Lack of shields in Japan

[Death's Deputy]

Hey everyone,

Something I noticed the other day is that Japanese warfare appeared to completely bypass the evolution of the shield, a tool used in some form by nearly every other military culture in the world. I certainly can't find any troops who used it in either Shogun or RoTS, and whilst I can understand that some warriors preferred to use a 2 handed weapon or a smaller second sword for blocking it seems to me the Japanese never actually developed any shields at all.

Is this correct, and if so why?

[Ying, Duke of Qin]

There are dedicated shield-bearer units, but these shield bearers are more like big screens about your size, and were mostly used to deflect arrows in siege situations.

Best argument I've personally heard is a combination of lack of resources and practicality in hindsight - even Japanese historians agree with the latter sentiment while taking into context. Practicality boils down to because they've never really had to fight anyone where a shield would be necessary or useful. Blindly adhering to Confucian ideals lead to a huge backlash against anything remotely close to Chinese lead to ... some sort of really strict honor code which made shields look bad if you used one. Ergo, no one bothered with it. Combat, at best, were ritualized, and at worst something of a farce. Battles were on small scales and fights consisted of duels between two guys with two-handed swords and (later on in the Sengoku era) it was basically a pushing match between the yari-wielding ashigaru and less of an actual poke-fest. As such, shields never became a necessity - and for that matter, neither were armor to a great extent. Prior to the Sengoku era, bows were in low numbers and had high maintenance costs with very low penetration and effective range.

Ancient Japan was comparatively tiny and have very little resources to use. No access to coal and higher temperature ovens inevitably means that you had to make do with other things. The metal used to make shields like the bronze ones you find in say, Hoplites or Qin China's legions could be used to make killy things. No access to large quantity of trees (lumber IS a rare commodity despite what you may think) means wooden shields are out of question as well when there are other things you could make. And the ban on consumption of meat meant that leather wasn't really avaliable either - armor was rare enough. How are you gonna get enough leather to supply an army with shields?

Remember. Japan had no substantial numbers of horse or horse archers, which was basically a counter to heavy infantry. Japanese bows had poorer range and penetration in comparison to their time-appropriate counterparts, and they were still in much, much lower numbers when it comes to everything from production to equipment. Crossbows were never popular (because you couldn't make 'em!), and thus, missile-based combat (the norm in many other comparative countries) never developed fully. Height was also an issue, as the shorter you were, the less useful a shield would become due to weight and positioning. Scale of battles were also small to the point where valuing offense was (usually) far better than valuing defense.

I'm not going to start on metalworking and katanas either. Don't want to offend anyone with the truth.

[Keyser]

Iirc they did use shields in earlier times though...

Metal never lacked to make armors either.

So i would rather look toward the efficiency of the local armor design toward projectiles (wich is good iirc) and to the social and tactical organisation of the warrior caste and the weapons they started to use (and why) as a better reason why shields were droped.

Good armor need polearms or two handed weapons to defeat making a shield impossible to wear.
If the armor also protect efficiently against arrows then the shield isn't even required at all.

Lesser troops would wear weak or partial armor though, making them vulnerable to various weapons and to arrows, but if they need for tactical and practical reasons to wear two handed weapons (to deal with horses or armored opponents) they will trade the shields for Yaris and Naginata...
Pike style weapons are after all quite superior in battle when in formation, so the trade is worth it.
The fact that in siege and some open battle pavise shields were used point to the fact that the japanese understood the interest and the need to be shielded, so if they didn't use them, we have to look for others reasons than a lack of interest or the martial ethos (even if it played a role).

Lastly shields are made with cheap ressources, wood and leather, metal isn't required in large quantity.

[valky]

So i would rather look toward the efficiency of the local armor design toward projectiles (wich is good iirc) and to the social and tactical organisation of the warrior caste and the weapons they started to use (and why) as a better reason why shields were droped.

