European Knight vs Asian Samurai

[Hunter368]

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

The samurai with his speed and training, as well as his finer tuned sword and expert bow and arrow, would make short work out of the knight...

Hands down agree with you Dan. Knight has a horse.....Samurai shoots him with his bow......Longbow pentrates his armor with ease.

In hand to hand the Samurai is so quick and light on his feet.....the knight will get tired quickly and the Samurai finishes with ease not to mention the knights vison is hindered compared to the Samurai.

This has been well covered guys in Midevil books and history shows and shows on Midevil times. Knights lose every time.

Not to mention if you have trained in hand to hand combat you know how important stamia and mobility is, without either you are done for. I know, if you want to know more about hand to hand fighting check out my link in my sig.

[Glider]

The main plus for the Samuri is the Bow. My son knows what he is talking about re Archery and in a number of ways the Samuri Bow is as good as the Longbow, lacking some penetration, plus can be fired accurately from a moving horse.

Sorens postings (which I found excellent) indicate that on foot it could be a close run thing. So with the bow, the Samuri has a significant advantage.

[mkloby]

Soren - why don't you think 40 pounds or so is heavy? I have found your numbers to be slightly below most averages of plate armor. Plate armor, combined with the chain is going to offer good defense against the sam sword.

Les - you mentioned the samurai's training, but European Knights were professional warriors, it's not as though they were the same as men-at-arms.

There's the samurai's bow, but in reality that wouldn't make all too much of a difference because knights would likely have the support of archers (preferably the English longbowman!) The fight needs to be placed in context. With that said, in a hypothetical one-on-one melee, I believe the Knight would cut the samurai down like grass.

Hunter - experiments have shown that penetration of late medieval plate armor by the english lonbow was only moderately effective at extremely close range. This is largely believed due to "the english longbowmen mowing down the french knighthood at agincourt." There's much evidence that it didn't happen that way... it's a good debate though, what do you think?

Desert FOx - I wouldn't say hands down samurai would win with equal armor. That would entail a totally different type of melee that he was not trained for - and he's still get bowled over!

[Matt308]

Medieval Knights typically fought either from horse on the ground in groups. Knights were notoriously vulnerable to rear attacks if caught alone, were slow, and subject to fairly quick fatigue with full plate armour.

The Samurai meanwhile, in a one on one fight could either as Les noted make use of their great bows of which plate was high vulnerable, or enter a swordfight of stamina which the Knight would surely lose to a skilled Samurai.

Samurai hands down.

[mkloby]

Originally Posted by Matt308

Medieval Knights typically fought either from horse on the ground in groups. Knights were notoriously vulnerable to rear attacks if caught alone, were slow, and subject to fairly quick fatigue with full plate armour.

The Samurai meanwhile, in a one on one fight could either as Les noted make use of their great bows of which plate was high vulnerable, or enter a swordfight of stamina which the Knight would surely lose to a skilled Samurai.

Samurai hands down.

What evidence do you have that plate armor was vulnerable? I think that the bow is moot, for the reason stated above... the fictitious account would have to be in context. Most European armies had separate ranks as archers, which is a different approach.

[Matt308]

The Long Bow was well known to be capable of penetrating plate armour. And Samurai typically trained extensively with his daikyu (great bow) which was up to 7 feet in length. In addition to the typical broadhead arrows, Samurai also made use of armour piercing narrow spike head arrows.

[Hunter368]

With the Knights limited vision, wearing armor......he would not even be able to keep the Samurai in front of him. Samurai does not need to penatrate his armor with his sword, there is many open spots in the front and rear of armor where Samurai would hit him.

Again the stamia of the Knight would quickly slow down his movements, don't believe me? When was the last time you actually fought a real person hand to hand......your stamia dies quickly (try swinging a sword around now while wearing armor not easy). Samurai would just defend himself for first few minutes using his sword and quick movement until Knight tired then Samurai finishes him off......like fish in a barrel.

[Hunter368]

Originally Posted by mkloby

What evidence do you have that plate armor was vulnerable? I think that the bow is moot, for the reason stated above... the fictitious account would have to be in context. Most European armies had separate ranks as archers, which is a different approach.

The arrows did have a hard time penetraing the chest plate (and only if it was of top quality), I agree. But not the rest of his armor or his horse.............

Arrow threw the leg, arm, thigh..... still = death.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

My vote goes for the Samurai. While the Knight is certainly not a pushover and are brave warriors in there own right. The Samurai was quicker and more mobile and in that I give him the advantage and the victory.

The both belong on there own battlefields.

This ofcourse is just one one one.

I think if you had 100 Knights in there armour on there horses versus 100 Samurai the Knights would come out victorious but one on one the Samurai takes it.

[mkloby]

Originally Posted by Matt308

The Long Bow was well known to be capable of penetrating plate armour. And Samurai typically trained extensively with his daikyu (great bow) which was up to 7 feet in length. In addition to the typical broadhead arrows, Samurai also made use of armour piercing narrow spike head arrows.

All evidence seems to say the opposite of the long bow. Greatly overestimated accounts of its armor penetration likely from agincourt.

[Smokey]

High ranking samurai fought on horseback too



http://www.steppenreiter.de/images/h...i_speed_70.jpg

[mkloby]

how is the samurai to deal with the knight's lance??? he can easily be dismounted...

[Smokey]

There was the cavalry yari

[Glider]

Originally Posted by mkloby

how is the samurai to deal with the knight's lance??? he can easily be dismounted...

The Bow has a longer range than the Lance and its the knight who would be easily dismounted.

The secret of the Longows penetration was down to the quality of the steel in the armour, which differed hugely from person to person. The very best armour had a much better chance of deflecting the arrows, however Armour was very expensive and only the richest and wealthiest knights could afford the best.
The vast majority of knights were very open to death and injury from the longbow.

My son has a large book on the subject (540 pages) called The Great Warbow which I reccomend if anyone wants to go into this in greater detail.

[mkloby]

Originally Posted by Glider

The Bow has a longer range than the Lance and its the knight who would be easily dismounted.

The secret of the Longows penetration was down to the quality of the steel in the armour, which differed hugely from person to person. The very best armour had a much better chance of deflecting the arrows, however Armour was very expensive and only the richest and wealthiest knights could afford the best.
The vast majority of knights were very open to death and injury from the longbow.

My son has a large book on the subject (540 pages) called The Great Warbow which I reccomend if anyone wants to go into this in greater detail.

Good post. I don't think the experiments I've heard of have taken that into account, now that you mention it. I will see about that. You're probably right in that they likely used very high quality armor, which may account for the longbow's extremely poor penetration.

This is a good thread. I guess in the sense of "one on one" the whole bow issue is legit. However, it exposes different approaches to warfare. The question of one on one is not indicative of actual combat effectiveness. Here's an interesting twist. What about Turcopoles - some Knights adapted to the mid eastern climate, and these Knights did carry bows, in addition to being more lightly armed and armored and carried similar loads.