The katana is such a weird sword. Why is the blade so short when it has a two handed grip? Why does it have so little hand protection? Why does it need a wakizashi partner when it can be used in one hand?
The katana is such a weird sword. Why is the blade so short when it has a two handed grip?
>Why does it need a wakizashi partner when it can be used in one hand?
You leave katana at doors and take wakizashi into home.
>Why is the blade so short when it has a two handed grip?
Ease of carry, less likely to get in the way when you’re walking around. Comparatively, the wartime tachi that the katana descended from were significantly longer and more dramatically curved.
>Why does it have so little hand protection
Japanese swordsmanship encouraged evasiveness over binding swordplay that is common in western swordsmanship, which makes larger hand guards to some degree unnecessary. The downward japanese casting cut is sufficiently stopped by the tsuki if attempting to attack the hands head on.
>Why does it need a wakizashi partner when it can be used in one hand?
Quicker draw and Better for fighting in close quarters and indoors (it was common for samurai to take off their katana when entering a home and instead only carried their wakizashi), can also be used as a backup or I conjunction with the katana at the same time.
Someone /thread my post
/no
>Japanese swordsmanship encouraged evasiveness over binding swordpla
This isnt true at all
>Why does it have so little hand protection?
The hand protection in historical katanas is actually quite big and deflected blades actually
Yes it is, and you’re a moron.
>Japanese swordsmanship encouraged evasiveness over binding swordplay
I believed this because it makes a lot of sense with the inherent brittleness of the steel, but everyone else is saying it's bullshit so I'm going to have to switch sides and call you a moron.
they usually tried to compensate for the brittleness of the edge steel by using the flat or spine of the blade to parry. But like most things it's a case of "should do" vs "did do", and people would've regularly parried with the edges of their swords and chipped them badly doing it. Swords were ultimately consumable, especially cheap ones.
>Swords were ultimately consumable, especially cheap ones.
That sounds very different from European swords, which were like the medieval equivalent of a SCAR, IIRC.
With european swords we're working with about a thousand years of survivorship bias. The majority of medieval blades were by most standards pretty crap. They were mostly serviceable, which was all that medieval people were concerned with. They were used, battered, edges on edges til they chip or have been sharpened so long the sword is weakened overall, and then they break or become unusable. If they break on a battlefield they stay there, if they outlive their usefulness elsewhere they get sold off or turned into something else.
For as many solid swords that could split a helmet, there were just as many garbage ones only meant to last as long as needed, and very well might not last that long. Officers and nobles bought good swords, if one broke they wrote about it. If an illiterate infantryman's sword broke in battle he probably wouldn't write it down, he'd get a new sword later if he survived.
That depends on the time you are looking at.
The gauls produced a lot of swords of varying quality; the romans mass produced both cavalry and infantry swords and in the late medieval/modern period swords and armour were also mass produced in westen europe.
If you took a modern steel sword (AKA something with way better steel and HT than any medieval or early modern sword) and swung it into another sword edge to edge, it will be damaged. It is still the preferable alternative to it swinging into you though in many cases.
>Why does it have so little hand protection?
Massive hand protection was just a weird fashion for a tiny part of the world for a short period of time.
It was more that european warfare was constantly devolving into very close combat, at very large scale, over and over and over. Anybody who wanted to keep being a soldier would be fighting pretty regularly over the years, and the only way to keep doing that is protecting the thing that lets you hold a sword.
The only competent part of the world.
hand protection was a standard or European and Indo-Persian weaponry for almost 400 years
>disc guard
why so little hand protection?
>disc guard + one thin metal bar
yup, plenty of hand protection there
Small swords are no more a battlefield weapon than a derringer.
In the form of spadoons they were and there is not a vast difference between the 1996 pattern spadroon or the french line officers spadroon and a smallsword. neither was there meant to be as the regulation patters were supposed to build on an officers knowledge of the smallsword. They were used in battle and we know about them from accounts of their use in waterloo etc. Sabres were used on horseback primarily or by officers who were in flank units and mostly traveled on the march on horse.
yes I see quite a lot of hand protection
He's right.
>the 1796 pattern spadroon
Yes, but that 1796 spadroon has a considerably larger guard than the civilian smallsword would've
>YOU CAN'T THINK THE KATANA IS COOL BECAUSE . . . I-IT JUST ISN'T OK??
>Massive hand protection was just a weird fashion for a tiny part of the world for a short period of time.
oh yeah?
>Why is the blade so short when it has a two handed grip?
Keeping the hands apart allows for more leverage. You see this in many European medieval swords as well.
>Why does it have so little hand protection?
1) It makes it easier to carry.
2) Bushi on the battlefield would be wearing armor around their hands anyway so the tsuba offers enough hand protection. Some designs even forego the tsuba entirely.
3) Little hand protection is actually very common for swords throughout history and the world.
>Why does it need a wakizashi partner when it can be used in one hand?
Wakizashi are for carrying indoors when the katana (or tachi) have been checked at the door.
Well, at least you're somewhat suggesting that these are questions that could have answers.
