And you can stop reading here. The author probably has not done due diligence on his research.
http://www.thearma.org/essays/hype.htm#.Vchr7RNViko
The Japanese blacksmiths' method of repeatedly heating and folding the steel was actually a way of countering the poor quality of the raw material they had, according to some other sources I've read but cannot find right now.
I assume that you didn't include this information because you know a lot about the topic and thought it was all common knowledge, but I'm not sure that it is.
Also is the article even wrong? The forging does create a very sharp edge (your own citation and other ARMA articles like Katana vs Longsword [1] go into this) and yes a very hard core. Yes the primary point is to remove impurities but why does the article become worthless for glossing over this, a point which is likely not interesting to casual reader looking for basic info and pictures of new weapons?
Forging does not create a sharp edge. The micro structure that gives sharp edge is created during the heat treatment.
Did that one line in the article perpetuate the trope? In the sense that it means 'merely wielding a katana makes one a superhuman fighter' I would say 'clearly no' but in the sense of 'katana is the coolest sword' perhaps. Did katanas have world renowned sharpness? I would say yes. World renowned 'strongness' (which can have a lot more meanings)? Notsomuch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel
Its basically the Katana folds, except you can explicitly see the folds between multiple kinds of steel. Damascus Steel is also the stuff of legends, because it is literally a technique lost to history (although people claimed to have reverse engineered it).
Furthermore, some evidence points that true Damascus Steel had carbon nanotubes and cementite nanowires strengthening the blade (possibly created through the unknown ancient forging process). Not bad for Steel made in the BC eras.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/science/28observ.html?_r=0
- I thought that was an issue of tone.
I don't think it was dismissed because it doesn't bust the 'Katanas Are Just Better' trope, but because it actively perpetuates it.
> Also is the article even wrong?
- I think so, but I'm far from an expert. The quote says that the Katana's sharpness and strength were unique among swords, when in reality the picture seems to be far from clear-cut. Strength in particular involves some degree of flexibility, which Katanas did not tend to have (I think). The quote also says that a katana derived its strength and sharpness from the folding process - I think the article you link doesn't say anything about that. It says that it has a very sharp edge, and further that a curved edge is better than a straight edge for slashing.
FWIW I really enjoyed the original article, there seem to be some interesting parallels between how polearms in Europe and these chain weapons and thrown weapons in Japan developed from ordinary tools, and in such different directions (in some cases). I also think that tone might be a good reason to downvote a comment, I just thought the topic that the comment was hinting at could be quite interesting.
These two properties, combined, made the blade a good cutting weapon against unarmored opponents.
Meanwhile, at that time, Western swords had largely abandoned cutting and bludgeoning in favor of stabbing. Generally speaking, anyone you really wanted to wound with a sword wore armor--unarmored opponents were typically killed by other types of weapons. And the easiest way to get through armor was ramming a point through a weak spot. When firearms became more cost-effective than swords, the state of the art in blades was simply frozen and romanticized.
Practically anything you can make out of the right modern commodity steels (1060, 5160 spring, 9260 spring) is as good as or better than historically accurate reproductions using era-appropriate manufacturing. If you take the leaf spring (5160 spring) from an old car and re-forge it into a sword, you can do better than a katana. You simply have access to better metal.
And likewise, if you stamp out a few hundred identical pinky-sized stainless steel bits and used wire to make lamellar out of them, you're probably going to be better armored than the best-equipped knight was before the gunpowder age. And shinier.
Like most military technologies, swords were "perfected" only after they became obsolete. As such, the best sword ever made is probably one that was made this year, as a movie prop or display piece, and it will never be used in actual combat. But if you took it back in time to 1000 AD....