Poll: Katana and Rapier: An Objective Comparison

[Lyri]

Honour bound duels were already widespread in the time of the broadsword (and considerably earlier too), rapiers came into existence as plate armour became practically impenetrable to hacking weapons so it is a logical evolution of warfare to use stabbing weapons which can penetrate plate. Rapiers weren't strictly a fencing/dueling weapon, they were a backup weapon for people using primitive handguns which could take a minute to reload

You're talking about Estocs, which were used to puncture plate.

They are not rapiers.

 

[Wyes]

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Just like to point out that 34" is absurdly short for a rapier - typical length is closer to 40", and for comparison the length of my backsword blade is 34". Shorter is usually better than longer, but that's quite extreme.

We would also have to look at build quality of the 2 blades, it is more than likely that any well made katana could cleave a rapier's blade in half with relative ease.

Europeans had access to much better quality steel than the Japanese, so it is very unlikely that the katana would cleave a rapier in two. Katanas were never used that way.

and in the hands of an expert that trained with it it is way more deadly than any sword could ever be.

I would very much disagree with that claim. All weapons are contextual. A skilled longswordsman or backswordsman could defeat an equally skilled rapier practitioner, and vice versa.

Links to arma.org and Lindy Beige?
I'M SO PROUD OF YOU GUYS!

Unfortunately as far as HEMA goes, ARMA does not have the greatest reputation. Which is not to say that everything they do is bad, they do plenty of good stuff, but the main reason they're so popular is simply because they have so much stuff out there.

The katana could snap a rapier rather easily, hence why rapiers were made as dueling weapons instead of combat weapons. A rapier will be wrecked by almost any type of sword. Yes it has the reach at first, but once it bends or breaks it becomes significantly less useful. Another huge factor is the skill of the wielders.

Rapiers are not nearly as fragile as you think. By comparison the katana is more fragile than most people think.

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.

As someone actually trained in the proper use and techniques of the katana, and familiar with the techniques and design of rapiers, I can tell you the katana wins this EASILY.

The katana is essentially a peerless melee weapon just in general, but the rapier also suffers from numerous glaring weaknesses.

Assuming two opponents of equal skill, the katana's wielder has a massive advantage of speed, control, power, versatility, and even quality, essentially leaving only reach as an advantage to the rapier. ...an advantage which exacerbates the rapier's disadvantage in control.

If you think that the katana is a peerless melee weapon, then you probably don't understand fighting all that well.
For example, match up the katana against the English quarterstaff. Match up the katana against a Halberd. Match up the katana with an equally skilled person wielding a longsword. And so on.
As for the 'quality' of the weapons - European weapons were typically made with higher quality steel. The forging techniques used to make the katana were basically damage control for the poor quality iron ore they had. The katana is more fragile, for example, because its edge can chip off and if it bends it stays bent (it is not made of spring steel, like the rapier).
This is not to say that the katana was not a fantastic weapon in the context it was used in - of course it was, but it's silly to say it's a peerless melee weapon.
Also the second video you post is a really terrible video done by somebody who does not understand how to use either weapon, or the context they were used in.

Rapier fencing isn't nearly as fast or mobile as most people in this thread seem to believe. These things aren't sport foils, they tend to be heavier than a traditional katana. A good example of the speed that can be expected of a rapier is showcased rather well here:
As you can see, it's no faster or more mobile than a kendo match. They have a lot in common, in fact.

Nice to see somebody post a WMAW video! They showcase some of the best HEMA practitioners around.

You are forgetting 2 very basic things. First, the katana is far shorter and the samurai would need to close almost 2 ft of range against someone. That isn't very easy when you consider #2, the musketeer can step back and recover his point. The rapier had to face the medieval longsword in duels, it never had problems blocking it. 2 handed grips don't give more power (aka swing speed), they give more control and leverage in a bind. That extra control allows for longer and more powerful weapons to be used.

Just like to point out that two handed weapons are faster than one handed weapons. More leverage => more speed.
However, speed is not the be all and end all of fencing, very far from it. In fact, a common mistake novices make is trying to swing as fast as possible, rather than at the correct speed. This gets them killed a lot.

