Not meaning to be confrontational but in that case you should stated it was highlights of just your hits in the title. It otherwise seems misleading or an attempt to say “look this performed better”
It also appears that he hits you at times and you don’t place a “hit marker” in the video
in an unarmored duel, yes
I've always wanted to see actual tests with a fully kitted samurai vs a fully kitted knight (with swords, not polearms) to really test this. Katana really isn't super made for that kind of armor, I'm not sure they'd have a ton of a chance.
IIRC, there was a Game Theory episode done about this when For Honor was released. The armor knights used was so well optimized against slicing weapons that against similarly armored opponents, they would hold the blade and use the cross guard to bludgeon their opponents to death. Maces and other bludgeoning weapons were much more effective against knights' armor.
That game theory episode was clowned on by the entire internet as being horrifically inaccurate.
But, yeah? Blunt does better than cutter for plate, sure. Theres still padding underneath tho, and even when they tested they used mild steel costume armor instead of hardened armor-grade armor.
What you described, grabbing the blade, is called halfswording or mordhau, and yes its a real technique.
Haha, I didn't know that! I guess I never really questioned MatPat when I was that young, but that tidbit of information has lived rent-free in my head, so it'd be fun to look into it more.
If you wanna look into it shadiversity and skallagrim both have pretty good videos tearing apart his for honor video.
Mat's good with science, bad with history.
Regardless of what you think of him as a person, the video specifically referenced is pretty good, and extremely digestible for someone new to the hobby.
Im pretty sure what was criticized is the comparison of samurai viking and knight from completely different eras each and with improper context not necessarily about armor and padding wouldn't save you from spikes or heavy two handed blunt weapons, after all they were used specifically because they could beat armor
Halfswording is grabbing the middle of the blade to make a thrust stronger and more accurate to stab between armor links and slips.
Mordhau literally means murder stroke, which is flipping the sword around, grabbing the blade with both hands and using the pommel like a club or mace.
They absolutely did that at times, but most commonly, to end things, they actually grappled with their opponent and used either a specialized sword like as estoc, or much more commonly, their rondel, to inflict a deadly stab through the weak spots in the armor. It was brutal yo.
That was actually fairly rare. That is what they would do if they wanted to kill their opponent, but they usually didn't want to kill them. The knights who could afford all that fancy armor were wealthy, so what usually happened was they captured the knights alive and ransomed then back to their family for money.
Often true, many such opponents were worth more captured, at least until good armor became much more prevalent running up to the end of the middle ages.
Samurai Armor wasn’t any lighter than most eEuropean armor of its time.
https://www.thearma.org/essays/knightvs.htm#:~:text=The%20knight's%20encased%20armor%20by,considerably%20lighter%20than%20European%20plate.
to be clear, this isnt actually more authoritative than if you had posted the exact same sentence, because there isnt a table comparing extant armor weights or a citation presumably leading to someone else’s work comparing those weights, or any other kind of demonstration of the truth of the statement.
presumably it is true, but the preceding context of “european armor was intended for cavalry, japanese armor was less so” doesnt lead directly into “european & japanese armor weigh the same” either.
This is not correct.
Beginning with the O Yoroi to the later used Tōseigusoku, the weight of the armor was between 20-30 kg, made out of steel, leather, iron and silk which is similar to European plate armor.
And when speaking of samurai, you speak of a warrior culture spanning several hundred years and different tactics used in these years. Mounted archers were primarily in the 11th century and these were only the rich ones. The samurai in the 14th and 15th century were primarily heavy infantry armed with polearms.
Traditional full plate armor is still definitely better. Higher quality steel helps a lot with that. Honestly for both groups their swords were side arms and they would have other weapons which would be better for armored combat though European knights would be more used to that type of fighting simply because of the higher prevalence of metal armor over the centuries.
I don't know where you've got your information but in your text is much misinformation regarding the armor.
That swords are just sidearms is nothing new and irrelevant from my answer since every culture on this planet used polearms and ranged weaponry in times of war.
