Why did the japs always make swords as smaller or larger variation of the katana, instead of making more versatile weapons like the european longswords? They can only cut through tissue and light armour, even a bland chainmail can easily deflect them, they're glorified butcher knives
Steel strength and mostly slashing peasants in loincloths so it wasn't much of an issue.
>mostly slashing peasants in loincloths
>They can only cut through tissue and light armour, even a bland chainmail can easily deflect them
>They generally only went up against bare flesh or light armor
Mythology with no basis in reality.
Right, all those civilian deaths were from the covid vaccine.
Can you cite some kind of a study or historical basis for the idea that most japanese soldiers were unarmored for like five hundred years?
Most peasants didn't have armor. Just dudes in clothes with farm implements.
Most Japanese soldiers didn't use katanas to fight each other. The image of a fully armored samurai charging another fully armored samurai with both of them holding a katana as their one and only weapon is fictitious.
>soldiers
Yeah every war ever it was just soldiers v soldiers as far as the eye can see. No peasant army was ever called forth by the warring sides.
So thats a "No, I cant provide any evidence that most of the people fighting for half a millennium were naked, it's just a meme from internet forums"
Yeah, Japan really bucked the system of feudal fighting. Raising hordes of farmers to fight just wasn't their thing like the rest of the world. Just Samurai 1v1s to decide matters.
Ah, I see, you think the only two possibilities in an army are a naked farmer with a broom and an anime battle between two millionaires.
In all of history your armed professionals were more likely to go up against a bunch of farmers in their regular work clothes than peers.
That's mythology. Your brain has been poisoned by modern fantasy movies.
Odds seem pretty good when you're outnumbered by farmers by at least a few thousand. Unless everyone had a set of armor under their chicken coop.
>Odds seem pretty good when you're outnumbered by farmers by at least a few thousand. Unless everyone had a set of armor under their chicken coop.
Most combatants outside of the ancient past were armored moron. The idea of unwashed peasant hordes fighting with shovels in their pajamas is literally fantasy.
Are you not aware that modern fantasy movies much more commonly portray what you think is fact?
You know nothing about feudal warfare. Peasant levies were uncommon in most of the world. Armies tended to be made of mixed professional men-at-arms, knights, and wealthier free citizens who could own their own weapons and armor but weren’t nobles.
>handguns aren't good against body armor
>why are you claiming that soldiers don't wear body armor in wars???
Anon...
Whoops, this is for
Your premise is backwards.
>All Japanese blades cut the same because I say so
>Therefore all Japanese blades are useless against armor because I say so
>Therefore armor in Japan was always uncommon because I say so
You're still doing it.
Here, let me help you
>Japanese swords aren't very good against armor
>therefore they didn't use swords against armor
Do you think all those spears and clubs and bows and arrows and firearms were for display or something? For a long time, samurai were horse archers first and foremost. Swords were not typically the primary weapons of soldiers in war. They're good for carrying around your estate where the only fight you might get into is against bandits or the guy whose wife you slept with last week.
>all japanese blades with the same blade geometry and makeup of hard and soft steels in the same configuration cut the same because that's how physics works
You're stuck on the idea that they used swords all the time for everything. They weren't that stupid.
in what version of history do you think ANY prefirearm army consists of fully decked out armored elites?
in war elite samurais were bowmen, spearmen, halbediers (naginata), and cavalrymen first before swordsmen, with the majority of armies being lightly armkred ashigaru.
Thats right, literally the exact same format as medieval european armies except knights were mostly shock cavalrymen.
Katanas, like every other sword, were often used as convenient and portable sidearms for civvie use or if you lose your main weapon in a battle.
>more versatile weapons like the european longswords
They're all equally versatile, long swords weren't cutting through plate armor either.
the answer is style and tradition. The Japs learned how to make normalized high carbon spring temper steel swords from the chinks, and started off making str8 copys on the ring pommel dao and jian, and it gradually took on a distinct character, with e curved shape better suited to horse combat ao breifly tachi and o-dachi were used, and eventually the katana e,merged as the winner. some people think that the curve was retained as a mark of craftsmanship, as you have to be pretty fricking good to diff temper an entire sword and have it acheive a near perfect arc in the process, others think it simply stayed on due to style and demand
>Steel strength
oy vey not this again, my payos, they're fall out from the stress
>It's not like there were
by the end of the sengoku jidai the Japanese had widespread manufacter and use of heavy armor every bit as protective as European plate and mail- they had it at the beginning too but not as widespread.
