LogFAQs > #904340607

P4wn4g3 posted...

Honestly a pike or Halbert fight would be more fair in this situation. I think the Samurai would probably win there since it is much closer to fencing or dueling. Most ranged weapons would favor the samurai.

Actually, probably not. The equivalent weapon for the samurai would be the Naginata, which is still a slashing weapon, whereas the knight would have access to poleaxes, two handed hammers, picks, etc.

I'll just sum up what I've said so far;

In the scenario the TC presented, the knight would win simply because he specified that the samurai would use a katana, which would be useless against plate and chain-mail, the two main parts of armor used by knights.

If we are comparing their entire existence, however, the samurai has a slight advantage in that the knight as a military class waned during the advent of gunpowder (largely due to the fact that even primitive muskets shred armor), whereas the samurai openly adopted and innovated gunpowder weapons and tactics (for example, Oda Nobunaga developed a system with three men to a musket which allowed them to rapid fire despite the long load time and temperamental nature of early arquebuses). However, it's important to note that early firearms relied on firing en masse, they had basically no accuracy until the advent of rifling (which was invented during the 17th century in Europe and didn't see common use until the 19th century, after the age of the samurai).

If we are talking about pure pre-gunpowder weapons, the knight still has an advantage because they have weapons that pierce armor (since they mostly fought other knights) whereas even the most skilled samurai would have trouble finding a chink in their armor. At long range, the samurai would have a serious advantage, due to their training with the Yumi bow (which could likely pierce most armor if the draw weight was comparable to any other 100+ lbs war bows). However, due to the fact that the samurai often fought in light armor or against unarmored enemies, their weapons favor slashing weapons that cause heavy bleeding or can detach limbs, which are largely useless against armor, especially since unlike samurai armor, the jointing of the armor itself was armored and pliable chain-mail was worn underneath. On horseback, the knight would likely have the edge as well since he has access to so many different polearms (halberds, poleaxes, war-hammers, lances, bardisches, etc).

This talk of agility or speed is largely null because that has more to do with conditioning than standard equipment. Training, as well, doesn't really matter because both where born into it and were trained from youth to fight.

So basically, the knights armor gives him an advantage in pretty much all situations at close to medium range, whereas the samurai gains a slight advantage at long range, which is significantly greater if they are allowed access to arquebuses (with the caveat that they would still need a lucky shot). Of course, this whole argument relies on the interpretation of a knight as a purely military unit, as knighthood later transitioned to more of a societal title than a military one around when guns started to be used en masse.