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Originally Posted by roshan
True, the Japanese may have been able to dismount people from their horses, but that was only against local horses which were extremely small. How they would fair against european war horses is a differrent story.
One problem with the samurai was that they were great fighters but all their weapons and armor and also their skills and training were only for fighting against each other. In europe, the warriors fought a myriad of opponents including huns, mongols, turks, arabs as well as fighting between all the differrent nations of europe. Thus european warriors and soldiers were very versatile and could adapt much more than the samurai. An example is that a knight would be able to use a mace against a samurai to get through the samurais plate armor very easily, but the samurai would be stuch using katanas and other edged weapons which would be nowhere near as effective. The lack of adaptability of the samurai is probably why they disappeared so fast after Japans conact with Europe began.
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That was the appearence of the rifle an the gatling gun. Knights disappeared from European warfare after the introduction of the Musket and the Cannon.
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The problem with talking about this subject is that there is so much misinformation about the subject due to the portrayal of the katana in movies and anime, which is mostly garbage. For example a lot of people think that the katana was really light and flexible but the fact is that a katana was heavier then a european bastard sword and also less flexible(it can be easily bent if you parry with the blade due to the lack of flexibility). Of course, the katana is an EXCELLENT weapon, but NOT because of lightness and flexibility!
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Personal experience, I've handled a replica of Mel Gibson's sword from Braveheart, and a Katana. In that case the Katana was lighter than that beefed up Scottish Claymore.
