LogFAQs > #904319411

FreshSushi posted...

considering a typical samurai would be a head shorter than your typical knight while working with inferior iron and a poorer breed of horse i'd say no

Samurai actually had steel.

Well, that's weird to say. Both 'units' had access to steel during some point in their existence. The samurai and the knights both existed for long periods of time. For knights it is roughly between the 9th and 16th century. The samurai, however, existed from around the 7th century until the 19th century. Knights generally refer specifically to the military class with nobles being a separate distinction, whereas samurai referred both to the military caste and the nobility, so that means that while knights evolved into different types of soldiers (such as dragoons), samurai remained samurai even when tactics and equipment changed. This means that samurai, as a whole, would have access to firearms in the later periods.

However, in this scenario, he doesn't give a time period, so it's harder to say. He also specifies that the samurai had a katana, which is factually useless against chain mail, giving the knight a significant advantage.