Print

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

[Sergarr]

Not in the game?

Damn. Then Cuba? I remember it being very shit-out-of-luck on opportunities to break out and do shit.

[mainiac]

Cuba could get strong pretty quickly since the "free ports" national focus has no prerequisites.

[Culise]

Tannu Tuva or Bhutan were traditional possibilities in HOI 1 and 2. 

[Il Palazzo]

Afaik the katanas are only folded 'cos that's how oldtimeyjaps made steel.

Their steel was shit, as in it was hard to make it into a sword, not that the finished product was bad, and the easiest way to get it right was folding, IIRC. Europeans did the same thing in early middle ages with like Ulfberhts and stuff, albeit details vary.

THIS IS A LIE.  Japanese iron deposits are some of the highest grade on Earth.  Source:  My wife is a geologist(BS)/chemist(BS)/geochemist(MS)/Soil and crop science(pending PhD).  I'm done giving a damn about what anyone says about the sword or the smiths but I will not tolerate this kind of willful ignorance.

This is surprising to me because I have seen many mentions of the opposite over the years.  Questions:

1) When you say they are high grade, are the high grade deposits ones that would have been accessible to pre-industrial japan?
2) Do you know where people would have gotten the idea that the opposite is true? (Seeing as it is so common.)
3) Why did Japan use techniques that are associated with low grade iron like excessive folding?

This guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r4q0reHAC8
has a very good series of videos on the whole katana thing, including ores and metallurgic processes. He looks a bit goofy, but his videos are very well researched and thorough.
Ore is covered in the 2nd one (spoiler: very pure ore in Japanese iron sands - if you've got the technology to separate the two)

[Parsely]

The Japanese bladesmiths were not pleased to learn about their swords snapping in Mongolian brigandine armor.

How does the sword break after it's been thrust into the armor? Some kind of Mongolian sorcery? What sounds more likely is that the sword would get stuck, and then the attacker would be killed after his victim recovered and struck him a blow. My other question is: what kind of idiot thrusts into the armored part of his enemy?

I belive there is actually retarded variation of Katanas. Fat katanas, slim katanas, light katanas, heavy katanas, longer katanas, shorter katanas and whatever, which supposedly made them useful for various tasks, but that might be just modern thing.

The same way that there is absolutely ridiculous variation in weapons in every other country in the world.

[mainiac]

Not Grand Fenwick!

[Loud Whispers]

How does the sword break after it's been thrust into the armor? Some kind of Mongolian sorcery?

Take an inflexible piece of metal and jam it into something. If it does not bend, it breaks. The Katana is inflexible, so it breaks.

[Rolepgeek]

Thrust into a joint. Blade stopped by leather or what have you underneath. Yank sword or hold on as armor wearer moves. Blade snaps.

That's what I remember reading, at any rate.

Also, yeah, there were many variations on the katana. Almost kinda like there were many variations on the European swords. How strange.

[Parsely]

How does the sword break after it's been thrust into the armor? Some kind of Mongolian sorcery?

Take an inflexible piece of metal and jam it into something. If it does not bend, it breaks. The Katana is inflexible, so it breaks.

If that's true, then why would someone who uses a katana ever thrust into his opponent's armor? If your sword breaks, you die, so you would do everything in your power not to do that.

Thrust into a joint. Blade stopped by leather or what have you underneath. Yank sword or hold on as armor wearer moves. Blade snaps.

That's what I remember reading, at any rate.

But your previous narrative contends that this was somehow unique to Mongolian armor. How? Was this same situation you paint impossible with Japanese armor?

And personally I think someone would lose their grip before the sword could ever break. Swords hardly ever broke in people's hands. If someone hits your sword the force will cause your sword's tip to move or the grip to leave your hand before the full force of a blow could impart itself and enable the blade to be broken.

Relevant: Trying to break an inflexible sword with sword blows.

[Rolepgeek]

For good swords, you're correct. They were not good swords at the time of the mongol invasions. That was my point. They were shit, because they were not primary weapons whatsoever.

It was a very short set of battles, too, so it's not like they had much opportunity to learn, especially given that the Mongols fought so dishonorably (which is to say, they didn't engage in miniature duels on the battlefield as the Japanese had been accustomed to doing).

It wasn't unique to Mongolian armor. It was semi-unique to their specific type of armor. They had brigandine(layers of leather with metal plates or rings) armor, not the plates of early retainer armor. It's much thicker in terms of material, which means more grip and opportunity for it to break. You misread my narrative, or I was unclear. I was just trying to say that it was during the Mongol invasions that they got that wake-up call. There was a drastic overhaul in swordsmithing techniques following that, and the blades of what we think of as the Samurai era were of a far higher quality, at least for families who could afford them. Mind you, they weren't ridiculously amazing. High quality, yes, probably higher quality than the typical European swords if only by necessity/selection bias, since they were status symbols and there was so much less iron available to work with(only the best smiths were hired, basically, even more so than with Europe, at least for cavalry sabers(which is what katana are, I'll remind you)). But the edge was brittle, and chipped easily, requiring sharpening quite often.

Hindsight is 20/20.

[Strife26]

Dont you know?  In WWII US marines targeted the guys with the katana's first.

Was that 20% of US Marines or did it vary compared to Marines shooting at non-sword carrying individuals, bayonet carrying individuals, and bayoneted machine-gun carrying individuals?

[mainiac]

I was referencing a dank meme, yo.

But I imagine that most Marines would prioritize shooting the guys with the Katanas, i.e. the officers, given the chance.  Not that I imagine they really were that discriminating in their targets.

[Tack]

I'd assume... Sword-carrying officers?
It's like not having easily-readible pips. Snipers love a gold star.


Edit: ninjad

[Kot]

I belive there is actually retarded variation of Katanas. Fat katanas, slim katanas, light katanas, heavy katanas, longer katanas, shorter katanas and whatever, which supposedly made them useful for various tasks, but that might be just modern thing.

The same way that there is absolutely ridiculous variation in weapons in every other country in the world.

The point was that there isin't just a single version of katana that was used for 200000000 years straight with no variation.
I think.

[Tack]

I figure if a katana is too short it's a wakizashi, if a katana is too long it's a no dachi.
Everything in-between is katana.

There also may have been widely different old katanas, but I daresay they'd have been melted down in the sword hunts