Current Events > could a samurai with a katana beat a european knight?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think so because katanas are engineered and design with more creativity and effort. The katana will slice through the european armor like carving a cake.
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If the katana is folded 1000 times then it can cut through the sound barrier

Could a samurai win? Probably. But given standard armor and weapons, it isn't in their favor. Plate armor makes cutting weapons pretty ineffective.
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knight is just a ceremonial title now. most don't wear armour. I have serious doubts that Sir Mick Jagger could beat a samurai
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Doesn't it depend entirely on the skill of both people? It's not like the katana and the iron sword are just gonna battle it out lol.
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This guy watches too much One Piece/Bleach/Jubei-chan/whatever.

Glorious thousand-folded Nippon steel will slice the eyeballs of any European foolish enough to look at it
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The knight would be at an advantage for sure.
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averagejoel posted...

knight is just a ceremonial title now. most don't wear armour. I have serious doubts that Sir Mick Jagger could beat a samurai

Sir Mick Jagger is fucking immortal.
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lol I actually saw a fistfight and a friendship end back in the day because of this argument.
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DrizztLink posted...

averagejoel posted...

knight is just a ceremonial title now. most don't wear armour. I have serious doubts that Sir Mick Jagger could beat a samurai

Sir Mick Jagger is fucking immortal.

immortal doesn't mean invulnerable
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Sir William Marshal vs Musashi Miyamoto
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averagejoel posted...

DrizztLink posted...

averagejoel posted...

knight is just a ceremonial title now. most don't wear armour. I have serious doubts that Sir Mick Jagger could beat a samurai

Sir Mick Jagger is fucking immortal.

immortal doesn't mean invulnerable

eh, he'll just come back with one of his horcruxes.
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I don't think a curved katana is the best weapon to fight someone in full armor

Maybe a samurai with a spear might have a better chance

But meh it really depends, some people were just better fighters than others
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they used to have that show Deadliest Warrior. But I don't remember if they had a samurai fight a knight. I remember a ninja fighting a viking though

frozenshock posted...

Maybe a samurai with a spear might have a better chance

Well yes, because polearms > sidearms

Zikten posted...

they used to have that show Deadliest Warrior. But I don't remember if they had a samurai fight a knight. I remember a ninja fighting a viking though

wrong. Samurai vs. Viking. Ninja vs. Spartan. Then they had Spartan vs Samurai. The pirate faced the knight.
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Glorious Nippon Steel folded over thousands of times does not know defeat.
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Most Knights didn't have full plate armor, as it was incredibly expensive.
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Europeans had guns during Japan's feudal era though.
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Knight with armor is really slow. The samurai has the speed advantage while the knight has the defense advantage. The knight can be toppled and he would be vulnerable on the ground, while mid-range combat would favor the knight.

It could go either way.
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Zikten posted...

they used to have that show Deadliest Warrior. But I don't remember if they had a samurai fight a knight. I remember a ninja fighting a viking though

They had the Knight fight a pirate and lose, which is fucking bullshit.
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Whata the knight packing for a weapon?
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A katana would have a rough time against European plate. Prior to the introduction of the crossbow there was little to stop fully armored knights, and most of it involved crushing the person underneath the plate.
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GreatEvilEmpire posted...

Knight with armor is really slow.

This apparently isn't true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-bnM5SuQkI" data-time="
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Reis posted...

If the katana is folded 1000 times then it can cut through the sound barrier

you can't fold a katana more than 7 times

(i'm kidding)
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It depends on quality of katana and what kind of armor it is

GreatEvilEmpire posted...

Knight with armor is really slow. The samurai has the speed advantage while the knight has the defense advantage. The knight can be toppled and he would be vulnerable on the ground, while mid-range combat would favor the knight.

It could go either way.

None of this is true

Also, theres record of European fencing versus whatever it was that Japanese nobility were trained in and the European just trouncing the other
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Impossible to determine the outcome. But I would favor knights.
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Kitt posted...

Zikten posted...

they used to have that show Deadliest Warrior. But I don't remember if they had a samurai fight a knight. I remember a ninja fighting a viking though

They had the Knight fight a pirate and lose, which is fucking bullshit.

