That is COOL! I would LOVE to see Medieval/fantasy movies that used that combat. THAT'S what I call a struggle!
You're half right, sort of. There are manuals for chivalry that require the knights to keep their sword sharp enough to split a hair. There's nothing special about the sharpness of a katana, other then their brittle steel makeup. In the cases where people were fighting in full armor, the majority of what they are doing is trying to keep their swords out of the way. You cut leather with a sharp little knife, so I doubt you've ever suspended the leather in the air and swung a sharp sword at it. You might be very surprised at how easy it is to cut through when it's 5 pounds of steel swung in and arc. But lets rewind a little bit. Full armor is very expensive now and was much more expensive then. Most of the people you'd be fighting in the pitched battle you are envisioning would have been wearing no plate, and only a tiny bit of mail over leather. When that's the case, finding an easy place to stab them is not very difficult. The difficulty is getting them to stand still while you do it. But the majority of sword duels weren't fought in any armor at all. Since the middle 1300s the vast majority would have been duels between individuals, where the armor allowed was agreed upon before hand, and usually consisted of a thin gambeson.
I think you are missing the point, katanas were sharp because the typical Japanese armor was leather and could be cut through with the correct blade. Such a blade would be useless against the heavier chain mail and plate armor of the Europeans. Using your example of hanging a piece of leather and swinging a sharp sword at it. A katana would slice through a lot easier not only because of the sharper blade but because of the shape, the curve of the blade would focus the impact on a smaller area while with a straight blade it would be spread out. It is not unlike getting an old razor blade before they were disposable and standing it on its edge over a bowl of water, it would sink but lay it on its side and it would float. Whether it is a sharp little knife or a 5 pound sword, it still requires a sufficient edge to cut the leather. Using the Abingdon sword as an example, the blade is too thick and to little taper for it to achieve a finely honed edge. The reason being is that no matter how few people were able to afford metal armor there were still people wearing it on the battlefield and they needed to be dealt with as much as anyone else. The weight of the sword acted as a means to break bones, dent armor and dislodge riders from horses. In both the cases of the katana and the European swords, they were the most effective weapons against the types of armor that they would face on the battlefield.
No, you're missing the point. After the 15th century there are no knights in armor. The battles are fought by infantry and archers. The crossbow was lethal to a man in plate armor at 50 yards. The longbow was lethal at 100. Full armor was used to tilt and show off, and that's about the end of it. The swords before then were used to kill infantry, not fight another knight. Here's a sword fight between two men in full armor You'll notice it has more in common with the WWF then it does with Prince Valient. No one is trying to pierce armor with the sword, everyone is trying to be the last guy standing up. But that really doesn't matter, because outside of tournaments this fight doesn't exist, even a hundred years before the Renaissance. What does exist is street fights, skirmishes, duels, and general funtime stabbings. The upper class of the 1500s all carried swords and weren't the slightest bit hesitant about using them on one another. That's the period of invention you're talking about. (the claymore you mention wasn't in use until after 1500.) At that point in history heavy armor, and even chain mail, were on the way out, as they couldn't withstand a bowman. And it's worth mentioning that, not only did the Japanese have chainmail, they had some of the most complex and elaborate mail of the time.
You are talking about a period where yes, armor was used largely for ceremonial purposes and its use in warfare declined. The reasons for this was twofold. 1) The success of the English archers with their longbows at the battles of Crecy and Agincourt had a devastating effect on the armored French nobility. 2) Crecy was also one of the first battles to see the use of cannons, the use of firearms changed the tactics of battle forever. I am not doubting that the Japanese had chainmail, that ignores that I said that the typical Japanese armor was leather. As Japan had no iron ore deposits of its own, the chainmail was rarely seen. Chainmail has been dated as far back as the 4th century so to only discuss history since 1500 is overlooking a thousands years of use. It was all a case of evolution, weapons changed to achieve the best effect against the armor in use, the armor changed depending on the weapons used. Archers existed prior to Crecy (Harold at the Battle of Hastings) where they were part of the infantry. All this is beside the point, the European swords were used as much for bludgeoning as they were slashing, the katanas were a slashing weapon.
