Weapons and Warfare

[Mark]

Turtle power

[Tsukiyumi]

[Deepcrush]

Just kick them on their ass. How hard would that be?

Just saying.

All depends on if that Knight with solid steel armor and a big ass sword hits you first.

[Tsukiyumi]

Just kick them on their ass. How hard would that be?

Just saying.

All depends on if that Knight with solid steel armor and a big ass sword hits you first.

Dude. He's going to be moving at about 1 MPH at best in that crap. No way.

[Deepcrush]

You under estimate the speed of a sword swing.

[Tsukiyumi]

You under estimate the speed of a sword swing.

Dude, 200 pounds of armor will slow a person down.

[Vic]

It's a good thing that 200 pounds of armor was only used in tournaments then, huh?

Seriously, a well made suit of plate would weigh no more that 45 pounds and is distributed all around the body.
A noble or a Knight that trained all of his life to fight could jump onto his horse, chase down an unarmored opponent, even swim in it for short distances (yes I said swim....in water....really).

[Sionnach Glic]

Going back a bit.

Really? What makes you say that?

As Kendall mentioned, a katana is an extremely brittle sword. Great for cutting through lightly armoured enemies (which is what they would have faced in Japan), but hit it against anything solid and the sword will simply shatter. To put it bluntly, Japanese steel was shit.

It's this poor quality of the steel that led to the Japanese thinking up the idea of "folding" the metal when making a katana. It was quite an advance technique for its time, but it still wasn't really enough. A katana shattering in combat was far from unusual.

I can see a katana as effective against any cloth or leather armor and such things as brigandines. Against riveted chainmail or plate defenses.....not so much.

Correct. A katana would be worthless on a European battlefield - the armour of the region was simply too strong for the katana to deal with.

In Japan itself, it wasn't that big a deal because a Samurai's primary weapon was the bow and spear.

...well, that's news to me.

What exactly a Samurai was depends on what dynasty you're talking about. At varying times they were cavalry, ranged troops, spearmen, swordsmen, and officers that rarely fought.

Sounds like the weapon has gone through a good bit of romantization over the years as to just how formidable it was

Indeed. A katana's effectiveness in battle has been seriously overstated in modern day popular culture. Many people think of it as being the pinnacle of sword-making. But that's far from the truth. And the idea of it being the "best" sword is just nonsense. There's no "best" sword, because how well a sword works depends on what role you want it for. A katana was a great weapon in its environment - cutting down barely armoured pesants. Against a fully armoured knight or a Roman shield-wall....utter suicide.

Dude, 200 pounds of armor will slow a person down.

The massive heavy armour that is the popular view of a knight was used only for tournaments, when protection was more important than anything else. Knights in battle used a much lighter set of armour.

[Nickswitz]

I actually have always thought of the Katana as exceptionally weak. I wonder though, would it be any stronger if modern steel was used for the blade?

[Aaron]

I actually have always thought of the Katana as exceptionally weak. I wonder though, would it be any stronger if modern steel was used for the blade?

Well yeah, if you used modern forging techniques. How much more useful it would be against an armoured opponent, I'm not sure as the basic problem of it not being designed to crush/stab remains.

[Nickswitz]

Oh yeah, I know it's crappy to use against anything with more than clothe covering it, maybe leather. I still think a Katana would be awesome to have just because they look absolutely awesome. I would probably keep it in a case the whole time, they are gorgeous, especially the handles, at least the show ones were, IDK about the fighting ones, probably not.

[Mikey]

*whew* OK...

A katana or wakizashi was actully rather flexible due to the method of folding many layers of steel... but the cutting edge was brittle and the murakumi (sic) was easily abraded. Also, the attachment at the quillons could be a weak point if striking something very hard. Samurai armor of the daimyo period was indeed made of steel, but of thousands of scales. It was very thin, and there were chinks at every overlap. In fact, the material that made up most of a samurai's armor (by percentage of volume) was silk. The katana and wakizashi were the signature weapons of the samurai, but they also specialized in the bow - different arrow-firing ones or the pellet bow - a broad-bladed glaive-like spear, and the tanto.

[Deepcrush]

- a broad-bladed glaive-like spear,

Naginata? (Spelling please)

[Tyyr]

Simply put, the katana's main method of attack, slicing, is the one European armor was designed to defeat and was exceptionally good at defeating. Knight vs. Samurai, if they start at sword range, is a very short very onsided fight.

[Sionnach Glic]

Indeed. Heavier armour + more damaging sword + greater size and reach = dead Samurai.