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RE: TravelerKai’s Martial Arts Datasheet
(04-12-2017 10:29 AM)Dalaran1991 Wrote: While we're at it, lets go back all the way to the roots and discuss medieval arts.
There have been countless and often pointless debate about samurai vs knight, but I found a link that discusses this pretty neatly.
http://www.thearma.org/essays/knightvs.htm#.WO5E9mnyiM-
The guy John Clements is legit. A strong contributor of the ARMA movement and also knows lots of stuff about Japanese sword:
Way too long to post it all here, but it comes down to this.
I fence regularly with a buddy who does longsword, and even though we often come off even, its simply because I have better footwork. The reach advantage of the longsword is fucking huge. Imagine a 7" tall Taekwondo guy who keep snapping kicks at you while you cant reach him. But you cant grab his leg because it (the sword) would sever your arm.
With a shorter weapon like the katana you really have to go banzai and charge it close while protecting yourself with a somewhat weaker swordblade.
I would recommend people trying this out. Its great fun, lots of cardio, and might actually comes in handy with all the refugees shit going around. Suited up in full plate / samurai yoroi with a two handed blade / nodachi sure as hell beat the shit out of islamic invaders. As Charles Martel did, so shall we 
Quote:Educated Guesses
As our hypothetical fight ensued, any number of things might happen. In the course of striking at one another, a chance blow by either side could possibly end the fight. The katana may or may not be able to make a lethal or incapacitating cut (something difficult to do against plate armor, let alone a maile coat with a shield). But the knight, unfamiliar with the aggressive style or nature of his opponent, might throw out a strike that makes him vulnerable to a well-timed counter-attack. Of course, the samurai might also underestimate the power of the Medieval sword's cleaving blows and agile thrusts, even against his armor. The average European two-hand sword is longer in handle and blade than the average katana by several inches to as much as a foot or more and is not at all slow. It has a versatile hilt used for binding, trapping, and parrying. But the katana is also a fast weapon that cuts strongly and guards well and comes in a variety of lengths.
Despite its considerable reach though, there are numerous techniques for infighting using the long-sword's "half" guards and there are many techniques for striking with a shield. But then the katana is very good at close-in slices, which a straight blade cannot effectively do nearly as well. Of course, against good armor such actions can be negligible and fighting against shields was relatively unknown in Japan. So on one hand, the knight's fighting style –either of close-in sword and shield clashing, or large passing steps with long-reaching shearing cuts and plunging thrusts with a longsword or greatsword –might prove decisive. On the other, the intense, focused, counter-cutting style of the samurai with his razor-keen blade and own experience in armored fighting might prove decisive. Then again, maybe they'd kill one another?
It could be argued that the samurai by nature could have a tactical advantage in attitude and fortitude as a result of the psychological elements of his training and fighting methods. He is well- known to have integrated unarmed techniques into his repertoire as well as having a keen sense of an opponent's strengths and weaknesses. Still, much of this is intangible and subjective. Besides, although not widely appreciated, it is now well-documented (particularly from Medieval Italian and German fighting manuals) that European knights and men-at-arms fully integrated advanced grappling, wrestling, and disarming techniques into their fighting skills. They also studied considerably on tactics and the military "sciences." There is no evidence to the myth that knightly martial culture was any less sophisticated or highly develop than its Asian counterparts –its traditions and methods only fell out of use with the social and technological changes brought about by advances in firearms and cannon.
While it is known that the average samurai had a large inventory of unarmed fighting techniques at his disposal, these too would be unlikely to play a part against a shield wielding warrior. Some could suggest that the samurai was simply a better swordsman and more tenacious warrior and would likely out-fight his European counterpart. Others could say, "No way," and argue a skilled, superbly conditioned knight in full plate armor using either a sword and shield combination or a longsword would be near invulnerable and brutally overpowering. Still others could rightly point out that such over-generalized statements either way are un-provable conjecture. There are so many elements to address and practitioners who are experienced in one form of sword art or familiar with only one type of blade and not others will tend to favor what they're familiar with. It is rare to find individuals with a deep grasp of the attributes of each method and the arms involved.
Those who think the Medieval sword and shield was and is just a "wham-bam, whack-whack" fight are as greatly misinformed as those who imagine the katana was handled in some mysterious and secret manner and can cut through anything as if it were a light-saber. Those who presume the use of Medieval long-sword merely involved a brutish hacking are also under a tremendous delusion. It is a mystery how such beliefs can be held independently of those who today assiduously study and train in the subject as a true martial art, and spend years in practice with the actual weapons. Perhaps this ignorance is due to watching too many movies or the influence of fantasy-historical societies with their costumed role-playing.