Response to parries:
Most people, while picturing a sword fight, imagine the actions go something like this:

Attack->Parry/Block/Dodge->Reset-Repeat, or Attack->Parry/Block/Dodge->Repeats from a counter-attack.

In reality, trained fighters will continue their attack, even after it has been stopped.

Just like to point out that this isn't strictly true. While certain styles do like to close in with an attack and continue closing in (e.g. Germans), this isn't true of say the English or Italian fencers, who very much like to come in with an attack and then move out of distance again (be it by passing backwards, sideways, or continuing past their opponent). This is because staying in distance of your opponent is extremely dangerous unless you successfully come to grips (which is much harder than people think).

Someone else mentioned the Katana would have better control and more speed, due to the Rapier being one handed and the Katana being 2 handed, in your opinion how big a difference is there, and would this have a noticable effect on the fight?

Having two hands on a weapon makes a significant difference in leverage and speed. Two handed weapons are very quick and very powerful. However, one handed weapons have other advantages - in particular reach, and their actions are less constrained (sword is linked to one ball joint - the shoulder, rather than two).



As for general comments I'd like to make;

As always, this depends entirely on skill. Neither weapon has a clear advantage.
If the swordsman with the katana knows what they're doing, they'll make narrow space on their opponents blade and close in with downright blows (yes, this does work, and is explicitly described by George Silver), until they can either cut with impunity or come to grips.
However, if the swordsman with the rapier is any good they also know that the katana-wielder has to close in past the point, and will go to lengths to avoid this, be it with footwork or launching ripostes etc.

So, it depends entirely upon the skill of the swordsman.

 

[Wyes]

Using two hands does provide superior control during a cut or slash compared to one. But, adding a hand doesn't really significantly change the amount of speed you have, though it does deliver more force on impact. The problem comes primarily in defense. It is very, very difficult to parry a thrust with two hands on a sword, the available range of motion that you have becomes much smaller, compared to just using one hand. You can only place blade in areas that both your hands can reach. Go ahead and try it out.

Just like to point out that having two hands on the weapon does lead to having more speed available to you. Longswords are indeed very quick weapons, compared to their one handed counterparts.

I also have to disagree with you about parrying a thrust with a two handed weapon - it is not any more difficult than doing so with a one handed weapon, or at least not noticeably so in my experience. There is a lot of thrusting in longsword systems, so they have to be able to deal with thrusts.

 

[ColonelHopper]

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Just like to point out that having two hands on the weapon does lead to having more speed available to you. Longswords are indeed very quick weapons, compared to their one handed counterparts.

I also have to disagree with you about parrying a thrust with a two handed weapon - it is not any more difficult than doing so with a one handed weapon, or at least not noticeably so in my experience. There is a lot of thrusting in longsword systems, so they have to be able to deal with thrusts.

Okay, I'll give you in the cut that a two-handed weapon can have a speed advantage. However, compared to a rapier-type weapon, it's still slower in transitioning between attacks.
As for the parrying of a thrust, the motion for a proper parry with rapier systems is generally very, very small. With a properly aligned stance, thrusts to the full body can be covered with almost entirely with just a combination of a high line circular parry, and a low line circular parry. Lateral parries with a rapier are much more rare.

In addition, the point I made earlier about how 'trained fighters' (I should have used less general phrasing) will continue in the remise was to bring up the point of the disengage. While there are schools of European fencing that do not favor such techniques, acting in the remise is still a very important part of rapier combat, especially in the contemporary expressions of the tradition.

 

[spartan231490]

I mean, I would love to see you block a katana strike with a rapier, pretty sure the rapier would break. Also, the Rapier has reach yes, and a thrust can be hard to counter, but I think the additional speed from a two-handed grip and the shorter sword would more than make up for both. To be fair, I think the two are close in a dual. If you lined up 100 pairs, I think about half of the katana wielders would recieve a fatal stab wound. However, since a rapier would have a lot of trouble countering a katana, I suspect all of the rapier wielders would recieve fatal wounds even the ones that got the first strike. It's not like the movies, where someone gets stabbed and just drops.

