Spanish Rapier Vs Japanese Katana

Spanish versus Japanese reaches and everything but it's something hey thanks Matt Easton here scholar gladiatory now this isn't one of those musketeer versus Samurai videos or anything like that but quite simply recently a Spanish Rapier came into my possession beautiful thing here and this dates to about 1700 perhaps the end of the 1600s it's a it's a very nice piece and I'm very lucky to have it in my collection and I'm also very lucky to have this 17th century kanban era Katana here now as I've mentioned in many previous videos Japanese swords do vary a lot in length and curvature and weight and spine thickness and all sorts of other things so it's not that all Japanese swords are the same however that being said there is a general range of nagasa or length of Blade that we find on Japanese swords in this period And this is an important and interesting period because this is the period the 17th century when the Japanese were coming into conflict but also trading with and also receiving atmosphere is and missionaries and all sorts from Europe primarily from the Netherlands Spain Portugal and England those were the main countries who had interaction with the Japanese in this period only in Japan you have to remember also that the Japanese in this period were engaged in trading abroad but also piracy and in fact there are several accounts and I'll probably look at these in future videos several accounts of Spanish Portuguese Dutch English and others encountering Japanese Bandits Pirates whatever you want to call them at Sea and also on land as well sometimes in China for example so the fact is that these swords did come up against rapiers side swords and basket Health disorders and other sorts of swords that were used in that period and it has to be said that most European accounts doesn't matter whether whether they're Spanish English or whatever are quite respectful and in some cases in awe of the Japanese fervor particularly if not always skill but sometimes skill as well with the sword they were particularly aware of the fact that the Japanese were fearsome in hand-to-hand combat but but a point that I want to illustrate is that in single combat at least Master combat is slightly different and I'll get to that in a second in single combat a typical Japanese sword of which I consider this of the 17th century is at a really great reach disadvantage against a Rapier let's put the sire down for a second so I can pick up the Rapier so it's a simple kind of parameters the blade length let's say from usually you measure just The Cutting Edge on a Japanese saw but let's say from the super guard all the way to the tip because that's how we usually measure European swords the blade length on Japanese swords at this time of most Katana and obviously we're not talking about wakasashi which are even shorter but if we're talking about most Katana at this time most Katana have Blades of between about 25 and 28 inches there are some that are longer and when they get shorter than that they basically become wakasashi so you do find Long Source but in this period they aren't particularly long for a number of reasons so you're looking at a blade much like this one which is very often around 26 or 27 inches in contrast the Spanish Rapier and this isn't a particularly long one the Spanish Rapier here has a blade of nearly 40 inches okay and that's measured from the cross guard rather than top of the dish so we're comparing like with like because that's where the hand sits essentially okay so we have an enormous an amount more blade projecting like a foot's length more blade projecting on the rapiers tip than the katanas now they are very very different weapons so on one hand with the Rapier although we can cut with it we're predominantly sticking the point into the chest and face and other extra other parts of the of the opponent so we're stabbing them with the tip while you can thrust with a katana and it is done in conjutsu and Kendo and you know historically back in the day you can trust with it primarily they are specialized for cutting okay they're not great thrusting well they're actually quite effective thrusting weapons if you can get close enough but they don't have a great reach and they're not particularly Nimble in the tip compared to something like a Rapier so predominantly they're cutting now an interesting feature of the katana unlike certain European swords for example is because they maintain their width to the tip and because of the fact that they don't have an awful lot of distal tape and they're not particularly thin up here as well they do cut very effectively towards the tip so with the European saber for example often will have a center of percussion which is about here however with the Japanese sword we can still cut very effectively towards the tip so in a sense this does mean that although there are only let's say a 26 27 inch blade relatively short they actually have fairly good cutting reach because with the European saber or backs or foreign you might have a 33 inch blade but actually it's Central percussion is down at let's say 27 inches which is about the same as the katana so actually the katana makes quite effective use of the reach that it does have but nevertheless it can't reach further than the blade it has so it can only reach to a maximum of 27 inches in this case okay in contrast the 40 inch or 3940 inch reach of the Rapier is far far longer so from a very basic point of view the Rapier and you know the English had similar rapiers and the Portuguese and so on so forth but the Rapier has a far greater reach than the katana which means that in an average encounter the main problem that the katana wielder is going to have is getting past the point of the Rapier now there's a couple of ways of doing that one of them is to essentially Kamikaze charge in take a Thrust in the body and chop down your opponent anyway we'll come back to that in a second the other is to cross this blade and then close in and this is very much fighting like fighting against a spear so a swordsman fighting against a Spearman has to First essentially cross the spear and then charge in and get close enough in order to deliver