Poll: Katana and Rapier: An Objective Comparison

[Ieyke]

Presumably we're approaching this as equally as possible.
Evenly skilled, open room, no armor.
This is a question of swords and their fighting styles, not the situations they might be put in.

You'll never establish anything once you start fiddling with more parameters and assuming everyone is fighting on the moon.

 

[Lightknight]

Edit: Not to say that a rapier would never break in combat, as they can and did and already mentioned. I seem to remember reading something about grabbing the opponents blade and bending it to breaking point, though I'm not sure of the veracity of that. Just pointing out that within the confines of this particular experiment, the situation probably wont occur.

It depends on the type or rapier and the desperateness of the situation. You can absolutely hand-bend some rapier blades nearer the tip. In all schools of rapier fighting, the tip is the weakpoint of the blade. Bends and breaks with ease. As I stated, they were known to bend and break in bodies in addition to breaking against other surfaces like weapons and the rarer armor (since these were primarily used in civilian battles and not armed military fights).

I didn't see the mythbusters or whatnot in question, but I'd be interested in seeing that they considered to be a rapier since the term is so vague as well as where the blade was struck. Just because a good rapier swordsman would avoid full-force strikes with the type doesn't mean another good bladesmith couldn't strike it. A lot of skill against longer blades is to defeat the point. A spear is always supposed to bead a sword unless the sword wielder can get past the point. Part of a sword fight against a rapier would be to try and tag the tip. A little warping can throw the opponents accuracy off and a breakage could render the weapon almost harmless. While the rapier has reach to the other person's body, fighting the tip of the blade rather than the person initially can take away the advantage. It's still much more difficult as the rapier is a lighter blade and so typically lends itself to turning solid blows into meaningless glances.

 

[Lightknight]

SNIP

Enjoyed reading that, thanks for posting.

Baring in mind that most swordfights are determined by the first blow, which would be your choice?

With the parameters that the first blow is what we're considering, reach wins out. So the rapier should win with that condition. There are styles to mitigate the difference considerably but with equal skill levels the longer blade can strike without putting the striker in immediate danger.

So that's my choice. Given other parameters it could shift elsewhere. Especially assuming that the rapier being discussed seems to be more on the narrow side than the German long sword they call rapier. It's also not the cutting variety we're discussing with a slightly wider blade that significantly mitigates the weakness in a purely pointed rapier.

Because rapiers require a lot more defensive fighting than just going for the kill, a heavier sword like a katana may land a blow sufficient to at least warp the blade. The thing about rapiers is that their mortality rate is considerably low. Who would "win" the fight has far too many parameters to even make a guess at since any rapier strike could be through the eye or heart or whatever whereas ten strikes may not stop the oppenent from getting one heavy blow in and surviving. It's a fascinating thing. I'd love to see a mixed style/blade swordsmanship fights competition of some sort. Something with legitimate competition from different schools.

 

[Psychobabble]

My thoughts on this is that the weapon does not make the champion. Case in point, Shaka's Zulu warriors ripping the ass out of the British Military.

Both the rapier and the katana were developed over time for specialized combat conditions in two completely different cultures. They are completely dissimilar fighting styles and judging the outcome based solely on the swords themselves is ridiculous. Add to the mix that prose and film have over romanticized the shit out of both types of combat to the point of near fictionalization muddies the waters of what is factual even further. The reality is until we can actually get several fencing and kenijutsu masters to fight each other to the death so we can correlate some data, this is all just theory crafting and as such is just pissing in the wind.

 

[|Sith|Eldarion]

Speaking as a fencer who has seen both weapons(or their modern day sport equivalents) in action, I'd have to give the edge to the rapier. The skill, blade quality, and circumstances of the duel have been heavily discussed, so I'll just assume that both combatants are having an unarmored gentleman's duel, both have equal skill with their respective weapons, and neither weapon will break.

