Pretty much any discussion I have seen, people say the Katana is the best sword ever and that they can cut through steel and how European swords are heavy and clumpsy and what not. Basically your average manga/anime.

Has there been a discussion on this subject here?

Use the search function here to find "katana" and you'll hit almost 500 entries. Most of those won't address your specific interest, but plenty of them will.

Well, in terms of "steels" comparison, katanas would be not only not better, but complete crap. :)

This whole famous, long and very refined process of making katana comes from the fact that Japanes sand ores are very poor, (from the point of view of modern technology they're great, but that's other thing) so they were used to make nice sword out of poor material.

Learning what people know about this specific topic is surely a lot to learn.

Problem with such "katanas are superior" theories is that they're held by people who have generally no idea about anything, and they just like stereotypes.

Both Europe and Japan had very rich history of swords. They were straight swords and curved swords, masterfully made swords as well as pieces of crap. Swords were serving multiple, different purposes, they were different ways and traditions of making and using swords. And European ones differed from Japanese ones, certainly.

So it's really something like comparing Japanese and USA cars, with Jap and USA being the only adjectives used, only more complicated.

At least you could tell the "Katana fans" that Europeen swords had an extremlely large diversity and that there are swords developed to handle almost any sort of opposition from splitting up pike-walls with Zweihanders, armour-piercing XIII, rapiers, smalls swords, long swords, single edge swords and so on.
The Katana would only hold its own in a specific military environment.
It would probably have small sucess fighting a maille-clad medievel soldier and be useless on plate armour.
Executions of prisoners of war seems to be what it has mostly been used for the last 100 years :(

Best regards
Stephan

Armour piercing XIII?

But, I have searched you a few...

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...++european

Generally about single and double edged

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...++european
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...++european
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...++european
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...++european
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...++european

This isn't ment to make fun of anyone just some levity to a subject thats been discussed to death : )

Hello Tomas,

Nihonto (Japanese blades) have been my primary interest in arms & armour for some time now and are certainly my favorite. However, I agree with most of the comments already posted this thread. "Best" has to be qualified (or even better, quantified! :-)) in a specific context; and in the final analysis I believe there are excellent qualities to arms and armour of many cultures and time periods.

Katana are very popular for essentially mythological reasons. Modern Japanese games, cartoons, and comics are an influence, but even in WWII it was the case that GIs were impressed by the Japanese reverence for their own weapons. Imperial Japan's propaganda machine made much of this, using the sword as a potent symbol of Japanese superiority (even producing an impossible video of a sword cutting machine gun barrels). There is an article floating around out there describing some WWII Japanese officers using antique katana of superb make and being surprised and confused when they broke. Even before this, far eastern weapons were viewed as a form of inherently superior exotica by the likes of Portuguese traders, W. B. Yeats, etc... but not by renaissance or medieval armies.

Simultaneous to this was a disdain for western weapons due to myriad factors which I know less about, such as the proliferation of heavy Victorian reproductions.

So it is easy to see where this aura and discrepancy came from. The problem is that it does not bear much scrutiny, for reasons that have already been mentioned. On a related note, it does sadden me that some fora became victims of their own popularity and were overrun by "katanaphiles." The people who really know their stuff, and shared that knowledge, moved elsewhere after that.

One point I would like to make is that the pendulum swings both ways. It is currently in vogue (with apologies to Bartek :)) to call tamahagane "complete crap" and stress the fallibility of nihonto. I don't think this is an entirely fair assessment either as the ingenuity of historical smiths created a product that is functionally excellent by reasonable standards. But it's easy to understand when the typical newbie impression of "the godly katana vs. the junk western sword" really does deserve to be ironed out. :)

Anyway, if you are interested in a specific form of A&A, then pursue that knowledge. Don't be turned off by popular opinion that declares it to be crap, or be sucked into a cult of superiority elsewhere. I don't necessarily think you were in any real danger of that, but I hope I provided some food for thought. :)

PS - I cut out a lot of "done-to-death" material. Tomas, just stick around and you'll get a cosmopolitan enough impression.

When I talked about armour piercing XIII, I didnt mean piercing all armour (plate armour etc) but lighter things like maille or thick leather.
My Munich do have a reinforced point that obviously is made for harder opposition than bare flesh.
But, it is of course not an HEAT-grenade ;)

Best Regards
Stephan

To me the most remarkable thing about Japanese swords is that they were made at all. As pointed out, the Japanese started out with a very poor iron ore which they cooked into a sponge that ran from wrought iron through to cast iron with a lot a slag mixed in. They then were able to break up that sponge of metal and sort out what they needed to make blades from by eye and then mix it and pound out the slag until they had a homogenous slag free billet to make the blade from. Blade construction varied as did the quality. Some of the swords were works of art but none of them were superior to blades made of modern steels. In common with European makers, they Japanese swordsmiths knew what worked but were clueless about why it worked. Everything was learned by trial and error.

As far as those stories about the supernatural capabilities of the Katana, I find that most of them start out something like "my dad ran into this guy after the war who was a Marine on Okinawa who knew a machine gunner in his unit..." The tales of the greatness of these swords rarely stand up to testing, which is not to say that they weren't good but that they were just swords like many others.

I also believe that the Japanese Sword were excellent swords FOR WHAT THEY WERE DESIGN FOR. One has to remember that the armors and fighting style are completely different then those of Europe. While I admit that I am limited in my knowledge of their construction I do enjoy very much learning of their use and how they were carried. Compared to how the Europeans carried their swords the Japanese seemed to carry theirs in more of a "Fast Draw" short of way. The saya was tightly held to the side of their waists, with Ha or blade edge up and at an angle with the tsuba centered to the body. The Technique for drawing the sword moved fluidly into an attack or perry depending on the need. I am bad at words but what I mean to say is even in the same motion as drawing the word the advance or defense had already begun. Or you are attacking as you are drawing the blade. (I'm not an instructor, sorry for bad wording) i guess you might say a one stroke one kill type mentality. However these were not the plate armor and chain mail wearing opponents of Europe; which, such technique would have been most likely very useless. I have a very high regard for both styles of swords and the skill needed to successfully use them and would sell neither short in regards to their own fields of use.
on a side note, modern entertainment has done neither swords justice in their portrayal of them. European broadswords were no where near as bulky or heavy as they are portrayed. After all, you have to imagine they were lugging these things around on marches and in battle, they did not want to be hindered by them.
Also the Japanese sword has also been cheated; by portraying it as some kind of magical super weapon they have fostered a deep misunderstanding of them and their uses.
That being said. I believe that in it's weight class, and what these sword were used for and against, and their ability to hold their edge, I believe the the Japanese Sword is the best WITH IN IT'S ELEMENTS FOR WHICH IT WAS DESIGNED.

I hope I helped.

OK!
Now I understand the funny twist!!!
I meant of course XVIII (18) and not XIII (13)
If there is one medievel sword that definitely is not armour piercing it would be the point of a XIII :)

Best Regards
Stephan