Discovery Channel- The Samurai Sword Part 1

It was the typhoon that saved japan from the mongol. Mongol just shot the samurai with arrows before samurai can do any damage. That's what I heard.

Epitome of badass: samurai sword

You guys are frickin smart. Realy !

"In the end, the test is not very meaningful since two random swords of unknown origin hardly qualify as representative of the wider variety of blade forms grouped under "longsword" or "katana."" -Gabriel Lebec

In essence, we don't know the first thing about either sword, so both are unreliable for the test.

An Oakeshott type XVI is different from a XXa, is different from a XVIII.

Likewise, a 'shinto' style katana is different from a 'koto' katana, is different from a 'shinshinto'.

Yep. You've confirmed what I already suspected, and that is that I really don't know $#!+ about this stuff. I have done enough reading to have more than common knowledge of the two, but my knowledge is definitely not very thorough. It's also notable that the person swinging them was not trained, and therefore, not competent with either one. If anything, it is vaguely revealing about the characteristics of the geometry of the two and the differences that makes in their cutting ability.

Well, the cutting and thrusting tests were both invalid from what I saw. The longsword being used seemed like they were trying to have a weird not-quite-right thrusting sword that was too flexible. This is naturally deficient in the cut and thrust.

As shown in the leather-test, he used two completely different cuts for the swords, invalidating it.

On the ice block, he struck the ice block with the lower half of the European sword, while striking with the upper half of the Japanese sword.

I think maybe there's a misunderstanding. The video I'm referring to is not this one. It's a very similar episode I saw on military channel with L. Emery (I think that's his name).

That's actually exactly the one I'm referring to.

And then we have another concern. The sword they used seems to have a flattened diamond cross section, and he seems to be trying to imitate the later era thrusting oriented swords. Now, there is a distinct problem here. The diamond shaped, thrusting oriented swords were /very/ stiff. They shouldn't be flexing as much as they were, so this makes me wonder just how they made it.

And this is really the crux of the issue. I'm going to quote something I found on a forum I frequent.

Likewise, they try and argue that hardening (Which they erroneously refer to as "tempering" in the case of the katana) appeared in the 10th century. We have quench-hardened Frankish swords from the 5th-9th centuries, hundreds of years before their claim. I think we even have some in the Roman era if I remember properly.