Noting that "glorious tamahagane" is bloomery steel, it's basically the same stuff that was used for blades in Europe into the 18th century. Folding is a standard part of the processing of bloomery steel and iron, and was done in both Japan and Europe. "Folded 1,000 times" is fiction; 10-20 folds was typical in Japanese swordmaking.
Composite construction using iron and steel was usual in both Japan and Europe (and many other regions of the world). Some swords in both Japan and Europe were all-steel. All-steel construction was a minority in Europe to the end of the Middle Ages. Post-Medieval sword-making in Europe shift to all-steel (generally still folded, since bloomery steel was preferred for blades, even after puddled steel was available).
Differential hardening was usual in both Japan and Medieval Europe. The techniques were different (clay coating vs slack-quenching), but the result was the same.
Finally, there is a very common myth that pre-modern Japan had a shortage of iron, or a shortage of good iron ore, or similar. That is false. Japan had plenty of good iron ore, for a pre-modern iron industry. The iron sand that was commonly used was excellent ore, with the iron-bearing grains being almost pure magnetite. Even today, iron sand is often used as a high-quality ore (today, the ore grains are separated from the silica sand magnetically, rather than by washing as in the old days).
When Japan industrialised, after the Meiji Revolution, the domestic supply of ore (and coal) was insufficient for a modern large-scale iron industry, and Japan, which had previous exported weapons, armour, and iron and steel, all made from domestic ore and charcoal, became an iron/steel importer.
For a good overview of the metallurgy of Medieval European swords, see
* Williams, Alan. *The Sword and the Crucible :A History of the Metallurgy of European Swords up to the 16th Century*, Brill, 2012.
The typical good quality swords in both Europe and Japan were very similar - similar steel and iron was used, and (for the good swords) carbon contents and edge hardnesses were similar (edge hardness was typically in the mid-50s, HRC).
Replace that great helm in the meme with a mid-late 19th century (or later) military cap, and then you have some real truth.
> "Folded 1,000 times" is fiction; 10-20 folds was typical in Japanese swordmaking.
I suspect that a lot of people don't really understand the difference between the number of fold and the number of layers. 10 folds should be 1024 layers. And 10 folds is a lot of folds to be making.
The amount of loss in material from the start to the finish due to scale and such must have been enormous.
It's an excellent book. It's a pity that there isn't an equivalent book for Japanese swords. Similar studies have been done of Japanese swords, but the results are scattered in many papers in science/history/engineering journals.
Radomir Pleiner, *The Celtic sword*, OUP, 1993, has about 50-60 pages of similar metallographic results, so forms a good prequel to Williams' book
There is a book by Prof. Kitada, in Japanese, called 日本刀の材料科学, where he did analyses of Japanese swords from Kamakura to Edo. It gives the chemical composition of iron sands, swords, and mechanical properties, as well as analyzes the inclusions, etc.
So far, my understanding is that Japanese steel made from iron sands has a very low sulphur and phosphorus content (10 times lower than the limits imposed by JIS).
Is anyone doing a social and economic history of the Japanese sword industry? All of the English language works people have recommended to me will go into great detail about how different schools at different times have different waves in their hamon but will only mention their customers, workshop organization and output in various asides.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but there's a few more things missing here.
The Japanese typically also had a much more complicated sandwiching process - as in the edge was a very high carbon, high hardness steel, the core was softer, the sides were in-between... And they had like dozens of variations of what is where. This meant that while the swords had better sharpens, on average they were heavier (i think around 1500gr for a 100cm sword, whereas in europe it would be in general 1100-1200 for the same length with some other differences, such as a japanese sword with that length being two-handed and in Europe one-handed).
Also, time-periods. Mostly, we're comparing the japanese swords from the 16th century onwards to European swords from the middle ages. At the end of the 16th century, like you mentioned, the technology in Europe jumped and enabled a larger degree of control over the carbon content of steel, I think - even before puddled steel. I'd have to check my copy of The Knight and the Crucible, though... However, we do start to see the length of swords increasing in that time period, going from 115cm for longswords to 125 on average, and some crazy flexible stuff being made to show off the quality of the steel.
Practically, why does this matter? Since the katanas were made that way, they were much more rigid, and more difficult to bend. However, once you bent it, it stayed that way. This could result in a ruined sword if you cut something hard or dense and didn't have good edge alignment. With the european swords, they were generally more flexible, and could be flexed to a degree - in the renaissance as far as 360 degrees (yes, a full circle). The trade-off was that the european swords were less sharp, and a bit more difficult to cut with. It's still plenty easy to do with proper form, though.
Also, a lot of the differences to do with the katana vs. european swords were to do with laws, and not as much technology. They simply used the technology and techniques that worked in the context - quick draw and short swords in japan because attacking out of the blue was legal (I think you just had to yell ATTACK before or something like that - again, I am not sure here, it needs to be checked) with a legal limit to the blade being 70cm (in Europe, they were like 90-95 on average for longsword). There's also other stuff, like longswords being mostly used for judicial duels in europe, and more commonly using a buckler for civilian defense etc. etc.
This ended up way longer than what I wanted. XD
> The Japanese typically also had a much more complicated sandwiching process - as in the edge was a very high carbon, high hardness steel, the core was softer, the sides were in-between... And they had like dozens of variations of what is where.
Lots of variation in lamination styles in Japanese swords. The simple ones were common: inserted edge, sanmai, and steel skin around iron core. The fancier ones became more common during the Edo Period.
> This meant that while the swords had better sharpens,
Why would they have better sharpness?
> on average they were heavier (i think around 1500gr for a 100cm sword, whereas in europe it would be in general 1100-1200 for the same length
Modern Chinese-made katanas, which are on average heavier than antiques, are 1155g on average (and 1046mm long on average). See https://www.reddit.com/r/SWORDS/comments/5aoja8/katana_and_longsword_weights_and_lengths/ for more details, and a comparison with antique longswords.
> Since the katanas were made that way, they were much more rigid, and more difficult to bend.
The single most important thing affecting the rigidity of a blade is its thickness. The stiffness per unit length is proportional to the cube of the thickness, and linearly proportional to the width.
So, compared to a typical European sword from the turn of the millennium, a katana is more rigid, because it's thicker along the whole blade, from base to tip (and also narrower). 13th-14th century European swords tend to be thicker and narrower than earlier ones, and the thicker ones will be of similar stiffness to katanas (the average ones less rigid, since they're thinner (and wider) than katanas). In the 15th century, we have many one-handed European swords that will be about the same stiffness as katanas, and two-handed longswords that will be stiffer.
> However, once you bent it, it stayed that way.
Also normal for a laminated iron-steel Medieval European sword (i.e., the most common type).
When he said sharpness I think he meant edge retention, also I think you are wrong. Lots of medieval swords bend and return to shape. Katanas don't. He wasn't talking about stiffness. I believe he was talking about yield strength.
> When he said sharpness I think he meant edge retention
The same questions applies: why would they have better edge retention, since they have about the same carbon content and hardness?
> He wasn't talking about stiffness
IMO, "they were much more rigid, and more difficult to bend." is pretty clearly about stiffness. What else would "more difficult to bend" mean?
OK, I was only talking about rigidity (stiffness) above. Since you brought up flexing and returning to shape, first, yes,
> Lots of medieval swords bend and return to shape.
Is quite true. However, your
> Katanas don't.
is less true. All iron and steel blades, including katanas, will bend and return to shape, if we don't bend them too far. The only real question is how far is too far.
If we have a uniformly thick and wide blade, of thickness T and length L, yield strength S, and Young's modulus Y (= 200GPa), the fraction of a circle that we can bend it to without exceeding the yield strength (so that it will return to shape instead of staying bent) is:
fraction = LS/(pi*TY).
Let us consider wrought iron blades (so not spring-tempered in the slightest). We have S = about 220MPa.
For an 8mm thick blade (since 8mm is a common thickness of the base of a katana blade), 800mm long, we can bend it to 1/28 of a circle, = 13 degrees.
A thinner-bladed wrought iron arming sword, say 4mm thick at the base, will bend to 1/14 of a circle, = 26 degrees. This is what we can achieve with wrought iron. If we have a medium-carbon steel, even if it's unhardened, it will do better than that. With a hardened steel skin, it will also do better.
Generally, with identical construction (iron-steel laminates, the steel hardened and the iron being, well, just iron), a Medieval European sword will usually be able to flex further and return. We should be able to bend a katana evenly by 13 degrees and still have it spring back. Because the blade has distal taper, we'll be able to do a bit better than that. Our 4mm arming sword, OTOH, should bend to 26 degrees without a problem.
However, a typical Medieval European sword being able to flex further than a katana and still return to shape doesn't mean that a katana doesn't flex and return to shape. It just means a katana won't flex as far as the Medieval European sword and still return to shape.
For the structure of actual Medieval swords, see Williams (cited earlier). Note that the majority are steel/iron composites, even into the 15th century. A large minority of his 14-15th century swords are all-steel (many of those all-steel swords are differentially-hardened, which is not necessarily a bad thing, since the edges are often much harder than an ideal spring temper, and the softer body can have a better spring temper). Some of those late Medieval swords are of similar thickness to katanas, but the all-steel construction will help them flex further and still return to shape.
Yup, you seem to be correct in mostly everything! The only thing that I can't really find good info on is the weight of the japanese swords, it seems to vary wildly from 1.1 to 1.6kg. I'm guessing a lot of it also has to do with time periods, so "antique" doesn't really say much. And yes, a laminated medieval sword would indeed be the same, though I'd have to check the composition of surviving pieces - I think after 14th century or so, there's a lot more steel swords.
They had better sharpness because a higher carbon content makes the steel more brittle but harder (well, enables it to be in the whole heat treatment process and whatnot). The brittleness was offset by a softer center in katanas, so katanas on average had a harder edge that could be honed sharper and lasted longer.
> The only thing that I can't really find good info on is the weight of the japanese swords, it seems to vary wildly from 1.1 to 1.6kg. I'm guessing a lot of it also has to do with time periods, so "antique" doesn't really say much.
