/k/ whats better The Longsword or the Weaboo trash sword

>>31795181
it's a sharp stick. who cares.

that said katanas I found are cheaper. supply and demand probably.

Depends 100% on the person that's using it.

>>31795181
The longsword. Two edges yield more options in a fight, and it's monotempered, making the entire blade hard where as a katana has a soft spine to prevent it from shattering, but making it very prone to bending. Basically, the longsword is a bit more reliable.

>>31795873

Most katanas today are monosteel though. If you can afford a traditional katana you can afford a damn gun.

And in the hallways or doorways of your house, a shorter sword is better. I'd recommend a basket hilt arming sword.

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>>31795181
Different weapons developed for different battlefields using different production techniques that are both inferior to pike and shot.

However, the katana is a better cavalry sword and cavalry works well with pike and shot so +1 katana.

>>31795873
single edged weapons can be sharper or stronger without sacrificing weight (lack there of) or blade strength. Also you can get differently or mono tempered versions of both swords. The long sword would be better for stabbing. The katanas curve is to shallow make it cut better but might help with edge alignment.

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>>31795181
longsword. katana are metalurgically shit. the only thing thats superior about a katana is it's polish.

>>31795181
>>31795892
People really need to understand that on the battlefield the katana was a backup weapon, the main samurai weapons were the spear, halberd, bow and musket. It was only AFTER the sengoku jidai, in the relatively peaceful eras that followed and included such events as forbidding peasants to own weapons and the lack of large conscripted field armies, that swords and their use as dueling weapons came to the forefront.

>>31795888
>sword attacker slices off ur arm
>goes for another slice
>"It's ok I'll just chamber my rifle and shoot this guy."
gunfags baka

>>31795894
You're not wrong but you did miss the point. we talkin bout longswords and katanas.

>>31795903
>katana are metalurgically shit.
Dear HEMAtists, this is so wrong, it hurts, I'd recommend you to read Alan Williams "The Sword and the Crucible" to polish up your knowledge on historic ferro metallurgy.
Also, pretty much anything said in /k/ sword threads tends to be either complete buslhit, nonsense or commonplace, so I hope you don't make a fool out of yourself and repeat this rubish with your club mates.

>>31795920
>Dear HEMAtists, this is so wrong,
dear whatever, unlike you I know what'm talking about. not only have I studied JSMA too and have looked at actual artifacts, I'm also an industrial welder by trade.

So when does the katana backlash end? We've been doing this since 2010 or so, when the last wave of "best sword can cut through tanks" nerdy kids grew up.
Can't people just accept that differences between swords are minimal compared to any sword vs other melee weapons and that "better or worse" depends on context? Life isn't a videogame.

>>31795946
The katana backlash exists because it's a non-white weapon.
>two sharp swords
>the european one is better because asians are too dumb to make proper steel
This is literally all it boils down to.

>>31795963
>The katana backlash exists because it's a non-white weapon.
no it exists because for 30 years people have been spoting shit like europen armour weighed 100kg and they needed cranes to get on their horse and euro swords were dull and weighed 5+kg while at the same time jap swords were said to be able to cut through machine gun barrels. its simple action and reaction.

>>31795940
Yet still you shout easily falsifiable statements on a Tibetan woodcarving board.
For a long time, the steel for European and Japanese weapons was made pretty much the same way, they might differ in construction, but metallurgically there was not a big difference.
With the invention of the blast furnace the process in Europe changed, which lead to mono steel constructions, which is a good thing, but metallurgically one steel was not better than the other. Guess the only ones who could claim superiority where the Indo-Persians with their crucible steel, which was indeed superior.

>>31795903
Do you really train or did you just post someone else's picture?

>>31795181
both are ok but it depends who youre murdering to see where either will really shine

if the katana was truly terrible, no one would have used it.

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>>31795991
yes I train it. ask me your aswers.

>>31795963
>too dumb
more like too poor. chinese swords were fine. japan is just a barren shithole

>>31795998
>japan is just a barren shithole
yeah, nobody thinks about that. it really was barren and the average peasant poor as fuck. life was basically suffering.

>>31795997
Would you say I should strike the Schielhau trough the line of attack or with the line of attack? Also, how should I connect to the blade to have maximal impact?

Also, against a guy in right vom Tag, should I strike my Twerhau combo left high right low, or left low aright high?

Can you name examples of pre 11th century mono steel swords with low slag incursions, low phosphor and signs of full quench hardening?

Would you say that Meyer contains the classic Liechtenauer tradition or is he fully Marks?

Both are for chopping peasants and dueling and shit vs the armor either was likely to encounter in a battlefield.