The first difference is reach, in which the rapier comes out the victor, which means that the samurai first has to remove the threat of the blade before getting in close to strike. However, this is something the samurai will have trouble with, as the fencer has been trained to keep his blade from being beat out of the way. The samurai also has a significant disadvantage if he tries to hold the blade, as his guard is not designed to do so, which makes it much easier for the fencer to free his blade and counterattack as he moves out of reach. Finally, the samurai's stance and small blade guard leaves his hands far more vulnerable than the fencer's, as one hand is kept behind him and the other is protected by a guard designed to take hits from heavier blades, and the fencer is trained to use a circular parry to redirect much of the force of a stroke as well as holding it, giving him a significant opening to exploit as he moves out of the samurai's range. If the samurai is skilled enough to protect his body, the fencer could simply attack his hands with little worry about a counterattack fast enough to reach him, and eventually the samurai's hands would be injured to the point that he can't fight effectively.

The second difference is speed. While the katana is very fast in the hands of a skilled user, and can thrust with surprising effectiveness, it's wielded with two hands, which makes its thrusts slower, and its cuts are slower than the thrusts of a rapier, which require no wind up. If the samurai could close distance, however, he would have a far better chance of coming out victorious, as his blade is shorter and made for cutting. The rapier is quite sharp, but it lacks the weight and curve to land a lethal cut anywhere save perhaps the neck, particularly up close where his blade has little leverage.

The third difference is in footwork. Here, too, the fencer has the advantage. The side facing stance allows both for a smaller target and for more extension in the lunge, further adding to the fencers reach advantage. With my observations of both styles of movement, I would have to say that fencing is the faster of the two, at least with regards to opening and closing distance, making it very difficult for the samurai to close the distance and attack.

Keep in mind that this is based on my personal observations and experiences with both styles of fighting, and do not consider it a definitive comparison.

 

[zumbledum]

a rapier can not defend against a katana , a katana could defend against a rapier,

in skilled hands my money would be on the katana every time. in noob hands... prolly close to even.

If a Rapier can defend against a poleaxe, it can defend against a Katana. I can't think of a single strike that either weapon can preform that can't be either blocked or parried.

As with every weapon debate, this will always come down to the skill of the user, as well as a little luck.

well i would heavily dispute the possibility of defending against a poleaxe with a rapier. and i dont think it would stand up any better against a katana the rapier is just going to break. thats why they tended to be used with a parrying dagger/buckler . western swords were made of very poor steel at the time and were either made for offense or defence, the folded steel art of the Japanese sword smiths allowed for a sword strong enough to defend and attack.

 

[EvilRoy]

Now I know that you're never supposed to block an attack edge to edge with a sword...

Just like to point out that this is most definitely false. The vast majority of historical manuals describe parrying with the edge (for specific examples see George Silver's Paradoxes of Defence or the Highland Broadsword manuals by Taylor or Page). There are definitely flat parries, but they are very much situational and require a different grip than the standard cutting grip, typically.

I won't really comment on the edge-vs-flat parrying style as it looks like a fair chunk of discussion was had on that throughout the thread now, and I have minimal-to-zero knowledge of fencing.

However, from a metallurgical/structural perspective I feel reasonably comfortable stating that a katana-user would neither expect an edge to edge block, nor initiate one himself willingly. This is in large part due to the highly brittle nature of the cutting edge on the katana. The brittle metal would have allowed for a sharper edge to be produced and maintained, but would also readily chip and nick if subjected to impacts, particularly from the thin edge of a rapier. [It has been brought up in the thread that a rapier may have been designed either to cut or not cut depending on the style of the weapon, but I don't believe the presence of a sharpened edge would significantly increase the point-stress applied to the katana, remembering that the critical loading here is an impact stress over a small area. However, a sharpened edge might actually 'dig in' to a katana during a slicing action which could result in wedging or cracking]

Something I'm unsure of, however, is the typical slicing action of the katana. If a drawing slice was attempted by the katana and the rapier responded with an edge to edge action, I can't readily say what kind of damage either blade would experience. On the initial impact I expect the katana to take damage, but from there the question is if the rapier goes into lateral-torsional bending, or remains somewhat stiff against the edge of the katana as it is drawn back. LTB would likely result in minimal further damage to either blade, but remaining stiff is a difficult question as we must then consider the elastic/plastic response of the rapier edge as the katana is pulled over it.

