Re: Weapons with funny hats

>From: George LaValle <flamebringer@???????.com>
>Reply-To: Discussion list for the Spelljammer campaign setting
><SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com>
>To: SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com
>Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Weapons with funny hats
>Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 06:30:24 +0000
>
>Um, I'm not going to go so far as to say one philosophy or another is
>better; I tend to consider them all equally. I have taken quite a liking to
>Japan, though.
>
>But, the west [basically America] is so powerful because we have
>a) abundant natural resources and b) nukes. Now, I won't say we've taken
>over the world, because of course we haven't; we're just the major power.
>When Russian children say the pledge of allegiance, *then we've taken over
>the world.

Uhhh well, the West after all isn't THAT rich in natural resources, else
USA, EU and Japan corporations wouldn't need to drill the Middle East for
oil, Chile and Indonesia for copper and Congo and South Africa for gold and
diamonds. Colonialism would have been futile.
The difference between European society and RotW was born in the
Renaissance, with ther birth of burgoisie, and crowned with the French
Revolution with the rise of the burgoisie itself as major political force.
In Europe, political power was available to a closed oligarchy only, while
in China, for example, even a farmer's son could become a state bureaucrat
if proved worthy. So, any hopes in improving one's station were in
economical power - that is, industry, banking, and trade. The separation
between political and economical power, and the corpus of laws needed to
prevent the one prevailing on the other, was the reason of the rise of the
European culture on the world scene - and today we perceive the increased
political power of the great corporations (see antitrust laws, or Enron
bankrupt) as a threat to the basis of our society.

>
>Anyway. If I remember rightly, Spanish steel took a keener edge than
>ordinary the ordinary English mix, but was more fragile. (Something about
>more manganese? or maybe it was just carbon...)

Iirc, the Spanish learned how to make fine steels from the Milanese smiths -
the Missaglia famlily introduced taylorism in weaponmaking around 1430, and
their smithy employed more than 1000 workers. It was the best steel produced
at the time because of a mixing of the molten metal with sodium hydrates
that lessened the carbon content of the steel, giving it the greater
flexibility needed for the new thrusting sword.


>And, um, as everybody knows
>the katana is made of hundreds of overlapping layers of steel and iron, so
>it's hard (to take a better edge) but flexible so it doesn't snap as
>easily.
>If anything makes it superior I'd say that would; but it is just a
>different
>way of doing things.

We shouldn't forget the armour a sword is used against. A katana would lose
its edge against a steel chain mail and shatter against a steel full plate.
Japanese armour was made mostly of bronze, leather and wood.





Silmacar Halfelven
Captain of the Guards of Cardolan

DON'T PANIC.

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