The length is very much an "it depends" question. The early katana was even shorter than what's common today, and appears to have had a hilt meant for single handed use. In many ways it's more similar to the wakizashi of today. The wakizashi's emergence and rising popularity in the late Muromachi period may in part have been due to the katana having grown out of that niche. As for the pairing of katana and wakizashi the ability to wield the katana single-handed means you can now dual wield if you so desire. That was likely of negligible impropriate overall (and very rarely done), instead the shorter blade of the two (the large-small pairing needn't be a katana and a wakizashi) provides you a blade for more cramped quarters, and will also stay with you in camp/at home/etc when convenience and social norms means you won't be carrying your large sword.
Now as for why the katana didn't grow even larger I'd say there are three big reasons. First it's still meant as an infantry sword to be carried in addition to polearm or projectile weapon in war or as your "big" weapon in your daily life. That suggests a not-huge sword. Second it was meant to be something you could draw very quickly, that too suggests a shorter blade. And most importantly, quite early in the Edo period the Shogunate put strict legal limits to how big it could be.
What's with the burst in namegays and tripgays? have a nice day
bloody newbie
/k/ is probably the last board to maintain old tripgay culture, mostly for the sake of avoiding, "post guns" arguments.
Tripgay culture was always gay.
Ban tripcodes.
There have been exactly 2 cool tripgays in the entirety of PrepHole's history. And they were both /k/ommandos. Boof and McBlack personator.
Yeah, 2. The rest are gear queer homoLARPers that should hang themselves. 2 good apples don't redeem the batch of spoiled transexual apples.
Hand protection finally... the usual song and dance there is that I point out that it covers a pretty respectable area, it's just that it's more to the side than just forward-back and thus looks small in a direct profile photo. The reply then often ends up being that the point of comparison was a full baskethilt or some such, which is where we can be reasonably certain that the question was never brought up in good faith since people never ask why cruciform hilts have such a small guard. (Hell, I see the Japanese disc guards questioned more than swords entirely lacking a guard.) We can also note that the disc guard ended up very popular in China for a bloody long time, so odds are it does the job well enough. (And for what little it's worth, I git hit on the hands more in HEMA than kendo.)
1) Disc guards showed up in China first.
2) When the Chinese began making Japanese style/inspired blades they thought the Jappy tsuba was so smol and gave big frickoff teacups to their versions.
1: "The Japanese had long since adopted a
disk-shaped guard (Japanese 'tsuba') for their hilts. The Chinese eagerly copied this innovation and by the second half of the Ming had practically abandoned the cruciform guards that were favored in the Islamic world." Philip M. W. Tom (2001). 'Some Notable Sabers of the Qing Dynasty at The Metropolitan Museum of Art'. Metropolitan Museum Journal 36, 207-222
2: In many places around the world, including but not limited to Japan and China, larger swords tend to end up with larger guards. For swords of a size somewhat akin to the katana though the Chinese often went with a guard that was also sized similar to what we usually find on katana. See for example this quartet, or the wooden dao on the left in your picture.
>Ming and Qing
Dao-style weapons didn't show up in the Ming & Qing Dynasty friendo. If you look up Song period Dao (ca 900-1200s AD) they had disc-guards. And before that, Chinese Dao had Sassanian style guards during the Tang Dynasty as the Tang are Persiaboos.
Yes, as I'm sure you've noticed the quote doesn't actually say when the disc guard was introduced to China, we can merely infer from it that it can't have been any later than the second half of the Ming dynasty. Thus there's no conflict between what it states and Song dynasty sword with sinofied tsuba.
>keep in mind they were an isolationist society
While Japan became somewhat isolationist in the 17th century the katana has been around since the 13h century and the tsuba has been around since the Kofun period (≈4th-6th century). So there was plenty of time for the tsuba to be matched up against continental designs, and as a result of that the disc guard starts showing up in Korea and the Amur region in the 9th century. From there it spread pretty rapidly into (decidedly un-isolated) China where it would be very popular all the way into the 20th century.
That reminds me of a vegana.
I can tell you don't spar holy shit. That shit is negligible as a hand guard.
I spar and I can tell that it's better than nothing especially when it comes to binds, but yeah you'd have to use it with a bigger risk there in mind
The answer to all those questions is that Japanese technology sucked, and being cut off from the rest of the world made their shit all moronic.
It's worse, they knew that straight blades were basically better in every way and happily used them until some moronic shogun or whatever decided looks were more important than function and so the curved katana was decreed to be the standard for blade making
>they knew that straight blades were basically better in every way
Even in Europe curved blades were popular for the entire time swords were in use.
Yes, the few blades for the specific purpose of fighting (slashing) from horseback, while everyone else on foot had a straight blade, you Black person
>while everyone else on foot had a straight blade, you Black person
>he fell for the "curved swords are only useful on horseback" meme
Dumbfrick.
Ah yes, like the famous cutlasses that were curved for horseback use while on the high seas. moron.
>while everyone else on foot had a straight blade
Infantry sword became irrelevant since 17th century. While cavalry sword held it's value to the middle of 19th century.
>Infantry sword
you could argue that they were never really relevant
Curved blades are easier to learn and wield compared with straight blade due to assisting with edge alignment.
More men could pick up sabers/cutlasses/etc. and use them effectively within a shorter period of training compared with straight swords.