Does the rapier elastically deform and experience a pulling/severing behavior as it bounces back, or does it plasticity deform and-though dented-remain useful. In the elastic case the katana would experience much lesser damage, as the sharpened edge would be able to pass by mostly unmolested and act as typically designed vs targets. In the plastic case the katana would likely experience-rather than a single uniform pressure-a series of small impacts that have the potential to ruin the length of its sharpened edge.

All that said I know nobody would do this on purpose, you would be ruining two perfectly good (and exorbitantly expensive) pieces of art, and I have a feeling what I'm asking goes directly against what an expert would advise in any combat situation. Structural and material mechanics are always more interesting though when you consider them 'duking it out' rather than being independently tested on large slow machines, so its fun to think about.

 

[Someone Depressing]

It would be hilarious.

While katanas cut things pretty damn clean, being stabbed in the gut with a rapier isn't fun (I'd know.)

Katana guy charges, guts off rapier guys hand.
Rapier guy stabs in lower gut/chest repeatedly.
Both die in a horrible heap of whatever.

 

[Ieyke]

I won't really comment on the edge-vs-flat parrying style as it looks like a fair chunk of discussion was had on that throughout the thread now, and I have minimal-to-zero knowledge of fencing.

However, from a metallurgical/structural perspective I feel reasonably comfortable stating that a katana-user would neither expect an edge to edge block, nor initiate one himself willingly.

We're taught to always use the side, never the edge.
Technically, there's not a lot of blocking per se with a katana. Rare would be the attack that you purposefully receive the full impact of with a katana.

 

[Lightknight]

Well you've made the argument which has convinced me the most so far, and I agree it would be fascinating to see in practice.

I think whether a rapier kills or injures that first hit is going to weigh the advantages in your favour immensely, so choosing the rapier would seem to be the "advantage" choice.

The first hit winning is true with most weapons, but the rapier was notorious for failing to win at first strike. People certainly died from a single strike but victims of a rapier strike were often able to fight on and even win the fight after being struck multiple times even in organs. They would of course often die afterwards if organs had been struck, but what good is that for the swordsman that lost the fight (and presumeably his life). Of course, the goal of any such fight is not to get stuck at all. But once you get past the point of any such weapon that relies on the point, your opponent is screwed.

I believe a rapier would be at a general disadvantage against a broader blade of similar length. That's why they were primarily for the unarmored civilian population as basic self-defense and duels. They were the precursor to the dueling pistols of aristocracy and not meant for warfare or prolonged fighting against multiple opponents. A blade breaking in your opponent's body in a duel means far less than on a battlefield where you may need that tip again immediately. Armor in battles as opposed to the lack of armor in urban settings doubly saw to its non-use on the battlefield.

But for a first strike, the Rapier wins and can absolutely kill first off. Just not as common of a thing as with other weapons.

 

[Lightknight]

My thoughts on this is that the weapon does not make the champion. Case in point, Shaka's Zulu warriors ripping the ass out of the British Military.

20,000 Zulu Warriors attacked 1,800 British troops/allies. I assume this is the Battle of Isandlwana you're referencing since they really didn't win much after that. Keep in mind that the Zulu Warriors also had guns here too (muskets/rifles). The British just had more advanced guns but the immensity of the force they faced certainly carried more weight in the outcome than just the terrible formation of the british which certainly hurt them too. The british responded with a larger attack force once they realized the size of their opposition. An army of 20,000 British would have decimated the army of 20,000 Zulu Warriors since the British were fully trained with guns and actually had newer breech loading rifles. So with a huge disparity in weaponry it can certainly make the difference with comparable forces.

The first difference is reach, in which the rapier comes out the victor, which means that the samurai first has to remove the threat of the blade before getting in close to strike.

Exactly, equal skill will likely give the rapier first strike capability.

The third difference is in footwork. Here, too, the fencer has the advantage. The side facing stance allows both for a smaller target and for more extension in the lunge, further adding to the fencers reach advantage. With my observations of both styles of movement, I would have to say that fencing is the faster of the two, at least with regards to opening and closing distance, making it very difficult for the samurai to close the distance and attack.

Smaller target for a stabbing weapon, yes, not much smaller for a slicing weapon though.

I agree with you overall.

