A Essay -- The Knight vs. the Samurai

[Taneel BrightBlade]

Random thought: did everyone here know (assuming I remember my samurai and knight studies) that both samurai and knights started training at age 7 and finshed at age 21. I say that the knight's plate mail would be the determining facter.
PS:random storm kills both
PPS: what would happen if Japan fought France in 1500?

 

[Sejs]

random points~

2. The Samurai is armed with a blade with an armor piercing tip good for finding the seams in joints or cracks in armored plates.

Thrusting with a katana is Not Fun. It's a cutting weapon, start to finish. The curve in the blade makes thrusting maneuvers much more annoying than with a straight weapon.

If an unarmored fencer with a smallsword went up against a knight in full-plate with a two-handed sword...

- Same about speed of twohanders. Have you ever fought with a rapier against someone with a twohanded greatsword or worse, a bastard sword? It's not nice.

In my experience (which, granted, here is with rebar and foam replicas) - in a one on one fight, the guy with the smaller weapon has a damn hard time getting within striking range against an opponent with a greatsword. And when they did, you'd just take their suggestion and run with it; step in even closer to them inside their reach and smack 'em good with the pommel, your fist, elbow, trip 'em or whatever.

Heh, the annoying part came when it was two lightly armored guys, one with longsword and whatever, the other with rapier and dagger. Half the time the rapier was just there as something to tie up your weapon with, while the fencer stepped in as close as he could get and started offensivly hugging you with his dagger. Quickly. Over and over again.


...Anyway. I voted Knight, personally. Superior materials, heavier armor.

PPS: what would happen if Japan fought France in 1500?

They would decide that all this fighting that's going on is nonsense. The Japanese would teach the French how to make sushi, and the French would teach the Japanese how to make brie. Then they would throw a party, get kinda drunk and talk about chicks.

 

[Drifter Bob]

Thehaca is honestly quite balanced and their scholarship is generally excellent, but it still disappoints me that they feel they have to make those sorts of cases. I don't really blame them -- anyone who's had to withstand japanophiles going overboard can certainly sympathize.

Actually it's ARMA now, they changed the name of the group a few years ago.

I faced off against a Renaissance cut-and-thrust fighter once with my katana and we both agreed that it was incredibly easy for us to kill one another almost simultaneously. I pretty much always took a thrust through the body, and he pretty much always got his head cut off.

I've fought kendo fighters several times and none of them could do anything against a shield with a katana.

DB

 

[Drifter Bob]

3. The Samurai's lighter armor afforts better mobility. Lighter fighters with thin blades beat out the knights in Europe. Why not the Samurai?

When was that, pray tell?


DB

 

[frankthedm]

Samurai seem ready more for one vs one duels and apparently combat vs several lightly armored opponents.

disagreable peasants tend to be lightly armored

 

[Drifter Bob]

You are right about the Samurai having ranged weapons. Most knights believed bows to be "dishonorable" weapons and refused to use them

As for bows being the bane of knights, that depends mostly on which period of knight and what type of armor he had. Earlier knights wore mail, and were vulnerable to archer fire. Later knights had plate mail that was thick and designed to deflect arrows, spear tips, and swords.



Armor-piercing tip?

Early katanas had problems with their tips getting snapped off by the studded leather armor used by the mongols and chinese. Later katanas were no longer used against armor, so they tended to be long, thin, and light for classroom demonstration.

Even a suit of Samurai armor was capable of protecting its wearer against katana slices, and European knights had much better armor than the Japanese did.

Good point

Where did you get your information that lighter fighters with thin blades beat armored knights in Europe? Smallswords (rapiers, foil, epees, etc) became popular after the proliferation of firearms made armor obsolete. Smallswords were very seldom used as battlefield weapons. Rather, they were used as dueling or personal defense weapons by civilians.

Another good point. Actually rapiers, and their predecessors such as sideswords (espada de lato) were used as civilian weapons contemporaneously with knightly military weapons such as bastard swords and longswords. Rapiers, which were far more robust and versatile than the ultraspecialized smallsword, were not used on the battlefield, nor even normaly in judicial combats.

