Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree? der=0

[bladesyz]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Western technology and tactics had a large range of sources of inspiration, history, different lands, trade, barbarians from everywhere.
The problem with far eastern technology and tactics however is that japan and even china for that matter were relativly isolated from the rest making them fall behind.

The shield alone is so significant it would deside 90% of the battles.
I would rather prefer to take a shield and a sharp stick into battle than one high quality katana.

News flash, the Europeans didn't invent shields!

You try carrying a shield into a tavern, or a restaurant. Or even when you walk around, do you think warriors would carry them on their arms like in RPGs? How long do you think it takes to pull that shield off your back or your horse? You think your enemy will wait for you to get prepared?

How fast do you think you can wield a spear one-handed? Even assuming that your sharp stick doesn't get chopped in two by a good sword, do you think your wrist has the power to hold on to your spear when it gets struck by a full forced swing from a sword?

Why do you think Roman Legionnaires carried short swords with them?

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Comparing modern metallurgy to that ancient Japanese stuff is ridiculous. A Japanese sword was a modest improvement over most techniques available at the time. Anyone who glorifies the Japanese sword has been watching too much anomie.

True as far as it goes but Modern Metallurgy has just caught up to what they were able (admittedly in a hit and miss fashion and only the hit's have survived the intervening years) to do in India from 300 BC to the 1700's as you could have seen in my link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz under the word Superior in my post.
A steel characterized by a pattern of bands or sheets of micro carbides (Can you say Carbon NanoTubes and NanoWires?) within a tempered martensite or pearlite matrix is nothing to sneer at.
The modern metallurgists that can make it, (and it's considered leading edge type tech if you can) had old samples to draw on and still hide the techniques from general usage.
Those old guys did pretty well considering everything which is why the steel made in India and Sir Lanka at that time was traded as far as Japan and Damascus .

 

[bladesyz]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Comparing modern metallurgy to that ancient Japanese stuff is ridiculous. A Japanese sword was a modest improvement over most techniques available at the time. Anyone who glorifies the Japanese sword has been watching too much anime.

Sword making is not just about metallurgy. The quality of steel needed for a sword is completely different from the quality needed for a cannon or a tank.

Could modern factories make top quality swords? Sure, after much research and with expensive equipment. However, since swords are obsolete as military weapons, the only people who would be interested in buying top quality swords would be enthusiasts and collectors, hence the demand is very low, and thus practically nobody would bother with it. So it is quite misleading to think that modern metallurgy implies we can forge better swords than our ancestors. To us, swords are nothing but curiosities. For them, swords were matters of life and death.

Now, the Japanese katana has several flaws. It is a relatively fragile weapon that can break if forced to block a heavier blade. However, despite this, it is still an extremely fine piece of craftsmanship, and is extremely efficient at doing what it is designed to do.

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Steel Quality is all in how it's made, it's not like the it's a pure substance found in varying grades.
Iron, Carbon a few other trace elements and how you heat cool and alloy them made all the difference.

Think of it as Apple Pie, Give two people Apples, Suger, Flour, and Water the quality of the pie is all in the skill used to put it together, perhaps access to Cinnamon as well can make a slight difference and having a modern kitchen over a old style one helps you make it faster but it's not all that complicated really if you know how to put it together.

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

True as far as it goes but Modern Metallurgy has just caught up to what they were able (admittedly in a hit and miss fashion and only the hit's have survived the intervening years) to do in India from 300 BC to the 1700's as you could have seen in my link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz under the word Superior in my post.

Did you seriously just say that? Modern steel makes that crappy old blacksmith steel look like flint. And yes, we've all seen that carbon nanotubes in swords paper. The evidence in it is sketchy at best. These swordmaking techniques aren't some ancient long-lost secret. Anyone with a B.S. in Metallurgy can take one look at the crystal structure and name off a few ways to replicate it.

Sword making is not just about metallurgy. The quality of steel needed for a sword is completely different from the quality needed for a cannon or a tank.