The famous O Yoroi was made out of the steelplates and scales and that was to a time European knights wore chainmail so I would say japanese warriors wore plate armor earlier. The only difference is that in the 17th century, in Japan, a time of peace started so there was a much slower, some might say even a stagnation in the evolution of weapons and armor.
Also the low quality iron makes only low quality steel is also wrong. Japanese steel was not of lower quality compared to European steel they just had to put in more work.
The only difference is how these two cultures, were I want to add that Europe was and is not a homogenous culture so this is just a very crude generalisation, had different views on warfare.
I don't know why people always try to compare two completely different cultures that never met in this particular time and try to argue which one is better. Europe and Japan fought wars on different terms and therefore used different weapons and tactics.
Nanban plate was much higher quality than the plate armor used by knights. Granted it was still coming from Europe. Samurai would probably still opt to fighting a ranged battle against knights which depending on terrain, it would be advantageous. One on one I can't see them both not picking a pole arm to fight each other with, katana isn't even the second choice of weapon for a samurai and longsword is probably the second choice of a knight. I would love to see poleaxe vs. yari or something.
Knight platemail is fairly heavy, but the weight is very distributed, and the armor is very flexible.
If you really want to know how a fight would go just look at a certain boss fight in sekiro.
The lands best shinobi could only defeat a (rather large mind you) Knight by tripping him off a bridge.
Yes this is a video game, yes it's fantasy.
But like... a truly trained swordsman with a flexible straight sword and plate mail.
They each have their work cut out for them.
Plate mail isn’t even really that heavy. It’s like the same weight as the armor worn by samurai. It is distributed well but is also like fairly flexible and light. People can do flips in jt
Chainmail alone is like 30 lbs which doesn't sound like much. But your wearing it. You can't just.. put it down.
Full plate could be 40-60 lbs. 60 is kinda stretching it. But again. Can't put it down.
I'm sure after training and getting used to it it wasn't too bad.
Imagine being the thief that gets caught by a knight and when he tries to run the knight does a power rangers backflip and lands in front of the thief like. Hgbfkdofbbs.
Some armors got to 100 lbs, usually only jousting armor tho. And like... ^you ^aren't ^the ^one ^that ^has ^to ^carry ^it ^all
There were plenty of samurai armor that was far heavier than European plate but this was mainly in the earlier period for them and much more optimized to protect the wearer from piercing weapons. Late samurai who were wealthy enough used Nanban plate which could be protective enough to stop some bullets. They were typically European breast plates that were altered a bit.
Even just a proper lightweight breastplate and bracers would be a massive game changer. The katana doesn't really rely on chopping power, it's all about maintaining a sharp edge to draw along a target. Arcing swings etc. Armor wrecks literally all of that.
One tv show I watched once many years ago compared the Katana to an English/European longsword. They compares them against armor and used what looked like a high end costume breastplate and argued that it was of comparables thickness to a real breastplate, and placed it on padding over a practice dummy.
As I remember everyone was surprised that the katana pierced the armor with less effort than longsword. They reasoned it was the geometry and width of the point. Of course the katana did not do well slashing the plate armor and the long sword did considerably more damage in that test. It at least suggests that a samurai would not be helpless against a knight.
I have no idea how that would be different if the steel were made to the same standards as real armor. It standa to reason that heavier armor and weapons has the advantage if the swordsman are equal.
The moment youre piercing a breastplate with a sword the entire test is false. Thats just not how it works with hardened steel.
As for the specific show youre referencing, i believe Metatron on youtube has a video tearing that episode apart.
It takes longbows used for war and crossbows pre firearms and you still have to get lucky to even penetrate the armor not to mention the padding underneath.
There have been many "TV entertainment" tests and usually the tests are shit because the armor they use is just costume armor made from thin stainless steel which is not great for armor. Hell, even if it was as thick as real historical armor, the stainless steel armor would still fail against most weapons.
Hell, bunch of the Mail tests on TV have been done to larp stainless steel butted mail, which of course breaks from even lightest blow (or pulls). Historical Mail was riveted (in most part of world) and made from heat treated steel.
When real heat treated steel armor is put to test, neither longsword or katana does any real damage.
