The Truth About Knights and Samurai

[cawck mongler]

In response to the other thread and all the Hollywood faggotry that's going on in it, I figured I'd start my own thread to clear up some facts.

First of all, a knight can wield his sword quite effectively, and no, it does not look like its going in slow motion. A European sword was only a few pounds in weight and a knight who spends his whole life training to use it, isn't going to wield it like one of you keyboard warriors would. Contrary to whatever bullshit Hollywood movies might lead you to believe, a sword fight between two knights would actually go very quickly and would last a a fair amount of time (usually a skilled knight only lost because of exhaustion, not from misparrying a blow, as they were skilled enough that they could take whatever was thrown at them).

Another thing, while a samurai could use a bow effectively, a knight has his horse and could easily run down his shitty eastern counterpart, meaning the samurai would stand a better chance in close combat.

As was pointed out in the other thread, knights wore very well crafted plate and chain armour, that was nearly impervious to a frontal assault, they would stab at the gaps between the armour, as opposed to taking swings at the knight. Well bad news for the Japs again, Katanas are specially made for slashing and not so good at stabbing, meaning a samurai would find it almost impossible to harm the knight. A samurai on the other hand, wore light armour and one good hit by the knight could kill the samurai.

The other thread is fueled by Hollywood fantasy that samurai were the greatest warriors ever to walk the earth, and that knights were lumbering barbaric oafs. A lot of the good points in the other thread were lost in its 6 pages and I doubt anyone bothered reading through it before voting. If anyone feels like giving me some good rebukes to my points about knights, or their own (good) opinion about how Samurai are better, I'll edit it into this post.

[muy_thaiguy]

It's sad really, that people actually believe those samurai films. I was hoping for more of actual debating then people just trying to glorify the samurai.

[cawck mongler]

There definitely is a trend of Western culture being downplayed in the face of Asian culture. An example is the European ruling class, they were always thought of as being corrupt, stupid and greedy, but the same is just as true for Asias elite. Did you know that during the late 1400's China had a fleet three times larger then all of Europes? But once the Emperor who seceded the guy who built the fleet came into power, he ordered all Chinese ships burned. China would've discovered America first, and greatly changed the course of Europe's colonial period (by becoming the Imperialists themselves), but thanks to an insane Emperor they didn't. In movies though, Asian Emperors are usually portrayed as being wise and clever and all that jazz.

I'd like to save the first page or so for replies from those who think Samurai are better, most people don't read past the first page and the other thread was filled with a couple hundred spam posts about 300 before anything meaningful was said.

[MeDeFe]

Yes I knew that.

[Jenos Ridan]

Look up AMRA.

And yes, people have this brain-bug about western culture. Especially Europe.

[littleM]

The links if any are interested:

ARMA
Knight vs Samurai essay

[Jehan]

the best teacher is your enemy, tactics are shaped by your opponents, as fun as it is it's pretty hard to actually make any comparison on two warrior classes that would have never come into contact with each other.

[Dmunster]

Another thing, while a samurai could use a bow effectively, a knight has his horse and could easily run down his shitty eastern counterpart, meaning the samurai would stand a better chance in close combat.

You seem to be forgeting that Samurai were accomplished horsemen as well. They would actually fire thier bows from horseback.

The yumi, an asymmetric composite bow made from bamboo, wood, rattan and leather, was not as powerful as the Eurasian reflex composite bow, having an effective range of 50 meters (about 164 feet) or less (100 meters [328 feet] if accuracy was not an issue). It was usually used on foot behind a tedate (手盾), a large and mobile bamboo wall, but shorter versions (hankyu) could also be used from horseback. The practice of shooting from horseback became a Shinto ceremony of Yabusame (流鏑馬).

And thier armor was far from light. Usually a layers of cloth under leather/iron plates with a full leather/iron helm.

You also fail to mention the other two blades in the daisho, the wakazashi and tanto. Both were short piercing swords.[/quote]

[NOHIBBERTNO]

Knights kick rump. except for french ones against english longbows

[cawck mongler]

You seem to be forgeting that Samurai were accomplished horsemen as well. They would actually fire thier bows from horseback.