However, the bigger question with a sword isn't which would win in a dual, but which could handle more circumstances, and I don't think the rapier is too limited in it's defensive use to hold up. Also, there's a reason the rapier wasn't used until the 16th and 17th centuries. It's a great weapon for duels of honor between two unarmored men using rapiers. It has a lot of weaknesses on a battlefield.

 

[Abomination]

I mean, I would love to see you block a katana strike with a rapier

But that's the thing, a person proficient with a rapier wouldn't try to block a strike... they'd parry it.

And yes there's a difference.

They would also try and stay outside of their opponents range so they would be more likely to dodge than even consider needing to parry, let alone block.

 

[Wyes]

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I have learned a handful of systems, including rapier, longsword and broadsword. It has always been my experience that the longsword has been overall the quickest weapon, in the cut and in the transitioning between guards (and thus potential attacks), although possibly not in the thrust (mostly because the rapier thrust is driven by an explosive lunge which gives it incredible speed and range). Assuming by transition between attacks you mean something akin to switching targets mid-attack the rapier is possibly slightly faster, because this is driven by a small movement in the wrist. That does make rapiers slightly more suited to disengages and feints, although such actions still work quite well with a longsword (including in the thrust). I will admit however that I am better at longsword than at rapier.

As for parrying thrusts - it is true that parrying a thrust with a rapier requires a smaller movement than parrying a thrust with the longsword, although personally I found that to require more skill than doing so with the longsword. Again, I am better at longsword than at rapier. As an aside, Giganti doesn't seem to use circular parries much (if you are referring to what I think you are), preferring instead to parry by creating a ramp with the extension of the tip to bring the thrust onto the forte.

As for the remise - I don't think I'm 100% clear on what you're describing because it's not terminology I've used in rapier, so forgive me if I make some error. To me it sounds like acting in the remise is an action similar to a follow up/continuing attack after the parry has made contact? That was something I saw in Giganti, but I think the point is that it takes place in a slightly extended single fencing time, rather than two or more fencing times. My main point was that one should try to avoid spending two or more fencing times in distance (although I wanted to avoid that terminology), because that's how you get riposted. This is a common mistake (which is why I brought it up, not so much because I thought it was a mistake you were making but because it is a mistake many other people do), including with rapiers where they'll stand in distance of each other and rely entirely on speed and reflexes, rather than on skill and technique.

 

[ColonelHopper]

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By transition between attacks I do mean disengages, and changes in target. As for being fastest in thrust, well, that is kinda what the rapier is all about. It doesn't really matter how fast you are in the cut with a thrusting weapon.
For the parrying, yes, rapier parries are difficult to master. You have a very small window of time, and you're parrying a small target moving very quickly. However, paired with proper footwork, parries are very effective.
A circular parry is any parry where the motion of the tip of the weapon describes a circular shape. For instance, if parrying a thrust to the arm, a rapier fighter may dip their blade under, bring it up over, and push the attacking blade outside. Making a shape like a 'c' with the blade.
The remise is any action continuing on from once the initial action has been halted, for instance if you have been parried.
However, when I first raise the remise, it's actually for the katana, where a second attack can be launched from a parried attack. However, the remise is more than actions after a parry. If your opponent backs slightly out of distance, an additional forward motion to continue the thrust is an action in the remise. Another example often occurs in the fleche, where the initial attack is parried, or misses, any additional actions are now in the remise. It's a pretty big category.
What I was actually talking about when the attacker stays in distance after the initial phase of the attack is the disengage. However, in reality, it's not so much staying in distance after the attack as continuing the attack around the first attempt to stop it. If you're curious about what exactly that entails, I described it in-depth in my first post. The phrasing around my handy little diagram, and the diagram itself, was targeted towards the layperson, not combat practitioners.
Now, as much as I respect your input on European longsword techniques, they are quite a bit different than katana techniques. European longswords had to deal with the competing schools of rapier combat, whereas the katana techniques for dealing with thrusts are fairly restrictive, based on the climate of swordfighting when they were developed, and the weapons they were dealing with.

