them. Personally, if I have to use a knife (especially a knife that can be carried concealed easily), my target will be the tendons of my opponents. If you severe the tendons of their hands or arms the effect is immediate. The vascular targets give a committed opponent time to mess you up. I've seen people live quite some time with a stab wound to the heart...walking and conscious...I've seen them survive. Same thing goes for firearm wounds...most of the people out there doing the shooting are not practicing.

On the other hand, there is a secret school of 2X4 masters around here somewhere. Every single person I've seen assaulted with a 2X4 has either died or is in a long term care facility on a ventilator
 
AFAIK:

A European broadsword/longsword tends to be a chopping weapon. The blade is fairly wide in cross-section and is fairly soft steel, yielding a chopping action like that of an ax. This doesn't mean the sword or style is clumsy or axlike, just the cutting action. It's well-suited to hacking up a heavily armored target like an armored knight.

A Damascus steel blade, like an Arab scimitar, is ultra-high-carbon steel, stronger than a European blade but also more brittle. These blades are usually tempered for long periods of time at low temperatures, yielding a matrix of carbon nodules embedded in steel -- so they end up being sorta serrated at a microscopic level. They're slicing weapons, like a scalpel -- they tend to produce nasty, long cuts, but not very deep.

A katana is a cutting weapon...the blade metallurgy is VERY subtle, repeatedly folded to produce thousands of layers of steel of varying hardness laminated together. It is a cutting weapon, capable of cutting a lightly armored foe in half with a single blow -- a top-quality katana in the hands of a master swordsman has been known to bisect two or three opponents in a single swing.

Which is best? None of them, really. There is no perfect sword; you always have to trade off between durability and strength, and the optimal balance depends on what foes you encounter most often -- skill levels being equal, a katana is usually more deadly against unarmored opponents than a broadsword (mostly because it's lighter and faster), but it's not as effective against heavy armor like knights wore.

In any case, most swords people have today are cheap imitations, and they share one common factor: they all stink.
 
Not exactly. Real "Damascus" is not brittle, in fact much less so than most single kinds of steels. Only recently have steel alloys been developed with challenge real Damascus. Striderteen, you may have seen Damascus steel. Most people never have, but they call pattern-welded steel "Damascus." That's a long way from true. If you refer to "Wootz" instead of Damascus, you'll get more accurate information. Even the best bladesmiths now often call pattern-welded steels Damascus simply because that's the terminology customers use and understand. But Wootz is not pattern-welded and it is far from brittle.

Japanense tamagahane steel is folded so many times because if it were not it would be completely unsuitable for sword steel. It was traditionally smelted from black sand, which produces inferior steel. Japanese smiths deserve a great deal of credit for making superb steel from such beginnings through sheer skill and persistence, but their swords quite simply were not markedly superior to medieval blades. I think this myth comes from two sources, both completely understandable:

1. Lots of circumstances conspire to make Japanese blades seem almost mystical and beyond the average person. The effort and skill that go into producing one are phenomenal and I don't use the word lightly. The prices are correspondingly astronomical and always were. And frankly, most people think the grass is greener on the other side.

2. The Japanese have a reverence for the sword that would have seemed crazy to our European ancestors. My ancestors would use a sword for whatever use was at hand, draw it for practice, use it to prop a door open. A sword was a tool. The Japanese have a large body of rules for how one treats a sword (a good rule of thumb is not to do anything to the sword that you wouldn't do to someone's newborn baby.) It is treated with reverence and respect higher than that accorded to some people, and anything that might corrode or break it (like touching the blade with fingers) is prohibited at almost a religious level.

All those rules, all that expense, the almost superhuman effort that goes into the creation of those swords--any reasonable person would assume that there must be something incredible about the swords themselves. To be honest, there isn't, although they are really, really good blades when it's all done right. Personally, I think it has more to do with the reverence the Samurai class had for their weapons both as weapons and as status symbols. They made sure that everyone knew that a sword was a mystical component of a Samurai's soul. There is some evidence that the more the Samurai became a functionary class the more reverently they treated swords.


