Current Events > Skilled katana user vs inexperienced person with a gun

(+) Yeah! (+)

I can't believe people are talking about range advantage like it's significantly harder to shoot a man point blank than it is to swing a sword at them. As a matter of fact it's the easier kill at all ranges.

"But he's inexperienced" you don't need experience to pull a trigger

Also being an expert with a katana offers no functional advantages here. You don't need to be an expert to hit someone with a sword. You only need to be an expert to parry, dodge, and know when it is safe to strike.

Against a gun man, you cannot parry or dodge, you can only hope they miss, consequently it is always "safe" to strike, because they cannot parry you and any retaliation isn't something you'd be able to defend against anyway.

If it's a shotgun or handgun, then gun, almost 100%. Guns were designed to just hand over to any yahoo with very little training and have them be a more effective killer than 99% of armies though human history. You just point and pull the trigger enough and there's a very good chance you'll put down what you're aiming at.

Bolt actions require a bit more finesse to shoot properly, so I could actually see someone with a melee weapon getting in close on that one

Depends how close they are to each other.

If by" inexperienced" you mean they don't know how to switch the safety off? Or just that they've never shot a person before?

Assuming it's not the former, the gunman wins.

Depends how close they are to each other.

in their dominant hand, safety off

They fired a gun once 10 years ago, at a target.

the fact that so many caveats have to be put in place for the sword-user to have a chance is telling.

I mean, it really depends how inexperienced and what state the gun is in to begin with. Like, not knowing how to take the safety off is something I can see if they've never touched a gun and start with the safety on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV9iLHOTAaI&ab_channel=oscararias

I feel like there was a Mythbusters about this.

That's not true when you look at history and what people who utilized firearms wrote. The myth of untrained bands of men armed with guns is mostly a myth. In truth guns were considered the weapons of the professional, and Tudor England war veterans and authors stressed the importance of training men armed with firearms. First because firearms could be dangerous if not wielded properly and second men had to to know how to reload and perform maneuvers under the stress of combat which isn't a simple thing at all.

In fact weapons people often associate with training and practice, like bows, were considered weapons to quickly arm men when not enough guns were around for being simple to use.

This always goes back to the Tueller drill. The only thing the katana changes is the added range over a knife.

Tueller found that the average healthy adult male, running with a knife or other contact weapon in hand, can cover a distance of seven yards in about 1.5 seconds the time it takes the average officer to draw a sidearm and place two hits center-mass on a man-size target 21 feet away.

It's been covered in dozens, if not hundreds of youtube video demonstrations (usually by someone with a airsoft gun). It was also covered in an episode of Mythbusters.

In the episode, At 20 ft (6.1 m), the gun-wielder was able to shoot the charging knife attacker just as he reached the shooter. At shorter distances the knife wielder was always able to stab prior to being shot. So the katana essentially adds a couple of feet.

The other advantage the katana has over the knife is if the wielder has Iai training (drawing and cutting as one action), which would mean they don't have to have their weapon already drawn when they begin their charge. So with Tueller's rule being 21 feet I'd place the katana at 23 to 24 feet. Any further, sword guy dies, any closer, gun guy dies.

Again, assuming the average Joe is as proficient as the average trained officer. Also assuming the best strategy is to just rush in a straight line

I don't really get the Tueller drill stuff though. That seems to be measuring more like reaction speed? What if instead of a knife, the assailant in the drill also had a gun? Do you think he'd be more or less dangerous?

It would depend on whether they had already drawn.

The Tueller drill assumes the knife user already has the weapon out and is poised to strike. It's not just a reaction speed test, but a test of the time to complete the three actions of draw, aim, and fire. If the attacker was "poised" with a gun, suggesting they had already drawn and aimed, they would automatically win as all they have left is "fire." If they need to complete all three steps, it becomes a draw

The very first time I picked up a gun in my life I hit 8/10 clay pigeons. I wasn't even in high school at the time. Aiming is not that hard, and clay pigeons are much smaller and faster moving targets than a dude with a sword.

Also to add on to this mass guns didn't always mean sure victory. For example the Protestant infantry during the French War of Religion were armed with firearms, and as noted by one French captain, should've prevailed over French pikemen but that wasn't the case. Instead despite the mass usage of guns pikemen were able to break firearm infantry despite the need to close in on them because the stress of combat greatly diminishes the accuracy of firearms. Early firearms inaccuracy is greatly exaggerated, instead writers, which often included war veterans, praised them for their accuracy, range and killing power. What often happens is that the stress and smoke during combat causes a fall in accuracy, something that was even noted by a French captain, his name escapes me, during the Franco-Prussian Wars with infantry armed with bolt action rifles.

Which loops back to the thread at hand, inexperience + stress can greatly diminish the ability to hit a target as seen in history even when it involves professional infantry armed with rifles.

tudor era firearms weren't nearly as easy to use as guns today though and reloading them was an actual concern.

obviously someone who doesn't know a single thing about guns could potentially lose in this scenario, but it depends on the kind of gun used. if they are using a sawed off shotgun they just have to point in the general direction of the katana user. starting distance also great matters. if they are 5 feet away the katana wielder would have a good chance against an incompetent gun wielder. if they are 20+ feet it somewhat depends on the gun and just how incompetent the gun wielder is but they would have a big advantage.

Guns were designed to just hand over to any yahoo with very little training and have them be a more effective killer than 99% of armies though human history. You just point and pull the trigger enough and there's a very good chance you'll put down what you're aiming at.

If they were in melee range, likely the sword-wielder, especially if they start with weapons sheathed.

I don't have to draw the pistol into a firing stance to use it. That close I can clear the holster, turn my wrist, and pull the trigger, then I can start making space before the recover from the realization I just shot them in the gut