Knight vs. Samurai

This nice thread actually belongs in Historical Amusement.

Knight beats Samurai.

Originally posted by Count Belisarius This thread is about Knight vs. Samurai, not about where it belongs go post your own thread.

I think that you may be mistaken about the average size of a European knight of the era. Six foot five (two meters) is tall for this day and age, in which good diets promote greater height. During the middle ages their diet was not as balanced and nutrient rich as our own, as such, the people tended on average to be shorter. Evidence of this can be seen when looking at high middle age suits of armor. Many of them only measure around five foot sixish inches feet tall. I rather liked this because as a relatively short person (5'7-8") I could have worn almost all of the suits of armor at the Higgin's Armory Museum comfortably. The concept of the gigantic Knight is a creation of Hollywood for the movies. Did they exist, absolutely, but they were by no means the norm.

Thats a common mistake, a knight would usually have enough money to eat meat, kings deer and all that, and you see tapestrys of knights hunting all the time, also the armor in mueseums is usually decorational and made in three quarter scale to show off the "artwork" (for lack of a better phrase) and the craftsmanship, actual combat armor was made for men who were just under six feet or six five     

Edited by Count Belisarius - 25-Jul-2008 at 23:23

I'm with Robert's wholeheartedly.

I'd like to see your sources for said claims Belisarius.

Ok, ok show us your ARMA sources where they claim that knights were 6 feet tall?

how do you know that those skeletons are knights?

Have you ever thought that there might be different graveyards for nobility?

And last but certainly not least the Roman army they would only except soldiers who were six feet tall, in our inches that means five feet nine and a half inches tall which is hardly short and the ursa legion would only except people who were six feet tall or over the complete roman army by adrian goldsworthy.

Thats obviously a mistake
 

other misinformed fools like you

Resorting to insults only shows true side of you.

Originally posted by Count Belisarius Thats a common mistake, a knight would usually have enough money to eat meat, kings deer and all that, and you see tapestrys of knights hunting all the time, also the armor in mueseums is usually decorational and made in three quarter scale to show off the "artwork" (for lack of a better phrase) and the craftsmanship, actual combat armor was made for men who were just under six feet or six five

Nope. People were actually shorter in the past due to bad diets. I have seen uniforms of people who have fought in wars in the last 300 years in the U.S., and they are these little uniforms that don't look real to us. Even soldiers in WWII were a lot smaller than people in the U.S. today.

That said, I go with knights because in another version of this discussion, someone made the arguments that the weapons of the knights were better than those of the Samurai, and that they had a greater range of fighting technique, which made up for the speed of the Japanese warrior.

I would say Knight, and a Byzantine Cataphract is even better. Knights fought against many different opponents, especially cataphracts fought against almost all the enemies of their time, something like this gives them the upper hand. On the other hand samurai were always fought  between them, they fought for centuries against enemies (other samurai) that had the same way of battle with them. I think that samurai are overrated. 

Originally posted by deadkenny The terms are too generic to get into specifics.  'Knights' were around for centuries and equipment varied considerably.  Also, what is the mode of combat?  On foot?  Samurai also trained with the bow, whereas your 'typical' knight did not.  In terms of melee combat, the Samurai would probably have a better quality sword, and be faster.  The knight would have better armour.  One on one, these situations often end up being a 'rock, paper, scissors' sort of situation, depending heavily on the specifics.

Although I can't remember the source offhand, I recall reading that this is a common misconception; western swords were not inferior to oriental swords. 

Plate armour was also pretty much invulnerable to swords, too, so a late middle-ages knight would be a nightmare for a samurai.