jame$thegreat

Also take into account that Knights werent as well trained as samurai. Most nobles and high ranking serfs became knights some with lots of training some with litte. Samurai were trained for years on principles of honorable warfare. Samurai were clearly more well trained and less encumbered by heavy armor and weaponry.

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Officer of Engineers

James,

That's a myth. There were Samurais who couldn't beat their way out of a paper bag. Just looking through their wars would tell you that. The one reason why the Mongols gave them such a beating was that they were bad. Really, really bad.

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Blademaster

Not to mention the fact that the Samurais were warriors not soldiers. The Mongols were soldiers first, then warriors.

That made all the difference.

glyn

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Officer of Engineers

The Mongols.

zraver

zing!

Seriously though, the Samurai were never exposed to men wearing steel armor. A late medievil early reanssence knight with fluted plate would tear a Samurai apart at the seems.

astralis

zraver,

i think they did- imjin war of 1592-8. the samurai fought the chinese and the koreans and got beat.

another link of interest,

China History Forum, chinese history forum > Armor West and East

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Stan187

The superiority of samurais and ninjas is a redicolous myth perpetuated by Western obsession with martial arts movies. And obsession that I duly confess to have myself, but that doesn't mean that a samurai sword suddenly becomes a lightsaber and all common sense goes out the window. The samurai sword cannot cut thru late medieval knight armor. Period. And no one should feel bad about this. It was never designed to do so. The samurai would have to stab his in weakspots such as armpits and eyes. He'd be dead before that.

As far as knight being untrained, that is a bunch of crap. It depends. What period knight? What nationality?

There is a sense that people are discussing some kind of monolithic mental construct, in refernce to both the knight and the samurai.

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Parihaka

I'd have to agree. The western knights had virtually constant wars to indulge in over an 800 or so year period, and if they didn't fight well and constantly learn they'd be toast.

zraver

People confuse the flawed system of European war fighting which centered around tactical concepts and seige warfare which left them vunerable to strategic defeats like Hattin with a genral lack of indivual ability.

The truth is a knight was a black belt in his craft. He started training early on betwen ages 5 and 7 as a Paige and then eventually was made a squire and finally a knight.

ArmchairGeneral

I think you'd have to be more specific before you could answer the question. Where are they fighting? In the open? Inside? Close quarters? Does the samurai have a bow? Does the knight have a horse? Is the knight even capable of fighting dismounted and fully armored?

If the samurai uses a bow to pick off the knight at long range, it's over. If the knight is on a horse chasing the samurai with lance and broadsword, more to the knight's side. Of course, if the samurai could dodge the first charge and hamstring the horse, maybe not so easy. I'd give the knight the edge in hand to hand in the open, where he can move freely and use his shield and armor to good purpose. A samurai might have an advantage in close quarters, but I'm not sure.

I really don't know, but I think knights were more effective in massed charges than one on one, especially considering their warhorses were the direct ancestors of today's workhorses; not very fast, not very maneuverable. More of a heavy tank than a cruiser. Good for charging against a line of similar heavy cavalry, or crushing a line of infantry. Not especially good for single combat, outside of the lists.

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Parihaka

To make a gross generalisation, Knights spent a lot of their time arranging breech works and clambering over fortifications in an effort to get inside places of interest. They were as good at fighting on foot as on horseback.
As for the weight of the armour, average weight for full plate armour would be about 50 pounds, less than your average modern soldiers combat gear.
Properly designed the knights had full range of movement and could run in the suits, just as soldiers can today. Remember these guys often spent days or even weeks wearing this stuff constantly, so they were very fit.
Arrows couldn't penetrate the 2ml on average thickness, and only some of the polearms were effective and were difficult to use.

Blademaster

The problem with Knights is that they are so expensive to equip, maintain, and train for a long duration of time. Thus you would only see a small ratio of Knights to infantry soldiers.

Back in those times, not a lot of people would have the resources or time to be a fully trained knight. Thus, knights were precious resources, to be hoarded and only used at times where they could be used to their fullest extent and make a difference. Because knights were so few in numbers, Western armies could only field armies of less than 5,000. If they wanted to field more, they would have to conscript the peasants and spend several months teaching the peasants how to march, fight, and manuever as formation units. The peasants were only equipped with leather jerkins, leather shields, and weapons that could be easily made such as wooden pikes or axes (most likely stone axes).

Stan187

No no no no no no! There was no heavy cavalry charging into heavy cavalry. That never happened, or if it did, then rarely and by accident. Heavy cavalry is an offensive weapon, used sparingly because of how grave it would be if a lot were lost.

They were usually held back until some kind of line was established, maybe the enemy was being throw of balance a little at first, an only then would they charge in for the coup de grace. There was no Exacalibur-like scenes of two heavy cavalry opposing forces just smashing into each other, that is myth. It would be too wasteful. They were used to break infantry lines, and there were rarely a lot of them.

Its just too costly to risk them otherwise. Look at what happened at Crecy when heavy cav. charged senselessly and ended up taking really rough casualties. Nearly all of the French nobility was slaughtered! An upheaval in the social order of a good part of Western Europe.

Officer of Engineers

I cannot remember who but some guy added up the ransom demands after that battle. Apparently, most French nobles survived.