Nodachi vs. Longsword (e.g. Liechtenauer, etc.)

Indeed. And that's the benefit of the three-point suspension harness of late medieval longswords, seen in this video below (I time-coded it to showing the scabbard and suspension harness part). You can adjust the angle and height rather freely at all 3 points to suit your needs, convenience to carry vs expedience to draw, mounted vs on foot, etc. With enough adjustment, you can make it almost hung in a way almost like carrying the scabbard in hand in terms of drawing.

Drawing with the scabbard on the sash is indeed vastly different from drawing from the hand, but nodachi were not stuck through sash the same way as katana. Many were also suspended from the belt usually on back of the wearer's hip, or just carried on the back, I think that's to avoid drawing the long blade with the scabbard stuck in the sash, so close to your body.

Nodachi generally have 3 shaku of blade length, which is 35.79". European longswords have blade length ranging from 35" to 43". You can see the average longsword has a longer reach than the nodachi. Medieval swords with even longer blades are generally categorized as two-handed swords, such as the Wallace Collection A474 and Royal Armouries IX.1787. Clearly those have even bigger reach advantage over the average nodachi than longswords have. Renaissance swords like the zweihanders, spadones and montantes are even longer and larger, reaching 200cm sometimes.

So far we are only talking about functional swords that weigh under 10 lbs, not the even larger parade swords and ceremonial swords. I know there are extreme examples of odachi or nodachi such as the 破邪の御太刀 reaching almost 5m, but without a shadow of a doubt, weighing in at 165 lbs it is never meant to be an usable sword. As you can see the photo below, it is more of a curiosity item like a statue, comparable to the "World's Largest Bowie Knife" erected in Texas that's 20.5 feet long. Therefore we should exclude these from serious discussions involving functionality.


Now I understand there are some variations of nihonto's distal taper, but in general they tend to be between 25-40%, with a profile taper also in that range, this dictates that the weight distribution are totally different from an European longsword of any kind. Obviously the mass distribution of longswords vary vastly among different types, but in general, they tend to taper 50-80% in the thickness, and 33-80% in the profile--that is, if we even include the late 13th and early 14th century grete swerde of war, that are generally not considered as longswords as no complex techniques were prescribed by period treatises as longswords are. But even so, the mass on the upper portion of the blades of these hand-and-a-half proportion swords are much less than the base, comparing to Japanese swords like Nodachi.

This means that when given the same blade length, an average nodachi would accelerate much much slower than the average longsword. It takes much longer to stop, and it takes much longer to redirect. If we only consider the blade component, that is. If we take the hilt mass into consideration, the counterbalance of the pommel at the end of a much longer lever, than the tsuba, means that the point of balance on European longswords are also generally much closer to the hilt than that of nodachi of a equal length. This means that the action point is closer to the hand, and further exacerbate the differences in operational speed.

It's not a surprise that nodachi were often used from horseback, while longswords are often used on foot as battle swords or dueling swords, as cavalry swords like the nodachi don't need to be anywhere nearly as nimble because recovery and redirect are a much lesser concern in mounted combat.

However, in a duel on foot, an average longsword's mass distribution means it either has a significant reach advantage over nodachi, or if the size (reach) is equal, the longsword would have a significant speed advantage over the nodachi.

Of course there's a great deal of variations among nihonto. And if we look at an antique nodachi in this post, in which the OP took great pains to record the distal taper and profile taper on this 16th century nodachi every 2-3", we can see that this particular example have close to 43% profile taper and 43% distal taper. It's not exactly there yet to be comparable to an average European longsword yet, but it is indeed a much much nimbler nodachi than the average nihonto. Kudos to the OP DigsFossils-n-Knives for provideing such measurements, as mass distribution and handling are typically not of any concern among antique nihonto owners.

However, if we are talking about the extreme end of the spectrum, we can easily look at any late medieval longsword like the type XVa, XVII, and XVIIIb, like the Royal Armouries IX.1106, shown below.
The width near the tip is easily less than 1/5 of the width of the blade, and the thickness near the tip is less than half of the thickness at the base. While the nimble example of nodachi shown above has a mass distribution that loses 67% of the weight of the base at the tip, this longsword loses over 90% of the mass of the base at the tip. It is much quicker to rotate, much more precise with its point, and much easier to redirect in parry and riposte.

