I'm a big fan of Zen and it's ilk, but the Japan fetish in this article is way too strong. I bet the author thinks that samurai swords were way better than their contemporaries in Europe
But his pseudo-nihonjinron* is nothing compared to the Traditional European Martial Arts (Which are Much Better Than Japan's Didntchaknow) circlejerk we have going on in sibling comments. If I'm ever at a ren faire I plan to walk around and every few minutes loudly say "dude you should have brought your katana, you'd own everyone so hard" just to watch peoples' heads explode.
The odd part of this is they had far worse armor. Western knights where shockingly fast and well protected in full plate armor. 1 on 1 a knight would have been far more effective vs. a samurai. The problem is Knights where far more expensive to equip and ended up as far less than 1% of the population.
This is the huge advantage the Mongols had. They could field 'huge' (relative to population size) and devastatingly effective army's on the cheap. Often Mongols still ended up outnumbered by as much as 10-1, but mobility allowed them to avoid highly defended areas.
PS: I wonder how much the cost of medieval armor contributed to long term economic growth. Sort of the medieval equivalent of modern military innovations (computers, internet, radar, etc.) being useful in peace time.
Yeah, this annoys me. Japanese swords were folded over hundreds of times not because it was a superior crafting technique, but because they were using inferior steel with more impurities.
Damascus Steel is probably the coolest kind of sword from the past. Carbon nanotubes have been found in ancient Damascus steel swords, proving that the advanced metallurgy strengthened Damascus Steel above and beyond all other steel of that era.
And while Japanese metallurgy exists today... the secret of Damascus steel has been lost in time. No one knows how to make it anymore.
---------------
With regards to Katanas vs Longswords...
Katanas are almost equivalent to Long Swords. The martial arts between the two styles are relatively similar. Sometimes Katanas were dual-wielded with wakizashi, while Long Swords would sometimes be dual-wielded with a dagger.
Sometimes Katanas are wielded with two hands, but sometimes you switch to one-hand for extra reach. Ditto with Long Swords (being used with "Bastard Sword" style)
------------
In all cases, the fetish with swords is universal across cultures. Polearms were the king of the battlefield in both the West and in the East... and the favored weapons of soldiers, and yet the stories all glorify sword-wielders. Swords were expensive in all cultures, and are therefore associated with the respective nobility class.
Meh, you can get carbon nanotubes out of soot too [0], they occur in any high carbon and high temp environment. Their existence in something is not proof that metallurgy is advanced in any sense, just luck.
European and Japanese fighting styles are also very different, as the katana is made with much more brittle steels [1]. In Japan, the block is not hard and the other blade has to slide along your's to not break the sword.
You use Damascus steel if your steel is of poor quality or you don't have the chemical know how to make good steel. You do what you can with what you have.
Still, swords cost a lot to make and end up as a status symbol. Look at the Japanese officers in WW2 [2].
It's both though - they used the crafting technique to overcome the limitations of the steel, and ended up with stronger swords than what you get by naïvely forging with better raw materials. Some fancy cooking is similar - you use a lot of prep to overcome the limitations of an ingredient.