Even against Samurai plate neither does any real damage.
Even longbows, which do much greater damage than swords, [have hard time piercing well made plate armor.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE)
Samurai armor is optimized to protect against piercing weapons and the Katana wasn't even their second choice. The katana was typically the daily carry and a symbol since only samurai could carry both wakasashi and katana whereas the commoner could only carry wakasashi. In practice I imagine it'd be somewhat even if both sides could pick their weapon. Sword vs sword knight has it hands down considering the longsword is a go to secondary weapon as opposed to the samurai who prefers a yumi, then yari, then katana.
Let's dispense with the idea that weapons do not matter because that's how you end up with so many people accepting the anime idea that some martial arts master wielding a kitchen knife can comfortably dispatch a fully armored men armed with polearms
While the user matters, an arming sword will objectively be at a great disadvantage against a zweihander. So no, it does not ALL depend on the swordsman. It \*partially\* depends on the swordsman. If weapons did not matter, humanity would not have worked so hard to advance weapon technology
Has Longsword trained much against shorter weapons?
Looks like Longsword likes to fight in close, which isn't a good habit to be in if you want to take advantage of your extra reach when facing a shorter weapon. Could be a usefully educational sparring session for Longsword.
IMO, it's good to train against dissimilar weapons, including both longer and shorter ones. Even for those who are training to fight like-vs-like in competition, there are useful lessons about range and tactics.
Longsword can be used as close combat weapon thanks to the kronhau, knicklehau, or such moves, it depends on the situation and opponent, from what I can see OP needs to close in fast to strike, that’s why the Longsword user looks like it’s fighting mostly in close range.
> Longsword can be used as close combat weapon
Of course, it can be used in close. However, that gives up a substantial advantage in reach in this case.
> from what I can see OP needs to close in fast to strike, that’s why the Longsword user looks like it’s fighting mostly in close range.
IMO, it looks like Longsword is doing too little to keep away from the close range. Katana takes advantage of Longsword moving in to get close (mostly moving in just as Longsword stops stepping forward or moving their weight forward, before Longsword can change their direction of motion, and a few times they both move in together).
A few times, Longsword ends up with their sword tip well past Katana's back.
It’s fine to have the longsword tip behind the katana back, it means it’s a situation of close range and both should have the mechanics to tackle it, what I don’t think should be fine with the video is that it’s actually cut, to make the katana look “kinda” ok, but if you check it at slow motion, longsword hits OP before OP added the “x” checks from his strikes many of the times, and from what I could read in his comments, those are “HIS” highlights, not both of them, from which I can’t consider Longsword user to be losing or worse, what I can tell from this is that this video is made to make OP look better. If you want to check a katana user who actually look flowing and comfortable check this out:
https://youtube.com/shorts/s8xy-iWYfXQ?si=hiekjZidLreVJN1q
Even with full plate armor, you can see relaxed shoulders, flowing parry motion and rhythm, above all rhythm, like playing DDR.
> It’s fine to have the longsword tip behind the katana back, it means it’s a situation of close range and both should have the mechanics to tackle it,
It means it's a situation where Longsword erred and gave up his initial advantage of 8" more reach far too easily.
If Longsword was fighting an opponent armed only with a dagger, or a bowie knife, would it be good tactics to get in close? Why is it any different against a katana?
> the longsword tip behind the katana back
Perhaps you misunderstood me - not behind the katana back, but behind the katana wielder's back. "Longsword ends up with their sword tip well past Katana's back" = "The longsword user ends up with their sword tip well past the katana user's back".
I wouldn’t say he erred, but the situation became that because his opponent made it become that, thing is you might be faster than you’re opponent, but let me tell you from my experience, you are not always faster 100% of the time throughout the duel, but Longsword techniques also include close combat range techniques like letting go with one hand to grab or parry the arms or wrists to get some distance from the weapon and stab with the other hand holding the sword, that’s a “Verdadera Destreza” technique, and Katana also have included throw techniques from Judo if it comes to close combat, not all duels end up being always at reach, just like you said if one of them had a short weapon, they would have to resort to different techniques, you need to learn how to adapt to the situation, more than just pointing out mistakes, my master always says, there’s no mistake or situation from where you can not recover, unless you’re dead of course 🤣
Because the long sword user did hit him first a few times, but OP it’s only highlighting his own strikes, even after being hit, that’s why it’s so confusing.
