Sengoku Archers and Yari Calvary (manga depiction different to game)

[xploring]

I was just reading the first volume of a manga called Sengoku, and it had very different depictions of archers and yari cavalry in the Sengoku period compared with the total war games, so I thought it would be interesting to share. It had historical literature reference in the footnote so research/claims appear to be authentic.

In the manga, each "archer unit" was made up of a group of 3 men, a shield holder in a kneel position raising a giant wooden shield to protect the group in between shooting, an arrow person who holds all the arrows and hand one over to the shooter whenever he is ready for the next one, and of course the shooter with the bow. It also claims 70% of the casualties in the period up until Oda Nobunaga taking Mino were victims of archers. So maybe that's why there are some many of them in S2TW.

Another interesting point mentioned in the manga is that it is extremely difficult to wield a yari effectively on horseback. Because the yari is a two-handed weapon, most riders would find it very difficult to control the horse using their feet only and not fall during fighting. It claims that horses were used for mobility mainly but not for fighting, even the famed Takeda cavalry would ride to move quickly on the battlefield then dismount to fight most of the time.

The manga itself isn't that good, apart from the art, so I wouldn't recommend it, but it was interesting to learn about different takes on history and imagine what they were like. You can read it through the link above if you want to see the drawings, I couldn't be bothered looking for the page numbers (I read a Chinese version).

[Vladimir]

That's interesting. I wondered if the Japanese ever discovered shield technology.

Apparently most of them didn't catch on.

[Kagemusha]

Japanese used mobile pavises, aka Tedate. In defense traditionally the whole front line of an army was covered with them like in this picture:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It is true that majority of wounds and casualties came from ranged weapons. Professor Karl Friday has done some quite extensive research about it by examening human remains from the period.I dont have the exact figures here right now, but his study suggest the same that ranged weapons made the majority of wounds.
About the organisation of archers or any units.As far as i know.The smallest organisational unit in Japanese army of the period was "kumi" roughly ten men.
About the fighting on horseback. We have to remember that only samurai were mounted.Ashigaru were never allowed to be mounted warriors. So those who fought mounted had trained all their lives for that.Also the Yari spear carried by the cavalry was lot shorter then infantry version. Last the Yari was not only used for stabbing if you think of a mounted warrior.As it had a long blade sharpened from edges also.It was used to slash, just as well to stab. So i would dismiss the idea that you could only wield Yari with both hands and we have several depictions of samurai fighting mounted.

[Watchman]

Generations of kontos-wielding stirrupless armoured cavalrymen laugh themselves sick at the notion you supposedly can't wield a long two-handed spear effectively on horseback. (The long cavalry yari indeed has enough similarities to the old kontos and similar Eurasian cavalry weapons to tell quite a bit about parallel inventions, though I would assume sporadic contacts with Continental cavalry - such as now during the Mongol invasion attempts - contributed. Doubly so as the transformation of samurai cavalry from armoured horse-archers to lancers only began after that period.)