"Such happy people…"

~J

I'd like to add that swords, no matter the nationality, could not cut metal armor. That's an important note.

That's odd. My friends at the SCA are always coming back having to patch their chainmail. Historic chain also shows signs of patching after being cut open.

Some plate, sure. Hell, in japan they even made bullet-proof steel breastplates.

I don't remember my sources, but I did read this. So much for establishing credibility....

Damascus style swords were made from separate pieces of metal that were heated, hammered, and twisted, then hammered again- not "folded." The twisting is where the patterns in the blade came from.

Although the armor worn by daimyo could stop arrows, the bullet stopping breast plates (I think) you're referring were imported from Europe. It had a name that translated to something like "armor of the southern barbarians." "Southern" because they traded at Kyushu. At some point they might have fabricated a local bullet-proof "vest," but they didn't originally.

If Lone Wolf and Cub can be considered credible, isn't Ogami Itto's dotanuki translate to "the sword that cuts through torsos" or something similar? I never heard or read anything about armored soldiers getting cut in half, but I'm not as knowledgeable about history as other posters are (seem to be).

I've seen pictures (read: woodcut prints) of samurai with large two-hand swords fighting, but I don't know if the pictures are being stylized, so I can't use that to say that no-dachi were used in one-on-one combat on foot with any regularity, but the imagery from the period shows big swords.

As a note... I think he meant swords cannot cut through plate metal. Chainmail is a whole other story... your basic axe or sword will slice through it with surprising effectiveness.

JaronK

I should have said plate instead of metal. Whoops. Anyway, the reason maile needs to be replaced is usually breakages in the linkages, not the rings themselves.

I was just tired of some people saying that a katana can cut through machine gun barrels. I'd suggest actually trying that. It'd be a rude awakening.

Horse crap! I'll bring the sword you bring the plate. A heavy sword will easily punture any plate you could wear and still move in. You just have to get the angle correct and enought energy behind the thrust. In combat that is not alway easy but in principal the sword can alway be made harder and tuffer than the armor.

mcb

I would refer you to the great "Katana vs other swords" debate over at the NWN forums that seems to resurface every few weeks or so (though the last one was quite some time ago, it is almost as regular as certain topics seem to resurface in this forum).

Obviously a sword can get into the weak points in armour if your opponent is standing still. However, it's very difficult to do... you may be able to bash in the side of platemail, but it's not easy, and a good opponent makes it much harder. You absolutely will NOT be able to cut through armour with a slashing cut, and it's pretty darn hard to pierce it straight on too, almost impossible with decent platemail.

In combat, most knights used their swords like overglorified clubs when fighting against other armoured knights... you'd knock your opponent down and then finish them off with a thin dagger.

JaronK

It's really hard, though not impossible, to cut through plate with any sword short of a claymore or the like. The katana is actually really bad at it... the long drawcuts it's designed for are brutal against exposed flesh or soft armor, but tend to skate off steel. Western swords early on were broad-bladed cut-and-thrust weapons that had the mass and forward balance to shear through mail, and inflict significant blunt trauma through it if they failed to do so. As plate armor became more common, though, the swords that were intended to be used against it evolved to either huge two-handers that accomplished the job through brute force, or narrow, stiletto-pointed hand-and-a-half weapons that could still be used for cutting against lightly armored opponents, but were primarily designed for a two-handed thrust that could puncture plate (which katanas are also really bad at... they can be used for thrusting, but the curved blade puts the primary application of force out of line with the point, which, again, tends to make it skate off plate).

And, of course, mass weapons - axes, maces, warhammers, flails, and the like - which could defeat any armor were always popular. And spears, which have been the primary weapon of pretty much every military everywhere in every time from prehistory to the American Civil War or so, can punch through plate with relative ease.

Most SCA mail (including mine) is butted... the rings are simply bent closed, and rely on nothing more than the stiffness of the metal to keep them closed. Butted mail comes apart in combat, even against the simple rattan sticks that we use (insert rant about rattan's SR damage code). The rings aren't actually damaged, though... they just get bent open a bit and fall out. Over the winter, when we were having fighter practice indoors, I'd sweep up the floor afterwards, pick up all my lost rings, and just put them back in, bend them shut again.

Western mail in period was usually riveted shut, which makes it a whole lot more durable (though also much more of a pain in the butt to make). We've got a few fighters now who've started fighting in riveted mail, and, over the whole winter, I found two of the riveted rings... versus usually a dozen or so of my rings every week. Both of them had simply popped the rivet and come open; the rings themselves weren't cut or broken in any way. Cutting the actual rings is really difficult to do, even with real weapons, because you have to hit them hard enough and drive them in far enough that you're using the occupant's body as an anvil to shear the ring against. This is, obviously, not a lot of fun for the occupant, and you'll do serious damage to him long before the armor itself is actually damaged.

*gouges out eyes* Im sick of this, Katana, meet Ares HVLMG. Ares Arms 1 Fudal Japan 0. Dont bring a sword to a gun fight.

John, I dunno if you do your own mail but The Ring Lord is now selling rings with pre-punched holes for rivets. Now pretty much anyone can make their own riveted mail for a decent price. In mild steel, brass, even blackened stainless. Never patch, or have to throw your chain in the dryer again!

Lindt: bring all the LMGs you want. I'll bring a pocketknife and kick your ass. The caveat is that we start with weapons at our sides and two feet away from each other. Melee weapons may not be universally applicable anymore, but they still have their uses.

~J

And at that case I have all ready failed to use my LMG correctly. Or I just club you to death with it...

Yah but the tools required aren't, and I doubt I could do the chemical process required to make black stainless. I may need to get into doing my own anyway since noone sells the oval rings commonly used to join japanese 4-in-1.

Pretty cool you have locals that will do riveted, around here they all say the manpower required makes it not worth doing. Where did you get that hauberk? Do they have a webpage, and what gague and size were the rings?

He wants to puncture the plate ...
Obviously you are talking about different things.

Ah, I was misunderstanding you. Yah, the switch from slashing to thrusting/cleaving weapons is partially explained by armor development.

People often assosiate rapiers with this movement, but I think that's another topic entirely.

Nevermind that rapiers were still cutting weapons and it was the smallsword that was the real "hole-puncher."

Rapiers were originally designed with the ability to stab a weak point in mind, so yes, they were for piercing. They cut too, of course.

JaronK