Creating different alloys for different purposes is pretty much the definition of metallurgy, so yes, it is all about metallurgy.

Could modern factories make top quality swords? Sure, after much research and with expensive equipment. However, since swords are obsolete as military weapons, the only people who would be interested in buying top quality swords would be enthusiasts and collectors, hence the demand is very low, and thus practically nobody would bother with it. So it is quite misleading to think that modern metallurgy implies we can forge better swords than our ancestors. To us, swords are nothing but curiosities. For them, swords were matters of life and death.

It wouldn't take much research at all. A superior sword could be made using most forging techniques currently available. That would only be if you insisted on having a sword made of carbon steel. Many stainless steels in production exceed carbon steel in every capacity, with a minimum amount of forging required.

 

[Johnny]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

A lot of the work the japanese craftsmen where doing on the sword was getting our impurities and compensating for lack of good metals to begin with.


In a modern forge you can start with grade A steel and then just use modern machines to make an even better sword in a days work.

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

If your starting with recycled steel instead of ores your comparing Apples and Oranges, and I don't see whats "sketchy" about using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), to detect a density of cementite nanowires (diameter 10-20 nm, lengths several hundred nm) in a genuine Damascus saber.
Sources


Helmut Föll. n.d. Damascene Technique in Metalworking. This is a fascinating website in English and German by materials scientist Föll of the University of Kiel, with lots of details about the process and history of Damascus steel.
Lee A. Jones. 1998. Blade Patterns Intrinsic to Steel Edged Weapons. On Helmut Föll's website.
M. Reibold et al. 2006. Carbon nanotubes in an ancient Damascus sabre. Nature 444:286.
Sharada Srinivasan and Srinivasa Ranganathan. 2004. India's Legendary Wootz Steel: An advanced material of the ancient world. National Institute of Advanced Studies and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
S. Srinivasan and S. Ranganathan. ca. 1997. Wootz Steel: An Advanced Material of the Ancient World.
John D. Verhoeven. 2001. The Mystery of Damascus Blades. Scientific American J.D. Verhoeven, A.H. Pendray, and W.E. Dauksch. 1998. The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades. JOM 50(9):58-64.
I'm not saying it's better, just that in some cases they did some pretty remarkable work way back then.

 

[bladesyz]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

It wouldn't take much research at all. A superior sword could be made using most forging techniques currently available. That would only be if you insisted on having a sword made of carbon steel. Many stainless steels in production exceed carbon steel in every capacity, with a minimum amount of forging required.

Stainless steel swords? Now I *know* you have no clue what you're talking about.

http://www.swordforum.com/metallurgy/stainlesssuitable.html
http://www.realarmorofgod.com/sword-materials.html

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Stainless steel swords? Now I *know* you have no clue what you're talking about.

http://www.swordforum.com/metallurgy/stainlesssuitable.html
http://www.realarmorofgod.com/sword-materials.html

Yeah, it isn't like I do this for a living or anything. By the way, your link only mentions 440, which is a fairly low-end stainless, so maybe we should take a long look at who has no idea what they're talking about. You can get the hardness of BCC and even FCC stainless up to 70 or 80 HRC fairly easily, making a far better edge than you can get out of regular steel. Not to mention the mechanical properties are considerably more adjustable than regular steel.

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Stoutwood I have no Doubt that understanding something like this helps http://www.calphad.com/iron-carbon.html

I'm just pointing out they did manage to make some swords right in the sweet spot for the factors they wanted which include Flexibility as well as Strength and Edge Hardness, well before having the basis of theory that would point out the way, and that only later study was able to clear up why some rote learned recipes managed to work so well.

I thought your incredulous reaction to my statement above was a bit overdone, just as I think Bladesyz's disrespect of yours is out of line.

