ultimate show down of ultimate destiny: Samurai vs Knight

[frontier-auxilia]

OK STOP before anybody is gonna troll me for being another 13 years old passive aggressive who love to spam places with VS threads, take a look at this

http://www.thehaca.com/essays/knightvs.htm.

The whole deal is not really as one sided as our opinions on superior equipment ( Knights pwning Samurai thanks to long lances, destriers and equipped with plate armor/ chain mail/ quilted cloth/ leather/ 3 pieces of fat iron on their chest. Break those wusses on their scrawny little pony in a straight up clash) or just plain superior fighting technique from training (Samurai own them with godly katanna and superior samurai fighting skills. Them dimwitted pretty boys and nobilities in fancy overweight armor don't stand a chance!!!)

It just an interesting read.

peace.

[FilipVonZietek]

Kinght would win, late medieval knight....
He would just hack and slah without blocking. Silly katana is no threat.

[Juggernaut]

Most of the participants of this type of "debate" falls into two categories.
:Those who favors the knights, who only knows about the knights
:Those who favors the samurais, who only knows about the samurais(and often they don't even know about that, although they think they do)
Coupled with the peculiar fanaticism and obsession the participants hold to their favorite warriors, the argument will quickly descend into a flame fest with nothing to be gained.

He would just hack and slah without blocking. Silly katana is no threat.

Yes, because obviously the only weapon Japanese ever used were swords...

[FilipVonZietek]

I watched Last SAMURAI AND SAMURAI CAV USED KATANAS !!! ahhahhhhAA THATS WAS FUNNY

Knight would win

[Cleardream]

Most of the participants of this type of "debate" falls into two categories.
:Those who favors the knights, who only knows about the knights
:Those who favors the samurais, who only knows about the samurais(and often they don't even know about that, although they think they do)
Coupled with the peculiar fanaticism and obsession the participants hold to their favorite warriors, the argument will quickly descend into a flame fest with nothing to be gained.


Yes, because obviously the only weapon Japanese ever used were swords...

A typically equipped Samurai has no weapon that can kill a knight in gothic plate without getting lucky. Even if they had an atypical weapon like their 'mace', these were clumsy and nothing compared to the warhammers and poleaxes/hammers that European soldiers used for negating armour. Therefore a well trained knight would kill the samurai /w mace anyway with a longsword anyway in most fights.

NB: I'm ignoring gunpowder here as the matchlock guns used by the Japanese needed far too much preparation to be used in close quarters melee.

[cottontail]

Haven't we had this thread already like four times already?

German tiger tank would win

[Juggernaut]

A typically equipped Samurai has no weapon that can kill a knight in gothic plate without getting lucky. Even if they had an atypical weapon like their 'mace', these were clumsy and nothing compared to the warhammers and poleaxes/hammers that European soldiers used for negating armour. Therefore a well trained knight would kill the samurai /w mace anyway with a longsword anyway in most fights.

For some reason, it seems the people who claims the knight's superior armor always ignore the quality of Japanese armor as if they are made of paper. How exactly would the knight kill a armored Samurai with a longsword like you say? Katanas are one of the best type of cutting swords that existed, and it had no way of cutting through Japanese armor. They were pretty much impervious against cutting, and very resilient to thrusting as well. A full Tousei-Gusoku would protect the head, neck, shoulder, torso, arms, thighs and knees , and the only to kill them with a sword would be to thrust through the few unarmored parts or the weak areas like the joints. In fact, killing a fully armored Samurais was a difficult task and often the best way to kill them was to grapple them down and use a dagger to stab through the gaps.

If a Samurai somehow faced a plate armored knight, they would fight in the same way they fought against other armored Samurais. They would try to thrust into the armor's weak points(face, armpits, hands, knees) and gaps, or knocking or grappling down the opponent and thrusting the dagger through the gaps. Which AFAIK is also how knights fought against other knights if they weren't armed with blunt weapons. In fact, the way I see it anti-armor tactics of Japan and Europe were very similar.

NB: I'm ignoring gunpowder here as the matchlock guns used by the Japanese needed far too much preparation to be used in close quarters melee.

I'm not sure what you mean by "too much preparation", since they went into battle with the match lit, and the only thing they had to do was to pull the trigger, and snapping matchlock of the Japanese arquebus fired the bullet without timelag.

[Okuto]

damnation....not again

Italian soldier with carcano wins

[Biggreenfellow]

It just an interesting read.

