Katana vs Broadsword...test cutting- National Geographic

[Nathaniel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxYvwEnKRjA

[Aleksey G.]

Man, sucks video cuts it of at the end like that....
... The european guy overcommits on some strikes I think, his shoulder is all up front and does noit stop the sword in time if he needs to counter strike.

I was always fascinated by counter testing edged weapons from different cultures in battle, is there a better sword out there if the skill of both opponents is "generally" equal? Better design, strength, rigidity etc..
If you look on the tube, there are videos of katana vs the jian fights, rapier vs the broad sword etc....
I dont see much of the middle eastern curved sabers though...(shamshirs, kilijs etc...), thats upsetting, would like to see some field testing and techniques with that.

[kisak]

While I guess the actual tests themselves might be nice to show if one encounters someone who, for some reason, have gotten the notion that Europeans words are poor cutters, the program it's all taken from seems to have some severe issues though. "The broadsword relies of brute strength"?

I'm also rather sceptical about the whole "x vs y" concept. I don't think I've ever seen anyone propose a scenario/testing setup which manages even partially to eliminate the majority of other factors, without simultaneously being far too narrow in scope to say anything about the performance of the swords in general.

[KuKulzA28]

There tends to be some favoritism going on in these tests... often in favor of the nihonto...

it is like when Greyhounds are shown to be faster than Cheetahs oftentimes, but people like the idea of the Cheetah, untamed and fast as hell. But Greyhounds can be just as fast if not faster.

Like-wise people seem to hype up the Katana and say it will cut with ridiculous ease, etc... a sharp European broadsword could too...



and I agree, Middle Eastern and Indian swords are also often ignored. It seems that often it is the Chinese, Japanese, and European swords that people are concerned with... Where are the archipelago blades? The dha/darb? The shamshirs and khandas? The saif and the toukuba?

[katana]

Various 'cut' testing has concluded that it is not just the sharpness, or angle that the blade is sharpened , but the 'polish' of the blade that affects cutting performance.

A highly polished blade has less drag as it slices and aids cutting ability. A characteristic of katana blades.

It does not make sense to compare a Katana to a Broadsword. Broadswords were heavier and generally designed to fight against heavily armoured opponents. The katana was not.

Regards David

[fearn]

It's too bad Albion sword videos of the testing with their traditional blades. The videos I remember showed something you can't do with a katana: cutting the mat on an upward diagonal, using the back edge. The demonstrator did that not only with a replica arming sword, but also with a gladius, and in both cases, he did it one handed. Granted the guy was a smith with Conan-style arms, but it was still an interesting demonstration. The Cold Steel videos show similar results.

Bottom line is that a well made western blade (i.e. Albion) cuts at least as well as a katana, and a heavy Chinese dao can cut even better (if you believe Cold Steel). If you use a single demonstrator who is familiar with all the blades and test cuts them all against the same type of target, the katana shows little if any superiority. IMHO, the katana really shines when you have Mr. black-belt kendoka demonstrating against Mr. Joe Average reenactor.

Best,

F

[kronckew]

blade cross section variations could also affect cutting, wide fullers possibly can cut down friction drag while cutting soft materials, as do the cutouts and odd blade geometries of cheese knives.



and now, a diversion.

(caution: thread veer in progress.)

Originally Posted by KuKulzA28

...

it is like when Greyhounds are shown to be faster than Cheetahs oftentimes, but people like the idea of the Cheetah, untamed and fast as hell. But Greyhounds can be just as fast if not faster.
...

there was a race between a professionally jockeyed race horse and a retired (and thus off peak training) greyhound over two furlongs (1/4 mile), the greyhound won by two horse lengths. similarly, top gear had a race between a class A racing greyhound (worth about £20000) against a sports car over two laps. the grey won by several seconds.