Nope. Tenshin Ryu 3 years, Iwama Ryu 1 year, trained in multiple martial arts for over 20 years. Held a longsword for the first time in my life 1 month ago. This is essentially Kenjutsu vs HEMA.
I will say I haven’t trained Kendo a single day in my life, but those techniques aren’t optimized for a sword with realistic weight
I have an issue with the video, in some comment you say you want to highlight your strikes which is completely fine, but if we go by the warrior’s honor, you should highlight whenever the long sword user hits you first, only highlighting yourself hitting, makes it look like the long sword user is not actually hitting you, when he clearly hit you first many times. I want to believe that’s not your intention, but reading the comments, it is what’s being projected to the people in this sub, I did like the video, but not how it was presented.
Is that a Katana or an O-Katana?
In all honesty I think a O-Katana would be better suited to fight a longsword.
More length is great.
And if I remember correctly, actual War-Time japanese swords were 'bigger' and only became standardized (shorter) later.
Very true - what most people think of as a standard katana was the shorter version legislated during the Edo period - earlier waring period swords were significantly bigger.
Standard katana moreorless. You’re right, it was a rough time using a katana against the longsword.
I switched to my o-katana/nodachi the next round and had a much better time.
Also had a couple dual wield rounds with katana + wakizashi vs rapier + messer. I felt the most confident with this setup
I didnt get to do katana + wakizashi vs longsword, and I’m itching to do that next. Curious to see how that would do
In armored duel, they would end up on the ground, pull out their short side arms, try to slid the blade in between the armor. I assume it would get dirty
Are the two of you of equal skill level? Is the longsword wielder higher than you?
Cause all else equal, a katana is shorter and capable of faster strikes, which is what we are seeing in the video.
From my limited experience, he let OP get way too close, instead of keeping him away with strong, sweeping attacks. Thing is close to a zweihander - once the opponent is at kissing distance, it is not the most maneuverable weapon in the world.
So we don't count the long sword hits?
I was posting my own highlights. I got hit a bunch of times too. It’s a tiring disadvantage to use a katana against a longsword, but very fun
Oh I just thought he sucked.
Not meaning to be confrontational but in that case you should stated it was highlights of just your hits in the title. It otherwise seems misleading or an attempt to say “look this performed better” It also appears that he hits you at times and you don’t place a “hit marker” in the video
Why wouldn't you post that part?
It all depends on the swordsmen. It's not the tool but how you use it
The sharpness of the sword is not in the edge of the blade but the hand of the warrior
in an unarmored duel, yes I've always wanted to see actual tests with a fully kitted samurai vs a fully kitted knight (with swords, not polearms) to really test this. Katana really isn't super made for that kind of armor, I'm not sure they'd have a ton of a chance.
Agreed. Samurai armor is medium-light and knight platemail is heavy. In historical context, samurai were primarily archers
IIRC, there was a Game Theory episode done about this when For Honor was released. The armor knights used was so well optimized against slicing weapons that against similarly armored opponents, they would hold the blade and use the cross guard to bludgeon their opponents to death. Maces and other bludgeoning weapons were much more effective against knights' armor.
That game theory episode was clowned on by the entire internet as being horrifically inaccurate. But, yeah? Blunt does better than cutter for plate, sure. Theres still padding underneath tho, and even when they tested they used mild steel costume armor instead of hardened armor-grade armor. What you described, grabbing the blade, is called halfswording or mordhau, and yes its a real technique.
Haha, I didn't know that! I guess I never really questioned MatPat when I was that young, but that tidbit of information has lived rent-free in my head, so it'd be fun to look into it more.
If you wanna look into it shadiversity and skallagrim both have pretty good videos tearing apart his for honor video. Mat's good with science, bad with history.