Thing is smallswords are also so light they are basically unable to parry shit like bayonets. No point for an officer to carry a weapon that has so little defensive capability against the average infantryman's weapon. Hell, every HEMAgay will tell you that if you put a guy with a saber vs a guy with a smallsword, the saber has the advantage. Smallswords were never designed with practicality in mind, but just as a device to duel with in equal conditions. If you want a "practical" thrust centric sword you use a rapier instead, cause it's longer, heavier and protects your hand better.
Thing is, this is if we talk about the Napoleonic battlefield. In medieval and antiquity Europe, straighter blades were favored just cause thrusts tend to be more lethal than cuts and better against armor (with enough commitment a thrust can pierce mail, and if you end up wrestling against a full plate opponent, you can sneak the tip in gaps).
>In medieval and antiquity Europe, straighter blades were favored
Curved blades were popular in Europe in those time periods too. Even in the age of plate, not everyone had full armor coverage, so cutting was still relevant.
Yeah but straight blades were THE MOST popular. Seen in art, literature, and relics. Stop being such a fricking moron and read a book Black person.
YOU read a book stupid Black person. Straighter thrust-centric blades didn't gain prominence as the favored style until the 13th century, and cutting focused swords came back into vogue by the 15th century.
Antiquity was full of curved cutting swords.
>but muh gladius
Were used as often to cut as they were to thrust, as seen from the damage in the corpses of Roman enemies.
>what is the whole roman army
shove your forgery victorian historian type works up yo ass homie
>forgery victorian historian
That's Ewart Oakeshott dumbass, the man responsible for medieval sword typology today.
>what is the whole roman army
get fricked
Oakeshot was a victorian sshole therefore what he says shall be treated as what it is, forgery. Like the iron maiden (not real).
Spathas were more common, falcatas were kind of a gimmick and are rare to find. You proved my point, midwit. have a nice day.
>what is sica
>what is rhomphaia
>what is falx
you are peak midwit
>Oakeshot was a victorian sshole
Dunning–Kruger strikes again.
t. nofencers
post your swords
>no timestamp
nofencer spotted
Reverse search it Black person. And suck my huge wiener while ur at it. Also have a nice day.
Yes my rapier has a pvc pipe scabbard, problem?
How do you fence with a wrist injury?
My wrist is good son. I just write shitty on purpose as a form of hilarious ironic self expression.
Projection is strong with this one. Might want to dial a suicide hotline.
You could suck my veiny weiner instead brah (no homo)
Bro you could drive to hobby lobby right now and buy some leather and a bit of wood and make a proper scabbard
This scabbard is for transport actually. It's so that its harder for it to bend when I carry it. Don't want it to bend 90 degrees and get deformed or for it to snap. Historical rapier scabars were just basically floppy leather. Also, I could not use an actual scabbard for it cause it's fricking buttoned. Cause you know, unlike most homosexuals hete I actually practice.
>not wanting to kill your opponent
>omg im being so le ironic ecks dee I'm so funny hee hee
have a nice day. Legit.
>Spathas were more common, falcatas were kind of a gimmick and are rare to find. You proved my point, midwit.
Surely you can back this up, right?
the british adopted a deeply curved infantry/light cavalry saber because of their experiences in india with how nasty they could be, coupled with ease of training they could be pretty solid choices
Yeah, but it also was a completely different war theatre because soldiers wore no armor except for heavy cavalry sometimes, and fricking guns were involved. You are dense.
But soldiers in INDIA did wear armor you fricking tard. The indians designed their curved sabers in an environment where people were wearing chainmail and lamellar armor.
They wore no armor cause it wont do shit when you get shot. Rajeed kys.
The armies of the indian continent still used chainmail because they weren't only fighting modern, standardized armies exclusively equipped with guns, they were fighting irregularly-equipped armies from the other indian states.
The rank and file often went unarmored, but officers, often cavalrymen, nobles, and to some extent common soldiers and warriors wore armor. What's the point of denying this? The armor obviously wasn't enough to save them was it?
curved is better at slashing unarmoured peasants - straight is better at poking at gaps in armor - and as katana was more status symbol than weapon of war cutting soft targets was much more important
>katana was more status symbol than weapon of war cutting soft targets was much more important
This is your fanfiction with no bearing on reality
a katana is both curved enough to benefit slashing and straight enough to reliably thrust into a given point
im no expert but even i know that sounds like total out your ass bullshit beacuse the war swords of japan were even more curved than katanas
The curvature is just a side effect of the quenching.
Maybe part of the curvature was due to that ; but they were also forged in that shape
seeing and hearing it is pretty damn cool
damn thats sick as frick no wonder they thought demons could be in those swords
the katana is overrated, most soldiers carried tachi instead, which is much longer and more curved
any of the posts here coping are just moronic, the katana is no war sword
Tachi and Katana are differentiated by the way the edge of the blade is facing. In Kamakura bunkakan there are a few tachi, some of which are pretty straight, then you can find Katana that are very curved, for example the older bizen blades.
The koshirae is mostly what defines a tachi, and you're right that until the Kamakura jidai, the tachi was privileged but it changed to the Katana once war stopped being waged the same way it used to before. Some samurai still used Tachi well into the Momoyama and Edo, but that's not a majority, same for armor, Uesugi Kenshin's most famous armor is his Haramaki Dou Gusoku, a model that's a few centuries older at the time. Some Samurai just had personal preferences regardless of the current technology.
so it has (mostly) nothing to do with length? but arent most tachi longer than katanas?
what i said doesnt really contradict what he said though
obviously theres exceptions and its not black and white but does that make what i say a lie?
