The Katana, while being the undisputed greatest type of sword ever made, is not the true engineering marvel in this situation. The true engineering marvel is in fact the scabbard made to hold a katana. The Katana was known about for centuries before it could be effectively used. This is because the Katana was so sharp that it would almost instantaneously cut through even the finest scabbards. It took many generations of Japan's finest armorsmiths to find a way to interweave fibers in a compact enough fashion to prevent a scabbard from instantly being sliced in twain when a Katana was sheathed. Armor stood almost no chance at all.
trololol. smoke more. then go buy a sword, any sword, with a composite sheath, or wooden sheath, and see that the blade's edge doesnt touch the sheath at any point.....neither in europe nor asia. The blade is held at the blunt side by sidepreasure, and at the hilt and tip by its close fit to the leatherembossed wood there.....
Asian armour could deflect most strikes from a katana by the 1700's. European armoured warriors of the previous centuries would have trolled the japanese VERY hard if they had ever entered into actual combat.
The thing to remember is that the katana is not lightweight and fast by choice, but simply because japan has NO steel in it. They had to make the smallest amount be useful, so super lightweiht weapons was the answer. Attemp to damage the armour of anyone in mail, mail and plate, and you will just break your katana. A fully plated warrior with no mailcoat beneath, would in theory, be vulnerable to the speed of the katana, if its user knew where the weakest joints in the plate were and could get at them unnoposed. Unlikely.
Europeans would have smashed the living shit out of Japan if they had fought in the middle ages, much as they did 600 years later in WW2. Sheer lack of materials stopped Japan being a superpower on more than one occasion.
And, as we all know, girls in thongs can made Katana's useless in seconds.....