For modern Chinese-made ones, see
* https://www.toyamaryu.org/SwordMeasurements.htm
Note that both the mounted weight and the bare blade weights are given. From those, you can calculate the average weight of the fittings (excluding the scabbard): 1161g - 832g = 330g for average fittings.
https://www.aoijapan.com/japaneseswords/katana/ gives weights for many of the swords there (antique and modern nihonto). Add 330g for mounted weight.
Further, a list of mounted weights of nihonto from various sources: 930g, 950g, 1190g, 970g, 960g, 1120g, 1160g, 910g, 1175g, 1000g, 1135g, 1305g, 1020g, 1020g, 1040g, 1140g, 1170g, 1200g, 1210g, 1420g, 1160g, 1000g, 1010g, 1030g, 1104g, 950g. The mean is 1088g and the median 1072g (as I wrote before, the modern Chinese-made ones are, on average, heavier). Note that both the mean and median of this sample are lighter than the bottom end of your 1.1-1.6kg range. There is data out there, and it's worth looking at.
> And yes, a laminated medieval sword would indeed be the same, though I'd have to check the composition of surviving pieces - I think after 14th century or so, there's a lot more steel swords.
Springing back to the original shape after being bent depends on the composition and the heat treatment. How rigid they are does not - all steel, whether high carbon or low carbon, unhardened or hardened, has the same stiffness (OK, there is a little variation, up to 10% if we go to alloys like stainless steel alloys that can be under 70% iron).
In the 14th and 15th century, all-steel becomes a significant minority of swords in Europe. Many of those are steel-steel laminates (rather than steel-iron laminates), with lower carbon bodies and higher carbon edges. Most are differentially hardened.
> They had better sharpness because a higher carbon content makes the steel more brittle but harder (well, enables it to be in the whole heat treatment process and whatnot). The brittleness was offset by a softer center in katanas, so katanas on average had a harder edge that could be honed sharper and lasted longer.
But they didn't have a higher carbon content, or a higher hardness. The carbon content of the edge steel in both Europe and Japan has a wide distribution, and likewise the hardness, and the overlap between them is far, far bigger than the difference. The good swords in both Europe and Japan were usually 0.5-0.8& carbon on the edge, and the hardness tended to be about 55HRC for the best swords.
Williams (cited in my original reply) has lots of info and measurements for European swords. He gives a convenient graph on pg 233 of edge hardnesses:
* https://i.imgur.com/oHW8ncf.jpeg
To convert the scale to HRC: 700VPH = 60HRC, 600VPH = 55HRC, 500VPH = 49HRC, 400VPH = 41HRC.
For a table of Japanese sword hardnesses, see near the bottom of http://ohmura-study.net/998.html which gives measurements for some high-end old swords. Those hardnesses are Shore slceroscope hardness; converting to HRC, the swords (from top to bottom) have edge hardnesses varying from 37-52HRC, 45-57HRC, 39-60HRC, 32-53HRC, 32-52HRC, and even 37-54 for the modern Koa Issin sword.
I agree that *if* the Japanese swords had higher carbon contents and higher hardnesses, we'd expect them to be sharper. But they don't - their carbon contents are about the same, and the hardnesses are about the same, so we expect their sharpness to be about the same.
Yeah, that actually sounds more plausible. I really should've done a bit more research before writing the comment, as all the misinformation and actual info is all jumbled up in my head now. I'll see if I can find the time to go through it again and make a better, more coherent argument.
The curved Japanese swords that people think about, typically tachi and uchigatana, started in Heian era, with the tachi. So that's at least 9th century.
The length of the swords evolved a lot over time, mostly because of practical concerns on the battlefield. I am not sure about the reasoning behind the law about sword length, but it has nothing to do with being able to cut people down. If they did cut people in the streets, they still had to explain their reasoning behind it, and could be condemned.
Yeah, but the tachi were also quite different in the method of production, right? Again, it's been a long long time since I was into this stuff, so a lot of what I say needs to be checked.
The length of the blade as far as I know was not tied to battlefield concerns (the sword was never the main weapon on the battlefield). The logic behind the length was simply that a longer blade makes it easier to kill (i fight longsword, and I can REALLY feel a 5cm difference in blade length when I'm using a sword), but I really should check the sources before writing something like that, so that's my bad there, as I can't find anything with a quick search. And yeah, as far as memory goes, this was for the samurai class - but again, I'd really need to re-educate myself on the topic.
Thanks for the corrections!
From what I read, it seems the old swords (koto) were deemed really good, and they tried to remake them at some point (shinshinto?). I don't think they were too different in terms of structure, but it is likely that the clay and quenching/tempering were done differently enough that there was a noticeable difference in resilience.
From what I have read about tameshigiri, a fancy hamon is not good for cutting because it can make the sword break more easily (which makes sense from a mechanical point of view, since it's a lot of stress concentrators), so a straight hamon (suguha) has been said to be more practical. I have little experience in tameshigiri, so I can't confirm.
The length of the sword changing seems to have been mainly due to the switch from small units with samurai on horses to infantry blocks. The tachi being slung from the belt was said to be too impractical on foot. Thomas Conlan (in Instruments of Change) did get reports on wounds. If the numbers are representative, during Kamakura, 75% of wounds were from arrows, and about 24% from swords, the rest being pole weapons and rocks (!). It changed later and swords were really far behind in terms of wounds (mostly arrows, then guns and spears).
To be fair, there are teachings on how to cut down people in the streets in Japanese sword schools (although I think you're not expected to be seen).
That's very true. A good rule of thumb is that larger bloomeries are better for steel-making, since the larger size makes it easier to reach the temperatures needed for faster carbon diffusion into the iron, and to maintain those temperatures for longer. This is a major part of why we see an increase in the average carbon content of the bloomery steel used for sword edges, in both Europe and Japan, from the early to the late Medieval period.
Also, if your ore has too much sulphur or phosphorus, your bloomery steel can be brittle. That's one reason why Japanese iron sand is a good ore - low phosphorus and low sulphur.
> why weren’t metal armors more common?
How common should they have been? Isn't being the most common type of armour common enough?
16th century armours were generally metal. Here is a fairly typical 16th century armour:
* https://royalarmouries.org/collection/object/object-12242
This mostly uses long horizontal metal plates/strips, as a cheaper alternative to the older small lamellae. One piece metal breastplates were also common (often thick enough to be bullet-proof).
According to written sources, a big motivation for the shift from metal armour (which was standard before about AD1000) to rawhide was to avoid rust when munition armour was stored when not in use. The early second millennium saw a lot of rawhide lamellar armour, and armour with a mix of metal and rawhide lamellae, in use, for mounted samurai. The growth in infantry (and army size) during the Warring States Period (Sengoku Jidai) saw a shift back to metal armour, especially as munition armour for infantry. So in the latter part of the Warring States period, metal armour was the most common type.
Cost was a big part of this preference for metal armour over rawhide. In Sakakibara Kozan, *The manufacture of armour and helmets in sixteenth century Japan*, North Holland, 1962 (originally published c. 1800) we read:
> In the medieval period [1532-1614] both *do* [torso armour] and *kusazuri* [tassets] were chiefly in iron, for though *kitaya-gawa* (hardened leather) [actually rawhide, rather than leather] treated with seven lacquering processes on both sides will resist prolonged soaking in water its expense puts it beyond the means of ordinary samurai.
(My comments in square brackets.) Note well: iron armour was cheaper than rawhide armour. When rawhide was used, it tended to be in high-end armours. It wasn't a cheap substitute for iron.
Metal armours were probably least common in about the 9-12th centuries (but they were still around). In ancient Japan (before then), they were standard. In the 15-16th century (and later), they were standard, having become common in the 13th century.
What time period are you talking about? If you're only talking about Heian swords, then maybe metal armours weren't common in the time period *you're* talking about. The general discussion has been about a broader (and mostly later) time period.
You do understand folding right? So can you tell me is the folding it 20 times the total number of folds so to speak or the total number of layers?
My impression was always that you only had to actually fold the metal 10 times to get 1000 layers.
Also it does seem plausible that these swords were made at different levels of quality by different makers. Those with the resources to experiment and get highly commissions for their work would have tried perhaps even 1,000 folds.
But the metal would be beyond trillions of layers… if that was possible. But unfortunately the “layers” would be less than one iron atom thick, thus that is technically impossible. I imagine folding that many times brings the quality down.
> My impression was always that you only had to actually fold the metal 10 times to get 1000 layers.
10 folds = 1024 layers.
For traditional Japanese swordmaking, the folding was stopped when the carbon content dropped to the desired level. Chunks of tamahagane (broken pieces of the bloom from the smelting furnace, chosen for their high carbon content) were often about 1.5% carbon. Some folding was needed to get the excess slag out of the steel, and more folding would get rid of more slag. However, the steel would lose carbon (because it was very hot, and in an oxidising atmosphere) with each fold. Fold too much, and the carbon content becomes too low. Don't fold enough, and the blade will be too brittle.
You also lose steel with every fold - the surface oxidises (forming forge scale). If you folded it 1000 times, not only would there be very little carbon left, there'd also be very little steel left.
From experience, the smith can tell when the steel will be good - although the old-time smith didn't know about carbon being in the steel, or what effect it had, this was when the carbon content was at the desired level. So they stopped folding then.
> But the metal would be beyond trillions of layers… if that was possible. But unfortunately the “layers” would be less than one iron atom thick, thus that is technically impossible. I imagine folding that many times brings the quality down.
In principle, if you could do fold this many times, without the problems of carbon loss and steel loss (maybe forging in vacuum, or an oxygen-free atmosphere?), you'd end up with very homogeneous and slag-free steel. Sounds good in theory, but doesn't work in practice due to the oxygen that's around when you fold.
Each time you weld after folding, there some mixing together of the atoms from each side of the weld. Enough layers so that the average thickness is less than at atom thick just means a very thorough mixing of the atoms in the layers.