Peace

 

[bladesyz]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Yeah, it isn't like I do this for a living or anything. By the way, your link only mentions 440, which is a fairly low-end stainless, so maybe we should take a long look at who has no idea what they're talking about. You can get the hardness of BCC and even FCC stainless up to 70 or 80 HRC fairly easily, making a far better edge than you can get out of regular steel. Not to mention the mechanical properties are considerably more adjustable than regular steel.

If you'd actually read the articles, you'd realize that hardness is not the only factor in a sword.

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

If you had read my last sentence, you would have realized that I already addressed that.

The author of the first article obviously hadn't read any papers on stainless written after 1970. The second article is a list of generic steel types used for sword construction.

EDIT: I suppose I should quit getting irritated and actually attempt to explain this. The impasse that we are reaching is mostly due to the difference between popular and scientific definitions of stainless steel. When most people refer to stainless, they are referring to 300 or 400 series steels that are all fairly similar. When metallurgists talk about them, we are referring to any alloy that contains both iron and a certain amount of chromium. In fact, in a lot of cases, there is less iron in the steel than there are other elements. Because of this, all kinds of factors can be adjusted for. Hardness/strength (the two are really the same thing) can be added in innumerable ways, such as repeated forging and different alloying additions. Furthermore, the elastic modulus, which prevents permanent deformation, can be expanded through the addition of several other elements. Because normal carbon steels by definition can only have a very minimal amount of additions added, they are less adjustable, and in truth, nowhere near as good. Stainless steels are only held back by their cost.

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Meh - I want a molecular wire with the tensile strength of the strong nuclear force held in line by a force field (Larry Niven for the win)- but of the known swords in the world Damascus or Japanese swords based on wootz steel seems to be the best available, and even with the modern metallurgist explanations I notice the only actual production was done by the ancients.

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

The point is that swords today could easily exceed older swords. The problem is that a fully functional sword is about the most worthless thing you can spend your money on, so there's no market. The people that do have the money would rather buy an antique that will actually appreciate in value.

 

[Dondrei]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Spartans, pssht, they're becoming almost as nerd-glorified as the Samurai.

All Steel is Iron and Carbon. Some Damascus made blades did come from trace ores that could make it Superior
but the techniques for its making died out around 1700 after the principal sources of special ores needed for its production were depleted.
Those sources contained trace amounts of tungsten and/or vanadium which other sources did not but other than that it's mostly all the same really.

Theoretical. Nobody really knows what made Damascus steel.

Although the Japanese swords did cut cloth and flesh well, are there any records of how well it worked against armour?

How was the quality of the samurai armour and their composition?

Let me put it this way, no metal.

 

[jmervyn]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Let me put it this way, no metal.

False, as my citations indicated, but that's not surprising.

Still, lacquered iron strips bound together by silk aren't going to have better ballistic defense properties than plate.

 

[Dirty_Zulu]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Still, lacquered iron strips bound together by silk aren't going to have better ballistic defense properties than plate.

IMO, composite armor is overall more effective than a plate of metal. Modern body armor is layers of composite materials.

 

[jmervyn]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

IMO, composite armor is overall more effective than a plate of metal. Modern body armor is layers of composite materials.

Agreed, but real composite such as that was not the same kind of technology as that of kozane (earlier link cited again for relevance). Plate was undeniably better, and I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising young historian could prove that the reason they used the kozane method was their crap iron quality. Remember that they initially used materials other than iron, including hardwood, for the kozane.

In keeping with the best OTF tradition, I shall now cite a Role Playing Game. Samurai armor was much more like the old AD&D "Splinted" armor, or even better yet, "scale mail" (since Wikipedia has a picture).

 

[Dondrei]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

IMO, composite armor is overall more effective than a plate of metal. Modern body armor is layers of composite materials.

Depends what materials you're compositing. An oatmeal/clingwrap composite wouldn't be very effective, for example.

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Spike TV's analysis of The Deadliest Warriors: do you agree?

Makes a nice night mask though...



Gun battles LOL