There are no set specification, but length has a lot to do with it. It's mostly mounting that determines it. Tachi can be had with katana koshirae and vice versa. There's also which side the smith signs the tang of the blade. Tachi typically have it on the right side; katana on the left.
tachi ARE mostly longer than katana, but not all the time. It's mostly age and style, later tachi are not particularly different from katana in terms of blade profile, they were just mounted edge-down like cavalry swords.
Most tachi are longer than Katana, but the length isn't what defines the tachi. Some Katana were pretty long, some were an inch short of being considered a long wakizashi instead of a Katana.
Good metal was scarce in some regions only, Sendai has a remarkable quantity of good iron even to this day. Regions where it was scarce existed and these had a hard time since some are isolated by mountain ranges and whatnot, making trading difficult.
There was no lack of hand protection, the Kote would take care of protecting the hand. Japanese armor is pretty efficient at what it does.
Yes I made all that bs up on a whim to see if anyone would call me out, every single thing I said was made up off the top of my head
>but does that make what i say a lie
This is ebonics gibberish. The only thing that would make it a lie is if you intended to say something that isn’t true. Otherwise what you meant to say is
>…does that make what I said untrue?
>midwit states his pop history understanding of things as fact
>more knowledgeable person smacks him down hard
Happens every time.
Good metal was scarce in Japan shorter blade was cheaper, Japanese culture expounds a lot on trinities so primary seapon polearm or bow w/e second weapon katana and tiertiary weapon the wakizashi allowing soldiers on the field to engage in combat better, the curve makes it easier to slip around gaps in the enemies armour, lack of hand protection because Japanese sword fighting focuses on not getting hit by the enemies blade instead of trying to stick your hands in it like euroweirdos
/thread
why do you think anyone gives a frick what you think? Why aren't you back on leddit? Why aren't you getting real replies?
I wish they still made katanas and there were name brands you could trust like with knives. I've watched too many reviews on $1,000 swords where the guy gives it a good review except for that the endcap fell off or chipped and the guard wiggles around and the sheath is made poorly and came broken in the box.
I was just reminded of that topless twink that "bought his first proper sword" it was a Japanese short sword handmade or w/e, it had a crappy wooden sheath and the blade was unfinished or some shit, anyone here remember that shit? so cringe
I can never forget those nipples
>/k/ would worship trash that even Japanese abandoned and barely used in real combat
Anime website i guess lol
who’s cares bro it’s cool as frick and it’s one of the most iconic weapons to ever exist. stop being such a debbie downer
>the curve was
>the curve did
>the curve meant
It was a result of the steel, the forging, and the tempering. If the japanese had better natural materials and developed better craftsmanship they wouldn't have made them that way.
Everything about a katana related to the curve, and that it has survived, is from japanese autistic adherence to tradition in disregard of objective reality.
A curved blade is disadvantaged in material consumption to achieve the same reach - a katana is often shorter and heavier than a standard type of straight blade A bi-temper hard carbon, curved steel is especially disadvantaged in durability to achieve piercing force.
Monotemper spring steel katanas are a nifty look at what could be, but it still has the disadvantage of profile, ergonomics, and materials use.
>better craftsmanship
The katana is a great example of making do with what you have. They're inefficient to make in the traditional way, but the traditional way of making them was a compromise. They couldn't just not have swords, and they couldn't just magic up perfect materials. So they designed and constructed and iterated on the design until it did what they wanted.
>if [the entire situation was different] they wouldn't have made them that way
if my mother had wheels she would've been a bicycle anon.
>the curve
You're focusing way too hard on the curve and dimensions and not the why.
>Why is the sword shorter and thicker than contemporary swords
Because they had to construct them from different layered varieties of steel, and a somewhat shorter, thicker sword was more durable
>Why did they have to make them from different kinds of steel
Because it's easier to produce bars of steel with uniform characteristics and combine them later
>why did they have trouble producing steels with variable hardness
Because they had limited access to good iron and were making do with what they had
>Why did they start layering swords in the first place
Because they went to war in the 11-1200s and their swords were constantly breaking
oh look I rustled a katanaboo
this is some cart/horse or chicken/egg type of buffoonery and I won't waste my time arguing about it
Anon the japanese couldn't figure out properly high temperature forges and that is the essential reason why katanas didn't improve (realistically!) for over 600 years.
>katanaboo
Anon where am I saying katanas are magically better swords than other contemporary blades, I'm just saying the japanese weren't moronic and there's a reason they made things they way they did.
>didn't improve over 600 years
Japan's material concerns did not change greatly between the 1200s and the 1800s. The country was a small, unstable shithole until the sengoku era ended, and then they almost entirely focused on stability and minmaxing their societal structure
You're just making excuses to handwave objective reality.