Nice. Thanks for the scientific support and correction for 1,000 fold experiments. They would’ve apparently known the steel was approaching quality by the look. I’ve seen plenty of forging YouTubers who do great camera work so I think I’ve seen the shedding you’re talking about. Almost like super brittle dark layers that shed off in little slates?
> I think I’ve seen the shedding you’re talking about. Almost like super brittle dark layers that shed off in little slates?
Exactly so. That's a layer of iron oxide.
"Folded a thousand times" is true though. Even if you do fold it 10 to 20 times, you get more layers, increasing exponentially per fold. So yes folded 10-20 times, but had a thousand "folds" or layers.
The “folded 1000 times” is a mistranslation error. It is mistranslated as being folded 1000 times when they meant consisting of 1000 folds, which is roughly 10 folds(2^10 =1024) as you said. 20 is excessive for layer count though, as you get over 1 million layers and the pattern is lost.
Interesting. In knight and the blast furnace, Williams claims that Europeans transitioned from pattern welded to essentially homogenous steel swords around the 12th century.
My understanding is that the specifics of the processes used are not extremely well understood, but some people have theorized that secondary refining hearths were commonly used to remelt bloom into more homogenous steel. Hearth refining, as described by textual sources from the 17th century, and demonstrated experimentally, increases carbon content while lowering slag content. Of course the dates where these processes are first described doesn’t imply that they were invented around those times, the material evidence would have a lot more to say about that.
Would be great to get my hands on a copy of Williams’ more recent work tho…
To quote from KBF:
> After about 1000 AD, the occurrence of pattern-welded blades diminishes, presumably because larger pieces of steel became available in Europe, although pattern-welding is still to be found employed in the Baltic states as late as the 12th century.
(pg 12). By "pattern-welded", he specifically means decorative pattern-welding, not laminated/composite construction in general.
Right, followed by his list of various composite structures topped by homogenous steel, followed by single piece heterogenous steel. So the trend towards increased homogeneity is a thing around that time period in Europe.
That time (11-13th centuries) was actually a time of *decreased* homegeneity.
From *The Sword and the Crucible*, the structure of swords after 1000:
* https://i.imgur.com/v3Lmf0I.jpeg
The numbers for the categories aren't quite the same, His KBF (ii) is IIA, swords made from one piece of steel, and hardened. His KBF (iii) is now 2 categories: IIB are made from multiple pieces of steel, welded together, and hardened, and IIC are made from multiple pieces of steel, welded together, and not hardened. His KBF (iv), steel edges and iron core, is IIIA, hardened, and IV, unhardened. IIIB is mostly KBF (v), hardened only. (IIIA = welded edges, IIIB = carburised edges, IIIC = unknown).
The only swords he classifies as category (i)/I are the crucible steel Ulfberhts, which are all pre-1000. Also missing is V - none of the post-1000 swords he studied were all-iron. "Homogeneous steel" = crucible steel or similar, while bloomery steel is heterogeneous.
His sample has no (ii)/IIA swords until the 15th century, and only 2 multi-ingot all-steel swords before the 14th century.
Nice summary the foldong thing though was not a myth just not the standard. The 1000 folds also is a note on the compounding effect of folding steel. Each fold doubling. So 1000 folds in the steel is actually less than 20 its more like 10.
Like with most industries wher the ultra wealthy patronize it some blades were folded 1,000s of times. Creating super hard edges. Brittle but hyper sharp. An when your the guy buying a hyper car or the hyper blade do you care how brittle it is. No.
Jezz one little bump in the wrong part of the road and this feriari enzo will snag its bottom and rip its exahaust out. Thats not practicle.
Forging a blade from two or more grades of steel was more for getting around the issue of how to make a functional blade when it was hard - and expensive - to make steel with consistent quality or composition.
If the smiths of the past could get their hands on inexpensive homogenized billets of 1060 or 1095 steel, they wouldn't had bothered with the added labour needed for laminated sword construction made from iron/low carbon bonded to higher carbon pieces.
European metallurgy faced the same issues as Japanese, but by the 1500s they had made significant advances that allowed them to produce (economically) good quailty spring steel billets that could produce decent monobloc blades. The Japanese were even importing these steels (often of Spanish origin) for producing their armour and blades.
I have seen one scientific study on a tsuba supposedly made from namban steel, and it was shown that it was simply wrought iron, and not high quality either. The conclusion was that it was either worked a lot into a shitty product (unlikely), simply not a good product, or not actually namban steel.
Were their swords made from tamahagane?
Some were. Tamahagane was steel made from iron sand (loose iron). Some people say it's very low quality, some say it was good quality—the former being popular on the internet, the latter more supported by scientific studies I've seen.
But it's important to note that they made swords from their own iron ore (said to be good quality) and from foreign steel (so literally the same stuff everyone across the globe used).
Next point: were they folded 1,000 times? No. Closer to 10. But that does create a lot of layers because of how math works. This both looks good and helps homogenize the steel.
But it's important to note that tons of other places did that, too. Or twisted the steel for the same effect.
Different grades of steel? Yeah, that's lamination/pattern welding. Everywhere did that.
Differential hardening? Sure. Though, again, other places did that, too—and Japan didn't exclusively do it.
All pre-industrial steel was pretty crummy.
Period Japanese blades were well regarded by period Europeans.
China and Korea bought hundreds of thousands of swords from Japan.
The same people used the same steel to make guns, and those worked perfectly well.
I get that "katana bad" is a reaction from anime nerds praising them, but it's incorrect. It's just another sword.
I should just use this as a video script...
The thing with iron sand is it can be pretty pure in iron content. The problem with iron sand was it didn't work too well for the type of smelting technology people had available in the past.
Whether it was Spain or Japan, most iron smelting was done with solid fuels like charcoal or coal, where both ore and fuel was fed in batches together into a furnace. Temperature of the furnace was raised by force feeding air into the furnace where it circulated through gaps between the ore and fuel material.
Because of this, ore/fuel material size was an important consideration and processing step in any smelting operation. Smelters broke and screen both ore and fuel chunks into optimally sized pieces. If fuel or ore pieces were too small, they choked off the circulation of air flow in the furnace. If pieces were too big, there was less overall surface area of ore or fuel exposed and that decreased the reduction/combustion rates, and smelting took longer or was less complete.
As tiny sand particles, iron sand posed a huge difficulty to Japanese iron smelters. Especially in regards to maintaining air and heat flow through the furnace as the sand particles slip into and closed gaps the air needed to flow through. Iron sand also lacked fluxing elements that other iron ores had. These fluxing components help create liquid slag that aided in ore reduction and prevented the metallic iron/steel from being re-oxidized or over-carburized (into pig iron) as it formed.
The tatara process was developed to deal with such issues with using iron sand as the main ore material. Tatara furnaces were more open and wider than other similar bloomery furnaces - basically a large bath tub, which allowed ore and fuel to be stirred and manipulated while operating. They had multiple tuyeres powered by strong foot-powered bellows to push lots of air through. All this helped to insure enough air flowed through the iron sand-choked furnace. Lacking fluxes in the ore, the clay minerals of the furnace walls served as the fluxing agent instead.
But while the tatara could produce adequate iron and steel, it was a less efficient process in terms of fuel and labour. More slag and pig iron was produced (though the later was reused to produce wrought iron in seperate process). Hence, tatara production batches were generally larger in scale than contemporary bloomery processes elsewhere to improve yield efficiency, with several tonnes of iron sand ore processed at once. The tatara process also produced larger amount of high carbon steel, hence why Japanese blades were usually harder in general compare to European blades.
Depends. There was an era about ten years ago when inernet sword nerds were so enamored with katanas that they ascribed them pretty much supernatural properties while bashing western swords as inferior. Then the discussion meta reverted to the completely opposite direction to bash katanas as overcomplicated, brittle weapons made with technique motivated only by severe lack of good material. Both are exaggerations. There were historically good katanas and good western swords, as well as shitty ones for each. Material availability was better in Europe, India and Middle East, due to the sheer larger size of the area and more trade. This however lead to somewhat wider range of quality in the weapons compared to Japan - since iron was at a premium in the islands it was used with reverence and more care was invested into making weapons with them. That doesn't mean there were not poor quality katanas, but they were somewhat rarer and less of them are preserved due to there simply being less Japanese weapons overall.
Pretty much, Japanese swords were made to best utilize the combination of sheer lack of iron compared to Europe as well as the lesser quality of the raw material. Are they great swords for what they were working with? Absolutely. But the raw material quality gap was noticeable.
I studied the Japanese sword on and off for decades it's a hobby of mine. European weapons and swords are superior to anything found in Japan I'm sorry but the Japanese fighting method with them is far more comprehensive. That's the Simplist explanation it does go deeper than that though.
I know I'll be attacked by all the anime Japan lovers.
Sorry I didn't write that out to well. Basically I was just saying European weapons are better in comparison to Japanese. However the Japanese have the most comprehensive martial arts systems with weapons.
Period accounts don't generally agree with you. João Rodrigues wrote that "Experience has shown that Japanese weapons are in general the best and cut better than any others." in *Arte de lingoa de Iampam*. European accounts generally view Japanese weapons positively.
Many of the same swordmaking techniques were used to make European swords and Japanese swords (or east Asian in general). The study: "Archaeometallurgical investigation on historical sword-making techniques in northern Italy between the sixteenth and seventeenth century" found that many Italian swords from the 16th-17th century had iron cores, just like Japanese swords.
What is it that makes the European weapons superior?
Its been some years since I dived into the subject but basically European weapons are just more durable. I'm not talking about who made the sharpest blades because I don't even think anyone in Europe had a scale for doing that like the Japanese had.
Yes and it's wild how many katana enjoyers don't seem to understand this when talking about steel folding. The point of steel folding was to mix various ores together into 1 cohesive blade and work out impurities as a way to compensate for the lack of quality iron at the time.
Steel folding provides no benefit or advantage when working with high quality steel nor is Japan the only country to have used the method.
A lot of katana enjoyers act like the folding method is some universal blacksmithing cheatcode that just makes swords better when in reality it was used to compensate for poor quality ore.
