Real Combat

[toaster Assassin]

What would happen If someone tripped the Medieval knight and the knight fell on their back? Their armor was heavy, so turtle effect?

[iSuck345]

He wold fart and get back up. I'm serious about this.

[Deathsteel]

They all decide something is not right and through the power of science they develop a time machine and all return to their respected time periods.

[Magzpierz]

The knight would kill the pirate, the spartan would kill the knight, the samurai would kill the spartan, the samurai would kill himself for the dishonor of fighting when he didn't need to.

No one would walk out.

[Mask]

Whoa, that's a lot of posts. Time for some fun.

What would happen If someone tripped the Medieval knight and the knight fell on their back? Their armor was heavy, so turtle effect?

Haven't seen armour aerobics? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg

They all decide something is not right and through the power of science they develop a time machine and all return to their respected time periods.

This is the best answer!

LOL. Dude I didn't even bother watching past the point where they use a 1.5 mm thick deerskin as a substitute for "Leather Armor". Sorry but this video is plain bullshit. As a rule of thumb, anything broadcasted on History Channel is.

Sadly true, as a rule of thumb. Mike Loades tried to start a new series on there called Going Medieval, which would've been a lot better than what's normally there. Not sure how well that's been going for him.

The winner is an easy call. The Spartan. They are the only one who would never give up or run away. Even losing a limb or 2 they would fight to their last breath with no remorse or care for their own saftey

While this is a extreme, exaggeratory example, it isn't unfounded. Spartans and the Swiss had a habit of winning or dying, with little to nothing inbetween. Of course, many knights and samurai could pull this off too, if they felt a last stand was necessary.

Of course, as for making him the winner... not necessarily. Training, weapons and equipment will make a bigger difference than willingness to fight to the death, in this case.

The samurai has a sharper sword then the knight. it can literally cut trough armour. the knights sword cannot. it is also quiker to mannuver a katana then a longsword. so ina thight space like a bar. the samurai wins over the knight atleast.

The Samurai's sword is not "sharper" than a longsword. Because of the curved edge, it has a better cutting performance, but that is useful against unarmored opponents, not armored ones. and it sure as hell doesn't cut through plate armor. Not even through riveted mail.

That's right Cowabunga. Although, any decent blade can cut through some of the poorly made riveted mail you get these days.... but that's a testament to our lack of armour making skill today.

^^^^^This
Judging from the fact that we post here, I'd say we all have plenty of time on our hands.

So, regarding the Spartan/Knight/Samurai/Pirate scenario...If they all fight each other at the same time, I say there is no way of determining who would win. There are too many unknown variables unfolding during the fight.

Among these four, one against one in close quarters, instead of hopping on the Samurai-fanboy-train, I'd bet my money on the Spartan unless he is caught unawares by the Pirate and gets shot in the face (which is not likely, but still a possibility).

Let's deal with the Knight and Samurai first: by the 15th century, knights would wear full plate armor due to the introduction of firearms. Although he enjoys the greatest protection by far and it would take forever to take him out, he is at a disadvantage for three reasons:
1) He does not have a shield. While the protection value of the shield is unnecessary because of the plate armor, a shield (which only the Spartan has in our scenario) gives a huge tactical edge against an opponent with only one weapon.
2) He is mainly fighting from horseback. Although knights did train fighting on foot and developed quite sophisticated techniques, mounted combat was still the main purpose.
3) His full helmet impedes his vision.
The same applies to the Samurai:
1) By the 16th century, firearms had been introduced to Japanese warfare by the Portuguese. Hence he loses a lot of agility and speed because, like the Knight, his armor is quite heavy and restricts his movement.
2) Plus, and again not unlike the Knight, he lacks a shield because Samurai were primarily fighting as lancers and mounted archers.
3) The face mask of his helmet impedes his vision.
The Pirate, although I would consider him a skilled swordsman simply because he kills and robs for a living, loses to the Spartan mainly for reasons of equipment (again, the shield - and probably no helmet), and the Spartan's indoctrination and training. As was stated already in another post, the war gear of any of the three opponents would render the pistol ineffective.