Oh, you're just moronic, thanks for clearing that up
Last i heard your mother was the town bicycle anon
>Everything about a katana related to the curve
You can have a straight katana if you want. They're not common, but not unknown either. Plus, the commonly straight types of Japanese swords are made in much the same was as the katana. The notion that the curve sacrifices a lot of reach is also complete nonsense. Grabbing one of my katana, it has a blade that's 76.5cm long if measured in a straight line. Measuring the length along the back the difference was less than the measurement uncertainty. Calculating from the straight line length and the much easier to measure segment height (2.5cm) and we get an arc length of 76.7cm instead. So we've apparently lost two entire millimetre of reach to the curvature. This then ties into how you try to paint curvature as a flaw in general, which the popularity of curved swords throughout history happily show to be nonsense.
As for the materials that's just the usual nonsense, as vague as it gets because it didn't come from someone who actually understood steel.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking Japanese sword making was all that different (for better or worse), that's how they get you. And a layered construction demanding a thickness blade? Just forge it out to whatever thickness you want. That's also how you keep the folding from making the billet a few kilometres thick... Also keep in mind that the layering here was part of the technological parcel originally imported from China, it had little to do with the Mongol invasions unless the Hojo had a time machine. (It's also usually the tip design they claim is due to broken blades against the Mongols. Since the change was to make a longer and thinner tip I must admit I wonder if that might not be a bit of "fuddlore".)
well they evolved from the tachi, which was a curved cavalry sword. and as for the iron ore, the japanese actually imported a lot of it throughout their history, even when 'cut off', and also mass produced swords because they had to equip large armies during the warring periods, and also mass-exported swords, mainly to china. the autism sword was for rich people mainly because your average low level samurai couldn't afford that shit. they always made swords of varying quality for varying customers.
Because It's based off chink designs: https://youtu.be/urz8vhJpcIY?si=hApnCt2CWCvaP-8L
While its ultimate ancestors are to be found in China, those somewhat distant predecessors don't really have the features OP's asking about, so that doesn't really explain how the katana ended up with them. (And even if they did, it wouldn't explain why these features were retained.) It should also be noted that these katana-ancestors were earlier designs than what's shown in the video thumbnail there, being Tang dynasty affairs rather than Song and Liao. The swords shown in your image instead actually show a Japanese invention jumping back over to the continent: the disc guard. (While the "habaki" collar is to have been separately invented both in Japan and on the continent.) See https://www.mediafire.com/file/8hwwu8cxz8dr65h/Some_Notable_Sabers_of_the_Qing_Dynasty.pdf/file page 209, upper right column.
It seems to me to be the result of Japan's notorious iron problem. The katana is light enough to be wielded in one hand with speed against lighter, unarmoured opponents, while allowing two-handed strikes to split armour and rattle formations
>Japan's notorious iron problem.
The more I looked in to this the more it seems a meme.
What I found is that they used iron sands (ematite red sand and magnetite black sand) as a source of iron ore; which was seemingly not done in europe (and not done in modern ironworks either) and these iron sands have significantly high amount of titanium oxide that alters :
-the amount that is converted in iron (low for red sand, high for black)
- temperature of reduction (low red sand, high black sand)
-cohesiveness of the bloom
Other than these difficulties, the final product would have been of good quality ranging from cast iron to steel to malleable iron.
The quality of iron made from black sands was also noted in the 18th century from experiments done with iron sand from virginia.
Expanding a bit on this, these "iron sands" are simply regular "rock ore" eroded down to powder, so when people try to make this huge deal out of how different they are...
What I've heard about the titanium that was actually presented as an advantage. It makes the slag more viscous at any given temperature, ie it reduces the temperature we have to hit to be able to let the slag flow away. This in turn reduces the fuel consumption, and fuel is always a very large chunk of the cost for these things. Thus the preference for using the iron sands, instead of the not-yet-eroded rock ores that Japan also has. I haven't heard of the other factors (that I can remember at least), you wouldn't happen to have any reading material for me there?
Also in regards to hematite vs magnetite, I don't think I've ever heard of hematite iron sands being used, but again that could just be my memory. However, wouldn't the pre-smelting roasting of the ore ensure that it's all red iron oxide by the time it goes into the tatara?
>What I've heard about the titanium that was actually presented as an advantage. It makes the slag more viscous at any given temperature, ie it reduces the temperature we have to hit to be able to let the slag flow away.
Not heard of that one; what I read was that it's not used in modern blast furnaces because the titanium in large quantities makes the slag more viscous (depends on the amount you have, so it might lower viscousity in different proportions ) and it reduces the slag's ability to pick up sulfur; though this last one is irrelevant in charcoal furnaces.
For the reduction of iron sands see:
>Effect of TiO2-content on Reduction of Iron Ore Agglomerates
>Reduction of the Mixture of Titanomagnetite Ironsand and Hematite Iron Ore Fines by Carbon Monoxide
>Influence of TiO2% in Iron Sand on Cast Iron Production by Tatara Iron Making
(This one does say that TiO2 oxide is good for cast iron formation; though that's not what you would want for swords)
>Mineralogical Study of Iron Sand with Different Metallurgical Characteristic to Smelting with Use of Japanese Classic Ironmaking Furnace “Tatara”
(This one is translated kinda badly, but mostly comprehensible)
>Not heard of that one
Well, if I had any manners: https://www.mediafire.com/file/a14r4ojo85cu7e0/Tamahagane_Production%252C_Control_of_Slag.pdf/file
>(This one does say that TiO2 oxide is good for cast iron formation; though that's not what you would want for swords)
Mine also mention that they ended up with a higher carbon content with the titanium than without. That'd help with making cast iron, but I suspect it'd also be very appreciated when running the tatara in bloomery mode, since it should give you more expensive steel and less cheap iron.