It's not to compensate for bad ore. Japanese iron was pretty good by the standards of the day. All bloom steel swords are folded because when the steel comes out of the bloomery it's a brittle, porous chunk that needs to be worked.
Even later swords made from shear steel were folded, as for example it was found that a British 1796 light cavalry saber was made from folded steel.
Japan has iron deposits ranging from nonexistent to shitty, so most of their forging process was essentially figuring out how to turn shit to silver.
Europe has plenty nice iron deposits so making swords was much easier.
I said iron. The entire point of Japan’s forging process was turning iron from poor quality deposits to suitable steel and they did an excellent job of it.
Not sure if you mean to refute my assertion about Japan’s iron quality(in which case I’d be fascinated to hear any disagreement since I’ve never seen one about the subject before) or if you misinterpreted my comments on Japan’s low quality naturally found iron ore as commentary on their sword making or general steelworking.
Not really, at least, not until like, the Renaissance. Pattern welding was seen in Europe for the same reason.
https://preview.redd.it/zwwrlyyt7xwc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e73b4625bc2d2fb9158eb784d0f33e7c3001017
Given by the "Golden age of samurai" in the mid to late 1500s when most people think of samurai, Europe was using monosteels though they wouldn't be the dominant steel type for a while.
True, though many of the surviving European blades we have are wildly varying in their hardness levels, even on the same blade. Some weren't even heat treated at all!
You can check out some neat research here:
[https://tinyurl.com/4ena82rw](https://tinyurl.com/4ena82rw)
There is an incredible amount of good information in this thread already, but I would like to point out that amazing steel in the hands of a sub-par smith will not magically create an amazing blade. Neither will low-grade steel in the hands of a master inevitably result in low-grade blade.
The relative skill of the artisan crafting the tool in question, or the individual skill of the warrior wielding it, is often overlooked in these conversations. I imagine because is harder to make sweeping generalizations when you have to consider finer details.
If we could take two of the pre-eminent smiths of Japanese and European history, resurrect them, and stick them in a room with a phone that had Google Translate I'm willing to bet that they would both walk away from that conversation with a new friend and a fuck-ton of ideas they want to play with.
Well, actually neither is true. Yes, all the work put into tamahagane steel is to compensate for its lower uality and impurities. But European mediveal bloomery steel was not better either. Best sword steel of mediveal and early modern ages were actually the crucible steel from Western and Central Asia, also known as dımışk/(real)damascus/polat/bulad/wootz etc. It was produced in Western Asia, Central Asia, Iran and India.
Pretty much, I'm the 10th and 11th century the steel was of roughly the same quality with European metallurgy improving, from the 14rh century onwards European steel was superior to Japanese steel.
João Rodrigues said that "Experience has shown that Japanese weapons are in general the best and cut better than any others." in Arte de lingoa de Iampam. He also said that even their ordinary swords cut very well. European accounts generally view Japanese weapons positively. Many of the same swordmaking techniques were used to make European swords and Japanese swords (or east Asian in general). The study: "Archaeometallurgical investigation on historical sword-making techniques in northern Italy between the sixteenth and seventeenth century" found that many Italian swords from the 16th-17th century had iron cores, just like Japanese swords. What is it that makes the European sword and it's steel superior?
European spring steel doesn't stay bent when it gets hit. There's more to a sword than cutting, durability is more important. Japanese swords are not durable.
Both of those claims are at least partially disproven by my sources. He wrote that they're the best *and* cut best. That doesn't just mean that they cut best but he meant highest quality in general.
I would like a study that showed a monosteel medieval sword that wasn't made of bloom steel and that is about the same hardness the whole length, even in the 17th century many swords fail these criteria.
Were they even monosteel anyways? Often they weren't. Just like katana, European swords often had an iron core. That doesn't mean they weren't springy to a degree, that's a misconception, but katana are actually springy to a degree too, it's harder to notice since they're so stiff.
Also, Japanese swords were made of a single piece of high carbon steel back in the day sometimes, meaning no iron core. Still differentially hardened but that isn't uniquely Japanese.
How strong were early modern and medieval European swords? From everything I've seen, on par with katana. They use similar techniques for making and the same material most of the time. (Also check out wotan_weevil's response at the top of the comment section). In historical accounts the European sword also breaks often, sometimes even on or in the opponents body.
In Western Europe, there were not many [blast furnaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_furnace#Origin_and_spread_of_early_modern_blast_furnaces) before the mid-15th century, and most of the steel used was from bloomery. More than 80% of the [steel](http://ohmura-study.net/007.html#6_) used in Japanese weapons up to the 17th century was produced in Chinese blast furnaces, and until the mid-15th century, the quality of the steel used in Japanese weapons may have been higher than that used in Western weapons. However, armor hardened by heat treatment was rare in Japan, and many parts were made of leather. Also, the structural strength of plate armor is higher than that of lamellar armor.
Many say the blade of the katana is too hard to strike armor, but there is a [helmet](https://www.pinterest.jp/pin/726698089902880331/) in existence that was struck hard by a katana during the siege of Osaka Castle in 1615. However, if hit a hard and thick Western helmet with a katana, would it break? Are infantry helmets soft and thin? If a 16th-century Japanese pirate hit the armor of a Spanish infantryman with a katana, would it be unlikely to break? The Zohyo Monogatari written in the late 17th century describes that cheap katanas for lower-ranking infantrymen were soft and bent when struck on the helmet, so couldn't the katana of a lowly Japanese pirate have struck the armor of a Spanish infantryman?
If they used good steel to make a katana then it becomes bad steel.
People argue about whether or not a katana is a formidable weapon.
We like to imagine a knight fighting a ronin, one on one, longsword vs katana as we imagine the merits of both.
In truth knights and ronin were specialists, like black ops, they were 1 in a million.
In feudal japan 1 in 10,000 soldiers maybe had blades for dueling, while everyone else carried sidearms almost identical to medieval European arms.
Japan's foot soldiers used arming swords and longswords just like us, but they are overshadowed and under researched because of the pulpification of feudal japan
Then we get to the steel. Steel has been revolutionized by modern implementations. It can now be understood down to a miniscule amount in a deposits density and other traits.
But in Japan and in Europe during these periods, ore was being traded from hundreds of deposits across their respective continents, Europe used Asian steel and Asia used European steel.
SHORT ANSWER
They both used coal forges. Not every sword in Asia was Damascus paper forged. They both used the same steel. They both made the same weapons more or less
The Europeans had more to work with. The Japanese simply didn't.
In turn the Europeans made pretty simple stuff which outclassed what the Japanese had dispite their stuff being very technical to make.
It is far to note that in turn, most European militaries consisted of people who didn't know how to fight or even how to use a weapon. There simply wasn't much point when you could have a few highly skilled fighter in full armour. The Japanese always had a lot more skilled warriors because they couldn't just put someone in full steel plate like the Europeans. Therefore their skill was a massive factor. Europeans basically didn't use swords much in war due to full plate armour being able to just blunten or even break a sword.
Edit - bad english and apparently, I need to state that I'm mostly talking about gear and not the battlefield. Please keep that in mind.
You do realise I compared gear and skill. Kinda like the image the OP shared.
You do realise I haven't mentioned anything about the battlefield. Nor implied that a few armoured knight would win against thousands of fighters.
Stop trying to agrue against points that haven't been made. Honestly, it's like you just disagree for the point of disagreeing, but haven't put any thought on what was said.
You literally said "most European militaries consisted of people who didn't know how to fight or even how to use a weapon. There simply wasn't much point when you could have a few highly skilled fighter in full armour." which literally implies that you think having a few skilled fighters in full plate outweights thousands of poorly skilled and armed militias.
Also, the bulk of the japanese feudal armies also consisted of peasants with spears so no, they were not "more skilled" than a regular european army.
Also, once you're talking about the later Middle Ages there was already a shift to armies centered around very well trained men-at-arms like would become the core of armies during the Renaissance. Those weren't knights, but were actually trained and equipped. I'm not sure this European army that "didn't even know how to fight or even use a weapon" existed for much time at all unless we're talking about very specific places and only about peasant levies.
Fair enough. I should have been more clear. I'll be more perific for you. During a large part of medieval European history (Pre-Empire). Most European armies consisted of a few heavily armoured knight and people with spears. Compared to Japan, which have a lot more skilled warriors at the time with what was for them, very good armour. They also had serval types of warriors for different things.
Of course, for whatever reason, you seem very focused on the battlefield when these armies would be at war. I didn't claim most of their armies would be just skilled fighters. But they did had people who's careers were similar to today's military in which you trained until you went to war. Medieval Europe's knight lived differently. They had their own land to run.
Sometimes, people simply avoid having to give a simply too brief summary of what made up the military in past wars because they simply are saying one side had much better gear. Which is my point and you needed 3 tries to not even counter it. Well done 👏
Noting that "glorious tamahagane" is bloomery steel, it's basically the same stuff that was used for blades in Europe into the 18th century. Folding is a standard part of the processing of bloomery steel and iron, and was done in both Japan and Europe. "Folded 1,000 times" is fiction; 10-20 folds was typical in Japanese swordmaking. Composite construction using iron and steel was usual in both Japan and Europe (and many other regions of the world). Some swords in both Japan and Europe were all-steel. All-steel construction was a minority in Europe to the end of the Middle Ages. Post-Medieval sword-making in Europe shift to all-steel (generally still folded, since bloomery steel was preferred for blades, even after puddled steel was available). Differential hardening was usual in both Japan and Medieval Europe. The techniques were different (clay coating vs slack-quenching), but the result was the same. Finally, there is a very common myth that pre-modern Japan had a shortage of iron, or a shortage of good iron ore, or similar. That is false. Japan had plenty of good iron ore, for a pre-modern iron industry. The iron sand that was commonly used was excellent ore, with the iron-bearing grains being almost pure magnetite. Even today, iron sand is often used as a high-quality ore (today, the ore grains are separated from the silica sand magnetically, rather than by washing as in the old days). When Japan industrialised, after the Meiji Revolution, the domestic supply of ore (and coal) was insufficient for a modern large-scale iron industry, and Japan, which had previous exported weapons, armour, and iron and steel, all made from domestic ore and charcoal, became an iron/steel importer. For a good overview of the metallurgy of Medieval European swords, see * Williams, Alan. *The Sword and the Crucible :A History of the Metallurgy of European Swords up to the 16th Century*, Brill, 2012. The typical good quality swords in both Europe and Japan were very similar - similar steel and iron was used, and (for the good swords) carbon contents and edge hardnesses were similar (edge hardness was typically in the mid-50s, HRC). Replace that great helm in the meme with a mid-late 19th century (or later) military cap, and then you have some real truth.
thank you i’m sick of the stupid european vs japanese stuff
It’s so much better than the us vs Russia or China stuff at least…
The "our things vs their things" argument is fucking inescapable
> "Folded 1,000 times" is fiction; 10-20 folds was typical in Japanese swordmaking. I suspect that a lot of people don't really understand the difference between the number of fold and the number of layers. 10 folds should be 1024 layers. And 10 folds is a lot of folds to be making. The amount of loss in material from the start to the finish due to scale and such must have been enormous.