Although I would say the contest is not fair at all. An "average" member of the above groups would still make the Spartan the absolute peak of martial prowess and ability in his time, while the Knights and Samurai were already in decline because warfare was changing throughout the periods given.

If they all went in at the same time, if I had to make a decision, I would probably go with the Knight for the simple reason of staying power due to his immense advantage in protection. No one would pick him to be the first target. But again, with all four fighting each other at the same time, there's really no telling who would win.

Slight mistake with the armour and guns: Plate armour wasn't created due to firearms. It was, however, thickened in response to firearms, making it a bit heavier, but still fine for some Armour Aerobics. They came around at similar times mostly due to timing, I think.

1) With the shield detail, you might be giving shields a bit much credit. I'm not familiar enough with the most commonly known aspis to comment on how they are for duels, unfortunately. They're a bit bigger than the shield Vikings use for duels, and somewhat heavier. Either way, while it's true a shield presents difficulties, so will the reach of a longsword.

2) Hmm, not a bad point. In fact, it's a very interesting possibility. I might do some research into this.

3) With the full helmet, remember that it comes with a visor. So, he can choose between greater face protection and greater perception. I'd go with the perception, under the circumstances.

1a) I agree with quite heavy, with the caveat that we're probably being too vague. It certainly becomes a problem in hot environments when you need to travel on foot long distances, and will wear you out in a fight more quickly. However, a lot is still possible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg

2a) Precisely right. Many of them would also be using guns after their introduction. With the indoor setting suggested, he's likely to be fighting with a katana or tachi.

3a) A disadvantage the samurai has, is the lack of a visor. Unless he wants to untie his mask, or unless he already had it untied (if he was drinking in a bar, that's likely), he's stuck with any vision problems present. Of course, I will point out that while these are a problem for your vision, they can still fight quite well.

The pirate could certainly be VERY dangerous. That is why this kind of questioning is disliked by historians and military men. There are simply too many definitions of "Pirate", "Knight", "Samurai" and even "Spartan" to really give an answer. So mostly, I went with the equipment differences you can assume, plus I gave the Spartans the benefit of the doubt for fighting since that's ALL their culture really focused on (their economy was bad).

Mm, that was my opinion of a free-for-all too. No real answer for that, since you need a lot more specifics on where people are sitting, how drunk they are, their history of fighting and training, etc., to even give a decent guess. The differences in armour make for an easier approximation.

for example, Miyamoto Musashi, considered to be the most famous swordsman in japan killed over 60 opponents, all man of skill, in single combat using his famous "two heavens, one sword" style. He was 13 when he killed his first opponent!

The samurai can also use the two-sword style or nitojutsu using both the katana and his wakizashi.

Fun fact: Despite being famous for using two swords, Musashi is known for winning his most famous duels with a bokken (a wooden training sword).

Either way, if Musashi was involved in this fight... I'd just give it to him, no contest. After he killed roughly 60 people, he wrote in his book that, until recently, he had been fighting foolishly... One heck of a guy.

The Japanese samurai would win hands down

Assuming the knight is in full plate armor, he will be terribly slow. This would be very advantageous to the much faster and more flexible samurai. The samurai could simply wear the knight down, and go in for the kill. Not to mention if the knight is knocked to the ground, it will be impossible, or close to it, to get back up in the armor.

Even if the knight could conceivably break the Samurai's sword, any Samurai worth their salt would not let that happen unless it was some freak accident or miscalculation. Since Samurai didn't have full metal armor, they had to rely on their reflexes and accurate attacks to win the day. The slim katana could easily weave around a knight's ungainly broadsword.

Knights were nobles, and while I'm sure they got adequate training time and practical experience, Samurai were warriors first and foremost. They would have likely trained obsessively on a scale that I think a feudal European knight would not have.

Psychologically, the Samurai would also have an advantage. Knights typically came from the upper classes, probably owned some amount of land, and connection to the nobility. In other words, they had a lot to lose, and would have wanted to live through the fight. This would make them hesitant in battle at least.