 

[Storm Dragon]

They are awesome in the east as they used a lot of light armor mostly made out of bamboo and such which a katana would slice through easily, however attack someone wearing western style heavy plate armor and the katana won't do a thing to them.

Would someone wielding a rapier be wearing heavy plate armor, though? It seems unlikely, since rapiers are more about speed and agility.

 

[Ravinoff]

Neither. Katanas are hilariously overrated for a sword made of iron that was inferior to the steels used in India over a thousand years earlier (see: Wootz/Damascus steel). A rapier is an oversized knitting needle used mostly for formal duels between aristocrats. If you want a one-handed sword, the Vikings made some excellent blades, while a zweihander or claymore will do very well as a two-handed sword (zweihander literally means two-hander). Longswords and bastard swords also made a great name for themselves in the Medieval and Crusades eras.

You know what beats any of the above, though? A polearm like a halberd or a glaive. Swords take a lot of training, and in warfare were most often used by noblemen. The infantry were given pikes and pole-axes, and they tended to be brutally effective with them, particularly against cavalry.

 

[spartan231490]

I mean, I would love to see you block a katana strike with a rapier

But that's the thing, a person proficient with a rapier wouldn't try to block a strike... they'd parry it.

And yes there's a difference.

They would also try and stay outside of their opponents range so they would be more likely to dodge than even consider needing to parry, let alone block.

I'd like to see you parry one too, there is a lot of force in a two-handed strike, not to mention both hands to keep the blade on target. The range thing has some merit, but you're not going to be able to retreat faster than a guy who know's he's dying can run, you can't backstep as fast as a person with no reason to defend can charge. You could maybe sidestep, but assuming you were already at dueling range, you probably couldn't get wide enough to avoid the counter attack.

 

[Wyes]

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I believe we've reached a point where we're more or less in agreement.
I can't say I (yet) know much about the use of the katana, other than what I've seen from videos of kenjutsu practitioners, so I'm willing to take your word for it.

I'd like to see you parry one too, there is a lot of force in a two-handed strike, not to mention both hands to keep the blade on target. The range thing has some merit, but you're not going to be able to retreat faster than a guy who know's he's dying can run, you can't backstep as fast as a person with no reason to defend can charge. You could maybe sidestep, but assuming you were already at dueling range, you probably couldn't get wide enough to avoid the counter attack.

Parries can be done in such a manner that the weapon does not take the brunt of the force and it forces the weapon off line. This includes really extreme examples like smallsword vs pole axe. They're not as hard as they sound.

As for side stepping - you'd possibly be surprised at how easy it is to step out of distance of attacks. The distance of an effective attack also happens to coincide roughly with the edge of the reach of the sword.

 

[Tuxedoman]

Hmm. I'd say it would be about even in all honesty, as it really comes down to the warrior wielding the weapon more than the weapon its self.

The rapier has a lot going for it. It has reach, speed and length. The katana has cutting power, and its shorter size means (in theory) it is easier to control. The Rapierest would want to keep his opponent at length as much as possible and attempt to keep his blade on top of the Katana rather than wait for an attack.

I haven't fought with or against Katana's before, so I can't really make a solid analysis of them. If its anything like German Longsword, then I imagine it would have to use its higher mass to try and just blow through the rapier guards and get as close as possible as fast as possible.

 

[Abomination]

I mean, I would love to see you block a katana strike with a rapier

But that's the thing, a person proficient with a rapier wouldn't try to block a strike... they'd parry it.

And yes there's a difference.

They would also try and stay outside of their opponents range so they would be more likely to dodge than even consider needing to parry, let alone block.

