nightwolf667 said:
Haha, very true. The electrified antennas are wicked quick. No, the jealousy comes from having the actual chance to fight someone like Guy Windsor who is so proficient. For me, fighting with someone who is better than me (even if they're a hundred times better) is a great way to learn where my weaknesses are and what I need to do to improve. It also gives me a standard to reach for, which is very important.
Anyway, the trick to winning any fight is to play to your own strengths and set the pace. Once someone takes control of the flow of the fight (difficult as it can sometimes be) they are the one with the advantage. The traditional idea of a duel is (forgive me if I'm wrong) set up with certain ground rules with actions one can and cannot take. The systems of honor in either feudal Europe or feudal Japan were set up around the idea of keeping those who had power in power. Everything about the codes of the warriors we know today were built off of that. In a free fight, a fencer will still expect a certain pattern of behavior from their opponent and only have a certain set of tools meant to deal with the opponent they are fighting. One of the reasons I believe that the Europeans were better warriors is that the separate countries had a wider variety of opponents to fight against, where the Japanese system is extremely rigid due to mostly either fighting amongst themselves or against the Chinese (who were very similar). A Japanese samurai would come to the fight with a base line for expected behavior and if he were fighting a European knight (if history is any suggestion) it's unlikely that he would be able to adjust quickly to a fighting style that was completely foreign. Not only that, he would come to the fight believing that the knight was inherently an inferior threat due to Japan's own tendency for xenophobic behavior.
Sorry, I think I wandered off topic a little. You training with HEMAC is really cool!
Hmm. Those points are true, "honour" and the feudal system it was bound to had very little to do with what we think of as "honour".
But if we take a closer look at duels, there are a few things I'd like to mention. Now, I agree with what you said, each type of fighter have their strengths and areas of expertise, no doubt about that. A free duel, i.e. weapon of choice, as well armour and "killhits" as the victory condition (hit key areas, throat, back of the knee, armpits, groin, and by hit I mean "hit", just a tap is enough) or bringing the opponent down into a defenceless position. Disarm isn't necessarily a victory yet.
Anyhow, in a free duel against, say, me, a sport fencer would be lost and just as helpless as me with those antennas. The base for the sport is so bound by rules and regulations, a "radical" move like Mordhau (pretty common, actually) would catch a sportsman off guard- he'd have no readily thought moves for countering it, other than dodging. And, well, I'm not that slow. And a rapier hit against armour doesn't even count as a killhit. Although that would be an absurd duel to begin with, no point in swelling in it. The reason I even mentioned sports fencing was just to imply just how far away from the actual swordfighting sports fencing has gone.
Back to the more interesting stuff, Fritz fighting Kawasaki.
The whole idea of an European knight fighting a Tokugawa- era samurai is brilliant. The two supposed peaks of swordsmanship, the other hyped, the other unknown. Two swords, the other hyped, the other disrespected. Two sets of armour, the other, while impressive, quite weak in comparison, and the other often thought of as clumsy, while actually the best ever made.
I'm going to open this up. I'll try to be brief.
Firstly, the swords. A katana vs. the European longsword. A katana is good when cutting, slicing and swiping unarmoured targets. Armour was still a bump on the road, and against the best even the best katana will have to admit defeat. A master crafted gothic plate simply refuses to be cut without oversized tin openers or power tools. A katana has other shortcomings, it is not very versatile. The blade and the scabbard are the only offensive parts of it (yes, scabbard, it's a very effective mace). Thrusting is ineffective and the curved shape and a single cutting edge take away an array of dangerous moves. To add to the negative side, the material is a problem, Japanese steel is legendarily brittle. But by no means is a katana a bad weapon. While the Japanese may be a bit stuck up and stubborn, but they aren't stupid. A katana does its specified job very well.
The Longsword is a brilliant weapon. Unlike popular opinion would suggest, a bastard sword isn't just a thick, heavy blunt piece of iron that barely cuts hot butter. In fact they were light, balanced, swift and razor sharp(in the right places). A very versatile weapon indeed, the blade, pommel, hilt and handle are all deadly. The sword cuts and slices any soft targets just as easily as any katana. Armour is still a bit of a bummer, but it's easy to get around that, just grab the blade and use the sword as a kind of a spear and ram it between the plates or through the visor. Blood and gore guaranteed.
ANY sword is deep down just a tool. It will wear out, break and dull. No sword is unbreakable and every blade has to be sharpened regularly.
