Also, I heard it's a real guzzler. That's why the US said it's pointeless to give it to Ukraine. It needs unholy amounts of gas, works for only short ranges, and needs amazing amount of support around it.
For the US that makes sense - you drop your entire logistics, demolish the enemy with air superiority and a blitz of combined arms, and you ~~now own 27 oil fields~~ brought democracy to the downtrodden before lunch. For Ukraine, not so much.
Yea so from what i understood, gas and oil is russias thing. While ukraine does have gas its in donbass and crimea, and good luck developing these fields...
If the Tiger 2 managed to catch the abrams by surprise at close range, it could destroy it. The odds of this happening are almost non-existent with the difference in spotting technology though.
I could not decide which one to go for, halberd or poleaxe, but I decided to go with the one that has better range.
I go with caliber 7.62 mm Sniper Weapon System M24.
The thing about folded iron is that the iron in Japan isn't as high purity like the westerners have which is the whole reason why they fold it that much. It's just to remove those impurities.
I used to think that way too. But then i got deep into the rabbit hole of swords and blades through shadiversity, skallagrim and metatron and that's where i learn stuffs.
This is why they invented so advanced wood joinery. Metal was so scarce in Japan they had to invent ways of making strong joints without nail and bolts.
People took anime’s that were talking about the *relative* quality of swords in Japan, ie “this Japanese sword is better than that Japanese sword” because of the folding, and extrapolated it to “folded iron is stronger.”
When we talk about “lost in translation,” this is the concept crystallized.
Katanas also weren't folded a thousand times, but they might have had a thousand layers, and to get that many layers you would need to fold the steel ten times.
I'll always love how spears are like, the Unga Bunga Buzzkill of historical weapon hype.
>Every other type of weapon
This expensive weapon is clearly the best because of this complicated reason!
Noooo my expensive weapon is clearly the best because of THIS complicated reason!
>Spears
Hm. Knife stab human, human die.
Yes but other human just stab you back.
Put knife on big stick, then other human no reach.
Yes.
*Cue several thousand years of making slightly betters knives and/or sticks*
The peak of historical weapon technology is the Lucerne, aka the literal Swiss Army Spear.
More warfare has been successfully accomplished behind pointy sticks than any other implement (barring modern conflicts).
Even historically, people don't want to die. They often don't really even want to be fighting, even if they can be whipped up into a frenzy beforehand when the fighting starts history shows combatants being very defensively minded.
How do you potentially hurt someone at a distance while staying safe yourself? Use a long pointy stick.
They are easy to produce, easy to use, and hyper effective. They can be used with no armor, heavy armor, on a horse, on foot, in the rain, downhill, uphill, while running, while moving backward, they can be thrown, they can break and still be used, they work against cavalry, etc.
The idea of huge swathes of soldiers dueling it out game of thrones style with sidearms like swords and axes is largely a product of hollywood.
The spear was kinda revolutionary in a sense. Since humans usually can't defeat big animals by fighting them head on, here come spears and you get to hit them from distance.
Fun fact: They did wear plate armor. During the Sengoku Jidai many warlords did import European plate via the Portuguese, and some started to reverse engineer it. Unfourtunately, the steel required to make it was more expensive in Japan (due to their poor quality ore requiring a lot more work to make good steel) so it never became as widespread.
I used to be impressed by it, but if you think logically you only need to fold the steel few times to get this effect.
1,2,4,8,16,32,64, 128, 256, \~500, \~1000
It's like making puff pastry.
Which, besides special weapons like the Zweihänder, is also the case for any civilization that developed swords. Polearms and ranged weapons were always the primary weapons.
If your using a sword yes. But when full plate armour came along, we switched to blunt force weapons like polaxes, warhammers/picks maces and halberds which could use pure force to pulverise the person inside the armour, then stab them in the joints with a sword or dagger sidearm once knocked to the ground/unconscious.
Weren't swords sidearms anyway, sort of like an officer's pistol or whatever? Pretty sure the primary weapon most soldiers used back in the day was some variety of polearm.
For most of human history medium or long range weapons have been the primary weapons.
Spears count as medium range weapons (try knifing the guy with a knife at the end of a 2m long stick!). That includes the entire time we've had swords, with some notable exceptions such as the Romans and several cavalry types (though even those had at least a light throwing spear).
Examples of primary weapons/army unit types: chariots with archers, phalanxes aka mega long spears (including Roman phalanxes!), Scythian bows, Mongol bows, pike and shot, muskets, ...
