Quote from: Catelf;641661.... This youtube clip seems to have a different opinon on that:
the last test is against metal armor ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDkoj932YFo

Fuck it, I watched that whole god damn video, and since I can't get those wasted minutes back, I will now inflict my suffering and loss upon the lot of you.

As propaganda, I hold that it is brilliant. As science it is bullshit.

I'm not going to touch on the relative quality of the swords, as frankly irrelevant, merely upon the tests.  I will also not comment on the CGI use of water quenching on the katana that starts it all off other than to cough discretely into my hand .

Test one is cutting a red cabbage. Both swords do the same. Hey, look how balanced we are!.

Test two is cutting a coconut. The slow motion shows the katana smashing the coconut more than cutting it, no slow motion on the broadsword, but it appears about the same (then again, they did reuse the cabbage, if they resued the coconut (possible), then the entire second test is invalid due to structural integrity loss in the cocunut shell!), so we'll call it teh same.

Third test, and teh first clear winner for the katana is cutting an ice block (roughly six inches square, maybe twelve long?). Katana 'clearly' cuts through the ice block while the broadsword bounces.  AHA!

Wait. First there is only one cut of the ice block by the katana, and in slow motion it is absolutely clear that the ice block fractures ahead of the blade. It isn't clear, given the editing, but it seems that only one attempt was made with the broadsword as well, which bounced, though it does appear looped in such a way to suggest it was repeated several times.  Now, it is possible that some feature of the blade of the Katana makes it more likely to create a fracture in ice, but it seems equally possible that the block was flawed in some way already, more brittle. The easy solution is to simply bring out a lot more ice blocks and repeat the tests. The harder solution is the same, only with lots of quality control on said ice blocks to control for variables. I'd be satisfied with the easy.

So, this could be a win by fluke rather than propaganda or superiority. Luckily there are two more tests.

The next test is training dummy torso covered with what appears to be a leather vest. This is were things take a turn towards malice.  The Broadsword is up first in a strong strike across the abdomen, which drives the leather a good inch, inch and a half into the foam of hte torso, but fails to cut the leather. I note that there are several surface cuts parallel to the demonstrated cut which indicates that this sort of blow was repeated at some point, though with which sword I can't say. The Katana is used to cut downward across the shoulder, cleaving the leather and sheering off part of the torso. Clearly a superior cut.

Only, you'll note, these aren't comparable blows. Could the broadsword have acheived similar cutting power had it been used in a similar cleaving fashion? Would the katana have cut through the leather had it been used to cut across the flat of the stomach? Were those surface cuts failed cuts by the katana or the broadsword?

While the test clearly indicates superior katana cutting, it is utterly invalidated by the fact that we aren't comparing remotely similar cuts here.

Between this and the ice block test I kept my eyes close on the final test.

The final test was a polished steel breastplate of some sort (It looked vaguely segmented, but I beleive that was merely a ribbing sort of design). The broadsword again went first, again with a strike across the stomach, then a stab that punched a tiny hole in the steel.

The cut appeared to be useless. I say appeared, because the armor is quarter turned away from the camera and the cut was to the arc of the stomach turned away from the camera.  

The Katana is swung at the stomach and clearly dents the metal, then stabs, and appears to penetrate a half inch deeper.

So again, a winner.

But, remember how I said we couldnt' actually see how the broadsword perfromed because of where it struck? yes, the Katana was on the side facing the camera. Now, it would have been easy to just turn the armor between blows, free essentially, so that's point one.  Point two is that hte katana blow was closer to the center line ridge, much closer. Imagine swinging a sword at a flat wall and again against the corner of that same wall. Which blow will be more effective?

Now, I could suppose one test might accidentally favor one sword over another if done poorly, as these were, but three out of three favoring the same sword? I also note the change of demonstration order as well, which I believe was designed to reinforce the 'superior' contender.  So instead of seeing how deep the broadsword goes and thinking how deadly that would have been we're reminded instead over the cleaving of the katana, as it is fresher in our minds (I believe the us legal system has the defense follow the prosecution for that exact reason... so that the advantage goes to the defense).

To further my case that this is deliberate, allow me to note that our testers are some old white guy who clearly studied japanese swordsmanship and... R.Lee Ermy, who is our celebrity guest rather than an expert swordsman. I definitely recall Ermey (sp?) handling the broadsword, and I'm too lazy to go back and verify who held the katana, though I believe Ermey did at least some of the katana cuts.

