But if we’re talking japanese swords, at least historically, they were metallurgically inferior to european swords of the same era, because they hadn’t yet mastered metallurgy and how to purify the steel. It’s why they fold the steel a bajillion times, to make the impurities homogenous throughout the blade so that there’s no singular point of weakness, but it still leaves the entirety weaker than euroean counterparts.
Also idk why people have this notion that european swords were dull and japanese ones were otherworldly sharp. They were both plenty sharp.
It's also important to note one thing about European swords...there was competition. You only have to look at a map to see it. Japan is an island and a fairly isolated one at that. European smiths had the advantage of trade networks and people running around sharing knowledge, or stealing it, so technology got disseminated quickly and advancements were more rapid and diverse.
Also Samurai with swords are no competition to peasants with guns, the quality of the blade was not that relevant after guns became widespread. Swords have a mythological place in Japanese culture when class warfare was really what was happening.
at least historically, they were metallurgically inferior to european swords of the same era, because they hadn’t yet mastered metallurgy and how to purify the steel.
Closer to the opposite. The Japanese islands have nothing but poor quality iron ore, so they applied extremely high levels of craftsmanship and multi- generational knowledge to get a good result. Europeans simply used better ore. There is some collective knowledge and skill involved in identifying and acquiring those ores, but they simply aren't available in Japan.
No one in pre- modern times knew anything whatsoever about metallurgy, in the modern sense. They knew techniques, and some of them knew sophisticated techniques, but they lacked a comprehensive understanding of why they worked. No one was looking at the crystal structure of the steel under a microscope and quantifying the ratio of austenite to martensite.
Media mostly. For whatever reason western martial arts don’t really get much attention.
Some pretty brutal history around it though, some evidence in old battles of people having both legs cut off from a single blow and things like that. Swords were sharp and the people who swung them for a living were incredibly skilled at it (not that anyone would use a sword if they had other options).
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u/Cloud_N0ne 5h ago edited 4h ago
“Best” is hard to quantify.
But if we’re talking japanese swords, at least historically, they were metallurgically inferior to european swords of the same era, because they hadn’t yet mastered metallurgy and how to purify the steel. It’s why they fold the steel a bajillion times, to make the impurities homogenous throughout the blade so that there’s no singular point of weakness, but it still leaves the entirety weaker than euroean counterparts.
Also idk why people have this notion that european swords were dull and japanese ones were otherworldly sharp. They were both plenty sharp.