coincidentally that track was the one in ireland where my millie used to race in her early career in dublin. after moving to the UK, she handily won a stakes race, looking up the time and distance, she ran an average of 34 mph over 550 yards. a greyhounds top speed is usually noted at around 45 mph.

they figure they reach top speed in about 2 strides out of the trap, a feat millie was noted for. she normally lead from the front when she won and placed in the money over 2/3 of her 80 races before she was fouled by another dog and injured enough she was retired & thus went home with me and blue, my other greyhound. he never raced, but is a fiend on rabbits and other small animals like foxes & muntjaq deer. (he doesn't catch them but has great fun chasing them)



anyhow, there was a study recently where they were doing motion studies on the spines of greyhounds and cheetahs to see how they used their flex to store and release energy. the greyhounds consistently tested faster over the runs they were using. they put it down to motivation. greys like to run, cheetahs apparently only do it because they have to.

the 70mph top speed for a cheetah was apparently taken from a guesstimate made in africa over a rough terrain with a manual stopwatch, so is suspect.

a greyhound track owner did import a few cheetahs in the early part of the 20th century, trained them over a few months and then raced one against greyhounds to which they'd been accustomed to each other so as to not try to kill each other. anyway there was one race, the cheetah won handily, but was never raced again. appears cheetahs run out of steam very fast and take longer to recharge.

we now return you to our regularly scheduled thread.

i'm rather fond of the cold steel series of cutting tests of their swords, the one on their version of the dutch klewang is one of my favourites as i have a proper original dutch one myself. their use of pig carcasses complete with bones is a close as we are likely to get to real.

Cutlass cutting test

there are a number of cutting tests with swords on youtube, here's one of the hanwei dao (another one i have) vs. bamboo.

Hanwei practical dao cutting test

[Rick]

A Cat doesn't do anything it doesn't have to .

[KuKulzA28]

Ah kronckew, I expected you to come in and elaborate on that. I have read that before too, very cool.

Originally Posted by fearn

The videos I remember showed something you can't do with a katana: cutting the mat on an upward diagonal, using the back edge.

Perhaps versatility is something not often tested for? I feel as though all weapons have been developed for the type of warfare encountered or practiced by those cultures... the "soft" iron swords of the Celts was perfectly acceptable at the time considering the warfare and technology but would be near-useless for a Spanish foot soldier in the 14th century.

Originally Posted by Rick

A Cat doesn't do anything it doesn't have to .

So true.

[Rick]

Back to cutting; I cut with a Piso Podang occasionally; it has a nicely curved blade .
The test material is a Pool Noodle stuck upright in a base; the noodles offer very little resistance so the cutting technique is everything .

Took me quite a bit of practice to get a nice cut as you have to draw the blade through the cut; otherwise the noodle just deflects .

[Norman McCormick]

Hi,
Personally I don't think any of these 'versus' type contests have any validity whatsoever, too many variables. Plate armour, leather armour, quilted armour, thrusting swords, slashing swords etc etc. Sword types evolved as armour and fighting techniques evolved and vice versa. Super sharp differentially heat treated Japanese sword against Milanese plate armour equals bent and knackered katana, same sword against light quilted armour equals limbless opponent. Horses for courses!

Sally prefers warming her tootsies against the Aga these days but when racing she managed 325 yards in 18.05 secs equal to 36.83 mph. Always thought it would be a interesting to get her to run past a traffic speed camera at 4am when the roads are empty, wonder what the officers of the law would think of the photos!
Regards,
Norman.

[pallas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9VTu63NX5E



chinese swordsmanship of scott rodell

[Atlantia]

Gotta say that I believe that at least half of the Katana's reputation is hype.

IMHO (and I've only owned a few, but always enjoyed tesing them on bamboo and rolled mats) Japanese swords are rather beautiful, interesting pieces of art.

But in the great scheme of weapons evolution, little more than eccentic foibles.

I'm not going to argue that the Katana's level of 'sharpness' is going to be hard to match, but as for 'combat worthiness' or pretty much any other measure, it's (for me) just a non-starter.