>there was no strong need to innovate
in times of relative peace that is true, however, in the sengoku jidai Japanese arms and armor evolved very speedily indeed.
>The blade was always the same, the steel was always the same
you have no idea what you are talking about please stop
>pic related
>a naginata being extremely not a katana
no, katanas are nowhere near as versatile as longswords. a longsword can cut, but can also pierce, it's double edged, it's lighter, the guard actually protects the hand, the pommel gives momentum to the blade while also balancing it and being itself a good blunt edge. a sword could be used as a club if needed be.
a katana can only cut. its closest european counterpart was not the longsword but the falchion, which is significantly lighter, sharper and faster than a katana. katanas were made out of inferior iron and were heavy, too heavy for a sidearm. the average longsword weights around half of that of a daikatana
There are too many morons like you who think curved swords can't thrust... because it's just not allowed. Katana curve is shallow making it perfectly capable of delivering relatively strong thrusts, and even sabres and the like utilize thrusts against unarmored opponents.
>a longsword can cut, but can also pierce,
yes, so can katanas, they're specifically designed for it
>it's double edged,
overrated and loads of western swords were also single edged
>it's lighter,
it is the same on average
>the guard actually protects the hand,
so does the tsuba
>the falchion, which is significantly lighter, sharper and faster than a katana.
"look at muh machete its bettuh than your swerd"
>katanas were made out of inferior iron
the West wouldn't catch up with Japanese metallurgy until at least the 1750s
>the West wouldn't catch up with Japanese metallurgy until at least the 1750s
What part of the West? What part of Japan? These are too broad definitions. The average steel in europe was superior to the average steel used in Japan in the same period. But for the purpose of making a sword to cut, the smithing process in Japan could be considered almost magical if you take into context how rudimentary it was, the iron being so much filled with impurities in almost all the island and the industry being so secretive and elitized. A katana was a marvel as a weapon because of how much work a sword had to reach "good enough" status when a common european smith could make it equal with much less effort and also thanks to better access to superior iron generally.
I think you're both moronic.
Japan didn't have more impure iron. It was slightly different in terms of what other metals were mixed with it but it wasn't bad overall. Their metallurgical process besides obviously having bloomeries also had rough equivalent to the better, later, European finery process where you first melt cast iron and the decarbonize it. The Tamahagane steel is actually a later invention for faster steel production that only came to be in the middle of 16th century.
Similarly as far as layering and differential heating of steel goes, it was unique to Japan in the details, but understood in Europe where both folding of steel and differential tempering were known to some degree.
Iron in most of the island was more impure and brittle than in Europe, with the exception of the northern part where iron ore there was more fine and would make superior swords. Tamahagane is not great as iron, it is simply worked to such a degree that impurities are mostly removed.
Spanish blacksmiths in Toledo had similar smithing processes, but had access to much better iron, hence their products were of better quality. With no doubt, if they used japanese techniques or if the japanese had access to spanish iron the results would be best.
>Iron in most of the island was more impure and brittle than in Europe
There is no pure iron in any ground period. You're always extracting iron ores (oxides) first and chiefly how impure it is depends on how well you extract it. What admixture of other elements besides carbon happens to be is a secondary question with no real proof that Japan was just worse off than some random place in Europe.
>Tamahagane is not great as iron, it is simply worked to such a degree that impurities are mostly removed.
Tamahagane in the first place is not iron. It's the better chunks of steel extracted from a Tatara. Tamahagane was never the best Japanese steel either, since it came directly from a single step process of just smelting iron ore into steel and iron, it was rife with impurities and the workings in addition to selective picking of the chunks only helped to get rid of some impurities, in practice folding beyond 2-3 steps would introduce more impurities too.
What really mattered is that the Japanese also had the two step process where they first melt iron ore into cast iron, effectively removing impurities due to the material reaching a liquid state, and then decarbonized it into proper steel in Sageba, once again melting it into liquid form that would further evaporate impurities. Based on the current knowledge of historical metallurgy this process would yield much better quality steel than Tamahagane and it's likely that Tamahagane is just more mythologized as it came to be in the mid 16th century out of necessity and then Japan effectively had their own "end of history" period.