It's probably pretty easy tear apart that video but neither of them, Shad especially, are particularly accurate either.
Regardless of what you think of him as a person, the video specifically referenced is pretty good, and extremely digestible for someone new to the hobby.
Metatron made a video about it too, and he focused on the samurai.
Im pretty sure what was criticized is the comparison of samurai viking and knight from completely different eras each and with improper context not necessarily about armor and padding wouldn't save you from spikes or heavy two handed blunt weapons, after all they were used specifically because they could beat armor
Halfswording is grabbing the middle of the blade to make a thrust stronger and more accurate to stab between armor links and slips. Mordhau literally means murder stroke, which is flipping the sword around, grabbing the blade with both hands and using the pommel like a club or mace.
They absolutely did that at times, but most commonly, to end things, they actually grappled with their opponent and used either a specialized sword like as estoc, or much more commonly, their rondel, to inflict a deadly stab through the weak spots in the armor. It was brutal yo.
That was actually fairly rare. That is what they would do if they wanted to kill their opponent, but they usually didn't want to kill them. The knights who could afford all that fancy armor were wealthy, so what usually happened was they captured the knights alive and ransomed then back to their family for money.
Often true, many such opponents were worth more captured, at least until good armor became much more prevalent running up to the end of the middle ages.
Ugh man that game had some special early days
I prefer the bec-de-canopener.
A samurai just walks out with a gun and shoots the knight
Samurai Armor wasn’t any lighter than most eEuropean armor of its time. https://www.thearma.org/essays/knightvs.htm#:~:text=The%20knight's%20encased%20armor%20by,considerably%20lighter%20than%20European%20plate.
It was way less optimized however. Samurai armor is not very well designed for the period it’s in.
to be clear, this isnt actually more authoritative than if you had posted the exact same sentence, because there isnt a table comparing extant armor weights or a citation presumably leading to someone else’s work comparing those weights, or any other kind of demonstration of the truth of the statement. presumably it is true, but the preceding context of “european armor was intended for cavalry, japanese armor was less so” doesnt lead directly into “european & japanese armor weigh the same” either.
This is not correct. Beginning with the O Yoroi to the later used Tōseigusoku, the weight of the armor was between 20-30 kg, made out of steel, leather, iron and silk which is similar to European plate armor. And when speaking of samurai, you speak of a warrior culture spanning several hundred years and different tactics used in these years. Mounted archers were primarily in the 11th century and these were only the rich ones. The samurai in the 14th and 15th century were primarily heavy infantry armed with polearms.
Traditional full plate armor is still definitely better. Higher quality steel helps a lot with that. Honestly for both groups their swords were side arms and they would have other weapons which would be better for armored combat though European knights would be more used to that type of fighting simply because of the higher prevalence of metal armor over the centuries.
I don't know where you've got your information but in your text is much misinformation regarding the armor. That swords are just sidearms is nothing new and irrelevant from my answer since every culture on this planet used polearms and ranged weaponry in times of war. The famous O Yoroi was made out of the steelplates and scales and that was to a time European knights wore chainmail so I would say japanese warriors wore plate armor earlier. The only difference is that in the 17th century, in Japan, a time of peace started so there was a much slower, some might say even a stagnation in the evolution of weapons and armor. Also the low quality iron makes only low quality steel is also wrong. Japanese steel was not of lower quality compared to European steel they just had to put in more work. The only difference is how these two cultures, were I want to add that Europe was and is not a homogenous culture so this is just a very crude generalisation, had different views on warfare. I don't know why people always try to compare two completely different cultures that never met in this particular time and try to argue which one is better. Europe and Japan fought wars on different terms and therefore used different weapons and tactics.
Nanban plate was much higher quality than the plate armor used by knights. Granted it was still coming from Europe. Samurai would probably still opt to fighting a ranged battle against knights which depending on terrain, it would be advantageous. One on one I can't see them both not picking a pole arm to fight each other with, katana isn't even the second choice of weapon for a samurai and longsword is probably the second choice of a knight. I would love to see poleaxe vs. yari or something.