A good european sword is so much more fit for purpose (Why the hell did they choose a broadsword for comparison, so all but the most ill-imformed viewer would recognise it?).

But hey, lets start with the basics.

How many man-hours does it take to 'create' a good Katana?
How many 'good' broadswords could be created in the same timeframe?
Katana Vs unarmed peasant/bound POW/Criminal etc = Excellent
Katana Vs light armour (leather/fabric/thin laminated wood/V thin metal) = Medium results.
Katana Vs Medium/heavy armour = potential catestrophic damage to blade, as does any even glancing blow to solid object etc.

European sword on the other hand.......
Hack and freaking slay all day then (potentially) bang the kinks out with a lump hammer and sharpen to a good and bloody lethal ragged edge with some random smooth rock from a stream!

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by Norman McCormick

Hi,
...

Sally prefers warming her tootsies against the Aga these days...

it's amazing that this breed of very special dog can sleep more than 23.5 hrs. a day. the other half hour being apportioned to eating, relieving themselves, and running at 45mph (which they sometime do while sleeping as well ). if you are lucky, they may actually play with toys (and with you) for part of their rest periods. they are not known as 45 mph couch potatoes without good reason.

most people are surprised that they do NOT require vast amounts of exercise. they're sprinters after all, a few hundred yards at top speed and they're knackered for two days...

blue and millie at this present moment are on the bed behind me, and look much like they do in the picture in my earlier post which was taken 4 years ago. i did not take another picture as there is very little noticeable difference. one must occasionally check them to make sure they are still alive. sometimes i take blue's pulse just to be sure. (they do sometimes sleep with their eyes open)

back on track, the katana as an art object is great, but we must consider that most of the high class blades we think of were made for the nobility and upper class samurai, the common ashigara made do with a more mundane and lesser quality weapon, maybe even just a spear. these lesser quality cannon fodder level blades did not survive.

the samurai coming up against the armoured chinese/mongols did not fare to well against an army trained to fight as a unit, and were forced to rethink their traditional methods of warfare. they did better in the melee of hand to hand fighting when boarding mongol vessels at sea tho.

i have heard people mention that a samurai about to go into a large organized battle in armour would purposely dull all but the last few inches of his sword, the dull edge being less likely to chip or fracture, and most work is done on any sword with the first few inches anyway. armour bashing was not the samurai style. going for weak points in the armour was the way. armpits, necks are always good targets as are inside the legs, wrists, forearms, etc.

a more modern cross cultural conflict was a story i was told of a gurkha nco who found himself in a hand to hand with a japanese officer and his katana. the gurkha of course had his khukuri, which is much the same as a greek kopis. the gurkha lost part of two fingers. he brought the japaese officers head and sword back to show his commanding officer.

the sword is just a tool. the real weapon is the mind using it.

[kisak]

Originally Posted by Atlantia

How many man-hours does it take to 'create' a good Katana?
How many 'good' broadswords could be created in the same timeframe?
Katana Vs unarmed peasant/bound POW/Criminal etc = Excellent
Katana Vs light armour (leather/fabric/thin laminated wood/V thin metal) = Medium results.
Katana Vs Medium/heavy armour = potential catestrophic damage to blade, as does any even glancing blow to solid object etc.

Well, how long does it take to make a katana, if you're just aiming for a good weapon (and not an "art sword")? How long does a 15th century arming sword take to make? Looking at the cost of making modern day replicas I guess a katana might take slightly longer, but without any numbers for comparison it seems meaningless to try and guess if the difference is meaningful or not.

The armour bit seems odd as well. The Japanese did have iron armour after all, so it seems decidedly odd that they'd stick to a sword which risked catastrophic failure if you accidentally hit your opponents armour. And even without armour I find such a sword an oddity, given that you might always happen to hit your opponents sword, coin purse teeth, some buckle or jewellery, etc. (This isn't to say that I believe the Japanese would simply try to cut through iron lamellar. As far as I've understood it, both in Japan and in Europe, the primary answer to iron armour was to attack where the armour wasn't.)

