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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PapersAndPaychecks" data-source="post: 2095575" data-attributes="member: 28854">I could shatter an iron sword into shards by hitting a pig carcass with it.  All I'd have to do is make the blade out of cast iron.  I could also bend a steel sword into a right angle over a pig carcass; I'd need a sword with a mild steel blade. Compare this against a Dark Age pattern-forged blade.  The test of such a weapon was for the swordsmith to bend it in a vice, such that the tip of the blade touched the pommel.  If he did that and the weapon sprang back perfectly into shape, it was deemed a worthy sword and he signed his name on the tang.  If it broke or bent, he reforged it. (Actually this is from literary sources and is quite possibly apocryphal.  However, modern tests have shown that it is, in fact, possible to do this with a well-made pattern-forged blade... a Viking pattern-forged sword was a massively more advanced feat of smithing skill than a Japanese katana, which was simply an exercise in repeated folding taken to extremes.  If a katana and a Viking blade had struck one another in combat, there would unquestionably have been bits of katana all over the place. This is one of the main reasons why the Japanese swordfighting techniques do not emphasise blade-on-blade contact - the weapons weren't designed to cope with parrying.) Anyway, I can certainly imagine someone making a bronze sword and bending it into a right angle; you could do that with steel too.  The problem is the vagueness of the terminology.  What grade of bronze or steel?  This is the result of annealing, which process forms a kind of crystalline structure in the outer part of the steel, increasing its structural integrity.  The Europeans actually seem to have discovered annealing before the Japanese did, which is in keeping with the general superiority of European sword-forging over the Japanese of the same period. Katanas were works of art, but they were the result of taking one relatively primitive technique to extremes. The Samurai were amazing warriors, no doubt about that, but they excelled despite their inferior weapons technology, not because of it.</blockquote>

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