Arms And Armour Discussion Thread: Katana Are Overated!

[SeanBeansShako]

Hey you know what we need? a thread for just talking about old guns, sword and armour/uniforms in general?

Lets get the balling (ball rolling). What pop culture and modern people in general know or think they know about Medieval armour is utter bullshit. Long story short, breaks down all the misinformation with good old fashioned facts. Plus some bad ass footage of how awesome late Medieval plate armour is!

Also, anyone else find the general decoration of firearms before the 19th century just really nice looking?

[AlekoTheGreek]

18th century weapons, especially hunting ones, were actually a work of art

[Killington]

Well, bayonets are clearly the best melee weapon.

[Killington]

EDIT: Nevermind. 

[George385]

Japanese steel is pretty bad... if you get a European longsword, and hit it with katana or vise versa, the katana will break. no matter how good the katana is.

[SeanBeansShako]

Pretty much, Japanese armour is much more interesting now if you ask me.

[Audiate]

Weapons evolve. They're made to better combat armor, which evolves to better defend its wearer. Thus, Japanese swords are really good at cutting through the weak parts of Japanese armor, most of which didn't have good metal as a part of it. It wouldn't stand a chance against European armors and weapons, because they 'evolved' at a much faster rate, due to European arms races.

[Dutch_Spudgun]

Lets get the balling (ball rolling). What pop culture and modern people in general know or think they know about Medieval armour is utter bullshit. Long story short, breaks down all the misinformation with good old fashioned facts. Plus some bad ass footage of how awesome late Medieval plate armour is!

Great lecture, thanks for sharing!
I think I'll share this with my local LRP group, so they know why I roll my eyes when some self-proclaimed sword master starts spreading his knowledge

[Killington]

Lets get the balling (ball rolling). What pop culture and modern people in general know or think they know about Medieval armour is utter bullshit. Long story short, breaks down all the misinformation with good old fashioned facts. Plus some bad ass footage of how awesome late Medieval plate armour is!

Wow, just watched the lecture, very interesting, thanks for sharing! All of my preconceived notions from D&D were wrong lol

[SeanBeansShako]

I know a guy who can give me some interesting websites about swords of all kinds too if you guys are interested.

[AeroNinja]

http://www.sanmei.com/enter.html

Katana swords at some fine quality.

http://www.samurai-store.com/jp/index.html

Good armor.

[British Footguard Stezz]

What I've read Nr. I
Their both great and refined weapons used by people alike
What I've read Nr. II
European Longsword - Better at piercing Armour but slower
Katana - Better at striking lightly armored targets [Slashing], faster but horrible at Armour.

[Crescent Glow]

I like to use my prison shank

[Ililsa]

What I've read Nr. II
European Longsword - Better at piercing Armour but slower
Katana - Better at striking lightly armored targets [Slashing], faster but horrible at Armour.

Hahahahahahaha...
No. These crazy vidyagaem myths.

A two handed weapon - which the Katana is a terrible example of thanks to its short blade - a result of personal shields falling out of use in Japan and the lack of good steel - is as fast as you can lever the hilt backwards and forwards.

Longswords also have more variety than the katana which has about one form and that's it, and can become much better on the thrust or for both cutting and thrusting. They've basically got a use for everything from full plate harness fencing to unarmoured judicial combat and duels.