Me and a buddy watched Excalibur at work last night. He made a comment to the effect that a Samurai would eat up a Knight from the Dark ages. I argued just to stay awake. My main points were the Europeans would be bigger and have bigger swords, plus the armor would probably help them stay alive long enough to kill the Samurai. What do you guys think?
My friend was getting pissed that I would even question his logic. Samurai highly trained, faster, smaller target, sharper swords.
He is Mexican, I am a Native American(Cherokee). Neither of us had a dog in the fight as far as heritage was concerned. But the arguement became heated and almost came to blows.
Pfft, no chance. Anyone who has to rely on that much plastic armour simply to play a game, would stand no chance against a decent, hardened, rugby player.
You're suggesting the American footie player would actually be wearing his padding during the fight??
Regardless, i still take the rugby player. Get a grip on the face guard and drag that boy about til it comes off, then hit him with aforesaid helmet. Piece of piss... :D
Well there are many facts to consider. Samurai were mostly trained to attack and die with honor. European swordmanship is extremely defensive. The object is to live another day. Katana were forged with an edge that was usually so hard that it was to brittle to parry. European swords are designed to take a hit. Samurai armour was designed more for psycological warfare, European for glancing blows. Both were trained rigorously since childhood for battle. Both were the best at what they did. But the actual arts are really not that diffferent. The difference seems to be the mindset and philosophy they each brought to the fight. Basically it comes down to the individual not the style. Musashi was probably the closest to the European way.
German swordsmanship was anything but defensive--the whole point was to take or regain the initiative to control the fight, and every defensive action was designed to enable you to immediately threaten your opponent to force him onto the defensive. Edge on edge parrying is an enormous debate right now, but suffice it to say European swords also had to be hard enough to stay sharp in battle.
European plate armor is impervious to any sword out there, katana mythology notwithstanding. The weak places are the joints, and even they were usually covered with maille and thus needed a good point to penetrate. Hence the emphasis on halfswording in longsword fighting. Although the katana can thrust, it is primarily a cutting weapon and because of the curve is less efficient on the thrust. This yields a technical disadvantage in getting through European armor.
This whole discussion is rather like who would win, Superman or Spiderman. It's a moot point that can never really be resolved. The comparison can be interesting, but the mythology surrounding especially samurai and katanas makes it difficult to have a rational discussion of the issues.
I love this topic it is all conjecture but the fact is Asian countries do not have a martial heritage superior to western ones and even the samurai were not infalliable, they suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of the mongolians. The Japanese thought the U.S. would b an easy kill in WWII because we had no warrior heritage, they were wrong. The fact is Eupopeans if they did lose would adjust, change and learn to win. Late European armour had superior coverage to Samurai armor. Katana's are awesome swords. Also are we talking dual or military conflict. Fighting in a group differs greatly than a one on one dual
"The Japanese thought the U.S. would b an easy kill in WWII because we had no warrior heritage, they were wrong."
-Their top admiral was quoted to say somthing along the lines of "awaking a sleeping giant" about attacking Pearl Harbour. Their political leaders sold them a bag a shit like political leaders do.
The point I found interesting is the lack of development the Japanese Samurai exhibited. When Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay the Japanese war arts still centered around archery, pike and sword. The Japanese were frozen in time. The Europeans moved on to the gun, a much more effective weapon.