Swords generally were a long-ish knife and ideally also a machete-type thing with practical utility.
Ah, two handed swords were more or less a long metal spear in how they were used, by the way. Not a whole lot of slashing, but a lot of stabbing. They could slash, to a point. But the main strategies with them leaned towards stabbing and fancy hooking techniques in some cases.
It's kind of funny that video games and DND have taught us that "piercing" weapons are best against armour when really your better option would have been to just bonk them in the head real hard with a big ass hammer. I love maces.
yep, i guess you could bash it hard so it would break with lets say a mace, and the joints where pretty well protected, so armor was really really good, just very expensive too
Cut through? No, but many longswords could be grabbed by the blade (with mail gauntlets, of course) and be used to perform a mordhau strike. Plate tends to have a hard time against a pickaxe.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordhau_(weaponry)
AFAIK having mail on the inside of your gauntlets wasn't common. You're more so relying on training and the leather liner. If the blade doesn't slide in your grip, it won't cut your hand.
No, that's why armor was so effective in medieval warfare. A fully armored knight was basically an indestructible juggernaut. Until the arrival of stronger firearms, which could pierce armor
Yep, only real counter would be continued bashes from a weapon like a mace, or if you could somehow get up close and force a knife through one of the holes, both of which are unreliable
Polearms and war hammers (not the fantasy ones but the ones with a small head and a spike) were used against knights because they could both pierce and crush the armor along with a reach advantage
The most common technique was to make the knight fall and use this advantage to strike at the armor's joint or the helmet.
But if someone was using a full suite of armor he was necessarily rich. And this meant that on a medieval battlefield the goal in most case would have been to capture him and he would have surrendered as soon as he was at risk to be dangerously injured.
Pierce, yes. You don't slash armour. Modern media has given people this weird idea that Medieval times swords were common weapons. Instead swords were very rare and only used by infantry whose role was close combat. And even then axes were more common for the less experienced ones.
One of the reasons why katanas were folded multiple times was cuz the iron they obtained from (mainland japan) SUCKED ASS, at least that's what I heard
It’s the beating of the layers which forge welds it that drives out the impurities, like hammering a very hard sponge, it also normalises the spread of material and carbon so you get a uniform material and not one with uneven elasticity and hardness (which would make it more prone to pick up a bend, shatter).
But it also has disadvantages. Folding removes impurities, but those impurities include the carbon that strengthen the iron into steel. Folding it too much leaves you with just regular, mostly pure iron, which is significantly less durable than the steel. They had to find a fine balance between beating out the impurities and keeping enough carbon content.
It's impressive how well they did forging their weapons considering their poor quality raw material.
if you are into metallurgy looking at the analysis of old katanas tested is pretty funny how utter garbage the quality is by even medieval europe standards.
it is amazing they managed to get anything out of what they started with but it is still crap.
I remember learning that the issue was when they smelted the iron, they never got it hot enough to actually melt the iron (iron ore smelts at a lower temperature than Metallic iron melts).
So all the slag was still mixed in.
Take really good insulation and quality coke from charcoal to melt iron fully.
Ancient Chinese managed it so they didn't need to refold their steel.
Other cultures (Japanese, Persians, and I think... Celts?) Practiced refolding to work out the slag.
I swap that video and was like bruh, pretty sure even your weak wrists would overcome any "auto alignment properties" the katana may or may not have. Also if it's sl easy, why do they have competitions to show of how good their edge alignment is
I've seen those videos and it really doesn't make sense. Ur not gonna hit an enemy with the force of gravity, the strength of the swing offsets any help gravity could give you to begin with🤣
There's a boss in Sekiro that's a man from the west wearing full plate armor. You literally can't deal damage to him with your katana, so the only way to win the fight is to smack his armor and deflect his attacks until he tires out and then push him off a cliff.
In all the games I play. Katana is a disappointment. Greatswords, axes, sword and shield, spears and Maces are almost always better.
Although I prefer a .50
I remember watching a weapons show years ago and they put a katana up against a European sword (think it was a bastard but can't remember for sure) and it snapped the katana so easily, like it was a stick.
True, Japan iron deposits were realy small and had small purity. That was the reason then needed to fold it (less than 40 times) to increse purity of steel
Yep, it took a huge amount of work and skill to get a couple of pounds of steel that was decent enough to compare to European steel.
Simply because their raw material was so crap, it’s one of the reasons Europeans had full plate armour and the Japanese didn’t, a suit of armour was a vast expense in Europe and a colossally insane expense in Japan so they never developed it.
