Can Veeky Forums have a mature debate on the age old samurai vs knight or katana vs longsword questions?

>longbow
>knight

Closest thing we're going to get.

Before or after midway?

We could examine before, during, and after.

Let's assume they somehow meet in comparable aircraft and in single combat, no wingmen.

Who wins, the Knight or the Shizoku

What about European military advisers in Boshin war?

Can't say. When they did meet the airplanes were most decidedly not comparable, and I don't know how one could realistically make an assertion on the relative skill level of pilots. The only thing we can do is look at how effective they were against each other in combat historically speaking, and a lot of that had to do with their respective planes and how they were deployed.

Yes skill is the main factor which is exactly why you can't nitpick any skill levels you want. Objectively we have to use average skill levels when comparing.

Midway really shouldn't matter given that it was IJN's carrier pilots that got gutted in that fight instead of IJA's pilot corps.

With deployment and group tactics being the deciding factor. Combat, regardless of era is a team effort, so comparing single Knight to single "Samurai" is kind of pointless.

Do we have records of actual Knights (the title, not the fairy tale) engaging directly against the Shogunate?

Knight. Full plate>lacquered wood

Too drunk to really go in depth here, but historical precedent seems to point to japanese superiority before midway, and chances are the ahrdcore pilot that was actually trained died during midway so after that the british would be superior. During midway the happenings depended most on conditions that were unrelated to individual pilot skill so it's not really a factor.

All in all the RAF really had one chance to shine during the whole war and it was mainly dependant on the enemy fucking up more than them, but really that's just how aero-naval war generally goes.

You mean the actually good pilots japan had?

>average

How can you even define that? We're talking about warrior classes that existed for centuries.

If someone manage to do somehow summon a medieval knight and samurai in full gear and get them to fight, and I had no data about their training, skills or background...My money would be in the knight.

Be it clad in chainmail or plate, the knight equipament gives him a great advantage agaisnt a guy armed with a sharp slashing/cutting sword. Is it impossible for the samurai to prevail? No. But I feel like it's an uphill battle for him merely for being entirely outclassed gear wise.

No, because the debate is old and over.
Why not have a debate on the exact biological mechanics of taking a shit instead?
I mean I know you weren't there for that conversation when it first started, but you weren't there for the Knights vs Samurai conversation either, and clearly bedside you weren't there it's worth talking about right? Hell, the subject matter is even about the same quality too!

While battles were waged in groups there still exists the concept of single combat and duels, which both the Samurai and Knights are known to have engaged in, so the premise that they could meet in single combat is not unreasonable.

>We're talking about warrior classes that existed for centuries.
Actually, a warrior class that existed for centuries and another class that was created after a long civil war to prevent it from ever happening again and lasted only about 300 years in time of peace and isolationism.

The 11th century Europe was fielding "professional armies"?

True, but the effectiveness of a class of combatants/weapons in war is measured on the macro level, the course of the entire war, not on a single engagement.

I argue that weighing them against each other in single combat proves nothing. The topic only provokes needless and pointless argument.

We might be better off examining the tactics employed by groups of Knight and Samurai, and comparing their effectiveness.

>300 years aren't centuries
>nothing changed in those 300 years

>Samurai existed during a time of peace.

Holy fuck my sides.

Knight of which age?
Samurai of which age?

Except the Samurai is more likely going to be armed with either a Yari or a Naginata. Assuming we compare 1300s Samurai to 1300s French Knight both are going to have comparable armor. The Samurai will have reach, because his spear or glaive are longer than even the typical poleaxe but I doubt that would be enough.

Honestly my recommendation is to run through a Song of Swords fecht for it. They probably had one of these at one point.

They didn't use lacquered wood.

Seven and six years of age respectively.

It seems pretty unlikely to me that a spear would be able to beat full plate.

>nothing changed in those 300 years
Pretty much.
Prior to Tokugawa reform samurai weren't a hereditary class, anyone with a sword could pass for one.

Did the Japanese ever have anything that was the rough equivalent to a lance? Did they just use a footman's yari while mounted?

This is wrong.

Good thing full plate didn't exist in 1300 huh? In either event it's likely going to come down to a wrestling match where one side stabs the other in the crotch or eyes.

>It seems pretty unlikely to me that a spear would be able to beat full plate.
Too early for plate.
>Assuming we compare 1300s Samurai to 1300s French Knight both are going to have comparable armor.
Japanese mail was of a more primitive design, and Japanese metallurgy was lacking compared to European.
>The Samurai will have reach, because his spear or glaive are longer than even the typical poleaxe but I doubt that would be enough.
Why do you deny a knight his lance?

Thank you for letting us know we can ignore you from now on.

Please stop pretending

Who would be better at wrestling?

I've understood that they were normally armed with bow or firearms while mounted.

>All sounds great and sound
>Suddenly this nigger says Samurai only had katanas and that all "katanas" were the same, no yumis, no yaris, no tetsubos, no onos, no odachis, no nothing, only katanas, while knights had maces, poleaxes, polearms, and a long etc
>Keeps talking about "informed opinions" and "facts" after this
Well, 6 mins in and closed.
The retard even uses pictures of Samurai with yaris.

