Would you want a Katana?

[Nosense]

Yes I would like one, but I would like to be proficient with one even more.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Yes, and then I'd want to get in a yellow motor-bike suit and seek my revenge on all those who have wronged me.

 

[Blow_Pop]

Yes because I collect swords

 

[Cowabungaa]

Yes I would. My ideal house would be designed minimalistic, modern with Japanese touches. A katana on the wall would be one of those touches. They're very beautiful swords, especially in a finely decorated sheet.

More practical against a trained, armored knight you mean. Also, the katana could split a steel helmet in half.

I want a source and citations for this absurd claim - video evidence is obviously preferable. Otherwise, I'll have to regard you as a weeaboo.

Maybe not as absurd as you think:
Though I don't think you'd see something like that happen in combat so quickly, focus being a bit less in all that frantic fighting and all. Still I think it's reasonable to say that even in combat, putting a helmet on doesn't guarantee protection against a well-trained samurai.

 

[Exia91]

I'd defend myself against The ZOMBIE Apocalypse! .. nothing I guess. I can't wield it properly.

And I don't like things around in the house that are just for show! Hence no art in my house!

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

No, I would never want to own a Katana. To be more specific, I would never spend my own money on such a thing directly but would be willing to accept one as a gift or award.

The reason is simple enough - I'm a fencer. While the katana has much in common with the sabre in terms of how it is put to proper use, it remains an impractical option for the most part. A sword that requires two hands may possess the capcity to bite deeper into flesh and bone, but such things are ultimately irrelevant as either weapon can readily deliver a mortal wound. Without armor, there is little reason to select a larger, heavier weapon.

More importantly, I would not invest in any sword not designed for sporting purposes. It serves no purpose not better filled by the one firearm I own. Were I to choose one for some reason, I'd almost certainly choose a weapon I could actually implement. As a foilist, that means something along the lines of the Small Sword or Court Sword. And, when you consider that a proper version of any such weapon (that is a weapon suited for combat and not a cheap replica) is exceedingly expensive I see little reason to go to such an expense.

 

[gamer_parent]

I wouldn't. What purpose would something like that serve? Knowing me, I'm more liable to cut myself on it than actually use it on someone invading my home.

 

[Elric_de_Melnibone]

Why would I want a Katana?

My collection of european swords is more than enough.

Hand-and-a-half swords, bastard swords, one-handed swords, axes, what do I need a katana for?
Especially when one of my hand-and-a-half swords is really, really sharp.

No, really.
Katanas aren't durable enough in steel-to-steel combat.

Of course they're fancy to look at.
Of course I like katanas.

But they're glorified, and I'm already happy with what I have, so I wouldn't 'want' a katana.
I wouldn't mind if received one as a gift, but I wouldn't buy one.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

A master with a katana can cut an arrow in mid flight.

If by cut you mean "bat out of the way", I could agree. I've seen it done. If you mean to imply that you bisect the arrow from tip to tail in flight, then I believe reality may have a few things to say about the difficulty of applying a wedge to a point and applying force. I would however point out that such a deflection could be accomplished with any reasonably light sword, such as a sabre.

Notice something about culture, the cultures without curved blades developed thick, heavy, cumbersome armor to deflect weapons, the cultures WITH curved swords, developed lighter, less restricting armor.

The curve in the blade serves to allow for the weapon to cut rather than chop. Moreover, the heavy weapon came as a result of heavy armor, not the other way around.

Do you know why? It is because it was pointless to make better armor when the swords would cut through it anyway.

Pointless? Yes, I suppose protecting one's self from arrows and spears, the more common weapons on the field anyhow, was pointless.

In addition, that little video you posted about the "western armor deflecting an arrow," the arrow was not deflected, IT PENETRATED THE ARMOR. Seriously, if you plan to make a point its a bad idea to contradict yourself in the same breath.

Until the introduction of new technologies western armor did a more than servicable job of deflecting arrows. Even after such technology was implemented, it often only penetrated at very close ranges. It was inevitably the arrow that ended the reign of the Knight just as the effective firearm put an end to effective personal armor for hundreds of years.

Back up to something mode idiotic than anything I've heard about wounds in a while, a stab is not more fatal than a slash in the same area. A stab at a throat is less effective than, say decapitation. Stabbing an arm is less effective than taking it off. And not all straight edged weapons were for stabbing. With the exceptions of fencing swords I'm not aware of any swords meant primarily for stabbing.

