Historical Swordfighting

OK, first up we got the common internet challenge of a Samurai versus a Medieval Knight:




I used to think that if both had equal skill a Samurai would always win because the katana was razor sharp as opposed to the blunt edged longsword. But after watching many of these videos and reading books on the subject Im now convinced that the Knight would actually beat a Samurai assuming their skills were equal.

Why? Because while a katana was razor sharp, it was also brittle and would probably bend when hitting plate armor or when parried by a heavier sword. European swords, while blunt, were actually flexible and could take repeated blows in parrying and fencing while a katana was more of a one attack weapon and wasnt really much of a fencing blade- also Samurai armor was pretty much wood and leather and a katana was designed to pierce that while knights had heavy plate and chainmail underneath, unless a katana was used against a weak link, the blow would be stopped by the heavy plate armor of the knight and might even be bent by it. Thoughts? :mrgreen:

Another interesting point is the debate between rapiers and longswords. In many fighting circles the image of a man fighting in a light rapier is sort of girly/womanly while a person wielding a heavy two handed longsword was considered a man's man. But these two videos clearly shows that a skilled fencer with rapier (or dual armed with rapier and dagger) can successfully fight against an opponent armed with a heavy macho longsword. So I guess the people in the Renaissance were just as deadly as their steel plate armored counterparts in the middle ages. Thoughts? :mrgreen:

Oh and here is an informative and amusing video about drawing swords both in history and Hollywood. :2razz:

Well... dooh.

I mean, there is also a huge difference in combat styles. The katana wasn't made to trade blows with another sword. It was made for quick execution maneuvers. If you look at the japanesse fighting styles, the focus was on killing the other person in as few moves as possible. Now this was possible because Japanesse combat was only with other japanesse. So there was reason to develop weaponry or armor or combat warfare for a variety of enemies.
Now take also into consideration that general equipment of japanesse armies. The katana was rare. It wasn't the standard weapon of choice. The majority of soldiers had spears, wooden spears most of the times and only later on did metal tipped spears became the norm. Not all samurais had a proper katana and not all katanas were made equally.

This is in opposition to european warfare which was quite varied and had to face off against a variety of fighting styles and enemies. So you needed something that was universally good. Because some enemies fought in some ways, others fought in other ways. You met swords, spears, axes, maces, flails, pikes, halberds, everything you can think about on the battlefield and you had to trade blows with these things.


Another misconception is that knightly armor was rigid and prevented movement. While this was up to a point, starting with the XIIIth century onward, but more prominently in the XVth century, full body armor was quite versatile and offered a great deal of mobility.

So to give you an idea, XVth century Europe was the time of the Renaissance while in Japan it was Sengoku period. Both times of many wars.
Sengoku, ofc, a series of conflicts whose result was the rise to power in Japan of the Tokugawa dynasty.
In Europe, a lot of things happened, France became the dominant power after winning the 100 years war with England, the Ottomans and the Holy League were duking it out on epic scales all over eastern europe and the balkans, Spain was taking over southern italy and making itself a presence near the Papacy, lot of wars of all kinds with all sorts of weapons.
But if you look at the way these wars were fought, you can see why the katana, while indeed a nice sword, would not do well in Europe -> it would break, it would become dull from hitting well designed armor and shields, while the european longswords would be good enough in Japan.

I have had this discussion several times, Part of my ill spent youth
was spent participating with the SCA.
From a historical perspective, the Samurai were only trained to face other Samurai,
The Japanese being an isolated society, did not have a lot of experience with other styles.
During the Mongol invasion of Japan, the Samurai did not do well against the Mongol warriors.
Mongol invasions of Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rainman05 said:

But if you look at the way these wars were fought, you can see why the katana, while indeed a nice sword, would not do well in Europe -> it would break, it would become dull from hitting well designed armor and shields, while the european longswords would be good enough in Japan.

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I read up (or watched, I dont remember) about the evolution of Japanese swordsmanship and there was an interesting hypothesis namely that there wasnt much iron in Japan so you couldnt make a lot of steel weapons and even worse, steel armor was nigh impossible to make hence the reason why the Katana became the super sharp (but brittle) weapon that it is and why the samurai would focus on the single killing stroke in their duels as opposed to European fencing techniques.

longview said:

I have had this discussion several times, Part of my ill spent youth
was spent participating with the SCA.
From a historical perspective, the Samurai were only trained to face other Samurai,
The Japanese being an isolated society, did not have a lot of experience with other styles.
During the Mongol invasion of Japan, the Samurai did not do well against the Mongol warriors.
Mongol invasions of Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Yeah I was one of these naive young men who thought the katana was the greatest sword in history and regularly engaged in internet debates about it in other forums- plus I was biased before because I love samurai movies. But after more knowledge and reflection, I feel that the knight was just or even more dangerous.

