Leaderboard

Broadswords being made to 'smash or cut' is as incorrect as the myths about the katana. Actually, most broadswords were light compared to katanas (unless they were ceremonial). They were double bladed, compared to katanas which had a wedge (obviously heavy), and so two handed longswords were longer and weighed about the same as a 2 handed katana (speaking in generalities.) Broadswords were made to cut and thrust. There's a whole bunch of European one handed swords named 'cut and thrust' swords, for a specific reason. Armour was heavy, and people wouldn't wear it unless it was effective. There were a few ways to bypass full bodied armour 1 - thrust at the joints. This is why a lot of European swords have a nice taper compared to Japanese swords. There's even some swords made only for thrusting, including a massive 2 handed one. 2 - Bash and crush bones underneath the armour. You don't do these with swords. You do these with maces, or halberds, or blunt weapons. Pole arms. 3 - Take them to the ground and finish them off there, polearms sorta combined reason number 2 with reason number 3. Hollywood likes to have people walking around with 'heavy' 2 handed swords, bludgeoning people. This didn't happen I prefer European cut and thrust swords mainly because of the versatility, but katanas are obviously far superior in cutting flesh.