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Message: <blockquote data-quote="micromaximum" data-source="post: 1161909" data-attributes="member: 9060">Not all Japanese armor was made out of wood.  Early armor consisted primarily of leather and laquered wood.  Later versions of armor incorporated as much metal as possible.  Just as in Europe, the common Japanese soldier would only have access to cheap armor which meant little steel and lots of wood and leather or nothing at all.  However, any samurai that could afford it was going to own a set of steel armor.  It's just common sense, you're going to have the best protection you can afford and even though the supply of metal in Japan was limited it wasn't out of reach for the wealthy.  The wealthiest could even afford to provide metal armor for some of their retainers.It's not raining and humid all of the time throughout Japan so the climate doesn't play as much of a role as people sometimes believe.  Even when it was humid and raining no one was running around in their armor all day so the chances of dying from heat exhaustion or having your armor damaged by rust were no greater than what many Europeans had to deal with.As for Katana, again you really need to frame your discussion during a certain time period because Katana evolved over time.  As you might expect, early Katana were not as effective as later Katana and might not even be immediately recognizable as such.  Not all Katana are the same, either.  The size of the blade varied by as much as two feet and the length of the grip and curvature of the blade also varied.</blockquote>

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