PoS said:

I read up (or watched, I dont remember) about the evolution of Japanese swordsmanship and there was an interesting hypothesis namely that there wasnt much iron in Japan so you couldnt make a lot of steel weapons and even worse, steel armor was nigh impossible to make hence the reason why the Katana became the super sharp (but brittle) weapon that it is and why the samurai would focus on the single killing stroke in their duels as opposed to European fencing techniques.

Click to expand...

Japan has plenty of iron.
Mining in Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
90 million tons of iron were mined from Japan alone, so from mainland japan, during the interbellic period. So, yeah. 90 million tones are enough to use... for a loooong, loong time by pre-industrial eras. And ofc, that's not all the iron in japan. It's just the quickest answer I could find about japan iron. I knew they had a lot for the needs of pre-industrial japan which because I learned about it long time ago.
The ratio according to this is 3-1 iron ore to steel kg.
How much iron ore is needed to produce one ton of steel
So lets roll with this answer. An average armor is about 20kg. Lets make it 25 for good measure.
So that means that just 1 ton would be good for 40 full suits of armor.
Which means that 1 mil tons would be enough for 40 mil full suits of armor.
Now we don't know how many people lived in Japan in the sengoku era because they never kept records on such things. The first census was done only after the Meiji revolution happened and they started westernizing.

The problem was not the fact that it doesn't have enough iron. It was because they didn't made metallurgical advances and didn't employ ironworking in all areas of life where it could be needed. I blame lack of imagination because they had an isolationist, insular mentality and whatever they had going on was "good enough" to get them going on. They perfected what they had and rarely bother making up new stuff.

Rainman05 said:

Japan has plenty of iron.
Mining in Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
90 million tons of iron were mined from Japan alone, so from mainland japan, during the interbellic period. So, yeah. 90 million tones are enough to use... for a loooong, loong time by pre-industrial eras. And ofc, that's not all the iron in japan. It's just the quickest answer I could find about japan iron. I knew they had a lot for the needs of pre-industrial japan which because I learned about it long time ago.
The ratio according to this is 3-1 iron ore to steel kg.
How much iron ore is needed to produce one ton of steel
So lets roll with this answer. An average armor is about 20kg. Lets make it 25 for good measure.
So that means that just 1 ton would be good for 40 full suits of armor.
Which means that 1 mil tons would be enough for 40 mil full suits of armor.
Now we don't know how many people lived in Japan in the sengoku era because they never kept records on such things. The first census was done only after the Meiji revolution happened and they started westernizing.

The problem was not the fact that it doesn't have enough iron. It was because they didn't made metallurgical advances and didn't employ ironworking in all areas of life where it could be needed. I blame lack of imagination because they had an isolationist, insular mentality and whatever they had going on was "good enough" to get them going on. They perfected what they had and rarely bother making up new stuff.

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Good points but the stats your using pertains to modern methods of mining iron ore. Did the Japanese back in the day have access to that kind of technology?

Based on the wikipedia article the main source of iron in medieval Japan was from iron sand, that actually had a lower percentage of iron compared to mining iron cores. So that may have played a role in the creation of the katana.

Early Japanese iron-working techniques - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On the Rapier vs long Sword, I have played with this a bit.
The Rapier needs a strong back to turn a broadsword.
What I found was the broadsword guys tend to be big and fast,
not rapier fast, but fast enough.
The times I beat them tended to be with draw cuts.
Most people will parry the lunge, but start their riposte before your blade is clear.
Side step, lift the blade to the groin or underarm and draw.

PoS said:

Good points but the stats your using pertains to modern methods of mining iron ore. Did the Japanese back in the day have access to that kind of technology?

Based on the wikipedia article the main source of iron in medieval Japan was from iron sand, that actually had a lower percentage of iron compared to mining iron cores. So that may have played a role in the creation of the katana.

Early Japanese iron-working techniques - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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They didn't have a problem mining deep for gold and silver. It's quite easy to dig a great big hole in the ground or in the mountainside. All you need is the pickaxe and a shovel and not caring for putting a bunch of people through a horrid work. All 3 requirements were met in Japan only they decided to employ that in the hunt for riches rather than iron.