Medieval and Renaissance sword fighting is often viewed by the uninformed as a wholly subjective matter either consisting of merely brute force and ferocity, or else incapable of reasoned analysis and discernable principles. Both are equally inaccurate. It is sad when leading modern fencing masters (experienced only with the dueling style of light foils, epees, and sabers) will issue naïve, unschooled statements about how Medieval swords "weighed 20 pounds" or could only be used for "clumsy" bashing and chopping. There is a definite prejudice that the modern refined fencing sport is "superior" to earlier, more brutal methods. Without going into the history of warfare, it's important to state it is a myth that personal combat in Europe was entirely crude, cumbersome, and never an art. It may perhaps be true that, only in a modern cultural context, it cannot compare to the surviving systematized traditions of feudal Japanese sword arts. However there is sufficient evidence surviving that when paired with contemporary research has given us a much better under-standing of the function and use of Medieval and Renaissance European arms and armors to confirm that they consisted of a highly effective and dynamic "Science of Defence."
Keeping our hypothesis broad
To be fair, while there is an extraordinary amount of nonsense and fantasy surrounding historical European swords and sword arts, there is a good deal of myth and ignorance on the true teachings of historical Japanese fencing. While there is today an active subculture promoting and preserving historical Japanese bujutsu or practicing modern budo and a great deal is also known about their practice, the equivalent can not yet be said for "lost" Medieval or Renaissance fighting arts. But, at least for the latter, there are dozens of surviving technical guides from the period describing the actual methods and techniques of knights and men-at-arms in great detail.
So, given the complexities of the question of what kind of knightly arms and armor from what period we could consider in a hypothetical knight-samurai encounter, it might be easier to just imagine an unarmored duel, sword against sword, without shields. Let's assume that our gladiatorial fantasy would be fought by two respective 15th century warriors with single swords alone. In this way we essentially have two fighting men both experienced in using a long sword as well as fighting unarmored.
This solves a lot of questions. But even here the issue is problematic. We still need to ask what kind of katana and what kind of longsword? What length of blade and handle? There was no standard generic model for either weapon, after all. So, assuming that we choose two weapons of comparative dimensions, we could make the knightly longsword of the cruciform-hilted, double-edged, slightly tapering variety.
Under this scenario, the katana would have a slight advantage, we could imagine. It's adept in unarmored cut and thrust fighting where the slightest wound from its keen edge could perhaps sever a hand or disabled an arm. It could also thrust well and might even threaten a pressing or slicing draw if close in. The half-swording techniques of the longsword would also not be nearly as viable here, though its hilt design might prove very useful. While the longsword would be menacing in its quick and long-reaching thrust, its stabbing attacks would perhaps not be that unfamiliar to a samurai use to facing spears. On the other hand, the knight would himself not be that unused at all to facing a curved single-edged blade, likely being skilled in or familiar with such ones as the falchion, badelaire, messer, long Grossemesser, and even Turkish scimitars. So again, the outcome of the match would come down to intangibles of personal attitude and individual prowess. As to the issue of the deadliness of thrusting wounds versus cutting ones, well, the historical and forensic evidence does favor the lethality of stabs--but only in contrast to lacerating flesh wounds not deep cleaving blows.
Considering the many issues brought out in describing the modern reconstruction of historical European martial arts, contrasting them with the practice of Asian fighting arts is a legitimate area of speculation. If we had a time machine and for depraved research wanted to go back, grab a hundred random Medieval knights and an equal number of samurai, match them one on one and throw them at each other, we might be able to come up some statistical averages (and some serious ethical problems, as well). In one sense we are talking about very different approaches to armed personal defense in this comparison. But, then again it's all the same when reduced to two armed combatants facing one another in antagonistic combat. There are many universal commonalities and shared fundamentals between both European and Japanese feudal warriors, but there were also significant technical and stylistic differences in their respective approaches. If not, their martial histories and their arms and armors would not have been so distinct.
So what can we really know?
As can be seen, there are just far too many variables and unknowns to make a judgment either way for such a theoretical question as who could defeat whom between knights and samurai. The fight cannot be reduced to any generalized statements about who had the overall historical advantage in skill or who had the superior array of arms and armor. In matters like this we certainly cannot not invoke mystical principles or endless "what ifs" and still engage in intelligent conjecture. All we can do is give an opinion of questionable value. Still, it is an intriguing comparison to ponder objectively.
Are you guys aware of the Samurai pirates fighting the Spanish in the Phillipines?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1582_Cagayan_battles
Too much drama for a hit it and quit it brutha such as myself
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