As for my own experiences, modern ZNKR iaido and kendo kata both avoid edge-on-edge contact (from what I've understood, European longsword fencing does the same), but there's a number of blade-on-blade techniques, some done with a decent amount of force behind them. And for what it's worth, some test cutting I've done with a cheap, modern, Chinese replica has resulted in a few more-than-glancing blows hitting the unyielding chopping block, without the blade cracking. Not traditionally made of course, but even with the improvements in metallurgy over the year it seems to me that a budget offering from China wouldn't be all that good compared to the real thing.

So while there are indeed some who will exaggerate the performance of the katana, I don't feel that the answer to that is to exaggerate in the other direction (such as some of these points may be, or like the last paragraph you wrote about the European blade). Sadly, such often seems to happen when any comparisons are made between sword A and sword B, and it's one reason why I'm sceptical about the possible usefulness of such.

[fearn]

Hi Kisak,

I agree. My understanding (definitely imperfect) of the superiority of the katana is that it stems in part from Musashi's Book of Five Rings. Musashi recommended the katana because it was one of the most versatile weapons, not because it was the most destructive on the battlefield. Then, of course, there's all the samurai's soul mythology.

This is not to knock katanas unnecessarily. They are cool swords. Thing is, a lot of other swords are cool too, and it's fairly myopic to hold up the katana as "the best sword in the world." I'm definitely a partisan of the "there is no best sword" school Link.

Best,

F

[Atlantia]

Originally Posted by kisak

Well, how long does it take to make a katana, if you're just aiming for a good weapon (and not an "art sword")? How long does a 15th century arming sword take to make? Looking at the cost of making modern day replicas I guess a katana might take slightly longer, but without any numbers for comparison it seems meaningless to try and guess if the difference is meaningful or not.

The armour bit seems odd as well. The Japanese did have iron armour after all, so it seems decidedly odd that they'd stick to a sword which risked catastrophic failure if you accidentally hit your opponents armour. And even without armour I find such a sword an oddity, given that you might always happen to hit your opponents sword, coin purse teeth, some buckle or jewellery, etc. (This isn't to say that I believe the Japanese would simply try to cut through iron lamellar. As far as I've understood it, both in Japan and in Europe, the primary answer to iron armour was to attack where the armour wasn't.)

As for my own experiences, modern ZNKR iaido and kendo kata both avoid edge-on-edge contact (from what I've understood, European longsword fencing does the same), but there's a number of blade-on-blade techniques, some done with a decent amount of force behind them. And for what it's worth, some test cutting I've done with a cheap, modern, Chinese replica has resulted in a few more-than-glancing blows hitting the unyielding chopping block, without the blade cracking. Not traditionally made of course, but even with the improvements in metallurgy over the year it seems to me that a budget offering from China wouldn't be all that good compared to the real thing.

So while there are indeed some who will exaggerate the performance of the katana, I don't feel that the answer to that is to exaggerate in the other direction (such as some of these points may be, or like the last paragraph you wrote about the European blade). Sadly, such often seems to happen when any comparisons are made between sword A and sword B, and it's one reason why I'm sceptical about the possible usefulness of such.

Think about the process of making a Katana, do you really think any 'good' complete Katana didn't take three times the amount of hours to create that a good broadsword would?


The damage that hitting a 'coin purse tooth' or small buckle would do is probobly not going to 'write off' the blade, even piercing v thin metal sheet like a can opener. but IMveryHO thats not the question here.
The hard sharp edge of a katana is brittle. The hard sharp edge of a european sword is decidedly less so.
Yes, the first choice if you block with a Katana is for the impact to be on the wide blunt top side, and I'm sure we've all seen Katanas that show scars from this behavior.
But battle is battle, and sometimes you just have to block any way you can.
A hard edge to edge strike can leave cracks, or sections of the cutting edge snapped out.

