there was soo many threads about katana, there is soo much information in internet, there is human brain that alow evryone think and work check information by our self and they still bring out that katana uberawesome shit.
Longsword and HBS are designed foe piercing armor,
I will not tell you what stab is itself in RL sword combat because my englisch iw way to pure.
Katana suck at stabs.
What Bob wrote was:
Despite all the information available in this day and age about the relative hardness and brittleness of european and japanese steel, the different fighting styles and the different design aims of the japanese katana vs the european longsword, people quite capable of using their brain choose not to, and put forward this warped hollywood view of the katana.
The european longsword (and therefor the bastard sword, a very similar sword in all but name) was designed for a fighting style that involved stabbing and piercing armour, and almost bludgeoning with the blade, since a fairly unsharpened blade can still easily cut flesh but is less likely to warp and break when colliding with metal armour. Their PRIMARY focus when designing the longsword was the stab, since it is very fast, hard to parry, and is very effective against armour. The european steel used in both the armour and weapons WAS superior to Japanese steel of the time: this is not some ethnocentric remark, and does not reflect badly on the Japanese, it is simply they had poorer natural materials at hand.
The katana was, unlike the longsword (or bastard), was sharpened as much as possible, because the aim of the katana is the drawing slice: if you are swinging a longsword, it is best to swing it in an arc, but the katana you pull towards you as you swing, so it does not just cut, it slices. They honed the point of their katana because it can be useful to be able to stab an opponent, but the shape of the blade, the folding and forge welding of steel they used and their fighting style were ALL unsuitable for stabbing to be a primary concern.
It is worth bearing in mind that many men at arms and knights of europe would view a well made longsword as their primary weapon, with a dagger as a sidearm, and a buckler for catching speartips prior to rushing down the shaft and killing the spearman.
Not so with the japanese: the katana and tanto were both sidearms, and while of course many amazingly skilled swordsmen excisted and practised their art, once on a battlefield the vast majority would rely on: horse archery, the Nodachi (horse sword) and Naginata (a glaive or hafted blade), and the spear: Sure on horseback both european and japanese nobles would rely on a polearm, but samurai were horse archers very often, since horse archery IRL is very OP and they didnt gain their priviledged position in society by ASKING for it.
So: Longsword, great weapon
Katana: a badge of rank worn by nobles, but in combat a last ditch weapon.
Can we now please stop romatisizing that katana is so great. Its just a pretty average sabre, admitedly cosmetically apealling.
