I'm not sure if this is meant to have a tinge of seriousness to it (it's in the General Martial Arts forum, rather than the Locker Room, after all…), so I might as well take it as at least semi-serious… so, here goes.
Contemplated on it, did it.
Okay.
Red Corner... Japanese nobility with the sharpest sword in existence. Combat abilities: Katanamanship, Archery, and Jujutsu.
Er… not so okay. Samurai weren't "nobility", they didn't have "the sharpest sword in existence", there's no such thing as "katanamanship", there isn't a single, definable skill set that applies or applied to all samurai over the 1,000 years or so of history and the wide range of roles they took in Japanese society. If we're talking Kamakura Jidai samurai, then we'll be talking mounted archery (kyuba no michi), and naginata as the dominant skills… in armour, as part of large open field battles. Move to the Sengoku Jidai, and we've got a lot of siege warfare happening… less mounted archery, more spears with grounded archery… near the end of the Sengoku Jidai and we get the advent of firearms (which we'll come back to), which was a huge game-changer for the samurai. Afterwards, we entered into the Tokugawa Jidai (Edo Jidai), a period of peacetime… it was during this time of no warfare, and little combative event that the prominence of both swordsmanship and jujutsu came to the fore. And, of course, as we move more and more through the Edo Jidai, samurai became increasingly bureaucrats… with little martial skill to define them (often it was maintained without much purpose, if at all).
So what form of samurai are we talking about? What rank were they? Are they battlefield commanders, ashigaru, daimyo, or what? Depending on what the answer is will change entirely who the samurai we're talking about is, and what they'll bring to the situation.
Blue Corner... Big white men with axes and a testosterone-inducing battle-cry. Combat abilities: Axe-and-Shield expertise, Javelin throwing, and brawling.
And… is this understanding taken from TV shows?
My money is on the Samurai, because I'm part Japanese and I am the great grandson of Oda Nobunaga.
So… this is now the mid 17th Century, yeah?
I'm no great student of martial history ...Norse History, Japanese history or any other history for that matter, but somewhere I heard that the basic weapon of both Viking and Samurai was actually the spear. The axe was the close range weapon of the Viking, and the much more expensive sword was less common, essentially a prestige weapon. In that sense both European and Japanese shared a similar reverence for a truly fine sword, be it a katana forged by a mastersmith or the +ULFBER+T wielded by great Viking and Saxon kings.
As for which would "win" you might as start debating which is tougher, Honey Badger or Wolverine.
The spear (su-yari) was the dominant armament for foot soldiers during the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period) for a range of reasons… to the point that it changed the way armour was designed and made. But, and here's the thing, that's just one application in just one period of Japanese history… throughout most of the rest of the history, the spear wasn't considered that major. Even then, it was largely associated with ashigaru, the lowest rank of samurai (to the point that ashigaru could be considered to not be actual samurai at all). The weapons most associated with samurai were the bow and arrow, and much later, the sword.
Well i think vikings would have a advantage because they would of been a lot larger and stronger than the Japanese samurai. In a fight i think samurai would have more likely used a spear than katana
Eh, depends on the time, the samurai, their rank, and more.
Based on Weapons, Vikings had bows, spears, Swords, Knives, short axes, long axes, shields and other weapons too Samurai had armor, long sword, short sword, bows, spears, bladed spear and other weapons too.... .but here is the kicker..... Samurai, later in their history... had guns...... so depending on what era you are talking it is real hard to say.
Yep!
But the rate of fire of pre Napoleonic guns was complete doodoo. One volley of Samurai shots equals an extra minute of reload. White people dont have weak legs, considering how a vast majority of powerlifting and weightlifting world records were done by white men. They could sprint for sure!
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Irrelevant, really. Here's the reality.
The Portuguese first brought matchlock rifles to Japan in 1543, bringing them to Tanegashima Island (as a result, the weapons are sometimes referred to as "tanegashima", although the more proper name is "hinawaju"), where the local Daimyo purchased three, instructing his swordsmith to copy and reproduce the weapons. By the 1570's, they were already in mass production, with their first major usage in the armies of Oda Nobunaga at the battle of Nagashino (and the earlier battle of Anegawa), giving Oda very decisive victories. By the time we got to the battle of Sekigahara (possibly the most important battle in Japanese history), Japan was producing more firearms than the entirety of Europe combined.
As with any new development, new tactics were devised, and old ones were adapted. While there was a long reload time, that was dealt with by having lines of volleys… the first line fired, then moved back to reload while the second, third, and commonly fourth lines came up and fired. This, combined with the increased power and range (armour being less effective against bullets than against slower-moving projectiles) meant that more damage was done with each volley… the reload time became less of a problem.
I have absolutely no idea what the whole "white people" stuff is about, as it seems to have nothing at all to do with anything anyone said.