Take a look at this document here (108M PDF download, be aware) detailing the measurement parameters of 20 European edged weapons in the Gotti Collection, from colossal two-handed swords, to rapiers, sideswords, off-handed swords all the way to daggers. Other than one very short dagger, I cannot find ANY bladed weapon that has less than 50% of distal taper. None. A great number of them have 70-80% of distal taper, the thickness near the tip is often only 1/3 or 1/4 of the thickness of the base. Combined with the width, the fuller setup and the specifics of cross section every 2" or so, the document listed the mass distribution along the entire blade of each weapon in great detail. It goes even much further than what DigsFossils-n-Knives shared in his post. This kind of knowledge is what the sword community needs, instead of talking about personal feelings.

The mass distribution dictates how a sword moves. So to answer JH Lee 's question, indeed some nodachi can definitely move with certain degree of finesse, but in general nowhere near the nimbleness of European swords of equal size. Let's be honest, they don't move as nimble as Korean swords, as Chinese swords, as Indian swords, Turkish swords or Arabic swords either. Those typically have a lot more profile and distal taper than Japanese swords.

This doesn't mean Japanese swords are bad, or clumsy. There is a reason that the average nagasa of an average katana is short. Even though it is a hand-and-a-half sword used primarily with two hands, their blades tend to be a lot shorter than many one-handed swords from other cultures. This is to sacrifice the reach to ensure the maneuverability, and the durability. Durability is always the concern of paramount importance in Japanese sword making, and the inability to reliably create steel blades with spring tempering made them resort to making the blade thick--well at the base they are not thicker than swords from other cultures, really. But on the upper portion, they remain very thick as they don't taper much in either the thickness or the width. Therefore, to ensure it is still nimble (yes, I do know that katana of 24-28" nagasa tend to be very nimble) in foot combat, they need to make them short. The reach isn't much of a concern, as if your opponents also use short swords of similar reach, nobody really has a clear advantage on reach.

However, Japanese swordsmen do value the advantage of reach. If you look at the swords the 47 ronins carried on their final mission, many of them chose to carry the longest sword in their possession--many have a nagasa of 2 shaku 7 or 8 sun, and some even have 3 shaku. This reaffirms the importance of reach in mortal combat involving edge weapons.

So far we are just talking about the handling of longswords and nodachi. If you are taking versatility into consideration, longswords clearly have the advantage of having two edges enabling many unique techniques involving false edge cuts with speed advantage, or coming from unexpected angles like the Zwerchau and Schielhau as riposte after parry. Longswords can be better used in half-swording stance (yes I am aware that you can support the spine of a katana in thrust but it isn't nearly as stable and versatile in many applications to use the sword as a lever in grappling and takedown), the crossguard have tactical usage at extreme close-range: the quillon can strike out as quick blunt damage, it can be used for hooking and assist in binding. One with a longsword can also dish out a lot of percussive damage with pommel or crossguard in mordhau stance. The tip geometry is much much better at piercing maille armor and thick and tough textile protections.

Imo, appropriate comparisons would be this: Katana vs Sidesword, Katateuchi vs Arming sword, Tachi vs Longsword/Bastard Sword, Odachi vs zweihander

Indeed. And that's the benefit of the three-point suspension harness of late medieval longswords, seen in this video below (I time-coded it to showing the scabbard and suspension harness part). You can adjust the angle and height rather freely at all 3 points to suit your needs, convenience to carry vs expedience to draw, mounted vs on foot, etc. With enough adjustment, you can make it almost hung in a way almost like carrying the scabbard in hand in terms of drawing.

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Drawing with the scabbard on the sash is indeed vastly different from drawing from the hand, but nodachi were not stuck through sash the same way as katana. Many were also suspended from the belt usually on back of the wearer's hip, or just carried on the back, I think that's to avoid drawing the long blade with the scabbard stuck in the sash, so close to your body.

