Holy Roman Empire vs Tokugawa Shogunate - Historical military comparison

[Ninja of Cao]

Two regional great powers, feudal empires, struggling for dominance of their neighbors. Both fallen at the feet of modern armies, both failing to realize the importance of development. Who would win in a potential war?

Discuss freely using any knowledge that you have about the warring faction. Take numbers, equipment, skill, leadership, terrain etc. into account.

Holy Roman Empire

Numbers: 450,000
Tactics: Tercio Squares supported by heavy cavalry
Terrain: Forests, plains and hills
Soldier armor: Heavy full-body iron armor (melee troops), none (ranged troops)
Soldier shield: Small, triangular iron shields
Soldier weaponry: Longsword, rapier, halberd, pike, crossbow, musket.
Artillery: Large and extremely heavy cannons with great power but poor accuracy
Ships: About a hundred galleons, powered by sails, armed with a few dozen guns

Tokugawa Shogunate

Numbers: More than 500,000
Tactics: Melee charges supported by archers and musketeers
Terrain: Hills, mountains and cities
Soldier armor: Light nearly full-body steel armor
Soldier shield: None
Soldier weaponry: Katana sword, wakizashi short sword, naginata halberd/spear, yari pike, yumi longbow, arquebus
Artillery: Trebuchets, small and light cannons, or primitive hand-held rocket launchers
Ships: Thousands of small, armored ships, powered by oars, with no cannons but many men for boarding
　
My own conclusion:

Spoiler:

Interesting. Western peasant draftees vs. Japanese ashigaru, men-at-arms vs. samurai on foot, mounted knights vs. samurai on horseback...
I would say that the Tokugawa Shogunate has the upper hand. Sure, they may not be able to invade the Holy Roman Empire (plus the Holy Roman Empire had a superior navy), but the Tokugawa Shogunate has better weapons and more skilled soldiers. It has been proven that a katana is far more armor-penetrating than any European sword, and Japanese arquebuses could be used in rain (while the Holy Roman Empire could not use their muskets if the air was too wet). Samurai had better training than western knights (samurai lived only for war since the age of 6, knights only used their free time for training from around 10-12 years of age). The Tercio formation is a slow-moving pike square that, although containing musketeers and crossbowmen, has very little firepower compared to lines of Japanese musketeers. Superior skill, superior weapons and superior tactics will lead to my final conclusion:
Tokugawa Shogunate victory

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

the only advantage the shoguns have is primitive guns

while I fully expect Katana wank to ensue here it's garbage compared to western weapons and armor.. the HRE should ride them down

[Ninja of Cao]

Originally Posted by The Immortal Watch Dog

the only advantage the shoguns have is primitive guns

while I fully expect Katana wank to ensue here it's garbage compared to western weapons and armor.. the HRE should ride them down

The Katana is proven superior to western longswords and have a much better ability to cut through armor.


Now I doubt that the Japanese armies of the time could invade any European nation due to the Japanese ships having almost no guns, but the Holy Roman Empire would not have any chance to invade or colonize Japan. Besides, Japanese terrain is not very suitable for heavy cavalry charges.

[Cult of Personality]

Katanas can cut through tanks. True story.

I vote for the Romans. They're cooler.

[Ninja of Cao]

Originally Posted by Cult of Personality

Katanas can cut through tanks. True story.

I vote for the Romans. They're cooler.

A wooden tank, maybe.

And the Holy Roman Empire has nothing to do with Rome or the Romans. They were a coalition of German Catholic states.

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

The Katana is proven superior to western longswords and have a much better ability to cut through armor.
[

first of all those shows aren't accurate ion the slightest most of tghem are outright fraudulent deadliest warrior and that discovery channel show where they ordered the navy seals to take a dive to the ninjas..being the most egregious- Mail call while fun is as accurate as anything shown on a cable channel where they have to worry about offending certain demographics by challenging preconceived notions

that is to say it's not accurate and should never be cited as evidence in these debates

meanwhile back in the land of cold hard reality Katana's are weapons made of garbage tier steel and chipped against Mongolian leather armor and not even the good stuff

The Katana is not proven to be superior to western weaponry at all that is a pop culture myth and it's a load of bull crap

There's a pretty good video floating around Youtube that shows exactly what happens when a European sword collides with Samurai armor and what happens when a Katana tries to challenge one (Re utterly broken Katana and only mildly chipped sword)

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

Now I doubt that the Japanese armies of the time could invade any European nation due to the Japanese ships having almost no guns, but the Holy Roman Empire would not have any chance to invade or colonize Japan. Besides, Japanese terrain is not very suitable for heavy cavalry charges.

then what the hell is this thread? you pit army vs army yes? in that contest west stomps east

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

a relevant Essay on Katanas from the military buffs over on space Battles

OK, OK. So as not to be a completely unqualified bastard here, I'm going to be a qualified bastard instead.

