Samurai against knight

[Thunar]

"Thunar:Dude the obvioius quack is you and your roleplaying game history, yes a I know what sword you are talking about and the picture you put up again in which is a ninja-to in which is a hollywood invention the proper term is ninja-ken and like I said the original ninja-ken was broken katanas discarded and if you read Grand master Hatsumi's book about the sword that the ninja used."

You don't know what you're talking about. Simple as that.

Thunar: funny it was you that was arguing that your sword that weighied 30lbs was a true medieval weapon its you that don't know what your talking about. I guess you don't know the 34 grandmaster of Togakure Rue Ninjutsu and in the late 70's and early 80's Stephen K. Hayes and Robert Bussey was the only americans to be awarded Shidoshi and could teach Ninjutsu and I took lesson's from Robert Bussey for 2 years. So put down the D&D book and stop watching anime and read a history book.

"You keep saying its a katana and no it wasn't and that style of blade was long gone by the 15th century its last use probably would of been around ad 900"

A choku-To is a Katana. The curved katana is called a Wakazushi(sp).

Thunar: No it means short compainion sword.

"Jim H, and Hank R. are very well respected in swordsmanship circles and they have degrees in such areas and have done reserch longer probably you and I combined."

Then they certainly ought to know that steel is not steel.

Thunar: I would take there word from them than you and the europeans made blades of equal quality of the japanesse. Since you don't know them it furthers my thought you have no idea of swords.

All steel, and indeed all swords made of steel, are not created equally.

Thunar:indeed see above comment and that is what they meant that a good steel blade is going to act like a steel blade when it meets and an equal blade.

[Thunar]

/\ /\ /\ /\


I agree

Of course you would, so what next a adamantium katana recently discovered in 1000 year old shrine.

[Thunar]

Apparently not....steel is not steel.

There are varying grades and quality of steel, as well as several different forging techniques.

Thunar: if you would read the comments you would see that he says the samething but the japanesse didn't have a uber forging techniques that made their blades. I hate to break it to you but the katana is not the be all end all of swords

The man may have written a book, but the clown is no expert.

Thunar: right.. there is a clown and it isn't Jim H, or Hank R.

[Bill]

No, the clown isn't the one that states 'steel is steel'....

right back at ya.

Steel is most definitely not steel. Even if the same steel is used in two blades, the forging and folding process itself can yield wildly differing levels of quality.

Someone should probably point that out to your 'expert'.

PS: The long bladed curved Katana is called a Daito. I mixed up my terminology. My bad. A choku-To and a Daito are both Katanas however. The only difference is that one has a curved blade, and one has a straight blade. A 'Ninja-To' is a sword of which no historical examples exist(leading one to believe they never existed at all), but there are existing examples of Choku-To Katanas.

[FlyingCaddy]

I have but one question, what would determine the victor in the fight between a knight and a samurai, the man or the equipment?

[Bill]

IMO, the man, as always....given roughly equivelant gear.

[Thunar]

No, the clown isn't the one that states 'steel is steel'....

right back at ya.

Steel is most definitely not steel. Even if the same steel is used in two blades, the forging and folding process itself can yield wildly differing levels of quality.

Thunar: Well since you said it yourself that you wouldn't read the article I don' know why you comment on it.

Someone should probably point that out to your 'expert'.

Thunar:If you would read the article you would see what he is talking about, and ahh yes what of your "expert" ah yes the local blacksmith at the local Ren. Faire that gave you the 30lbs blade in which you thought was a true repro. of a medevial weapon that would be used by a knight. I find it funny that for someone that is in to swords would not of heard these people.

PS: The long bladed curved Katana is called a Daito. I mixed up my terminology. My bad. A choku-To and a Daito are both Katanas however. The only difference is that one has a curved blade, and one has a straight blade. A 'Ninja-To' is a sword of which no historical examples exist(leading one to believe they never existed at all), but there are existing examples of Choku-To Katanas.

Thunar: Actually Daito means longsword in which the you can call Tachi a Daito too but Choko is not a long sword and its time was way before the 15th century and the correct term for a ninja sword is either Ninja-ken or shinobigatana and the word Katana itself is more recent word and I won't say modern because I can't remember when it came into being but I know its recent.