The Samurai's sole duty is to die in the service of their master, and in fact, would die an honourable death to lose against the knight. They wouldn't hold anything back in the battle compared to the knight. A trained from birth warrior with nothing to lose, even their life, is a dangerous thing.

For ranged combat: A competent archer was rare and the best bowmen had to learn from an early age. A samurai would have begun training with bows as soon as they could walk. Knights had a lot of functions to perform than just fighting, and at least in historical depictions, you don't see a whole lot of knights wielding bows and arrows. They usually use a sword and shield, or lance. I'm willing to bet the samurai had more practice time, and thus, would be the better marksman.

On horseback, I think it would be an even match. Both would probably be equally competent riders, so I think it would be anyone's game. I think it would come down to who was the better pole-arm fighter. But in this scenario, I think the knight is still too slow and would have the disadvantage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg
I've heard a number of accounts of samurai armour being heavier overall. It was lighter some of the time at least, mostly because the limbs didn't receive metal armouring most often.

Swords don't break, 99.9+% of the time. When they do break, it is due to excessive use, and that the sword was a poor quality work by a bad smith. Generally, they test a blade for quality after making it, so you never get ones that bad on the battlefield. When they do break from overuse, it isn't in the way Hollywood portrays them shattering or being lopped in half. More often, it would just be that its gotten so nicked and worn, that it can't be sharpened or fixed up enough to be worth using.
Oh right, the Scottish had a tradition of making some of their broken/useless swords into dirks.

Actually, knights and samurai are pretty similar in their social structure. Currently, there's no evidence that either one was better trained than the other. Both of them were pretty obsessed with combat either way.

Dying before dishonour is nothing new for warriors. Vikings, Spartans, Knights, Romans... Some took this to the far extreme, where they seriously wouldn't retreat, like the Spartans, and to an extent the Swiss. Ironically, the idea of the Samurai being among these diehards is WW2 propaganda from Japan, designed to make their ashigaru (peasant soldiers) feel unable to retreat. The samurai during WW2 were a lot more pragmatic, picking their battles so as to stand a better chance of winning the war and preserving their country. The ashigaru didn't really understand that honour wasn't to look good, but to preserve your nation. They certainly didn't understand the concept that killing an unarmed man is dishonourable.

Knights aren't especially known for wielding the bow or ranged weapons, being primarily cavalry and elite foot infantry. So, yes, it's likely the samurai could out-shoot them.
I'd like to point out that samurai aren't uncultured brutes, and in fact did have to learn a lot of etiquette, if not more than is expected of knights.

The samurai rarely armoured their horses, so this might be another area where the knights have an advantage. Aside from that detail... it's really hard to say who is more likely to win in mounted combat.

I have to say, your post is good, however, do know that plate armour wasn't the only one avaiable: the chainmall armour, for example, allowed only slightly restricted movement. When the plate parts began appearing, they were only at first reinforcements to shoulders, the chest and other vital areas. Also, not all knights wore a sword, some wore axes, others spears and other times they wold use maces.

Bit of a misconception with mail armour. While it's true that a shirt of mail is flexible and easy to wear... that's not battlefield armour for a knight. The stuff the elite crusaders would wear was thick, heavy stuff--heavier than plate armour. It ends up being no more flexible, if not less flexible than an articulated suit of plate, but on the plus side is not too dissimilar in protection.

You are correct that plate started out as reinforcement. Eventually, they got the technology needed to make large plates, which resulted in articulated suits. And of course, arms were varied among knights, as you point out.

For ranged combat, I have to disagree. Assuming that todays traditional yumi archers use the same techniques as the samurai, they might have a disadvantage when it came to facing a medieval european or eastern asian archer.

I'll direct your attention to this video of a danish archer named Lars Anderson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g


And compare this to the yumi bow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhJotVk7nGk

I'm not a historian, but I believe they used spears for hunting in feudal japan, not bows, where as a european noble would be able to hunt, legally, and would probably have used a bow as well as a spear.