Katanas, of the era when katanas were still the sort of thing you used to kill people with on a regular basis if you owned one (as opposed to using one in the occasional mad charge while the rest of your unit was busy getting shot by Americans), were almost universally made of inferior steel to the sorts of steel that was being used to make weapons and armour in Europe.

This was due to the relatively low-tech, low-temperature, very messy and inefficient and, quite frankly crap "traditional" method that the Japanese had utterly failed to progress further than: Being a thoroughly regimented and rigidly structured society does have its advantages, but rapid technological progress is not generally one of them. Well, not until Those In Authority decide it's a good idea, and for hundreds of years in Japan, they didn't. A peasant with a low-technology naginata is much less likely to kill a nobleman than a peasant with a high-technology musket, after all.

The direct upshot of this is that even lower-quality Euroipean steel was similar or better quality than even high-quality Japanese steel. European steel was already being mass-produced by this time, in charcoal-dust powered blast furnaces that burned hotter than anything the Japanese had dreamt of in their wildest nightmares.

The folding method that was used to make good katana blades (and which a lot of katana fanboys yap on about endlessly like it was the Second Coming of the Sliced Loaf and somehow magically made katanas harder and tougher than Dorchester) would have had no relevance to blades made with the higher-quality European steel, because in reality it didn't actually make the blade any stronger: Modern materials science tells us that what it actually did was to spread the flaws in the low-quality steel (of which there were a great many) almost perfectly evenly across the blade.

With high-quality steel this process would have been pointless at best: At worst, it could have seriously weakened the blade. As it was, spreading the flaws out in this way meant that no part of the blade was any stronger than any other, or- much more important from the perspective of resistance to shear stress- any weaker. A blade made from unfolded low-quality steel would have parts that were significantly tougher than a folded-steel katana blade: But it would have parts that were also much much weaker, and a sword blade under shear stress, much like a chain under tension, is only as strong as the weakest of its parts. For high-carbon, low-purity Japanese steel, then, there was only ever one way to make a decent blade.

The problem with this, of course, is that skilled labour like swordsmithing takes time and effort to learn, and a swordsmith's time and effort are both urgently needed to supply the army with other things like spearheads, arrowheads, knives and so on, and there's only so much time before that bastard son of a one-eared goat with herpes daimyo next door sends his army to knock on the door again and would you please fill out this order for three hundred arrowheads as soon as you can I'll pay you triple if it's in by Thursday.

You see the problem? Folding steel again and again and again takes time, and that's time, effort and very skilled labour that's all going to be taken up with a single weapon. He could craft tens, hundreds of spearheads in that time, but no, he's working on this one bloody sword and he's going to do it until he's got it exactly right and then it's going to be God's gift to swordsmanship and no pizza is ever going to have held a damn' thing that'll hold a candle to it honest because that's what the customer ordered. Well, no poop except half of Europe, but the poor bastard wasn't to know that. Oh, and anyone else willing to pay more for it. The direct upshot of this is that Katanas were, how can I put this delicately, oh wait what am I thinking it's me for fork's sake since when do I put anything delicately, bloody expensive. You think your iPod was pretty expensive, or your computer? Well, unless you're a pease-eating peasant farmer in Goatfuck, Africa, in which case you probably think your cow is pretty expensive and you'd have a lovely aneurism if you knew how much an iPod cost, much less what one is, but let me put it this way: To a Japanese nobleman, a high-quality katana cost a lot more, relatively speaking than your iPod. To the African goat farmer.

Seriously, you could equip half a bloody army for the same cost.*

Now, think about this. You're a Samurai nobleman in ancient Japan: You've just bought a new sword, for roughly the price your Daimyo's anal virginity would command on the black market, assuming he isn't paying some monkey to do that to him with broomhandles already because seriously nobles have got to have been some of the most forked up and debauched creatures ever to have walked bow-legged, and you've got the full set with the lacquered black scabbard with the shrine motif inset that your wife liked when you went to pick one out. You even went the whole hog and had the smith quench the blade in your least favourite servant's chest cavity because the swordsmith says that produces the best quality steel.