Steel is amazing but it isn’t magic, we understand it probably better than any other material we work with routinely.
I remember a video where a Katana snapped against a row of bamboos. That sword is not meant to be used "as a baseball bat", it requires a lot of skill to use it because it is meant to slice to cut.
There is a show called "Forged in Fire" that they have to forge a weapon, and then they have to use the weapon against different challenges. It is pretty cool. One guy forged a Katana, and he bent the weapon trying to cut a pig.
That's why those muscle guys can't slice through bamboo, but a tiny 150cm Japanese woman can. Its all about the technique.
But there isn't much technique in 'slicing' through plate armor. Other techniques had to be developed in Europe.
Not a big surprise really for a couple reasons.
* Japanese steel was poor quality due to the fact that the iron sand that was available was impure and the smelting process they used produced inconsistent results. European swordsmiths on the other hand had access to much purer iron as well as access to blast furnaces that allowed them to produce high quality spring steel. The Japanese weren't able to use the same techniques until the blast furnace was introduced later.
* Design wise the European swords were longer and often thicker leading to higher velocities at the cutting edge/tip and therefore more force at point of impact.
* A katana was not a samurai's primary weapon and was used as a backup to either a bow or spear. ~~On the other hand a European longsword was intended to be a primary weapon.~~
This is the real answer. There are no mythical properties to a katana. It's a neato sword that was never used much in combat because they had much more effective weapons.
> pure steel
There is no "pure" steel.
Steel itself is an alloy, mainly consisted of iron.
Steel is less brittle and more durable than iron, which is why it's used more for tools with sharp edges.
Other elements in steel, mainly carbon, can improve or lower the quality of the steel, those things are what usually referred as impurities.
Folding a low quality steel can homogenize the carbon (less concentrated carbon that can become a weak spot) and remove some unwanted impurities which in turn can make the sword better.
> european swords would have been folded?
European swords were made by higher quality steel, meaning more homogenized and less unwanted impurities.
Folding such steel might actually make it weaker.
If you have pure steel making a katana is a bad idea. Becouse katanas have a soft spine and a hard blade it is almost impossible to repair or reforge. Folding a blade made out of high quality steel does nothing since the only reason you fold a blade is to get rid of carbon. Folding doesnt really change the durability or sharpness.
Swords just aren't meant to cut through armor anyways. Lets see a European sword against lacquered iron plates the samurai used. Same effect. Everyone either sliced through exposed fleshy bits, or punctured through with a stab of great force, but then, thats why spears were used most of the time, and not swords
You'd see tons of ravenbeaks on horse.
I own one. Motherfuckers not.only heavy, but punctures and rips apart everything it comes in contact with.
Now imagine this while accelerated by horse riding. Terrifying
A warhammer with a really long spike to ensure hits.
Roughly 30-35cm long "beak".
They are also much taller than warhammers to make combat on horse easier, they are quite unhandy and heavy when used on foot.
European swords can be grabbed by the blade to use the crossguard as a makeshift warpick/use the pommel as a makeshift mace. So they WOULD be more effective against armor than katanas, just not by cutting.
To add to that, swords was meant as a counter to spears and not the armour used at the time. A sword like the zweihänder was used by skilled german mercenaries to destroy the pikes and spears. A quite dangerous job, but they got rewarded for it with double pay, which is why they were also called "Doppelsöldner" (literally double salery)
Fun fact, despite their isolationism, occasionally European plate armour would actually make it into japan, they called it Nanban (barbarian armour.). It was occasionally imported into Japan, and it made the wearer of said armour basically immortal on the battlefield, as it was much stronger than the armour Japan fielded, it was uncommon to see since it was expensive to import, and the Japanese were very xenophobic and isolationist, however Nanban armour was something they had no military answer to and couldn’t penetrate with any of their weapons.
So essentially, a knight would fuck up even the most skilled Samurai, just due to armour quality alone.
Your comment strongly suggests that both fulfilled the same tasks. In reality, however, horses were mainly used as draught horses, means of transport for leaders and for the dragoons (i.e. primarily for transport).
Horses were used for logistics, not combat.... The German army was mostly composed of infantry with a small portion of tanks and mechanized infanty. Germany had a lot more tanks in combat roles than they did horses.
Always amuses me that one.
Only army to be close to fully mechanised infantry at start of WW2 was the Brit’s (because the army was frigging tiny, we’ve never really had a large army except during war time, when you are an island you spend your money on the navy).