The closest to a "lance" in mounted combat for a Samurai was the Yari, but they usually used Yumi (bow) and firearms while mounted. Their horses were small and not really suited to "charge" that's why they don't had "lances" or simialar.

Probably the knight because mass and height are important in a wrestling match. and westerners were taller and heavier at the time, and now too.

Also, Europe had better stabbing implements for dealing with armored opponents.

The Western Glaive vs the Chinese Guandao vs the Japanese Naginata?

Probably the knight but it's difficult to say whether or not Judo is comparable to whatever martial art knights were trained in. I'm not familiar enough with whatever knights were trained in.

The Japanese also had lamellar. It's not like they were chain cuirasses (that we know of). Inferior metallurgy is a stupid meme. The two had comparable metallurgy but the Japanese did not develop the same industrial production technology of the Europeans. The reason I deny the knight the lance is because I assumed they were on foot. If mounted the Samurai just rides away from the Knight and the knight never catches the Samurai. The samurai never kills the knight and its a wash.

And so Samurai, tanto were used for those situations, but that's not the point.

For fucks sake people we've had this discussion before.
It doesn't come down to plate, it comes down to mixed mail/plate/leather jerkin, spear wielder skill (not length or sharpness) and the broadswords use as a crushing weapon as well as a cutting and stabbing on. Mounted archers give the japs a slight advantage in a mobile engagement but the long lance and short shield/sword combo make the knight the better all around infantry/calvery force.
The plate balances out because while European plate is superior the japs did almost as much with less and recouped their lost material faster.
lurk more.

Japanese had yoroi-doshi which are pretty much exactly the same as rondel daggers but the handle.

Imo in equipment and skill they were very similar, the defining factor is weight and height

>Inferior metallurgy is a stupid meme.
It's not. Folding space magic was like a godsend for Japanese, while in Europe it was abandoned as outdated around the end of Migration period. And that's not even getting into quality of iron deposits.
Tanto has a flat blade, rondels usually have triangular blades, and are better for stabbing.

>Mounted archers give the japs a slight advantage in a mobile engagement but the long lance and short shield/sword combo make the knight the better all around infantry/calvery force.
Knights repeatedly defeated invading forces with lots of horse archers.
>The plate balances out because while European plate is superior the japs did almost as much with less and recouped their lost material faster.
This must be why Japanese paid crazy money for Nanban armor.

>The Japanese also had lamellar.
And so did Arabs, Turks, Greeks, Slavs and other people knights routinely defeated.

You know, back when these threads were common we had a guy named KM who would thruth bomb these threads. I wish I had his creencaps (complete with citations) that proved this stupid shit wrong. Yes, Japanese iron sands are not a great baseline material. Japanese forging processes mitigated that and made it into good steel. These are objective facts. There's nothing magical about European metalworking. The two made comparable end materials.

>There's nothing magical about European metalworking.
It's usually the weebs who constantly make claims that folding is magic.
>Japanese forging processes mitigated that and made it into good steel.
And yet they relied on "steel sandwich" technique, instead of making steel that is not too fragile, but still of acceptable hardness.

So what were Japanese horses like, they don't sound anything like a destrier or courser. Maybe they were like rounceys or hobbies.

>destrier
Small to medium breeds.
By the time of the Sengoku Jidai, fighting from horseback had become pretty rare, to the point of Takeda Shingen using shock cavalry being considered a huge innovation and even that might just been him using his troops as mounted infantry.

Trust in the archive, I true believe in the words of based KM.

desuarchive.org/_/search/text/japanese steel/username/KM/

When samurai were primarily mounted troops, their usual kit was a bow and swords for backup.

Some texts of the Heian periods talk about warriors fighting with spears from horsebacks, though they might just be imitating CHinese texts.

>If mounted the Samurai just rides away from the Knight and the knight never catches the Samurai.
The knight's horse will be larger and more robust than the samurai's, and perfectly capable of running his opponent down.

european heavy cavalry is not something you can just kite away like a video game

Except for the Mongols.

Well, the mounted samurai would probably attempt to shoot the knight's horse?

Unless the knight's horse is fully armoured, in which case it's not gonna run down the samurai's horse now, is it?

Always the exception.

These seem like relevant grabs. KM used to get into this argument many times and I never saw his points seriously refuted: he had or has a considerable academic and practical background in swordcraft.

The tl;dr of many of the arguments were essentially that both Japan and European craftsmen were trying to make things in individually different ways (as in, different blacksmiths in both Europe and Japan would be trying things differently to other blacksmiths there too) with what they had and what they knew, and the katana is neither a markedly superior or markedly inferior blade in terms of its construction.

Yeah, you just lure them into swamps - Real strategy from only European country that actually beat them

I love this meme.