I want to add that when you look at the crucible steel method that Europe began using in the 19th century they could only reach high quality modern tool steel equivalent properties when they used blister steel imported from Sweden. Why was swedish blister steel so good? It wasn't more pure than any other ore but it was spiked with manganese which pulled other impurities out in the slag during the smelting process. It was due to the type of impurities present, not the quantity of them.
To be fair, falchions are generally pretty light, because they're relatively short, thin-bladed one hand swords, but that guy's still moronic because it fits an entirely different niche than a katana
You have never held any kind of sword, have you?
Ashigaru weren't in "loincloths" unless if you are invoking the tsujigiri myth.
moron
Relatively less contact with the outside world. The less contact people have with other cultures the less likely they are to innovate when the weapons they have are “good enough”. Japanese warfare was itself really weird compared to the outside world. Sometimes they’d have spear formations that would move in circles like a factory belt to cycle people in and out of the front.
>The less contact people have with other cultures
Japan was major trading hub in Asia for most of its history, it wasn't isolated at all and even at the hieght of sakuko in the Edo period Japan had relations and trade with other countries including the Dutch.
they're not murder hobbits that popped into existence fully formed and screaming banzai ffs
>They can only cut through tissue and light armour
But they are pretty good at it. You have other weapons for other needs.
>even a bland chainmail can easily deflect them
Chainmail was hardly ever popular in asia. Its mostly brigandine / lamellar meta.
>they're glorified butcher knives
Cleavers are great weapons.
Japan actually used a shitload of chainmail, it was used to cover any gaps between their plates, and there were suits of armor that were entirely mail from top to bottom.
But they weren't fighting armored opponents with katanas, they had polearms, bows, and guns for that.
>meta
Kys
The phillipines loved chainmail.
Just... in the 1900s.
>Why did the japs always make swords as smaller or larger variation of the katana
Because the culture they got their swords from did the same.
The Japanese word for sword is "To," which technologically & linguistically descended from the Chinese "Dao." "Dao" is often translated by Western autists as "saber" but in reality its "single edged weapon."
A Saber is "dao,"
A 2 handed saber is "dao,"
A Knife is "dao,"
A glave is "dao."
Japan wasn't really special at the end of the day. Oh sure Mainland Asians like China & Korea had 2 edged swords like Jian/Geom, but only dedicated swordsmen used these. Infantry frickers and plebs used dao mostly since its so easy to use and train with.
>Chainmail was hardly ever popular in asia. Its mostly brigandine / lamellar meta.
mount stupid, everyone.
was hardly ever popular in asia. Its mostly brigandine / lamellar meta.
This is true though
>The Japanese word for sword
Technological and metallurgical advancement aren't connected to linguistics anon.
It is in this case. Japs didn't develop swords independent from the rest of Mainland East Asia.
Yet swords aren't words, you don't develop weapons to match a vocabulary. Are you saying they didn't develop new swords because they couldn't name them? The japanese sword metallurgy was quite different from their chinese-style swords and much better, hence why they pretty much change all of their weaponry to the better ones, but sure they didn't develop sword independently.
Language has still very little to do in the overall moderate differences between a heian-era sword and a bakumatsu era one.
>They can only cut through tissue and light armour, even a bland chainmail can easily deflect them
You answered your own question. They generally only went up against bare flesh or light armor, so why mess with what works? It's not like there were a bunch of European knights decked out in chainmail and full plate armor traipsing around feudal Japan.
if your enemies tanks have light armor you develop light piercing warheads, if it they were heavy you would go heavy.
Well what about samurai - on - samurai action?
>But they were almost always mounted and served as mounted archers
Yeah duh but they would inevitably come to blows in narrow places where a yari or a naginata is useless. What then?
They would use wakizashi, tanto, or kodachi. Originally they fought in open fields and the like laid siege to castles until they surrendered. The Uchigatana and shortened tachis only became popular during the latter part of the Sengoku period.
>variation of the Katana
I guess the Rapier is a variation of the Gladius.