They could still be run down by the knight. When you shoot a bow from horseback, you'd either be running towards your enemy, or you'd stop to get a better shot. Even if the Samurai were able to avoid the knight throughout the fight, he'd probably run out of arrows before being able to do much harm, as Japanese archery never had to advance at the pace of Europes (Englands in particular), where as late European armour was extremely well made against arrows (although when put up against English longbows, they were still screwed). Like I said in the other thread, Europe had its own medieval arms race during the hundreds years war, and their armaments advanced very rapidly.

Jehan makes a good point though, its pretty useless to make a comparison against the two because they both had different environments to compete in. A knight would still win though.

[vtmarik]

You seem to be forgeting that Samurai were accomplished horsemen as well. They would actually fire thier bows from horseback.

They could still be run down by the knight. When you shoot a bow from horseback, you'd either be running towards your enemy, or you'd stop to get a better shot. Even if the Samurai were able to avoid the knight throughout the fight, he'd probably run out of arrows before being able to do much harm, as Japanese archery never had to advance at the pace of Europes (Englands in particular), where as late European armour was extremely well made against arrows (although when put up against English longbows, they were still screwed). Like I said in the other thread, Europe had its own medieval arms race during the hundreds years war, and their armaments advanced very rapidly.

Jehan makes a good point though, its pretty useless to make a comparison against the two because they both had different environments to compete in. A knight would still win though.

Samurai also had naginata and spears, they'd be even with knights on horseback.

[cawck mongler]

You aren't going to be able to stop a horse in full armour coming at you with a spear. And even if you did possess the superhuman strength that would be required to do so, knights had lances and could just as easily skewer the lightly armoured samurai.

[vtmarik]

You aren't going to be able to stop a horse in full armour coming at you with a spear. And even if you did possess the superhuman strength that would be required to do so, knights had lances and could just as easily skewer the lightly armoured samurai.

Do you mean a lance used in jousting competition or the lance used in battle which is basically a long spear, much like the Japanese yari?

These are stabbing weapons designed to puncture between armor plates.


This comes down to opinion I believe, and I believe they'd be evenly matched.

[cawck mongler]

Do you mean a lance used in jousting competition or the lance used in battle which is basically a long spear, much like the Japanese yari?

These are stabbing weapons designed to puncture between armor plates.


This comes down to opinion I believe, and I believe they'd be evenly matched.

Then you're an idiot, a lance would no doubt penetrate a samurais armour as it was light, a samurai would have to puncture in between the plates. Also, knights were trained more for that kind of warfare, samurai were mainly trained for ground fighting, so a knight would no doubt have the advantage on horse as well as on the ground.

[vtmarik]

Do you mean a lance used in jousting competition or the lance used in battle which is basically a long spear, much like the Japanese yari?

These are stabbing weapons designed to puncture between armor plates.


This comes down to opinion I believe, and I believe they'd be evenly matched.

Then you're an idiot, a lance would no doubt penetrate a samurais armour as it was light, a samurai would have to puncture in between the plates. Also, knights were trained more for that kind of warfare, samurai were mainly trained for ground fighting, so a knight would no doubt have the advantage on horse as well as on the ground.

Knights on horseback could be knocked off by a spear strike or hit from a naginata though, thus rendering the combat to arms and the ability to move around. Samurai have the advantage because their armor was built for flexibility and the ability to make precise movements. A katana wasn't a thrusting weapon, but a longsword was not designed for close-quarters combat. A tanto blade in the hands of a trained warrior could be the fatal stroke in a ground fight.

[cawck mongler]

Knights on horseback could be knocked off by a spear strike or hit from a naginata though, thus rendering the combat to arms and the ability to move around. Samurai have the advantage because their armor was built for flexibility and the ability to make precise movements. A katana wasn't a thrusting weapon, but a longsword was not designed for close-quarters combat. A tanto blade in the hands of a trained warrior could be the fatal stroke in a ground fight.

The samurai could maybe knock the knight off his horse, but the knight could easily kill the samurai the same way, I don't see you point.

Knights didn't just use longswords, and like I said before they can swing their weapons quite quickly, so the samurai would have a hard time getting close enough to the knight. Really, if unarmoured men were more effective against armoured men, why would all of Europe armour their men so heavily? Japan didn't, not because it was more effective, but because they didn't have the resources.

