Did Samurai really fight in the manner shown within the game ?

[SeizeVictus]

I found some threads on battle formations but i was hoping to get a better understanding. Did they really fight in units ? I read that they would enter battles looking for worthy opponents to duel, defeat their opponent and then carry on to the next one. To reflect this i sometimes put my samurai in a loose formation. So, how did battles usually work for Samurai ?

[Dirtnapninja]

I believe samurai in the era depicted fought as disciplined units. The armies of the time were large and well organised. Samurai of the Kamakura era would have fought in a manner such as you have described.

[Raimeken]

After the Mongol invasion, they learned they lesson to a degree. They didn't really fight like legionaries but they understood the value of keeping in form

[SeizeVictus]

After the Mongol invasion, they learned they lesson to a degree. They didn't really fight like legionaries but they understood the value of keeping in form

I did some research on the mongol invasion and what was said is correct. But what kind of weapons did they use from the invasion period - sengoku period ? a lot of people have said that the Katana Samurai unit is inaccurate, why is this ?

[CoconutFred]

I did some research on the mongol invasion and what was said is correct. But what kind of weapons did they use from the invasion period - sengoku period ? a lot of people have said that the Katana Samurai unit is inaccurate, why is this ?

Samurai of the sengoku period fought with mostly the yari and bow, until they acquired matchlocks. The reason for this was because the battles of the period were made up of more ashigaru than ever, and the yari was the easiest weapon for the ashigaru to train with.

During the Sengoku period the nature of samurai warfare underwent a massive change. The pace was slow at first, but built up in momentum, until by the time of the battle of Sekhigahara in 1600 a chronicler could note in wonder when he saw a samurai ride into battle carrying a bow. The major development was in the use of ashigaru, with an appreciation that men casually recruited could just as casually disappear to till the fields and swell the armies of an enemy.

This tremendous change was directly linked to the choice of weaponry allocated to the ashigaru. During the heroic days of the Genpei wars, the samurai weapon par excellence was the bow, and prowess at archery was the most prized accomplishment. Yet by 1530 we see ashigaru regularly used as missile troops, while the mounted samurai fight with spears rather than bows. From the 1550s onward, the ashigaru bows are augmented, and later almost replaced, by firearms, but for these to be effective they had to be placed at the front of an army.

Recognition in the power of ashigaru units in armies was accompanied by a corresponding social change. One of the commanders on the winning side of Nagashino was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had begun his military career as an ashigaru.

The development of ashigaru can be likened to the peasant, but professional amries of medieval England. Weapons usually relegated to the nobles were given to the ashigaru to use, and the main reason for this was because, since ashigaru now made up most of the armies at the time, only the weapons which really needed training were left to the samurai.

It was the changes in warfare brought about by the experience of the Mongol invasions and the Nambokucho wars that broadened the base of samurai warfare. It became recognized that if the object of the excercise was to bring down a mounted samurai then the most efficient way of doing this was not to use another mounted archer, but to set against him half a dozen foot soldiers armed with naginata, kumade (rakes), or even bows.

How, then, was the samurai to defend himself? Hsi arrows would be at their least effective in such a situation, and his sword would have a very limited reach when dealing with foot soldiers, particularly if they lured him into the cover of trees and undergrowth, a form of terrain that characterized much of the fighting during the Nambokucho wars. The obvious answer was to provide the samurai with a polearm. The naginata, with its curved blade and short handle, was designed for slashing and so not very practical when wielded from the saddle. The obvious weapon was the straight spear. With a minimum length of about 3 metres, it could be used as a lance or as a slashing weapon when the occasion demanded.

As a result, by the 16th century, illustrations of mounted samurai depict almost exclusively the use of yari (spears) from horseback. There is the occasional naginata, and a few nodachi (extra long swords).

Samurai carrying bows are hardly ever illustrated or mentioned in the chronicles, and the fact that Shimazu Toyohisa carried one with him at the battle of Sekhigahara was considered sufficiently unusual for the chronicler to take particular note of it.

In short, samurai warfare evolved from the single bow duels of the Genpei wars to the masses of yari-wielding ashigaru and samurai because of experiences in recent conflicts. Most importantly, a group of yari samurai in a phalanx-like formation had an extreme length advantage over a group of loose katana-wielding samurai.

