Hacker News Reader

Comment by benj111 | Hacker News Reader

I've been mulling the cause and effect mentioned in your comment. Poor quality steel -> heavy -> 2 handed.

I don't ever recall seeing a 2 handed bronze sword, and if the steel is worse than bronze, why didn't they go back to that? Which kind of suggests that it isn't.

I'm assuming low quality steel is overly soft rather than overly brittle. If it were overly soft wouldn't that favour shorter blades? You'd either get flex, or as you mentioned, added weight, which seems a bad trade off compared to a shorter sword and shield?

I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing, rather than a tactically advantageous thing, I'm in no way an expert on such things though.

View on HN

>I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing, rather than a tactically advantageous thing, I'm in no way an expert on such things though.

I am not an expert either but as I understand it, Samurai were nobles and fought on horseback with their primary weapons being spears and bows, and they considered swords a backup weapon.[0]

The mythologizing of the Samurai, their honor-above-reason mentality ("bushido") and the katana as their primary weapon was a retrofiction created in the Edo period, when the Samurai had been disarmed and relegated to bureaucrats, and they wanted to justify and romanticize their violent past, and the term bushido was invented in the 20th century, and was itself based on Western ideals of chivalry in knighthood (which also, really, didn't exist.)[1,2]

[0]https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/10331/why-didnt-...

[1]https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/

[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990721

"The mythologizing of the Samurai, their honor-above-reason mentality"

Agreed, I was focussing more on the not tactically advantageous, rather than ascribing an honour code per se.

It is generally a good idea to agree weapons beforehand, it helps keep the battlefield survivable. The 20th century wasn't known for it's 'honour' but WW2 combatants did refrain from using chemical weapons for example, and nukes were never used in the cold war and it's proxy battles. I'd label that as part of an honour code? I'm not making the case too forcefully though.

More like fear of reprisal than honor. Chemical and nuclear weapons are very hard to defend your civilian population from. Mutual Assured Destruction has worked so far but I wouldn’t call it an honor code.

Germany fought to the end in WW2, the eastern front was particularly brutal. I suspect there were already fears of reprisals.

I wasn't thinking MAD specifically, although I'm aware of at least one example where Russian early warning picked up an incoming object that appeared to them to be a missile, and they didn't respond, which seems very un MAD. I was thinking of the proxy wars, Vietnam, Korea, etc. I'm not even sure the threat of nuclear attack was used. I suppose you could say that's part of MAD (not attacking allies), if that were the case, wouldn't the same reasoning extend to not fighting them in the first place, in the same way there were never any conventional wars between Russia and the US?

So agreed it is mainly about self preservation, but I would say it goes a little further than that.

You're correct. Swords are almost always a sidearm and not a primary weapon. A notable exception is the sword and shield; for example the Roman legionary's gladius and scutum (and even then the pilum was thrown first). On the battlefield the samurai would use a bow or yari before his sword.

Primary weapons were generally either bows or some kind of long stick with something sharp on the end. Primary weapons and shields are both inconvenient and tacky to carry when not expecting battle, so the sidearm becomes the badge of office or nobility for the warrior class.

I'm not so sure about that either. Katanas used to be much longer if you go back several hundred years before the Edo period. I believe that the 2-handed method has more to do with providing greater power and control than the weight of the sword (one hand guiding, the other providing force). Also, there was a fair amount of schooling in drawing the sword and cutting your opponent in a single motion, which of course, is only practical with one hand.

Samurai also carried the smaller wakizashi which was used in one hand. Further, some of the lesser known swordsmen used a two-sword technique, holding a katana in either hand.

But my memory may be fuzzy; it's been a good 15+ years since I was really into all this stuff :-)

Your memory must be fuzzy. You just referred to Miyamoto Musashi as "lesser known" :-)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

"Musashi, as he was often simply known, became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 61 duels (next is 33 by Itō Ittōsai)."

> I'm assuming low quality steel is overly soft rather than overly brittle.

I think there are a lot of ways to not get it right with steel. In a sword hardness and toughness are in conflict. You really want a sword with a hard edge and a tough back. Which implies differing amounts of carbon and temper. Not only that but the grain is very important as well.

A common European way of sword making was to carburize iron rods/wire and then forge weld those into a sword. The outer layer is hard steel which is strong. The inner core is milder tougher. Japanese achieved the same by folding and forge welding. I think there are were a lot of ways to do this but labor intensive, highly skilled work where if you goofed or the starting material was off the result was crummy.

> I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing,

Not an expert either but I think 2 handed were symbolic/ceremonial/rank artifacts.

> I don't ever recall seeing a 2 handed bronze sword, and if the steel is worse than bronze, why didn't they go back to that?

Bronze fell out of use not because iron/steel was better but because tin was rare and hard to come by. So, I'm not sure of the exact answer to your question but I suspect it's some version of "because they couldn't".

Wouldn't bronze therefore become even more a sign of wealth and status? And make it all the more likely that those that could afford would shell out for bronze blades?

Gold is rare and expensive, but you see the same thing, with people displaying it all the more.

So unless their supply of tin was literally completely cut off, which I don't know for sure, but would be very surprised if it were.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com