Japanese currency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The material for the coinage came from gold and silver mines across Japan. To this effect, gold mines were newly opened and exploited, such as the Sado gold mine or the Toi gold mine in Izu Peninsula. Regarding diamond coins, the Kan'ei tsūhō coin (寛永通宝) came to replace the Chinese coins that had been in circulation in Japan, as well as those that were privately minted, and became the legal tender for small denominations

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In the rest of the euroasian continent, mining was done for all minerals that had value. From China and Korea to India and all the through the ME and ending with Spain, mining in mountains as you would traditionally think about them and open cast mining was done for iron, gold, silver, copper and other metals and minerals.
Again, it wasn't lack of resources in Japan that caused them to have limited experience in metallurgy, it was lack of imagination.

Not to derail this thread, which I think is a really cool thread BTW, but... when I read the thread title on the main page, I thought it said "Hysterical Sword Fighting" which made a large number of visions run through my mind of what an hysterical sword fight may look like, accompanied by the music from the Benny Hill Show.

Carry on...

PoS said:

OK, first up we got the common internet challenge of a Samurai versus a Medieval Knight:




I used to think that if both had equal skill a Samurai would always win because the katana was razor sharp as opposed to the blunt edged longsword. But after watching many of these videos and reading books on the subject Im now convinced that the Knight would actually beat a Samurai assuming their skills were equal.

Why? Because while a katana was razor sharp, it was also brittle and would probably bend when hitting plate armor or when parried by a heavier sword. European swords, while blunt, were actually flexible and could take repeated blows in parrying and fencing while a katana was more of a one attack weapon and wasnt really much of a fencing blade- also Samurai armor was pretty much wood and leather and a katana was designed to pierce that while knights had heavy plate and chainmail underneath, unless a katana was used against a weak link, the blow would be stopped by the heavy plate armor of the knight and might even be bent by it. Thoughts? :mrgreen:

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These videos do not support your position. The samurai wins in the second video while the katana cuts with greater ease in the third video.

DDD said:

These videos do not support your position. The samurai wins in the second video while the katana cuts with greater ease in the third video.

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Uh, the second video is pretty much just an exhibition, it looks to me like the guy who was the knight in that video wasnt a very good fencer and he wasnt wearing a helm. The third video pretty much explains that you dont need a razor sharp sword to cut like a katana as the demonstrator does towards the end, all you need is weight, leverage and power, which the knights of old had a lot of.

Rainman05 said:

They didn't have a problem mining deep for gold and silver. It's quite easy to dig a great big hole in the ground or in the mountainside. All you need is the pickaxe and a shovel and not caring for putting a bunch of people through a horrid work. All 3 requirements were met in Japan only they decided to employ that in the hunt for riches rather than iron.



Japanese currency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



In the rest of the euroasian continent, mining was done for all minerals that had value. From China and Korea to India and all the through the ME and ending with Spain, mining in mountains as you would traditionally think about them and open cast mining was done for iron, gold, silver, copper and other metals and minerals.
Again, it wasn't lack of resources in Japan that caused them to have limited experience in metallurgy, it was lack of imagination.

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I disagree, the Japanese werent stupid and even though they were a closed society there were still some trade that was occurring so Im pretty sure they knew what kind of potential enemies and weapons they would have faced. If they did have access to a lot of iron then it would have been in use in other things rather than warfare if they were dumb enough but the fact is that even Japanese architecture was mostly wood based shows that metal (for war or otherwise) was in very short supply and that is why Katanas were made the way they were.

PoS said:

I disagree, the Japanese werent stupid and even though they were a closed society there were still some trade that was occurring so Im pretty sure they knew what kind of potential enemies and weapons they would have faced. If they did have access to a lot of iron then it would have been in use in other things rather than warfare if they were dumb enough but the fact is that even Japanese architecture was mostly wood based shows that metal (for war or otherwise) was in very short supply and that is why Katanas were made the way they were.

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I never said they're stupid. They clearly aren't and weren't stupid. They just lacked imagination in employing ironworking to all manner of things. They knew how to make iron armor, after all, they had lamellar armor. They just never made a lot of it. But lamellar ironworking is the equivalent of early medieval armor, basically it's classical-era armor by european standards, used by romans and visigoths and the sassanids and so on. Plate armor needs more developed metallurgy which the japanesse never got to in terms of armor technology. Not to mention chainmail which requires even more advanced metallurgical standards especially those that are resistant to gunpowder.

