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Originally Posted by kisak
Well, how long does it take to make a katana, if you're just aiming for a good weapon (and not an "art sword")? How long does a 15th century arming sword take to make? Looking at the cost of making modern day replicas I guess a katana might take slightly longer, but without any numbers for comparison it seems meaningless to try and guess if the difference is meaningful or not.
The armour bit seems odd as well. The Japanese did have iron armour after all, so it seems decidedly odd that they'd stick to a sword which risked catastrophic failure if you accidentally hit your opponents armour. And even without armour I find such a sword an oddity, given that you might always happen to hit your opponents sword, coin purse teeth, some buckle or jewellery, etc. (This isn't to say that I believe the Japanese would simply try to cut through iron lamellar. As far as I've understood it, both in Japan and in Europe, the primary answer to iron armour was to attack where the armour wasn't.)
As for my own experiences, modern ZNKR iaido and kendo kata both avoid edge-on-edge contact (from what I've understood, European longsword fencing does the same), but there's a number of blade-on-blade techniques, some done with a decent amount of force behind them. And for what it's worth, some test cutting I've done with a cheap, modern, Chinese replica has resulted in a few more-than-glancing blows hitting the unyielding chopping block, without the blade cracking. Not traditionally made of course, but even with the improvements in metallurgy over the year it seems to me that a budget offering from China wouldn't be all that good compared to the real thing.
So while there are indeed some who will exaggerate the performance of the katana, I don't feel that the answer to that is to exaggerate in the other direction (such as some of these points may be, or like the last paragraph you wrote about the European blade). Sadly, such often seems to happen when any comparisons are made between sword A and sword B, and it's one reason why I'm sceptical about the possible usefulness of such.
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Think about the process of making a Katana, do you really think any 'good' complete Katana didn't take three times the amount of hours to create that a good broadsword would?
The damage that hitting a 'coin purse tooth' or small buckle would do is probobly not going to 'write off' the blade, even piercing v thin metal sheet like a can opener. but IMveryHO thats not the question here.
The hard sharp edge of a katana is brittle. The hard sharp edge of a european sword is decidedly less so.
Yes, the first choice if you block with a Katana is for the impact to be on the wide blunt top side, and I'm sure we've all seen Katanas that show scars from this behavior.
But battle is battle, and sometimes you just have to block any way you can.
A hard edge to edge strike can leave cracks, or sections of the cutting edge snapped out.
Also, a Katana has so little flex in the blade, a glancing blow can crack the cutting edge and buckle the blade. A similar blow might if you're very unlucky leave a kink in the european blade, but as I pointed out, you could literally use a lump hammer to straighten it.
I've never broken a bent antique European blade, and I've often been a lot less than gentle in straightening them.
My point is that there is no 'helpful' comparison unless you include the entire 'story'.
Katana, very sharp, inflexible, fragile, time consuming to make.
Broadsword (european longsword), strong, flexible, easy to maintain, quick to make, durable, versatile.
No contest!
Don't get me wrong, I DO like Japanese weapons.
I just think they are massively overrated.