Now to start looking for those titles...
The TiO2 might help though it also increases the smelting temperature (for magnetite sands, used for iron/steel production) so it cuts in both directions
Win some, loose some. Given the preference for these ores I'd be inclined to guess it worked out as a net positive all said and done, at least with the furnace designs they used.
>hematite iron sands being used,
Apparently it's the so called "akome" iron sand that has a lot of hematite; I did not read about roasting being done with the tatara, but yes it would create red iron oxide
depends on the time period and specific sword
Throughout most of Japanese history it was a sidearm for horse archers
>Throughout most of Japanese history it was a sidearm for horse archers
That's the tachi you're thinking of.
The answer to all of it is that they were made from shit and even when musyical were very bendy and had no hand protestion, they were shot from hoseback. the japs dumped the to use french pattern cavalry sabers in the 19th century when they were still actually using swords as wapons. The ww2 use was entirely around the whole bushdo as a fake mythology (it was cooked up by a US Christian convert agricultural student) and picked up by the Tojo regime as state propaganda and the katana became emblematic. Even after ww2 tojo banzi tards tried to crate a cult around it and they suceeded, much as they did with creepy war criminals getting buried and commemorated at national shrines. The answer to all your question though is that the iron ore in japan was shit, it was dredged from river silt and appaling quality and even the best japanese hardcore web katanas are a bit of a joke compared to proper high quality ore coke blast furnace steels from the era of the Napoleonic wars. The weeb swords used bend, there are even paintings of battles showing groups of men bending them straight again over their knees(find it yourself). They tried making them thicker to stop that a bit (did not work much) but that made them heavier so now you needed too hands and you can't have anything to protect your hands.
If you have a lot of good iron ore and copper and tin and brass and steel you can make lighter thinner stronger swords to use one handed with hand protection. If only the japanese had known they might have evolved into the pinnacle of swords, the water ground smallsword.
Fell for the "japanese iron was bad" meme
Been dabbling in some bujutsu/koryu the last two years and both the tachi and uchigatana feels incredibly optimized for the whole "sidearm" role. One thing that's neat about it is the relative ease of disassembly for maintenance. We fetishize hand protection a lot because it's easy to think of as some kind of linear evolution but it can really pile the weight on and frick with balance, ease of wear and drawing it. Doesn't matter much if you're wearing armor, as well.
Another thing is that various deflections or binding actions are pretty powerful with the katana because it's blade is pretty evenly mass distributed instead of having a lot of distal taper like most European swords. This also means that the point of percussion is pretty close to the tip on the sword instead of being a lot further down on, say, a longsword. Snap cuts feel a lot better with a katana and it's hard to do techniques like makiotoshi/maki-waza with a longsword, if you ask me. I don't really know shit about materials science so I don't have much to say about that, though.
The French military advisers and their Japanese allies in Hokkaido, during the Japanese Boshin war, 1869. Back row: Cazeneuve, Marlin, Fukushima Tokinosuke, Fortant. Front row: Hosoya Yasutaro, Jules Brunet, Matsudaira Taro (vice-president of the Ezo Republic), Tajima Kintaro.
Note French Sabres with hand protection
>Matsudaira Taro
Matsudaira Tarō (松平 太郎, 1839 – May 24, 1909) was Commander-in-Chief of the Army (陸軍奉行並) under the Minister of the Army Katsu Kaishū, during the Bakumatsu period of Japanese history, and later became vice-president (Japanese:副総裁) of the Republic of Ezo during the Boshin War.
Japanese Type 19 Army Company Grade Officer Sword
Japanese Imperial Cavalry Officers Sword, Late 19th
its a cavalry blade
if they are supposd to be choppers why didnt they make katanas with wider blades like falchions or messer style swords?
every katana has like the same 1.5" width blade that cant be an accident why did they all arrive at the same size
a balance of strength, rigidity, and ease of use. Lots of messers have comparable blade widths to katanas, and if you make the blade considerably wider it becomes
>heavier, harder to wield, more ungainly
>you either have to shorten the blade or waste more metal on it
>it's harder to push through gaps in armor
they aren't meant to be choppers, they're meant to be multi-purpose swords that can both cut and thrust, both on foot and from horseback
>they aren't meant to be choppers, t
i always thought they were? wasnt the traditional proofing method to see how many prisoner bodies it could cut through in one swing?
It's a cutting sword, but not ONLY a cutting sword. Testing swords by cutting through stacked up prisoners is mostly apocryphal, edges were mostly tested by cutting through tatami mats. Occasionally a sword may have been tested in a beheading but it wasn't a constant thing.
>if they are supposd to be choppers
They're slicers.
A distinction hotly argued by those who don't know what they're talking about, but have a pathological need to pigeonhole shit.
my point is they arent made specifically as thrusters, the curved blade should make that obvious enough. thats why i was wondering why they werent made with thicker blades more like a cutlass. i know japan was isolated from the west for most of its history but surely they could have indepdenently figured out wider blades = more mass for chopping right?