[dustn64]

It sounds to me like the only reason a knight would win is because of his large amount of armor. If both were thrown into the battle field with a sword the samurai would easily slaughter the knight.

[muy_thaiguy]

Even if a knight were to only have chain mail armor, a kite shield, and a sword, the samurai would have an incrdibly difficult time trying to harm the knight. Chain mail was designed to counter slashing swords, and the samurai swords were not meant to stab. Also, samurai rarely, if ever fought on horseback in hand to hand combat. I noticed a previous comment saying that samurai were anything but lightly armored. For Japan, they were extremely well protected, in Europe, at the best they would have been considered medium cavalry, which could not stand upto heavy cavalry.

[cawck mongler]

Knights were specially trained to fight in heavy armour and specially trained to fight others in heavy armour, samurai were the opposite, so yes they'd both win on their own terms. But realistically speaking, if Europe somehow sent over an army to Japan, they'd be wearing heavy armour and they'd slaughter the Japanese, making some kind of contrived situation where everyone is armourless doesn't proove anything because thats not how it happened in real life.

[NOHIBBERTNO]

Knights were specially trained to fight in heavy armour and specially trained to fight others in heavy armour, samurai were the opposite, so yes they'd both win on their own terms. But realistically speaking, if Europe somehow sent over an army to Japan, they'd be wearing heavy armour and they'd slaughter the Japanese, making some kind of contrived situation where everyone is armourless doesn't proove anything because thats not how it happened in real life.

lol that really made me laugh! Thats not how it happened in real life, you mean like it did happen where a fully armoured knight fought a samarui to the death. If you want to look at it that way this whole thread is pointless

[cawck mongler]

lol that really made me laugh! Thats not how it happened in real life, you mean like it did happen where a fully armoured knight fought a samarui to the death. If you want to look at it that way this whole thread is pointless

No, its how both warriors fought respectively, the knight wouldn't just go off into battle without any armour, that's a stupid thing to say as that wouldn't happen. If Japan and Europe had went to war, knights would've proven much more effective against samurai.

Instead of changing shit around and making excuses like 'oh samurai are better unarmoured' try actually making an argument. Everything is better at something else in certain situations, a crossbow would've been more effective at close range then a longbow, but does that make the crossbow better? f*ck no, it was probably the most devastating weapon of its time. And don't try and get into the whole 'they never fought each other' bullshit, a guy with a machine gun never fought a Zulu warrior, but we know the guy with the machine gun would waste him.

[dustn64]

Instead of changing shit around and making excuses like 'oh samurai are better unarmoured' try actually making an argument. Everything is better at something else in certain situations, a crossbow would've been more effective at close range then a longbow, but does that make the crossbow better? f*ck no, it was probably the most devastating weapon of its time. And don't try and get into the whole 'they never fought each other' bullshit, a guy with a machine gun never fought a Zulu warrior, but we know the guy with the machine gun would waste him.

pfft. the situation is to prove that the only reason the knight would win is because of his extensive amount of armor. If we took that away his dodging skill would be much less than a samurai.

[The1exile]

Instead of changing shit around and making excuses like 'oh samurai are better unarmoured' try actually making an argument. Everything is better at something else in certain situations, a crossbow would've been more effective at close range then a longbow, but does that make the crossbow better? f*ck no, it was probably the most devastating weapon of its time. And don't try and get into the whole 'they never fought each other' bullshit, a guy with a machine gun never fought a Zulu warrior, but we know the guy with the machine gun would waste him.

pfft. the situation is to prove that the only reason the knight would win is because of his extensive amount of armor. If we took that away his dodging skill would be much less than a samurai.

And if we stuck 120 lb of sheet metal on a samurai, he probably wouldn't win either, because he's not used to fighting with it.

[cawck mongler]

pfft. the situation is to prove that the only reason the knight would win is because of his extensive amount of armor. If we took that away his dodging skill would be much less than a samurai.

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[dustn64]

pfft. the situation is to prove that the only reason the knight would win is because of his extensive amount of armor. If we took that away his dodging skill would be much less than a samurai.

TROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLLTROLL TROLL NEED SOME BACON THAR TROLL?

How about this?