This bit has the distinction of being a valid point and yet being utterly meaningless at the same time. A "stab" in the thoat can easily be fatal given time. A stab that proceeds through the spine or into the skull can be instantly fatal. A stab in the arm may simply impede motion, but a stab through the joint will render said limb useless until advanced medical treatment can be applied and many painful months are given to the healing process.

Also, you may want to look into little things when asserting that stabbing weapons are useless. I think the Romans would have disagreed as would the Greeks, or the nobles of France or the Italian city states. The thrust has it's place in combat as much as the cut. To discount it's utility is folly. It is both harder to defend against, delivered more quickly and allows quicker recovery and follow through onto the next action. The nature of such an attack of course is that the wound is much more limited and if not directed precisely it will not be quickly fatal.

 

[great-paladin]

I wouldn't mind one however if i had to pick a sword it'd have to be either a longsword or a 1 and a 1/2 hand sword. failing those probably just a combat knife or machete.
Would probably prefer either a g36c assualt rifle or a l85 assualt rifle though.

 

[great-paladin]

A Katana would be completely useless in a zombie apocalypse. Hell, most bladed-weaponry would.

Actually apparantly the best weapon you can get for a zombie apocalypse is a machete as it desn't run out of ammo, doesn't make sound and can be used in cqb.
Just read the zombie survival guide.

 

[Wutaiflea]

I own one katana and a wakizashi.

My husband owns two katanas.

I'm not experienced enough after three years to practice with a live blade, but my husband does.

Incidentally, the person who said Kendo is the way of the sword and Iaido is the way of the mind should follow their own advice and look up what those forms actually are.

Kendo is a sporting form of Kenjutsu. Kenjutsu is the traditional Japanese sword form associated with the katana and focuses on fighting form.

Iaido is the sporting form of Iaijitsu. Iaijitsu is the art of drawing and sheathing, and focuses primarily on a clean kill, usually using as few moves as possible between drawing from the saya and sheathing again.

They are both about as focused on "the mind" as each other and many Japanese swordsman practice both.

 

[jamesworkshop]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3997HZuWjk

Where to even BEGIN.

FIRSTLY, Don't even start on Ghengis Khan, his Mongols were NOT knows for their sword skills, but their archery skills. THEY WERE ARCHERS, that was their primary function. The extremely high death count was due to hubris, stupidity of the Persian empire, killing thousands of civilians, and using prisoners as decoy warriors. He killed more, but usually not by the sword, at least not in combat. He was a twisted military genius, but the greatest feats of the Mongols were the stirrup, and the composite shortbow.

As for the treating of the katana, I can barely even begin to tell you how wrong you are about almost everything you said. Katanas are made of a special kind of steel called "tamahagane" not bronze, you are thinking the Greeks here. In addition, yes all swords are heat treated, but most of them don't have 2 different metals cooling at different rates, giving it a curve, and if each half of the blade doesn't cool at almost EXACTLY the same speed, then the blade warps, and is trash. Moving onward with your ineptitude.

The katana was a HUGE status symbol, and if not the most used in combat, because it was so highly valued. Samurai would carry a second one for no real other reason than to show off. The samurai were the nobility, and only they were PERMITTED to have katana. Yes, it's true that samurai were primarily archers, but they were still the only group that used the katana (them and higher ranks).

"Absolutly nothing suggests that the swords of other culture where any less effective killing weapons it is damn near impossible to make sharp steel into anything less than deadly when even human skin can be cut by paper."

You make a valid point with your misspelling (and horrible grammar, with almost no punctuation), human skin can be cut by PAPER. It can be broken by almost ANYTHING. You don't need a sword to cut someone, a rock can do that. What you need a sword for is cutting someone's limbs off. What you need a katana for is cutting through 5 human torsos in a single swing. The katana was meant to cut through bone, tendon, skin, wood, metal, anything it came in contact with short of rock. A master with a katana can cut an arrow in mid flight.

Notice something about culture, the cultures without curved blades developed thick, heavy, cumbersome armor to deflect weapons, the cultures WITH curved swords, developed lighter, less restricting armor. Do you know why? It is because it was pointless to make better armor when the swords would cut through it anyway. In addition, that little video you posted about the "western armor deflecting an arrow," the arrow was not deflected, IT PENETRATED THE ARMOR. Seriously, if you plan to make a point its a bad idea to contradict yourself in the same breath.

The nodachi and odachi are the same thing, don't just copy down lists without looking. "The "tachi" style was eventually discarded in favor of the katana"-that is straight from wikipedia. Also, of course the katana can't fill every role in warfare, you still had need of other weapons, including pole-arms for the common throwaway soldiers(as I have said again and again, spears were so universally common because is was easy to arm a large group of inexperienced troops with a large sticks with a pointy ends). Samurai carried multiple blades, usually a wakizashi to supplement the katana in battle.