Japan understood how mass works anon, katanas are the shape they are because that's what the japanese needed them to be shaped like. If they had wanted them to be very heavy, purely cutting swords they'd have done it.
yeah but why wasnt there any variation? even in europe they had different swords for different jobs. they had choppers and thrusters. why didnt japan?
Because the targets remained the same
>Unarmored militia
>Actual soldiers wearing a mix of chainmail and lamellar armor
Even when they invaded the mainland it was just more of the same, chainmail and lamellar armor.
If they wanted to do a considerably different task they built a considerably different tool.
almost all pictures ive seen of samurai show them using swords as a secondary weapon. their primary weapon always seems to be a long spear
Duh, anon, that's true of nearly all swords. But compare European swords, which were again, almost always sidearms to katanas. You see European swords styles change notably over any given 600 year period, but especially during the later periods. Why? Because the armor they were facing was changing in response to the swords.
Japan is homogenous, on a broad sense stable, the armor doesn't change much, so the swords don't change much, so again the armor doesn't change much.
>my point is they arent made specifically as thrusters,
Tachi (don't mistake with katana) design is specifically for trusting from horseback. Curve of the blade and handle allows to brace handle against bottom of forearm and hold sword hanging in the air without straining wrist.
lol no that is some sort of moronic fricking fuddlore, cavalry used curved swords specifically for slashing and tachi is no exception
>Why does it have so little hand protection
Samurai armor has protection on the hands already
> Why is the blade so short
japanese steel of the time sucked dick
>when it has a two handed grip
they decided that's what worked best for them after centuries, why is that so strange
>Why does it have so little hand protection?
the overwhelmingly vast majority of weapons throughout history have even less, or have zero hand protection
>Why does it need a wakizashi partner when it can be used in one hand?
I think you watch too much anime, underaged poster.
You need to be 18 or older to post here.
You are stupid. Sometimes the blades are cut down from Tachi.
>japanese steel of the time sucked dick
Lies; this meme has to die
My mistake, jap steel back then was of utmost quality and all the primary sources saying specifically otherwise are wrong.
What's your favorite anime?
Your rambling aside; it was normal iron/steel comparable to any made with a bloomery furnace
>and all the primary sources saying specifically otherwise
Post 'em.
im gonna do it
Certainly not the worst design.
>Why is the blade so short.
It's designed to be used by somebody of Japanese size hundreds of years ago.
Probably just barely 4ft tall, if that.
Would you buy this 'tana?
https://www.truekatana.com/products/20979/handmade-japanese-katana-sword-with-black-scabbard
https://roninkatana.com/brands/RK-entry-level.html
https://www.hanbonforge.com/Katana
https://jkoosword.com/Katana-Shinken-c42906143
If you want something cheap pick something from the above. Also, when you see a bright white pattern like that, its etched on. Not actually differentially hardened.
http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/hamon.html
>Also, when you see a bright white pattern like that, its etched on. Not actually differentially hardened.
If the steel is good it doesn't need to be differentially hardened or have a hamon at all. There are plenty of cases of chinesium swords that don't need DH, but they do a clay-tempered hamon anyway and it ends up looking like shit. If you insist on a hamon that shows up well, then a fake one is the way to go because real hamon are kind of hard to see from afar. If one chooses to go with a fake hamon, I'd recommend to go with an acid-etched hamon over the brushed kind because they don't look as fake, but do show up better than real hamon.
>If you insist on a hamon that shows up well, then a fake one is the way to go because real hamon are kind of hard to see from afar.
Or you can just ask the forge to do a Kesho polish. If you want a through-hardened sword, it'll look best if you just leave it plain.
>fake hamon
>ugly saya
>cheap looking sageo
Bro, if you insist on chinesium, try buying from ebay or something first.
Why would I buy on ebay when I could buy from the same company that sells on ebay?
Because a lot of Chinese companies source their products from the same provider. You can probably find a cheaper price from another seller. Or just get a used one from somebody who grew out of his weeb phase.
Never go against a Tolkien scholar, a Dune lore nerd or a Katana enjoyer. You will get your ass kicked.
>Why does it have so little hand protection?
The handguards scale bigger for swords used as battlefield arms and smaller for swords carried day to day or as a backup. A huge disk guard is less cool when it's rubbing a hole in your ching chong bathrobe and giving you a welt.
I have zero formal training with katanas or wakizashis specifically, but I've sparred a lot with people who DO take stuff like kendo and HEMA, and straight-up, I feel like short katana/wakizashi-esque swords work way better as a stabbing weapon that has the *option* of making a decisive slash than they do as dedicated cutters. Like wakizashi are 100% sharp enough that you can slash a hunk of meat in half in midair by flicking your wrist to make a little "C" with the blade but realistically you never get the chance to do bullshit like that in a fight. And I'd never cross swords with one, I'd just run away until I could stab you. Way better to just Yamaguchi the guy and plunge it into his ribs, and if I had to fight an armored opponent with one, I wouldn't even try to engage him in a swordfight. I'd just cheat and jam it as a spike into his visor/eye or a weak point in the armor, like a rapier. There wouldn't even be any fighting, it's not for that, it's for shanking like a coward and it's a bonus that it's as sharp as it is edge-wise.