PS. On your sword collection you said you have a katana from WW2 you better find out what you really have because those blades 98% were stamped steel if you have that its no biggy but if you have one either made the old fashion way or a family heirloom that got lost you could have some major cash.

[mentalelemental]

"No, the clown isn't the one that states 'steel is steel'...."

I may be new here, but here are my two cents anyway. Now there may be replies here to a whole mess of posts, so I hope these points haven't been beaten to death. These replies may not be in any particular order, so sorry if they're hard to sort out.

"Steel is steel" may be somewhat of a truism, and as such is a bit vague. However, I believe that you may want to actually read past the first paragraph, if you feel like objecting to it so strongly. True, steel does widely vary, and there are some combinations of pattern-welding and heat treating that can create very tough blades, but they are far from magical. I suggest you go to this site if you want some additional basic information on Japanese pattern-welding and the relationship of hard edge to soft spine: http://www.sword.ne.jp/learn/sword/inside.html. The folding done to get the hard edge steel was primarily done to spread the impurities in the low-grade Japanese iron ore evenly. Repeat: the Japanese folded their steel to evenly distribute the impurities, not to harden it. While the kawagane was harder than the soft spine, it was so because of higher carbon content, not folding. Not that you necessarily said so, but I'm just tired of people stating that their katanas are folded 1000 times and are thus indestructible, etc, etc. The Japanese did treasure the kawagane steel because of the amount of work needed to spread the impurities, but it was not that special. All in all, heat-treating was probably the trickier process. Improper heat-treating could be quite a headache to a bladesmith, and it was very much a matter of instinct. Now about that hard edge vs. soft spine of the blade: The above site does deal a bit with the dimensional aspects of the steels and the arrangement of them, but just how hard should the edge and spine be, respectively? This is only a passing reference, but Adrian Ko is a respected nihon-to aficionado and scholar, and Christopher Lau was very respected in the Japanese sword-polishing community. http://swordforum.com/swords/nihonto/shintokatana.html
As it shows, the edge of a Katana should have a Rockwell hardness in the high-fifties and the spine a hardness around 45Rc. Now 45 is far from soft; as said in the article, the spine needed to be relatively hard to prevent the blade from taking a set. Softer than the edge, but still hard. Too soft an edge would be harder to temper to a tough spring, and almost every good blade is tempered to a tough spring. Also, as they say, the Katana is not meant for steel-to-steel contact, especially in 15th cent. warfare.

Anyway, about the hot topic of armor: As has been said already, European armor was designed to be moved in, unlike the armor used on stage, on camera, and in Renn Faires, in which the armor is made to represent armor, not be it. Japanese armor was also meant to be moved in. Now the thing that I haven't noticed any attention paid to is how the armor was meant to be moved in! Both of these armors were meant to be used on horseback, in very different scenarios. Admittedly I know a pitiful amount about Japanese feudal warfare, but European armor did not leave the crotch and rear of the legs and butt exposed because it looked cool, but rather because those areas would be protected by the knight's war saddle. There was armor made for infantrymen, too, so why is it that many of these references are to cavalry armor? Why optimize the samurai's arsenal by suggesting that a battle between a 15th cent. knight and a 15th cent. Samurai would have the samurai armed with the most effective possible sword, and the knight armed with a "heavy" sword (don't get me started, it's been said before, but I still will argue with anyone who says that European swords were like clubs with edges), and cumbersome armor? Why use run-on sentences? :) Anyway, my point regarding the straight Choku-To is this: in what is supposed to be a typical melee between two unlikely challengers, why give one contestant an extremely unorthodox weapon? I consider it unorthodox if a: no examples have been found and b: if it was not even used by samurai, if anyone. If we give the samurai a choku-to, why not give the knight a loaded crossbow? Why not give him a gunblade (yes, they did actually exist), Why consider a lance the primary weapon of a dismounted knight rather than a sword or poleaxe? Many situations suggested so far pit the knight or samurai against opponent with a clear equipment advantage: pike-vs-katana, choku-to vs. longsword, naginata-vs- longsword, etc. Wouldn't the typical weapon for a lone knight in infantry armor be something along the lines of a poleaxe with a longsword and roundel dagger? The traditional, typical samurai equipment would be yari, katana, wakizashi, and bow, unless I'm mistaken. Maybe a tanto too? I'm open to corrections. Knights often carried a small armory of weapons on their saddles, but those are the three I would imagine a knight on foot would have.