An interesting video on practical combat archery https://digg.com/video/the-modern-archer-who-can-fire-three-arrows-in-0-6-seconds
When talking about plate armour, something to note is that there were two kinds of plate made. Cheaper wrought iron plate, which was easier to beat into shape, and steel plate which was very hard to work and thus extremely expensive. Test have shown that arrows can penetrate wrought iron armour quite well, but have a harder time penetrating steel armour. Records of battles like Crecy and Agincourt reveal that the leading ranks of knights, the most noble and well equipped were largely unharmed by the arrows but unfortunately for them, the same could not be said for their horses. Many of the finest French knights were drowned in the mud when they were trampled by their own riders coming up behind them.
Oh My God that was cool! I could NEVER sell what's presented here in a novel, nor could ANY author (due to reader's lack of willing suspension of disbelief, even though it's REAL), but that is COOL!
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how well modern bullet proof vest material would do if shot by an arrow? Might be useful if a person wrote a time travel book such as Timeline.
Emergency workers and Corrections officers wear them, although I know of a MAX security prison that got sued because of them. An inmate said that because the guards wore stab proof vest it made him feel like they didn't trust him.
Vests of any kind tend to fair poorly against broadhead arrows, though not useless. Going back to leather armour, boiled leather or rawhide is very tough when correctly treated and was not easy to cut. Think of a leather shoe sole. Yes you could slice it with a small very sharp knife and holding the piece of leather, but not so easily with a large sword sized blade and against a moving opponent. Lamellar armour world wide was much more common than steel plate so by inference it must have worked well enough. In addition small metal plates were often added to make cutting harder. Also the Samurai rarely used the Katana as their primary weapon on the battlefield because it didn't penetrate the armour of the day. Wounds were mostly to the face, neck, armpits, and other gaps in the armour. Even paper and linen armour has been proven to work against swords. Yes you would need to repair or replace it after combat, but it is comparatively cheap and does not need the (then) high technology steel which had to be hand forged piece by piece.
Well, it depends on the situation. Since bows don't have a full-auto function, I'd imagine the good archers aimed even in those situations. Here's why: check out some IPSC shooters, the world champions. See how insanely fast they are? No, they're not spraying randomly, they aim each shot. That's how fast and accurate their hand-eye coordination has become thanks to diligent training. Since their shots/second is probably faster than that of archers, and since they can still aim their shots, I'd imagine the archers could also train their hand-eye coordination to be fast and accurate enough that they can actually aim each shot. Aiming does not = taking several seconds to aim. I did say: That applies whether there's three guys you're trying to keep down or three hundred: you spray at them to disperse them/force them to take cover etc. If you want as many kills as possible, you take aimed shots. After all, there are plenty of incidents where folks have wasted an entire magazine spraying at their intended targets without scoring any hits/any lethal hits. That's 30 rounds and several seconds wasted. Even short bursts are better than just squeezing the trigger until the weapon runs dry. Of course, if you have a mounted machine gun, you can do more damage even just spraying at the enemy since mounted firearms offer much more stability, even worse than perfect hits do a lot of damage due to larger calibers and velocities etc, but when we're talking about weapons such as the M4, P90, AKs etc, the common consensus is to spray when you want to disperse the enemy/make them take cover, and to use single shots when you want kills. But, again, that's just the way I've understood it from discussions with people who know far, far more than I do, so don't take my word for it, but talk to the pros and then decide which would be the best course to take. Hell, might be that I'm totally in the wrong about archery, so it might be a good idea to find experienced archers to consult for the Ultimate Truth. I've been told swords weren't sharpened to a razor edge because the sharper it is, the easier it is to nick the blade with blade-to-blade collisions. But that's just what I've heard, not what I know, so I might be wrong.