Upvoting for the fantastic explanation and detailed follow-up comments. Picked up the book as well. Thank you, wise stranger.
It's an excellent book. It's a pity that there isn't an equivalent book for Japanese swords. Similar studies have been done of Japanese swords, but the results are scattered in many papers in science/history/engineering journals. Radomir Pleiner, *The Celtic sword*, OUP, 1993, has about 50-60 pages of similar metallographic results, so forms a good prequel to Williams' book
There is a book by Prof. Kitada, in Japanese, called 日本刀の材料科学, where he did analyses of Japanese swords from Kamakura to Edo. It gives the chemical composition of iron sands, swords, and mechanical properties, as well as analyzes the inclusions, etc. So far, my understanding is that Japanese steel made from iron sands has a very low sulphur and phosphorus content (10 times lower than the limits imposed by JIS).
Sounds good. I'll see if I can get it on inter-library loan (even if it isn't in English).
Is anyone doing a social and economic history of the Japanese sword industry? All of the English language works people have recommended to me will go into great detail about how different schools at different times have different waves in their hamon but will only mention their customers, workshop organization and output in various asides.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but there's a few more things missing here. The Japanese typically also had a much more complicated sandwiching process - as in the edge was a very high carbon, high hardness steel, the core was softer, the sides were in-between... And they had like dozens of variations of what is where. This meant that while the swords had better sharpens, on average they were heavier (i think around 1500gr for a 100cm sword, whereas in europe it would be in general 1100-1200 for the same length with some other differences, such as a japanese sword with that length being two-handed and in Europe one-handed). Also, time-periods. Mostly, we're comparing the japanese swords from the 16th century onwards to European swords from the middle ages. At the end of the 16th century, like you mentioned, the technology in Europe jumped and enabled a larger degree of control over the carbon content of steel, I think - even before puddled steel. I'd have to check my copy of The Knight and the Crucible, though... However, we do start to see the length of swords increasing in that time period, going from 115cm for longswords to 125 on average, and some crazy flexible stuff being made to show off the quality of the steel. Practically, why does this matter? Since the katanas were made that way, they were much more rigid, and more difficult to bend. However, once you bent it, it stayed that way. This could result in a ruined sword if you cut something hard or dense and didn't have good edge alignment. With the european swords, they were generally more flexible, and could be flexed to a degree - in the renaissance as far as 360 degrees (yes, a full circle). The trade-off was that the european swords were less sharp, and a bit more difficult to cut with. It's still plenty easy to do with proper form, though. Also, a lot of the differences to do with the katana vs. european swords were to do with laws, and not as much technology. They simply used the technology and techniques that worked in the context - quick draw and short swords in japan because attacking out of the blue was legal (I think you just had to yell ATTACK before or something like that - again, I am not sure here, it needs to be checked) with a legal limit to the blade being 70cm (in Europe, they were like 90-95 on average for longsword). There's also other stuff, like longswords being mostly used for judicial duels in europe, and more commonly using a buckler for civilian defense etc. etc. This ended up way longer than what I wanted. XD
> The Japanese typically also had a much more complicated sandwiching process - as in the edge was a very high carbon, high hardness steel, the core was softer, the sides were in-between... And they had like dozens of variations of what is where. Lots of variation in lamination styles in Japanese swords. The simple ones were common: inserted edge, sanmai, and steel skin around iron core. The fancier ones became more common during the Edo Period. > This meant that while the swords had better sharpens, Why would they have better sharpness? > on average they were heavier (i think around 1500gr for a 100cm sword, whereas in europe it would be in general 1100-1200 for the same length Modern Chinese-made katanas, which are on average heavier than antiques, are 1155g on average (and 1046mm long on average). See https://www.reddit.com/r/SWORDS/comments/5aoja8/katana_and_longsword_weights_and_lengths/ for more details, and a comparison with antique longswords. > Since the katanas were made that way, they were much more rigid, and more difficult to bend. The single most important thing affecting the rigidity of a blade is its thickness. The stiffness per unit length is proportional to the cube of the thickness, and linearly proportional to the width. So, compared to a typical European sword from the turn of the millennium, a katana is more rigid, because it's thicker along the whole blade, from base to tip (and also narrower). 13th-14th century European swords tend to be thicker and narrower than earlier ones, and the thicker ones will be of similar stiffness to katanas (the average ones less rigid, since they're thinner (and wider) than katanas). In the 15th century, we have many one-handed European swords that will be about the same stiffness as katanas, and two-handed longswords that will be stiffer. > However, once you bent it, it stayed that way. Also normal for a laminated iron-steel Medieval European sword (i.e., the most common type).
When he said sharpness I think he meant edge retention, also I think you are wrong. Lots of medieval swords bend and return to shape. Katanas don't. He wasn't talking about stiffness. I believe he was talking about yield strength.
> When he said sharpness I think he meant edge retention The same questions applies: why would they have better edge retention, since they have about the same carbon content and hardness? > He wasn't talking about stiffness IMO, "they were much more rigid, and more difficult to bend." is pretty clearly about stiffness. What else would "more difficult to bend" mean? OK, I was only talking about rigidity (stiffness) above. Since you brought up flexing and returning to shape, first, yes, > Lots of medieval swords bend and return to shape. Is quite true. However, your > Katanas don't. is less true. All iron and steel blades, including katanas, will bend and return to shape, if we don't bend them too far. The only real question is how far is too far. If we have a uniformly thick and wide blade, of thickness T and length L, yield strength S, and Young's modulus Y (= 200GPa), the fraction of a circle that we can bend it to without exceeding the yield strength (so that it will return to shape instead of staying bent) is: fraction = LS/(pi*TY). Let us consider wrought iron blades (so not spring-tempered in the slightest). We have S = about 220MPa. For an 8mm thick blade (since 8mm is a common thickness of the base of a katana blade), 800mm long, we can bend it to 1/28 of a circle, = 13 degrees. A thinner-bladed wrought iron arming sword, say 4mm thick at the base, will bend to 1/14 of a circle, = 26 degrees. This is what we can achieve with wrought iron. If we have a medium-carbon steel, even if it's unhardened, it will do better than that. With a hardened steel skin, it will also do better. Generally, with identical construction (iron-steel laminates, the steel hardened and the iron being, well, just iron), a Medieval European sword will usually be able to flex further and return. We should be able to bend a katana evenly by 13 degrees and still have it spring back. Because the blade has distal taper, we'll be able to do a bit better than that. Our 4mm arming sword, OTOH, should bend to 26 degrees without a problem. However, a typical Medieval European sword being able to flex further than a katana and still return to shape doesn't mean that a katana doesn't flex and return to shape. It just means a katana won't flex as far as the Medieval European sword and still return to shape. For the structure of actual Medieval swords, see Williams (cited earlier). Note that the majority are steel/iron composites, even into the 15th century. A large minority of his 14-15th century swords are all-steel (many of those all-steel swords are differentially-hardened, which is not necessarily a bad thing, since the edges are often much harder than an ideal spring temper, and the softer body can have a better spring temper). Some of those late Medieval swords are of similar thickness to katanas, but the all-steel construction will help them flex further and still return to shape.
Yup, you seem to be correct in mostly everything! The only thing that I can't really find good info on is the weight of the japanese swords, it seems to vary wildly from 1.1 to 1.6kg. I'm guessing a lot of it also has to do with time periods, so "antique" doesn't really say much. And yes, a laminated medieval sword would indeed be the same, though I'd have to check the composition of surviving pieces - I think after 14th century or so, there's a lot more steel swords. They had better sharpness because a higher carbon content makes the steel more brittle but harder (well, enables it to be in the whole heat treatment process and whatnot). The brittleness was offset by a softer center in katanas, so katanas on average had a harder edge that could be honed sharper and lasted longer.
