Originally Posted by roshan

You cannot compare vests strapped to iron men with vest on a real person. A real person would move back if hit thus decreasing force on the armor, with an iron man, the full force is concentrated on one point. There have been lots of such tests, Ive seen pictures of a katana cutting 2 inches into a european helmet. However this study, like your iron man study, was done with the helmet fixed on a table. Had the helmet been on a real person the katana might not have cut deep enough.

Who said samurais were fast and unencumbered? Samurai armor was 6 pounds heavier than European full plate(and designed to be worn by smaller people). It was huge and bulky unlike the sleek and body fitting armors of the europeans, and did not provide as much protection.

Bastard swords were made heavy in order to cut through full plate. An authentic medieval katana weighs just about the same as a bastard sword. Boh katanas and bastard swords were designed to be used either with 1 or 2 hands.