 

[EvilRoy]

I won't really comment on the edge-vs-flat parrying style as it looks like a fair chunk of discussion was had on that throughout the thread now, and I have minimal-to-zero knowledge of fencing.

However, from a metallurgical/structural perspective I feel reasonably comfortable stating that a katana-user would neither expect an edge to edge block, nor initiate one himself willingly.

We're taught to always use the side, never the edge.
Technically, there's not a lot of blocking per se with a katana. Rare would be the attack that you purposefully receive the full impact of with a katana.

That makes sense. It's also why I understand how ridiculous what I'm asking is, because I'm basically outlining a situation where the rapier has made a conscious decision to attack the weapon rather than the person and I'm assuming that the katana would not be doing everything in his power to avoid excessive weapon damage.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

Obligatory:

Spoiler

That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bullshit that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.
I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.
Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.
Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.
Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.
So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the best sword that the world has ever seen.

OT: I would say rapier, rule of cool (I don't like the sound of Katana, and though they look fancy, Rapiers just have that...special something) and stuff that people much more qualified than me (or most other people) have already spoken.

And you get a Pimpin' hat.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

From an objective standpoint, you have a fundamental problem - namely that the two weapons were created at wildy different times for wildly different purposes. Both weapons are terribly flawed when it comes to certain roles. Thus it is hard to be objective when there is no practical method to compare them.

For example, a true rapier has an advantage of reach but the weapon is unweildy. As a result, most movie "Rapiers" are some later iteration of the weapon - a small sword or court sword or foil. Ultimately, this means the weapon has a fatal flaw - it is difficult to change lines of attack or defense. This flaw resulted in two things - first, the weapon was often paired with a defensive implement (a long dagger, a shield, or, in a pinch, a heavy cloak) and the development of a circular fighting style designed to close lines of attack by motion of the body rather than purely by motion of the blade.

The Katana on the other hand has many of the same flaws including difficulty of transitioning lines of attack and defense and developed a similar circular style; however, the weapon is used alone thus generating a style of combat more offensive than the highly defensive rapier styles. This is in keeping with the martial origin of the weapon - the Rapier is a weapon of honor while the Katana is an weapon of war.

This ultimately leads to some conclusion of superiority and here it gets tremendously difficult. The katana is broadly capable of two basic sorts of attacks - the thrust and the cut. The rapier only one - the thrust. As a result, the defensive maneuvers of the katana are natively capable of defending against a rapier. By contrast, there huge swaths of the body that no classical rapier parry would defend against. Compounding defensive problems is that even if one were to adapt a sabre parry and use it with a rapier, it would be relatively difficult to actually effectively parry a hard strike without risk of simply having one's blade knocked out of the way.

As a result, the combination of a focus of offensive, the built in defense against the sole method of effective attack, and an attack that would be difficult to parry would lead me to favor a Katana user in such a contest. Were you to place the weapon against it's western equivalent, the Sabre, my position would be wildly different. The sabre is simply the superior weapon unless you intend to engage a man wearing armor.

Also, the people in this thread seem to have a tremendous misconception regarding what a Rapier is. While there are a host of weapons that claim to be such a thing in modern media, a Rapier was nearly five feet of steel and could weigh in at five pounds - a lumbering weapon to be sure.

As a broad overview, (and this is greatly simplified), the lack of maneuverability is what lead to a circular fighting style that you generally see in movies. The purpose of this was to close lines of attack which, when combined with the relative heft of the weapon when it came to changing lines of attack or defense combined with the regular use of the weapon in orderly single combat, resulted in an incredibly defensive style of fighting.

Over time, however, the blade changed especially as it became increasingly irrelevant on the battlefield. The court sword was an early development that resulted from simply breaking rapiers off at three feet and re-sharpening them. This was at the request of Elizabeth I of England, allegedly because she was tired of tripping over rapiers while in court. This development continued with minor variations along the way eventually resulting in the Small Sword - what most people think of when they think of the Rapier. In contrast to the heavy ancestor, a small sword could weigh in at under three pounds and at a mere three feet or so in length, could easily transition lines of attack and defense

This resulted in a fundamental set of changes in the style of european fencing. No longer necessary to open lines with circular footwork, the style of fighting became entirely linear - nothing is gained by stepping to the side that cannot be gained in a single pace. This was formalized in training with the piste which delinates a fighting surface approximately 1 meter wide and of varying length depending upon place and time. Also gone was the secondary defensive implement as the small sword was well suited to attack and defense and could transition quickly between the roles. Even fencing actions changed. With the rapier a parry might immedeatly transition from an attack into a defense along the same line (the options available to do this vary but suffice it to say that every parry position is also a valid line of attack minimal shifting of blade if performed correctly) where the small sword was quick enough to split this into two separate actions leading to more complex bladework possibilities.

