Who would win in a battle, A european knight or a Samurai?

> Something tells me the samurai might be able to land a stab or two between the plates if he's agile enough.

Something tells me you're a bit of an armchair fencer.

Nobody is that agile. A knight with a long sword or sword and shield, or god forbid a polearm, will be able to hit anyone coming at him long before that one can just put a surgically precise thrust in between the plates.

The Samurai would have to out-fight the knight. There's no way to just run around him or reach him without being attacked.

>Something tells me you're a bit of an armchair fencer.
You are correct in that. I was merely speculating.

Samurai armour wasn't much lighter. Samurai wore mail and plates, just like European knights. Plate armour looks heavier and less mobile than it actually is. Also, it should be considered that stabbing between the plates is exactly how European knights fought each other. That's what they were trained for, that's what they would expect their opponent to do, so they would be fairly well aware of which parts of their armour is vulnerable and how to defend it. Not to mention that European swords were made with such application in mind.

...

Alright, brace for semi-armchair fencer knowledge then:

1. Armor doesn't restrict your movements that much. There's plenty of videos of people in full plate doing various exercises. Loud as fuck, though.

2. The knight's armor isn't even much heavier than the samurai's - it's just more advanced in design and metallurgy. It merely looks heavier because it doesn't cover the bare metal.

3. Nobody moves faster than a sword or other weapon in full swing. It's not physically possible to just dodge a well-aimed strike without moving away.

4. Knightly fencing did indeed involve stabbing the opponent through the gaps in his armour, but that usually required a good deal of grappling or otherwise disabling him.

>both swords get a dent
>the katana bends
Doesn't that mean the longsword or whatever that is, is more likely to break? Or am I retardo?

So, who would probably come out on top if it came to shoving and stabbing between the knight and the samurai?

A headshot would knock him down even if it wouldn't penetrate (which it would)

Came here to post samurai saying "pssh... nothing personnel".

Beaten to it.

Fuck.

Anyway knight wins hands down.

Knight. Quality of samurai's swords was terrible.

*samurai teleports behind the knight*
>heh, nothing personnel kid
*slices his neck through his steel armour*

>samurai lets loose a stinky sushi fart
>knight gags and dies

samurai easily wins

...

A knight because he was an alpha white male

Samurai. Lightly armoured and faster, all he'd have to do is shove his sword through the Knight's eye socket before the Knight could stop him.

Assuming both are of equal skill AND the knight fails to leverage his equipment advantage to kill the samurai before he gets too close...

...I dunno lol. Knights definitely did have grappling and other close-in training, and both have a knife or short sword to shiv the other with (though the knight arguably has the better one, again).

If the samurai is trained in sweaty rusty wrestling-stabbing, then I guess it's 50-50 at that point.

Ubisoft Wins

>Samurai teleports behind Knight, cuts both his arms off and stabs him; hanging up by his chest
>It's a hologram

Not quite, no.

Western medieval steel was more flexible and more durable; so western swords are a deal thinner than most katana. They wobble more, which can dissipate some of an impact's energy - it's a good thing. On a well-executed strike you strike with the center of percussion so the wobbling doesn't cost you anything.

As said, they flex - when they get bent out of shape (within limits), they just go right back. Katanas don't - they stay bent or break outright.

This assumes that both swords are made with about 14th century metallurgy of their respective regions of origin.

Hello, retard.

...

>Western medieval steel was more flexible
Stopped reading right there. Go back to age of empires.

Terms like samurai and knight are so fucking vague.

What kind of knight are were talking about? From what region? What Samurai? Genpei era or Sengoku Era?

Knights and samurai were around for centuries and changed quite a bit in that time and that's not even getting into the variations that existed between contemporaries.

Let's say 15th century. Sengoku samurai in full gear VS Hospitaller.

>Faster

Fuck off with this meme, plate armor doesn't make you slow and cumbersome.

youtube.com/watch?v=qzTwBQniLSc

>then they get their asses handed to them from the same typhoon.
kek

Early Sengoku period Samurai vs a 14th Century Hospitaller would mostly favor the knight. Ignoring things like terrain, the samurai at the time were starting to move away from horse archers and moved to spears. But japanese spears were used more for slashing than stabbing and that's going to be a distinct disadvantage against mail.

