Samurai against knight

[Pak Nationalist]

When using mounted missile cavalry you always have to use the openness of the field. If you don't succeed to do it and reach in enemy's sword range or get surrounded then all you get is a massacre. Las Navas de Tolosa is a good example of that where the general decided to place his camp between mountains and had to pay.

[RollingWave]

When using mounted missile cavalry you always have to use the openness of the field. If you don't succeed to do it and reach in enemy's sword range or get surrounded then all you get is a massacre. Las Navas de Tolosa is a good example of that where the general decided to place his camp between mountains and had to pay.

A. Neither the Berber tribes nor the Andalusians really practiced horse archery, that your using of the Las Navas De Tolosa case assuming any muslim = horse archer is an oxymoron statement that defeats any merit in your debate. Berber and Andalusians 's fought primary with skrimish javelins and infantry spear formation + archer / crossbows more javelins with some heavy cavalry on the Andalusain part, aka the same way the Spanish fought except less Heavy cav and more light onces and infantry.

The Almohads did have some Turkish mercenaries under their service, but they were a very small part of their army and didn't have any true tactical impact.

Also, It was less of the case of the Almohads camping in a bad spot than the Christians pulling a daring night march through the mountain pass. The Almohads had beaten Alfonso badly a decade earlier when Alfonso charged strait up French style against the Almohad army, caushing him to lose a vast portion of Castillia's knights in that battle.

B. you might need to read this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople_(1205)

you might want to look at that map, does that look like open plains to you? not to meantion most of the fighting happened around the Crusader's camp.

Alexander vs. Scythians,Germans vs. Hungarians at Lechfeldt,first Doryleaum(first crusade vs the Turks),Poles vs. Tartars a gazillion times.Hammer and anvil works even in open field,the big deal is to be able to improvise an anvil.

Really? are we really going to ignor that before Lechfeldt the Magyars basically ran wild throughout Europe for nearly half a century?? and that 4 decades before Lechfeld they crushed the last East Carloginian army around the same area? you cite Doryleaum but you ignor say...

Battle of Melitene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Where Bohemond was basically destroyed and captured alive? not to meantion the even more disastorous Crusade of 1101 after that?


War is a complicated matter, with the exception of some extreme circumstances (most of them in the last 500 years, starting with the Spanish invasion of the Americas) war was never really a A is superior to B issue, it was not just a issue of who's bigger, who's stronger, who's got better weapons, who's got better xxxx ... it's a highly complicated matter of many variables.

[Tarek Morgen]

"Officer og engineers": I am pretty done with this discussion, seeing as how you are unable to control you temper and attacks my persona instead of saying relevant things. You do not know who I am and what experiences I might or might not have, you should be careful about assuming things about people you know nothing about. Ninja fanatic? If anything I'd say you are the fanatic, look at what you have written, seems to me like your knight is some kind of super warrior, and then you can't take it when someone says something else.

You have proven that you:

1.Don't know anything about history. (The Samurai defeated the Mongol invaders due their superior skill and weapons? Seriously??)
2.That you don't know anything real about craftsmanship when it comes to old weaponry (The folding of Japanese swords did not create better weapons, but merely compensated the bad quality of resources they had to work with)
3.That you don't know anything about medieval warfare. (No japanese weapon can “easily penetrate a knight's armor “ regardless of the technique. None of the techniques used to deal with heavy armor is suitable for japanese swords. You can neither simply bash the enemy within the armor (as a Morningstar could), nor use sword-technics like the Mordhau or Halbschwert..and “cutting a knight in half”?? Samurais did not use Lightswords! ).
4.And last but most importanly, that you are completely unable to learn, even if real knowledge would hit you right on the head. You keep bringing the same “arguments” that have been made several times in this thread (which you obviously did not read, neither before or after commenting), even after proven wrong. When somebody tries to steer you in the right direction you simply ignore it and do not spend 5 second do to any research into matter. Pak Nationalist just few weeks ago came here to this thread with pretty much the same views you had, yet he did two things differently. He read and learnt from the things other wrote, and was polite while doing so.

You are not here to learn, nor to discuss. You are here to preach. And when the masses do not follow your messages...simply because they know you are wrong you get a little fit...but hey you said you were interested in weaponry, so let me introduce you to another weapon. Not really ancient, but very handy nonetheless:

The Banhammer.

[Mihais]

Really? are we really going to ignor that before Lechfeldt the Magyars basically ran wild throughout Europe for nearly half a century?? and that 4 decades before Lechfeld they crushed the last East Carloginian army around the same area? you cite Doryleaum but you ignor say...

Battle of Melitene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Where Bohemond was basically destroyed and captured alive? not to meantion the even more disastorous Crusade of 1101 after that?

I don't see how anything I wrote is somehow in contradiction with your point below,or the historical truth.My response was to a very specific question,the sort that suggested exactly what both you and I oppose-the fact that A always better than B.I didn't ignore Bohemund's defeat,nor the Hungarian(or for that matter other nomads) victories.They simply weren't the subject.

