Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sadrice]

A katana is a sawing weapon, Really.  It has microscopic serrations. Unlike a claymore, longsword, etc, a katana is "Drawn" over the object to be sliced, much like a good kitchen knife. (Western swords "Cleave", like a meat cleaver.)

Not disagreeing with anything you're saying about katanas, but western weapons were not a monolithic entity, and I think you may be overgeneralizing just a wee bit.
Also, while a drawcut can deliver horrifying soft tissue wounds, in order to dismember or bisect a person, you have to cut through bone eventually, which requires something to wedge it open.  Even on the neck, which you'd expect to be easier to cut by going between vertebral segments, it's absolutely impossible to find a unobstructed plane.  From personal experience (taking heads from roadkill for processing to skulls), I can tell you that it is very difficult to decapitate something without a saw, and it will wreck the edge on your blade, no matter how careful you are to try and cut around the bone.

[franti]

I've used them before. Obsidian has a super-fine edge, finer than Steel, but an Obsidian Sword is technically a "wooden" weapon in the game, so what ends up happening is that the target gets hit with a ton of force over a very, very small area. A Competent Swordsdwarf with shatter bones every single time. It's actually a very effective weapon, especially against unarmed/poorly armed invaders and animals. I often use them regardless of if I have metals or not.

[Kilroy the Grand]

A katana is a sawing weapon, Really.  It has microscopic serrations. Unlike a claymore, longsword, etc, a katana is "Drawn" over the object to be sliced, much like a good kitchen knife. (Western swords "Cleave", like a meat cleaver.)

Not disagreeing with anything you're saying about katanas, but western weapons were not a monolithic entity, and I think you may be overgeneralizing just a wee bit.
Also, while a drawcut can deliver horrifying soft tissue wounds, in order to dismember or bisect a person, you have to cut through bone eventually, which requires something to wedge it open.  Even on the neck, which you'd expect to be easier to cut by going between vertebral segments, it's absolutely impossible to find a unobstructed plane.  From personal experience (taking heads from roadkill for processing to skulls), I can tell you that it is very difficult to decapitate something without a saw, and it will wreck the edge on your blade, no matter how careful you are to try and cut around the bone.

It's true Katana's are great at lopping off soft tissue but if they hit something like chainmail... it pretty much just slides off.

[G-Flex]

I've used them before. Obsidian has a super-fine edge, finer than Steel, but an Obsidian Sword is technically a "wooden" weapon in the game, so what ends up happening is that the target gets hit with a ton of force over a very, very small area.

Wait, this still hasn't been fixed? Obsidian shortswords are still just wooden shortswords?

EDIT: According to the bug tracker, you're mistaken; that bug was solved quite a while ago.

[Alastar]

Ordinary metals: 10k
Glass: 15k
Obsidian: 20k
Adamantine 100k
Dropping an admantine blade may sever reality on an as of yet undiscovered sub-quark level, you have been warned.

Given adamantine's density and molar mass, it shouldn't be able to equal obsidian's maximum theoretical sharpness anyway... obsidian is amorphous and according to the raws made of smaller individual bits. Liquid adamantine has the density of ordinary stone, if it solidifies it occupies 13 times the former volume and has the density of balsa wood. There's also no give in it at all... adamantine doesn't deform until it suddenly snaps; interesting in the light that it's possible to make adamantine thread to stich up your dwarves with.
It's an utterly ridiculous material badly in need of a cleanup.


Obsidian makes serviceable blades in a pinch, but they're less good than I'd expect them to be and not really worth using if you any have weapon-capable metals. It wouldn't need much though, using its true engineering properties instead of borrowing things from marble may be ehough (haven't found a source I trust though).

In general, I'd really like the low-tech end of military equipment expanded in the unhacked game. Hardened leather, more use for bone and knappable stone, practical wooden weapons like staves and fire-hardened spears, cloth armour...

[Sadrice]

If the blade was made the width of the edge, as suggested, I have no problem seeing it slice someone in half, if it were indeed a mono blade. Pretty much any non-Addy material has enough give for a single molecule wide blade to slice clean through, with very little force needed...

Adamantine is very strong, but not infinitely so.  The raws suggest that it's ~10x as strong as steel, so you could only make it a tenth the thickness of a steel sword.  It would have to be thicker that, actually, as most of the strength of a steel sword lies in its ability to elastically flex, absorbing the blow (if you parry with the flat of the blade, as you should).  Adamantine, however, is very brittle, and if you try to scale it based on just the strength, the blade would almost certainly break.  You could make very thin blades, which would give a tremendous advantage that would help counteract its low density, but not that thin.
As for the oft repeated sinking into stone with its own weight thing...  Take a stone floor with a planar crack in it, and place a sword with its point going into the crack.  This is equivalent to infinite sharpness, as the cutting has already been done.  Anything with an appreciable thickness (which includes adamantine weapons) would completely fail to sink into the crack in the floor, unless you start pounding it in with a hammer or something.