Back up to something mode idiotic than anything I've heard about wounds in a while, a stab is not more fatal than a slash in the same area. A stab at a throat is less effective than, say decapitation. Stabbing an arm is less effective than taking it off. And not all straight edged weapons were for stabbing. With the exceptions of fencing swords I'm not aware of any swords meant primarily for stabbing.

To finish, your information is largely unfounded, almost consistently incorrect, and your list of weapons is copied and pasted, and are repeats, similar, outdated, and one is just a style of mounting a blade. Please actually research something before spewing out useless amounts of almost illegible garbage.

Right where to begin
Ghengis Khan a commander of armies whose principle weapon was the bow now who might that remind me of, what other fighting force also was primarly comprised of bows (foot and horseback) wait it couldn't be the Samurai who again despite supposed magically prowess haven't really got a lot of great military victories under their belt.
Yep completly inaccurate comparision

I didn't say they were made of bronze I said they had been mostly made of Bronze through out history, bronze was around for much longer than people making weapons out of Iron and Steel and the Katana is a very old sword design. pre-dates iron

All heat treating requires a consistant temprature metal is metal patern welding also used different metals, heated, twisted, hammered you don't even have a point to make here all blacksmiths the world over wanted to get the right temprature it applies to all metal work.

Status symbol it maybe but not the primary weapon of warfare again think Bows and spears.

Swing!! you don't swing a Katana it is not a baseball bat you draw slice the reason it has a curve is to draw the sword deeper as it drags thats how you achieve a cut nobody has ever swung a katana through 5 people the motions used are not wide enough and the blade doesn't work that way.

As for cutting an arrow wow a thin bit of wood cut by cold steel is not amazingly impressive and when demonstrated is down far slower than any arrow would be flying,0 arrows fly in the thousands people wouldn't bother learning a usless skill.

the largest target on a human is the torso and contains the most vital organs lungs, heart and stabbing is the best way to harm them taking off a wrist is not instantly fatal and cuts generally do not kill outright,
decapitation does but is actually much harder to achieve than people might think its a small area easily defended by weapons and the fact your target is move and striking.

Did you even watch that video yes the arrow left a hole but underneath it was fine between the plate and the human body was chainmail and a padded coat (surcoat) it was non fatal.
The armour with the longest history is chainmail one of the most fluid and unrestricting armour you could get Western armour was never incredibly thick or ungainly.

Armour is never cut by swords, the use of light armour is the result of a lack of material not effectivness if more aromour was a waste then even less armour is more useless

Head to toe protection do you really think anyone would bother making or wearing that let alone buy it if it couldn't provide even the slightest bit of protection.

All in all you strike me as someone who thinks swords are better than daggers because they are longer with no attempt to understand why daggers are the shape they are or the methods in which they were intended to be employed.

 

[jamesworkshop]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3997HZuWjk

Where to even BEGIN.

FIRSTLY, Don't even start on Ghengis Khan, his Mongols were NOT knows for their sword skills, but their archery skills. THEY WERE ARCHERS, that was their primary function. The extremely high death count was due to hubris, stupidity of the Persian empire, killing thousands of civilians, and using prisoners as decoy warriors. He killed more, but usually not by the sword, at least not in combat. He was a twisted military genius, but the greatest feats of the Mongols were the stirrup, and the composite shortbow.

As for the treating of the katana, I can barely even begin to tell you how wrong you are about almost everything you said. Katanas are made of a special kind of steel called "tamahagane" not bronze, you are thinking the Greeks here. In addition, yes all swords are heat treated, but most of them don't have 2 different metals cooling at different rates, giving it a curve, and if each half of the blade doesn't cool at almost EXACTLY the same speed, then the blade warps, and is trash. Moving onward with your ineptitude.

The katana was a HUGE status symbol, and if not the most used in combat, because it was so highly valued. Samurai would carry a second one for no real other reason than to show off. The samurai were the nobility, and only they were PERMITTED to have katana. Yes, it's true that samurai were primarily archers, but they were still the only group that used the katana (them and higher ranks).

"Absolutly nothing suggests that the swords of other culture where any less effective killing weapons it is damn near impossible to make sharp steel into anything less than deadly when even human skin can be cut by paper."

You make a valid point with your misspelling (and horrible grammar, with almost no punctuation), human skin can be cut by PAPER. It can be broken by almost ANYTHING. You don't need a sword to cut someone, a rock can do that. What you need a sword for is cutting someone's limbs off. What you need a katana for is cutting through 5 human torsos in a single swing. The katana was meant to cut through bone, tendon, skin, wood, metal, anything it came in contact with short of rock. A master with a katana can cut an arrow in mid flight.