You've just finished the proving ceremony (where you cut an inferior blade in half with a single swipe of your new blade) and you're trying to defend your purchase to the local bard-analogue who's being paid by the superlative to grossly exaggerate the awesomeness of both your boss and, by extension, all that he commands- including yourself. First up, what are you going to say to him: "I just got this ceremonial sword for roughly the same price as my house. The wife is going to kill me when I get home and I'm not even sure it was worth it 'cause I never really used the crappy old one I used to have much, all I ever really killed people with was my bow. Seriously, I just had to mortgage three whole farms to buy this thing."? I don't think so.

You're an Alpha Male (and besides that your wife is probably as much of a noble as you: Her feet are probably bound so tight she can barely stand up, much less kick your arse) and in the Daimyo's last battle you slew five hundred enemy warriors with your bare hands, teeth and tremendously hard erect sausage. You've reached the limits of what you can do unarmed, you say, so now it's time to go for the record: So you need a weapon. But not just any weapon. No, you need something amazing. Legendary, even, and worthy of commanding a legendary price tag. That, to the records, to the annals of history, is how your sword is going to be recorded. It just cost half your bloody fortune, so it had damned well better be!

This goes on for a few hundred years' worth of Japan's history, just as the thing with knights and longswords and Robin Hood and the goatforking peasants and baby-eating nobles and the Crusades and Saladin and so on did over here in Europe. Sure, the swords were better here, the records and surviving examples and some basic metallurgy tell us that, but relatively speaking they weren't nearly as expensive, so the only ones that achieved really legendary status were the ones that were used a lot by the mad murderous psychotic bastards who managed to kill enough dozens of people with them to become "heroes". A lot of them had names by that point, possibly because the crazy sheet wielding the bastard had killed or lost in combat all of his other friends and nobody else with more than half the sense God gave the bowel movements of a syphilitic dingo would dare to talk to them unless they were at least ten feet away, encased in armour or both.

Thus, the myth of the Katana as the Gods' gift to weaponry was implanted fairly strongly on the traditional Japanese mind: And it endured long after those heathen-bastard gaijin came along and started helping people kill each other (rather dishonourably) with big metal tubes that made loud "bang" noises and spat smoke and lead- not to mention selling armour that offered five times the protection of traditional bamboo lattices at half the price, because it was that heavily engrained. It got transmitted everywhere else in the '80s and '90s as the Japanese, busy exporting consumer electronics like there was no tomorrow (and, to be fair, for a lot of the Japanese economy it turned out there wasn't), started exporting their culture by the metric shitload along with it, replete with katana-as-God mythology and all.

The simple truth is, however, that they just weren't that great. They were much, much better in hand to hand combat than anything else on the feudal Japanese battlefield, once you got close enough to use them, but- and here's the point- there really wasn't much on the feudal Japanese battlefield that WAS all that much cop. For unarmoured, lightly-armoured or bamboo-armoured combat, the Katana is a fantastic weapon. It'll slice a peasant in half at a single stroke, another samurai in two.

But compared to Western blades of a similar era it has a short reach, is at best a little unbalanced, isn't all that much cop against armour and it's bloody difficult to stab anyone with it properly. A Medieval knight's relatively cheap and mass-produced gear (his horse will cost almost as much as all of the rest of his kit combined and will be almost as psychotic as he is- if you think a Samurai can kill a lot of guys with his teeth, you should see that horse go at it!) will, for all that it costs a fraction of the relative price, be significantly more effective in combat than that of a Samurai. His armour will be beaten, high-quality steel, smooth as glass, face-hardened by heat treatment and polished to a shine- guaranteed to deflect almost all known types of arrow**, spear tip, sword strike, war hammer*** and axe wielding maniac!**** A katana would chip and shatter before putting so much as a dent in that breastplate: the steel it's made of, even on the edge of the blade, simply isn't hard enough.

The problem of course is that so many of the other bastards in the medieval knight's battlefield were also pretty well equipped that, relatively speaking, it made much less of a difference.

Full original Essay here

[Devils Lawyer]

Someone here has never heard of greek fire. Rome would wipe them out casually. Some say it's the predecessor to Napalm.

[Cult of Personality]

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

And the Holy Roman Empire has nothing to do with Rome or the Romans. They were a coalition of German Catholic states.