And just so we're clear, most katana were fairly straight with little or no curve. Curved katana were only one type, though they were certainly widely used. A curved blade certainly must help with certain draw cuts, but it isn't a mandate from the gods. Chopping is not a matter of a straight blade or curved, chopping is the motion of cutting by swinging a blade down on something rather drawing it across the target. It can be and is done with both curved and straight swords, but neither Japanese nor most Western swords are designed primarily for chopping. Chopping designs are balanced as near the tip as possible and tend to be thick blades (not wide front to back, but thick.) The straight, pointed Medieval swords being discussed here were not designed for chopping. Like the Japanese swords, they were attempts to balance between accurate and easy thrusting and ease of cutting. Europeans tended to emphasize the thrust more than the Japanese.

Please understand that I am not an expert. I am a humble beginner in bladesmithing. I have done a little research and if it helps, it helps. If any of the above is inaccurate, I would like to have it pointed out. It's an interesting subject.
 
Don,

Do a search for e-budo.com and when you go there do a search for Dan Harden. He is a bladesmith with truly vast experience with Japanese type blades as well as being an advanced koryu martial art practitioner. As well as being VERY opinionated. While I have never held once of his blades, the jpegs I have seen of his blades are awesome. If they can do one half what he says they can he has surpassed the Japanese. He uses modern steels.

By the way, I am the proud owner of a 400 year old katana in near perfect condition. The fittings are modern reproductions but the blade has been appraised as made circa 1590.
 
I did mean Wootz. I didn't state it was brittle, either -- ultra-high-carbon steel like that does tend to be, but the way it's tempered with the carbon matrix pretty much removes that.

I've seen a katana do those kind of cuts, actually. I agree that a lot of the stuff you hear is myth, but a good katana is REALLY good.


This article is superb: http://www.thehaca.com/essays/knightvs.htm
 
Ah, good stuff all around!

First off, to Striderteen, just wanted you to know that I am not lumping you in with the "katanas are the coolest bestest swords ever made in the whole world and anything else is crap" crowd. It's obvious you respect other swords and styles but just happan to prefer the kat. However I believe you are still in error on a few points. Mr. Gwinn already dealt with the "chops like an axe" thing, so I want to deal with weight.

You said, "skill levels being equal, a katana is usually more deadly against unarmored opponents than a broadsword (mostly because it's lighter and faster)..."

The "Faster" part might be debatable, but not the "lighter." It is my understanding that most katana weigh(ed) between 1.5 - 3 lbs with 2lbs being the most common. That's actually the same range the singlehanded knightly sword falls into (though they may find some heavier ones in the 4lb range). And even the medieval hand and a half swords (longswords/war swords/ bastard swords/etc.) only weigh between 2 - 4 (or 5) pounds. That leaves quite a lot of overlapping between kats and medieval swords (and that usually with a longer blade on the medieval sword).

And as far as tempering goes, I don't think it's quite correct to say medieval blades were softer. Perhaps on the edge. It is my understanding (and please jump in to correct me if I am wrong) that medieval swords were not (or not as often) differentially heat treated like kats. Kats have softer backs and a harder edge (which is what leads to the curvature, btw) while medieval swords were treated to a more uniform hardness throughout. I suppose that would have left them softer than a kat's edge, but harder than a kat's back.

I think there's one thing we can agree on though...

"In any case, most swords people have today are cheap imitations, and they share one common factor: they all stink."

But hey, they seem to be getting better. Hanwei is putting out some decent, somewhat traditionally made japanese stuff. And there's some decent Western stuff too (but not surprisingly enough weight is usually a problem). And for those of us with thousands of $'s to spare, there's always high end custom work! Heh, heh.

Regards,
Matt
 
All good and interesting points. Again, I think the main difference was the cultural way of looking at the sword. A Samurai's blade was a mystical component of his very soul. A knight's sword was more akin to how most of us feel about a very good gun. It would be terrible to lose it, and we love it, but if we had to throw it at the enemy and run for some reason we'd go get another one. Sharpening and polishing of Japanese swords was and is a BIG deal. From what I've read, there are no professional polishers as the Japanese use the term living in the United States--because it takes 25 years of study to attain the rank of "Master" as a polisher.

Personally, I can't imagine what you would learn in the last ten years that you hadn't picked up in the first fifteen, especially since we're talking about doing exactly the same thing over and over, not creating or innovating in any way. But that's my Western mind at work. To me, a sword is a weapon and a polish that is functional and aesthetically pleasing is more than adequate. To the Japanese, I suspect, the sword is an end to itself and thus so is the polish.