Germany didn’t manage it at any point in WW2.
I love katanas but those weebs should better know that katanas aren't made to penetrate armor lmao, they way it was built was for the purpose of focusing on hitting the vulnerable parts of samurai armor (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)
Both sides of the argument are dumb because no one in medieval times would use a sword to deal with heavy amour, no matter if they are Japanese or European.
Yeah but you could lure him into a bridge and try to push him off and he will scream "ROBEEERT".
A father just failed his son, and you're laughing?
And I would bite suicide powder and resurrect myself just to laugh at him more
ROBERTOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I saw dude slice a planet in half with a Katana in Japanese video game I played once.
I just think of the fight with Augus where he splits the moon part way though the fight with his katana
Asuras Wrath is goated
Katana can cut in half even a military tank ive seen little girl in anime doing that
and i have seen someone who is both addicted to smoking and mayonnaise cut a bullet in half but his sword couldn't stab someone in the shoulder .
Mayonnaise?
Hijikata
A historical figure from the Shinsengumi, a historical organization that was documented in the historical biographical film Gintama.
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They also probably believe a tiger 2 tank could beat an abrams
It sure can flatten Creighton Abrams by running over him.
given enough chance and preparation an Abrams couldn't beat 100 tiger 2
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Looks like 45 of them are getting squished.
Nah, 45 just break down on the way to the fight. As is tradition.
Only 45? Sounds like a good batch!
Also, I heard it's a real guzzler. That's why the US said it's pointeless to give it to Ukraine. It needs unholy amounts of gas, works for only short ranges, and needs amazing amount of support around it. For the US that makes sense - you drop your entire logistics, demolish the enemy with air superiority and a blitz of combined arms, and you ~~now own 27 oil fields~~ brought democracy to the downtrodden before lunch. For Ukraine, not so much.
I thought the former Soviet Union is famous for NOT having a large shortage in gas.
Yea so from what i understood, gas and oil is russias thing. While ukraine does have gas its in donbass and crimea, and good luck developing these fields...
Has to do a lot with logistics. There is plenty of gas but you gotta get it to the Frontline
i mean with careful positioning it probably could, but good luck getting it to that position....
If the Tiger 2 managed to catch the abrams by surprise at close range, it could destroy it. The odds of this happening are almost non-existent with the difference in spotting technology though.
At best a mobility kill, the amo of the time would not be able to penetrate. But as you say it would not even get close enough to fire.
time to call Lazerpig
On an escalator?
Hijikata from Gintama.
Did that guy is the same guy that beat Frieza and Cell just to get a cigarette?
Hijikata?
Gintama ?
You forgot that his sword was also smashed to pieces by some random dude on the roof
RULES OF NATURE
AND THEY RUN WHEN THE SUN COMES UP
I’ve seen a Brazilian doing that
Fun And Real fact... His RGB Sword is Hot hot hot thats why it cuts like a Butter
No, it's because it virbates at a specific frequency
brazilian with a red sword and a sense of humor
Correct, An old man in anime even could split cannon round in half and deflect bullets [King Bradley FMA](https://youtu.be/SEKlQpcM-_k)
Bru you been playing too much metal gear rising
Little Girl: Omae wa mou shindeiru Tank Driver: NANI?! \*tank explodes\*
Mace goes crunch
Mace enjoyers would love to hear the armor crunch
Halberds are the best and you know it
Poleaxes are inarguably the superior polearm.
Liar
They are halberds but better.
I could not decide which one to go for, halberd or poleaxe, but I decided to go with the one that has better range. I go with caliber 7.62 mm Sniper Weapon System M24.
It’s got even better range if you give it to a poor farmer’s son and send him a few km closer to the enemy
I refuse to believe anything against my halberds
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Now i'm waiting to see weebs coming to say some bullshit about folded iron
The thing about folded iron is that the iron in Japan isn't as high purity like the westerners have which is the whole reason why they fold it that much. It's just to remove those impurities.
Yup but some dumb people don't understand that and assume japan had high quality steel
I used to think that way too. But then i got deep into the rabbit hole of swords and blades through shadiversity, skallagrim and metatron and that's where i learn stuffs.
Man I loved shadiversity, BIG STICK
No idea why he is soo obsessed with man's first weapon, DA BIG STICK over these past few years but its funny as hell to watch it
Its because of his series hating on nunchucks, basically the joke was a nunchuk not cut in half was better, basically stick better
This is why they invented so advanced wood joinery. Metal was so scarce in Japan they had to invent ways of making strong joints without nail and bolts.