Right you are [/yoda]
The armor was indeed well developed and there was no need to use shields at all - at least for Samurai and specially Daimyo, Feudal lords...
While it did look kinda fancy for any European, it fulfilled several roles on the battlefield, you were highly mobile to cut things with your sword, was light-weightened enough to easily and fast ride horses and stuff.

Specially those 'good lookin' shoulder thingies, were mostly made from a combination out of metal/leather and the shape functioned like modern reactive armor to lessen the ballistic impact damage and possibly deflect the arrow. Besides, several other pieces of the armor was a mix of leather/partly chains and iron.

Further, the warfare was completely different than it was in Europe. Good example might be the boar formation (don't actually know a better 'english word). The Goths (some might correct me, but it is quite some time ago since I was good in european and medieval tactics and stuff) were crushed heavily, just cause they were beaten by way more mobile troops.
You had a core unit, which was your heavily armored force (=knights ^^) "protected" by lesser troops and peasants. So you simply drove a wedge into the enemies' lines and while your peasants died happily, the core spreads out and starts the slaughtering
But take a look at the immobility of these troops, you were wearing a -load of metal with you, had to protect you with another piece of metal and even swinging around your butter-knife or were wielding a uber-heavy double-handed butter-knife.

In the ancient Japanese warfare; mobility > armor and any ranged weapon were in-honourable!

"Pike style weapons are after all quite superior in battle when in formation, so the trade is worth it."

Correct, functioned like a big shield at all too! Yet, the biggest impact on the japanese battlefield was the introduction of the Teppo (there is even a cool quote in the loading screen) as it could kill all kind of 'things' and was later on forbidden in the Edo period and Japan screened to outer influence til the late 19th century.

[confusing things are confusing]

edit: oops, mixed Edo/Sengoku my fault.

[DeMolay]

Right you are [/yoda]
The armor was indeed well developed and there was no need to use shields at all - at least for Samurai and specially Daimyo, Feudal lords...
While it did look kinda fancy for any European, it fulfilled several roles on the battlefield, you were highly mobile to cut things with your sword, was light-weightened enough to easily and fast ride horses and stuff.

i hope i don't offend you , i just want to share my opinion on this respectfully

To be fair , O-Yoroi armour were not lighter than European chainmail and late plate armour , on the contrary , they were actually often heavier despite clichés , especially on rainy days , often exceeding 30kg .

Right you are [/yoda]
Specially those 'good lookin' shoulder thingies, were mostly made from a combination out of metal/leather and the shape functioned like modern reactive armor to lessen the ballistic impact damage and possibly deflect the arrow. Besides, several other pieces of the armor was a mix of leather/partly chains and iron.

Sode shoulder armours wee used precisely because the body armour was heavy enough , that you could not use a shield in addition to it without being cumbersome , besides even back to Kamakura , only a small minority of the soldiers actually wore such protection , so it doesn't fully explain why the non-samurai , mercenaries and levy troops were not equipped with shields by their lords

Right you are [/yoda]
Further, the warfare was completely different than it was in Europe. Good example might be the boar formation (don't actually know a better 'english word). The Goths (some might correct me, but it is quite some time ago since I was good in european and medieval tactics and stuff) were crushed heavily, just cause they were beaten by way more mobile troops.
You had a core unit, which was your heavily armored force (=knights ^^) "protected" by lesser troops and peasants. So you simply drove a wedge into the enemies' lines and while your peasants died happily, the core spreads out and starts the slaughtering
But take a look at the immobility of these troops, you were wearing a -load of metal with you, had to protect you with another piece of metal and even swinging around your butter-knife or were wielding a uber-heavy double-handed butter-knife.