War is a complicated matter, with the exception of some extreme circumstances (most of them in the last 500 years, starting with the Spanish invasion of the Americas) war was never really a A is superior to B issue, it was not just a issue of who's bigger, who's stronger, who's got better weapons, who's got better xxxx ... it's a highly complicated matter of many variables.

Since it's nitpicking time ,La Noche triste. peace:hug:

[Mihais]

The Banhammer.

I think this weapon marks its debut in your hands,ohh,Luciferous one.:hammer:

[sappersgt]

The Banhammer
:notworthy:

[Big K]

sniff sniff...i smell Warhammer players?... :))

[Officer of Engineers]

I think that end up being an over statement,

I don't think so. Japanese intent was to conquer all of Asia up to and including India. They were checked by a non-even a half Ming measure. You seriously trying to tell me that had the Ming put the entire effort that Japan had a chance?

Meanwhile, the same could be said in WW2, the Japanese have limited resource to work with, and a good portion of their military leaders are well aware of their limitations and thus attempted to play it accordinly, that was why they never really attempted to attack Siberia despite the Soviets beging entierly commited to it's western front, that's why their policy on the Pacific once war with the Americans began was to try and overwhelm with sudden surprise attacks and keep pushing at all cost, because they realise they'll never win in a sustained war.

The entire war lasted less than 60 days meaning the IJA did not even had a clue to modern warfare. The Soviets did in less than 60 days what Stillwell, Chiang, Mac, and Slims failed in 5 years.

[Officer of Engineers]

IIRC there was another show where they highlighted Japanese archery. I questioned the low draw weights. I thought at the time it spoke volumes about what kind of opposition they faced and the armor they wore.

When I was in my teens, I fell in love with Bruce Lee and then the Ninjas, a kid who did know any better but I also hunted. Then I saw a Martial Arts magazine who professed the Ninjas were also masters of the muskets. Here I was a 16 year old kid who was shooting the .30-30 for 3 years straight and even I knew the musket can't compete and this freaking magazine is trying to tell me that a Ninja with a musket is deadlier than me with a .30-30. Even training wise, the ninja could only managed 100 shots a day with a musket. I do that in an hour. It was then that it dawn on me that this was all horse crap. Don't get me wrong. In HTH, these are some of the best masters the earth has ever seen ... but when it comes to weapons? There's a reason we're not training with katanas.

On topic, I was invited to a samuari demonstration. One of them was archery. I used to hunt with archery. I saw how the Kyūdō masters were drawing their arrows, ie holding the arrows instead of the string. That alone tells me that the draw weight was weak, in fact, not even legal for hunting purposes. The Kyūdō master was hitting his target, I say half inch groupings from 20 metres out. I went to my car, got my BLACKWIDOW, handed it to him. Could not even draw 15 inch and the grouping was 10-20 inch.

[RollingWave]

I don't think so. Japanese intent was to conquer all of Asia up to and including India. They were checked by a non-even a half Ming measure. You seriously trying to tell me that had the Ming put the entire effort that Japan had a chance?
.

It depends, there are plenty of variable to this, if you mean their ultimate objective, then then answer is obviously NO, but on a more limited prospective (for example conquering Korea or at least half of Korea) then I could see some possbility.

The single biggest factor in all this was the logistics, the Japanese were badly hampered by the Korean Navy and could not freely transport logistics and troops . which had severe limitations on their troops movement capacity. take that away and the situation would become much more interesting.

Meanwhile, the Chinese in the two war seem to have commited about as much troop as it was logistically feasable for them. I've read the compliation of letter by the chief administrator of the the 92-93 period and much of the first hand sources on the 97-98 period as well, the general message the Chinese had was pretty clear... they were badly stressed logistically with the number of troops they had in the region, Korea's infrastructure at that point was terrible, the roads were crap and the ports were limited (and most of the better onces were lost to the Japanese for the duration of the war). In the first war this was espeically evident (due to the complete lack of preparation on both the Korean part and the Chinese) . The Army lead by Li Ru Song was hardly big by the standard of Chinese armies, (it was about 36,000). yet they basically ran out of supplies after they retook PyongYang and shortly after that Kaesong, the situation was so bad that the armies was essentially going on protest against order to move foward, and the large part of the Song YingChang (the administrator in charged)'s letter in the early half of 1593 was a frantic struggle to get supplies over to his army, he even wrote things like they had no salt etc...

BTW, the army retook both PyongYang and Kaesong (the #2 and #3 largest city in Korea at that time) within half a month of crossing into Korea, looking at Song's letter he had planned and anticipated for the Koreans to supply them for the most part after they cross the river, so that obviously didn't happen. The Chinese also apparently blew most of their rockets and gunpowders in retaking PyongYang, and was several letter ranted on the apalling state of the Korean roads. noting that their caravan was essentially "stuck in the mud". Later on one of their more experienced general was nearly court martialed after he and his men got into a violent incident where Korean refugee tried to raid the Chinese logisitics for food etc...)


Part of the problem of course was the Korea itself was not prepared for war, they apparently had extremely limited storage of food prepared for war and what they did have was taken by the japanese before the Ming troops enter the war anyway. and the Ming's entrance in the dead of winter meant that there were no source of food that's going to be comming anytime soon. so the Ming had to fend for themself (and fend off attempts of Korean refugees raiding their logistic trains...)