their attack the spearmen meanwhile all they have to do is keep distance and keep stabbing the person with the shorter weapon so to an extent the person with the katana is always going to have a somewhat unpleasant isn't time probably getting full of lots of small holes some of which may kill him of course because a Thrust despite the fact it's a very narrow blade a steel Spike into your chest cavity abdomen throat face or an artery is gonna spell death at some point you might not die instantly but you're going to die at some point fairly soon obviously a katana cut is no small thing either but in order to deliver that they have to get past the Rapier and this is not easy for a number of reasons one is reach but the other is nimbleness because of course not only does this blade have a great amount of reach but it can also disengage very very easily because of the balance and because of the way that it's held as soon as anybody tries to Cross or strike this blade you can simply move it around to a new place and deliver your point where it needs to go and this Campari as well so even if you attempt to thrust the Japanese opponent they Parry your blow and start charging in you can of course Parry their cut you can quite happily Parry this steel bar with this steel bar they're both steel bars this can Parry this this can Parry this this one is not going to cut through this unlike you might see in some movies or anime so quite simply the Japanese swordsman is not going to have a Pleasant time against the Rapier however here's the good news for the katana fans out there and for the Japanese martial arts aficionados all is not lost because in single combat I personally like for like if the two fighters are the same they're both familiar with their weapons they've got similar levels of fitness and and expertness my money is generally going to be on the Rapier guy for all of the reasons I've just mentioned as a dueling weapon I think the Rapier is vastly superior to the katana let Steve Noddy talking about hand protection as well massive difference there but in a melee onboardership on land in a big Skirmish in a battle it's a different kettle of fish now in Europe it was noted that rapiers weren't necessarily great Battlefield weapons the reason being that as soon as you devote the the direction of your weapon in One Direction with a Thrust you are not occupying space and there are numerous treatises in Europe that tell you against multiple opponents to keep cutting because Cuts occupy space and Traverse space and the Very Act of cutting and offending also keeps other people at Bay or sweeps aside other weapons that might happen to be coming your way a Thrust however is monodirectional and totally committed to one line of attack and during that time if someone happens to cut or thrust you from over here you're going to get hit with this kind of weapon first of all of course you're going to be cutting which means you're going to be traversing space the whole time that you're moving it which is more likely to deflect incoming attacks and protect you but moreover in a masked melee it will often come close now I've talked about length Advantage generally speaking a spear has an advantage over a sword right however if we're now fighting in a small room well at that point the sword probably has an advantage over the spear because the spear can't maneuver even in a reenactment context quite recently I have totally experienced this where the enemy side the opponents were pushing in quite hard pushing our line back and my spear became basically useless because I couldn't use it because it was too long to unwieldy and even the back end of it was getting in the way and getting caught up with people behind me and at that point my long sword pulled off my side half sorted with became a much more practical weapon so in these types of tight encounters on board ships or in melees on on the land a shorter weapon that can Traverse space suddenly becomes really into its element okay whereas a Rapier whilst in one-on-one might be absolutely fantastic really loses most of its advantages it can't cut very effectively it can get caught up because it's so long it's quite difficult to disengage it you can't get the point into an opponent who's really close in front of you because you can't pull the hand back far enough because you've got too much blade sticking out so to conclude you can see where I've gone with this essentially my argument is that one-on-one basically due to reach but also hand protection nimbleness and everything else the Rapier has a really big advantage against the katana there have been people in modern times some people I know as well I won't name and shame them who have gone Katana versus rapia and frankly whilst you can get from some very skillful Katana people they usually get really quite fatally skewed by rapiers on the way in um and even if the Rapier person messes up you can backpedal you can Parry you can find Space again to get your point in again so it's not like a One-Shot wonder you can have several goes at it and it's very difficult for the katanas to deal with and also because it doesn't have very much hand protection um but in a melee in a battle boarding ships below decks in rooms and buildings that is when I really think the katana comes into its own so I do think this is a completely fantastic sword as is this they just have very very different strengths and weaknesses but we should remember that these two weapons completely plausibly could have met those hundreds of years ago 300 years ago because they are of the same period and they are from cultures who absolutely did encounter each other and I just think it's fascinating to hold them next to each other and think what stories they could tell if they were able to thanks a lot for watching I have been Matt Easton and I will always be see you soon cheers folks thanks for watching we've got extra videos on patreon please give our Facebook a like And subscribe if you haven't already cheers folks

Channel: scholagladiatoria

Views: 50,507

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Id: 2Vp0QlOfOS0

Length: 13min 22sec (802 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 07 2023