Katana or European Longsword - Printable Version

I highly disagree. In my first year I've learnt basics, mostly stuff based on German school of fencing, teachings of Johannes Liechtenauer, written down by Hanko Doebringer, Sigmund Ringeck, Peter von Danzig. Based on the documents written by those three there is an era described as Early-Liechtenauerian era, ranging from 1350 to 1450. Later in my second year I've learnt from this specific school more, mostly about "blossfechten" or "naked fight", fight without armor, tries to aim to hit/cut/stab the quickest way possible, in my third year I've learnt of the teachings of Fiore dei Liberi, Italian master. His book was more thorough and about way more stuff, longsword fencing already included armored combat, so his techniques are different than of Liechtenauer. In the future I'll most probably learn of Marozzo, Joachim Meyer (damn, I've seen his guard stances, like Liechtenauer's but lower and way less comfortable), Thibault, and dunno who/what else.

Research is going on. There are a ton of transcripts and fight books to translate and examine, try out techniques, apply them in combat, master them. The Ars Ensis is about this. The HEMAC is about this. (And also not only longsword fencing, but a ton of other European medieval and historical weapons and fighting styles.)

Well, then you can die gracefully when wielding one just because looks gracefully yet you can't use it. And a longsword can look gracefully too if you know how to fight with it.

There were, not in numbers you had in the world wars of course, but there were formidable armies. This reminds me of one of the techniques I've learnt from my first year, not sure if I translate it properly, but the name of it was along the lines of "running through", and was about as being somebody in the first lines how you disarm/incapacitate your opponent temporarily in a second upon clashing, maybe eventually drop him to the ground and walk past so you concentrate on the next opponent while your buds behind you do nothing more than simply cut down the already unarmed enemy. Something you would use in a battle, yet we didn't practice it to it's full extent for obvious reasons.

I wonder how many guns there were present during the Crusades. And pikes are rather efficient against mounted units with their ability to negate the advantage of horsemen being swift and barely reachable. Footmen can easily hit away the pikes and you can't really do much with a 3 meter pole ending in sharp metal in closer range.