However, we have a non-expert and a potentially biased expert, with clearly inequal tests being performed and some weak evidence of deliberate malfeasance.

In short the video proves my grandmother shot hitler. Go Grandma!

Good analysis Spike, the relative sharpness of the blades is also a key factor. A well sharpened soup spoon will go through flesh like butter, a semi sharpened sword is a bludgeon. These are not things a video will readily reveal.

The styles of the fighters also comes into play.

Unless i'm mistaken, the shoulder to opposing groin blow was typical for the katana-armed Samurai.

Quote from: One Horse Town;642720The styles of the fighters also comes into play.

Unless i'm mistaken, the shoulder to opposing groin blow was typical for the katana-armed Samurai.

AFAIK that sort of diagonal cut is/was common in just about every fencing tradition (excluding the exclusively thrusting styles). As the "Döbringer" manuscript states, "When you are angry and raging, then no strike is as ready as this upper strike struck from the shoulder at the opponent."
(Translation by David Lindholm. Link directs to the Liechtenauer wiki.)

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;642260Not exactly, Rob. HM 1e (OOP) has everything all in one book, although there are separate books with more detailed rules on ships (Pilot's Almanac) and magic (Shek-Pvar + "tomes" on each "college" of magic).

True, but there is no (legal) pdf, and it's long out of print, so getting a copy is an ebay exercise.  It's not a terribly expensive item (sub $20), but there would probably be a little delay in getting a copy.


Personally, I go back and forth.  I like some of the detail, but some of it makes me wonder if it's worth it.  In the end, I'll probably fuse some version of HM with BRP and be happy.

Quote from: The Traveller;642718Good analysis Spike, the relative sharpness of the blades is also a key factor. A well sharpened soup spoon will go through flesh like butter, a semi sharpened sword is a bludgeon. These are not things a video will readily reveal.

True enough. I touched very briefly on it at the beginning, but I tried to restrict my observations to stuff that was directly observable (and without sound. My computer has issues with sound these days... it could be the headphones...).

That said, the broadsword cut the cabbage almost exactly the same as the Katana. One thing that was observable, during the slowmotions, was that the broadsword was much less rigid. I know a bit about metallurgy and swordsmithing but not enough to comment about just how wobbly that damn thing was in the slowmotions, but I will say that it had a lot of resilience in addition to its spring. I DO know that all that spring and wobble would definitely affect the stabbing power and I presume the cutting power, as it would absorb some of the kinetic energy of the blow. THis was most obvious during the 'stabbing the plate armor' test, where the broadsword flexed some five times more than the katana did during the slow motion.

Quote from: TheHistorian;642754Personally, I go back and forth.  I like some of the detail, but some of it makes me wonder if it's worth it.  In the end, I'll probably fuse some version of HM with BRP and be happy.

For games of that general type and degree of detail, it's not worth it to me. At one time I thought HM was the way to go but nowadays, in the broader BRP/RQ/d100 family, Elric/Magic World is about where my sweet spot lies. (No explicit "weapon aspects", no hit locations, but variable armor and a table for vivid "major wounds".)

Still, it's what the OP wanted, so that's why I suggested it, with reservations.

About the complication, I don't really think that combat is likely to be too terribly slow compared to MRQ2/Legend or RQ6.. Rob can say more. What is far more impacted by the detail is character creation/maintenance--i.e., buying armor in multiple pieces and layers, and adding up all the absorption values for each hit location. If you're trying to balance your armor protection vs. other variables such as encumbrance and cost, it gets even worse. My understanding is that HM Gold has some standard "panoplies", which could help, but it's still more than I'd like to deal with as a GM or impose on players.

Now, HM does have a module called "Battle Lust" which uses a streamlined version of the standard combat rules as the basis of a miniatures skirmish system. This could be a good way to go--a hybrid of the BL combat rules with the standard character rules--but I think I like Elric/MW better.

Quote from: Dan Vincze;642739AFAIK that sort of diagonal cut is/was common in just about every fencing tradition (excluding the exclusively thrusting styles). As the "Döbringer" manuscript states, "When you are angry and raging, then no strike is as ready as this upper strike struck from the shoulder at the opponent."
(Translation by David Lindholm. Link directs to the Liechtenauer wiki.)

Cool. Thanks.