This doesn't mean that they're stupid, just lacked imagination. It worked well, there was no need to outcompete anyone because it was all among themselves and they weren't in a competition. It's basically what was going on with the Italian city states in northern italy. The rest of Europe had cannons while they never adopted cannons. Why? Because the northern italian city states were just fighting among themselves (when they did) and anyone from outside was either paid tribute to or they had some european influential power (like the papacy, Spain, or the austrian empire at some points) guaranteeing their independence. And when the French came in it was a piece of cake to conquer all of northern italy in the XVth century.

PoS said:

Uh, the second video is pretty much just an exhibition, it looks to me like the guy who was the knight in that video wasnt a very good fencer and he wasnt wearing a helm. The third video pretty much explains that you dont need a razor sharp sword to cut like a katana as the demonstrator does towards the end, all you need is weight, leverage and power, which the knights of old had a lot of.

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Not convincing. Why waste more leverage, weight, and power, when one could do that faster and better with a Katana?

PoS said:

OK, first up we got the common internet challenge of a Samurai versus a Medieval Knight:




I used to think that if both had equal skill a Samurai would always win because the katana was razor sharp as opposed to the blunt edged longsword. But after watching many of these videos and reading books on the subject Im now convinced that the Knight would actually beat a Samurai assuming their skills were equal.

Why? Because while a katana was razor sharp, it was also brittle and would probably bend when hitting plate armor or when parried by a heavier sword. European swords, while blunt, were actually flexible and could take repeated blows in parrying and fencing while a katana was more of a one attack weapon and wasnt really much of a fencing blade- also Samurai armor was pretty much wood and leather and a katana was designed to pierce that while knights had heavy plate and chainmail underneath, unless a katana was used against a weak link, the blow would be stopped by the heavy plate armor of the knight and might even be bent by it.

Thoughts?

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:mrgreen:

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What you say makes a lot of sense to me.

Rainman05 said:

I never said they're stupid. They clearly aren't and weren't stupid. They just lacked imagination in employing ironworking to all manner of things. They knew how to make iron armor, after all, they had lamellar armor. They just never made a lot of it. But lamellar ironworking is the equivalent of early medieval armor, basically it's classical-era armor by european standards, used by romans and visigoths and the sassanids and so on. Plate armor needs more developed metallurgy which the japanesse never got to in terms of armor technology. Not to mention chainmail which requires even more advanced metallurgical standards especially those that are resistant to gunpowder.

This doesn't mean that they're stupid, just lacked imagination. It worked well, there was no need to outcompete anyone because it was all among themselves and they weren't in a competition. It's basically what was going on with the Italian city states in northern italy. The rest of Europe had cannons while they never adopted cannons. Why? Because the northern italian city states were just fighting among themselves (when they did) and anyone from outside was either paid tribute to or they had some european influential power (like the papacy, Spain, or the austrian empire at some points) guaranteeing their independence. And when the French came in it was a piece of cake to conquer all of northern italy in the XVth century.

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If you look at it, Japanese medieval culture was highly influenced by the Chinese empires of the dark ages like the Tang dynasty, they are in a sense, transplanted Chinese, and it clearly shows even back during the European dark ages that the Chinese already had plate and chain armor. Its only logical that the Japanese with their advanced layered steel metalworking for katana swords could have easily created metal armor if only they had enough iron at that time. If you were a warring clan looking to become Shogun it would have turned the tide of battle if you could equip your army with metal armor instead of the lacquered wood and leather they used and could have been decisive on the battlefield. The fact that metalworking was limited to swords says a lot to the iron shortages they had then (importing it wasnt an option because of their isolation too).

DDD said:

Not convincing. Why waste more leverage, weight, and power, when one could do that faster and better with a Katana?

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Problem is the armor. A katana is only effective against contemporary armor by thrusting at the chain mail or weak spot in the plate armor. A katana is primarily a cutting and slicing weapon. Cutting or slicing is ineffective against chain or plate. They are also slower than a rapier. Man to man a knight verses a samurai of the same vintage the knight will generally come out ahead because of their equipment, as both would be of the same general skill level martial arts wise, basically trained from childhood in their respective disciplines. Knights emphasis fight a more brutal fight than a samurai simply because of the nature of getting past the equipment of their contemporaries. Hammers and pommel grips and clubs work just as well on steel as wood and leather. Blades not so much. A samurai utilized a very specialized weapon that was designed to do one thing well, slice and cut. It could thrust just not that well. A knights long sword, broadsword, Hand and a half ect. Were designed to be jack of all trades. They could cut decently, they could thrust excellently, they could be and were often reversed and the pommel and cross guard used as a hammer (usually against plate armored opponents as it was more effective than trying to thrust the blade into weak spots.), or the pommel and cross guard could be used close up to punch with. Knights simply had a more versatile weapon, and superior armor. Could a samurai defeat a knight, absolutely, but the odds and equipment favored the knight. There are specialty weapons, armor and tactics each had access to that could tilt the odds one side or the other, so I am only talking about plain Jane vanilla versions of each.