[Moddan]

I'm hoping for combined material weapons at some point. Maybe with the tech-tree thingy. As far as I know lead-filled steel maces actually existed. Having a lead-adamantine warhammer in dwarf fortress would be pretty awesome for colossi handling.

[Reudh]

I believe the Weapon Cores was suggested a little while ago, possibly last year?

Ideally, an obsidian sword would be more like a macahuitl, as Whosiwhatsit stated earlier. When the Army Arc comes out, i can see them being very useful for infecting wounds of opponents as a short-term use weapon.

If we can select weapons 'per champion' or something, during an army attack, swordsdwarves could have three weapons. An obsidian sword/macahuitl as their 'infection' weapon, to kill the opponent if they're defeated. A steel sword as a heavy-duty all purpose weapon. And an iron-cored adamantine sword as a last resort weapon to be used against powerful opponents. Hopefully a dwarf could select which sword would be the best in which simulated circumstance.

[AWdeV]

Sounds like adamantine would make an excellent katana, or wakizashi.  Unlike western swords and knives, these two are thin, fragile, and not meant for "cleaving".

What you are describing here is known in technical terms as "slicing". Like slicing bread. Pretty much any sword-like weapon that isn't solely suitable for thrusting uses this. It is however never a very important methods. No foe is ever going to give you the chance to slowly slice them to death. If you're going to expend that kind of effort, then a thrust or a slash (or a cleave, whatever you want to call it) is going to be far more efficient.
There is always a certain weight behind a sword hit and, roughly speaking, katanas are surprisingly hefty. "Cleaving" is an efficient method for wounding people and the katana certainly relies on this too. Slicing is by definition comparatively slow and combat is not.

Further, and a bit aside, there are varieties of katana as well. A certain katana may be perfectly balanced for delicate manoeuvres and be perfectly suitable for writing on an apple or whatever but it won't do diddly against a helm, or a shield and you need something with more heft to it for such things.

They work based on the pressure exerted against the blade, and the energy with which it is drawn across the target surface.

Any move with a sword involves this. A blow from a falchion or even from a cleaver as used by Uruk-Hai involves this. You hit and the force of the hit forces either or both the target and the weapon in a direction and these will draw across eachother, causing gashes.

Basically, they work like a very fine, very very sharp sawblade.

Essentially, this is how every single cutting implement works. Down at microscopic detail this is how cuts come to be.

An impossibly light, rigid, hard, and sharp material like adamantine would let you slice somebody literally in half anime style with a katana, because you could literally make it paper thin, and still exert your full swing strength\speed with it without worrying about it folding over, whipping around, wobbling, and all the other things that plague a sword.

Even an impossibly light, rigid, hard and sharp material is still to some degree reliant on the laws of physics. There will still be friction, there will still be drag and there will still be nasty hard bits that will dramatically slow down your blow or even absorb the force to such a degree that the target is moved aside. You'd need industrial-grade hydraulic strength or a completely stationary target or maybe even a combination of the two if you want to actually completely cut through anything.

A "heavier" "western" blade actually has the advantage here (unless it's a foil or a stiletto but I digress) as the greater weight allows you to simply bulldoze some of those obstacles aside or even break them more easily.

A rotating serrated disc trap made of the stuff would be unbelievable.

Right up untill a clever goblin jams a sturdy log in it and dismantles the now jammed trap for parts. Bit of a waste.

Spoiler:  part two, if you're interested. (click to show/hide)

Basically they work like a sword. You, simply put, clobber people with it. Or you skewer them with it. You do not saw them with it. You need teeth for proper sawing.

And I don't think that, even with adamantine, you could cut people in twain. It's amusing, yeah, but not very viable. There's more to it than just the sharpness/wobbliness of the blade. Maybe you could cut someone in half if you held them taut on something like a vertical torture rack.

Also, having a "razor" edge on a sword is a waste and useless.

Alsoalso I doubt it is possible to have anything "a" molecule thick. But then I'm not a scientastic person. How thick is a molecule?

A katana is a sawing weapon, Really.  It has microscopic serrations.