To be honest , cultural differences asides , Japanese warfare wasn't much different from what the Europeans faced in the Middle East , only every aspect of it in a smaller scale , you basically had archer heavy armies , supported by peasant militias and nobles/bushis forming the bulk of cavalry force or heavy infantry for much of the middle age until the 16th century . They didn't have shielded troops , and did not make use of heavy cavalry ( their horses were not adapted to this role ) nor did they use crossbows , but overall , they made use of the same tactics over the centuries

Right you are [/yoda]
In the ancient Japanese warfare; mobility > armor and any ranged weapon were in-honourable!

"Pike style weapons are after all quite superior in battle when in formation, so the trade is worth it."

Correct, functioned like a big shield at all too! Yet, the biggest impact on the japanese battlefield was the introduction of the Teppo (there is even a cool quote in the loading screen) as it could kill all kind of 'things' and was later on forbidden in the Edo period and Japan screened to outer influence til the late 19th century.

[confusing things are confusing]

edit: oops, mixed Edo/Sengoku my fault.

Here i fully agree with you , however like said Ying , the emphasis on mobility and attack was more due to the small scale of battles (until the later Sengoku Jidai period , roughly by the 1560's and onwards ) , terrain and cultural considerations than a strategic "choice" rationally made by generals of the time , it was more of a "natural" way for them to proceed , we shouldn't forget that apart from the brief Mongol invasions , they basically only fought each other for centuries , which doesn't help for making military concepts evolve

In my opinion this question of why the Japanese did not use shield has still not been fully answered by historians yet , it must be a variety of factors that explain it but for me , the dominant factor is formation combat : discipline was always a feature of Japanese culture and approach to war , however until the late Muromachi , combat in formation was pretty rare , you basically had lots of duels and very loose "masses" of soldiers fighting (like European militias ) , but nothing like the orderly formations of thousands of men that Takeda Shingen or Kenshin commanded 1 century later , there has been an acceleration of history during the Sengoku Jidai , and military tactics greatly improved in a context of constant warfare .

Using the shield in formation requires specific training , in Europe it started since the Antiquity , but in Japan , the lack of shield culture prior to Sengoku Jidai (which saw the emergence of "combat in fomation" en masse , mainly dense and disciplined fomation of spears ) meant that once combat in formation became widespread , they favoured 2 handed weapons (again , the attack mobility and attack doctrine as you said ) as it was also cheaper to equip the ashigarus with spears , rather than assigning them sword + shield , not to mention that iron ore was a sought for commodity back then , not rare , but not plentiful either , in the middle of a civil war

[Ying, Duke of Qin]

Note: I just came off of a twelve-hour long Heroes of Might and Magic 6 binge. I'll come back to this thread later and correct any factual errors I may have made.

If you call my post into question at least have the courtesy to address what you don't agree with. Throwing me a book is about as helpful as me throwing you guys a book.

First things first. If combat wasn't ritualized until the Sengoku era, then please explain to me the low body counts in many of the battles. Some of the battles of the Muromachi period had up to sixty-thousand participants, yet the body counts were reported as either 600 by one and 1,700 by the other. Ignoring isolated routs aside (in which most of the deaths were caused by trampling or drowning), the frequency of such battles leave something to be desired.

Did some recent research on resources in Japan. You can imagine my disappointment.

First things first. We can look into several main sources. Hojo's own family records is a good place to start because they have very careful inventories of many trade goods. Lumber and iron were difficult to harvest, but we have certain records from what is equivalent to book-keepers noted that most of these items were in shortage. In the years leading to the First Siege of Odawara, for instance, it was noted that iron was in short supply and that they could not possibly hope to last unless they bought more - the document specifically ordered the retainer to go purchase iron, at thrice the price if necessary.

This is the Hojo we're talking about. They have [censored] mines all over the place.

Proper forging techniques were not discovered until early Edo period with the "Yamato" style of forging. Katana quality steel, for instance, required a melting temperature of at least 1400C. Japan basically had no coal - didn't discover coal in great quantities until much later. I'm not going to get into the katana thing here, but throughout history, Chinese and Korean sources have a tendency to observe the frequency of the katana breaking - which explains why they never bothered with the things even after capturing them from Japanese soldiers. One specific Ming document I found basically instructed the officials to melt the wako swords because they were "pig iron" (I can scan this one if you'd like).