Then why is it called the Holy ROMAN Empire? Cult 1 Cao 0.

They're still cooler, so they still get my vote.

[Ninja of Cao]

Originally Posted by The Immortal Watch Dog

first of all those shows aren't accurate ion the slightest most of tghem are outright fraudulent deadliest warrior and that discovery channel show where they ordered the navy seals to take a dive to the ninjas..being the most egregious- Mail call while fun is as accurate as anything shown on a cable channel where they have to worry about offending certain demographics by challenging preconceived notions

that is to say it's not accurate and should never be cited as evidence in these debates

meanwhile back in the land of cold hard reality Katana's are weapons made of garbage tier steel and chipped against Mongolian leather armor and not even the good stuff

The Katana is not proven to be superior to western weaponry at all that is a pop culture myth and it's a load of bull crap

There's a pretty good video floating around Youtube that shows exactly what happens when a European sword collides with Samurai armor and what happens when a Katana tries to challenge one (Re utterly broken Katana and only mildly chipped sword)




then what the hell is this thread? you pit army vs army yes? in that contest west stomps east

Katanas are among the sharpest blades of world history and the best slashing weapon available in Asia. Also, the samurai defeated the Mongols, and the Mongols defeated half of Europe - that should say something about the strength comparison between Europe and Asia during this time.

I pit this army vs army with a realistic scenario (HRE forces are attempting to invade the Japanese islands). But if you want to send a massed cavalry charge across snowy mountains, or challenge longbows with slow-moving spear formations, then do so. See how it goes.

Originally Posted by The Immortal Watch Dog

a relevant Essay on Katanas from the military buffs over on space Battles



Full original Essay here

Am I supposed to take it seriously or are you just joking around? It contains spelling mistakes and inaccurate information - not to mention a language that is not suitable for a person well-educated within the subject - that I have little belief in until it has been proven before my own two eyes.

Originally Posted by Devils Lawyer

Someone here has never heard of greek fire. Rome would wipe them out casually. Some say it's the predecessor to Napalm.

The Holy Roman Empire had no access to Greek fire, that belonged to the Eastern Roman (aka Byzantine) Empire.

Originally Posted by Cult of Personality

Then why is it called the Holy ROMAN Empire? Cult 1 Cao 0.

They're still cooler, so they still get my vote.

The title "Roman" means not that they are Romans, but that they consider themselves the defenders of Catholicism. The Roman Empire was officially ruled by the Pope in Rome, but the Holy Roman Empire never reached Rome with their territorial expansion. The Holy Roman Empire was a coalition of technologically backwards German states that were easily crushed by nations such as Sweden and France, who saw value in technology and mobility.

[Cult of Personality]

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

The title "Roman" means not that they are Romans, but that they consider themselves the defenders of Catholicism. The Roman Empire was officially ruled by the Pope in Rome, but the Holy Roman Empire never reached Rome with their territorial expansion. The Holy Roman Empire was a coalition of technologically backwards German states that were easily crushed by nations such as Sweden and France, who saw value in technology and mobility.

Then they should have called themselves the Holy Technologically Backwards German States Empire not the Holy Roman Empire.

Cult 2 Cao 0

They're still cooler, so they still get my vote.

[Ninja of Cao]

Originally Posted by Cult of Personality

Then they should have called themselves the Holy Technologically Backwards German States Empire not the Holy Roman Empire.

Cult 2 Cao 0

They're still cooler, so they still get my vote.

Indeed the title can be confusing. Yet any historical archives described this, and even limited historical education should prove that they were Germanic and not Roman. Besides, as a friendly advice I may tell you that some people may not consider your opinion unless you provide a valid reason - and I do not believe that "they're cooler" is a valid reason to vote for them as militarily superior.

[Cult of Personality]

I am familiar with the disposition of how others view my facts (for the record, I have no opinions, because that would imply that I am capable of being wrong. ).

The validity of my statements is inherent based simply on the fact that I am the one making them.

Whether others view these statements as valid is of little or no consequence to me. Most of the people in this place have proven to me time and again that they possess what I shall generously call less than optimal intelligence, so their take on the subject is not going to be high priority.

That being said, Tokugawa Shogunate sounds like a random jumble of words that someone threw together. Leave that for the Japanophiles to fap to. Holy Roman Empire combines three separate terms with great badassitude.

1: Holy, which suggests they've got a god on their side.
2: Roman, brings to mind them strapping Italian fellows.
3: Empire, Strikes Back anyone?