Also, with ashigaru now wielding the bow, samurai were left with the yari and the matchlock to use, the yari being mostly on horseback.

[Perilix]

Excellent citations and information CoconutFred - I'd rep you if I could!

[HellFell]

a lot of people have said that the Katana Samurai unit is inaccurate, why is this ?

I believe it's innacurate because there were no samurai armed only with katana. It would be unwise to carry only one weapon into battle. So usually all the samurai carried a katana and another weapon (bow, spear or naginata)

[毛利 元就]

Basically you're falling victim to conflating the Kamakura era-- where our evidence is largely from war epics like Tales of the Heike, and the one-on-one style of horse archery duels is what you see-- with the sengoku era. They're 400 years apart. By the Sengoku, ashigaru became much more important. One thing to remember is that in the real world, the difference between "ashigaru" and "samurai" was often very fuzzy. To fill the large, yari-toting infantry formations, they needed manpower. There weren't enough samurai (land owners) to do it, so peasants joining the army seasonally were one of the primary sources of troops. The largest example is Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who started as an Ashigaru but was the second of the "great Unifiers" (of course, he was also the one to initiate the sword hunt, and force all daimyo to decide which of their retainers was samurai and which was peasant, and make sure that none of the peasants were armed).

Katana samurai are inaccurate, because they would be ineffective. Katana were carried as sidearms, but especially when you're in a tightly packed formation with 10,000 of your closest friends, the yari is far preferable to a katana. The katana became important afterwards, in the Edo period, when all samurai had to do was sit around and think about how awesome it was to be a warrior (even though they personally had never fought in a war), and get into street fights. When the most battle you'll ever see is five of your buddies stumbling out of a bar into some other jerks, a katana is way more useful than a yari.. thus, it became the "soul of the samurai."

[Juggernaut]

Basically you're falling victim to conflating the Kamakura era-- where our evidence is largely from war epics like Tales of the Heike, and the one-on-one style of horse archery duels is what you see--

Which, with close inspection, actually has a lot more depictions of horse archer groups fighting by firing their bows and charging instead of one-on-one duels. The idea of pre-Nanbokucho period combat solely consisting of individual duels is a result of selective quoting from those sources, and the reluctance of post-war Japanese academics to research military history.

And to add to the answers already made: In this era Samurai generally fought in small squads. The high-ranking Samurai on horse would lead several low-ranking Samurai, called Kachi(Footmen), Wakatou(Young band) or Wakiyari(Side spear). Their purpose was to protect and support their master, so the master could fight and collect heads without worrying about his flanks. Such units could be as small as just 2 men to several dozen. Their formation was not as rigid as those of the Ashigaru, but they probably did adopt a close order formation depending on the situation.

Although from a earlier period, Myoutoku-ki, a chronicle from the early 15th century, shows Samurai and their retainers, armed with Yari and Naginata, forming a dense formation(which are described to have been so tightly packed that "there were no spaces between the spearheads") to repel a cavalry charge, and also how Samurai armed with swords were sent to flank the enemy.

[wis]

Which, with close inspection, actually has a lot more depictions of horse archer groups fighting by firing their bows and charging instead of one-on-one duels. The idea of pre-Nanbokucho period combat solely consisting of individual duels is a result of selective quoting from those sources, and the reluctance of post-war Japanese academics to research military history.

And to add to the answers already made: In this era Samurai generally fought in small squads. The high-ranking Samurai on horse would lead several low-ranking Samurai, called Kachi(Footmen), Wakatou(Young band) or Wakiyari(Side spear). Their purpose was to protect and support their master, so the master could fight and collect heads without worrying about his flanks. Such units could be as small as just 2 men to several dozen. Their formation was not as rigid as those of the Ashigaru, but they probably did adopt a close order formation depending on the situation.

Although from a earlier period, Myoutoku-ki, a chronicle from the early 15th century, shows Samurai and their retainers, armed with Yari and Naginata, forming a dense formation(which are described to have been so tightly packed that "there were no spaces between the spearheads") to repel a cavalry charge, and also how Samurai armed with swords were sent to flank the enemy.