Much like every cutting implement, yeah. I know you said microscopic but I'd also like to mention it's not something to brag about if you can either see or feel serrations on your blade.

And really, are you suggesting your dwarves try sawing goblins in half? Not even a stark raving mad goblin would allow you to do that. 

*snip, adressed above* Katana are not used to strike one another in the fashion that a western fencing sword is.

Woof, that's really rather far too broad to say. And inaccurate. Swords, not even fencing swords, were ever intended to strike one another. Parrying happened, ofcourse, but the point there is that you a) keep your opponents blade away from you and b) that you do not turn your own blade into a decorative chunk of metal. Parrying with the edge is a bad idea for the quality of your blade and its edge.

Regardless, the enemy's sword isn't your enemy. Your enemy is. Hit him, not his sword.

Katana have 2 distinct types of metal used in construction, and the cutting edge is VERY VERY FRAGILE. (A curse from feudal japan is "May your sword shatter and break") Katana have only 1 cutting edge. The other is blunt, and made of mild, low carbon steel.  When using the katana to deflect a blow, this blunt side is offered to the incoming blade, in the attempt to shatter the enemy blade.  This 2 metal composition is what causes the sword's unique bowed shape. (The two metals have different modulus of elasticity, and different rates of thermal contraction.)

1. Every cutting edge is fragile. Comparatively so anyway. It's why things need sharpening once every so much time. Scissors have this problem, for chrissakes.
2. I'm not an expert but AFAIK it really isn't all that clear-cut. I don't know (or really care, sorry) where you got the information from that the blunt side is offered to the incoming blade but a) yeah, that makes sense. Doing otherwise is a good ticket to bluntsville for your own sword too and b) shatter? Really? Blunt, sure, I can see that, but a swordedge isn't a pane of glass attached to spun sugar. It's not going to break that easy.
3. I rather think the shape is due to the heat treatment. Two different kinds of metal, fine, but that's not going to pull it out of shape all by itself. You'd need substantial heat for the differences to have any effect.

Due to the fragility of high carbon steels, a katana needs to be "Folded" and "Laminated".  Basically, this means that part of the structural integrity of the blade is maintaned by the softer, mild steel in the back part of the blade, because it is folded in with the high carbon, fragile steel in layers. The mild steel bulks up the blade, but makes it so that it wont shatter if it strikes poorly, and gives it a little flexibility it otherwise wouldn't have.

The Japanese didn't fold metal so much due to the fragility of high carbon steel or whatever but rather because their iron ores were rather poor and they needed a hell of a lot of work to produce anything useful. The Celts in europe had been using it for over a thousand years before the Japanese came up with it, the Byzantines used it and europe had pretty much already discarded it by the time Katana-forging reached its zenith; Europe could reliable produce high-grade steels by that time which was both better and cheaper.

To put it really bluntly, it's like polishing a turd. You can go through all the effort and unleash an enormous level of craftsmanship at it but it's still a turd. (note to self: feces-based weaponry in DF? Worth a thought.)

Imaginary Adamantine does not suffer a high fragility, like high carbon steel. As such, it wouldnt need lamination, could be made absurdly thin, and could be used absurdly fast. It would be like giving "Super paper cuts" rather than "Chopping".

I thought you wanted your enemies to die. Bleeding someone to death via paper cuts, super or otherwise is going to take ages. And they won't appreciate your honest effort. This is more of an issue of technique than material anyway.

Basically, a super paper-thin nano-serrated razorblade that never goes dull, and is 5ft long. Due to not needing to be laminated, and not needing a deflecting edge because the cutting edge cant shatter, it would\could be a 2-edged straight sword.

Sounds fun. A katana is a bit shorter though. And if you ignore the folding, the laminating, the deflecting edge, the material and the shape then yeah you could end up with a 2-edged straight sword. Which wouldn't be a katana anymore. At five foot you essentially have a slightly oversized standard-fantasy longsword. Well done.

(Though curved would permit easier use.)

Eh, I'm not sure if it is by definition "easier" use. A curved blade is a bit more forgiving for slashes and automatically imparts a drawing motion though, so it might help. An inversely-curved blade (imagine a sickle, a khopesh or a kukri) allows for a greater concentration of force in one spot which makes for better chopping and a straight sword is a good balance between the two with, in addition, being the best for stabbing. What could be awesome is a weighted adamantine blade with an inverse curve.

[wierd]

Actually no. You keep insisting that a katana and eg, a bastard sword, operate the same way. This is untrue.  And yes, the high carbon edge of the katana is really that fragile and inflexible. It will chip if you drop it.