You honestly expect me to believe that a nation whose legendary weapon-making consisted of basically making thousands of tons of sponge-iron and breaking them apart to see which ones, by chance, had the useful tidbits to equip their troops on a large scale?

To be honest , cultural differences asides , Japanese warfare wasn't much different from what the Europeans faced in the Middle East , only every aspect of it in a smaller scale , you basically had archer heavy armies , supported by peasant militias and nobles/bushis forming the bulk of cavalry force or heavy infantry for much of the middle age until the 16th century . They didn't have shielded troops , and did not make use of heavy cavalry ( their horses were not adapted to this role ) nor did they use crossbows , but overall , they made use of the same tactics over the centuries

This in itself made it very different from military systems elsewhere. Shock cavalry as a concept is really somewhat of a recent invention. The horses used in the Muromochi period were basically the size of ponies, and only towards the latter era do we start to see heavier (and slightly larger) horses.

The problem, again, is basically the lack of decent bows. There's no need to get something to counter bows if they aren't doing enough damage to your army. I've pointed this out elsewhere - until the Sengoku period hit, it was difficult to make the coiled bows the samurai used - relegating most to things that were more improvised, which were considerably less efficient at killing.

The crux of my argument basically comes down to shields evolved to counter missiles, and missiles in turn evolved to become more mobile. Ergo, the shield never developed further despite the rich tradition of archery that Japan had.

[valky]

No offense taken (I'm cheerfully opened to always learning new stuff - nobody is perfect at all)
oookay, that's the commonly used armor, which lacks some of the protection I mentioned - cause my example was more or less about the 'higher level' armor / regarding "there is no spoon!/ uhm shield", but besides of the weight it still out-performes any European armor, as it didn't necessary lacked the immobility compared to a full.plate armor. (with a comparable protection)
But, I'm not quite sure about it either, wasn't the armor - you are referring to - mainly be used in the late Heian period? As it got some rework, and new materials were used to combine the same protection of the old armor but with newer light-weight leather/chain-mail.

Am really just too lazy to re-quote your 2nd quote and any other quote thereafter..and while I typing this...I just jump to my market and get me some beer...so I'll write on in some 'seconds' and try to not type "sh.t" (hope I could at least trick the [wup] thingie this time...)

"only every aspect of it in a smaller scale"
Hai hai, nothing to complain there :>
But their armies still did NOT necessary featured archery-driven forces, like it was usual in the european campaign. (AND! I AM not referring to M:TW! - just for the hyping folks....)


will stop at this point, cause I'm about to getting drunken, so my answer would be further influenced

edit: go away, yer nasty longbow-men (typing errors...hope it does make sense at all...tried hard! very ..)

[Dirtnapninja]

But take a look at the immobility of these troops, you were wearing a -load of metal with you, had to protect you with another piece of metal and even swinging around your butter-knife or were wielding a uber-heavy double-handed butter-knife.

Plate armour is not all that heavy. You can spint in it, do cartwheels in it, and fight in it. No one would be stupid enough to wear armour that decreases your chances of survival.

And european swords were as light and as sharp as Nihonto. Given that they employed distal tapering, they were, on an inch per inch basis, sometimes lighter.

[RollingWave]

Plate armour is not all that heavy. You can spint in it, do cartwheels in it, and fight in it. No one would be stupid enough to wear armour that decreases your chances of survival.

And european swords were as light and as sharp as Nihonto. Given that they employed distal tapering, they were, on an inch per inch basis, sometimes lighter.

That was only true by rather late period and it had very much to do with weight distrubtion, there were examples of men really wearing armour that would have been a serious hamper to them in terms of stamina, which was why they were usually mounted (aka cataprhacts) .