I'd like to see you parry one too, there is a lot of force in a two-handed strike, not to mention both hands to keep the blade on target. The range thing has some merit, but you're not going to be able to retreat faster than a guy who know's he's dying can run, you can't backstep as fast as a person with no reason to defend can charge. You could maybe sidestep, but assuming you were already at dueling range, you probably couldn't get wide enough to avoid the counter attack.

Not certain what type of combat you're envisioning here but the sidestep is also an attack for a fencer and a parry doesn't need to be very strong as it's about leverage and sudden shock to an opponent's blade or angling/guiding it away from the body.

The scenario here can depend on a number of factors. If the samurai is armoured then the scenario would demand the fencer also be armoured... and in turn he would have a pistol or a musket because that's why his very blade exists. If it's just sword vs. sword then the fencer has a far lighter blade and a style based upon evasion and thrusts against an opponent whose style relies on grapples and cuts.

 

[Tuxedoman]

This isn't Rapier vs Katana, but its one of the better examples of steel combat on youtube. You can get a good idea as to how the rapier would be used in a combat situation

 

[TheSYLOH]

The Katana is designed as a war weapon.
The Rapier is designed for self defense.
There's a good chance the katana user will survive getting skewered by a rapier, not so good chance a rapier user will survive getting a katana wedged deep into him.
The Katana was designed as a two handed weapon, it also tends to be significantly stronger.The katana may be able to break the rapier with a powerful blow.

 

[ColonelHopper]

This isn't Rapier vs Katana, but its one of the better examples of steel combat on youtube. You can get a good idea as to how the rapier would be used in a combat situation

Excellent example! Both of these fighters seem to be about equally skilled, and this video showcases virtually all of the specific techniques and scenarios that have been discussed that would be most applicable to our little hypothetical here. Sure, the weapon opposing the rapier is not a katana, but really, there's not a whole lot of difference between the two.
This example also addresses the 'blade cutting' issue. If a blade is to damage or break another in combat, it won't be by slicing through it. It will be by shocking it so much it breaks under the stress of the impact. Clearly, you can see two examples of steel weapons, one a rapier, one a large two-handed sword, which would probably be heavier than a traditionally constructed katana, in nearly seven minutes of sustained combat, with heavy blows dealt to both. And yet, no damaged or broken rapier.
Once again, thanks for the video, Tuxedoman. I need to go hit up my two-handed sparring partner now...

 

[prpshrt]

A traditional katana could slice through steel. This is considering that it was made the proper way. So I'm pretty sure they'd be able to slice a rapier too.

 

[Tuxedoman]

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Heh, I need to actually DO more longsword sparring. Exams have left little time for training and fights, and there's only so much you can get out of reading over Wallerstein and other Codex's

A traditional katana could slice through steel. This is considering that it was made the proper way. So I'm pretty sure they'd be able to slice a rapier too.

The metal used in armour and the metal used in swords is VERY different. Armour in untempered steel, meaning that it has no memory. If you hit it, you'll leave a nice bit dent (assuming you hit hard enough). Tempered steel however is flexible and will bounce back into its original position.


Rapier blades are not little dainty foils. Sure they're thinner than Katanas, but they're still about 20-30mm wide. Its more likely the Katana will bite into the blade, but that in its self isn't something either fighter would want. That means that both of the blades are now stuck together and effectively useless until they're unbound.

You should be blocking on the flat of your blade with any type of sword to preserve its life.

I'm rambling a bit now though. In short, I HIGHLY doubt any sword can cut through another sword unless some other factor is in play, such as the core of a sword being rusted.

 

[Mick Beard]

blah blah blah katanas can cut thru tanks and can even cut meteorites in half blah blah blah its true I seen it on the internets blah blah blah


Katanas to be honest are not great weapons. they were great for Japanese style fighting against other Japanese people.

even the Japanese preferred to use spears and Naginatas over a katana.


and the way a katana is made isn't some magical thing only the Japanese did.

Germanic tribes, romans, celts, Saxons, Vikings all did this with their weapons 1000 years before the Japanese did.. why did they stop making these magical folded and pattern welded blades you ask?

well they stop because they developed STEEL and any STEEL is better then folded iron!