They also used weapons that depended of powder like artillery or firearms, specially rifles.
One of the reasons why the Last Samurai is a decent movie but historically defficient.
Captain_Weebson on
….they were mounted archers until 1400s, after that mounted archery increasingly became rare and fully dead by 1500s as they become mostly either infantry or shock/melee cavalry
Azerbinhoneymood on
Another Santa phenomenon.
Efficient-Orchid-594 on
I like how you can see the original gundam image behind the samurai
OceanoNox on
Both are wrong though. They used swords in close quarters, it was not reserved for desperate situations.
In this very long page, there are examples of Japanese warriors using swords as a matter of course, not as a last resort.
ShitassAintOverYet on
Katanas being the last resort is true but you can’t call them exclusively horseback archers either.
Many of them have used polearms as primary melee weapon and when muskets were introduced to Japan by the Dutch, they’ve replaced bow and arrow quickly. Horseback archery was a dying trend before Dutch and Porteguese ships have arrived though and it was left to non-Samurai foot soldiers.
IIIaustin on
All weapons that are part of a warriors order of battle are important. Weapons are heavy and expensive and they wouldn’t acquire them and bring them to the battle otherwise.
Swords are incredibly useful to mounted Archers. The mongols are rightly famous for their horse archery but killed more people with the sword after harassing them into making mistakes and encircling them.
Discussing which is more important or better is a very modernist, ttrpg-ist and videogame-ist approach. It has nothing to do with how people fought.
Also a lot of thr Japanese sword obsession is from thr Tokogawa era when samurai still existed nut were forbidden from doing war. They got really weird about it.
8 Comments
Don’t forget the spear.
They also used weapons that depended of powder like artillery or firearms, specially rifles.
One of the reasons why the Last Samurai is a decent movie but historically defficient.
….they were mounted archers until 1400s, after that mounted archery increasingly became rare and fully dead by 1500s as they become mostly either infantry or shock/melee cavalry
Another Santa phenomenon.
I like how you can see the original gundam image behind the samurai
Both are wrong though. They used swords in close quarters, it was not reserved for desperate situations.
[https://a-breefe-discourse.blogspot.com/2024/09/sword-in-combat.html?m=1](https://a-breefe-discourse.blogspot.com/2024/09/sword-in-combat.html?m=1)
In this very long page, there are examples of Japanese warriors using swords as a matter of course, not as a last resort.
Katanas being the last resort is true but you can’t call them exclusively horseback archers either.
Many of them have used polearms as primary melee weapon and when muskets were introduced to Japan by the Dutch, they’ve replaced bow and arrow quickly. Horseback archery was a dying trend before Dutch and Porteguese ships have arrived though and it was left to non-Samurai foot soldiers.
All weapons that are part of a warriors order of battle are important. Weapons are heavy and expensive and they wouldn’t acquire them and bring them to the battle otherwise.
Swords are incredibly useful to mounted Archers. The mongols are rightly famous for their horse archery but killed more people with the sword after harassing them into making mistakes and encircling them.
Discussing which is more important or better is a very modernist, ttrpg-ist and videogame-ist approach. It has nothing to do with how people fought.
Also a lot of thr Japanese sword obsession is from thr Tokogawa era when samurai still existed nut were forbidden from doing war. They got really weird about it.