LogFAQs > #896009876

darkknight109 posted...

The inverse of this is also true; because Western smiths had higher quality steel, there were many garbage smiths around who could get away with shitty forging because the material allowed them to. Contrast with Japan where one of the cardinal rules of warfare at the time was that when you were invading an enemy city, swordsmiths and their families were always, always to be left unharmed, because they were far more valuable as new employees rather than corpses.

You know you just reworded my opening about Japanese smiths being likely the best right?

darkknight109 posted...

This completely ignores that the design and balance of katana vs. longswords are completely different, and that's going to have a far larger effect on weight.

Kinda, though to ensure the Katana had a sharp edge it needed the thick back meaning the hard steel back made it heavier, the Longsword being made of better steel could be stronger, while being lighter.

darkknight109 posted...

So is a katana (derp). As for which one is longer, that again depends on the design. Today all katana have a relatively uniform length, with variances based on the height of the wielder, but this was not the case historically. In their early incarnations, it was quite common to see Sephiroth-esque katana that were so large they could not be effectively wielded on foot (for a period of time, samurai mostly fought on horseback, and their sword design of the time reflected that).

Firstly, as I have mentioned (twice now) I mentioned that, not because the Katana is a 1 handed blade (It wasn't) but because there is a very common misconeption that the longsword was (It wasn't). The Sephiroph-esque Katana.... You mean the No-Dachi.... That was slightly longer than your avarage long sword.... One the Length Sephiroph used would be insanly unweildly.

darkknight109 posted...

Lunge: Highly debatable. Longswords really aren't designed for thrusting - the length makes them unwieldy and difficult to aim properly; they, like most long-bladed weapons, are primarily designed with slashing in mind. On the other hand, katana are actually deceptively good at lunging attacks. A tsuki (thrust) with a katana doesn't have the same reach as a longsword, but thanks to the blade's curvature a thrust doesn't open up a hole so much as it carves a very large, very deep gash in an opponent (seriously, you can get a ten-inch cut by moving the sword just a few inches forward).

Curved just cannot get the same force behind a lunge that straight blade can (This is physics). Half handed thrusting with a longsword though was very effective and a very comon teqnique to get though armour, but yes the main attacks at more slashing in style of a longsword.

http://aif.md/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/34-%D0%94%D1%83%D1%8D%D0%BB%D1%8C.jpeg

As was pomel and cross guard stikes (Murder strokes)

darkknight109 posted...

Cross-Guard: The katana's tsuba (what you're referring to as a cross-guard) is actually not a cross-guard at all - it's basically a design feature to keep the wielder's hand from inadvertently sliding up onto the blade (and not all historical katana had them). Katana swing much faster than longswords - a significant point in their favour, by the way - so catching with a crossguard is impractical. Not to mention, in a clash katana tend to "bite" into one another due to the way the blade is designed, so a cut that would slide all the way down to the hilt would be fairly rare.

Having trained and swung both I disagee on the "swing much faster" opinion, a proper longsword swing is faster, especially the tip, because of momentum (again physics)
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