Point: "Common sense clearly dictates that a man with two hands on a pike that misses and finds his target rapidly bursting in at him is not going to have time to drop the Pike, draw his weapon, and deflect the incoming thrust."

Counterpoint: "Another effective pole-arm technique to be wary of is slipping, or the slip-thrust. To make an even quicker attack, the shaft can be thrown out in a one-hand thrust, slipping through the first hand's grip." -John Clements, Medieval Swordsmanship
This also works the other way; the tip of a pike is about twelve feet away from the wielder’s torso. If the tip is pushed away, the wielder can bring the tip back to be a threat to the swordsman once again.

Anyway, that's all for now.

[Aryan]

Let me throw something else into the equation.

For a blow to be fatal, it doesn't need to necessarily penetrate the armour; if its delivered in a powerful enough manner, the shockwaves generated can easily cause enough internal damage passing through the body to kill a man, with the armour intact.

[mentalelemental]

Design....

Let me throw something else into the equation.

For a blow to be fatal, it doesn't need to necessarily penetrate the armour; if its delivered in a powerful enough manner, the shockwaves generated can easily cause enough internal damage passing through the body to kill a man, with the armour intact.

Obviously it depends on where and how the blow is made; a blow to an armoured neck would be potentially more lethal than one to the shin. Still, that's where you really get into the specific design of the armor. European armor was fitted quite close to the body, but was also designed so that vulnerable areas such as the neck and torso were somewhat protected agains shock; many european gothic harnesses(armors) had a firm steel collar called a bevor that was fitted and fixed to the breastplate. This would transfer a lot of that shock to the chest, which can take more punishment than the neck. A key idea in armor is the distribution of weight and impact across the body. Not an answer to your question, but hopefully helpful. I can't say anything for Japanese armor because I admit to not knowing much about it. A footnote: European armor also incorporated a lot of features designed to cause many blows to glance off. Especially the 15th cent. Gothic and Maximillian styles.

Some pictures of a pretty good reproduction Gothic Harness (the top three pictures): http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...3Doff%26sa%3DN

[Low-tech]

as far as who would win one on one, it really depends on the people fighting. you can ask "who had better weapons and armor?" or "so and so king vs so-and-so diamyo" but even if we conclude one over the other on those grounds it doesnt really get us anywhere.

if anyone here watches MMA<mixed martial arts>you'll know that there are many different styles of combat and every contender has weaknesses and strengths in these different styles, noone is invinsible, no one style is dominate. alot of fights are won by heart alone,sometimes cardio,a fluke injury,intimidation etc.

when it comes to the best trained warriors, anything can happen. sometimes a hieght and weight advantage,the best training, armor,weapons arent gonna save your ass from one determined SOB.

id say the samurai had better combat training<kendo, hand to hand, japanese ju-jitsu was formed for hand to hand combat against armored foes, hence all the hiptossing,takedowns,grappling and submission holds>and better weapons. duels on the battlefield was very common for samurai. some border wars between territories in japan are famous for the exhibition matches between small numbers of soldiers instead of all out warfare.

heavy armor may not be the best thing going one on one opposed to being on a horse or on a battlefield as an addition to many in the front lines. you can be dressed like a sherman tank but all that wieght you have to carry is wasted energy, how dangerous is a sherman tank if the gastank or the battery is empty?? heavy armor is not the end all be all, it can tire you out.

[Parihaka]

Bugger me, will this thread never die!

[Officer of Engineers]

The samuari were great warriors. They, however, sucked as soldiers. They came out on the worst end of the Mongol battles. Knights, despite the jousting movies, were massed formations, ie, an army. One on one, I gave the Samuari. In an army, the knights win hands down.

[Commando]

The Samuari's are the greatest warriors ever to live and fight until now. With 10 000 Samuari's against 10 000 knights, with the same military formations and tactics. Its the Samuari's easy!!!

[Officer of Engineers]

You do know that the Samuari sucked against the Mongols. There is a difference between good warriors and being good soldiers. The Samuari couldn't hold a formation if their lives depended on it ... and it did when they faced the Mongols.