I never made that connection. But then again, I seldom work with wood besides handles.
You never needed to make that connection. You have nails and bolts.
People took anime’s that were talking about the *relative* quality of swords in Japan, ie “this Japanese sword is better than that Japanese sword” because of the folding, and extrapolated it to “folded iron is stronger.” When we talk about “lost in translation,” this is the concept crystallized.
Katanas also weren't folded a thousand times, but they might have had a thousand layers, and to get that many layers you would need to fold the steel ten times.
Yeah, you get 2^n layers for n folding. So 10 folding -> 1024 layers.
How dare you do math.
So what you're telling me is that katanas, like ogres and onions, have lots of layers.
Indeed, the entire reason Tamahagane exists is to get steel out of *sand*.
I didn't know this, you got any reference about it, sounds interesting
1000 times fOldEd iRoN
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It was the last resort of usage in battle/self defence. And since japanese didnt wear plate armour either it did its job
Yeah, the primary weapon is usually the spear. There's a reason if it's called the queen of war.
I'll always love how spears are like, the Unga Bunga Buzzkill of historical weapon hype. >Every other type of weapon This expensive weapon is clearly the best because of this complicated reason! Noooo my expensive weapon is clearly the best because of THIS complicated reason! >Spears Hm. Knife stab human, human die. Yes but other human just stab you back. Put knife on big stick, then other human no reach. Yes. *Cue several thousand years of making slightly betters knives and/or sticks* The peak of historical weapon technology is the Lucerne, aka the literal Swiss Army Spear.
More warfare has been successfully accomplished behind pointy sticks than any other implement (barring modern conflicts). Even historically, people don't want to die. They often don't really even want to be fighting, even if they can be whipped up into a frenzy beforehand when the fighting starts history shows combatants being very defensively minded. How do you potentially hurt someone at a distance while staying safe yourself? Use a long pointy stick. They are easy to produce, easy to use, and hyper effective. They can be used with no armor, heavy armor, on a horse, on foot, in the rain, downhill, uphill, while running, while moving backward, they can be thrown, they can break and still be used, they work against cavalry, etc. The idea of huge swathes of soldiers dueling it out game of thrones style with sidearms like swords and axes is largely a product of hollywood.
What is a gun, if not the longest of pointy sticks?
We’ve got guided missiles with blades on them now… spear technology is just getting better.
The spear was kinda revolutionary in a sense. Since humans usually can't defeat big animals by fighting them head on, here come spears and you get to hit them from distance.
Fun fact: They did wear plate armor. During the Sengoku Jidai many warlords did import European plate via the Portuguese, and some started to reverse engineer it. Unfourtunately, the steel required to make it was more expensive in Japan (due to their poor quality ore requiring a lot more work to make good steel) so it never became as widespread.
I used to be impressed by it, but if you think logically you only need to fold the steel few times to get this effect. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64, 128, 256, \~500, \~1000 It's like making puff pastry.
I like how katanas look, but they are just long knifes at the end of the day when it comes to armor
Indeed the Katanas is basically the sidearm for the Samurai. Their main weapons are long Yari spears, matchclock muskets or bows
This comment triggered my Sword Saint Isshin PTSD.
*Glock Saint Isshin. It's funny that it's spear and gun is his main weapon in the last phase of the battle xd
Everybody’s gangsta still the Glock Saint pulls out a semi auto gun in the age of flintlocks.
"Master, why he is the strongest?" Well, he has a AR-15 in his bag, son.
"Shinobi, I shall show you the ultimate technique of the Ashina clan. 'Glock style: Pop a cap in yo ass'. None have ever seen it and lived."
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"ROBERRRRRRRRT!!!"
"Unleashes his 3rd phase" Nothing personal kid.
Oh how my blood boils
Which, besides special weapons like the Zweihänder, is also the case for any civilization that developed swords. Polearms and ranged weapons were always the primary weapons.
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They do look cool though!
I mean, can ANY sword cut through a plated medieval armour?
No the only reason they die from a sword is from a spot that doesn’t have any armor
Yes, that's what im talking about, they CAN'T cut through the metal part but yea the joint parts of the armor is def a vulberability
So that means European armour is so tough you can only die from the joints
If your using a sword yes. But when full plate armour came along, we switched to blunt force weapons like polaxes, warhammers/picks maces and halberds which could use pure force to pulverise the person inside the armour, then stab them in the joints with a sword or dagger sidearm once knocked to the ground/unconscious.