>like there wouldn't be any fight I'm too smart and cool for that I'd not fight I'd just like BAM stab him and he'd be dead and shit
Sorry Johnny Fifteenyearold, but contrary to what's the case in your social circles a fight is not just two drunk dudebros ripping their shirts off before loudly flailing around a bit. That's just histronic theatre.
In the world at large you trying to violently harm your opponent, while he tries to do the same to you, well that's what a fight actually is. Whether you try to cut, slash, stab, punch, kick, bite, shoot, etc your opponent isn't important to whether or not it's a fight.
Sometimes a clapback is so off-point that you can only blame it on anonymity. Double-edged sword, I guess.
To actually humor you, you're half-right, but also not. Insofar as real-life violence isn't a chest beating ritual, yeah, you nailed it. Actual "Jesus Christ I literally pissed my pants because my body just couldn't prioritize that anymore" violence isn't a chest-beating ritual, for sure. But fights are rare in that actual exchanges of violence are rare. Violence is decisive, unfair, sudden, lopsided, chaotic (in that sense, it IS histrionic), terrifying, and over in five fricking seconds 99% of the time, and what's worse, it's not even a homogenous phenomenon. There's almost never TIME for any fight to happen in that a fight implies a back-and-forth. Most violence is just a one-sided assault, and there's not even any fricking dignity in it. When an actual fight happens it's usually because someone (or both parties) fricked up, which DOES happen all the time, but still.
The only realm in which fights actually occur consistently is in exactly the kind of sanctioned, shirts-off, ritualized exchanges that you say don't reflect reality. Duels, sporting events, machismo, all that.
You know damn well
thought of none of that, he's just dreaming of going "nuthin personal, kid".
I can confirm that they are the same poster
>I feel like short katana/wakizashi-esque swords work way better as a stabbing weapon that has the *option* of making a decisive slash than they do as dedicated cutters
>but realistically you never get the chance to do bullshit like that in a fight
Anything bowie knife sized or greater is capable of taking limbs off. People made dedicated cutting weapons for a reason.
Does it ever strike you as morbid when you can see individual heartbeats fading away in each spurt?
whats the story on this? revenge or random psycho attack?
thats a sushimi
I find them to be among the ugliest swords I can think of
Anybody got any good advice/instructional videos on how to perform a clean noto? This shit always feels awkward for me.
Stop posting this cringe shit jason
>"weird sword"
its a fricking weeb cavalry saber.
I fight in a sword club thing that started as me and some friends but is now like fourty 20 somethings. Not gonna pretend this makes me some qualified professional but I’ve probably spent a good 300 hours or so actively clashing wooden blades with people of all skill levels.
I use a katana, it’s an uphill battle. The tsuba (handguard) performs worse than the giant rapier hand guards but much better than the long sword type that’s really long but cross shaped instead of circular. Those guys take constant hand hits, I almost never get hit in the hand from above, but do from the front now and then (which only rapier style guards would protect against). The katana’s length is very difficult to overcome. The onus is on you to gain considerable positioning and speed advantage over a longsword. What you have to remember is the katana is a sidearm. A katana in your belt is light and maneuverable and as long as you can get while remaining incredibly quick and easy to draw. We’ve done matches where a ref declares our primaries are broken and both fighters have to ditch them and draw secondaries, and the katana is basically the best possible secondary in this scenario (generally paired with a spear or better yet polearm like a naginata). Think of a katana like the M1 Carbine of swords. By comparing it to Tachi and longswords and flamberges you’re comparing the M1 Carbine to the Garand and G43 and whatever. Knights did not generally stroll around in street clothes with a longsword on their hip during peacetime like samurai did with katana. I lose fights with this thing all the time because I use it as a primary out of mostly fun larp reasons, that’s not what it is, and arguments against it to that effect are tiresome and unproductive.
TLDR:
-The handguard is pretty good actually
-the katana has always been a sidearm to a bow, polearm, or gun
-the katana saw street-carry use beyond nearly any other sword that has ever existed
based actual practitioner
>uses wooden wasters
>actual practitioner
Nah he ain't that's like comparing chess to wargames.
yeah bro he fight with actual swords like those tards that got banned from hema
Nah what he says he sounds like an incompetent fool I would pwn him son.
The difference between battlefield and civilian carry is a pretty important point. Both the katana and the longsword were meant to be used on the battlefield, where the user would be wearing chainmail gauntlets at the very least, if not some variety of plate or lamellar gauntlet.
Rapiers have such overbuilt handguards because they're at their heart civilian weapons (though they were used on the battlefield), and are usually carried in either bare or gloved hands (since by the 16th-17th century metal gauntlets have begun to go out of fashion). The users of the rapier simple could not accept that they would get hit in the hands during a fight, either on the field or in the street, because they'd be crippled by it.
The reason you managed to hit people's hand with such ease is because you are fighting against fools that don't know what they are doing. All it takes is a sublte twist of the hand to have the cross cover you.
The whole "ref says your weapon is broken" sounds like some inane LARP shit bro.
cause ancient japs were tiny
when the Portuguese arrived they tought that the Heavens sent Devils after them.
It's for executing peasants.
Like the sbr or carbine of swords.
We deal in speed.