Black person the wakizashi is a shorter katana, the tantō an even shorter wakizashi. The nodachi is a longer katana, the naginata a katana on a stick. The blade was always the same, the steel was always the same. What changed were merely the size. Gladius and rapier are immensely different, whereas all those japanese weapons serve the same purpose but in different situations: to cut
>The rapier is just a weird skinny gladius
Steel in Katana varied wildly. About as much as between European blades. Even the process of steelmaking had several variations.
I think it's partly due to the fact that japan was comparably small, culturally homogenous, and separated from the rest of the world. This promotes cultural constancy. In europe, or really all of eurasia, you had various separate cultures both evolving and innovating separately, but also interacting and spreading ideas. Sabres, for example, came to europe from more eastern cultures. And to add to that, the kind of swords the japanese had really did work for their kind of armor and warfare, so there was no strong need to innovate.
the used spears and muskets on the battlefield. swords were mainly a symbol of caste
They made all sorts of weapons but Japanese swordsmiths had an autistic method of hardening and tempering that produced the signature geometry of the katana. So if you went to one of these guilds to commission a weapon (presumably as a member of the warrior caste looking for a functional and aesthetic badge of office that you could hand down to your children) it was gonna be something with a curved blade like this
>Yari (Spear)
>Naginata (Glaive)
>Nagamaki (Sword staff)
>Kanabo (Mace/Club)
>Ono (Axe)
>Yumi (Bow)
The main weapon of the Samurai was the bow in their earliest periods. This later shifted to the spear and glaive. The Katana only became the main weapon of the Samurai after the Sengoku period and the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate.
A katana was both a secondary weapon as well as a status simbol. Similar to a pistol with officers during ww1 /2. Swords do jack shit against metal armor unless specific techniques are utilised such as "end them rightly", murderstrokes or halfswording.
That being said tho
A lot of solders did not have their full body coverd in metal, and fingers are always a valid target even with plate armor because they are easily broken (unless those crabhand gauntlets are used but those create problems of their own ).
A sword is a good secondary because you could fight someone in armor but not as well as with other weapons,
you could counter spears better then with axes or maces (spear is a bretty common weapon), not as good as having a long spear of your own though
It is still a metal bar hitting you even if it cant cut you.
It was nimbler (better balanced) then other weapons(like maces and axes and spears ) and could defend against atacks better (secondary weapon function)
It fit on your hip (secondary weapon function) unlike a spear
Jap swords were ceremonial and really only used for policing peasants, dueling, and committing sudoku. The two swords carried by samurai were more popular as status symbols during the Edo period when the samurai class became hereditary. During the warring states period, samurai mostly used weapons like bows, polearms, spears, and even the Portuguese arquebus.
there was not a heavy martial emphasis on the sidearm in japan. they focused on marksmanship and the spear. even with their shitty steel they could have made something at least better suited to exploiting the gaps in armor (which were larger and less defended compared to contemporary europeans) but they apparently just did not have the pressure to do so.
the katana itself is just a nerfed tachi as it went from a standard battlefield implement to something more suited for wear.
>always
If we're talking Japanese swords then the relevant periods are Kamakura, Muromachi and Sengoku Jidai. Roughly 1200 to 1600. After that, in Edo, there was little war so military technology stagnated.
In those 400 years they stuck mostly to the tachi/uchigatana shape, yes. The main reasons being that the main battlefield weapons were pole arms, bows, and eventually guns. If you needed a thrust you would use a spear, or a dagger. The sword was as much a status symbol as a weapon. In addition to that their armor technology was different, mainly aimed at stopping projectiles. (robatoooooo)
Because they correctly identified that the purpose of the sword is being a show piece and killing peasants.
War isn't fought with swords.
>t. a Roman rammed a sword up his ass
because of their traditionalist culture, mostly.
Nip warfare was about incestuous stagnation as they were an island nation without any competition from outside.
They literally never figured out hand-held shields.
>never figured out hand-held shields
ok bubba whatever you say
>how rudimentary it was
lololo
>the iron being so much filled with impurities
>shitty steel
Japan was a major exporter of steel tools and weapons for centuries in southeast asia before the west showed up. they didn't have crappy steel, they had *better* steel than all their neighbors save the chinese
They did though. They had various kinds of shield, including hand shields, full size shields, and freestanding shields.
Sword is fine, not need change
What is it about Japanese history in particular that makes so many people who know absolutely nothing try to speak as though they're an absolute authority?
No other culture has this shit happen on such a scale
One word: anime.
