What was the name of that show? It's on Spike right?

deadliest warrior on spike I think, tuesdays at 10pm are when new ones air. This is all from memory, I'll edit after I look it up.

Samurai > Viking

Live with it Wilson.

Those were Vikings without Techno power, which is easily worth 50 victories / thousand.

The whole sim thing was ultra gay anyway. so many obvious oversights and factors not considered. The show is just a reason to film the shit being beaten out of dummies and targets.

Don't get me wrong though, in that regard, it whoops ass.


The biggest issue I saw was the whole Naganata vs longsword bullshit. Guy slices skull, cleanly splits chest and face, then stabs heart. Longsword clumsily crushes a face, and takes 3 times longer, and its considered a better weapon?

It's like saying a chainsaw is better than a katana... sure its going to leave an awesomely bloody mess, but if you stand 10 paces apart, and one guy has a chainsaw, and the other has a katana, who are you going to put your money on?

I am just hoping they do a "How many 5 year olds" episode, because that would rock.

Is Ditka wielding the chainsaw?

Bears 999, Samurai 1

A weapon's design stems from its purpose.

The katana was matched against armor primarily made of bamboo, silk and heavily quilted cloth. Samurai were experts in hand-to-hand combat as well as swordmanship and their armor compromised protection in favor of flexibility. The longsword faced a much more heavily armored opponent. The extra mass of the longsword gave it the "punch" to circumvent the protection of its often metal-clad targets. The longsword was also a weapon intended for mass production while the katana was certainly not. This is important as the battles fought on European soil were typically on a much grander scale than the "clan wars" of feudal Japan.

Interesting tidbits:
- Japan was an iron-poor society. The folding of Japanese swords does not improve the overall sword, it makes the sword possible in a country where iron ore is of relatively low quality by removing impurities in the ore. The greater availability of iron in Europe made it practical to produce low-cost, high-quality weapons in large quantities.
- Contrary to popular belief, continued folding will not create a "super-strong" blade; once impurities are burnt off and the carbon content homogenized, further folding offers little benefit and will gradually burn out the carbon, leading eventually to a softer steel less able to hold an edge. The number of folds varied from sword to sword, but those with more than about a dozen folds are uncommon, and authentic swords with more than two dozen folds are completely unknown. The best results were usually obtained at 8-10 folds.
- The secretive nature of Japanese swordsmiths prevented their progress while European forgers took major leaps forward. Europeans invented ways to make swords from solid bars rather then pattern blades which resulted in weapons which were faster and easier to make.

I wonder at the authenticity of the viking longsword they used in the demonstration as well. The guy wielding it seemed reasonably coordinated, as demonstrated by his double spear toss, and yet his sword strikes looked rather cumbersome and awkward. He is either not trained in its use, or the sword is a historically inaccurate blade. That longsword should not have weighed more than 4 pounds.

The japs folded 2 metals to make their katanas, and not just b/c they were iron poor. One metal was high carbon and the other was a lower carbon steel with one shaped like an elongated V and the other placed inside the trough at a point in the forging. This had the effect of both hardness and flexibility in the blade. The curvature of the blade is due to this unique style of blending as the two metals cool and contract at different rates...thus curving the blade when dipped into water from the furnace.
Their blades were 10 times the quality of a longsword.

(04-22-2009 11:45 AM)Bodisatva Wrote:  The japs folded 2 metals to make their katanas, and not just b/c they were iron poor. One metal was high carbon and the other was a lower carbon steel with one shaped like an elongated V and the other placed inside the trough at a point in the forging. This had the effect of both hardness and flexibility in the blade. The curvature of the blade is due to this unique style of blending as the two metals cool and contract at different rates...thus curving the blade when dipped into water from the furnace.

True. As you say, the main purpose of this was to have hard steel on the cutting surface that could hold an edge, but backed by a softer layer of steel that made the blade less brittle and more able to stand up to the rigors of combat. It was an excellent design, certainly one of, if not the best, slashing weapon in human history.

(04-22-2009 11:45 AM)Bodisatva Wrote:  Their blades were 10 times the quality of a longsword.

This is where we'll have to disagree. Western swords were made to overcome different types of armor. They were made with different materials. They were made for wielders with a different stature and different swordplay techniques. Taking western swords out of that context and comparing them against katanas in cutting tests that don't reflect the intended use of western swords will certainly produce results skewed in favor of the katana. The other major point to remember is that while many aspects of the martial arts behind katana use have been continuously practiced and passed down over the last 600 years, very little remains of manuals of western sword technique, and nowhere in the west has the art been constantly taught (fencing doesn't count).