If an unarmored fencer with a smallsword went up against a knight in full-plate with a two-handed sword (which weren't nearly as heavy as they are commonly made out to be), I would definately put my money on the knight. While it's always possible that the fencer could skewer the knight through an unarmored spot, it's far more likely that the fight would happen like this: The knight closes the distance between himself and the fencer (full plate dosen't restrict speed and mobility nearly as much as you'd think), making the fencer's smallsword useless. The knight then grapples with the fencer (knights included grappling and wrestling techniques among their training), and smacks him on the head a few times with his armored fist. Then, while the fencer is still reeling from the blows, the knight steps back and finishes him off easily.

It's really not even nearly that hard. I've faced off against modern sport fencers armed with flexifoils, (the kind they use in sport fencing matches) using an accurately weighted and balanced padded bastard sword (about 48" and roughly 2.5 lbs), and had very little trouble beating aside their sword and striking them. I won about 80% of the time. It's a little more challenging if they use a buckler, but basically the longsword or bastard sword that a renaissance era knight would use (no, I don't mean a D&D longsword, I mean the real two handed type) has a major reach advantage and can effectively overwhelm the weaker, much more flexible blade of the smallsword.

The Samurai's emphasis on ranged combat would be his greatest asset in the knight vs. samurai scenario. But in hand-to-hand or mounted combat, I would definately go for the knight.

I agree, except that European knights did face horse archers successfully during the crusades and later against the turks. The mongols gave them quite a bit of trouble but didn't get off as easily as some histories would lead you to believe.

DB

 

[Drifter Bob]

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.

I think Titanium is actually only strong when compared to steel by weight. If you take the same volume, (say in a sword shape) it's actually much weaker and softer, more like aluminum. My bet is properly tempered high carbon steel, (or ideally a mix of low and high carbon like pattern welded or wootz steel)

Of course, I have fantasized about modern sword like weapons. Like what if you took somehting like a shainsaw and slimmed it down a whole lot and put razor edges on it instead of heavy guage wood cuuters.... or something like an electric carving knife except made into sword size...

DB

 

[Drifter Bob]

actual examples of knights versus samurai

For those who are interested, there was a follow up thread on the ARMA site about this article. Among other interesting points raised, there is apparently some evidence that Samurai and Portuguese sailors or soliders did actually get into some "duels" in the 16th and 17th centuries. According to this guy, Portugal has records of 12 such duels, and allegedly the Europeans won all the fights except one.

http://www.thearma.org//forum/showf...=4234&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=all

DB

 

[Drifter Bob]

One other rather minor point that I don't think was raised in this thread or even the ARMA one, (or the linked sport fencing one) is that the european longsword does have an extra advantage of the two edges. Since this is never portrayed on TV or in movies, few people understand it, but false edge cutting as taught in the period fechtbuchs (fencing manuals) can allow you to do very fast twitch cuts from unexpected directions. This is particularly effective with two handed swords such as longswords, greatswords, or bastard swords. In my opinion it basically doubles the threat range of these weapons, once you master the 'twitch' cut, your weapon is basicaly never in any position from wihch you cannot attack.

DB

 

[Incenjucar]

I think Titanium is actually only strong when compared to steel by weight. If you take the same volume, (say in a sword shape) it's actually much weaker and softer, more like aluminum. My bet is properly tempered high carbon steel, (or ideally a mix of low and high carbon like pattern welded or wootz steel)

Of course, I have fantasized about modern sword like weapons. Like what if you took somehting like a shainsaw and slimmed it down a whole lot and put razor edges on it instead of heavy guage wood cuuters.... or something like an electric carving knife except made into sword size...

DB

Yep. The 'titanium is god-metal' thing is due to sci-fi having a few too many geeks and not enough nerds, and cartoons following suit. Titanium is a really great material for building large structures, because it's like super-strong aluminium. But it's not as strong as steel by any view. An experiment my dad, a carpentry foreman, once showed me: take a steel hammer and a titanium hammer, and bang them together. The steel hammer left a dent in the titanium one, but was unmarred itself.

Fighting with a titanium blade will likely lead to faster strokes, but if the other person manages to hit your blade, you won't -have- one anymore. You'll also have less force with that lack of sheer mass. They don't make war mauls out of steel-plated cork, after all.