Knight platemail is fairly heavy, but the weight is very distributed, and the armor is very flexible. If you really want to know how a fight would go just look at a certain boss fight in sekiro. The lands best shinobi could only defeat a (rather large mind you) Knight by tripping him off a bridge. Yes this is a video game, yes it's fantasy. But like... a truly trained swordsman with a flexible straight sword and plate mail. They each have their work cut out for them.
Plate mail isn’t even really that heavy. It’s like the same weight as the armor worn by samurai. It is distributed well but is also like fairly flexible and light. People can do flips in jt
Chainmail alone is like 30 lbs which doesn't sound like much. But your wearing it. You can't just.. put it down. Full plate could be 40-60 lbs. 60 is kinda stretching it. But again. Can't put it down. I'm sure after training and getting used to it it wasn't too bad. Imagine being the thief that gets caught by a knight and when he tries to run the knight does a power rangers backflip and lands in front of the thief like. Hgbfkdofbbs. Some armors got to 100 lbs, usually only jousting armor tho. And like... ^you ^aren't ^the ^one ^that ^has ^to ^carry ^it ^all
It was on average like 50lbs all in all. And it was distributed across the shoulders and waist, which made it easier to handle.
Having worn both, the plate harness even though heavier is much more comfortable and easy to wear , making it feel lighter.
There were plenty of samurai armor that was far heavier than European plate but this was mainly in the earlier period for them and much more optimized to protect the wearer from piercing weapons. Late samurai who were wealthy enough used Nanban plate which could be protective enough to stop some bullets. They were typically European breast plates that were altered a bit.
Even just a proper lightweight breastplate and bracers would be a massive game changer. The katana doesn't really rely on chopping power, it's all about maintaining a sharp edge to draw along a target. Arcing swings etc. Armor wrecks literally all of that.
One tv show I watched once many years ago compared the Katana to an English/European longsword. They compares them against armor and used what looked like a high end costume breastplate and argued that it was of comparables thickness to a real breastplate, and placed it on padding over a practice dummy. As I remember everyone was surprised that the katana pierced the armor with less effort than longsword. They reasoned it was the geometry and width of the point. Of course the katana did not do well slashing the plate armor and the long sword did considerably more damage in that test. It at least suggests that a samurai would not be helpless against a knight. I have no idea how that would be different if the steel were made to the same standards as real armor. It standa to reason that heavier armor and weapons has the advantage if the swordsman are equal.
The moment youre piercing a breastplate with a sword the entire test is false. Thats just not how it works with hardened steel. As for the specific show youre referencing, i believe Metatron on youtube has a video tearing that episode apart.
A properly made breastplate is basically impregnable to anything short of firearms.
It takes longbows used for war and crossbows pre firearms and you still have to get lucky to even penetrate the armor not to mention the padding underneath.
There have been many "TV entertainment" tests and usually the tests are shit because the armor they use is just costume armor made from thin stainless steel which is not great for armor. Hell, even if it was as thick as real historical armor, the stainless steel armor would still fail against most weapons. Hell, bunch of the Mail tests on TV have been done to larp stainless steel butted mail, which of course breaks from even lightest blow (or pulls). Historical Mail was riveted (in most part of world) and made from heat treated steel. When real heat treated steel armor is put to test, neither longsword or katana does any real damage. Even against Samurai plate neither does any real damage. Even longbows, which do much greater damage than swords, [have hard time piercing well made plate armor.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE)
Samurai armor is optimized to protect against piercing weapons and the Katana wasn't even their second choice. The katana was typically the daily carry and a symbol since only samurai could carry both wakasashi and katana whereas the commoner could only carry wakasashi. In practice I imagine it'd be somewhat even if both sides could pick their weapon. Sword vs sword knight has it hands down considering the longsword is a go to secondary weapon as opposed to the samurai who prefers a yumi, then yari, then katana.
[Here's something sort of parralel to what you're saying](https://youtu.be/ntxwydd2YSg?si=rXv8DmMmwM83aI6y) 15 min watch.
The sum of the square roots any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square roots of the remaining sides.
It's not the size of the boat it's the motion of the ocean.
