If the katana were being swung full on, that doesn't make sense. Stabbing, though, it does make sense.

I thought that four or five was supposed to be exceptional worksmanship...

~J

Yeah but then you Dikote it, and your looking at 10 or 15!

True katanas were waterfolded about 10,000 times, making them nearly mono-molecular. 10 was the usual quota for a Samurai of high standing. One of those in SR terms would deal about (Str+3)S and take 1/2 of the Impact rating. It would also cost about 100,000 for the real deal. If you dikoted that, it wouldn't take it up a damage level, as you just killed the near mono-molecular edge.

tanka, your information about katana manufacture is woefully historically incorrect, but typical.

I'll let someone with more time on their hands than I have at work set you straight.

Anyone?

Actually, it isn't incorrect. I did quite a few studies on it. Most of the books I read said the same as I. Those that didn't were filled with many other innacuracies, so I threw them out the proverbial window.

Ok, here's the thing. Katanas are designed to cut through flesh, not metal. Fanboy or not, this much is very well recognized; the folding causes micro serrations in the blade edge, increasing the surface area and allowing it to do more cutting damage. Which is fine and dandy if you're cutting through something soft.

When you're going after something hard yet flexible, like metal, you need to puncture it as opposed to cutting it. Puncturing damage depends on how concentrated the force is-- the smaller the surface area, the better your chances of puncturing an object is.

But back to topic-- again, you can use the called shot rules. According to the BBB, the GM can then decide to alter the damage threshold required to harm a vehicle. You can rule that certain types of Stun damage can hurt specific parts of a car.

Katana are made of steel. Extremely high-quality steel, but still steel. If they were "nearly mono-molecular", the edge would destroy itself the first time it hit bone.

~J

The sheathe contained a whetstone along the edge to remove anything extra, and it also had to be carried "upside-down" to keep the blade from dropping straight through the sheathe, and any fingers on the sheathe.

Katana(the high quality ones...ie non trinkets, but battle worthy blades) are actually some of the highest tempered steel in the world. Many of the blades were tempered 1000 or more times, making the baldes stonger than any steel in production today, and better than any european weapon at the time, and modern weapons now. True Katana could slice through my 1965 Ford Mustand(steel body, not modern aluminium or plastic, or futuristic lower qaulity high production crap...) like a chainsaw thru cheesecake IN THE RIGHT HANDS. If you hit them imporperly the blade could very easily snap...but if you know what you are doing...my car is gone.

I know this sounds very cheap and like a cop-out, but I lost them a couple of reformats back. WinXP fragged me over by making me lose them.

They were basically just portions of real books scanned in as a .jpg. Sadly, as I said, WinXP killed them off because it randomly linked a never used program to the Documents and Settings folder. I uninstalled the program and they all went away.

I'll take you at your word that you had the sources (just a statement, not implying that I'm doing you a favour by doing so ), but that leaves me with my previous opinion: that your sources didn't know what they were talking about.

~J

I know that I can't disprove or prove my statement without the images that I scanned, so I won't try.

However, yes, bludgeoning with an edged weapon does little to nothing against a vehicle. Thrusting, however, will usually go straight through today's cars. Anything unarmored in 2063 probably has less of a barrier rating than cars today do.

What do you mean by "straight through"? The hood, roof, etc. tends not to be particularly sturdy on many cars, while punching through the engine block seems a bit less likely. Though I suppose there are all sorts of exposed hoses.

~J

And here I was thinking that a True Katana ™ had to slice right through a fire hydrant or a car engine block. I always wondered how the weaponsmiths got a hold of fire hydrants and car engine blocks back in middle age Japan.

Perhaps some filthy rich fanboy ought to buy himself a few dozen ancient katanas and then hire some "modern samurai" to break 'em all on a car engine block. Or a fire hydrant. Or simply an inch radius steel rod.

Also, funny how them middle age smiths were capable of making swords that are sharper than 2060s monoswords (S+3 S vs S+3 M), and that beat 2060s Dikoted katanas penetration-wise (S+3 ½ armor vs S+4 full armor). Not that I'm doubting you at all, tanka...