Notice something about culture, the cultures without curved blades developed thick, heavy, cumbersome armor to deflect weapons, the cultures WITH curved swords, developed lighter, less restricting armor. Do you know why? It is because it was pointless to make better armor when the swords would cut through it anyway. In addition, that little video you posted about the "western armor deflecting an arrow," the arrow was not deflected, IT PENETRATED THE ARMOR. Seriously, if you plan to make a point its a bad idea to contradict yourself in the same breath.

The nodachi and odachi are the same thing, don't just copy down lists without looking. "The "tachi" style was eventually discarded in favor of the katana"-that is straight from wikipedia. Also, of course the katana can't fill every role in warfare, you still had need of other weapons, including pole-arms for the common throwaway soldiers(as I have said again and again, spears were so universally common because is was easy to arm a large group of inexperienced troops with a large sticks with a pointy ends). Samurai carried multiple blades, usually a wakizashi to supplement the katana in battle.

Back up to something mode idiotic than anything I've heard about wounds in a while, a stab is not more fatal than a slash in the same area. A stab at a throat is less effective than, say decapitation. Stabbing an arm is less effective than taking it off. And not all straight edged weapons were for stabbing. With the exceptions of fencing swords I'm not aware of any swords meant primarily for stabbing.

To finish, your information is largely unfounded, almost consistently incorrect, and your list of weapons is copied and pasted, and are repeats, similar, outdated, and one is just a style of mounting a blade. Please actually research something before spewing out useless amounts of almost illegible garbage.

Right where to begin
Ghengis Khan a commander of armies whose principle weapon was the bow now who might that remind me of, what other fighting force also was primarly comprised of bows (foot and horseback) wait it couldn't be the Samurai who again despite supposed magically prowess haven't really got a lot of great military victories under their belt.
Yep completly inaccurate comparision

I didn't say they were made of bronze I said they had been mostly made of Bronze through out history, bronze was around for much longer than people making weapons out of Iron and Steel and the Katana is a very old sword design. pre-dates iron

All heat treating requires a consistant temprature metal is metal patern welding also used different metals, heated, twisted, hammered you don't even have a point to make here all blacksmiths the world over wanted to get the right temprature it applies to all metal work.

Status symbol it maybe but not the primary weapon of warfare again think Bows and spears.

Swing!! you don't swing a Katana it is not a baseball bat you draw slice the reason it has a curve is to draw the sword deeper as it drags thats how you achieve a cut nobody has ever swung a katana through 5 people the motions used are not wide enough and the blade doesn't work that way.

As for cutting an arrow wow a thin bit of wood cut by cold steel is not amazingly impressive and when demonstrated is down far slower than any arrow would be flying,0 arrows fly in the thousands people wouldn't bother learning a usless skill.

the largest target on a human is the torso and contains the most vital organs lungs, heart and stabbing is the best way to harm them taking off a wrist is not instantly fatal and cuts generally do not kill outright,
decapitation does but is actually much harder to achieve than people might think its a small area easily defended by weapons and the fact your target is move and striking.

Did you even watch that video yes the arrow left a hole but underneath it was fine between the plate and the human body was chainmail and a padded coat (surcoat) it was non fatal.
The armour with the longest history is chainmail one of the most fluid and unrestricting armour you could get Western armour was never incredibly thick or ungainly.

Armour is never cut by swords, the use of light armour is the result of a lack of material not effectivness if more aromour was a waste then even less armour is more useless

Head to toe protection do you really think anyone would bother making or wearing that let alone buy it if it couldn't provide even the slightest bit of protection.

All in all you strike me as someone who thinks swords are better than daggers because they are longer with no attempt to understand why daggers are the shape they are or the methods in which they were intended to be employed.

Got to edit this in

You also seem to have a massive lack of respect for the spear as a weapon and trust me if you told an ancient Samuria warrior that spears only strong point (pun) was being cheap to make they would throughly disagree with you, polearms are the basis of all sword fighting the Samurai considered it to be impossible to learn the sword if you couldn't use polearms.

 

[ScruffyTheJanitor]

Katana is nice... but given the choice.. I'd be picking myself up a claymore. Pity the wall isn't big enough.

 

[NinjaRabies]

Already have several for-show-katanas and wakisashi, and I'm saving for a real sharpened one.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Already have several for-show-katanas and wakisashi, and I'm saving for a real sharpened one.

Wouldn't it have been better to just buy a real one.