The average length of a katana was between 24 and 27 inches. That's extremely short compared to the great European arming sword. Your basic, 9th century Oakshott Type X sword, for example, was 30 inches long, almost half a foot longer than a 16th century katana - and the Type X is one of the SHORTEST designs available to a European blademaster! Anything less than that was considered a shortsword, or even a dagger.

Most knightly swords averaged at least 34 inches, while the two-handed Scottish claymore, to name one specific sword, rocked the scale at around 42 inches - 175% the length of the katana. Meanwhile, a 16th century boar-hunting sword, which was contemporary with the "best" katanas ever made, had blades that would average about four feet in length - a 200% advantage, at least! Twice the power of a katana, and in a weapon simply meant to battle, not other knights, but mere pigs!

Don't even get me started on the improtance of shields, or the fact that katanas were made of pig-iron, rather than proper Wootz steel, using techniques the Vikings and the Celts had mastered (then moved on from) a thousand years earlier. I'd sooner trust my life to a shitty bronze sword paired with a badass Spartan shield, then to one of your precious katardas.

Go hide behind a shield coward.

A shield, a warhorse, and a suit of the finest German full plate armor.

A thousand brave samurai will bravely die before my longsword.

Has anyone made a mod for total war that allows you to fight armies from all the other total war games? Including shogun and medieval? That would be amazing!!!

So you've turned into a halberd-and-warhammer kind of guy, too, huh?

Stars for the top comment thread.

Example:


"The moment you said that is possible to make a sharp glass blade made me find this fact very interesting. I'm making a manga comic which has a character with the power of "control glass" and it was very underated by me because i thought that glass was to soft, which made me underate and abandon the character."

Followed by, at present, about 90 more comments debating the practicality of glass as a sword material.

Without looking, I'd say the best way to make a glass sword would be like the Aztec's obsidian Macuahuitl - a large, flat club with glass embedded in the edge.

It could also work for a disposable assassin's blade, particularly in a situation where court wizards have cast spells for detecting traditional metal swords.

Slingshots are the superior human weapon.

No one questions what glass can do out of a slingshot.