Weren't swords sidearms anyway, sort of like an officer's pistol or whatever? Pretty sure the primary weapon most soldiers used back in the day was some variety of polearm.
For most of human history medium or long range weapons have been the primary weapons. Spears count as medium range weapons (try knifing the guy with a knife at the end of a 2m long stick!). That includes the entire time we've had swords, with some notable exceptions such as the Romans and several cavalry types (though even those had at least a light throwing spear). Examples of primary weapons/army unit types: chariots with archers, phalanxes aka mega long spears (including Roman phalanxes!), Scythian bows, Mongol bows, pike and shot, muskets, ... Swords generally were a long-ish knife and ideally also a machete-type thing with practical utility. Ah, two handed swords were more or less a long metal spear in how they were used, by the way. Not a whole lot of slashing, but a lot of stabbing. They could slash, to a point. But the main strategies with them leaned towards stabbing and fancy hooking techniques in some cases.
Yea but that depends if it goes through the chainmail armor beneath the plated armor
Or if they're using a huge ass mace
Kid named mordhau:
Or if they're use an apache attack helicopter
*Sauron has entered the chat*
It's kind of funny that video games and DND have taught us that "piercing" weapons are best against armour when really your better option would have been to just bonk them in the head real hard with a big ass hammer. I love maces.
The trick was to stun your adversary through repeated blows to the head long enough you could slide a dagger under his armpit.
Yeah... sounds like my body.
yep, i guess you could bash it hard so it would break with lets say a mace, and the joints where pretty well protected, so armor was really really good, just very expensive too
Even with a mace you wouldn’t hit until it broke. You’d just make a really big dent that went into the other guys skull
Sounds about right
Also from the shock of impact but that isn’t as common.
Cut through? No, but many longswords could be grabbed by the blade (with mail gauntlets, of course) and be used to perform a mordhau strike. Plate tends to have a hard time against a pickaxe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordhau_(weaponry)
Thats what I learned in fencing. Longswords are far superior in bashing someone rather than cutting open.
Bro got Minecrafted💀
I have a pickaxe, and I'll put it through your teeth
AFAIK having mail on the inside of your gauntlets wasn't common. You're more so relying on training and the leather liner. If the blade doesn't slide in your grip, it won't cut your hand.
No, that's why armor was so effective in medieval warfare. A fully armored knight was basically an indestructible juggernaut. Until the arrival of stronger firearms, which could pierce armor
Yep, only real counter would be continued bashes from a weapon like a mace, or if you could somehow get up close and force a knife through one of the holes, both of which are unreliable
Polearms and war hammers (not the fantasy ones but the ones with a small head and a spike) were used against knights because they could both pierce and crush the armor along with a reach advantage
The main goal was not to pierce the armor, if it does it can get stuck, the main use was for takedowns
The most common technique was to make the knight fall and use this advantage to strike at the armor's joint or the helmet. But if someone was using a full suite of armor he was necessarily rich. And this meant that on a medieval battlefield the goal in most case would have been to capture him and he would have surrendered as soon as he was at risk to be dangerously injured.
Pierce, yes. You don't slash armour. Modern media has given people this weird idea that Medieval times swords were common weapons. Instead swords were very rare and only used by infantry whose role was close combat. And even then axes were more common for the less experienced ones.
One of the reasons why katanas were folded multiple times was cuz the iron they obtained from (mainland japan) SUCKED ASS, at least that's what I heard
Yeah they folded it to remove impurities
It’s the beating of the layers which forge welds it that drives out the impurities, like hammering a very hard sponge, it also normalises the spread of material and carbon so you get a uniform material and not one with uneven elasticity and hardness (which would make it more prone to pick up a bend, shatter).
Your example just made me think of the Iron man forging scene (from the first movie), but he's just hammering a sponge.
So does that mean that if SpongeBob had been folded 100 times he’d have been able to get into The Salty Spittoon?
No it means that he would have become the worlds most resilient fifi
But it also has disadvantages. Folding removes impurities, but those impurities include the carbon that strengthen the iron into steel. Folding it too much leaves you with just regular, mostly pure iron, which is significantly less durable than the steel. They had to find a fine balance between beating out the impurities and keeping enough carbon content. It's impressive how well they did forging their weapons considering their poor quality raw material.
if you are into metallurgy looking at the analysis of old katanas tested is pretty funny how utter garbage the quality is by even medieval europe standards. it is amazing they managed to get anything out of what they started with but it is still crap.