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I agree with most of the points you raised here, but there are some nuance in these matters.

The acutely tapered type of tip on a few types (Oakeshott type XVa, XVII, XVIIIb) with increased thrusting capacity typically have reinforced tip, the thickness either remains rather thick (but still a lot less than the base), or flares up near the tip. The tips are therefore very durable, and difficult to be damaged in prescribed activities such as finding the gaps of plate articulation and forcibly jabs into the maille and arming doublet underneath, potentially breaking a maille ring. It was rarely used to jab directly into the plate armor, even though it likely would glance off, but even if it somehow made it into some of the thinner plates, the tip would not be damaged because it is far harder than the steel used for plate armor.

Now during parry the tip might accidentally collide with other sword blades or polearm heads (not ideal to parry with the foible, but accidents happen a lot and you don't always land the parry with the section you want it to land), there's a greater danger of damaging the tip, though it is unlikely as the tip geometry is very thick and durable, if collide with an edge of another blade, likely that edge suffers a lot more than the reinforced tip. The photos you have shown indeed have broken off tip (though not by much as it is magnified greatly), I don't know about this particularly example, whether the damage happened during battle or not. But many surviving swords were water-finds. In the effort of cleaning off the heavy corrosion, some section of the blade especially near the tip can be accidentally removed.

Now about tip cuts. It is true with this kind of blades, cuts with the tip and the section under the tip tend to cause less damage, because of the edge geometry is stout when it tapers to a thick but narrow tip, also due to the fact that there could be some flexibility that makes the cut less stable than cuts landed on the point of percussion of the blade. On longsword types that still have certain broadness near the tip, this is less of an issue, as tip cuts can still be rather formidable--though admittedly not as much as most Japanese swords near the tip.

I don't think it makes the blade less durable. If the heat treat is done right, and the steel quality is sound, the spring temper will actually make the blade a lot more durable. But indeed having the spring flex can potentially decrease the cutting stability in some situations, such as when you rapidly turn the blade to redirect or change angle after a feint. Landed on naked flesh, or just under civilian clothing, this might not make a huge difference--it's still highly likely to be a incapacitating blow, but gambeson changes things a lot. A less decisive and stable cut simply wouldn't do much against it--agreed.

But the reach advantage is manifested both the thrusts and the cuts, and to fully utilize the reach advantage, swordsmen usually cut at the foremost and most vulnerable part of the body--the hands and wrists, which are less protected, and even a not decisive cut can severe damage the hand in a way to be a fight-ender.

About using an iron core with hardened steel edge. I think it's done more with daggers or short swords, and some battle axe and warhammer heads. Longswords and long-bladed arming swords would not be made this way, as the spring tempering is crucially important to the durability of the sword. Many surviving examples have extremely thin blades, 1-2mm is quite common on sword blade focusing on cutting power on the upper portion of the blades (they remain comparatively a lot thicker on the lower portion), this means that the swordsmiths were exceedingly confident in the steel quality and their ability to heat treat said steel.

Medieval swords, especially toward the late medieval period, sword blades were increasingly made in sword-making centers like Milan, Passau and Solingen by large scale workshops and the procedures were rather standardized to produce high quality blades to be imported all over the Europe and fitted by local cutlers. Of course, the further back you go, the less standardized the swordmaking processes were, and the greater variation of quality there were. Generally speaking, munition-grade swords were very rare prior to the Renaissance, as centralized standing armies were not a thing. People who could afford a longsword or long arming sword were typically in a position to afford a properly made one. People who were impoverished, if levied, would be generally put in units that require them to bring polearms like pikes and bills, or longbows in some cultures.

It's a very nuanced discussion. If I am obligated to fight a longswordsman with a nodachi, I will certainly get a smith to forge one nodachi with such mass distribution that I'm not too disadvantaged in fencing on foot, I'm sure it was done in the past. The difference would be less pronounced and it comes down to skills and luck at this point.

Please see this:




Relevant portions start at 1:58