[Kang Seung Jae]

Originally Posted by Comrade

About that, Europe vs Asia thing. I always thought that Europeans had a much better experience regarding swords, than Asia. Mainly because of the numerous wars and battles that have crossed the continent.

No, East Asia had decent swords. It's just that spears were used more often.

Originally Posted by Comrade

Also, there is the focus on weapon development. In Asia, it seems that the focus was on swords, rather than armor. While in Europe, the main focus was on developing better armor. Like Gothic armor. A knight wearing this armor was nigh invincible, to any sword out there. Only firearms packed punch, strong enough to pierce the armor.

Not really, because there's something to East Asian warfare that people tend to neglect: Archory.

Yes, arrows. East Asia already had armor piercing arrows in the 500's (mainly used by Goguryeo, a Manchurian kingdom that is one of the major ancestors of Korea). Given that armor wouldn't protect you much from a hailstorm of arrows, it was better to get lighter ones so that you could move fast, thus avoiding being hit. Mainly, in Japan, iron wasn't as abundant as the mainland, so they had to conserve it, meaning they couldn't produce massive, thick iron armor.