Also, a Katana has so little flex in the blade, a glancing blow can crack the cutting edge and buckle the blade. A similar blow might if you're very unlucky leave a kink in the european blade, but as I pointed out, you could literally use a lump hammer to straighten it.

I've never broken a bent antique European blade, and I've often been a lot less than gentle in straightening them.

My point is that there is no 'helpful' comparison unless you include the entire 'story'.
Katana, very sharp, inflexible, fragile, time consuming to make.
Broadsword (european longsword), strong, flexible, easy to maintain, quick to make, durable, versatile.

No contest!

Don't get me wrong, I DO like Japanese weapons.
I just think they are massively overrated.

[M ELEY]

When comparing any weapon, likewise the environment and culture has to be taken in context. All this "ninja vs pirate" theories are so annoying. The katana was a product of its culture and fighting styles of it's people. Likewise is the European broadsword.

Case in point, maritime weapons. In the early days of "Fighting Sail", almost any sword was dragged to sea. What became apparent over time was in the tight confines of a rolling ship's deck wall to wall in fighting sailors, a short typically-straight edged cutlass with an almost blunt blade except for the tip (perfect for striking the head and knocking an opponent senseless as well as lacerating the scalp) became the preferred weapon. Could a katana or a broadsword have been used in this environment? Of course, but not to as great of an affect. My 2 cents, anyway. Still, I appreciate the uses and history of both weapons...

[fearn]

Anyone know what the Japanese wokou pirates used? I thought it was a katana...

[M ELEY]

I believe you may be right, but again, this scores with the argument about different cultures. Chinese and Japanese pirates typically didn't launch boarding parties nor swarm onto the decks of European ships. The junks they attacked were smaller vessels with a more "open floor plan".
I was aware of Japanese pirates, but not what they were called. Thanks for the info, Fearn.

[kisak]

Atlantia, I really can't see how the katana could take all that much longer to make, no. We have a slightly higher degree of complexity in the hilt assembly, so a bit longer seems reasonable, but anything of that order?

As for the risk of battle damage, yes, as the Japanese seem to have hardened their edges to a higher hardness, a reduced toughness will be the expected result. However, isn't it pretty far to go from that to say that using the sword against someone in iron armour means "potential catastrophic damage to blade, as does any even glancing blow to solid object". Given the presence of iron armour on Japanese battlefields, it seems to me that this would imply that the katana would be basically worthless for its original function (as a soldier's sidearm). The intent may have been to simply point out that the katana is slightly more brittle, but depending on what one considers a glancing blow, what is said may imply considerably more.

[fearn]

Gotta remember folks, neither the long sword nor the katana (nor especially the broadsword) were designed to hack straight through iron armor. Traditional samurai katana skills (katori shinto ryu) emphasized aiming for gaps in the armor, especially wrist, face, waist and such. Longswords were actually used more like prybars (at least in the german longsword tradition) and aimed again at the gaps in the armor. In both cases, other weapons were specifically designed for the anti-armor role, and going sword against armor required a fair amount of skill and luck.

What's the sword for? Lightly armored opponents. On most battlefields, most of the fighters can't afford much more than a helmet and chest protector. In that environment, a sword is a good weapon, particularly if you happen to be wearing full armor.

Best,

F

[Nathaniel]

The Katana I agree is overrated to the point of world idolization...it is easily the most expensive of antique weapons due to it's popularity. Whenever I heard of something Japanese made I always think three things: small, well made and expensive. Traditionally the Katana was such a time intensive project was because of their poor quality of ore. A good blade is a good blade ...we find them in many cultures.

[Nathaniel]

One thing you have to respect though with the Japanese record keeping...it is amazing the level of detail you can get into with studying Japanese swords.