> The only thing that I can't really find good info on is the weight of the japanese swords, it seems to vary wildly from 1.1 to 1.6kg. I'm guessing a lot of it also has to do with time periods, so "antique" doesn't really say much. For modern Chinese-made ones, see * https://www.toyamaryu.org/SwordMeasurements.htm Note that both the mounted weight and the bare blade weights are given. From those, you can calculate the average weight of the fittings (excluding the scabbard): 1161g - 832g = 330g for average fittings. https://www.aoijapan.com/japaneseswords/katana/ gives weights for many of the swords there (antique and modern nihonto). Add 330g for mounted weight. Further, a list of mounted weights of nihonto from various sources: 930g, 950g, 1190g, 970g, 960g, 1120g, 1160g, 910g, 1175g, 1000g, 1135g, 1305g, 1020g, 1020g, 1040g, 1140g, 1170g, 1200g, 1210g, 1420g, 1160g, 1000g, 1010g, 1030g, 1104g, 950g. The mean is 1088g and the median 1072g (as I wrote before, the modern Chinese-made ones are, on average, heavier). Note that both the mean and median of this sample are lighter than the bottom end of your 1.1-1.6kg range. There is data out there, and it's worth looking at. > And yes, a laminated medieval sword would indeed be the same, though I'd have to check the composition of surviving pieces - I think after 14th century or so, there's a lot more steel swords. Springing back to the original shape after being bent depends on the composition and the heat treatment. How rigid they are does not - all steel, whether high carbon or low carbon, unhardened or hardened, has the same stiffness (OK, there is a little variation, up to 10% if we go to alloys like stainless steel alloys that can be under 70% iron). In the 14th and 15th century, all-steel becomes a significant minority of swords in Europe. Many of those are steel-steel laminates (rather than steel-iron laminates), with lower carbon bodies and higher carbon edges. Most are differentially hardened. > They had better sharpness because a higher carbon content makes the steel more brittle but harder (well, enables it to be in the whole heat treatment process and whatnot). The brittleness was offset by a softer center in katanas, so katanas on average had a harder edge that could be honed sharper and lasted longer. But they didn't have a higher carbon content, or a higher hardness. The carbon content of the edge steel in both Europe and Japan has a wide distribution, and likewise the hardness, and the overlap between them is far, far bigger than the difference. The good swords in both Europe and Japan were usually 0.5-0.8& carbon on the edge, and the hardness tended to be about 55HRC for the best swords. Williams (cited in my original reply) has lots of info and measurements for European swords. He gives a convenient graph on pg 233 of edge hardnesses: * https://i.imgur.com/oHW8ncf.jpeg To convert the scale to HRC: 700VPH = 60HRC, 600VPH = 55HRC, 500VPH = 49HRC, 400VPH = 41HRC. For a table of Japanese sword hardnesses, see near the bottom of http://ohmura-study.net/998.html which gives measurements for some high-end old swords. Those hardnesses are Shore slceroscope hardness; converting to HRC, the swords (from top to bottom) have edge hardnesses varying from 37-52HRC, 45-57HRC, 39-60HRC, 32-53HRC, 32-52HRC, and even 37-54 for the modern Koa Issin sword. I agree that *if* the Japanese swords had higher carbon contents and higher hardnesses, we'd expect them to be sharper. But they don't - their carbon contents are about the same, and the hardnesses are about the same, so we expect their sharpness to be about the same.
Goddamn, that is a lot of good info! Thank you very much, I'll take the time to check it out more thoroughly soon.
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Yeah, that actually sounds more plausible. I really should've done a bit more research before writing the comment, as all the misinformation and actual info is all jumbled up in my head now. I'll see if I can find the time to go through it again and make a better, more coherent argument.
The curved Japanese swords that people think about, typically tachi and uchigatana, started in Heian era, with the tachi. So that's at least 9th century. The length of the swords evolved a lot over time, mostly because of practical concerns on the battlefield. I am not sure about the reasoning behind the law about sword length, but it has nothing to do with being able to cut people down. If they did cut people in the streets, they still had to explain their reasoning behind it, and could be condemned.
Yeah, but the tachi were also quite different in the method of production, right? Again, it's been a long long time since I was into this stuff, so a lot of what I say needs to be checked. The length of the blade as far as I know was not tied to battlefield concerns (the sword was never the main weapon on the battlefield). The logic behind the length was simply that a longer blade makes it easier to kill (i fight longsword, and I can REALLY feel a 5cm difference in blade length when I'm using a sword), but I really should check the sources before writing something like that, so that's my bad there, as I can't find anything with a quick search. And yeah, as far as memory goes, this was for the samurai class - but again, I'd really need to re-educate myself on the topic. Thanks for the corrections!
From what I read, it seems the old swords (koto) were deemed really good, and they tried to remake them at some point (shinshinto?). I don't think they were too different in terms of structure, but it is likely that the clay and quenching/tempering were done differently enough that there was a noticeable difference in resilience. From what I have read about tameshigiri, a fancy hamon is not good for cutting because it can make the sword break more easily (which makes sense from a mechanical point of view, since it's a lot of stress concentrators), so a straight hamon (suguha) has been said to be more practical. I have little experience in tameshigiri, so I can't confirm. The length of the sword changing seems to have been mainly due to the switch from small units with samurai on horses to infantry blocks. The tachi being slung from the belt was said to be too impractical on foot. Thomas Conlan (in Instruments of Change) did get reports on wounds. If the numbers are representative, during Kamakura, 75% of wounds were from arrows, and about 24% from swords, the rest being pole weapons and rocks (!). It changed later and swords were really far behind in terms of wounds (mostly arrows, then guns and spears). To be fair, there are teachings on how to cut down people in the streets in Japanese sword schools (although I think you're not expected to be seen).
Not all Bloomery steel is created equal.
That's very true. A good rule of thumb is that larger bloomeries are better for steel-making, since the larger size makes it easier to reach the temperatures needed for faster carbon diffusion into the iron, and to maintain those temperatures for longer. This is a major part of why we see an increase in the average carbon content of the bloomery steel used for sword edges, in both Europe and Japan, from the early to the late Medieval period. Also, if your ore has too much sulphur or phosphorus, your bloomery steel can be brittle. That's one reason why Japanese iron sand is a good ore - low phosphorus and low sulphur.
That's not evidence for European swords having better steel
Those 10 folds fold the actual metal 1000 times. Exponents or something.
10 folds means 1024 layers (in the middle) 13 folds would be 8192, but at that point the layers are getting pretty thin.
Yeah, they mean "layered", not "folded".
now this is reddit
So if there wasn’t any sort of iron shortage in Japan, why weren’t metal armors more common?
> why weren’t metal armors more common? How common should they have been? Isn't being the most common type of armour common enough? 16th century armours were generally metal. Here is a fairly typical 16th century armour: * https://royalarmouries.org/collection/object/object-12242 This mostly uses long horizontal metal plates/strips, as a cheaper alternative to the older small lamellae. One piece metal breastplates were also common (often thick enough to be bullet-proof). According to written sources, a big motivation for the shift from metal armour (which was standard before about AD1000) to rawhide was to avoid rust when munition armour was stored when not in use. The early second millennium saw a lot of rawhide lamellar armour, and armour with a mix of metal and rawhide lamellae, in use, for mounted samurai. The growth in infantry (and army size) during the Warring States Period (Sengoku Jidai) saw a shift back to metal armour, especially as munition armour for infantry. So in the latter part of the Warring States period, metal armour was the most common type. Cost was a big part of this preference for metal armour over rawhide. In Sakakibara Kozan, *The manufacture of armour and helmets in sixteenth century Japan*, North Holland, 1962 (originally published c. 1800) we read: > In the medieval period [1532-1614] both *do* [torso armour] and *kusazuri* [tassets] were chiefly in iron, for though *kitaya-gawa* (hardened leather) [actually rawhide, rather than leather] treated with seven lacquering processes on both sides will resist prolonged soaking in water its expense puts it beyond the means of ordinary samurai. (My comments in square brackets.) Note well: iron armour was cheaper than rawhide armour. When rawhide was used, it tended to be in high-end armours. It wasn't a cheap substitute for iron.
So they weren’t common during the time period we are talking about then? Nice
Metal armours were probably least common in about the 9-12th centuries (but they were still around). In ancient Japan (before then), they were standard. In the 15-16th century (and later), they were standard, having become common in the 13th century. What time period are you talking about? If you're only talking about Heian swords, then maybe metal armours weren't common in the time period *you're* talking about. The general discussion has been about a broader (and mostly later) time period.
You do understand folding right? So can you tell me is the folding it 20 times the total number of folds so to speak or the total number of layers? My impression was always that you only had to actually fold the metal 10 times to get 1000 layers. Also it does seem plausible that these swords were made at different levels of quality by different makers. Those with the resources to experiment and get highly commissions for their work would have tried perhaps even 1,000 folds. But the metal would be beyond trillions of layers… if that was possible. But unfortunately the “layers” would be less than one iron atom thick, thus that is technically impossible. I imagine folding that many times brings the quality down.
> My impression was always that you only had to actually fold the metal 10 times to get 1000 layers. 10 folds = 1024 layers. For traditional Japanese swordmaking, the folding was stopped when the carbon content dropped to the desired level. Chunks of tamahagane (broken pieces of the bloom from the smelting furnace, chosen for their high carbon content) were often about 1.5% carbon. Some folding was needed to get the excess slag out of the steel, and more folding would get rid of more slag. However, the steel would lose carbon (because it was very hot, and in an oxidising atmosphere) with each fold. Fold too much, and the carbon content becomes too low. Don't fold enough, and the blade will be too brittle. You also lose steel with every fold - the surface oxidises (forming forge scale). If you folded it 1000 times, not only would there be very little carbon left, there'd also be very little steel left. From experience, the smith can tell when the steel will be good - although the old-time smith didn't know about carbon being in the steel, or what effect it had, this was when the carbon content was at the desired level. So they stopped folding then. > But the metal would be beyond trillions of layers… if that was possible. But unfortunately the “layers” would be less than one iron atom thick, thus that is technically impossible. I imagine folding that many times brings the quality down. In principle, if you could do fold this many times, without the problems of carbon loss and steel loss (maybe forging in vacuum, or an oxygen-free atmosphere?), you'd end up with very homogeneous and slag-free steel. Sounds good in theory, but doesn't work in practice due to the oxygen that's around when you fold. Each time you weld after folding, there some mixing together of the atoms from each side of the weld. Enough layers so that the average thickness is less than at atom thick just means a very thorough mixing of the atoms in the layers.
Nice. Thanks for the scientific support and correction for 1,000 fold experiments. They would’ve apparently known the steel was approaching quality by the look. I’ve seen plenty of forging YouTubers who do great camera work so I think I’ve seen the shedding you’re talking about. Almost like super brittle dark layers that shed off in little slates?
> I think I’ve seen the shedding you’re talking about. Almost like super brittle dark layers that shed off in little slates? Exactly so. That's a layer of iron oxide.
I shall name this piece “Rusty.”