The thing to keep in mind is that the Rapier is a transition weapon neither at home on the battlefield or in a duel. As such it is full of compromises that were resolved over several centuries of trial and error until it became a nearly peerless dueling weapon. But that later weapon is not a Rapier in the same way that a Sabre is not a Scimitar in spite of shared heritage.

 

[Proto Taco]

The rapier may have a longer reach, but it's effective killspot within that reach is tiny. The blade itself lacks inertia, so the odds of if actually cutting through anything is slim to nill, especially if any armor of leather or better density is present. Rapiers are also wielded one handed, further hamstringing any uses it has beyond stabbing.

The katana, on the the other hand, is quite a capable sword. It's best at slashing, true, but it's equally as good at thrusting. Additionally the katana is wielded with two hands and possesses far greater mass than the rapier, which lends it much more inertia allowing it to cut through just about anything, even some steels. Plus, the effective killspot on the katana is much larger; about the first 4-5 inches or so of blade as opposed to the 1-2inches you have on the rapier.

As for footwork, technique, etc. Well the two are fundamentally different there. The rapier is basically useless as a blocking weapon against a sword of greater mass, such as a katana, and it serves a primarily offensive role, hence the reason most rapier techniques employ a sturdier blocking or parrying weapon like a dagger or buckler. Katana technique on the other hand centers more around redirecting enemy energy to draw the opponent in and cut them down.

Put all that together and the rapier is only better if the one wielding it is skilled enough to keep the one wielding the katana at tip range, because as soon as the katana-wielder is inside the rapier's tip the rapier wielder is pretty much defenseless against a weapon of the katana's sharpness, power and range; a buckler or dagger isn't going to stop even a basic katana slash.

Personally, I'd just pull an Indiana Jones and quit the whole mess, but if I had to choose a weapon it'd be the katana, largely because of its much improved utility over the rapier's more specialized approach.

 

[TheAbidingDude]

In all honesty, I think it comes down to a consideration of the style of combat used. If the "samurai" prefers a style similar to what we think of as "iato" (only drawing the sword to make decisive strikes and relying on the speed of the draw as the main factor in how fatal the strike is) then it would be a very long, boring battle of attrition centered on waiting for someone to slip up. In that case, quality of the steel is a null point as the samurai is only planning to hit the fencer three times at most (Granted, I am speaking generally. I, of course, am not a master of any martial art and my knowledge relies on observation of fictional portrayals of combat, or my own personal reading on the subject). Still, the reach of the respective weapons is worth consideration, as well as the relative skill of both combatants. Overall, I'm partial to katanas on purely subjective grounds, but I would never discount the rapier entirely. Frankly though, if I had full choice, I'd find the biggest zweihander I could swing and just cleave the guy in half. I'm a little too genetically inclined to prefer brute force to bother with rapiers or katanas if I have the free choice, but that's beside the point. In short, I'd say its an even fight, with a preference for the rapier winning out on reach.

 

[Hagi]

Rapier I'd say.

Because you don't need to slice your opponent in half to win. You just need to stab them once just about anywhere on the torso or head and you're done. Sure, they won't die right away, if at all. But if they don't get medical attention soon they're going to weaken rapidly, possibly lose a lot of blood and have to deal with infections on top of that.

Real life isn't a video-game where you can keep on going perfectly fine until you reach 0 hp. You might last for a few seconds whilst adrenaline is coursing through your body from the initial pain but right after that you're going to start slowly feeling awfully bad and your combat effectiveness will drop dramatically.

So I'd favor a rapier with the extra reach to get that first hit in and then run the hell away while your opponent bleeds out, bonus points if he tries chasing you.