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Japanese armour was generally constructed from many small iron (tetsu) and/or leather (nerigawa) scales (kozane) and/or plates (ita-mono), connected to each other by rivets and macramé cords (odoshi) made from leather and/or braided silk, and/or chain armour . Noble families had silk cords made in specific patterns and colors of silk thread.
However, to maintain the quality of Japanese swords, the Japanese government limits the number of Japanese swords a swordsmith can make in a year to 24 (up to 2 swords per month). Therefore, many of the swords called "Japanese sword" distributed around the world today are made in China, and the manufacturing process and quality are not authorized.
The dachi here (太刀) is simply the voiced compounding version of the term tachi (太刀, great sword), the older style of sword that predates the katana. The second character in tachi, 刀, is the Chinese character for "blade" (see also dāo), and is also the same character used to spell katana (刀) and the tō in nihontō (日本刀 ...
Historically, there is no evidence for the existence of this "katana-like short sword legendarily used by ninja" before the 20th century. [12] Instead, the designs demonstrated by alleged replicas may be based on the design of wakizashi or chokutō swords or the swords associated with ashigaru—common infantrymen with no "ninja" aspects. [1]
For the most part the ō-yoroi was a rich man's armor and not used by lower ranking samurai. The armor was mainly worn by the higher ranking samurai on horseback. The lower ranking soldiers had armor that was similar to the ō-yoroi, but had fewer components, was lighter, and lacked the decorative markings of the higher ranking samurai. [4]
The sankaku yari was therefore best suited for penetrating armor, even armor made of metal, which a standard yari was not as suited to. [4] There are two types of sankaku yari : sei sankaku yari , yari blades with a triangular, equilateral cross section, and hira sankaku yari , yari with a triangular, isosceles-shaped cross section.
The yoroi-dōshi was made for piercing armour [5] and for stabbing while grappling in close quarters. The blade was generally from 20 to 30 cm (7.9 to 11.8 in) in length, but some examples could be shorter than 15 cm (5.9 in), with a "tapering mihaba , iori-mune , thick kasane at the top, and thin kasane at the bottom and occasionally moroha ...
It would appear, according to Serge Mol, that tales of samurai breaking open a kabuto (helmet) are more folklore than anything else. [6] The hachi (helmet bowl) is the central component of a kabuto; it is made of triangular plates of steel or iron riveted together at the sides and at the top to a large, thick grommet of sorts (called a tehen-no-kanamono), and at the bottom to a metal strip ...