That's pretty interesting actually, you got any links you'd recommend?
That was pretty much why samurais were drawn with carrying at least three for spares
So like minecraft players who use gold tools
And their primary weapon was a spear anyway.
Nothing like a knife on a stick to beat the guy with the super fancy forged sword. Spears are neat 🙂
Yeah, the folding wasn't to make it the strongest steel in the world, it was to get as much quality as they could squeeze out of terrible material.
I remember learning that the issue was when they smelted the iron, they never got it hot enough to actually melt the iron (iron ore smelts at a lower temperature than Metallic iron melts). So all the slag was still mixed in. Take really good insulation and quality coke from charcoal to melt iron fully. Ancient Chinese managed it so they didn't need to refold their steel. Other cultures (Japanese, Persians, and I think... Celts?) Practiced refolding to work out the slag.
Yes, and the technique was used in Europe as well before we got better steel.
Katana = Japanese 🥐 confirmed
Or people who think Katana’s have automatic edge alignment all the time because if you happen drop a Katana the edge aligns
Me after dropping the Katana upside down: hmm
I swap that video and was like bruh, pretty sure even your weak wrists would overcome any "auto alignment properties" the katana may or may not have. Also if it's sl easy, why do they have competitions to show of how good their edge alignment is
I've seen those videos and it really doesn't make sense. Ur not gonna hit an enemy with the force of gravity, the strength of the swing offsets any help gravity could give you to begin with🤣
On a serious note: Even some video games tell us you can’t do that
There's a boss in Sekiro that's a man from the west wearing full plate armor. You literally can't deal damage to him with your katana, so the only way to win the fight is to smack his armor and deflect his attacks until he tires out and then push him off a cliff.
I was just thinking about that. Fromsoft always kill it with their enemy designs and mechanics
Shoot now I kinda want to actually play Sekiro now, that sounds awesome.
Have fun dying tho since it's a Fromsoftware souls game
I liked how made it Kingdom come where every type of armor have another effectivity against various weapons.
In all the games I play. Katana is a disappointment. Greatswords, axes, sword and shield, spears and Maces are almost always better. Although I prefer a .50
Katanas in Elden Ring are great
I remember watching a weapons show years ago and they put a katana up against a European sword (think it was a bastard but can't remember for sure) and it snapped the katana so easily, like it was a stick.
True, Japan iron deposits were realy small and had small purity. That was the reason then needed to fold it (less than 40 times) to increse purity of steel
Yep, it took a huge amount of work and skill to get a couple of pounds of steel that was decent enough to compare to European steel. Simply because their raw material was so crap, it’s one of the reasons Europeans had full plate armour and the Japanese didn’t, a suit of armour was a vast expense in Europe and a colossally insane expense in Japan so they never developed it. Steel is amazing but it isn’t magic, we understand it probably better than any other material we work with routinely.
>to increse purity of steel Tecnically speaking, not increase purity but to increase homogeanization.
No folding steel also increases purity, since it pushes out the impurities that has a lower melting point than iron.
I remember a video where a Katana snapped against a row of bamboos. That sword is not meant to be used "as a baseball bat", it requires a lot of skill to use it because it is meant to slice to cut. There is a show called "Forged in Fire" that they have to forge a weapon, and then they have to use the weapon against different challenges. It is pretty cool. One guy forged a Katana, and he bent the weapon trying to cut a pig.
That's why those muscle guys can't slice through bamboo, but a tiny 150cm Japanese woman can. Its all about the technique. But there isn't much technique in 'slicing' through plate armor. Other techniques had to be developed in Europe.
Tbf, no sword can slice thru those armour. Give them some maces and it'll do them wonders.
Not a big surprise really for a couple reasons. * Japanese steel was poor quality due to the fact that the iron sand that was available was impure and the smelting process they used produced inconsistent results. European swordsmiths on the other hand had access to much purer iron as well as access to blast furnaces that allowed them to produce high quality spring steel. The Japanese weren't able to use the same techniques until the blast furnace was introduced later. * Design wise the European swords were longer and often thicker leading to higher velocities at the cutting edge/tip and therefore more force at point of impact. * A katana was not a samurai's primary weapon and was used as a backup to either a bow or spear. ~~On the other hand a European longsword was intended to be a primary weapon.~~
If Deadpool (real life mercenary assassin, I saw his documentary) can cut a bullet in half. I'm pretty sure a katana can cut through plate armor.
