3. Katanna. Like others have mentioned, Katanna beats every weapon.
i beg to difer on this one, thare are a wide veriaty of western sword that can match the katana no problem. thares alot of hoo-har about the super 3000 fold metal working that goas in to them, but this was oanly neded dute to the relativly pore qualaty of iron avalabul . pound for pound thay arnt realy any beter than wester wepons of the same era. the lack of a real hand gard is also a problem, give me a 15th century sword and buckler combo or basket hillt over yer fancy wall decoraton any day
The thing that really amazes me about the katana is the fact that an early form of carburization was used. The trailing edge of the blade had a clay and water mixture painted onto the back before final heat treatment. This has three purposes:
1) It prevents the introduction of carbon to the rear portion of the blade, keeping the steel in that area flexible. More carbon = more hardness. More hardness = more strength and better edge, but also more likely to fracture. The edge of the blade remained unpainted allowing carbon introduction or "carburization".
2) It slowed the cooling of the trailing edge of the blade. This caused a different temperature gradient through the metal, meaning different rates of shrinkage due to the cold water. This is what gives the blade its characteristic curve (it was hammered straight up until this point).
3) It produced an attractive pattern that appears after polishing. This is caused by the different crystal structure of the steel in the two areas (austenite and martensite). It's purely cosmetic, but it looks awesome.
The workmanship that went into these swords is really amazing, especially for the time period. As an engineer it blows my mind that these blacksmiths could do the things they did with the equipment they had. Absolutely incredible.