(Imagine something akin to silicon carbide if you want, but is ferrous carbide instead.)

I agree about the ores being poor.  They worked the two steels seperately with repeated foldings to force out the impurities, just like their western counterparts. No contest.

The difference in a katana is that they then take the high caron steel, and create a "taco shell", which they then hammer a billet of the rolled soft steel into. They then hammer forge the two metals together. The artisant smiths would laminate with additional layers of mild and hard worked steels before the case hardening clench.

Unlike a bastard sword where the edge being razor sharp is pointless and wasteful, a katana goes to a sword polisher where it spends between 1 and 3 weeks being ritually polished and sharpened until it reaches a mirror finish.  This reduces drag, and optimizes the cutting capability.  The energy applied when using a katana is via mechanical advantage in the arm, employing the length of the blade as a lever.  The energy delivered does not come from kinetic impact. It comes from the intensity and speed of the slice. Having a greater hardness than other metals, it *can* cut them this way.  (Rather than deform the target material, it ablates it like a sawblade does.) 

[nightwhips]

Basically they work like a sword. You, simply put, clobber people with it. Or you skewer them with it. You do not saw them with it. You need teeth for proper sawing.

And I don't think that, even with adamantine, you could cut people in twain. It's amusing, yeah, but not very viable. There's more to it than just the sharpness/wobbliness of the blade. Maybe you could cut someone in half if you held them taut on something like a vertical torture rack.

Also, having a "razor" edge on a sword is a waste and useless.

Alsoalso I doubt it is possible to have anything "a" molecule thick. But then I'm not a scientastic person. How thick is a molecule?

These look like teeth to me.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[AWdeV]

It sure as peas don't look like no goshdurn katana to me though.

Actually no. You keep insisting that a katana and eg, a bastard sword, operate the same way. This is untrue.  And yes, the high carbon edge of the katana is really that fragile and inflexible. It will chip if you drop it.

(Imagine something akin to silicon carbide if you want, but is ferrous carbide instead.)

I agree about the ores being poor.  They worked the two steels seperately with repeated foldings to force out the impurities, just like their western counterparts. No contest.

The difference in a katana is that they then take the high caron steel, and create a "taco shell", which they then hammer a billet of the rolled soft steel into. They then hammer forge the two metals together. The artisant smiths would laminate with additional layers of mild and hard worked steels before the case hardening clench.

Unlike a bastard sword where the edge being razor sharp is pointless and wasteful, a katana goes to a sword polisher where it spends between 1 and 3 weeks being ritually polished and sharpened until it reaches a mirror finish.  This reduces drag, and optimizes the cutting capability.  The energy applied when using a katana is via mechanical advantage in the arm, employing the length of the blade as a lever.  The energy delivered does not come from kinetic impact. It comes from the intensity and speed of the slice. Having a greater hardness than other metals, it *can* cut them this way.  (Rather than deform the target material, it ablates it like a sawblade does.) 

Yeah, no. I'll keep my sword information limited to things that do not come from magical lyrical embellished la-la land.

The Katana isn't some sort of holy grail of swordsmithing, it isn't the weapon its myths claim to be and it isn't, in short, anything special.
You make a lot of claims that don't make any sense. First off which is the claim I insisted anything.

First off; I was under the impression that the lamination of the metals was to ensure an even spread of cabon so that there wasn't any significant weak spot. Instead, apparently, we have hard steel and soft steel.
Okay.

Hard steel is sharp and brittle. Fine.

To protect said sharp steel you wrap it around the less brittle soft steel? How does this protect the sharp steel?
How does "making it shiny" make it a superior weapon? Every culture that had swords polished theirs. Admittedly, hardly any did this to as ridiculous a degree as the Japanese but that doesn't mean the Japanese method actually works better. You can claim it's all ritually sorted out and that bam you essentially get a lightsaber but things don't work that way in reality y'know.

Oh wow, swinging the sword gives a mechanical advantage. Gosh, you don't say. This mechanical advantage is the exact reason why humanity advanced from axe-heads held in fists to pretty much every melee weapon.  Still nothing special there, aside from the standard romantic clichés.


Y'know what, I'm going to hand this over to our tame racing driver the bile-filled funny little fellow who knows his shit. Because all I see, and I really do try to wrap my pretty little head around your arguments, is the same "It can totally cut through the barrel of a tank you guise" tripe as elsewhere. Complete with the standard sneer at "Western" military history, where weapons and armour were, for hundreds of years, being continuously adapted, improved and evolved to a far greater degree than in Japan, due to all the competition.