Why so much focus on Katanas?

[JParanee]

I do not post much here in the sword forum but I think I can add something about what all the interest in Japanese style blades is. What I have not seen mentioned here is that although all of the western and eastern blade arts have there rituals and formalities the japanese sword arts seem to atract some people because of the spiritual nature Japanese swordsmanship has to offer. I know besides the love of the blade the control and centering myself that working with swords has done for me has really helped me along the way.

I can apreciate all sword arts eastern and western but for me the Katana is more than a sword and that is why for me it is my sword blade of choice

Lycosa I know you asked this question to another member but I love Phill's stuff and while they are far from traditional they cut extremely well,

 

[JParanee]

By the way I love the western blade arts for how they translate over to large knife especially Bowie techniques. The Back cut from the saber arts the thrust and parry from well to many schools of thought to mention but you get my point

 

[Lycosa]

Thank you, Joe.
Rolf

 

[Watchful]

...here though is an interesting link, although the info doesn't state they are the best, the curator is on record as saying that 'the Japanese sword is the most effective sword ever produced'
http://www.royalarmouries.org/what-we-do/research/analytical-projects/japanese-sword-technology

Yoshi, you've referenced this before.

First, the link you provide makes NO such conclusion.

Second, the "curator" you reference is NOT affiliated with the Royal Armouries, and indeed was the narrator of a television program you saw that happened to have a segment taking place at the Armouries. No curator ever made that sweeping, grandiose claim. It was a comment made by a writer and read by a narrator for a show on weaponry. Personal opinion of the writer must be distinguished from the backdrop of the video segment.

Interested parties can see a dissection of this claim here. Jump down to post 197 and following. If you read up in the thread, you can actually watch the video Yoshi watched and see that his memory is not well served by personal bias.

Finally, there is no such conclusion about any Japanese blade being the most effective blade ever produced in *any* published Royal Armouries study.

 

[Triton]

I'm surprised you couldn't find the Kublai Khan book reference, its there.

I did finally, thanks to Tedwca's kindly assistance. So I'm glad we've finally identified your source. Of course its still a single source, and one that's rather badly at odds with most other sources.

I think your missing the point, Japanese swords were never tested that way, until combat!

Yes, and didn't you suggest that the only fair test was to test the swords was to:

to see which performs better in the job that katana and tachi were originally designed for

The katana and the tachi were originally designed for well, combat, not statically chopping at things on poles. If you may recall, I noted the performance characteristics of Mr. Clark's L6 katana you were the one that went off on the "were originally designed for tangent." Are you seriously going to tell us that a traditionally made katana is going to stand up to the same sort of abuse as the L6?

Have them made, they still are, so there is no problem there

Mongolian arms and armor are still made using period materials and techniques? Where? By who?

But not between a live or freshley killed pig.

Well, I suppose that's true if you begin chopping up your pig within a minute or two of its expiring but rigor and bone hardening begins immediately upon death.

You obviously do not understand Japanese society at all.

By all means enlighten me. You can explain how it is that the Japanese are unable to end a restriction placed upon them by the Americans when the occupation of Japan ended nearly 60 years ago, even though they really want to...

They are entitled to their opinion of course, but for us mear mortals talking to and reading about peoples findings is the only way!

What findings? Someone telling you that "The katana is the best!" isn't a "finding." It's merely someone's opinion.

It was the Royal Armories metallurgist lol, who has done extensive re-search into arms and armour from all over the world, and has been in several programmes, the curator has also been on several programmes, just have a nose around!

I'm afraid that's not how it works. If you are going to make a claim you need to substantiate it. It's not incumbent upon those who disagree with you to try to substantiate your claims for you. If the "Royal Armories metallurgist" or the "Royal Armories Curator" made such claims by all means link them. I find it highly unlikely that Thom Richardson or Karen Watts made such a claim but I've been wrong before. Of course if they did make such a claim you've uncovered some highly academically suspect conduct on their part which is something else that ought to be looked into.

The Royal Armories has also done extensive re-search into weapon systems and techniques, and guess what they reckon the katana is the best sword for combat ever produced!

Again, (repetitively it seems) how is this quantified? Where is the link to this claim and who made it?

If you talking shield and sword use in tight formation, you could well have a point, but when the Roman infantry split it was found to be sadly lacking!

So are you suggesting that merely being used successfully in combat against many cultures doesn't make something the final word in edged weaponry after all? After all the gladius was used far more successfully then the katana, heck so was the xiphos for that matter.

