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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Drifter Bob" data-source="post: 1670902" data-attributes="member: 17723">Well, now is your chance!  (What is TDE?)  Well, personally think the European Longsword is superior to the katana in many respects, but I try not to let my personal prejudice cloud my technical analysis.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  For more details on this subject, check out the EN thread about "Samurai vs Knight" based on John Clements article of the same name.  You can also see some of my commentary on the subject on the ARMA website.Mr Oakeshott was doing excellent, revolutionary work back into the 60's, in the accurate classification of swords, something he was doing up until his recent death.  He was not teaching WMA or historical fencing, as far as I know, although he advocated it and his efforts definately led in that direction.Many people aren't aware that until the second half of this century, basically nobody had any real idea how to classify medieval swords, or even apparently such basic details as how much they really weighed...We do use the Oakeshott typology for many European swords, as well as Peterson's typology for viking swords.  It's too bad so many other weapons haven't been anylized as systematically...I.33, for those who might be curious, is the oldest fencing manual known, dating back to the 13th century, and one of the few dealing with shields (bucklers in this case).  It is written by anonymous monks.  As far as I know, there hasn't been an English tranlsation at least until quite recently, like last year?  I haven't had a chance to study this manual, though I have seen the images from it which are available on the ARMA site.  Their sword and buckler techniques are very unusual!  I don't think anyone has worked them out yet fully, though I know of some people who are trying.An arming sword with a large shield can face a pole-axe or any other pole arm easily.  I've done it myself many times sparring....A full kit of Maximumilian gothic plate is clearly superior armor than mail, but it's also a hell of a lot more expensive and difficult to acquire!  In this case the balancing factor would be cost.Katanas have some advantages over warswords, and some disadvantages, though as I said I personally prefer the European weapons.  The Katana is more specialized, but very effective even if it's not the super weapon some pepole make it out to be.  Japanese Armor can mean a lot of different things, but per above, I would guess that it is cheaper to make in most cases.But balance can come in other areas.  Poor peasants from Bohemia and Switzerland routinely defeated knights wearing the finest Italian and German armor, by using inspired tactics and what amounted to cleverly modified farm tools...DB</blockquote>

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