Army Composition

[Hilarion]

What portion of armies during the Sengoku period would have been comprised of samurai as opposed to ashigaru? Were samurai similar to feudal Europe's knight who made up a very small numerical minority of the fighting force?

[-=PHX=-Hades]

Well I'm no expert on this, but I have been watching all the documentary films I can get my hands on about this period. From what I've seen (and I could be wrong) an army was mostly ashigaru and an ashigaru unit would be lead by a few samurai. And there were probably some units that were made up of all samurai. So I would say that an average army would be about 30% samurai and 70% ashigaru. So yeah I would say it was about the same as feudal European knights, but like I said I could be way wrong about this.

[CoconutFred]

Take a look: (Sekigahara, 1600)

Spoiler for HUGE IMAGE: 

[Juggernaut]

Generally, the ratio of Samurais to Ashigarus seems to have been around 2~3 Ashigarus to 1 Samurai, although there were exceptions like the Shimazu clan where there were huge numbers of Samurais owning a tiny portion of land, or Chousokabe clan which used a large number of half-peasant half-samurai militias.

[TomteOfDoom]

Generally, the ratio of Samurais to Ashigarus seems to have been around 2~3 Ashigarus to 1 Samurai

And with this stated it's also worth to mention that the lowest, most numerous samurai were rank and file warriors with a stipend of barely 1 koku/year. The line between low ranking samurai and valued ashigaru would be blurred to a point that it would be difficult to tell a difference.

[letterbottle]

i am not a japanese history expert but i had a lot readings regarding this period. so here is my two cents. before this period, you would only have the bushi or samurai as the fighting force before 12th century. only bushi has the honor to carry their names and banners on the battle field. ask a farmer who is ill trained and ill equited, why he would risk the life of fighting to death when he can just be a farmer. so samurai or bushi only job or career path is go to war. but from most readings, during the battle of sekinohara, samurai still makes about 1% and rest are ashigaru or professional soldiers. but they are still a long way of becoming samurai. it's like anyone can enroll in the army but a chosen few can go to point west and graduated from it.

[IncubusDragon]

The personal guard of Shimazu Iehisa had a strong missile composition -
BODYGUARD: 456 dismounted & 130 mounted Samurai (unspecified weapon specialisations, but I believe they were allowed to fight with preferred weapon)
300 Matchlocks
200 Archers
200 Yari
56 Banners
50 Shield-bearers with shields
30 chest of armour
30 loads of 100 arrows, each carried by one man
30 loads of bullets and powder, one load per man
50 loads of gunpowder (50,000 shots), one load per man
Weapon-bearers to the lord's attendants (unspecified number in records)
15 horses

That could convert to a game army of:
2 Yari Cavalry
7 Samurai melee Infantry
4 Matchlock units
3 Archer units
3 Yari Ashigaru

[IncubusDragon]

My head hurts, so haven't done the numbers yet...

Shimazu preparations for the Korean Invasion, 1591
At the rate of one mounted knight for each 1,020 koku; 95 knights in all.
Total, 3,230 men of this class, being 34 men with each [knight] (zhin-tai).
At the rate of one mounted knight for each 510 koku; 24 knights in all.
Total, 408 men of this class, being 17 men with each [knight].
At the rate of one mounted knight for each 300 koku; 143 knights in all.
Total, 1,430 men, being 10 men with each [knight].
300 squires on foot. 900 laborers (fu-maru), being three laborers with each
[squire].
500 landless(mu-ashi) men. 1,000 laborers, being 2 laborers with each [land-
less man].
665 carriers of weapons(do-gu).
2,000 laborers from the lord's domains(kura-iri).
2,000 boatmen.
Grand total, 12,433 men.
Provision for these men for five months, 10,522.9 koku, inclusive of supplies
for boatmen and their chiefs.
272 horses. Their provisions 616 koku of beans, being for five months, at the
rate of 2 sho per day [for each horse].
Rice and beans together 11,438.9 koku.
[Shimazu Yukihisa's] 9 mounted knights, with 332 men.
[Ijuin Tadamune's] 69 mounted knights, with 2,332 men.
Total, 350 mounted knights;
Grand total, 15,097 men.
Note: The terms 'knight' and 'squire' are Asakawa's

Taken from http://www.samurai-archives.com/military.html#3

[IncubusDragon]

Aha... done a bit of cheating - here's a copy of ltdomer98's 2007 post over at the samurai archives...

In Samurai Warlords, Appendix I is excerpts from the 1559 Hojo Register. It lists (not each, but total) 560 direct retainers, and Turnbull goes on to say these would be responsible for mustering 10,000 troops total. So if you assume each of the direct retainers was mounted and the "troops" weren't, that averages out to 1 mounted soldier for each 17 or so foot; fairly consistent with what was listed above.

Appendix II is the Uesugi 1575 Register, and is more detailed. Not sure how to do tables here, but I'll do my best.