I would listen to what Juggernaut is saying. He knows his stuff.

+1 rep

[Seijitai]

I would listen to what Juggernaut is saying. He knows his stuff.

+1 rep

Sure he does ! Almost five years that he is the historical researcher and translator for Ran no Jidai

As being said, the units were pretty much "mixed" from various "ranks" of samurais and ashigarus...
AFAIK, they were fighting mostly on loose formations... Complex formations like the "Winding Wheel " which was supposed to have been used at the 4th Battle of Kawanakajima was far too complex for non-professionnal armies...

Another fact is that, even if it wasn't a "rule" formely written somewhere, Daimyos rarely clashed in winter, or when the rice fields had to be harvested... Peasants/Ashigarus were much more needed on the fields during those times,... And you couldn't rely too much on them to fight by -10°C with their poor clothes...

[Inazuma]

Very interesting stuff!

[Babaganoush]

After learning more and more about Japanese sengoku jidai history, I bet Oda would be ashamed of the samurai that were in The Last Samurai.

So our mighty generals are putting a shameful display by wielding only the katana?
What about the nodachi?

[Hazbones]

Also noted from Battle Orders- Samurai Armies 1467-1649 by Stephen Turnbull:

The samurai pre-1500 were always at the head of the advance on the battlefield (vanguard). As was mentioned before they would charge out to duel with other samurai in one-on-one combat. The yumi (bow) was already in its decline but after the introduction of the arquebus in 1543 it hastened the bow's demise on the battlefield. The Samurai switched to using the arquebus as a status symbol though the rare numbers of the weapons were limiting the unit sizes in battle to squad or company size anywhere from 2~40 men. The samurai could become much more proficient with the arquebus in a shorter amount of time than it took to master a bow. A few of the daimyo (Odo specifically) noticed this and took advantage by arming ashigaru with them. He was able to field large forces of guns which decimated any clan too slow to adopt to the new technology.

As more arquebus were acquired, the numbers of bows decreased but did not totally replace them. Instead, bow troops were dispersed into the arquebus units to "keep up the fire" while the gunners were reloading. Mid to late 1500's the procedure of battle went from marching an army out to face an enemy and throwing samuari out first over to ashigaru gunners and bowmen loosing a few volleys to disrupt the enemy formations then groups of samurai rushing out to exploit the breeches.

Generally the 1550 ~1600 daimyo army (not counting the Hatamoto troops) consisted of 3 samurai components (2 mounted/1 foot) plus 3 ashigaru components (1 arquebus, 1 yari, 1 yumi). <--- This is a very dumbed down version of the organization. These components then would be further divided into the companies that make up the division not necessarily having the same weapons from one company to the next (IE: take the foot samurai component and divide it up into a yari company, bow company, and naginata company etc...).

The above mentioned organization would also be repeated for each province that a daimyo would conquer (provincial troops) called ~kuni-shu. IE: daimyo conquers Kai province and from the defeated army remnants and new subjects forms a Kai kuni-shu. He would put one of his retainers in charge of this group and they would have the same 3/3 organization as the other parts of the army but all made up of conquered manpower.

Of course the "main body" of the samurai army is the elite Hatamoto or "household brigade". All upper ranked samurai hoped to be in this group whose sole mission was to protect their Lord. A simple organization for the Hatamoto was:

>Vanguard- which were samurai but with mixed weaponry
>Flank units- also samurai but could contain ashigaru
>Body guards- formed the closest unit to the daimyo
>Rear Guards and Reserves- mix of troops

*these are all elite troops but their unit sizes numbered from squad to multi company

NOTE: keep in mind that the ashigaru were considered lowly peasants until late in the century when they finally proved themselves worthy of a spot in the front ranks of the army to fire their guns. This was LATE 1500s and up to that time the yari was the only weapon a daimyo would issue an ashigaru. Only after around 1580s were ashigaru finally considered "lowest ranked samurai" after the edicts of Tokugawa. This is what we see as being the case by the time of the Sekigahara battle as all ashigaru are being referred to as "samurai".

Reading all these books on the time period it is hard to figure out if the author is talking about "ashigaru" when they mention battles between "samurai armies" until you put the battle into a time context and then it becomes clear who they meant.