[Ninja of Cao]

Originally Posted by Cult of Personality

I am familiar with the disposition of how others view my facts (for the record, I have no opinions, because that would imply that I am capable of being wrong. ).

The validity of my statements is inherent based simply on the fact that I am the one making them.

Whether others view these statements as valid is of little or no consequence to me. Most of the people in this place have proven to me time and again that they possess what I shall generously call less than optimal intelligence, so their take on the subject is not going to be high priority.

That being said, Tokugawa Shogunate sounds like a random jumble of words that someone threw together. Leave that for the Japanophiles to fap to. Holy Roman Empire combines three separate terms with great badassitude.

1: Holy, which suggests they've got a god on their side.
2: Roman, brings to mind them strapping Italian fellows.
3: Empire, Strikes Back anyone?

I have no translation for Tokugawa as it is a surname, which gives away that it is ruled by a powerful family and not a slow-minded bureaucracy. And Shogunate comes from the word shogun, which basically translates as "great leader", "great commander", or "commander of the army". So basically Tokugawa Shogunate translates as "The military dictatorship of the Tokugawa family"

[Cult of Personality]

Han Solo > Tokugawa. All day, every day.

[Ninja of Cao]

Originally Posted by Cult of Personality

Han Solo > Tokugawa. All day, every day.

It depends on the situation:

Han Solo with blaster pistol > Tokugawa samurai with katana
Han Solo with katana < Tokugawa samurai with katana
Han Solo with blaster pistol > Tokugawa samurai with blaster pistol
Han Solo unarmed < Tokugawa samurai unarmed

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

Katanas are among the sharpest blades of world history and the best slashing weapon available in Asia.

sharpest blades in world history? more East Wank by psuedo-historians and Hollywood?

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

Also, the samurai defeated the Mongols, and the Mongols defeated half of Europe -

I wouldn't call that a victory at all when you consider they had help from a Hurricane multiple times and Chinese saboteurs what intentionally designed the ships badly..lost 75 of their total forces before the first battle and got sodomized by a typhoon the second time mid battle...that they still suffered enormous casualties

oh and you know the Kamakura shogunate more or less collapsed large in part due to the results of those wars

but by all means continue to grossly misrepresent history..nevermind that, that's against

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

that should say something about the strength comparison between Europe and Asia during this time.

yeah if the Kamakura shogunate attempted to invade Europe they'd be raped..they'd be LOL stomped on..the only nation that they might have a chance against are the friggen Byzantines and barely that..

Tokugowa making an attack on Europe in that period would last as long as Spain and France wanted them too..and invading England would be suicide

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

I pit this army vs army with a realistic scenario (HRE forces are attempting to invade the Japanese islands). But if you want to send a massed cavalry charge across snowy mountains, or challenge longbows with slow-moving spear formations, then do so. See how it goes.

I would pit European metallurgy over Japanese steel any day and largely because of the obese shogun of Japan all the awesome Generals of Japan were largely

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

Am I supposed to take it seriously or are you just joking around? It contains spelling mistakes and inaccurate information

it's certainly more accurate than tripe from the history channel..

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

- not to mention a language that is not suitable for a person well-educated within the subject

Ah a very pseudo-intellectual response protip bad words don't invalidate a persons wisdom or intelligence

[Ninja of Cao]

Originally Posted by The Immortal Watch Dog

sharpest blades in world history? more East Wank by psuedo-historians and Hollywood?




I wouldn't call that a victory at all when you consider they had help from a Hurricane multiple times and Chinese saboteurs what intentionally designed the ships badly..lost 75 of their total forces before the first battle and got sodomized by a typhoon the second time mid battle...that they still suffered enormous casualties

oh and you know the Kamakura shogunate more or less collapsed large in part due to the results of those wars

but by all means continue to grossly misrepresent history..nevermind that, that's against



yeah if the Kamakura shogunate attempted to invade Europe they'd be raped..they'd be LOL stomped on..the only nation that they might have a chance against are the friggen Byzantines and barely that..

Tokugowa making an attack on Europe in that period would last as long as Spain and France wanted them too..and invading England would be suicide


I would pit European metallurgy over Japanese steel any day and largely because of the obese shogun of Japan all the awesome Generals of Japan were largely



it's certainly more accurate than tripe from the history channel..