 

[Triton]

Best in what context?

This is a point I've been trying to make for several posts now, perhaps you will be able to do a better job then I.

 

[Triton]

Yoshi, you've referenced this before.

First, the link you provide makes NO such conclusion.

Second, the "curator" you reference is NOT affiliated with the Royal Armouries, and indeed was the narrator of a television program you saw that happened to have a segment taking place at the Armouries. No curator ever made that sweeping, grandiose claim. It was a comment made by a writer and read by a narrator for a show on weaponry. Personal opinion of the writer must be distinguished from the backdrop of the video segment.

Interested parties can see a dissection of this claim here. Jump down to post 197 and following. If you read up in the thread, you can actually watch the video Yoshi watched and see that his memory is not well served by personal bias.

Finally, there is no such conclusion about any Japanese blade being the most effective blade ever produced in *any* published Royal Armouries study.

Ahh, I should have read the whole thread before posting it seems. I suspected it was something along those lines. I was pretty confident that no one who has reached the position of curator at the Royal Armories would make a statement like that (about ANY sword I might add), or if they had my respect for the Royal Armories would have been taken down a peg or three.

 

[Lycosa]

Yoshi--- email me, please.
earthbird@dejazzd.com

 

[Yoshi]

Tokugawa shogunate banned ownership of full-length swords for common people (chonin) in 1668

I think your a tad confused, in 1588Hideyoshi issued the sword edict, in 1668 the Muto rei restricted the commener to wearing only wakizashi of ko-wakizashi length, other edicts followed regarding sword size for Katana etc.

Have you ever used a Hartsfield Katana or blade?
Don't laugh...

I had to look him up, I have never heard of him until you mentioned his name, so the answer is no. But he seems to have a good reputation, working with a very difficult steel.
The picture of JParanee? using a Hartsfield katana? is a good one, it looks like Suemono giri.

and one that's rather badly at odds with most other sources.

It just uses much more up-to-date informaion, including recentely translated scrolls

Are you seriously going to tell us that a traditionally made katana is going to stand up to the same sort of abuse as the L6?

http://www.swordforum.com/summer99/howardclark.html
Actualy what relevance have these tests to the way Japanese swords were meant to be used? Also long before Mr Clark was around, Wilkinson swords had many of these characteristics, at school (40 odd years ago) our headmaster showed us how his army sword (a Wilkinson sword) could be be bent from point to handle and come back straight, does that make it a better sword than a traditional Japanese sword? Of course not, not even Wilkinson would claim that!

Mongolian arms and armor are still made using period materials and techniques? Where? By who?

The Mongols

After all the gladius was used far more successfully then the katana

Only If you had a great big shield, and men in tightly packed disciplined formations!!

No curator ever made that sweeping, grandiose claim. It was a comment made by a writer and read by a narrator for a show on weaponry. Personal opinion of the writer must be distinguished from the backdrop of the video segment.

Ian Bottomley senior curator of oriental arms and armor, Royal Armouries, Leeds, England (recently retired) quote 'To me the Japanese sword is the most effective sword in the World'
Stephen Turnbull, noted historian not only on the Japanese, but Mongol, Chinese and European wafare;
'In my opinion the Japanese Sword is the finest sword ever made'

I certainley will Lycosa.

 

[Lycosa]

Got it. Thanks, Yoshi.

 

[Watchful]

Ian Bottomley senior curator of oriental arms and armor, Royal Armouries, Leeds, England (recently retired) quote 'To me the Japanese sword is the most effective sword in the World'

Not to nitpick...

1. I stand corrected, as Bottomley was a senior curator with the Royal Armouries. He is no longer there.

2. However, a curator of one collection stating an opinion about his collection is NOT the same as the Royal Armouries concluding that the katana is unequivocally the best sword ever. You are confusing the opinion of one curator as though he speaks for an entire historical organization. Hint: your quote begins "to me...."

3. Had we asked the senior curator of the Medieval Warfare collection the same question, would he agree? Would he say "Well, as you know, the Royal Armouries believes the katana is..." or would he say "It depends a lot on whom you ask?"

Stephen Turnbull, noted historian not only on the Japanese, but Mongol, Chinese and European wafare;
'In my opinion the Japanese Sword is the finest sword ever made'

Stephen Turnbull is not affiliated with the Royal Armouries. He merely edited a magazine that was sponsored in part by them. And not for very long. I think your opinion is just as valid as his. And Triton's, too.

