True Combat Value of Wootz

[Chris Evans]

1. Ariel,

Originally Posted by ariel

This thread is astonishing: in one fell swoop we started to demolish the mythology of the 2 greatest blademaking traditions: Japanese and Persian.
It appears that good mass-produced European blades were at the very least as good and perhaps even better than legendary "Masamunes and Assadollahs". And for less effort and money, too! Overall, the effort:result ratio was orders of magnitude in favor of Europe. Unquestionably, it was the result of scientific revolutions in Europe to which Japanese or Middle-Easterns were very late-comers or just passive consumers. No individual tradition, no matter how refined, can compete with a massive and systematic onslaught of Scientific Technology. Un-romantic, but true.....

I think that you are spot on, but as collectors we tend to gravitate towards the exceptional or magnificent and not necessarily the practical - And then we fantacize about them, at times a little too freely. To my mind, very few Euro swords can match the sheer beauty, not to mention the unbelievable craftsmanship, of a top wootz or Japanese blade - Practical weapons with which to equip an army? Not really. Magnificent examples of metal working? Unquestionably so. Collectables? A most resounding yes!


2. GT Obach,

Thanks for that link on brittle failure - Made for good reading. Here is another one:

http://www.sv.vt.edu/classes/MSE2094...w/ballard.html

3. There are many other relevant topics that are a bit difficult to adequately cover in a setting like this. For example: The origination of micro cracking, crack propagation and arresting, residual stresses and their role in assisting or inhibiting crack propagation, notch sensitivity of steels and so on.


4. As to the perennial and recurring question as whether these swords were better or inferior to their Western European counterparts, that entirely depends on how they were deployed and the theatre of war. For one, the Mongol hordes did not use very high quality weapons, yet they were remarkably successful.

5. As an aside, for those interested in Japanese swords and their style of fencing, as assessed from the European perspective, there is wonderful little book written by F.J Norman and titled The Fighting Man of Japan. Norman was a Brit cavalry man who taught the Japanese in the 1870s and was probably the first Englishman to seriously study their style of swordsmanship. He made a number of very interesting and astute observations re the merits of the two styles. He opined that whilst a top class Euro duelist could perhaps beat a Japanese in a one to one contest on favourable ground, on the battlefield he felt that the Euro sword of his times was too cumbersome for unmounted use. He also observed that notwithstanding its shorter blade, the Japanese sword did not lack reach because of its longer handle. He was sufficiently level headed to acknowledge that whilst he considered the Japanese sword and its wielding very good, nevertheless both could have been improved.

Cheers
Chris