Everyone thinks they know it well because they watched anime, so any surface level stuff makes them think they're experts.
There are also a lot of bullshit "experts" lying ~~*Jake Adelstein*~~ has completely ruined discourse regarding organized crime in Japan.
It's funny that people who can't read Japanese historical research in Japanese are discussing Japanese history.
Japanese samurai warfare was based on outnumbering opponents and overwhelming them with disproportionate numbers so quality of weapons and soldiers was not a priority, bodies that could hold a weapon was, this was based on a similar chinese strategy of the same tactics
In contrast the mongols had the diametrically opposed strategy where a single mongol was expected to have more combat power than many adversaries, they always expected 1:3, 1:5, 1:20+ ratios, historians believe that less than 100,000 mongols were storming throughout europe almost unmolested even if they were outnumbered by over 300+ million europeans at the time, the middle east ratio was even more lopside, the chinese ratio was even more so than the middle east - japanese mimicked the chineses not the mongols
Are you unironically suggesting that medieval European nations had 300 million soldiers
that probably wasnt by choice. as pastoralist nomads, they couldnt produce enough food to support massive armies, but in return what they did do was have each member of their clan be very skilled at horseriding and warfare by constant skirmish with other clans.
Farmers on the other hand could field massive armies because of OP food production, but grain is low quality nutrient and you often end up with a shitty malnourished militia led by a few well trained and well fed elites. Because of cost constraints the militias are also often poorly equipped.
>Japanese samurai warfare was based on outnumbering opponents and overwhelming them with disproportionate numbers so quality of weapons and soldiers was not a priority, bodies that could hold a weapon was, this was based on a similar chinese strategy of the same tactics
This is stupidly false as late Heian and early Kamakura warfare was still based around heroic warfare. Even the major bushidan had only some thousands warriors, really not that much. You have to wait late Sengoku to get those silly fifty thousands strong armies.
As the samurai rose in the Heian era, a major change towards a domestic style of fighting was developped which specifically opposed the chinese model.
Brosef samurai were four feet tall
What does it have to do with anything? Besides, it's mostly due to the kabuto making them taller. Most buke were 3.5, kuge would typically be 3ft tall only. Peasants skeletons were 2ft tall average, hence why they were called shrimp.
>Why did the japs always make swords as smaller or larger variation of the katana
Probably because there was no major metallurgical development in Japan that allowed new type of blades to be made (see transition from type XIV to type XV to rapiers). There was still some differences between early Kamakura and Sengoku jidai types of blade, in length as you said but also in the type of forging (kobuse method for instance), and in the blade arrangement of the curvature, style and purpose of the tip (hatchet vs triangular...), fittings etc. All of those can be seen as minor compared to the difference between a Type XIV and a rapier for instance and sure, the difference isn't as big but it's still there. Also, there wasn't a major incentive to change swords as its role relatively stayed the same for centuries, the companion weapon for the inevitable melee clash. The shortening of swords is due to the transition from cavalry fighting which warranted long swords, to pike bloc fighting where a short, easy to deploy sword is preferrable. Note that it has little to do with the average japanese height as they used depending on the period here 34-36in long blades, then 24-26in.
Just the length is already enough to seriously change the use and making of a sword, see rapier vs smallsword for instance. It's a strong example but the two have quite a different way of being used.
Because Japanese diplomatic team visited China, saw Tang Dao and then came to appreciate it for its simplicity, versatility. It was light weight, long enough, implessive cutting force, fast enough, can be mass produced, be able to usable one handed, ease of draw, and usable while on horse or mounted. Also it was a standard military weapon in Tang dynasty at the time so Japan saw its use/capability in war.
European Longsword appeared ~500 years after Japanese visited Tang dynasty and implemented the sword adoption, was widely used for centuries through the great wars and was battle tested.
the dao is just a name given to a single edged sword from china. literally a bronze sword can be considered a "dao". there is no particular sword known as a dao.
>variation of the katana
>Posts tachi
Basic b***h swordgays in a nutshell. Fun fact,
>even a bland chainmail can easily deflect
a cut from muh heckin' epic longsword you absolute fricking pleb.
>they're glorified butcher knives
Glossing over the general stupidity of that, you're b***hing that dudes made a sword that's good at cutting meat.
Wow.
Imagine.