The longsword would have an advantage in a duel. The katana may have an advantage in a drunken urban brawl

European metallurgy was better so if we are talking about historical pieces and not modern reproductions using modern steel the longsword would have an advantage in that regard too, but i tend to favor comparing designs based on ideal best possible materials since including relevant deficiencies in other regards dont really do justice to the ideal of the weapon.

>>31795997
Also, how did the Frankish process of purifying bloomery ferro-metal to steel differ from their japanese counterparts?

>>31796030
>European metallurgy was better
European metallurgy became more efficient, Europeans where able to produce bigger slabs of steel for less money.
It only became better in the 18th century after the English mastered the crucible process, until then the end product looked pretty much the same everywhere.

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>>31795997
>say he trains
>post Talhoffer

>>31796043
No. You could argue that im wrong to say the metallurgy was better i guess, but europe had better ore sources and so had higher quality steel more reliably.

>>31796073
>had better ore sources and so had higher quality steel more reliably.
You can find high end Magnetite or Hematite ores in Skandinavia and other places in Europe or shitty bog iron all over Europe. Europeans used them all. In japan you have less iron deposits, yet still you have some pretty good iron sands.
The thing isa,a it doesn't matter much, you will go trough an endless trial and error process of making suitable bloomery iron, this depends on your source of iron (is it low phosphor, does it contain mangan or vanadium etc.) your bloomery ( most clay's are not beneficial for ferro metallurgy) your fule sources, your wind (bellows etc,) construction and so on.
If all goes well, you end up with a dirty lump of ferro material which has never really melted, is full of slag, inhomogeneous in carbon content and generally useless.
You split this one into small peices, sort them to quality and purify them by hammering them out, welding them together and repeat. The more work you invest, the better the steel will get, you hammer out, burn off, and disperse impurities, homogenize the steel or iron and get a fine grain. a
This was done the exact same way on both ends of the world. If you do a shoddy work, you likely end up with slag incursions, shitty iron or shitty steel.

This only changes in the 11th century when Europeans start to use blast furnaces and water hammers, this process will not result in a significantly better end product, but it will be much more efficient, you need less coal, ore and time to produce more and bigger steel slabs. Also, this leads to different constitutions for all steel weapons.

>>31795873
it's a giant metal bar that you bash people with to kill them
effectiveness depends entirely on how you bash them

>>31795873
In fact the katana has a much more homogenous edge hardness, it's one of it's definite feature, whereas the typical european sword is "softer" as well as having various hardness along the edges (without that much of differences but still).

Besides, bending blade is a feature in a japanese sword, you can bend them back because they are made to be, it's a safety feature so that it doesn't break and be impossible to reuse. European swords are more springy so they works sorta the same but you don't have to do a field-bending. They'll break the same though.

>>31795983
But Nippon steel is shit quality. Their ores are just shit.

>>31796771
Well, guess what, you are wrong.

Surprisingly similar. I'm in a hema club and we had a kenjutsu group over the other week and compared the swords and techniques. Interestingly enough both the japs and europeans had come up with roughly the same ideas for fencing techniques. Some differences with footwork and the fact they don't parry with the edge because of the sword design.

The longsword has the advantage of being slightly longer and the cross is very helpful sometimes. But in sparring it all came down to the skill of the person using the weapon.

Katanas are great cutting weapons but the weebs were a bit surprised to learn that the longsword was also a good cutting weapon, because the blade is much thinner than the katana it could cut through tatami even if it doesn't have that crazy edge and curved blade.

>>31796771
Nippon steel was good quality after they folded it 9000 times over Mt Fuji to beat all the impurities out of it.

>>31796799
In case you speak Masterrace, I really recommend this for a read: http://www.schwertbruecken.de/pdf/staehle.pdf
Broad analysis of medieval European weapons metallurgy and comparison to Japanese techniques.

>>31795910
ohh yeah and I suppose he is going to teleport behind me to get in range to slice me with his glorious nippon steel folded over a thousand times
>this is what weebs actually believe
if it is an enclosed space use a smaller lighter gun
swords are worse than guns period
but hey I guess you can inform the greatest strategic minds on the planet of your bright ideas
fuck off here
>>>/a/

Isn't the Katana more comparable to the German Messer than to a longsword?

>>31798356
No, the messer is one handed so the techniques don't translate that well.

>>31795181
In today's world a rapier or smallsword is superior. Ain't nobody in armor and stabbing is better than cuts y'all.

>>31798484
There are two handed examples as well. But yes, having two hands on the handle is the main difference, and two handed European fencing looks rather similar to Japanese one. Body mechanics are universal.

