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Mmmm, I was surpised no one has addressed this yet, So sine I am also a Mod for the Weaponmaster's Guild - it just made sense that I smite on this one.

The Katana - its become a cult classic in the field of weaponry, the infamous blade of the Honorable Samurai and the weapon of choice for countless anime characters.

Its all a lie.

The Katana is probably the most mediocre blade in existance at best, and here I'll explain my logic, and bust a few myths.

Myth #1
"the Katana is the perfect sword"

Wrong, there is no 'perfect' sword, as peoples styles, speed and reach vary, being 6'2" I find that a katana is too short for me to use effectivly in sparring. The idea behind the katana was training over desgin, which I'll emphisis with another blade - a 12th century leafed b*****d sword.

Now for a katana to be effective, you had to know EXACTLY how to use it, now to many this is a plus as it add 'skill' and 'honor' to the blade, but its impractical as hell, now I know this may seem sill to you martial artists, but lets check this situation.

You are back in oh.... 13th century england, by some freak conencidence you are a freshly trained Bushi goign head to head with a fully armed and armroed German Grenadier.....

The katana fails badly here, as is was made with the concepts of bamboo and light chain armor in mind. The country of japan has very little iron of its own, and during the Feudal era their nigh xenophobic policy on Gaijin made trade difficult.

So in short - the japanese had very little steel armor.

So that katana's edge is goign to do very little against that german shock troppers field plate, which is around 85lbs of soilid drop forged STEEL, ans wsz onyl made obsolete by the invention of firearms, in actually due to the very fine edge natural to the damascus blade on a katana - there was a considerable chance of serious damaging the blade by striking a solid armor like that directly.

Now the samurai would attempt to use finesee.... but theres little room for that when the oly opening your opponent has is his back and a quater inche sli tin his helmet - which is 90% covered by a shield midn you. between the two of them, the figth would be a stalemate in skill - but a clear win for the Knight in equipment.

Now countrary to popular belef - full palte aint that hard to move in, I've worn it several times for my Creative Anacromism shindigs, its a little stiff around the hip greves, but other then thats its just fine - but dont expect to be doing any backlfips in it.

In short Steel armor > Katana, the katana just doesnt have the MASS to get through fullpalte, as you dont cut platemail; you break it.

Myth #2
'Samurai could block bullets'

See this?

This is my laughing my a** off, to start this off, lets look at this video, shall we?

Katana VS. .45 automatic and .50 BMG.

Now from this video, lets assume that you CAN get yoru blade in line, for one, the spalling the bullets create when they hit would rip you apart like shotgun pellets, lets not even get into how muhc FORCE they are imparting kinetically into the blade - say good bye to your metacarpels.
Now then theres when a really BIG round hits it, sheared that ******** IN HALF, take that, kenshin.

Now for logic.

The fastest recorded human reaction time that was TESTED, was about .35 seconds, or one 35th of a second, sounds pretty fast eh?

Average bullet speed is around 1500FPS. thats around Mach 1 buddy.

the average range of a firefight is about 100 feet, so lets do the math.

bullet travel time stands at around .015 seconds or so....yeah.

Bullet speed > Human reflexes.

Myth #1
'Katana are honorable weapons, thats why the samurai used them and not long swords'

Sorry - bullshit.

As was afore mentioned, Japan had access to VERY little steel, so when they made a sword, they needed one that they could ply the MOST use from, thus the rather intricate quality and desgin of the katana's blade - they built is for use against thier foes WITHIN their own country.

Now the samurai used the katana more because face it - steel was expensive as HELL, who else coudl afford the sheer cost to have a katana made?

Remember - in combat, honor is pointless, whiel your worried abotu fairness, that ganbanger is cracking your skull with a lead pipe.

and there is no honor in killing.

In conclusion, the katana was a fine weapon, but was destroyed by popular culture and illiterate fanboys.

Real men used Lochabers.

How about the myth that you can cut someone in half with a katana? I know it is possible, but I can cut someone in half with a golf club under the right circumstances.

Katana is for cutting the ever living crap out of someone, maybe removing the occasional body part, maybe, but for chopping you have mister zweihander over there.