PirateMk1 said:

Problem is the armor. A katana is only effective against contemporary armor by thrusting at the chain mail or weak spot in the plate armor. A katana is primarily a cutting and slicing weapon. Cutting or slicing is ineffective against chain or plate. They are also slower than a rapier. Man to man a knight verses a samurai of the same vintage the knight will generally come out ahead because of their equipment, as both would be of the same general skill level martial arts wise, basically trained from childhood in their respective disciplines. Knights emphasis fight a more brutal fight than a samurai simply because of the nature of getting past the equipment of their contemporaries. Hammers and pommel grips and clubs work just as well on steel as wood and leather. Blades not so much. A samurai utilized a very specialized weapon that was designed to do one thing well, slice and cut. It could thrust just not that well. A knights long sword, broadsword, Hand and a half ect. Were designed to be jack of all trades. They could cut decently, they could thrust excellently, they could be and were often reversed and the pommel and cross guard used as a hammer (usually against plate armored opponents as it was more effective than trying to thrust the blade into weak spots.), or the pommel and cross guard could be used close up to punch with. Knights simply had a more versatile weapon, and superior armor. Could a samurai defeat a knight, absolutely, but the odds and equipment favored the knight. There are specialty weapons, armor and tactics each had access to that could tilt the odds one side or the other, so I am only talking about plain Jane vanilla versions of each.

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I guess until "Deadliest Warrior" tests these hypothesis we will not really know. They did a Samurai VS Spartan, Samurai VS Viking, but not knight yet:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=deadliest+warrior+samurai+vs+knight

DDD said:

I guess until "Deadliest Warrior" tests these hypothesis we will not really know. They did a Samurai VS Spartan, Samurai VS Viking, but not knight yet:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=deadliest+warrior+samurai+vs+knight

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That show on Spike TV? LMAO, it was utter crap! :lol:

PoS said:

OK, first up we got the common internet challenge of a Samurai versus a Medieval Knight:




I used to think that if both had equal skill a Samurai would always win because the katana was razor sharp as opposed to the blunt edged longsword. But after watching many of these videos and reading books on the subject Im now convinced that the Knight would actually beat a Samurai assuming their skills were equal.

Why? Because while a katana was razor sharp, it was also brittle and would probably bend when hitting plate armor or when parried by a heavier sword. European swords, while blunt, were actually flexible and could take repeated blows in parrying and fencing while a katana was more of a one attack weapon and wasnt really much of a fencing blade- also Samurai armor was pretty much wood and leather and a katana was designed to pierce that while knights had heavy plate and chainmail underneath, unless a katana was used against a weak link, the blow would be stopped by the heavy plate armor of the knight and might even be bent by it. Thoughts? :mrgreen:

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My thoughts are that the skilled Samurai would go immediately for the weak places in the armor (joints, neck). Also, the Samurai is much, much faster. So, short battle, Samurai wins. Long battle, Knight wins.

Why all the discussion about the katana?? If you want to compare a Samurai vs. a knight, you should be comparing their primary weapons. In the Samurai's case, this is the bow. The katana was what they used when they couldn't kill their enemy from afar and for most of the history of the Samurai, it's use was considered a sign that you weren't a good bowman. That's why their primary attack was that of the "quick draw" to kill an opponent, but they had little skill in the defensive side of things. It's only been in the last about 200 years that there was any real development of swordsmanship among the Samurai. If you were to compare contemporaries, you would be comparing a Japanese guy shooting arrows at a European Knight in plate armor and if he failed to punch through it, he'd get gutted like fish when/if the knight caught up to him. Now if you want to get into a discussion about who was the better bowman - the Samurai or the English longbowman, then you'd have something worth discussing.

faithful_servant said:

Why all the discussion about the katana??

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I dunno, maybe its because this is a thread about swords?