During the peace talk period, the Ming had repeatedly requested the Koreans to let them setup Military Farms around Seoul so they can prepare food supplies in case of another war, but the Koreans obviously saw this as a threat to their soverignty and rejected repeated request . thus forcing the Ming to only leave a light garrison in the Korea before the outbreak of the second war (it was south of 20,000, and only 3,000 men was stationed close to the front line... 3,000! not surprinsgly all 3,000 of them were immediately killed in the start of the second war) and had to again hastily reinforce after the war broke out.

So in essence, the point is that the Chinese had it's own issue and were often hamstrung by the Koreans, and they also have the vast majority of troops committed against the Mongolian front for obvious reasons, while the South West another major rebellion was brewing. given all theses issues. IF say... the Koreans executed Yi Sun Shin instead of just imprisioning him... or IF Yi had ran into some other accident in other battles.. there was certainly a possibility that the Korean's loss of naval supremecy in late 97 would not have been recovered, which certainly would have certainly changed the prospect of war quite a bit . the Naval control played a very large role in the war, for example in the Ming's first counterattack of the second war... right around the turn of 97/98, they had surronded and trapped one of the most aggressive Japanese general in Ulsan and had all his food and even water supply cut off, but on the brink of victory a japan force sailed around them and landed to their north while another force tried to relieve from the south, of course they also had the luck of heavy rain that the Ming did not fully detect these two relieve attachment comming, and also the rain and some other stroke of luck caused the Chinese to go from what was suppose to be a orderly retreat to a fullblown rout. While in one of the final siege, the main Japanese army was terriblly threatened despite the lack of much siege equipment on the Chinese side, because the combined Chinese / Korean fleet was also hitting them from the rear.

In one of Song YingChang's early letters, he noted that "The Northern guards only defends the walls to their north and not the coast to their south, they are prepared to fight nomads on their horses but not against pirates on their ships" a generally good summary of the situation the Chinese were faced with during that period.

[astralis]

The entire war lasted less than 60 days meaning the IJA did not even had a clue to modern warfare. The Soviets did in less than 60 days what Stillwell, Chiang, Mac, and Slims failed in 5 years.

i don't know if we can make that comparison; Stillwell and Slims didn't have the resources that were afforded to the Soviet invasion, whereas Mac was trying to seize one island at a time, playing precisely to Japanese prediliction for last stands and entrenchment, both of which mean death in a manuever environment.

wonder how Stillwell or Slims would do if they were commanding that Soviet army.

[Officer of Engineers]

i don't know if we can make that comparison; Stillwell and Slims didn't have the resources that were afforded to the Soviet invasion,

Which makes the point even stronger. The Japanese knew their American and British enemies well, even when they were losing. They were litterally blindsided by the Soviets in every sense of the word. Every plan they had might as well had been written on toilet paper.

wonder how Stillwell or Slims would do if they were commanding that Soviet army.

Probably just as good but Stillwell was tied by Chiang and Slims would step out of the way for someone more experienced.

[gunnut]

When I was in my teens, I fell in love with Bruce Lee and then the Ninjas, a kid who did know any better but I also hunted. Then I saw a Martial Arts magazine who professed the Ninjas were also masters of the muskets. Here I was a 16 year old kid who was shooting the .30-30 for 3 years straight and even I knew the musket can't compete and this freaking magazine is trying to tell me that a Ninja with a musket is deadlier than me with a .30-30. Even training wise, the ninja could only managed 100 shots a day with a musket. I do that in an hour. It was then that it dawn on me that this was all horse crap. Don't get me wrong. In HTH, these are some of the best masters the earth has ever seen ... but when it comes to weapons? There's a reason we're not training with katanas.

Same exact reason why I think Ironman would beat up Batman

Maybe we should have another vs. thread...

On topic, I was invited to a samuari demonstration. One of them was archery. I used to hunt with archery. I saw how the Kyūdō masters were drawing their arrows, ie holding the arrows instead of the string. That alone tells me that the draw weight was weak, in fact, not even legal for hunting purposes. The Kyūdō master was hitting his target, I say half inch groupings from 20 metres out. I went to my car, got my BLACKWIDOW, handed it to him. Could not even draw 15 inch and the grouping was 10-20 inch.

Ouch! I don't know anything about archery but I know I have never seen anyone drawing the bow by holding the arrow.

[Tarek Morgen]

Another reason I don't see Samurais winning this...I simply asked myself the question who would fare better in a Zombie Apocalypse...and there is no doubt that Knights would do far better.

@Gunnut

not exactly the same, but we did have recently a discussion about Batman versus Superman.
Also there are several upcoming "vs" movies which include:

Cowboys versus Ninjas
Cowboys versus Aliens (with Harrison Ford nonetheless)
Yamato (the WWII Battleship) versus Alien Invaders...in space

[Pak Nationalist]

A. Neither the Berber tribes nor the Andalusians really practiced horse archery

Yeah, I shouldn't have used that example. Thanks for noticing.