Climbing walls with full armour

[Christian Strand]

I just saw the soldiers climbing the walls of the castle with full armour.. is that realistic? then whats the point in having castle walls?

Just wondering

[hardcore knight]

castles in Japan were different then the european castles, the european castles were like we must hold them outside these walls. The castles of Japan were like '' come in if u dear. '' and face them.

Mike Simpson said this earlier in a presentation about Shogun II

[Clone1710]

Samurai also trained climbing in full armor in their combat training as well as fighting in a river and swimming in full armor etc. ; so this should be somewhat realistic, although I would like them to climb a bit slower...

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Mike Simpson said this earlier in a presentation about Shogun II

And if Mike Simpson says it then it must be true. They wouldn't make up sth or lie, would they?

[dom385]

What was samurai armour made of ?

[Escuratii va bene]

What was samurai armour made of ?

leaves and twigs apparently

[hardcore knight]

And if Mike Simpson says it then it must be true. They wouldn't make up sth or lie, would they?

you know he did a research before telling in a presentation. So what he says about history of Japan set in that time of age must be true yes.

[Christian Strand]

castles in Japan were different then the european castles, the european castles were like we must hold them outside these walls. The castles of Japan were like '' come in if u dear. '' and face them.

Mike Simpson said this earlier in a presentation about Shogun II

In that case, Mike probably lies. Ive heard that the Japanese castle walls are not much different from the European walls. They are meant to keep the enemy out. And ofcourse as a defensive.

I really dont know how a samurai with full armour could climb a wall like this and in such a fast movement too, thats really unrealistic:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2705/...1002a52aa9.jpg

I even doubt I would be able to climb even without an armour.

[Jean=A=Luc]

castles in Japan were different then the european castles, the european castles were like we must hold them outside these walls. The castles of Japan were like '' come in if u dear. '' and face them.

I very much doubt this is true outside some romantic interpretation of Japanese warfare. A castle is a castle, however built it's meant to keep people out and make killing easier for the defender. The Japanese wouldn't waste all that time and resources just to build impotent defenses. The same with that silly idea that they kept the gates open or built no gates at all to make it easier for the attacker.

[Elmar]

Yeah, there is a kernel of truth to the wall climbing. But CA ran with that in a way that not even Usain Bolt could.
Japanese castles were still, like most castles, principally focussed on keeping people out. What the Japanese did more then anyone else is that they paid special attention to killing off anyone that got in. Any invader was given the run around in maze-like death traps and bottlenecks.

[Clone1710]

Any invader was given the run around in maze-like death traps and bottlenecks.

And I think that's what they said in the first place how castles will be designed, too bad they now just have castles with large but empty space inside....

I would have liked the idea of having a maze-like castle and would prefer if they change their idea, at least to something like that just some troops can climb and you have to open the gates with these for your other troops or something like that, although the defender could just place all his troops on the first gate and hold these climbers off, so there should be more than one gate per level.

Edit:

Anyway, I'm now getting "Strongholds of the Samurai: Japanese Castles 250-1877" by Stephen Turnbull and hope that there's some information about sieges as well.

[Furious Mental]

It would have been fine if they had actually made the castles maze-like death traps. By the looks of it it is simply a question of moving in a straight line towards the center by climbing up the nearest wall. The garrison appears to have no way of stopping the attackers climbing over the parapets and raping them. Oh and mean while your super archers of death napalm the defenders with fire arrows of pinpoint accuracy.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

He doesn't lie. He just doesn't know what he is saying. And that's different

[Irish guy]

We don't know that this is the only way into a castle or whether all troops will have the climb ability.

[clibinarium]

The majority of sieges in Japan in the game's span were a combination of blockade and mass infantry assault. Mines and cannon did sometimes appear, though the final siege of Osaka castle seems to be the only one with significant numbers of cannon.
In most cases the tactic was to sweep the walls with as much arquebus fire as possible so that infantry could climb the wall. The sloping stone bases were unmortared so provided space to climb by hand (though sometimes small stones were put in to make this harder), but this would be difficult to do with opposition above waiting to spear you or drop stones though holes (ishi otoshi). This is why firepower had to be used to cover the climbing men.
Bear in mind most castles outer walls did not have the huge stone bases often shown (they did have them just not as high), more often that would be a feature of the inner walls or the keep. Where there were very high walls they could still be climbed, its just harder! Outer walls would be relatively low, sometime illustrations show samurai thrusting their spears into the wall to provide a temporary ladder for their comrades to climb on.
Experience in the Korean campaign apparently lead to Korean and Chinese siege techniques being employed my some Daimyo.

From what we've seen so far it seems that the men can climb a bit too easily, getting up without hinderence even if the wall is fully manned. They then fight when they reach the top. Would it be that hard to have stones drop automatically from manned walls to make it harder? (just to keep it simple, rather than have the complications of the men on the wall dropping them with animation difficulties etc)

[Furious Mental]

You would think it is common sense to drop heavy things upon and stab people trying to climb into your fort. For the defenders to sit on their hands and wait for the attackers to reach them looks rather silly.

[nebucodonosor]

I don't like what i saw in the video the enemy was climbing to fast .I like what Clibinarium was mentioning in his post about artilerry knocking the walls first to make holes like this infantry could climb ..still in the video the castle was not fully upgrade in terms of walls ..so maybe if would have been the case the climbing as we saw in video would have been impossible...and because of this climbing feature the defence of a settelement will be extremely hard you will run with your troops allover the place to counter the enemy's moves.

[empr guy]

the only unrealistic thing is that once they climb the walls they are still fresh and able to cut through his whole army and climb another set or two of walls.

edit: the speed is way too fast too, but then again too slow would be boring, and if troops CAN through things down when on the walls (the troops in the video werent stationed at the edge of the wall, just near it) then it might inflict too many casualties. if nothing is thrown down then their speed is a real issue.

[Maizel]

Not this whole topic again.

[Christian Strand]

Not this whole topic again.

Dont read it then?