Re: [HIST] Japanese Culture shock

--- Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net> wrote:

> period, against a European knight, you'd have a
> fight between a well armoured,
> competent swordsman who was a better archer!
> 
> In later periods, obviously plate armour would have
> an edge, but plate armour
> is heavier than samurai lamellar armour. Would the
> samurai fight as per
> normal, or would he adapt and use a long dagger to
> slip in between the edges
> of those plates, perhaps abandoning his katana for a
> naginata first? This
> would give him a pole weapon that could, in theory,
> aid in dropping the knight
> to the ground with sweeping attacks at the knights
> legs.

Maybe for a one-on-one, but. . . 

Put 150 French Gendarmes, Polish Knights, Military
Order Brother Knights, or even Italians on a flat
level field with 150 Samurai on the other end of the
field and every Samurai would be either dead or
fleeing the field at a high rate of speed.

Another amusing question would be to see the Samurai
trying to go up against the English
longbow/billman/dismounted men-at-arms combination.
I'm pretty sure that there isn't a horse archer on the
planet that can handle dismounted longbowmen or
crossbowmen if they are properly protected by heavy
infantry.  His firing platform just ain't stable
enough.

Where Samurai would have a field day would be lighting
up Swiss pike blocks, as long as they weren't pinned
in place by terrain.  They'd ride up and down the
field evading the Swiss while shooting big ugly gaps
in that formation.

John

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