Medieval army (in both Japan and Europe) very often only don their armour shortly before battle, which should speak plenty of those armour's strain on them. There were examples in Europe during the Crusades where battles were lost because the enemy launched sudden attacks on them and half the army weren't even in armour yet and got shot to pieces.

Armour always take a strain, it's just a matter of how much. you could do cartwheels in full plate armour, but how long can you keep running? certainly a lot less than if you weren't weren't them.

[Hatamoto]

There are dedicated shield-bearer units, but these shield bearers are more like big screens about your size, and were mostly used to deflect arrows in siege situations.

Best argument I've personally heard is a combination of lack of resources and practicality in hindsight - even Japanese historians agree with the latter sentiment while taking into context. Practicality boils down to because they've never really had to fight anyone where a shield would be necessary or useful. Blindly adhering to Confucian ideals lead to a huge backlash against anything remotely close to Chinese lead to ... some sort of really strict honor code which made shields look bad if you used one. Ergo, no one bothered with it. Combat, at best, were ritualized, and at worst something of a farce. Battles were on small scales and fights consisted of duels between two guys with two-handed swords and (later on in the Sengoku era) it was basically a pushing match between the yari-wielding ashigaru and less of an actual poke-fest. As such, shields never became a necessity - and for that matter, neither were armor to a great extent. Prior to the Sengoku era, bows were in low numbers and had high maintenance costs with very low penetration and effective range.

Ancient Japan was comparatively tiny and have very little resources to use. No access to coal and higher temperature ovens inevitably means that you had to make do with other things. The metal used to make shields like the bronze ones you find in say, Hoplites or Qin China's legions could be used to make killy things. No access to large quantity of trees (lumber IS a rare commodity despite what you may think) means wooden shields are out of question as well when there are other things you could make. And the ban on consumption of meat meant that leather wasn't really avaliable either - armor was rare enough. How are you gonna get enough leather to supply an army with shields?

Remember. Japan had no substantial numbers of horse or horse archers, which was basically a counter to heavy infantry. Japanese bows had poorer range and penetration in comparison to their time-appropriate counterparts, and they were still in much, much lower numbers when it comes to everything from production to equipment. Crossbows were never popular (because you couldn't make 'em!), and thus, missile-based combat (the norm in many other comparative countries) never developed fully. Height was also an issue, as the shorter you were, the less useful a shield would become due to weight and positioning. Scale of battles were also small to the point where valuing offense was (usually) far better than valuing defense.

I'm not going to start on metalworking and katanas either. Don't want to offend anyone with the truth.

I'm sorry Ying. Lots of respect for all your other posts on the forum... but this post of your here is class A . Its really badly wrong. Especially the part about combat being ritual is very wrong. It hurts to read a post like this coming from a respected poster.

I don't have the time to write a long post about it, but I can recommend the books by Karl F Friday as good starting points (although he does make some mistakes himself). into further research.

[american samurai]

Crossbows were never popular (because you couldn't make 'em!), and thus, missile-based combat (the norm in many other comparative countries) never developed fully. Don't want to offend anyone with the truth.

OYUMI "great bow;" a name for the large crossbows used in castle defense. The lighter, hand held crossbows are called teppo yumi

http://www.google.com/search?num=50&...77l177l0.1l1l0

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&b...og&sa=N&tab=wp

[Intranetusa]

http://www.google.com/search?num=50&...77l177l0.1l1l0

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&b...og&sa=N&tab=wp

Japan at the time lacked the industrial and metallurgical base to mass produce crossbows with trigger-fire mechanisms.

[american samurai]

Japan at the time lacked the industrial and metallurgical base to mass produce crossbows with trigger-fire mechanisms.

At which time? Were did you read this?

[Intranetusa]

Chinese style crossbows were widely used in the armies under Ritsuryo system. I think the problem was more with the lack of strong centralized government with efficient bureaucracy to handle their production.

