Mod Idea

[Tozama]

I'm not sure, but I thought Japanese swords were far superior to the western equivalents. I know that better European armour has been mentioned here but the Japanese have to have the edge with their blades. Is this correct or am I just drunk?

You are 100% correct. Japanese swords made Euorpean swords look like wooden sticks. I've seen demoonstrations where a Jap. sword broke a European sword when they met being swung at each other. There is no comparison. Euopean swords were far inferior.
The Japanese perfected the art of folding layers of steel literally thousands of times until a blade was strong as it can get. A real Samarai sword took years to make and was virtually unbreakable and could cut through almost anything.
You can find information on these here:
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi57.htm
http://japanesesamuraiswords.com/
http://samuraiswords.gungfu.com/

[Spartiate]

I thought(perhaps mistakenly)that although the Katana was a far superior piece of workmanship that it was incapable of doing much damage to European armour and that it also could not take a hit from heavier weapons except on its edge.
Lets remember how fast the Japanese transformed their whole nation(including militarily) when they deemed the need arose.While i think that the Europeans would have every advantage in the beginning i do not think it would long stay that way.

[munrock]

The European knight is slow and cumbersome compared to the Samurai. The best that European armour will do is protect the knight until he's been knocked flat on his back and his sword is broken, and then the armour will stop him getting up.

On top of that, a Knight's arms will be clad in plate, and his sword will be heavier. He's just not going to land a blow on a lighter, faster Samurai who's spent hundreds of hours honing his parrying techniques and who goes into battle expecting to be parrying something a lot faster than a claymore.

The knight will tire so much faster.

This is without taking into account the different attitudes to death. The only European that will match a Samurai in frame of mind is a commoner defending his home, or a truly devout cruesader. One will be ill-equipped and the other will be few and far between.

Then there's the Ninja.

And better hygeine.

The difference in date is showing through the details.

[Sinner]

The European knight is slow and cumbersome compared to the Samurai. The best that European armour will do is protect the knight until he's been knocked flat on his back and his sword is broken, and then the armour will stop him getting up.

On top of that, a Knight's arms will be clad in plate, and his sword will be heavier. He's just not going to land a blow on a lighter, faster Samurai who's spent hundreds of hours honing his parrying techniques and who goes into battle expecting to be parrying something a lot faster than a claymore.

The knight will tire so much faster.

This is without taking into account the different attitudes to death. The only European that will match a Samurai in frame of mind is a commoner defending his home, or a truly devout cruesader. One will be ill-equipped and the other will be few and far between.

Then there's the Ninja.

And better hygeine.

The difference in date is showing through the details.

Ok, a few common misconceptions there I'm afraid...

Plate armour of any kind is extremely effective against swords, including the often overrated katana. Yes, katanas are good and well made compared to many other types of sword, but it's also true that not all katanas and other Japanese blades were made to the same quality - the quality of Japanese swords dropped during the Sengoku period due to the lack of time to make good blades and pass on skills from master to apprentice, and generally the best blades are from earlier periods. If anything the fighting style of the katana, which relies heavily on draw cuts, will be less effective against the western plate, which requires powerful cleaving, puncturing or impact blows to defeat.

The method of repeated folding the stock metal bars used to make the blade was not unknown in the West, the Japanese simply took it to an extreme, in part because of the relative low quality of iron ore available in Japan. A Katana could break a Long Sword, just as a Long Sword could break a Katana, a blanket declaration that one will break the other is just wrong.

A knight in any form of physical shape is not helpless when knocked to the ground. Even the heaviest full plate armour only weighed about 80 pounds, about half the load carried by a modern infantryman and far better distributed over the body. Knights were more than capable of vaulting into saddles: there was one amusing incident at a tournament where a knight accused of cheating by tying himself to his saddle, leapt off & on his horse to prove the accusations false; it was also demonstrated as false in a recent British TV series where the presenter purposefully threw himself off the back of his horse while wearing full replica plate and was able to quickly jump to his feet.

A knight might be wearing heavier armour than a samurai, but his sword of choice isn't neccessarily heavier, designs varied wildly in size and robustness. The average knight would however generally have been bigger and thus stronger than the average samurai, potentially offsetting any extra weight of arms and armour. Don't forget knights successfully fought lighter-equiped opponents during the Crusades.

The knight would also potentially have the advantage of the shield, allowing him to devote his weapon purely for offense, whereas the samurai has to use his weapon for both offense and defense. What method would prove superior in the end would rely more upon the skill and experience of the two combatants, but where the knight would have experience of fighting unshielded opponents, the samurai would have had little or no experience against shields.

The skill of the knight also seems to be often underestimated. Just like the children of samurai, knights were trained from childhood and also spent hours perfecting their skills. Knights didn't just lumber up to each other & bludgeon clumsily away until one dropped dead from exhaustion, their fighting techniques were just as skillful and weapons such as the long sword were used for more than chopping and stabbig, sometimes being used more like a spear or quarterstaff!

As for the attitude to death, again it would depend more upon the individual, rather than the common stereotype. Just as a samurai could be disloyal, not all were willing to fight to the death - ronin didn't just magically appear! - and could value their lives just as much as any man. Men stand and fight even when the battle is hopeless for a variety of reasons, often ones that may appear irrational to others, and it's not something unique to the samurai. Consider the men who volunteered for the Forlorn Hopes in sieges such as Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo during the Peninsular War: they weren't called forlorn for no reason, few men survived the slaughter that would occur, but they still voluteered and often all for the desire to gain the reputation of being a survivor of a Hope.

Ninja have nothing on the Spanish Inquisition, because nobody ever expects them! Their two main weapons...

Ok, the hygenie is in favour of the samurai, at least to our modern sensibilities, but it might help the knight. The smell might be so bad that the poor samurai's eyes would water & he wouldn't be able to see too well.

[Ludens]

Excellent reply, Sinner. Samurai are very much hyped, because people only remember the best of the samurai, while we know about the average medieval knight.
One thing I wanted to add:

Ok, the hygenie is in favour of the samurai, at least to our modern sensibilities, but it might help the knight. The smell might be so bad that the poor samurai's eyes would water & he wouldn't be able to see too well.

It means that the average European would have a much better immune system than his Japanese opponents. I am not saying that it would have the same effect as on the Indians (who were often depopulated before the colonists entered their territory), but it will have some influence if the samurai aren't able to live up to their hygienic standards (like in a overpopulated army camp). So disease works both ways.