Japan used bows for hunting, as well as spears.

Interesting example you have, with Lars. I'll do some investigation into his technique. Most likely, this won't have proper battlefield application. But, it's not impossible.

[Pyper]

I find the skills level being the same thing abysmal myself so i'm just gonna by the averages when it comes to skill.


Pirates are thieves, overglorified bandits. Their skills come from knowing the best way to get a ships cargo and goods, not duking it out man to man.


Equipment wise all the have are pistols. Kinda meh.


Spartans are also warrior society. Highly trained and probably more so than a knight.
Spears pierce armor sometimes, their own armor is rubbish.

Knights were noblemen first and foremost. The soldering thing was on the side compared to strategy and politics. Probably least skilled of the bunch, but moreso than pirate. But the equipment is arguably the best. But the slowest. They were also mostly calvary when employed in combat.

Samurai were trained to fight as soon as they could. Started with horses, than archery, then mounted archery.
Next they had yaris, naginatas and katanas/wazikishis/no dachis. Slashing piercing and shooting are all options.But all slashing weapons would be out of the question against knights
They were probably by far the most trained, mastery in a art was something everyone tried to strive for over there.


Personally if we were betting, I'd put $30 Canadian on samurai.

[iSuck345]

Mask: possible the best forum member I have seen.

[Mask]

Pirates are thieves, overglorified bandits.

Very true.

Their skills come from knowing the best way to get a ships cargo and goods, not duking it out man to man.

Basically true. Famous pirates' skills revolve around getting other ships and the ships' cargo. To do that, they need to be excellent sailors, very good with guns and cannon, and have to be good at boarding--which involves murdering the other ship's crew more successfully with swords, axes, spears, guns, grenades... remember that the other crew will be trying to do the same to you.

Equipment wise all the have are pistols. Kinda meh.

Pretty much. They're best used in sets.

Spartans are also warrior society. Highly trained and probably more so than a knight.
Spears pierce armor sometimes, their own armor is rubbish.

The Spartans put a lot of effort into training their warriors, so most likely yes. Knights were no joke, of course--I recently was told some interesting expectations they had for knights. A knight should be strong enough to vault onto his horse in armour, vault over a horse without armour, be able to climb a ladder from the underside with armour, or climb from the underside of a ladder without armour using only one hand.

Spears can pierce armour. Depending on the knight's armour, however, that could become very difficult to achieve. There's a reason something as destructive as the poleaxe came into being--the armour became ludicrously protective.

Knights were noblemen first and foremost. The soldering thing was on the side compared to strategy and politics. Probably least skilled of the bunch, but moreso than pirate. But the equipment is arguably the best. But the slowest. They were also mostly calvary when employed in combat.

See the above examples of what a knight is expected to do. Also, check youtube for Armour Aerobics, on the slowness point. Most knights were pretty low-ranking, on the nobility tree--so their concern was really combat, that being their main way of increasing their social status.

Samurai were trained to fight as soon as they could. Started with horses, than archery, then mounted archery.

They were probably by far the most trained, mastery in a art was something everyone tried to strive for over there.

Knights were also trained to fight as soon as they could. They are a pretty close comparison to the samurai. They don't go to grade school--they go to a lord's castle to start training to use a bow and sword at 7 years old.

The main advantage of the samurai, was that their culture and agriculture were more sophisticated than much of Europe's. Europe had a lot of war going on that prevented them from building up their society to the point where they could muster large armies or keep large population centres, though it might've given the population an edge in combat experience. One man, after visiting Japan, commented they had enough warriors to conquer all of Europe.


You had some good points, of course. Just pointing out bits I notice, which I think are interesting to mention.

Mask: possible the best forum member I have seen.

That is very nice of you to say, 345. I very much enjoy discussions of this nature. Well, actually... all this talk about Samurai vs. Knight vs. Spartan vs. Pirate is making me feel sick. It's gone on long past its welcome, for me.


Anyone have ANY questions not relating to which of those four would win in a fight?