Yep.

At which time? Were did you read this?

Juggernaut stated what I meant. Japan was usually divided so there was no organizational structure to organize industry and engage in mass production. And even during the brief periods of unity, they didn't have the organizational structure or at least attempt to do so.

[Akrotatos]

any ranged weapon were in-honourable!

Ehhh no. Samurai started as horse-archers can't get more ranged than that.

[valky]

Ehhh no. Samurai started as horse-archers can't get more ranged than that.

'started' so I might have chosen my words way more carefully. Aren't we talking about the Sengoku period or do we look at the shield-discussion regardless of the epoch?

If you take a look at the typical army composition, bow/teppo were rare as hell and only specific clans featured them. (even Samurai - where you get the falsified impression in the game - weren't a common 'unit')

But it was not 'typical' to rely on ranged combat, and even if you are talking bout the older periods and heck, even if they performed a multi-role on the battlefield; the melee combat was favored.

[it's really hard for me to find the specific words sometimes, if that ain't necessary ones native language ^^]

[Akrotatos]

Fortifications were not properly developed until the very late Muromachi period. Hell, the Tenshomaru and those multi-layered castles basically only became commonplace during the Sengoku era. I've actually written an article elsewhere investigating the different types of fortifications.

Can you provide a link I am very interested now

[american samurai]

A shield is a shield, no matter what you call it. A shield can be the size of a door, it can be worn on the back, and a shield can be worn on the shoulders as the Japanese chose to do, as in the very large shoulder guards "sode" that were worn during the periods when the bow was a prominent weapon.

The shield (te-date) was used as defensive equipment up to the 5th century AD according to some references, George Stone calls a te-date a Japanese hand shield in his book. The Japanese knew of and used shields.

The Japanese had no problem using a large ground based shield against arrows, and they used boat mounted shields during the Mongol invasion. They would have had no problem using hand shields if that fitted their style of fighting and weapons. Instead of hand shields they used shields mounted to the shoulders of their armor "sode". If you look at period prints from times were the bow was one of the major weapons used you will see how large the sode are. In later times when bows were not one of the major weapons sode were much smaller or not used at all.

Here is a quote from a book by Jonathan Clements, A Brief History of the Samurai Page 24 http://books.google.com/books?id=gyq...epage&q&f=true

With the need to keep both hands free for using a bow, no shield was possible. Instead Japanese warriors began to favour large, shield-like attachments that formed square pads attached to their shoulders.

Due to the type of weapons used by the Japanese and the style of fighting, hand held shields were not needed, this had nothing to do with honor as shields were used on battlefields just not hand shields.

During the periods when bows were one of the main weapons, large "sode" were attached to the armor very loosely by cords tied on top of the armor, this allowed the sode to be moved, swiveled or removed easily, in later periods when the bow was no longer a primary weapon, the now much smaller sode were firmly attached to the armor with toggles, the sode could not be easily moved or removed on later armors.






These guys are not dishonored by carrying a shield.





Large shields.











Iron shield of the Kofun period, Nara, 5th century. Tokyo National Museum.

[Keyser]

@american samouraï

The sode acting as a shield is great but that bring several topics i tried to adress initially althoug my knowledge of ancient japan is very superficial.

First, as you pointed it is a piece of equipment whose primary intent is for a bowmen, an armoured bowmen. IE a Samouraï or a very well equiped retainer.
The sode by itself is probably not the most expensive piece or armour and could have been used by lesser troops, but as far as i know (but i could be wrong) it wasn't the case, lesser troops didn't wear the same kind of armors.
Anyway, it present the advantage of being usable with all kind of two handed weapons (although i don't know how much it hinder movement, or if it doesn't.) wich were the weapons most japanese warriors used at the time.

But then, why there wasn't specialised foot troops using shields ? Why no shock cavalry using shields ?

