Talk:Tantō

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[edit] Swords and Knives

I am not makeing all sword categories into knifes. Not all swords are knifes, but some are ;) Drhaggis 03:11, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tanto / Wakizashi

I have found no evidence, nor does it make much sense, that wakizashi were sometimes replaced by tanto, or that they were prefered because of their shorter length. For one, Samurai, at least of certian time periods, were never without their wakizashi, much like an officer and his handgun. As for the length issue, matching a tanto against a katana, yari, or other weapon would be suicide, and if length were the issue, it would be the katana that would be swapped out, not the shorter wakizashi. As such, I've removed that section of the article.

It's a controversial point, but it does seem that Wakizashi were not in general use in the period where the Tachi was more common than the Katana (i.e. before circa 1400). As I understand it, The Wakizashi came to replace (or sometimes supplement) the Tanto, at around the same time that the Katana began to replace the Tachi (i.e. from circa 1400). However, high ranking Samurai still employed the Tachi as a symbol of status and as far as I know also employed the Tanto. See the Katana Wikipedia entry for more discussion. The Tanto, much like the Wakizashi, would have been a weapon of last resort, for very close fighting, much like the Roman Pugio.--M.J.Stanham 15:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MilHist Assessment

Not a very long article, but it includes just about all I might expect one could say about the subject. In fact, I was surprised at the inclusion of mentions of the history of the development of the style. The article has pictures, a nice see also section, and a link to WikiCommons. It does need a bit of clean-up, though, just grammatically and stylistically (a few unpaired quote marks, things like that). If there were any major improvements to be made, I'd suggest splitting the history section from the technical descriptions, and just expanding in general (assuming there is anything further worth saying). LordAmeth 11:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)