You're also going to have the height and weight advantage to the knight by a small bit. The samurai could win a couple but most likely the knight wins.

>Stopped reading right there
But it's true. Superior Yuropean steel folded over 300000 times was lighter and could bend much more. In fact, Japs came to europe trying to figure out how it was made. And they did.

A properly sharpened katana will cut through a knight's sword like butter. Knights were cool and all but it's not until the 20th century that anybody invented a material that could stand up to proper 100-fold Japanese steel.

...

Jesus Christ. The fucking knight wins. He's in fucking plate armor. Obviously.

youtube.com/watch?v=gwoGVWgK8v8

Bullets dont knock people down. Stop watching old western movies.

European Knight.
Katanas are quite strong but only very specialized swords can pierce plate, and it has less reach than most straight longswords, it's quite useless here.
A samurai with a spear would put a better fight but i still don't think it can pierce plate.

On horseback, the samurai would also lose 1 on 1 but the samurai is arguably the more valuable soldier overall cause he's a horse archer.

A spring temper was pretty damn rare in the 14th century.

If it was spring tempered as the sword is it would indeed be more durable than a katana, though a katana wouldn't shatter from normal combat, it shattered because it was swung full force into a larger, braced piece of steel.

I would also point out the equivalent of a longsword is not a katana but a tachi and if it was made for war its cross section would be very different from a modern katana

In the 14th century? spears still were not very popular, and the Japanese used spears to stab. Its true pikes were somtimes used to smash with their shaft but the yari was a stabbing weapon. as can be seen in almost all surviving schools of sojutsu

Why do people that have little understanding of how Samurai fought feel the need to post?

The katana wasn't the main weapon of the samurai. Early samurai mainly used bows. Starting the sengoku era they started to transition to spears and naginatas. Then in the later sengoku period used guns and spears. Bows were still used by to a lesser extent.

At no point would muh katana folded ten thousand times really come into play. And if you want to get into it, a katana isn't even comparable to a longsword. A tachi is the equivalent and it is built differently than a katana.

This. Reminder that katana were not often used in epic animu samurai battles. It was a weapon for bullying peasants, showing off and pointing at the enemy as you yell at your ashigaru to charge.

>Why?
samurais were straight up midgets.
Also inferior gear

A Serb from Montenegro.

Thats a bit of an exaggeration. war swords, manly tachi and nodachi were depending on the period used quite a bit, but the sword was mainly a secondary weapon for when the enemy closed with a archer or you lost your pole arm

Autism: the post

Fair points.

Though I'd say it's somewhat less likely for a samurai to bring a tachi to a fight than for a (late medieval) knight to bring a longsword, but that's honestly just an impression of mine.

Depends on 2 things
1. Is the Samurai smart enough to use his bow.
2. Does the Knight wear plate armour.

They used their katana if they didn't have anything else.
They had spears, bows et cetera.

I mentioned other weapons in my post, fuck off.

>Samurai. Lightly armoured and faster
yeah, nope.

samurai armor wasnt actually noticably lighter than full plate, it was however less well shaped, slightly more restrictive and more cumbersome.

Meiji imperial infantry.
>when your former foot soldier, now an imperial soldier, sees you in battle and remembers what a prick your daimyo ass was

Knights dont play by the rules so the knight would win.

I'm a big Samurai fan but I'd still have to say the knight, assuming they're in full plate.

A mailed knight may lose.

I think the Samurai would have more fighting skill but the Knight has the technological edge.

But remember, a pistol with powder and shot beats them all.

is he okay

It was the weapon for duels though.

It was not more restrictive, though it may have been more cumbersome

repeated "arrow volley" of one samurai won. wow.

A 19th century samurai against a 11th century knight? Probably the nip because they had revolvers by then.