Again, I think you are taking quotes in certain contexts and broadly applying them to support your position. If a curator of one department within the Royal Armouries says "I like the katana," you are concluding the Royal Armouries has definitively ruled on the subject. They HAVE NOT.

 

[Triton]

It just uses much more up-to-date informaion, including recentely translated scrolls

So basically you are trying to claim that this single source is the definitive source on the subject and relegates all other sources to being mere disinformation?

Actualy what relevance have these tests to the way Japanese swords were meant to be used?

None, but you are going to have to pick one. First you were saying that the katana is the best because it could "outperform" any other sword in terms of construction. So I pointed out that the Howard Clark L6 outperforms a traditional katana in that regard. Then you went off on a tangent about how the two types of sword should be tested in the "way they were meant to be used." When I pointed out the fairly serious obstacles to that sort of testing you went back to artificial cutting tests at which once more the L6 is going to outperform the traditional everything else being equal. Now once again you are pointing out that artificial tests have nothing to do with how a katana is meant to be used.

Also long before Mr Clark was around, Wilkinson swords had many of these characteristics, at school (40 odd years ago) our headmaster showed us how his army sword (a Wilkinson sword) could be be bent from point to handle and come back straight, does that make it a better sword than a traditional Japanese sword? Of course not, not even Wilkinson would claim that!

Well, that depends, how do you define "a better sword." Obviously the Wilkinson sword was better in terms of flexibility... you see something quantifiable and measureable. It of course does not make it the "best" sword, which is the whole point I've been trying to highlight for you. That there is no "best" sword in any realistic quantifiable sense.

The Mongols

Please show us where the Mongols are making historically patterned 13th century arms and armor using period techniques.

Only If you had a great big shield, and men in tightly packed disciplined formations!!

According to the logic you are employing that should not matter. After all you haven't said a thing about tactics, your criteria for judging a sword superior was if it was used successfully against other cultures. By that metric Romans, Macedonians and Mongol swords are all superior to the katana. If you now wish to stipulate that tactics, strategy, armor etc. also play a role that is fine (and accurate) but that does sort of mess up the argument that a superior sword is identified by military success wouldn't you say?

Ian Bottomley senior curator of oriental arms and armor, Royal Armouries, Leeds, England (recently retired) quote 'To me the Japanese sword is the most effective sword in the World'

This is Mr. Bottomley's opinion (purportedly) as he qualifies by saying "to me." It is not a fact.

Stephen Turnbull, noted historian not only on the Japanese, but Mongol, Chinese and European wafare;
'In my opinion the Japanese Sword is the finest sword ever made'

This is merely another statement of opinion. Not a statement of fact.

These statements do not prove anything other then that the two gentlemen you mention have an academic bias and are willing to make the same sort of unsubstantiated and unquantified statements that you are.

 

[Yoshi]

He is no longer there

As I already stated

is NOT the same as the Royal Armouries concluding that the katana is unequivocally the best sword ever.

The section that deals with techniques of swords from across the World in the Royal Armories, has stated that.

Stephen Turnbull is not affiliated with the Royal Armouries

I never said he was

If a curator of one department within the Royal Armouries says "I like the katana," you are concluding the Royal Armouries has definitively ruled on the subject. They HAVE NOT.

Ref above

So basically you are trying to claim that this single source is the definitive source on the subject and relegates all other sources to being mere disinformation?

LOL did I ever say that, no.

So I pointed out that the Howard Clark L6 outperforms a traditional katana in that regard

Pretty useless comparison I think, especially the way Katana are made to be used. Traditionaly and IMHO the best way to test swords is with my previously stated methods.

Now once again you are pointing out that artificial tests have nothing to do with how a katana is meant to be used.

Only in that bending and flexing tests as done in the articule, have no relevance to how a Japanese sword is used, on the other hand if your talking about a British Officers swords, than it does have relevance, because of the way they were used.

Please show us where the Mongols are making historically patterned 13th century arms and armor using period techniques.

As stated before Mongolia

According to the logic you are employing that should not matter. After all you haven't said a thing about tactics, your criteria for judging a sword superior was if it was used successfully against other cultures

As pointed out before, the gladius is in fact a poor sword of choice for individual non shield protected swordsmanship, as proved on many historical occasions. It was IMHO a very poor choice on your part to even compare it with a katana, let alone many other sword types.

These statements do not prove anything other then that the two gentlemen you mention have an academic bias and are willing to make the same sort of unsubstantiated and unquantified statements that you are.