Ah a very pseudo-intellectual response protip bad words don't invalidate a persons wisdom or intelligence

No matter their method of victory over the Mongols, it was still a victory. And the Mongol invasion of Europe surely proved how "superior" knights were to fast-moving Asian warriors with slashing weapons.

Of course, the knights were better protected than the samurai - but they were also much slower in their movements and lacked the same kind of training that the samurai had. Also, knights never fought with ranged weapons while samurai often used longbows.

During times like these it is difficult for one nation to be "utterly superior" to another. I doubt that one samurai can cut down 100 knights in a few minutes, but the opposite is also impossible. However, it should be possible for a sole knight to slaughter many Japanese ashigaru or for a samurai to slaughter many western peasant draftees, and ashigaru/peasants made up most of the army.

As for comparing longsword to katana, it's impossible to say which one was "better". It all depends on what you need it for:

• Want to quickly attack your opponents who wear no armor? Katana.
• Want to be able to slash the same moment you pull out your sword? Katana.
• Want to be able to break through armor with brute force and weight of weapon? Longsword.
• Want to keep your enemy at a distance? Longsword.
• Want to challenge an opponent with thick steel armor to a 1 on 1 fight? Longsword.
• Want to challenge an opponent with leather armor to a 1 on 1 fight? Katana (both swords work, but katana is swifter).

[Cult of Personality]

Lightsaber > both.

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

No matter their method of victory over the Mongols, it was still a victory.

in the same way Pearl Harbor was, in the same way the Hot Gates were, in the same way many other such victories were through out history..IE- not

sorry but The Mongols had it not been for a heaping quantity of external issues would have raped Japan

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

And the Mongol invasion of Europe surely proved how "superior" knights were to fast-moving Asian warriors with slashing weapons.

yes they sure had no problem overrunning nations like Russia and the regions of Eastern Europe which had been devastated by centuries of conflict prior- i like how they stopped short of Western Europe and never made any head roads instead they did things like what was it? Oh yeah asked the pope to send Christian scholars to them and stuff..they seemed far more willing to fight the crappy part than the good part

to my knowledge very few western nations were taken by the huns the rest of the land..well

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

Of course, the knights were better protected than the samurai - but they were also much slower in their movements and lacked the same kind of training that the samurai had. Also, knights never fought with ranged weapons while samurai often used longbows.

Really? knights weren't better trained and had horrible mobility? Listen when you stop regurgitating the same old nonsense Otaku BS and actually know what your talking about..we can have a discussion

protip Youtube is full of videos of people doing friggen back flips and cart wheels in Knight Armor.. these people of course are not employed by the history channel or Deadliest warrior or any other tv show or channel obssessed with validating pop culture trends and going by preconceived notions of bad ass over historical accuracy

lots of essays have been published lots of works debunking Knights being stiff

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

During times like these it is difficult for one nation to be "utterly superior" to another. I doubt that one samurai can cut down 100 knights in a few minutes, but the opposite is also impossible. However, it should be possible for a sole knight to slaughter many Japanese ashigaru or for a samurai to slaughter many western peasant draftees, and ashigaru/peasants made up most of the army.

those western peasants would be better armored than their eastern counter parts..their crummy field spears would be made of superior metal to what the average Samurai even could afford

Those western peasants would also in certain eras especially the 1400's- to 1500's have some actual training

England, Spain and France as well as some of the Dutch and German states had very well trained armies the big three had incredibly experienced troops and IIRC France and Spain showed full well what "modern" artillery could do on the battlefield a few times

the Dutch too once or twice a century prior

Originally Posted by Ninja of Cao

As for comparing longsword to katana, it's impossible to say which one was "better". It all depends on what you need it for:

• Want to quickly attack your opponents who wear no armor? Katana.
• Want to be able to slash the same moment you pull out your sword? Katana.
• Want to be able to break through armor with brute force and weight of weapon? Longsword.
• Want to keep your enemy at a distance? Longsword.
• Want to challenge an opponent with thick steel armor to a 1 on 1 fight? Longsword.
• Want to challenge an opponent with leather armor to a 1 on 1 fight? Katana (both swords work, but katana is swifter).

I want something that doesn't cost an absurd amount of money and isn't made from horrible quality metal that can murder as many people that are trying to murder me..without needing absurd amounts of maintenance and without all the baggage of it being a symbol of prestige

this is what all soldiers who have ever fought want..something practical that they don't have to worry about..that works and will damn well

to that effect a Katana fails miserably

Originally Posted by Cult of Personality

Lightsaber > both.

this