The katars

[Jens Nordlunde]

Although I don’t intend to lecture anyone about katars, I think you should take good old Stone and have a look at page 347 #14, 16 and 19. These katars have blades from 70 to 80 centimetres, but they are still called katars. You should also have a look at the blades on the south Indian and the north Indian katars, they are quite different.
The long bladed katars suggests, to me, a slashing weapon, mostly likely used from a horse, especially when the hand guard is closed like on the gauntlet sword – only then it is a pata, not a katar. If you in an attack on horse stab a man with a pata, you will most likely get your arm torn off at the shoulder, be pulled off from the horse – or maybe both, be course you will not be able to free the sword from the man, nor will you be able to let go of the sword fast enough, and if you did/could, you would be without a sword, although I am aware of that they often had a saddle sword and a personal sword.
The south Indian katars with the broad, rather thin blades with only a small armour piercing tip are fairly sharp, and could be used both for slashing and stabbing, whereas the north Indian katars with thicker blades and big armour piercing tips were for stabbing, not for slashing in the same way as the south Indian katars.
Due to the heat the south Indians were not dressed as heavily as those from the north, besides mail shirts was an old tradition amongst the Moguls, but not used as much in the south.
In my opinion the north Indian katar was made for opening a mail shirt, and this was not needed in the south. The different ways they protected themselves, gave a need of different katar types.
The total length of the katars shown is, from the top 25 cm and 39 cm.