You are entitled to your opinion about these well known highly respected Gentleman's views (and they are not the only ones, by any means), who have probably handled, had access to more swords than most people could ever dream of, as well as receiving the highest technical evaluation and expertise from some of the Worlds top metallurgists on swords and armour and weapons in general.

Gentleman, thank you for such an interesting debate, this will be my last post on this particular thread, many thanks Yoshi.

 

[Lycosa]

Go with the Hartsfield!
:yawn:
Thanks for a great debate.

 

[Triton]

The section that deals with techniques of swords from across the World in the Royal Armories, has stated that.

This is merely another unsubtantiated claim, please cite.

LOL did I ever say that, no.

No, you didn't, you have merely implied that the view promulgated in that book supercedes all other books and in fact is the most accurate view.

Pretty useless comparison I think, especially the way Katana are made to be used. Traditionaly and IMHO the best way to test swords is with my previously stated methods.

The point was that the tests you describe do not test "the way Katana are made to be used" either. That aside, if a Howard Clark L6 katana outperforms a traditionally made sword in such tests (and again one has to define "outperform" ) will you then be telling us that the Howard Clark L6 is the ultimate sword?

Only in that bending and flexing tests as done in the articule, have no relevance to how a Japanese sword is used, on the other hand if your talking about a British Officers swords, than it does have relevance, because of the way they were used.

So in your view a katana does not need to be able to flex? The part of about edge retention? Irrelevant?

As stated before Mongolia

This is another unsubstantiated claim. Please cite.

As pointed out before, the gladius is in fact a poor sword of choice for individual non shield protected swordsmanship, as proved on many historical occasions. It was IMHO a very poor choice on your part to even compare it with a katana, let alone many other sword types.

I agree, in terms of measurable metrics, i.e. heat treat, durability, edge hardness etc. the gladius is often poorly heat treated, easily dulled etc. However, I am employing the logic you employed namely that if a sword has been used successfully against other cultures it must be superior. If that is the criteria that you are using then the gladius is obviously far superior to the katana.

The point was not that the gladius is actually superior to the katana but that:

1) The logic employed is flawed.
2) There is no one sword that is optimal under all conditions and in all situations.

You are entitled to your opinion about these well known highly respected Gentleman's views (and they are not the only ones, by any means), who have probably handled, had access to more swords than most people could ever dream of, as well as receiving the highest technical evaluation and expertise from some of the Worlds top metallurgists on swords and armour and weapons in general.

This is merely an appeal to authority. A rather suspect authority to be honest considering the sorts of statements made.

 

[C.S. Graves]

You know, I've read that the Chinese jian dao i pretty awesome too.

 

[Watchful]

You know, I've read that the Chinese jian dao i pretty awesome too.

AND your point of view is just as valid as anything we've heard. The only difference is, I can *cite* your post!

 

[chuckinohio]

Has anyone mentioned the Smatchet

Chuck

 

[Dave Rishar]

Actualy what relevance have these tests to the way Japanese swords were meant to be used? Also long before Mr Clark was around, Wilkinson swords had many of these characteristics, at school (40 odd years ago) our headmaster showed us how his army sword (a Wilkinson sword) could be be bent from point to handle and come back straight, does that make it a better sword than a traditional Japanese sword? Of course not, not even Wilkinson would claim that!

Context.

Obviously we have a sword that's more difficult to break than the average katana. It does not necessarily make the Wilkie better overall, but in terms of resistance to breakage I'd say that they had the Japanese licked. In this particular case the Wilkie is better.

Only If you had a great big shield, and men in tightly packed disciplined formations!!

Context.

Had I argued that the katana was the most successful sword on the battlefield ever, one might show that this was indeed not the case. It does not make a gladius or a katana better overall; it merely proves that one is better in this particular case.

Can you see why I harp on context, and why I do not like blanket statements? Arguing which sword is best is like arguing which car is best. I may state with firm conviction that Rolls-Royce builds the best car ever and I may even provide a lot of evidence to support it, but if you haul firewood once a week you could argue that this is certainly not the best car -- and you'd be correct, at least in your case.

Remember, the construction and usage of swords (or any other weapon for that matter) is not an isolated thing. Every culture that I know of that had access to even bronze made swords. There were undoubtedly false starts and dead-end branches of the sword's evolution (primarily where designs began overspecializing) but if we consider the last two thousand years or so as a whole, everyone got exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it the majority of the time; presumably these designs were what worked best for how they did business, as this was not a static process and evolution was more or less continuous.

That having been said, why didn't everyone use them?

 

[Lycosa]

I am glad the firearm came along.