>plate armour
>11th century

Nigga never go full weeb mode
>impliying the knight's horse wouldn't have protection
>impliying you can just kill a horse with one arrow
>implying the knight doesn't have a heavy shield that can protect him from arrows
>implying the samurai has unlimited arrows in his quiver
>implying a samurai can *teleport behind you* and somehow put an arrow in your neck without the knight facing you with his shield raised up at all time
>implying the knight couldn't take cover behind the horse's carcass and his shield, wait for the samurai to waste his arrows and fuck his day up in melee
see i can create bullshit scenarii that would fit my point of view too !
have fun piercing pic related btw, especially with a leather armor and a gamberson bellow probably

I'd give em both about equal chances.If we take a late Sengoku period samurai vs. knight Hospitalier, jappo wins. Cause he'd likely have a decent matchlock by then. It would mostly be down to the determination and personal training of the individuals. And luck.

How about a more decent matchup? Neanderthal vs Cro-Magnon, melee only.

Came after watching hoping for a shitstorm. You forgot to add in the 11th century.

>You forgot to add in the 11th century.
I must be missing something because samurai were hardly a thing in the 11th century.
Knights were certainly a more established class, but much was still to be done.

Who were you posting to?

Knight, all day erryday

>Taller
>Stronger
>Have better amour
>Better quality of steel meaning better weapons
>Better siege equipment
>Depending on the time, knights have more exerience fighting in different terrain

I honestly can't think of a single advantage a samurai would have.

>steel blades folded over one thousand times
>true honour
>keen skills that could only be gained by training under a true japanese master
How can Knights even compete

>knight on his back
>samurai teleports behind him
>samurai comes from underground

Samurai confirmed for Shai-Hulud, no wonder he won.

>11th century knights
>losing to japanese horse archers when they rekt seljuk horse archers big time
>11th century vikings
>naked boatniggers

>implying vikis were ever not just mobile chimpouts
Nice meme, nord.

Someone watched the game theory episode, but I also guess OP watching it started this thread m.youtube.com/watch?v=gwoGVWgK8v8

There were many eras of knights and samurai, which one numb nuts?

In any case the Samurai main weapon of war was more likely to be the bow, pole arm and the matchlock gun rather than the katana.

A samurai who could get a shot to connect would probably win against most era knights even if it doesnt kill the knight immediately. At close ranges even the best plate armour is worthless. Although theres a chance the shot will miss, misfire or only graze the enemy.

Knights if head-to-head.

The only way Samurais would have a chance is if they play it tactically, which they probably would since they didn't put that much faith into their armour. Most of the time it would be knights that overvalued their aristocracy and their armour and get defeated by pike-wielding peasants.

Oh God
>Knights had chainmails!
>Proceeds to show butted mail
Yeah, he sure is an expert
>lightly armored vikings stand no chance and dies by arrows!
>minute later the heavy armoured knight also dies by arrow (so why did he make a point about lack of armor, when in the end it didn't make any difference
>of course everyone knows, that mail sucks against arrows. It has holes, you get it, arrows ignore armor because it strikes into holes
>here is knight in chainmail, but samurai is better protected, less weakspots
this one actually, what the hell. The basic thing of mail it protected everything, because well, it didn't have any gaps
>SAMURAI HAD MASKS
>what are helmets
And I'm pretty sure, that his whole point of "let's use 11thC version of knight/viking/samurais" was bullshit, and he used some 8thC vikings with
>leather armours
and 16thC or so samurais.

They lost to horse archers far more than they won

>1450
>be European Knight
>walking to castle one day when am suddenly teleported to Japan
>whatthefuck.jpg
>some weeb Samurai is standing there with his bent sword resting on his shoulder, with a shit-eating grin on his face
>he challenges me to a duel
>okay.jpg
>grab my poleaxe, he grabs a spear
>mfw this faggot starts slashing at me with a spear
>jap steel can't slice steel plates
>begin to wish that I were born in the time period with nukes, so I could drop one on this shit-tier island and remove it from the face of the earth
>weeb guy is running around me, obviously thinks he's faster and lighter than me
>let him run around for a few seconds, then slowly walk up to him
>bitch is taunting me for my armor being cumbersome and immobile
>nope.jpg
>quickly raise my weapon over my head and deliver a powerful blow to his forehead before he can react
>slow armor, right
>while he's reeling from the blow, grab his spear and break it over my knee
He tries to hit me with his katana, the strike lands flatly on my chest
>kick him in the nuts, he falls over
>draw dagger and jump on top of him
>start stabbing into the gaps in his weeb armor
>he dies
>deusvult.exe

African Malian steel was superior to European steel.