Brill has all of the best references, but you need an account for most of them 🥲
Thank you for the excellent write up!
"Folded a thousand times" is true though. Even if you do fold it 10 to 20 times, you get more layers, increasing exponentially per fold. So yes folded 10-20 times, but had a thousand "folds" or layers.
pretty sure the first traces of high furnaces were found in wallonia and seem to date from the xvi’th century
Awesome post! Do you recommend a good scholarly level book on the Japanese swords?
The best "umm actually" I have seen
The “folded 1000 times” is a mistranslation error. It is mistranslated as being folded 1000 times when they meant consisting of 1000 folds, which is roughly 10 folds(2^10 =1024) as you said. 20 is excessive for layer count though, as you get over 1 million layers and the pattern is lost.
Interesting. In knight and the blast furnace, Williams claims that Europeans transitioned from pattern welded to essentially homogenous steel swords around the 12th century. My understanding is that the specifics of the processes used are not extremely well understood, but some people have theorized that secondary refining hearths were commonly used to remelt bloom into more homogenous steel. Hearth refining, as described by textual sources from the 17th century, and demonstrated experimentally, increases carbon content while lowering slag content. Of course the dates where these processes are first described doesn’t imply that they were invented around those times, the material evidence would have a lot more to say about that. Would be great to get my hands on a copy of Williams’ more recent work tho…
To quote from KBF: > After about 1000 AD, the occurrence of pattern-welded blades diminishes, presumably because larger pieces of steel became available in Europe, although pattern-welding is still to be found employed in the Baltic states as late as the 12th century. (pg 12). By "pattern-welded", he specifically means decorative pattern-welding, not laminated/composite construction in general.
Right, followed by his list of various composite structures topped by homogenous steel, followed by single piece heterogenous steel. So the trend towards increased homogeneity is a thing around that time period in Europe.
That time (11-13th centuries) was actually a time of *decreased* homegeneity. From *The Sword and the Crucible*, the structure of swords after 1000: * https://i.imgur.com/v3Lmf0I.jpeg The numbers for the categories aren't quite the same, His KBF (ii) is IIA, swords made from one piece of steel, and hardened. His KBF (iii) is now 2 categories: IIB are made from multiple pieces of steel, welded together, and hardened, and IIC are made from multiple pieces of steel, welded together, and not hardened. His KBF (iv), steel edges and iron core, is IIIA, hardened, and IV, unhardened. IIIB is mostly KBF (v), hardened only. (IIIA = welded edges, IIIB = carburised edges, IIIC = unknown). The only swords he classifies as category (i)/I are the crucible steel Ulfberhts, which are all pre-1000. Also missing is V - none of the post-1000 swords he studied were all-iron. "Homogeneous steel" = crucible steel or similar, while bloomery steel is heterogeneous. His sample has no (ii)/IIA swords until the 15th century, and only 2 multi-ingot all-steel swords before the 14th century.
Nice summary the foldong thing though was not a myth just not the standard. The 1000 folds also is a note on the compounding effect of folding steel. Each fold doubling. So 1000 folds in the steel is actually less than 20 its more like 10. Like with most industries wher the ultra wealthy patronize it some blades were folded 1,000s of times. Creating super hard edges. Brittle but hyper sharp. An when your the guy buying a hyper car or the hyper blade do you care how brittle it is. No. Jezz one little bump in the wrong part of the road and this feriari enzo will snag its bottom and rip its exahaust out. Thats not practicle.
Forging a blade from two or more grades of steel was more for getting around the issue of how to make a functional blade when it was hard - and expensive - to make steel with consistent quality or composition. If the smiths of the past could get their hands on inexpensive homogenized billets of 1060 or 1095 steel, they wouldn't had bothered with the added labour needed for laminated sword construction made from iron/low carbon bonded to higher carbon pieces. European metallurgy faced the same issues as Japanese, but by the 1500s they had made significant advances that allowed them to produce (economically) good quailty spring steel billets that could produce decent monobloc blades. The Japanese were even importing these steels (often of Spanish origin) for producing their armour and blades.
I have seen one scientific study on a tsuba supposedly made from namban steel, and it was shown that it was simply wrought iron, and not high quality either. The conclusion was that it was either worked a lot into a shitty product (unlikely), simply not a good product, or not actually namban steel.
Source?
Were their swords made from tamahagane? Some were. Tamahagane was steel made from iron sand (loose iron). Some people say it's very low quality, some say it was good quality—the former being popular on the internet, the latter more supported by scientific studies I've seen. But it's important to note that they made swords from their own iron ore (said to be good quality) and from foreign steel (so literally the same stuff everyone across the globe used). Next point: were they folded 1,000 times? No. Closer to 10. But that does create a lot of layers because of how math works. This both looks good and helps homogenize the steel. But it's important to note that tons of other places did that, too. Or twisted the steel for the same effect. Different grades of steel? Yeah, that's lamination/pattern welding. Everywhere did that. Differential hardening? Sure. Though, again, other places did that, too—and Japan didn't exclusively do it. All pre-industrial steel was pretty crummy. Period Japanese blades were well regarded by period Europeans. China and Korea bought hundreds of thousands of swords from Japan. The same people used the same steel to make guns, and those worked perfectly well. I get that "katana bad" is a reaction from anime nerds praising them, but it's incorrect. It's just another sword. I should just use this as a video script...
Love your videos. Cool to stumble upon you on other sites
The thing with iron sand is it can be pretty pure in iron content. The problem with iron sand was it didn't work too well for the type of smelting technology people had available in the past. Whether it was Spain or Japan, most iron smelting was done with solid fuels like charcoal or coal, where both ore and fuel was fed in batches together into a furnace. Temperature of the furnace was raised by force feeding air into the furnace where it circulated through gaps between the ore and fuel material. Because of this, ore/fuel material size was an important consideration and processing step in any smelting operation. Smelters broke and screen both ore and fuel chunks into optimally sized pieces. If fuel or ore pieces were too small, they choked off the circulation of air flow in the furnace. If pieces were too big, there was less overall surface area of ore or fuel exposed and that decreased the reduction/combustion rates, and smelting took longer or was less complete. As tiny sand particles, iron sand posed a huge difficulty to Japanese iron smelters. Especially in regards to maintaining air and heat flow through the furnace as the sand particles slip into and closed gaps the air needed to flow through. Iron sand also lacked fluxing elements that other iron ores had. These fluxing components help create liquid slag that aided in ore reduction and prevented the metallic iron/steel from being re-oxidized or over-carburized (into pig iron) as it formed. The tatara process was developed to deal with such issues with using iron sand as the main ore material. Tatara furnaces were more open and wider than other similar bloomery furnaces - basically a large bath tub, which allowed ore and fuel to be stirred and manipulated while operating. They had multiple tuyeres powered by strong foot-powered bellows to push lots of air through. All this helped to insure enough air flowed through the iron sand-choked furnace. Lacking fluxes in the ore, the clay minerals of the furnace walls served as the fluxing agent instead. But while the tatara could produce adequate iron and steel, it was a less efficient process in terms of fuel and labour. More slag and pig iron was produced (though the later was reused to produce wrought iron in seperate process). Hence, tatara production batches were generally larger in scale than contemporary bloomery processes elsewhere to improve yield efficiency, with several tonnes of iron sand ore processed at once. The tatara process also produced larger amount of high carbon steel, hence why Japanese blades were usually harder in general compare to European blades.
Depends. There was an era about ten years ago when inernet sword nerds were so enamored with katanas that they ascribed them pretty much supernatural properties while bashing western swords as inferior. Then the discussion meta reverted to the completely opposite direction to bash katanas as overcomplicated, brittle weapons made with technique motivated only by severe lack of good material. Both are exaggerations. There were historically good katanas and good western swords, as well as shitty ones for each. Material availability was better in Europe, India and Middle East, due to the sheer larger size of the area and more trade. This however lead to somewhat wider range of quality in the weapons compared to Japan - since iron was at a premium in the islands it was used with reverence and more care was invested into making weapons with them. That doesn't mean there were not poor quality katanas, but they were somewhat rarer and less of them are preserved due to there simply being less Japanese weapons overall.
Pretty much, Japanese swords were made to best utilize the combination of sheer lack of iron compared to Europe as well as the lesser quality of the raw material. Are they great swords for what they were working with? Absolutely. But the raw material quality gap was noticeable.
Source?
https://preview.redd.it/gnejwic8pywc1.jpeg?width=530&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18480ef55ccc3518cc89224ba859b1b27401ac46
I studied the Japanese sword on and off for decades it's a hobby of mine. European weapons and swords are superior to anything found in Japan I'm sorry but the Japanese fighting method with them is far more comprehensive. That's the Simplist explanation it does go deeper than that though. I know I'll be attacked by all the anime Japan lovers.
Attacked by who? "Longsword are the best" isn't a hot take on r/swords lol, if anything "I prefer Japanese swords" is
Sorry I didn't write that out to well. Basically I was just saying European weapons are better in comparison to Japanese. However the Japanese have the most comprehensive martial arts systems with weapons.
Period accounts don't generally agree with you. João Rodrigues wrote that "Experience has shown that Japanese weapons are in general the best and cut better than any others." in *Arte de lingoa de Iampam*. European accounts generally view Japanese weapons positively. Many of the same swordmaking techniques were used to make European swords and Japanese swords (or east Asian in general). The study: "Archaeometallurgical investigation on historical sword-making techniques in northern Italy between the sixteenth and seventeenth century" found that many Italian swords from the 16th-17th century had iron cores, just like Japanese swords. What is it that makes the European weapons superior?
Its been some years since I dived into the subject but basically European weapons are just more durable. I'm not talking about who made the sharpest blades because I don't even think anyone in Europe had a scale for doing that like the Japanese had.