A mention about the birth of the katana: the Mongols are to thank or blame, whichever you prefer, for the katana becoming what it is. Before the 14th century Mongol attempt to conquer Japan, the samurai carried a different kind of sword: the tachi. It's slightly longer and more curved than the katana people know and hype. The same diamond hard edge that had made the katana famous fell on its face when put against the scale and splint mails of the great Khan's armies: the overly hard steel of the blade had a nasty habit of cracking or chipping when it hit the tough but flexible metal of the armours. Soon after that big weapons, such as the naginata took over. The symbolic sword of the samurai was used less, and for practical reasons made shorter and straighter, as it was carried at the waist. The katana is an
oversophisticated weapon. And that is its greatest weakness.
Moving on, armour:
The samurai armour is made of leather, silk, bone, horn, bits of metal, or even paper at times. It protects rather well against slicing attacks, much like a western ring mail. But it is easy to puncture, as there rarely is a continuous plate, but it's banded together to create a flexible and light suit. It allows quite a bit of mobility, but at the cost of somewhat exposed armpits, knees and the inside of thighs.
Then to my favourite, the grand full plate armour. Literally the best personal protection ever created, there are very few flaws to it. It is heavy, which doesn't slow the wearer much, but tires him a bit faster. Speaking from experience here, when wearing one, you won't notice any of that. It limits visibility a bit, so does any full helmet. The plates are designed so that any incoming blows are deflected and just slide away. That's the case with blades, anyway, smashing weapons are another case. (A warhammer is a tin opener no matter what.) The metal is very hard, yet flexible, and the suit is designed to absorb and distribute the force of an incoming blow across a wide area. Actual penetration through the chestplate is a rare extreme case. Weakpoints are the usual: joints, neck groin. However several hundred years of development dealt with most of those. Trying to find a way through all the 3 different plates that protect the elbow is frustrating. In addition, wearing the suit of armour makes the wearer a living weapon: a well aimed punch with these [http://armourandcastings.com/images/uploads/Gauntlets/Gothic/g1455sx1_1.jpg] is as good as a flanged mace. And furthermore, the extra weight gives an edge in close quarters, a small Japanese man, as tough as he may be, isn't quite the incredible Hulk.
Lastly, and most importantly, the style and skill. Both, the samurai and the knight were professional warriors. True enough, the Japanese had a very homogeneous array of foes to fight and a stick up their bottom when it comes to tradition. Still, their skill is, despite excessive hype, masterful.
The Knight would have a wider perspective. Say, a Teuton could have fought...
Poles and Hungarians - other heavily armoured warriors and horsemen, or light cavalry.
Lithuanians - horse archers, axemen
Danes - Halberdiers
Novgorodians - mix a Viking and a Slav. Odd one. An axe wielding nimble horseman.
Byzantines - light infantry and kataphracts
Ottomans - Janissaries
Mongols - you know...
Other Teutons
Just to mention the obvious. Also, the teachings of Italian and Spanish
maestros would have reached the rich Germans. (oh, and by the way, "maestro" has the exact same linguistic meaning as "sensei") In the hands of a competent knight, a longsword is perhaps the deadliest close combat weapon in history.
While the knight may have a wider angle to the battle, there's an uncanny twist to this duel: the martial arts of east and west are, in short, the same package with a different coloured wrapping paper. Of course they have cosmetic variations, but the footwork, postures, parries, counter-attacks and stances are virtually identical. But as I said earlier, the western ones are very dirty, with dismembering the opponent as efficiently as possible as the clear main goal, with all the ceremonies and meditation thrown away. In the light of the similarities of the techniques, the samurai wouldn't be completely baffled, perhaps shocked by the brutality of ramming the hilt of a longsword to an eye socket. (katanas make for nice, clear, although bloody kills.) Of course the more absorbent and flexible western style would seem confusing and outrageous to a warrior with a Bushido fixation.
The psychological side of the battle would be interesting. Who'd be more confused, the Japanese man, staring at a mountain of shiny steel, or the knight eyeballing a short, shouty man with a colourful armour and a curved sword. Would the soldiery discipline keep them in check, or would they lose their nerve. The mask of the samurai would hardly intimidate a knight who'd have seen blood crazed Baltic warriors wearing nothing but the blood of their previous foes. The samurai would indeed consider the knight a class rebel: only the noble samurai are allowed to carry a sword, and there it is, a strange looking man wielding a really big sword and not bearing the trappings of the warrior class. Perhaps the samurai would underestimate him. Or see the careful foot movements and postures and recognise a formidable swordsman and duel him to the death. Which was a nice sport in feudal Japan.
In any case, I'd pay a lot to see the two of them clash. I'd put my money on Fritz and his armour.