Name Spears Reserve Arquebuses Flags Horse Total

Family:
Uesugi Kagekatsu 250 40 20 25 40 375
Nagao Kagetori 106 15 10 10 15 156
Nagao Kagenobu 54 10 4 5 8 81
Sambonji Sadanaga 50 10 2 3 6 71
Kamijo Masashige 63 15 2 6 10 96
Murakami Kunikiyo 170 20 25 15 20 250

Fudai:

Matsumoto 101 15 13 13 16 158
Honjo 150 30 15 15 30 240
Yamayoshi 235 40 20 30 52 377
Naoe 200 30 20 20 35 305

Kunishuu:

Nakajo 80 20 10 15 15 140
Irobe 160 20 12 15 20 227
Takemata 67 10 5 6 10 98
Kakizaki 180 30 15 15 20 260
Saito 153 20 10 12 18 213
Shibata 135 20 10 12 17 194
Yasuda 60 15 5 5 10 95
Shimojo 32 10 2 3 5 52
Shimazu 58 10 6 7 10 91

Totals: 6,871 (looks like an error or has scaled-up the stats - based on above figures i get a total of 3,479)

Mounted: 600 (I get 357)
Foot--
Spearmen 4,899 (I get 2,304)
Flag Bearers 402 (I get 232)
Arquebuses 360 (I get 206)
Reserves (includes servants, bearers etc.) 610 (I get 380)

This is obviously just a selection of the Uesugi army total, but it should give an idea as to what percentages were what.

So from a gaming point of view, most historic army compositions would be classified as spear spam. The percentage breakdown comes out at:
Cavalry 10.26%
Spears 66.23%
Reserves 10.92%
Gunners 5.92%
Flags 6.67%

[Thoragoros]

I think, in game terms, it is also worth noting that some units are historical, but simply 'named wrong.'

For instance, 'No-Dachi Samurai' would probably be more accurately named 'No-Dachi Warriors' or 'No-Dachi Militia,' since the average No-Dachi swordsmen was most likely not a Samurai although some were.

Also, Katana Samurai are a complete work of fiction, there simply were no such 'Samurai' units marching around with nothing but a katana, they would always have either a bow, a yari, or even a matchlock in addition to their sword, so that also tips the balance a bit unfavorably towards Samuria bulk armies in-game.

It is also worth noting that less than 10% of the entire Japanese population were actually Samurai, and that number includes retired warriors, and 'Samurai' who did not fill a military role (palace courtiers, etc..).

[Death_Sheep]

Would you guys see a dual manpower situation going on if this were to be modded?

Say a Population counter for samurai and one as well for Ashigaru?

[Thoragoros]

Would you guys see a dual manpower situation going on if this were to be modded?

Say a Population counter for samurai and one as well for Ashigaru?

Most likely not. There was a manpower mod for ETW a while back, forget which mod implemented it, and it got mixed results. Some loved it. Some hated it. But it didn't affect the AI, so it was kind of pointless.

I really don't know what the solution for this is, to be honest, if there even can be one. PLacing hardcaps on samurai units would be far too restrictive due to the small number of Ahisgaru units we have access to.

Again, perhaps renaming No-Dachi samurai would help, and perhaps egetting rid of Katana Samurai altogether. I also truly don't see a need for Samurai Matchlocks.

If we do that, that would help.

But I don't see any of those as being popular choices for modders to make except inside of 100% realism mods.

[RollingWave]

What portion of armies during the Sengoku period would have been comprised of samurai as opposed to ashigaru? Were samurai similar to feudal Europe's knight who made up a very small numerical minority of the fighting force?

It's a generic question that doesn't have fix answers because it changed over the course of the Sengoku era and also because different factions were different but....

A. Ashigaur to Samurais : it gradually got higher, aka more Ashigaru and less Samurais as time went on, because the nature of war became much more serious and extreme. very early Samurai warfare were a lot more cermonial in nature.

B. Comparason to Europe : in Europe, if your defination of knights stretches to the wider definition (aka anyone who's a noble or a profesional trained follower of the noble) then the ratio is actually very high in the early medieval era, especially if we're talking about France and Germany, it would have been MUCH higher than the Peasants / Militia. The Feudal system peasant levies of western Europe were usually not meant for direct combat, but for labor support . Ashigarus were also like that in the very beginning but obviously they quickly evolved into a real fighting force (this is true in Europe too, places outside of France and Germany most factions didn't have the luxury of just using the nobles.)

[TomteOfDoom]

Thoragoros:

No-dachi ashigaru?
No samurai matchlocks?

Care to elaborate?

[TW-fanboy]

it should be mentioned that the Taiko (Toyotomi Hideyoshi) forbade farmers (ashigaru) to bear weapons, only Samurai were allowed to do so and to serve in the army. hideyoshi was kampuku (he took that title instead of shogun, he was the power behind the shogun, so he was the power behind the power behind the throne )from 1585. That was before the final civil war that would end with Tokugawa Ieyasu as the new Shogun.

[RollingWave]

it should be mentioned that the Taiko (Toyotomi Hideyoshi) forbade farmers (ashigaru) to bear weapons, only Samurai were allowed to do so and to serve in the army. hideyoshi was kampuku (he took that title instead of shogun, he was the power behind the shogun, so he was the power behind the power behind the throne )from 1585. That was before the final civil war that would end with Tokugawa Ieyasu as the new Shogun.

Hideyoshi began instituting the sword hunt, but what that means is that non-samurais can't bare arms.... UNLESS they're serving in the military, arms became issued only when they enlist, where as before that most Ashigarus came to war with their own gear or at least took their gears home when the campaigns were over.

It did contribute to the gradual closing of military to the non-samurais, but it was never total and more importantly it really didn't have much effect while he was alive, the real reason that samurai became a rigid class was more due to the end of the Sengoku era than the sword hunt