You're sort of right. There's a thing called "edge to edge contact" and it's a very stupid thing to do. When parrying a blade any martial training relies on blocking the blade with the flat of the sword. They do this for two reasons. The first is that any well made sword will flex along the flat axis. Obviously it can't flex over the edge axis, so parrying with the edge is a great way to just snap the blade straight the fuck in half. And even if that weren't an issue, yes it would be murder on the blade's edge. There are modern blades, made with industrial steel and power hammers that will hold their edge after stabbing through a car door, and you can fight edge to edge with those. But you'd be very surprised at just how easy it is to start parrying with the flat. But again I'd like to stress that the majority of these sword fights you've come to expect from the TV are between the urban upper class either in duels or street fights. That's where manuals on martial fighting originate, and schools of sword fighting are born. Up until that time sword fighting was much more akin to a wrestling match, with little or no contact in between blades.
Is it a real concern that it might happen by accident or when fighting a hack? I'm wondering 'cause, as you put it, a real sword vs. sword fight probably won't have that much blocking and parrying to begin with, so would the benefit of a not-quite-razor-sharp blade's increased durability be worth the somewhat decreased cutting ability? I'd imagine the slightly duller blade would be a safer option against plate mail...
Well lets look at some modern examples. We have razor-sharp blades now, they're called razors. But the actual blade part is less then a millimeter thick on its dull side. And we make them disposable because they dull and break easily. We don't use them, for example, to carve a turkey or cut a tomato, we have kitchen knives for that. And kitchen-knife-sharp is a bit much to expect from a sword. Yes, that includes the sacred katana. When it comes to fighting a hack who is trying to parry on the blade you're much more likely to break his sword then your own. Here's a mythbusters explaining it. But your sword is going to have a monster nick in it, one that will cause permanent damage to the blade. In the case of a katana it's going to be much worse then a western sword, I've seen that damage that a nail can do to one of those. The steel in a katana is very brittle. You'll see in the video that cutting a sword in half has ruined the blade. On the other hand the guy who's sword you broke is dead now, so you get to loot his corpse for money for a new sword.
In no case (except by accident) do trained fighters slam swords together. Blocks and parries are designed to re-direct and not stop dead, so sharpness is not a weakness. Blade to blade contact was common, but in a bind (sword held against sword) there was actually little pressure applied unlike in the cinema. Each fighter was trying to feel the other's intention and plan and attack or counter, not bull his way past the other sword. Most sword edges were useless against armour or any significance or type. You attacked the gaps in the armour with the point or smashed the armour with a mace or war hammer. Swords did not cut through riveted chain-mail. Sometimes, with inferior armour, the point of a sharp stiff blade could penetrate. In melee combat swords were usually the weapon of last resort against armoured opponents. However, it should be kept in mind that the majority of the enemy army were not armoured to the degree of the knights, so the sword would be effective against them.
Maybe in some fencing school? I wouldn't know. But the heavy sword combat I've learned is all about forcing the other guys blade. There's very little anticipation, tons of reaction. Remember that in most sword fights there are no rules, and ingenuity kills. If "little pressure" is applied, the first guy to force a blade gets to win. Fiore et al were very cognizant of that, and most of their techniques involved locking blades, closing fast, and killing your opponent before he knew what hit him. Every time you watch a tv sword fight and the fighters lock blades you'll laugh when you know that the best thing to do in that situation is to punch your opponent strait in the fucking face.
Since we're talking about swords, a trope I find tired is opponents exchanging witty insults and taunts while sword-fighting. Just kill the guy already.
Yup. I've seen a 7.62 round go through a tree. A car door does nothing to a high caliber round. It might stop or slow a low powered .22
Just saying, swords can be successful against full plate, if they are used in a particular fashion. Every single kind of armor has a weak point, and if a sword is heavy enough, and hardy enough, it could break a piece of armor where it is vulnerable. Perhaps at the elbow, or the neck. Well, the neck could be protected by a gorget, but enough blows with a sword would crush it if it's thin enough. Now, there's no guarantee that you'll kill the bastard, but you could make his elbow sore. For full plate, you would need a warhammer, or something like a halberd to open him up. Or, damn, what was that weapon called? The mix between a hammer and an axe. A maul?
You are right, two hand swords, as an example, were designed to break bones, not pierce armour. If you hit a fully armoured fellah in the arm with one, he might not bleed, but he will have a broken arm.