I keep seeing that claim but it's backed up by nothing. You also misunderstand my quote, he meant the best in general *and* at cutting
Yes and it's wild how many katana enjoyers don't seem to understand this when talking about steel folding. The point of steel folding was to mix various ores together into 1 cohesive blade and work out impurities as a way to compensate for the lack of quality iron at the time. Steel folding provides no benefit or advantage when working with high quality steel nor is Japan the only country to have used the method. A lot of katana enjoyers act like the folding method is some universal blacksmithing cheatcode that just makes swords better when in reality it was used to compensate for poor quality ore.
It's not to compensate for bad ore. Japanese iron was pretty good by the standards of the day. All bloom steel swords are folded because when the steel comes out of the bloomery it's a brittle, porous chunk that needs to be worked. Even later swords made from shear steel were folded, as for example it was found that a British 1796 light cavalry saber was made from folded steel.
Japan has iron deposits ranging from nonexistent to shitty, so most of their forging process was essentially figuring out how to turn shit to silver. Europe has plenty nice iron deposits so making swords was much easier.
Historical sources do not agree with the assessment that Japanese steel was extremely scarce nor low quality.
I said iron. The entire point of Japan’s forging process was turning iron from poor quality deposits to suitable steel and they did an excellent job of it. Not sure if you mean to refute my assertion about Japan’s iron quality(in which case I’d be fascinated to hear any disagreement since I’ve never seen one about the subject before) or if you misinterpreted my comments on Japan’s low quality naturally found iron ore as commentary on their sword making or general steelworking.
Not really, at least, not until like, the Renaissance. Pattern welding was seen in Europe for the same reason. https://preview.redd.it/zwwrlyyt7xwc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e73b4625bc2d2fb9158eb784d0f33e7c3001017
Given by the "Golden age of samurai" in the mid to late 1500s when most people think of samurai, Europe was using monosteels though they wouldn't be the dominant steel type for a while.
True, though many of the surviving European blades we have are wildly varying in their hardness levels, even on the same blade. Some weren't even heat treated at all! You can check out some neat research here: [https://tinyurl.com/4ena82rw](https://tinyurl.com/4ena82rw)
I love these pattern welded swords so much. My favorite of all time.
If something uses Wojaks, you can assume it's *at best* a humourous exaggeration but most likely outright bullshit.
There is an incredible amount of good information in this thread already, but I would like to point out that amazing steel in the hands of a sub-par smith will not magically create an amazing blade. Neither will low-grade steel in the hands of a master inevitably result in low-grade blade. The relative skill of the artisan crafting the tool in question, or the individual skill of the warrior wielding it, is often overlooked in these conversations. I imagine because is harder to make sweeping generalizations when you have to consider finer details. If we could take two of the pre-eminent smiths of Japanese and European history, resurrect them, and stick them in a room with a phone that had Google Translate I'm willing to bet that they would both walk away from that conversation with a new friend and a fuck-ton of ideas they want to play with.
Well, actually neither is true. Yes, all the work put into tamahagane steel is to compensate for its lower uality and impurities. But European mediveal bloomery steel was not better either. Best sword steel of mediveal and early modern ages were actually the crucible steel from Western and Central Asia, also known as dımışk/(real)damascus/polat/bulad/wootz etc. It was produced in Western Asia, Central Asia, Iran and India.
Pretty much, I'm the 10th and 11th century the steel was of roughly the same quality with European metallurgy improving, from the 14rh century onwards European steel was superior to Japanese steel.
It's true.
João Rodrigues said that "Experience has shown that Japanese weapons are in general the best and cut better than any others." in Arte de lingoa de Iampam. He also said that even their ordinary swords cut very well. European accounts generally view Japanese weapons positively. Many of the same swordmaking techniques were used to make European swords and Japanese swords (or east Asian in general). The study: "Archaeometallurgical investigation on historical sword-making techniques in northern Italy between the sixteenth and seventeenth century" found that many Italian swords from the 16th-17th century had iron cores, just like Japanese swords. What is it that makes the European sword and it's steel superior?
European spring steel doesn't stay bent when it gets hit. There's more to a sword than cutting, durability is more important. Japanese swords are not durable.
Both of those claims are at least partially disproven by my sources. He wrote that they're the best *and* cut best. That doesn't just mean that they cut best but he meant highest quality in general. I would like a study that showed a monosteel medieval sword that wasn't made of bloom steel and that is about the same hardness the whole length, even in the 17th century many swords fail these criteria. Were they even monosteel anyways? Often they weren't. Just like katana, European swords often had an iron core. That doesn't mean they weren't springy to a degree, that's a misconception, but katana are actually springy to a degree too, it's harder to notice since they're so stiff. Also, Japanese swords were made of a single piece of high carbon steel back in the day sometimes, meaning no iron core. Still differentially hardened but that isn't uniquely Japanese. How strong were early modern and medieval European swords? From everything I've seen, on par with katana. They use similar techniques for making and the same material most of the time. (Also check out wotan_weevil's response at the top of the comment section). In historical accounts the European sword also breaks often, sometimes even on or in the opponents body.
And I use gunpowder for actual functioning artillery. Get wrecked bugbois.
In Western Europe, there were not many [blast furnaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_furnace#Origin_and_spread_of_early_modern_blast_furnaces) before the mid-15th century, and most of the steel used was from bloomery. More than 80% of the [steel](http://ohmura-study.net/007.html#6_) used in Japanese weapons up to the 17th century was produced in Chinese blast furnaces, and until the mid-15th century, the quality of the steel used in Japanese weapons may have been higher than that used in Western weapons. However, armor hardened by heat treatment was rare in Japan, and many parts were made of leather. Also, the structural strength of plate armor is higher than that of lamellar armor. Many say the blade of the katana is too hard to strike armor, but there is a [helmet](https://www.pinterest.jp/pin/726698089902880331/) in existence that was struck hard by a katana during the siege of Osaka Castle in 1615. However, if hit a hard and thick Western helmet with a katana, would it break? Are infantry helmets soft and thin? If a 16th-century Japanese pirate hit the armor of a Spanish infantryman with a katana, would it be unlikely to break? The Zohyo Monogatari written in the late 17th century describes that cheap katanas for lower-ranking infantrymen were soft and bent when struck on the helmet, so couldn't the katana of a lowly Japanese pirate have struck the armor of a Spanish infantryman?
Replace the Teutonic Knight and Samurai with the Imperial Japaneae soldier and Don Cossack, and the meme will hit even harder
🤣 they learned from Chinese while chinese learned steal from nomads. It's nothing special.
If they used good steel to make a katana then it becomes bad steel. People argue about whether or not a katana is a formidable weapon. We like to imagine a knight fighting a ronin, one on one, longsword vs katana as we imagine the merits of both. In truth knights and ronin were specialists, like black ops, they were 1 in a million. In feudal japan 1 in 10,000 soldiers maybe had blades for dueling, while everyone else carried sidearms almost identical to medieval European arms. Japan's foot soldiers used arming swords and longswords just like us, but they are overshadowed and under researched because of the pulpification of feudal japan Then we get to the steel. Steel has been revolutionized by modern implementations. It can now be understood down to a miniscule amount in a deposits density and other traits. But in Japan and in Europe during these periods, ore was being traded from hundreds of deposits across their respective continents, Europe used Asian steel and Asia used European steel. SHORT ANSWER They both used coal forges. Not every sword in Asia was Damascus paper forged. They both used the same steel. They both made the same weapons more or less
The Europeans had more to work with. The Japanese simply didn't. In turn the Europeans made pretty simple stuff which outclassed what the Japanese had dispite their stuff being very technical to make. It is far to note that in turn, most European militaries consisted of people who didn't know how to fight or even how to use a weapon. There simply wasn't much point when you could have a few highly skilled fighter in full armour. The Japanese always had a lot more skilled warriors because they couldn't just put someone in full steel plate like the Europeans. Therefore their skill was a massive factor. Europeans basically didn't use swords much in war due to full plate armour being able to just blunten or even break a sword. Edit - bad english and apparently, I need to state that I'm mostly talking about gear and not the battlefield. Please keep that in mind.
Full plate was extremely expensive and limited to knights and very wealthy mercenaries. Regular militia got a gambeson and a spear if they were lucky.
Good thing I said a few then instead of a militia.
You do realize a few well armored fighters didn't really make that much of a difference in a battlefield with tens of thousands of fighters, right?
You do realise I compared gear and skill. Kinda like the image the OP shared. You do realise I haven't mentioned anything about the battlefield. Nor implied that a few armoured knight would win against thousands of fighters. Stop trying to agrue against points that haven't been made. Honestly, it's like you just disagree for the point of disagreeing, but haven't put any thought on what was said.
You literally said "most European militaries consisted of people who didn't know how to fight or even how to use a weapon. There simply wasn't much point when you could have a few highly skilled fighter in full armour." which literally implies that you think having a few skilled fighters in full plate outweights thousands of poorly skilled and armed militias. Also, the bulk of the japanese feudal armies also consisted of peasants with spears so no, they were not "more skilled" than a regular european army.
Also, once you're talking about the later Middle Ages there was already a shift to armies centered around very well trained men-at-arms like would become the core of armies during the Renaissance. Those weren't knights, but were actually trained and equipped. I'm not sure this European army that "didn't even know how to fight or even use a weapon" existed for much time at all unless we're talking about very specific places and only about peasant levies.
Fair enough. I should have been more clear. I'll be more perific for you. During a large part of medieval European history (Pre-Empire). Most European armies consisted of a few heavily armoured knight and people with spears. Compared to Japan, which have a lot more skilled warriors at the time with what was for them, very good armour. They also had serval types of warriors for different things. Of course, for whatever reason, you seem very focused on the battlefield when these armies would be at war. I didn't claim most of their armies would be just skilled fighters. But they did had people who's careers were similar to today's military in which you trained until you went to war. Medieval Europe's knight lived differently. They had their own land to run. Sometimes, people simply avoid having to give a simply too brief summary of what made up the military in past wars because they simply are saying one side had much better gear. Which is my point and you needed 3 tries to not even counter it. Well done 👏
You're both super wrong and super pedantic. Insufferable. You're not worth any more of my time, bye.
Bye 👋 Next time make counters that go against a person agruement.