The katana doesnt have enough mass for a chop, and you would have to make up for it with an extremely high speed and force behind it. Eh, I cant think right now. Ill probably finish my rambling later.

First of all, I think it's pathetic for you to bring your guns vs. swords topic from your journal to here just because I made a silly comment.

Your whole article is useless. Here's why. You're comparing something made around 6th century AD to something made in the 12th century.

That's comparing a chair to a gun. You can't compete with that. But I will dissect some of your article anyway.

First of all, while a well-made long sword could beat the crap out of anything, swords were crappily made in medieval times. They wer eslammed together, blade first and then plastered the handle on. Because of this, they would frequently break at the connection point, render full force useless.

Also, because of the quality, swords would either not be sharp or dull very quickly, whereas a katana, if given proper care, should remain sharp for a thousand lifetimes(give or take a hundred).
This caused the knights or whomever was weilding the sword to exert way more energy than needed, tiring themselves out faster.

And I don't know what armor you were wearing, but back in the day, armor was 20-30 pounds. So ability to move in it wasn't a problem. It was stamina that was the problem. Not only that, but proper armor took so long to put on, that they would actually have to schedule their battles hours or days ahead of time.

So if you placed a samurai against your average knight, who would win? Well, it's easy. The samurai would win.

Now, if you take your MODERN knight and your MODERN samurai and your MODERN blades, yes, the knight would definetly win. But since your so focused about centuries rolleyes and competing fairly rolleyes you lose at your own game in the 12th century.

To Fenrir: "katana is for cutting the ever living crap out of someone, maybe removing the occasional body part, maybe, but for chopping you have mister zweihander over there."
Wrong. The katana was made for slicing. That is why it is curved, folded steel. A katana's build is much better than the average english anything. For chopping someone in half, well, who the ******** would be stupid enough to do that?

But, with ANY blade, it's easy to chop off apendages. I mean, it's a blade for ******** christ's sake. Human bodies are pretty weak and slim compared to this huge slab os sharpened steel coming at you.

"The katana doesnt have enough mass for a chop, and you would have to make up for it with an extremely high speed and force behind it."

That's because the katana wasn't made for chopping. But if you have to slice somehting, it takes next to nothing to force a katana all the way through a tree, a tai mat, an arm. How would I know? I've had first hand expierence.
The katana was not made for throwing your upper strength around. So if you just do that, yes, the katana WILL be useless. The aim of the katana is to use your whole body and your momentum to aide you, not just your sheer strength. That is why most samurai are flimsy and weak. I mean, even Kenshin, with it's flying and impossible moves is flimsy and weak. If anything is real about Kenshin, it's how slim and weak samurai are.

Brilliant article bro. Some people are too stubborn with this issue, personally I prefer weapons which have proven to do some damage historically. Japan's greatest victories were in WW2, where Katanas were nowhere to be seen. I'll go with a rapier, claymore, broad sword, etc. over a Katana any day.

That RIGHT THERE!

Polearms - they live in the shadow of the sword, but think about that Lochaber again.

I suddenly LIKE the idea of having around seven feet of steely badassitiude between me and that slavering barbarian.

After - isnt that why the Romans counqored the entire known world?

Sheild/pike Phalanx.

They also carried a Gladius as backup, but for the most part, it was the pike.

I think you miss understood what I meant buy "cutting" someone in half with a zwei hander. I was thinking maybe knocking them down and going all-out lumberjack on them. Useful? No, but we were talking about halving someone.

A friend's great great.. lots of greats grandparents found a katana from the WWII era, and it is still sharp to this day. Explain that.

History proves otherwise.

Um, No. I'm just going to have to disagree with that one, without any facts. Because I'm stubborn.

Wow, that's nice. Too bad both of us were talking about longswords. Was b*****d sword brought up any time before right now? Nope.


I'd have to say you're wrong on that one. Swords in Europe were mass produced and horribly made, while Japanese spent upwards of 5 years or so perfecting each katana.


Okay, that's nice. You're point?

Fenrir: Alright then. I misunderstood.

i havent read extensively on these stuff, but wow, you guys are really at it on the euro sword and the jap sword huh? all i can say is, do you have any info ona double sided axe? i dont get to read much on that...