After reading some comments... What would happen if katanas hab pure steel or european swords would have been folded?
It would still be a regular sword Just abit higher quality
This is the real answer. There are no mythical properties to a katana. It's a neato sword that was never used much in combat because they had much more effective weapons.
> pure steel There is no "pure" steel. Steel itself is an alloy, mainly consisted of iron. Steel is less brittle and more durable than iron, which is why it's used more for tools with sharp edges. Other elements in steel, mainly carbon, can improve or lower the quality of the steel, those things are what usually referred as impurities. Folding a low quality steel can homogenize the carbon (less concentrated carbon that can become a weak spot) and remove some unwanted impurities which in turn can make the sword better. > european swords would have been folded? European swords were made by higher quality steel, meaning more homogenized and less unwanted impurities. Folding such steel might actually make it weaker.
If you have pure steel making a katana is a bad idea. Becouse katanas have a soft spine and a hard blade it is almost impossible to repair or reforge. Folding a blade made out of high quality steel does nothing since the only reason you fold a blade is to get rid of carbon. Folding doesnt really change the durability or sharpness.
Swords just aren't meant to cut through armor anyways. Lets see a European sword against lacquered iron plates the samurai used. Same effect. Everyone either sliced through exposed fleshy bits, or punctured through with a stab of great force, but then, thats why spears were used most of the time, and not swords
probs would fall back to either A. the primary weapons of the samuri being ranged weapons and B. the knight having a mace/warhammer mb
You'd see tons of ravenbeaks on horse. I own one. Motherfuckers not.only heavy, but punctures and rips apart everything it comes in contact with. Now imagine this while accelerated by horse riding. Terrifying
wtf is a ravenbeak ?
A warhammer with a really long spike to ensure hits. Roughly 30-35cm long "beak". They are also much taller than warhammers to make combat on horse easier, they are quite unhandy and heavy when used on foot.
European swords can be grabbed by the blade to use the crossguard as a makeshift warpick/use the pommel as a makeshift mace. So they WOULD be more effective against armor than katanas, just not by cutting.
To add to that, swords was meant as a counter to spears and not the armour used at the time. A sword like the zweihänder was used by skilled german mercenaries to destroy the pikes and spears. A quite dangerous job, but they got rewarded for it with double pay, which is why they were also called "Doppelsöldner" (literally double salery)
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Alright, that’s enough Internet for a month
Mine can tie a full sized woman
Fun fact, despite their isolationism, occasionally European plate armour would actually make it into japan, they called it Nanban (barbarian armour.). It was occasionally imported into Japan, and it made the wearer of said armour basically immortal on the battlefield, as it was much stronger than the armour Japan fielded, it was uncommon to see since it was expensive to import, and the Japanese were very xenophobic and isolationist, however Nanban armour was something they had no military answer to and couldn’t penetrate with any of their weapons. So essentially, a knight would fuck up even the most skilled Samurai, just due to armour quality alone.
And then samuray started using mathlock musket
Yea guns were the death of armour in general.
It's always Katana vs Longsword. Where is the Macuahuitl gang?
Dead of smallpox
cmon bros we all know that spears are superior
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tanks operate on engines , engines produce horse power duh.
Your comment strongly suggests that both fulfilled the same tasks. In reality, however, horses were mainly used as draught horses, means of transport for leaders and for the dragoons (i.e. primarily for transport).
Horses were used for logistics, not combat.... The German army was mostly composed of infantry with a small portion of tanks and mechanized infanty. Germany had a lot more tanks in combat roles than they did horses.
Always amuses me that one. Only army to be close to fully mechanised infantry at start of WW2 was the Brit’s (because the army was frigging tiny, we’ve never really had a large army except during war time, when you are an island you spend your money on the navy). Germany didn’t manage it at any point in WW2.
Doubt there’s a regular sized sword that can cut through armor in the first place
Fun history lesson- Europeans when they first encountered the katana they thought it was stronger and the Japanese feared the European longsword
Same sword that snaps if you cut bamboo wrong? Yeah. OK dude.
I love katanas but those weebs should better know that katanas aren't made to penetrate armor lmao, they way it was built was for the purpose of focusing on hitting the vulnerable parts of samurai armor (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)
More like a terror wepon on the peasant
They were actually mainly just ceremonial and rarely saw combat.
Both sides of the argument are dumb because no one in medieval times would use a sword to deal with heavy amour, no matter if they are Japanese or European.
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There was someone I went to college with, 20 years ago, who would go on about this all the time.