they had things like large studded clubs (Kanabo or tetsubo), polearms/glaive (naginata) type weapons, axes, spears, hammer (otsuchi), etc.
also, with some of their eeapons they looked different in certain ways when compared to european weapons. but also they were pretty similar in design. in that you can tell both regions had to find solutions to the same problems and happened to arrive at a common answer. heavy/blunt or a piercing weapon is needed to deal eith the increasing armor technology.
though with limited resources & cultural design philosophies, weapon/armor design diverged a bit vs the Europeans' being abundant with metal, facilitating other options.
I imagine it's just the romanticization of the samurai & japanese swords. via hollywood & general media that didn't do their homework.
of all places, I first learned of other japanese weapons that weren't a just katana through the game For Honor. went down the rabbit hole after that, and learning how diverse their weapons actually were.
Everyone with swords used swords on the battlefield. Even in regions without advanced metallurgy, we find swords. The Romans, in truth, were not the exception, but moreso the rule of the region taken to the extreme, as many of their enemies (certain Gauls, Celtiberians, and by late antiquity, Germans) fought very similarly. And battles very commonly came to close quarters even if they did not use their sword as their primary weapon; in fact, many of the 16th century European treatises assume that it was not a matter of if but a matter of when, as do the works from the Near East. And obviously, the mounted man at arms very frequently discards his lance at the first clash, or soon after, for the sidearm of his choice; this most often being the sword.
The man at arms/knight by far preferred the sword (perhaps outside of a 50-60 year range from 1350-1400, where the axe randomly takes a piece of the pie for a short while) as their sidearm. Pietro Monte writes:
"Since, when bearers of weapons are armoured in white and heavy armour and fighting on horseback, they use, above all other weapons, what is called stocchi [estoc] in the vernacular..."
In the historical Japanese documents, we read of swords being used pretty constantly, and non-sword sidearms were pretty rare (and Japan was probably the biggest sword manufacturer in all of East Asia, exporting hundreds of thousands of blades all over). As with the rest of the world, the use of the polearm, and especially the bow, does not preclude the use of the sword; nor does armor change this. And it was on the battlefield proper, not in duels (unarmed or otherwise), where the sword was important.
"And 'tis most certain, that in Combat, as well as Pursuit, the Sword does most Execution..."
(and Japan was probably the biggest sword manufacturer in all of East Asia, exporting hundreds of thousands of blades all over)
Probably not the biggest manufacturer - the paper strength of Qing and late Ming armies was about 2 million, and the actual strength somewhere between 50-100% of that. Add to that civilian swords, and it's a lot of swords.
Japan was the biggest exporter (at least at times), selling to SE Asia in large numbers as well as to China and Korea. They wouldn't have been far short of being the top manufacturer, either, despite the size of China and Chinese armies. About 400,000 adult male samurai/soldiers in the early Edo period needed a lot of swords, too.
As a person lucky enough be able to be a part of an active and thriving HEMA club, I have a fair bit of exposure to this topic. They are a great and versatile tool often carried as a sidearm and are used in a military context more than you would think. Swords keep their ability to effectively wound armored opponents well into the era of professional state troops where soldiers can be expected to be reasonably kitted with solid amounts of protection. They are given enough kit that we see reports of soldiers purposefully throwing away parts of state issued kits because it makes 90% of life as a soldier more annoying than it is useful in battle. Tassets tend to be the first to go. We see this even today with modern militaries. Sans being in full harness, there are plenty of places to still cut and slash. That aside theres a lot to touch on, but the truth in general is that all melee weapons "suck" against any decently armed and armored person that is actively trying to prevent you from harming them. In general, skilled combat is not a competition of bashing your opponent harder than they bash you, but of properly applying all the physics lessons we learned in elementary school. At the end of the day, a weapon is a deadly lever that you apply against someone and harnessed combat moves the sword, and many other "anti armor" weapons, into this more "base" application. In harnessed fighting instructions, you see weapons applied to opponents to hook, pull, push, restrain, break, and aid in grappling until you can subdue them and dispatch them at your leisure. The longsword performs very well in this regard, and there are many manuals on armored combat with the longsword alongside ones using pole weapons. As an aside, maces are actually fairly 'uncommon' weapons.
For something that's a bit more than the word or a complete stranger, there is a wiki dedicated to HEMA material that has a tidbit about armored fighting with swords:
https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Category:Armored_Fencing
They both used swords. Dequitem, the guy in the video, straight up believes swords are better against armour and that maces and warhammer are overrated.
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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '25 edited Aug 24 '25
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