>>31798499
>In today's world a rapier or smallsword is superior. Ain't nobody in armor and stabbing is better than cuts y'all.

Ain't nobody waiting for a rapierfag to get into their reach either. Enjoy getting shot.

OP gave me autism

the best yuropean swordsmen were eetalian
check out fiore dei liberi, he fought without armor and never lost a fight

>>31798575
Are you retarded on purpose? There were honor duels that were unarmored and they had their own separate treatises. Fiore, meyer and ringeck were all about those honor duels. Fighting with armor against an opponent with armor follows different rules altogether.

>>31798609
still the best swordsmen
check out fiore the liberi

>>31795181
It depends. If you're a complete and rank amateur, the katana will be a very forgiving sword. You need less edge alignment for it to either cut or stab through a target than a longsword.
Longswords are generally longer than katana, which makes for greater distance advantages, but mastery of distance for both longsword and katana needs experience.
Either way, they're pretty much a wash. Depends on what you want.

>>31795903
Anyone who claims this is a dumbass who has no knowledge of history and of historical metallurgical processes used for weapons (and other things) around the world.

>>31796030
I am not sure the longsword has a distinct advantage in duels against a katana. The katana's curvature actually has an advantage through parrying against straight swords and melee weapons. It's a reason why the guard is non-existent on a katana. It kinda doesn't need it.

Rapiers have a glaring advantage against both.

>>31798356
Yes sort of... it's somehow a longer than usual langes messer used like a longsword (because mainly a two-hander).

>>31798609
Fiore participated in battles right?

>>31798499
>smallsword
I have not heard of any HEMA practitioner that praised this thing.

>>31798575
>>31798632
>the best yuropean swordsmen were eetalian
You should check this guy yourself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Michel

>>31798654
he was in the battle of jerusalem and personally kild the saladin

>>31798632
Learning 3 italian words doesn't make you an expert of sword fighting. Ok 2 words because it's called Fiore dei liberai. Not the liberai

>>31798654
Unarmored honor duels, yes. I am trying to say that he was extremely skilled in that but you can't derive that italians were the best swordsmen in history from this.

>>31798677
You must not have look a lot, check Guy Windsor for instance.

>>31798575
Fiore fought without armor only five times in his whole life, and he said he would have rather preferred to fight three times in armour than a single one without it.
But still, he was the greatest badass of fencing history

>>31798683
check out hattory hanzou

>>31798575
>>31798609
>>31798632
>>31798694
Alright here we go again...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GoQlvc_H3s

Fiore is neat and all but there's no reason to call him the best swordsman ever, especially when we have men with at least 20 recorded duels under their belts, which is more than Fiore ever accounted for by himself.

>>31798677
It is surprisingly effective in its purpose, but other stuff is more fun to fence imho

>>31798654
yes he did in the civil war in Friuli (1381) at least

>>31798724
fiori was in the first crusades and killed the saladin

>>31795181

I don't know how to use either but I think the longsword would require less technique since it has blades on both sides. From what I've read Katanas are heavy as fuck so that's one more point for the longsword.

>>31798782
>blades on both sides.
double edged weapons require quite a bit of technique if you prefer to have an even number of ears and toes. And Katanas are not heavy, they are well balanced, due to blade geometry they are a bit heavier per inch than many European blades and having no counterweight means their point of gravity is a bit further down than you'd have on a European counterpart.

>>31798782
They are equally complicated really, besides having more edges means it would be more complicated actually, since there are more things to keep track off.
Katanas and longsword are more or less just as heavy as each other, katana tends to be slightly lighter since they are slightly shorter.

>>31798782
There are some false edge techniques but you need a lot of finesse to use them. Katanas are not heavy as fuck, the balance of a katana is further out than the longsword, but that's the same principle as sabres use. If you focus on hard cuts then you want the balance to be further out so that your blows are stronger. But striking harder means you open yourself up for counter attacks, so it's always a balance.

>>31796799

Nearly all weapon martial arts are extremely similar in the fundamentals. I wouldn't call it a coincidence as much as it being the inevitable conclusion.

And longsword blades varied considerably, so it's not always true that they were thinner (and thinness does not mean a better cutting edge). Many examples from the Renaissance were overly thin in order to compete with the trend towards rapiers.

>>31799010
>Nearly all weapon martial arts are extremely similar in the fundamentals. I wouldn't call it a coincidence as much as it being the inevitable conclusion.

There are good ways and bad ways to use a sword. People all around the world dicovered this independently of each other. I think that's pretty cool, especially if you study the specific techniques, guards and grappling.


>And longsword blades varied considerably, so it's not always true that they were thinner (and thinness does not mean a better cutting edge). Many examples from the Renaissance were overly thin in order to compete with the trend towards rapiers.

