Some stuff that I learned about swords

[sirdarksol]

I was watching a Mythbusters marathon tonight, and one of the episodes was
"Movie Myths." One of the movies myths was the common "one sword chops another sword in half."

They went about this very methodically, and because of this, not only did I learn the true nature of this myth (more on that later), but I learned a few other things as well.

Truth the first:
It is not easy to cut through a human body.
The Mythbusters brought in a group of Iaidoka who practiced tameshigiri. They were excellent at cutting through the straw mats, even the really thick bundles of three or so mats.
When faced with a block of ballistics gel (which is pretty much identical to the human body when you're considering penetration, cutting, and so on), the most experienced Iaidoka in the group only managed to make a 9" cut into the block. This did not include any bones, so we're talking the difficulty of cutting into muscle alone.
This is not to say that doing this is impossible. It is just to give an idea that: a) a katana alone is not enough to allow one to cut through a human body, and b) even with a significant amount of skill, it's not a guaranteed thing.

Truth the second:
Those cheap, stainless steel katana you can get at flea markets and knife stores can pretty easily be cut through by a skilled swordsman. One strike at the speed and power generated by a swordsman and the stainless blade was sheared off by a dual-tempered blade.

Truth the third:
Cutting a well-made sword in half is nearly impossible. The closest thing was when the katana snapped the rapier, but that was actually due to the rapier bending too far.

My only problem with this setup was that they never attacked the rear edge of a katana with another katana. This is about the only way I can see this having any credence at all, due to the softer metal along the spine of the sword. Once that begins to give way, it is possible that the strain could snap the harder edge. Still not likely, however.

Oh, and handguns cannot easily shoot the lock off a door (a 12ga or 30.06 will do just fine, though), awnings do present a decent method of protecting you from dying when you fall off a building, you can't shoot the floor out from underneath you with 40 9mm rounds (or even 360 9mm and several 12ga shells), you can have an ejection seat that will rocket the passenger out of the car (one of the greatest things I've ever seen on that show), and a car going 70mph, hitting a 30 degree ramp, will travel 175 feet (about the distance of the broken bridge in Dukes of Hazzard), but will not be drivable at the end, and much of the engine ends up in the passenger compartment.

[disgruntled]

awesome info.... i love that show

[disgruntled]

just thought of something..... if it is really that hard to cut through a person, do you think that it is ust a myth that head samurai (daimyo) use to "test" a sword by cutting through someone (lower class or criminal)?

[sirdarksol]

Not necessarily.
Unlike the iaidoka in the episode, a samurai trained for several hours a day with his weapon. A samurai was on a completely different scale of capability than any modern practitioners. This isn't proof, of course, just an extra bit to consider.

That comment was more aimed at the folks who believe that they would be able to use their surgical steel katana and their little bit of self-training to cut a human in half if they had to.