"He who cannot cast away a treasure at a time of need wears fetters."
--Aragorn the Dunadan.
 
Hmm...I mean the BIG two-handed longswords, which are 57-78 inches long and weigh 6-14 pounds. The shorter one-handed ones, you're right, they're 3-5 pounds -- but they're only 45-49 inches long.

I'm talking overall lengths here, not blade.
 
Striderteen,

"Longswords" (or "war swords") are one-handed weapons about 37-40" long, of which 31-33" is blade. "Bastard swords" or "Hand-and-a-half swords" may reach 46-47" with more than three feet of blade and are designed for either one- or two-handed use.

Actual humongous two-handed swords of the type you refer to were called, unsurprisingly, zweihanders and actually were more Renaissance than Medieval. (...and never very common, at that)

Their purpose was to be wielded by specially selected, burly veterans (who recieved double the pay of an ordinary soldier and were hence termed doppelsoldern) who would run ahead of their formation and try to use the huge swords to hack the heads off the pikes of the opposing square, attempting to force an alley into the thicket of polearms for their compatriots to follow. These large swords were dull for several inches along the ricasso so you could choke up your grip on them and use them for close-in anti-personnel work as well, but many doppelsoldern carried a short katzbalger for that purpose also.

These huge swords (which still only weighed about 6-7lbs) evolved over time into even bigger and heavier "bearing swords", which were dull and only intended for ceremonial use in parades, and finally evolved into even heavier weapons which were mostly sold in flea markets as wallhangers to proto-goth/metal types and only used in by bad actors in B movies like Highlander, Conan the Barbarian and The Scorpion King.;)
 
In other words it's not a fair comparision... gotta compare a Japanese No-Dachi or Zanba if you're talking those sized swords.
 
Striderteen,

Yeah, the big two-handers certainly weigh more than katanas. Tamara's weights are about right for those. But when talking more regular medieval swords you're getting greater reach (longer blade lengths) than the katana for about the same (sometimes more, and sometimes even less) weight as the kat. (That's assuming a 2-3lb kat with a 26-29 inch blade.)

Tamara,

Sounds like you know your stuff. That from your "SCA days" (thought I read you mention those somewhere)? However, speaking strictly of terminology, "longsword" and especially "war sword" were used to refer to hand and a half style swords. The others were, AFAIK, only refered to as "swords" during the period and now are usually called "single-handed" or the "knightly sword" or some such (I'm getting this from Oakschott as well as numerous other sources). The difference is in the period. EG. War swords were the earlier term eventually replaced by bastard sword.

Regards,
Matt
 
Yes, the big ones I put up the stats for are zweihaenders. Specifically, the ones in the famous arsenal at Graz, Austria (64 swords + 5 unmounted blades).
 
Spartacus

Quite correct on your observation earlier. In bladed weapons, the location of attack is everything. Most spots on the body where knife attacks end up landing are pretty ineffectual. That's intentional. Humans evolved that way. But here are some key points for the readers at home.

1. In a desparate situation, the fleshy part of the wrist will work.

2. If at all possible, try to attack the radial artery on the arm under the armpit. This will make the attacker bleed out faster. There's also a nice juicy tendon in there for added loss of motor skills.

3. The legs work the same way. Go for the achilles tendon on the heel. If you can, tag the femoral artery inside the thigh.

4. Do not stab someone in the crotch. Yes, it will hurt like hell, but the blade could get caught on the tailbone. When you make an attack, you must think about getting your blade away to make another attack.

5. Inches above the crotch is the underside of the belly. This is the real paydirt. Aim just a few inches to either side of the centerline of the body. Unless you're dealing with a PCP freak, he won't be getting up.

6. Be very careful stabbing someone in the ribs. You stand a good chance of losing your blade in the ribcage if the opponent twists or lurches. The heart is a good target, but it is not good enough to risk forfeiting the next attack.

7. I, personally, don't like neck slashes. The good arteries are all in the front of the neck, and from the front, the opponent will certainly see the attack coming, and he might be able to do something about it!

8. The back is the most heavily armored area of the human body. Shoulder blades and ribs make most slashes relatively ineffective. Don't try an attack here unless you have a very sharp, very long sword.


Did I miss anything?
 
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