People are not interested in 'an interesting read'. They want 'their' type of warrior to win, so these debates always end in trolling efforts.

Most of the participants of this type of "debate" falls into two categories.
:Those who favors the knights, who only knows about the knights
:Those who favors the samurais, who only knows about the samurais(and often they don't even know about that, although they think they do)
Coupled with the peculiar fanaticism and obsession the participants hold to their favorite warriors, the argument will quickly descend into a flame fest with nothing to be gained.

This.

I think the most skilled/trained fighter would win. Sometimes this will be the Knight, sometimes this will be the Samurai. Neither of them were supermen.

And swords SUCK against armour. Don't believe videogames, THEY LIE!

[Ragerancher]

Ultimately I think it would be a case of who can get the other on the ground and stab the in the face/neck with a dagger. If we just use standard standing up swordplay, my money would be on a late era knight. The Katana is not designed to defeat armour as it is a slicing weapon. The knights weapons are designed to defeat armour though.

[Devil Shintaro]

^ That's all well and good considering for the majority of the warring states period, the yari was the weapon of choice from ashigaru up. Katanas were mostly carried as a symbol of status and it wasn't until the Edo period when the individualistic samurai became more common (ronin, kabukimono, swordsmen etc.) that katanas started to gain prominence as the primary weapon of choice.

I swear the way some of you guys crap on samurai it's like you assume the they will run in screaming "Banzaaaaai" swinging their katana in a frenzy while wearing some weak origami paper armour and will be crushed in one blow by the big manly knight?

Complete nonsense, I would back a highly trained samurai wearing okegawa steel armour (designed to deflect rifle fire)and armed with a decent yari to give as good as he got. I'm not saying he will win 100% of the time or "pwn" the knight but it would be at least 50/50 and come down to the inividual's skill IMO and perhaps the battlefield conditions.

In any case these two great warriors never even came close to facing each other in a conflict, so it's pretty pointless pulling obscure historical facts out of our ass in order to prove who's right and who's wrong, we will never know for sure which one would of had the other's measure. We might as well be debating Superman vs Batman.

[Wundai]

Not another Samurai vs knight thread I have really seen too many of these...

Really Jug I don't understand why you still respond to these

[empr guy]

the argument will quickly descend into a flame fest with nothing to be gained.


...

im sure that would never happen on these forums...

I watched Last SAMURAI AND SAMURAI CAV USED KATANAS !!! ahhahhhhAA THATS WAS FUNNY

Knight would win

your physcic!

[Aklis]

It all comes down to the armour.

The best armour in the early 15th century (at Azincourt, for example) could stop arrows from a longbow. The sword and shield combination was pretty much obsolete due to
1) The sword's inability to do any damage through plate armour
2) Having a shield when your armour stopped most blows was just unnecessary weight

Instead you would use weapons such as the poleaxe which could penetrate the plate. Furthermore; though the armour weighed a lot, it wasn't cumbersome. These were guys who were sent away at around age ten to not only learn chivalry, but to become living, breathing killing machines, encased in plate. They learned to carry this weight from their early teens.

On the other hand, the Samurai's armour would have to be able to prevent slashing and cutting attacks from harming them. A katana hitting the helmet, for example, would just be deflected harmlessly. Maybe the extra weight from a European arming sword would cause some blunt trauma, but it would in no way actually get through and slice up the Samurai.

If we're talking about a knight from the 1400s, I'd give the edge to him because of superior armour. One from the 12th or 13th century, however, would be picked apart by the Samurai.

[CoconutFred]

Thank you, for resurrecting a 10-month old thread.

[legate]

These types of threads are stupid and turn into a fanboy contest

[Aklis]

Thank you, for resurrecting a 10-month old thread.

You're welcome. I was bored. What are you going to do, spank me?

[BunnyPoopCereal]

IN all honesty the Pope would win

[letterbottle]

since samurai has never encountered knights and we can't have a test run, the closest test i can thing of is the Yuan dynasty. put this way, Yuan (mongolian) has fought european and japanese at the same time period, but lets look at the result. The mongols has won many many many battles on their west march into europe, no western power has able to stop them until they decide Hungary is far enough. the Yuan dynasty has only made two successful landing on Japanese soil. both time were more in numbers, more advanced in weaponary (guns, greekfire) but japanese army were still able to hold them off with just katana and arrows. so you decide when a knight saw a samurai.

[athanaric]

but japanese army were still able to hold them off with just spears and arrows.

Corrected. And probably they also had a load of other weapons.