Wasn't that because of fire weapons though?

Goats posted...

No. Samurai weren't used to facing enemies as well armored as knights. The majority of their foes were barely armored peasants. Knights on the other hand would train to face equally armored (which samurai were not), or foes that weren't as heavily armored.

IOW, the knight's training would encompass facing foes of similar armor and skill compared to samurai, whereas the opposite simply wasn't true. Samurai spent more time training with their bows and horses than they did with their katanas, which were largely ceremonial by the time you started seeing lots of samurai on the battlefield honedge.

This guy (goat?) gets it.

Also, katanas are not as strong as people think

Nah

Knight all goddamn day dawg

blablablax17 posted...

Most Knights didn't have full plate armor, as it was incredibly expensive.

Runescape is boundless realism
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https://imgur.com/b7IS7Ti
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The samurai is fucked.
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Kitt posted...

Zikten posted...

they used to have that show Deadliest Warrior. But I don't remember if they had a samurai fight a knight. I remember a ninja fighting a viking though

They had the Knight fight a pirate and lose, which is fucking bullshit.

I remember that episode, it was because the pirate had a gun
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ModLogic posted...

https://imgur.com/b7IS7Ti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVCaJdYZmCU" data-time="
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SpinKirby posted...

ModLogic posted...

https://imgur.com/b7IS7Ti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVCaJdYZmCU" data-time="

Lmao the comments in that video

Hayame Zero posted...

lol I actually saw a fistfight and a friendship end back in the day because of this argument.

Was it really a fistfight or more of a slap fight with some shirt pulling?

SpinKirby posted...

ModLogic posted...

https://imgur.com/b7IS7Ti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVCaJdYZmCU" data-time="

I don't know how impartial this is (imagine japanese people testing katanas vs euro swords and having the katana win), but I actually agree with this.

The katana was an engineering marvel and work of art. But it was that because it needed to be: Turns out japanese steel was shit, so the japanese had to develop a method to use hard steel and soft steel lawyers and fold it a 100 times in order to make the steel less shitty. Europeans had better steel naturally ocurring.

Also, euro swords were heavy and designed to hit armor, katanas were designed for fast drawing and speed, and for hitting unarmored bodies or leather armor.

I'm actually a fan of Chinese swords, so I really just post those videos for free salt mines.
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Yeah, that vid, while accurate for those strikes, is an abuse of the katana. They're fast, slicing weapons, meant to cut down peasants. They're not meant to clang against armor or shields and keep fighting, as might happen with European swords.

Of course, if you go by the myths, European swords were 30 pound weights of clunkiness compared to the soul-slicing edge of a katana. :P
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A knight in full armor is definitely the favorite against a samurai. This isn't a value statement as much as it is based upon Europeans having more and better easily-available iron to work with, and that being reflected in their respective armament.
Swords were always at least as much a sign of status as a weapon though(they're comparatively expensive to make).

GreatEvilEmpire posted...

Knight with armor is really slow. The samurai has the speed advantage while the knight has the defense advantage. The knight can be toppled and he would be vulnerable on the ground, while mid-range combat would favor the knight.

It could go either way.

A katana would likely break on a suit of full plate. It would DEFINITELY break against a longsword or zweihander.
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to beat someone in full plate armour, you'd either need something like a mace to bash it.

or, if you can knock him on his back, a dagger, to get in the joints, stab him in the armpits etc.
you can also just halfsword it. (hold the sword by the halfway-point of the blade to get more control and then get in the joints)

a slicing sword aint gonna do shit
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Swords in general are ineffective against metal armor unless you stab into the less protected joints, or use the sword like a club, bashing the enemy's head/helmet with the hilt of the sword (called a murder stroke).

To deal with armor you need something like a mace, a warhammer or a polearm with a heavy blunt end. The impact of those sorts of weapons travels through the armor and can seriously fuck someone up.

This is especially of plate mail. You're basically a walking tank with that level of armor.

Swords are sidearms, they are rarely ever the knight's or the samurai's primary weapons.
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A more fair comparison would be between two Knights with different swords, a single hand and a broadsword. Generally reach advantage will win there though if skill is equal.

Also Samurai did have armor. Though not exactly as high quality as plate.
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