[Counting the seconds 'til someone goes off on a huge katana-rant...]

I mean through what everybody says will withstand a sledgehammer, like the hood. That will, thusly, have a good chance of hitting the block or anything else that is needed for running the car.

According to bujinathensacademy web, the most you ever folded a katana was 30 times.

I'm not sure if it's accurate to say that the curved shape is a coincidence. Katana have wonderful aerodynamic properties as a result of their curve, and I've heard it said that curved blades flat-out cut better than straight blades, so if it's just a side effect of the manufacturing it's a remarkably fortuitous side effect.

~J

Theres more, I just figured I would keep it short and not rant too much. They kept the blades curved at first (if you read the websites you learn this) because the backside could be reinforced. Since they were only for calvary this was a good thing. But as the sword filtered down they kept it curved cause that was the way they liked them, not because it was particulary better.

A lot of people talk about Katana's like they were magic. I would put a german broadsword, or 16th century english sword made from damascus steel up against anything Japan produced. Assuming equal skill, the english blade would win.

The thing they had that made them better was their training. All Samurai were martial artists. They were professional warriors. Thats all they ever did. Few countries produced that kind of mentality in a class. They worked at their craft 18 hours a day. You never here about english foot soldiers doing that.

That's because English foot soldiers were conscripts.

You saw equal dedication in the knightly class.

That seems an accurate observation. I've seen similarly made straight blades -- that is, created by the multiple foldings of the steel, which if I'm not mistaken you can tell by the tiny wavy lines on the flat of the blade -- that had no curve. And cavalry and naval sabers, which at least in the West usually aren't made by the folding method, also have blades which curve similarly to the katana.

I could only find this on the old forums. Either the Search function there is still a bit odd, or most of the funnier rants are just well hidden.

So... How 'bout them stun rounds versus vehicles?

By the by, I stand by what I said. However, it isn't the topic at hand, and it's hardly related to Shadowrun. Best we close up this portion before an admin comes and locks it up.

I'd personally defend all of that as Shadowrun-related, for exactly the reason it came up. Someone made an assertion about the abilities of a weapon in showing that another weapon should have its abilities altered, and another person challenged that first assertion. That argument must be resolved to continue or end that particular line of argument.

~J

I understand you standing by what You said Tanka, and I don't want you to feel I was personally attacking you. One of my pet peeves is the myth that the "Samurai" sword is all powerful, when in fact it wasn't. My aim was to spread some educational-love and enlighten a few souls.

Truth be told I think they look cool as hell. My favorite tv show right now is

Samurai Jack.

Him and his magic sword so rock.

Stun rounds vs Vehicles was pretty much wrapped up by Hero:
"I say use common sense, and common sense says gel rounds wont do much besides break glass, dent, and rip off curtain exterior attachments (mirrors, and antenna if lucky). A gel round could probably puncher the radiator, but the gel round has to be either a luck hit or aimed at that location, but either way the gel round wont do much other then that."

And just to break the windshield, the gel round would have to be fired from a seriously powerful rifle at a good angle -- just firing it at the car straight from the front just might cause windshield to crack, but it wouldn't break through. From a pistol, gel rounds would be limited to breaking off the mentioned antennae and possibly mirrors, because I refuse to believe that a pistol gel round would break something as thick as a car window.

And canon supports this, as has been mentioned. By canon, Stun attacks would never cause any Damage to a vehicle.

I know it wasn't a personal attack, and that katanas are not all powerful. However, IMO, they are better than most other swords.

But small ones can suffer from knockback, right?

The katana vs. the sledgehammer. There are two cases:

Katana is used to stab. Katana is better at damaging a vehicle than the sledgehammer (particularly if it is stabbed into the engine compartment or anything with a fuel purpose).

Katana is used to hack. Sledgehammer wins. I'd wager to say (without going out and trying it) that a sledgehammer blow will be more dangerous to a vehicle (which is inside a metal or plastic shell) than a slash from a sword. There's simply a better ratio of force to area with the hammer (which probably has more force in the first place).

This is a simple matter, and I cannot believe you have been arguing for 8 pages about it.