Gee here i thought i was talking about how certain swords were making cuts in tatami mats in practice and not a theoretical medium.

>>31795904
So was the European sword you tard

>>31795181
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVCaJdYZmCU
/thread

>implying you could stop me from killing you with the speed of my lightning fast katana.
>implying you could even unsheathe it in time.

>>31795894
>can be sharper
It's a myth that katanas are sharper than medieval European swords, there isn't really any difference. Katanas however tend to maintain their sharpness longer than European swords if used for cutting soft things. If it were to hit steel from time to time (as it happens fighting against armored opponents), katana edges are prone to crack or loose tiny bits every time, while European edges just bend microscopically, which can easily be realigned.

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>>31795997
dem magnificent raven's beaks though

>>31796125
European longswords/greatswords are relatively light and nimble, they normally weighed between 1.0 and 1.6 kg (2.2 to 3.5 lbs), that's nothing compared to a standard AR-15 with its 3.6 kg (8 lbs). They were in fact slightly lighter than katanas, whose blade was narrower, but much, much thicker at the back

So If you search for a bar of metal to hack/bash your opponents, go for the katana (it was mainly a cutting weapon after all). The European longsword could be used to cut, thrust, hit your enemies with the crossguard or the pummel, hook or grapple someone/something with the crossguard, and it had better hand protection.

Metallurgy-wise there wasn't much of a difference, the celts and saxons used to forge complex heterogenous blades for thousands of years, both swords have about the same sharpness, but I would still go for the European sword for versability

>>31795181
it's like comparing a musket to a rifle, the katana was developed around 800 and proceeded to never ever be updated, longswords more like 1200+

You gotta compare weapons that were the product of the same age.

>>31798636
>The katana's curvature actually has an advantage through parrying against straight swords and melee weapons. It's a reason why the guard is non-existent on a katana. It kinda doesn't need it.
wat. Pls enlighten me on how a curved blade is 'better' in parrying straight swords. Katanas had no handguard because they were rarely used for fencing against another katanas

>>31798860
despite being shorter the average katana actually was slightly heavier since they have a triangular cross section giving them a very thick back (about 1/2 inch), while European swords had a much thinner cross section.

katana: about 1.2 to 1.8 kg (2.65 to 3.95 lbs)
longsword: about 1.0 to 1.6 kg (2.2 to 3.5 lbs)

>>31795181
If you want a genuine answer.

Doesn't matter, any jackass who just picks up either one is gonna look pretty fuckin funny trying to use it, and if its something you actually practiced to use one could easily out do the other.

But in all reality, buy a gun.

>>31800536
>any jackass who just picks up either one is gonna look pretty fuckin funny trying to use it

totally right, though still better than watching someone trying to even draw a warbow with a drawweight > 120 pounds properly

>>31800446
Think about the curve of the blade.
Now think about how attacks made with swords go.
If you can't understand this simple geometric and physics point, you have neither studied both HEMA and kenjutsu and/or you have no knowledge of actual trained combat.

>>31795983
>>31796043
>>31796114
Metallurgical historian?
Sounds like it.

>>31795181
They're both the same shit. Rapiers shit on them both.

>>31801032
Not really, just interested layman and collector.

>>31800446
>Katanas had no handguard because they were rarely used for fencing against another katanas
This is a false myth. You do use katanas against other katanas. Another false myth is that you don't have edge on edge contact in katana vs katana fighting. It's combat. Edges do come in contact with each other. Yes, it's also taught in kenjutsu.

Buy a gun.

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>>31801488
Guns are for pussies.

>>31795181
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDkoj932YFo
depends on the situation but with modern day smiting technology it doesn't matter, fag katana is faster and sharper, long swords are stronger, more durable and multipurpose

>>31795181
but gladius are the best bladed weapons desu

>>31801557
this

>16+2000 Anno Domini
>not vsing a Spatha

>>31801557
>>31801572
Gladius is literally the pot metal Jimenez of the antique world. Get some ferrum norricum!

>>31795873

The katana was not made like a long sword. The point of the katana is to deflect with it...while deflecting with it, you use the momentum of your attacker swing, to move your sword at a faster speed, with out having to use more power to do so.

So deflect.
Strike.
Deflect.
Strike.
That is what it was designed for. In the end it was a last ditch weapon. Polearms, bow, etc is used long before a sword is used.

Plus in the end it's the person using the sword that matters. Samurai were only as good as they were, cause they dedicated pretty much their lives to their art.

Go try out Hema, you learn a lot from them. Shit, even the SCA teaches a lot about weapon fighting.