How often were these used on the actual battlefield? If you look

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its the same everywhere, spears are using dominantly. Samurai usually carried them with them to use as side arms or main arms in battle.

not all battles were fought by samurai

>>2549382
They were used as secondary weapons during battles and for duels. Spear and pike bearing ashigaru did most of the fighting.

Principally it was a side arm, worn by people for personal defense on or off the battlefield. In pitched battle bows or spears are generally more useful, but in some cases, like a close melee, you draw swords. So anyone who could lay hands on a sword would carry one, not just samurai. You didn't want to be caught in a bloody melee and not have a sword.

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>>2549382
The amount swords--the dominate battlefield swords were tachi and nodachi, not katana-- were used varies pretty widely based on the era. the highest numbers go from 25% of wounds in the early medieval period, to only 3% to 7% in the late sengoku. in both these cases most of the wounds were from projectiles, overwhelmingly. Spears only have numbers like 21% and 17% of wounds themselves

>>2549476
Somethings on that statistic the 25% may or may not include naginata (written with the kanji for "long sword" in early documents) the 7% is cutting wounds which would probably also include naginata, though by the time those statistics were compiled the naginata was the weapon of individual high ranked men who preferred it, not rank and file

>>2549435
This, the idea of the katana being a specifically samurai weapon only comes about after the sengoku period, when sword ownership became increasingly restricted to employed samurai, with other sword privileges being handed out only as necessary.

>>2549476
So, generally, when it came to using swords or other slashing blades in battles, in the sengoku period, tachi and naginata where far more widely used?

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>>2549529
well more widely used that katana.

One caveat though, the cheap mass produced swords used by foot soldiers were generally worn and mounted as katana. As time went on more samurai who were fighting on foot started using them too because they were quicker to draw than the tachi

>>2549476
where could i find these statistics? can I assume similar ones exist for different regions/time periods?

>>2549549
most of them are from Thomas Conlans work

>>2549553
Actually I think the ones I used were from "off the warpath" by Karl friday

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>>2549382
They were fairly commonly used. You need to keep in mind that they were secondary weapons, i.e. people wouldn't use them if they didn't have to, but situations where they would have to be used were fairly common. It also depended on the time period of course, so the earlier horse archery centric warfare saw less use than the later type of warfare which centred around infantry formations.

>>2549513
Wearing the two swords was resitricted to samurai and a few other privileged positions (doctors for instance were allowed two swords) but many groups had the right to where a single sword, or a short sword.

And even the restrictions didn't stop peasants from training in swordsmanship, and by the end of the edo period many people wearing swords were not legally entitled to

>>2549476
The uchigatana was a thing though, and basically the straight predecessor to the katana so...

>>2549541
>>2549529
>>2549476
The tachi and the katana/uchigatana are basically the same thing though (practically wise). Tachi are a couple of inches longer in general, but they aren't different sort of weapon like say, the naginata and the tachi are.

Footmen typically carried the uchigatana in the Sengoku-era whereas the tachi was mostly used in the Kamakura period. The thing is, as time went on, infantry action grew more and more important and therefore, infantry weapons (shorter blades and bows, spears) took precedence over cavalry weapons (large yumi, tachi).

>>2552130
Tachi varied, early tachi were often very long, and battlefield swords in general tended to be on the longer side.

The tachi was still common with bushi through the sengoku, though in civilian clothes they often wore their swords unchigatana style.

>>2549382
Katana is meme

Spear is truly weapon

>>2552393
>battlefield swords in general tended to be on the longer side.
Not always, Otake Risuke said that some bushi preferred to have shorter blades, from the Bizen area for instance (which was famed for its smiths). The mentality was that, since the sword is some sort of emergency weapon that you may have to wield with one hand quickly, it was better to have a shorter one. Also, it helps with grappling to have a shorter blade and thus a compromise between the kodachi and the tachi (alongside some sort of wrestling dagger).
Also, armor has a way to reduce the range advantage so that a shorter blade isn't that big of a drawback compare to unarmored fencing.

you don't want to be in close quarters combat without one. battles tended to lead that way after some point

>>2552550
they fought in spear walls. Even if it became close quarters you'd still use your spear until it broke or you lost it.

>>2552543
>Not always, Otake Risuke said that some bushi preferred to have shorter blades,

Otake says that, but the noda branch of his own style vehemently disagreed with him, insisting that the move to shorter weapons was part of the trend towards suhada kenpo (unarmored swordsmanship) They also argue that TSKSR originally emphasized heavy weapons like the naginata, spear and the now lost nagimaki

>>2552644
Otake was a sword curator though, the blades he was talking about dated from the Onin war. I mean, not to say that he can't be wrong or anything but people in Japan had different opinions over martial matters. That war blades tended to be longer is certainly true, that doesn't mean that some schools, and those of the Bizen era are known for that, didn't looked into shorter blades. One doesn't necessarily exclude the other, it's a big country with heavy regional differencies.

>>2552896
That's fair, though I will say some of what Otake wrote about the evolution of Japanese warfare disagrees with some of the more prominent western historians on the same subject, so I sometimes question how much his ryuha colors his public statements on history.

A shorter sword does have some advantages as a sidearm I will grant you: quicker to draw, and better for closed quarters.

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>>2549382
>paintings of Japanese battles
>very few swords
Are you blind? Do you not know what swords look like? Just curious.

>>2549382
Of course. It was difficult convincing the Japanese in WWII that the machine gun was the superior weapon. They eventually got the message.