>1. armor doesnt restrict movement that much
correct, and here's some videos on the subject.
youtu.be/H6IL2giKNN8
youtu.be/WMuNXWFPewg
youtu.be/xm11yAXeegg
youtu.be/5hlIUrd7d1Q

>2. advanced design
so advanced in fact that NASA studied a suit of Henry VIII when designing the space suit.
youtu.be/NqC_squo6X4?t=40m7s

>3. sword speeds
boy can they be fast
youtu.be/mjT4JepA-Vc

>4. stabbing
no comment but correct

are you sure about that

I would pay a gorillion dollars for this shit

lol

T H I C C
H
I
C
C
By not giving a shit about muh honour or muh style of combat and charging the fucker in full plate armour and bashing his overpriced kabuto in.

Well, according to Duby, even peasant peers were better than knights in dishonest fights, that is, fights that did not obey a code of conduct.

If the samurai gets a bow, the knight gets a crossbow

Plate armor is not needed;

Western mail armor versus eastern arrows in the late 11th century[Alexiad, VIII.8];

"He furnished them abundantly with arrows and exhorted them not to use them sparingly, but to shoot at the horses rather than at the Franks. For he knew that the Franks were difficult to wound, or rather, practically invulnerable, thanks to their armoured coats of mail. Therefore he considered shooting at them useless and quite senseless. For the Frankish defensive arms is this coat of mail, ring woven into ring, and the iron fabric is such excellent iron that it repels arrows and keeps the wearer’s skin unhurt."

One could equally make a list of crusader victories.

There is a reason it took the Muslims 208 years to kick the crusaders out and there is a reason Saladin, arguably the most capable Muslim military commander of the 12th century, lost miserably at Montgisard, Arsuf, Acre and Jaffa.

Also, as to the knights vs Turkish cavalry;

"In 1279, 200 horsemen from the garrison of Margat used this tactic against the 5000 Muslims who were trying to prevent them from ravaging the neighborhood of Crac des Chevaliers. The Hospitallers, knowing it would be suicidal for them to confront this force in the open, therefore allowed themselves to be chased until they had almost reached Margat itself before turning on the Muslims and routing them with the loss of only one mounted sergeant." - Unknown Crusader Castles, page 72, Kristian Molin

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nicopolis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_of_Varna

It's because matpat

The Second Crusade was announced by Pope Eugene III, and was the first of the crusades to be led by European kings, namely Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, with help from a number of other European nobles. The armies of the two kings marched separately across Europe. After crossing Byzantine territory into Anatolia, both armies were separately defeated by the Seljuk Turks

This reply is about a day late, but I think it's pretty apparent that the first paragraph of my post
was completely in jest.

The other post you quoted devoted about as much space to spears & bows as katanas.

I know it's fun to correct people, but do try to make sure your corrections are actually relevant, all right?

thats why Turks conquered Anatolia

And what is the reason that the Latin States could never expand further after their creations and basically irremediably lost ground years after years.
Logistics is obviously a much bigger subject that mail armor but still.

At this game, it took the crusaders 700 years to kick the muslims out of the Iberian Peninsula.

Yeah, Ottomans zerging armies twice/thrice the Christian size and almost getting pwned regardless.

They nearly lost at Kosovo against tribal Serbs with a far larger force.

They even lost battles against the Croats while being 6-7 times the number lol;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Slunj

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sisak

Second Crusade was a disaster yes, but others weren't.

The third crusade, the norwegian crusade, the crusade of 1197, the sixth crusade, the Barons crusade etc.

> thats why Turks conquered Anatolia

They conquered anatolia because the byzantines went into a ludicrous civil war instead of resisting, one byznatine general even surrendered garrisons and invited the Turks to settle just so he can recruit them against the other dude.

the knight would destroy the samurai

if the samurai got a chink in the armor he would win but the knight has better armor piercing potential.

he's fast!