Vehicles do not take stun damage. Stun damage done to a vehicle is not taken by the vehicle. This isn't open to syntax arguement. If you think it is, you're trying to be clever, but it's not working out terribly well for you.

There is a book-written way for a stun weapon to damage a vehicle. An attacker can declare to be attempting physical damage with a stun weapon (this is apart from the vicious blow manuvuer) and the attack is carried out as normal, but the power is halved. Additionally, since it is not an anti-vehicluar weapon, the damage code of the attack is reduced by one. Unfortunately for some, this only applies to melee weapons. Gel rounds cannot be made to inflict physcial damage by the attacking character, thus they cannot hurt a vehicle outside of a GM ruling (shooting at a window for instance, a situation where a character makes a called shot to target a subtarget and the GM applies a special effect).

So technically, by canon, yes, club-master Bob can indeed destroy a family sedan with a few wacks of his baseball bat which is a shame, but there you go. At least average Joe won't be able to do it, and gunmaster Frank is just out of luck.

Unrelated to this thread, katana were carried so the edge pointed the ground for two reasons. First, if it was carried the other way, when drawn the blade would be pointing at whoever was in front of you, thus turning the blade up was considered the ready position and you generally wouldn't want to walk around like that. Secondly, and more important, it was turned down to prevent the edge from touching the sheath along the length and jostling while walking, riding, etc, thus dulling it.

Rask: Can you provide the page number saying where a Physical instead of Stun is done at half power? I know it's in FoF, but that's 2nd, and thus is not Canon any longer.

found one place that sells what appears to be quality katanas here check it out if ya want

As a jeweler by trade I have some passing familiarity with pattern-welded metal, although I've worked considerably more with Mokume Gane (Folded Precious Metal) than Damascus or Toledo Steel.

My family has a genuine Japenese Katana which my grandfather took off an officer during WW2 after shooting him (What can I say? Looting the bodies is a time honored tradition in most militaries). While it may or may not be on par with "magical" weapons, it most definetly cannot chop through an engine block or even a piece of rebar. I've tried.

Incidentally a few commentaries about the folding, folding too many times will actively screw up your metal, with each folding you lose some carbon into the air and your steel grows less rich. Japanese steel started with insanely high carbon levels in the 3-4% area and grew less rich with each folding until they reached a reasonable level towards the end, which was typically 10-20 folds. If you folded a sword 10,000 times you'd either have to start out folding near-pure graphite with some slight iron impurities (Which would, as mentioned, be the size of a house) or else wind up with pure iron which would be so soft from overworking Average Joe could bend it into a pretzel with his bare hands.

Lastly you cannot cheat mother nature. Katanas keep their edge wonderfully because their steel is rich with carbon and thus harder than other steels. This makes them snap rather easily. Katanas are great at cutting flesh due to the curve of the blade and micro-serration (Although even that is only possible in ladder-pattern welded steel, just any damascus doesn't do that.). This makes Katanas utterly suck against any kind of serious armor. Everything in sword making is a trade-off, make it great at one thing and you give up something else.

Hard on the edge, soft in the core. It's amazing work, but far from supernatural. I do believe they still haven't figured out exactly what impurities give the slightly bluish sheen on old katana, though.

~J

Edit: and some swordsmiths can do insane things like tell the carbon content of metal to within about .1% just by looking at it. That's the crazy part, not the sword itself.

Wow... What did I start? Now, after seeing a demo where someone peirced a sheet of 3/16" alum. sheathing with a wakasachi with what looked like very little effort, I MAY be convinced that a sword will do more effective damage to a car then a sledge hammer.
However, this was suposed to be stun vs vehicles, not the melee vs vehicles that Im adressing. Synopsys, stun should be able to hurt non-armored cars. But not much, and not without a pretty outstanding shot. Melee wepons, should be able to hurt non-armored cars, but again, not much.
But rember, 10 guys doing light damage can trash stuff.

Well put Moonstone Spider, I hope this stems all those Katana myths and what not. I believed some of those myths, but after reading that, I think I just threw those out the proverbial window.