roshan

I thought we were talking about samurais and knights here, not ninjas. Tai Chi is a Chinese martial art, not a Japanese one!

Can you please explain how bows and arrows were used up close and personal? That does not make any sense whatsoever. Bows and crossbows are made for fighting from long ranges.

Lunatock, I edited my post because I felt that I needed to explain more and provide more facts. Again, here are my arguments in favor of European armor:

"A battlefield european armor would weight around 60 pounds. European armors were not bulky. In fact due to their sleek design(the armors tended to stick close to the skin and follow the curves of the body unlike japanese suits), they hardly inhibited the mobility of the knights. Japanese armors ranged from 55 to 77 pounds. European armors were also stronger then Japanese ones. In fact during the 16th century the Japanese noted quality of Italian and Flemish armors which they imported from the spanish and the portuguese. European breastplates and helms were incorporated into Japanese armors and these were called nanban gosuko. If you want to know more aout this then read "classical fighting arts of japan" by Serge Mol."

Instead of refuting these arguments you are refusing to challenge them because I edited my post. That simply shows that you are not capable of replying to the points I raised.

This is from Encyclopaedia Britannica:

"Pitying the plight of such pilgrims, eight or nine French knights, led by Hugues de Payens, vowed in late 1119 or early 1120 to devote themselves to their protection and to form a religious community for that purpose...... Moreover, by 1304 rumours (probably false) of irreligious practices and blasphemies committed by the Templars during their secret rites of initiation had begun to circulate through Europe. At this juncture, King Philip IV the Fair of Francehad every Templar in France arrested on Oct. 13, 1307, and sequestered all the Templars' property in France."

"The first suits of full plate armour date from the first decades of the 15th century. By 1440 the Gothic style of plate armour was well developed, representing the ultimate development of personal armour protection"

Pay attention to the dates. European full plate was developed almost ONE HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS after the Knights Templar ceased to exist!

Padding was worn below the armor in order to absorb shock.

bigross86

Correction. The Templars, and by extension the Priory of Sion, as represented by te Freemasons and various other groups still exist.

Read books such as the Da Vinci Code, The Templar Revelation, The Secret Code of Leonardo Da Vinci Revelaed, etc...

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roshan

Bigross, Im aware of these theories, but what I meant was after the Templars were officially disbanded and persecuted by the French.

Lunatock

Not everyone had the same style of fighting in every part of the world at any given time.


That means that some were indeed lighter. But guessing by your ego, you'd just have me believe 55 pounds is heavier than 60 pounds.



No just not going to get suckered into letting you make up "facts" as you go along.


(Well that sucks...kicked out of france<spit>) it wasn't just france<spit> that the Knights Templar were based in. They were based in other European Countries..and even you wouldn't doubt there was quite a few of them in the Middle East.

Bet you those Rumors were false by the way. Somewhere in history the Church villified the Knights Templar to rob them of thier influence and do away with them.

And of course I never said that they wore plate armor. Just that they wore armor period. And they put cloth underneath thier armor due to being under the Middle Eastern sun and wearing chain mail.

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roshan

Bows and crossbows were RANGED weapons, they were not used in melee combat.

You cant compare an average figure to a range. 55-77 means an average of 66 pounds which is 6 pounds heavier then the European average of 60. This is all simple addition, subtraction and division.

Japanese armors were heavier, bulkier, incomplete and weaker then European ones. This was why the Japanese started importing armor from Europe.

Yes but we were comparing medieval knights. Was it not you who was insisting on discussing the 15th century? 15th century knights wore gothic plate armor. During the times of the Knights Templar the gothic full plate had not yet evolved. Why did you bring up the Knights Templar which was irrelevant to the discussion?

Regarding padding: Yes its true that padding protected from the heat. Any metal when exposed to the hot dessert sun is going to heat up. But even in cold countries padding was worn in order to absord shock from blows. Otherwise you would be hurt by your own armor if an enemy was to hit you.

bodybag

If samuraii were to meet those few well?

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roshan

BTW I have done some reading and found out that the Toledo blades mentioned earlier were actually made of true Damascus(wootz) steel, when Spain was ruled by Muslims. So this does not contradict what Ive said about Damascus steel being the strongest ancient steel. The type of wootz made in Spain was Sham wootz which was made by Arabs, and this was inferior to Persian and Indian wootz.

roman dude

ive been reading these last several posts, and it drove me crazy to think that ppl actually think that the samurai were superior to the european knight. talk about BS- samurai-lovers out there, just read the last several posts and actually LOOK at the facts that the others are posting. i dont know much about history but i do kno one thing- the samurai were not superior to the knighs. just get over it already

Ironduke

I thought they wore white cloth over their armor to reflect the sun.

Ironduke

You mean the Seljuks?

Ironduke

Maces, morning stars

Ironduke

Rapiers didn't appear in use in Europe until just before 1500.

Anon

I don't think there is a better thrusting sword around than a Katana- if used properly.

A real Katana will pierce a class IIIA Ballistic vest(rated to stop .44 magnum). I've seen it done to a vest strapped to an iron-man.

I do not believe that an encumbered European knight in full plate armor, and wielding a heavy European weapon, could ever hope to match the speed or agility of a samurai warrior.

I also believe that a true samurai would be able to strike with the precision neccesary to find the seams in the knights armor. And again, i believe a katana thrust from a samurai(which would probably develop triple the KE from a thrust by any of us) would penetrate most points on a European full plate suit, though probably not the reinforced breast plate itself.

Finally, i do not believe that a European knight would be able to land many blows against a lightly encumbered Japanese Samurai. I own several authentic European ancient weapons, they all have one thing in common. They are all heavy, and they are all slow to recover after a miss. The bastard sword is the epitome of those problems. What a stupid weapon.

The European Rapiers were tremendous weapons, strong yet light, but they were not used by medievil knights. They mainly used long swords, battle axes, and bastard swords.

Ironduke

88 years the first time, 15 years the second, and 34 years the third.

Anon

Considering how long the Muslims have held it, and considering the sorts of time tables for major operations in the ancient world, i'd say that's not very long.