Pavises wich i quoted too, indicate they understood the use of shielding and saw no problems at all at using it, so it wasn't a cultural thing.

Then, we have to understand why the japanese dropped shields (that they used in earlier eras like everyone else and that they continued to use but in a very specific role later (sode and pavises)) ?

What is left as an explanation is the choice of equipment and the tactical use of the troops.

Japanese favored two handed weapons (1-2h swords, naginata, yaris etc) to various combinations of weapons+shield, why was it the case ?

For the samouraï who evolved to become horse archers, the explanation is straightforward. Horse archers are a very efficient troop type (as shown by the various steppe nomads) and it's also a very efficient style for small scale warfare, raids, ambush etc. Use of shields is unpractical (although steppe and midle east armies used shields that could be used while firing a bow, the japanese chose the sode instead).
But then, for the retainers ?
Why the choice to use two handed weapons ?

In Europe, medieval armies switched to two handed weapons and polearms for two reasons. The reintroduction of pikes in mass. Pike block are very efficient battlefield formations when used by disciplined infantry. And also because progress in armor created a need for more powerfull weapons to be able to defeat the better armored opponents.

My point was that the amors worn by the samouraï were good enough to offer them a good protection against most one handed weapons creating a need for lesser troops to be able to beat them to use others kinds of weapons. Naginatas for instance... Naginata are also good against horsemen.
As in those small scale wars the main objective on the battlefield were the high ranking ennemies, mounted and armored, i guess it made sense to trade protection against offensive power. Pavises could be used to create a protection against missiles if needed.

When warfare started to involve larger and larger numbers of men and became more "traditional", pike style weapons became the main battlefield choice.

I don't know if i am clear and consistent, or even if i am right, but i really think the practical aspect trump any other explanations (cultural especially).

[Ying, Duke of Qin]

I rarely argue against sources, but that book you cited on the yumi has no relevance on the discussion at hand due to it being a book of modern techniques. Furthermore, in the pages that you cited, note that while it cites construction - of which I've already covered the general type in my post that I cited, it does little to discuss its actual role in warfare. Your book, in fact, presents the yumi as simultaneously something that could be cheap and mass produced (as evident by its hearty observation of high school clubs) and something that's deeply mystical and significant because the synthetic yumi is "like using plastic silverwear at a dinner party". It "whispers". It "has a mind of its own".

... Right. You know what? Samurai armor has a soul too. On a good day it'll block a two-handed overstroke from my opponent.

This information I posted is considered to be common sense and knowledge by Japanese speakers. I understand that I may have offended certain cultural views. However. If I cite a lecture series by Suzuki Masaya, do you think you'll be able to get a translation of it? A full collection of it exists in my university - you'll have to look at the series on Sengoku-period warfare in 2007.

My comment regarding the Edo period refers to material production, not craftsmanship. This is after the Mino style of production went out of style and I freely admit that the Japanese smiths were highly skilled in what they do.

American samurai. I have one term for you. Look up わこう. Note the type of fuel used - soft, pine charcoal. And then note the overall production. On the ENGLISH wikipedia it cites - with a neat little bunch of citations - that it takes 10 tons of raw iron sand and 12 tons of charcoal for you to get 2.5 tons of "tamagahane". Conveniently, the English wiki fail to distinguish from between ズク (which is about 2/3rds of the product, incidentally) and the thing you're actually looking for. In other words, there is no way in a snowball's chance in hell you could argue that the ratio is efficient. Frequently, if the temperature goes too low (which happens regularly), you'll ruin an entire batch.

This is why the particular type of charcoal, invented in the Edo period, was significant. It was termed びんちょうタン - Binchotan. This is considered to be revolutionary because now swordsmiths could keep their forges hot at a constant rate, replacing the Chiba-styled charcoals that has been in use since mid-antiquity. Not that it actually mattered, since the need for swords were effectively gone. Nonetheless, it is considered to be a turning point in history for Japan.