A Essay -- The Knight vs. the Samurai

[Lu Wei Fong]

I was reading through the replies to this post and noticed that several people were complaining about the 'Japanophiles'. I'm just curious as to why it bothers people so much? I mean, shouldn't it be a good thing that people are finally starting to accept/enjoy other world cultures? Personally I think it's a lot better than being the typical ethnocentric (and quite frankly, arrogant) europhiles that have dominated western culture for the last several hundred years. In my opinion, if a person has found something in Japanese (or any other) culture that really appeals/makes sense to them, then by all means embrace it! And if you happen not to agree with said individuals' enthusiasms, then why let it bother you? The only thing that getting enraged by the personal beliefs of others accomplishes is the transfer of self-control from you to them.
Anywho, just a thought I had.

 

[LGodamus]

just to clear up my stance, I am a japanophile, but not to the point that it clouds my judgement on reality. A katana is not a light saber, but on average I do believe it is one of the best swords ever made , closely matched with a pattern welded viking blade. Against full plate armor a samurai wouldnt have much chance, but if you outfit a knight in half plate and the samurai in full O Yoroi armor they are on even footing once again and then everything is decided by individual merit, which would vary wildly on both sides of the battle. So I am back to my original point...that I dont see how you can compare the two, Maybe if we were to compare a specific historical knight to a specific historical samurai we could speculate, but as is its too broad a subject.

 

[evileeyore]

For an actual blade, I reckon tungsten would be the go.
It bends, its heavy and when you sharpen it, it gets scary and stays that way regardless of what you stick it into. That said, theres a fair few metal carbide alloys which would do much the same things...

Even alloyed Carbide makes a horrible fighting metal. Its awesome sharpness comes from its fragility and inflexibility. Agianst soft armors like leather or kevlars it would excell but anything harder than bone would chip the edge and fracture the blade.


Now tungsten is the bizomb of steels... (but still not as flexible to work with by hand as good carbon count steel)

TTFN

EvilE

Yes I sharpen and repair tools for a living...

editted for speilin erars

 

[Valiantheart]

I'm not sure where people are getting that a long bow or crossbow was useless against knights in plate armor? Heck the history channel demonstrated what a long bow could do to armor. A full plate breastplate with padding was shot at from 50 yards with the long bow and the arrow went right through the suit and out the other side. I think people are really underestimating its effectiveness.

Oh and I vote for the Mongol Mangudai.

 

[Thresher]

Yeah your're probably right about the carbide getting stress fractures and dying a splintery death, I remember all too well destroying enough drill bits in the past. Titanium from memory also suffers the same fate due to its hardness but I've got no working knowledge of how it would be tempered.

However, ignoring swords for awhile, mayhap we use those materials into other medieval weapons knights used.
Luceren Hammer, Axes, Military picks, ball & chain flails, warhammers and all sorts of painful devices you could probably forge in tungsten and not worry about it splintering because of the huge mass of material behind the cutting edge.

The amusement value of a carbide poleaxe would be fun though you'd have to admit, you could hack a car in half with it....

 

[Cergorach]

The amusement value of a carbide poleaxe would be fun though you'd have to admit, you could hack a car in half with it....

Where do i order one?
The nasty things i could do with it... Especially my bosses BMW 3 Series... *grins evily*
It's almost as good as parking a piano on top one...

 

[Aaron L]

A full plate breastplate with padding was shot at from 50 yards with the long bow and the arrow went right through the suit and out the other side.

Well, I've seen longbow against chainmail on the history channel, but never longbow vs breastplate at 150 feet. Was it on Conquest? If the arrow went straight through at 150 feet then it probably was a bad replica breastplate. As a matter of historical record, arrows would bounce off of full plate (Thats why they wore it!) unless it was head on point blank, but longbows were arched high into the air, so point blank shots weren't that common. Heck, they had bulletproof full plate, but it was heavy, and people decided that they would reather be a faster moving target.

 

[LGodamus]

Well, I've seen longbow against chainmail on the history channel, but never longbow vs breastplate at 150 feet. Was it on Conquest? If the arrow went straight through at 150 feet then it probably was a bad replica breastplate. As a matter of historical record, arrows would bounce off of full plate (Thats why they wore it!) unless it was head on point blank, but longbows were arched high into the air, so point blank shots weren't that common. Heck, they had bulletproof full plate, but it was heavy, and people decided that they would reather be a faster moving target.

Its true some plate was bullet proof in the breast plate and helmet areas, but only there. But, by and large most were not even if they claimed to be. They had a method called proofing where you shoot the armor to leave a dent , and prove that the bullet didnt penetrate, many armor smiths just falsified the proof . I guess because they figured if the armor didnt stop the bullet , the knight still wouldnt return to complain

 

[Darklone]

Some points:
- I'm a material scientist... as far as I know, and I spoke with many people (scientists and smiths) about it, there's prolly no material (neither titanium alloys nor tungsten) that could be used for swords with higher quality and the same flexibility, sharpness and light weight.
- I had some long discussions with dudes from the Netherlands that claimed that their experiments proved: A good old English longbow will not penetrate armour at more than 20m.
I've seen tests similar to the ones with the breastplate and I can say: at 100m, there were hits that pierced the armour easily. Most of the arrows simply bounced off sideways (armours were built to deflect!), but some hit by chance at the right angle and went through.
- Someone got a link to that stupid army dude who wanted to show "how to defend against a real knife" and wore a kevlar vest as protection? He died IIRC.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Bumped because Dinkledog requested that we not hijack the thread relating to the latest Dragon Magazine with the Samurai versus Knight debate.