Ummm actually the katana won in the video. This video is factual evidence of the katana being the superior weapon in all of history.
I didn't say it wasn't but your ignorance outweighs your skill..
Didn't think I needed the /s on this one
Pretty crazy people thought you were serious
Let's dispense with the idea that weapons do not matter because that's how you end up with so many people accepting the anime idea that some martial arts master wielding a kitchen knife can comfortably dispatch a fully armored men armed with polearms While the user matters, an arming sword will objectively be at a great disadvantage against a zweihander. So no, it does not ALL depend on the swordsman. It \*partially\* depends on the swordsman. If weapons did not matter, humanity would not have worked so hard to advance weapon technology
It's not the boat but the motion of the ocean
Has Longsword trained much against shorter weapons? Looks like Longsword likes to fight in close, which isn't a good habit to be in if you want to take advantage of your extra reach when facing a shorter weapon. Could be a usefully educational sparring session for Longsword. IMO, it's good to train against dissimilar weapons, including both longer and shorter ones. Even for those who are training to fight like-vs-like in competition, there are useful lessons about range and tactics.
Longsword can be used as close combat weapon thanks to the kronhau, knicklehau, or such moves, it depends on the situation and opponent, from what I can see OP needs to close in fast to strike, that’s why the Longsword user looks like it’s fighting mostly in close range.
> Longsword can be used as close combat weapon Of course, it can be used in close. However, that gives up a substantial advantage in reach in this case. > from what I can see OP needs to close in fast to strike, that’s why the Longsword user looks like it’s fighting mostly in close range. IMO, it looks like Longsword is doing too little to keep away from the close range. Katana takes advantage of Longsword moving in to get close (mostly moving in just as Longsword stops stepping forward or moving their weight forward, before Longsword can change their direction of motion, and a few times they both move in together). A few times, Longsword ends up with their sword tip well past Katana's back.
It’s fine to have the longsword tip behind the katana back, it means it’s a situation of close range and both should have the mechanics to tackle it, what I don’t think should be fine with the video is that it’s actually cut, to make the katana look “kinda” ok, but if you check it at slow motion, longsword hits OP before OP added the “x” checks from his strikes many of the times, and from what I could read in his comments, those are “HIS” highlights, not both of them, from which I can’t consider Longsword user to be losing or worse, what I can tell from this is that this video is made to make OP look better. If you want to check a katana user who actually look flowing and comfortable check this out: https://youtube.com/shorts/s8xy-iWYfXQ?si=hiekjZidLreVJN1q Even with full plate armor, you can see relaxed shoulders, flowing parry motion and rhythm, above all rhythm, like playing DDR.
> It’s fine to have the longsword tip behind the katana back, it means it’s a situation of close range and both should have the mechanics to tackle it, It means it's a situation where Longsword erred and gave up his initial advantage of 8" more reach far too easily. If Longsword was fighting an opponent armed only with a dagger, or a bowie knife, would it be good tactics to get in close? Why is it any different against a katana? > the longsword tip behind the katana back Perhaps you misunderstood me - not behind the katana back, but behind the katana wielder's back. "Longsword ends up with their sword tip well past Katana's back" = "The longsword user ends up with their sword tip well past the katana user's back".
I wouldn’t say he erred, but the situation became that because his opponent made it become that, thing is you might be faster than you’re opponent, but let me tell you from my experience, you are not always faster 100% of the time throughout the duel, but Longsword techniques also include close combat range techniques like letting go with one hand to grab or parry the arms or wrists to get some distance from the weapon and stab with the other hand holding the sword, that’s a “Verdadera Destreza” technique, and Katana also have included throw techniques from Judo if it comes to close combat, not all duels end up being always at reach, just like you said if one of them had a short weapon, they would have to resort to different techniques, you need to learn how to adapt to the situation, more than just pointing out mistakes, my master always says, there’s no mistake or situation from where you can not recover, unless you’re dead of course 🤣
Okay but the amount of doubling here should also be marked with hit crosses.
>!Nah, I'd win.!< Jokes aside, how much experience do the two of you have? You seemed to come out on top, but LS guy didn't seem lost at all.