>only cites three books, two are written by Japanese, one by a guy with irrational hate for modernity
>only tries to ride the fence, refuses to consider other factors like blade geometry, etc.
Yeah, and the only reasons Japanese didn't start Industrial Revolution is that their coast line wasn't convoluted enough.

read some more, man

fortresses, guerrilla skirmishers and heavy cav were the only things that did consistently well against the invading mongols

>Fortresses
>The force that conquered all of China, Russia and the Middle East will be stopped by fortresses
That's kinda silly

Somewhat related to this thread:

As it turns out, during the Conquest of the New World by Spain, there were hundreds of Ronin wandering around in Mexico City, seeking fortune as sellswords for Spanish merchants because they were more-or-less kicked out from Japan. They often acted as caravan guards and protectors of diplomatic personnel as they traveled from what was once Tenochtitlan to Veracruz, and everywhere else in between, protecting them from bandits, escaped slaves (of all races), and marauding Indian nations up to and including the Aztec remnants. Many of them came over on Chinese Junks as they traveled to New Spain to acquire a shitload of silver, and then stayed around and looked for work once they pulled into port.

This means that it is not only possible, but plausible, that Japanese samurai (technically) fought renegade 16-17th century Spanish troops, African tribal warriors (in the form of escaped slave colonies, of which there were MANY in the New World) and Aztec Jaguar and Eagle Knights in pen combat while operating as mercenaries.

Turns out Age of Empires III was correct to have them as mercs in Mexico territories after all

Samurai wins, no seven year old can function in full platemail.

I prefer Jians myself

U wot m8?

Knight broadswords could crush the Samurai's armor along with bone.

Katanas can't do the same against a properly equipped Knight.

>Classic Knight
>Some power armoured faggot with a thigh-high slit in his skirt

Nigga you what?

>Longbow
>Anything other than the sheer antithesis of Knightliness

>"who would win in a fight"
>mature
Pick one.

If Im right, didnt Samurai use guns quite frequently? Wouldnt that be a big factor?

> "well if the skill levels were equal then technically the knight"

How is that in anyway goalpost moving, there were definately shitty samurai and shitty knights, people aren't robots like you seem to believe.

Not until the 16th century, at which point knights were phased out in favour of professional soldiery anyway.

>A. The katana everyone "knows" is the Edo period blade. One that came around after the Samurai went from a warrior caste to a hereditary group of civil servants/politicians. The katana utilized by the samurai who actually went to war had much less of a curve to them.
>B. The primary melee weapon of the Samurai for pretty much their entire history - until Edo nonsense happened - was the Naginata.
>C. Prior to the Sengoku period, most samurai were mounted bowmen first and foremost. Being one of the few/only groups to manage to use a longbow from horseback.
>D. While I'm not familiar with whether or not Knights were armed by their kingdom or had to purchase their own armor/weapons; The Samurai were for the most part individually responsible for arming both themselves and any servants/retainers they bring along with them.
>E. The Samurai generally didn't use a shield in infantry engagements. They however did often employ "pavise" type shields for skirmishing, particularly in sieges.
>F. The term 'Yari' does not refer to one specific spear, instead it's a catchall term for spear. There were yari for pretty much every purpose; Lance, pike, footspear, etc.
>G. The Samurai - until Nobunaga forced everyone to adopt pike and shot - didn't employ a lot of unit tactics in their melee combat. Focusing instead of large numbers of singular duels. Which puts them at a tremendous disadvantage in any form of infantry engagement against anyone who utilizes them. This was shown in the first Mongol invasion where they handed the Samurai their ass, got scared by how easy it was, then got fucked by Poseidon.
>H. There wasn't actually a "bushido code". Samurai were fine with any underhanded tactic in battle so long as it obtained victory. Fire, night attacks, ambushes, assassination, whatever was necessary was fine by them.

Samurai have a big edge in skirmishing, major weakness in infantry (up until mid/late sengoku period pike/shot) and are probably about even in cavalry fights.

It's impossible to say because samurai and Knights were social classes. You would need to define which knight and which samurai and how well trained they are. Along with where the fight will be, Where they will come from and what equipment they have access to.

The question is a bit like asking "Who would win in a fist fight a banker or a stock broker?" They are individuals not a faceless whole.

>probably about even in cavalry fights.

The horse quality of Europeans was much higher compared to the Japanese. The old time European horses were batshit and trained to murder you by themselves. In skill level I would say they could be equal. But I would give this to the knight just due to the horses they used.

Despite similarities, I don't think the weapons are really the best weapons to compare. A samurai should never be using a katana as his primary weapon on a battlefield when he could have a polearm or a ranged weapon. A longsword can be used as a primary weapon even if there are better weapons available for many situations.

What I'd really like to see is the zweihander vs nodachi.

>There wasn't actually a "bushido code"
Well, technically there was, it was just written well after samurai stopped being relevant and had transitioned into a figurehead role. It was made up by a bitter old samurai.

Honestly this. Sorry I opened the thread. I honestly don't know how you're supposed to talk about this in an objective way anyways.

At the time they could have met (early age of discovery), the knight wins at everything:
Better genetics
Better food
Better upbringing
Better, more competitive and structured training
Taller, heavier and stronger
Better horses
Better armor
Better sword
Better polearms
Better siege weapons
Better shields
Better bows
Has guns

Only way the samurai wins is if you put a Tokugawa Shogunate elite savant samurai vs a 12th century "crusader".

Samurai would win fights against knights 100% of the time