A master of the more technologically advanced European saber would probably cut a Katana-wielding Samurai to ribbons. Good thing the Samurai would probably just shoot him from horseback anyway.
It just depends on context and skill.
I don't ever recall seeing a 2 handed bronze sword, and if the steel is worse than bronze, why didn't they go back to that? Which kind of suggests that it isn't.
I'm assuming low quality steel is overly soft rather than overly brittle. If it were overly soft wouldn't that favour shorter blades? You'd either get flex, or as you mentioned, added weight, which seems a bad trade off compared to a shorter sword and shield?
I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing, rather than a tactically advantageous thing, I'm in no way an expert on such things though.
I am not an expert either but as I understand it, Samurai were nobles and fought on horseback with their primary weapons being spears and bows, and they considered swords a backup weapon.[0]
The mythologizing of the Samurai, their honor-above-reason mentality ("bushido") and the katana as their primary weapon was a retrofiction created in the Edo period, when the Samurai had been disarmed and relegated to bureaucrats, and they wanted to justify and romanticize their violent past, and the term bushido was invented in the 20th century, and was itself based on Western ideals of chivalry in knighthood (which also, really, didn't exist.)[1,2]
[0]https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/10331/why-didnt-...
Agreed, I was focussing more on the not tactically advantageous, rather than ascribing an honour code per se.
It is generally a good idea to agree weapons beforehand, it helps keep the battlefield survivable. The 20th century wasn't known for it's 'honour' but WW2 combatants did refrain from using chemical weapons for example, and nukes were never used in the cold war and it's proxy battles. I'd label that as part of an honour code? I'm not making the case too forcefully though.
Primary weapons were generally either bows or some kind of long stick with something sharp on the end. Primary weapons and shields are both inconvenient and tacky to carry when not expecting battle, so the sidearm becomes the badge of office or nobility for the warrior class.
Samurai also carried the smaller wakizashi which was used in one hand. Further, some of the lesser known swordsmen used a two-sword technique, holding a katana in either hand.
But my memory may be fuzzy; it's been a good 15+ years since I was really into all this stuff :-)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi
"Musashi, as he was often simply known, became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 61 duels (next is 33 by Itō Ittōsai)."
I think there are a lot of ways to not get it right with steel. In a sword hardness and toughness are in conflict. You really want a sword with a hard edge and a tough back. Which implies differing amounts of carbon and temper. Not only that but the grain is very important as well.
A common European way of sword making was to carburize iron rods/wire and then forge weld those into a sword. The outer layer is hard steel which is strong. The inner core is milder tougher. Japanese achieved the same by folding and forge welding. I think there are were a lot of ways to do this but labor intensive, highly skilled work where if you goofed or the starting material was off the result was crummy.
> I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing,
Not an expert either but I think 2 handed were symbolic/ceremonial/rank artifacts.
Bronze fell out of use not because iron/steel was better but because tin was rare and hard to come by. So, I'm not sure of the exact answer to your question but I suspect it's some version of "because they couldn't".
Gold is rare and expensive, but you see the same thing, with people displaying it all the more.
So unless their supply of tin was literally completely cut off, which I don't know for sure, but would be very surprised if it were.