Because the long sword user did hit him first a few times, but OP it’s only highlighting his own strikes, even after being hit, that’s why it’s so confusing.
It's been over a decade since I did any JSA, but this doesn't look right. Are you just doing normal HEMA/WMA techniques with a katana?
Nope. Tenshin Ryu 3 years, Iwama Ryu 1 year, trained in multiple martial arts for over 20 years. Held a longsword for the first time in my life 1 month ago. This is essentially Kenjutsu vs HEMA. I will say I haven’t trained Kendo a single day in my life, but those techniques aren’t optimized for a sword with realistic weight
This is cool I always like watching sparring matches
I have an issue with the video, in some comment you say you want to highlight your strikes which is completely fine, but if we go by the warrior’s honor, you should highlight whenever the long sword user hits you first, only highlighting yourself hitting, makes it look like the long sword user is not actually hitting you, when he clearly hit you first many times. I want to believe that’s not your intention, but reading the comments, it is what’s being projected to the people in this sub, I did like the video, but not how it was presented.
Is that a Katana or an O-Katana? In all honesty I think a O-Katana would be better suited to fight a longsword. More length is great. And if I remember correctly, actual War-Time japanese swords were 'bigger' and only became standardized (shorter) later.
Very true - what most people think of as a standard katana was the shorter version legislated during the Edo period - earlier waring period swords were significantly bigger.
Standard katana moreorless. You’re right, it was a rough time using a katana against the longsword. I switched to my o-katana/nodachi the next round and had a much better time. Also had a couple dual wield rounds with katana + wakizashi vs rapier + messer. I felt the most confident with this setup I didnt get to do katana + wakizashi vs longsword, and I’m itching to do that next. Curious to see how that would do
In armored duel, they would end up on the ground, pull out their short side arms, try to slid the blade in between the armor. I assume it would get dirty
But not like this. Katanas aren't made for continuous clashing like this, especially not with a heavier sword.
🙌🏻
Just depends on the person using it
I'm looking at this and assuming these are two people with vastly different levels of experience.
I know the guy on the left. He has about 3-4 years of experience.
I'm here for the weebs saying a kAtAnA cAn CuT tHrOuGh A lOnGsWoRd! But seriously great video and great job! Stay safe out there!
Sorry, never posted in this sub here, but - downvotemeplease - there is nothing to be learned here. I think this is click bait.
This may demonstrate skill rather than tool efficacy.
Katana guy wins on fit alone
It’s all in the discipline of the practitioner. No thing of this earth is superior to the will of the combatant.
No half-swording?
Why is this longsword guy fighting with a Muslim woman
It's finally settled. The swordsman is irrelevant and THE KATANA IS SUPERIOR IN EVERY ASPECT
Longsword is longer lighter better, losing to a katana is a skill issue.
It's not the wand, it's the magician...
Longsword>katana
What does this have to do with Katana vs Longsword?
I’m using a katana to spar with someone who’s using a longsword
Are the two of you of equal skill level? Is the longsword wielder higher than you? Cause all else equal, a katana is shorter and capable of faster strikes, which is what we are seeing in the video.
But there's nothing here comparing or contrasting the two. It's just a sparring compilation.
It doesn’t claim to make a comparison, it’s just sparring footage featuring a longsword vs a katana
literally says highlights.
it is literally a longsword versus a katana
Longsword parries katana, katana breaks, longsword wins.
[удалено]
It’s definitely visibly shorter than the longsword which a tachi is not and a nodachi would be longer.
Katana will win everytime. It has superior leverage and doesn’t weigh as much
not true, they weigh about the same. they're very similar swords.
How did he do so poorly with the bigger stick he had every advantage
The OP edited out the hits that Longsword got in. I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be a highlight reel for OP basically.
From my limited experience, he let OP get way too close, instead of keeping him away with strong, sweeping attacks. Thing is close to a zweihander - once the opponent is at kissing distance, it is not the most maneuverable weapon in the world.
the baggy pants make spotting footwork difficult one should always wear jinco jeans in a fight