Talk:Nikana Prime/@comment-122.52.163.67-20160223002354/@comment-26720744-20160224174645

I love how you can find controversy on any topic involving Katanas.

It's [|a pretty complicated but fascinating topic].

First thing to understand: the vast majority of metal that we use is alloyed. That's a fancy word for making something impure on purpose. Why? Because it makes the metal more durable by making it more flexible. Pure metal is a crystal - that is, it has a fixed and repetitive structure. A checkerboard, a gridwork. You can't bend things like this. They'll snap. Impure metal has other metals mixed in, which disrupt the 'gridwork,' but that also means that it can bend more easily. Titanium is known for its hardness, yet in pure crystalline form it is extremely brittle. When we think of titanium when used in aircraft, etc, we're thinking of an alloy. Molybdenum, vanadium, and aluminum are examples of metals that titanium is alloyed with.

Pure metal is sharp and good at cutting, but alloyed or less pure metal is more durable.

Japanese swords are actually a mix of the two. Because of their smithing techniques, their single-edged swords are a mix of pure steel (mostly along the edge) and less pure (along the rear, acting as support). It's a very clever design.

That said, yes, Japanese swords (or, at least the edge) do tend to be more brittle than European, being intended solely for offense. In contrast, European swords were made to block and parry. (Viking weapons, IIRC, were actually forged to be harder.)

It's also worth taking into account the vast differences warfare, the philosophy of warfare, and the needs and requirements of warfare between the two areas; as well as the geography, the availability of metals (the Japanese smithing tradition developed around working with tamahagane, which is terribly impure), the difference in their ability to refine, etc.

TL;DR are extremely dissimilar tools with dissimilar purposes in dissimilar areas with dissimilar requirements. It's like comparing a nail to a screw.

I find it likely that one of the reasons that this is such a hotly contested debate is not because of the swords themselves, but because of the culture and tradition that goes along with Japanese swords - martial arts. It's admirable. That is not to say that there was no culture and tradition associated with European weapons, but it's certainly to a lesser extent.