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Hypo 1: Ok, say that the Island of Japan is magically put in place of the Holy land. The Holy Land's desert environment and all is exchanged with Japan, geographically Japan is now smack dab where Israel, Iraq and partof Egypt used to be.

The Crusaders are on their way and they don't particualrly care that they are now facing Samurai instead of Muslims.

The Japanese are at their height during the Tokugawa shogunate, which I assume is the golden age of the Samurai. They know the Crusaders are coming and want to take their lands (Tokyo is where Jerusalem used to be.)

What differences if any occur when the frankish knights face off against the Samurai? I've always wondered whether a medieval European army would do well against the Samurai.

Hypo 2: Replace the Island of England with Japan. What would the effect be on European history in general? Would Samurai conquer or invade Western Europe or would they be as insular?

If we magiclly keep the same climate and geography, placing Okinawa where Land's End is now, they'd actually be rather farther away from Europe. In any event they would likely remain insular, but their culture would be entirely different (modern Japanese culture is mostly a knock-off of ancient China, remember).

If you place 17th century Japan in place of Israel, the Samurai would run away with it. This of course discounts all the internal problems (Ronin, political power battles), but the technology as far as swords and arrows and martial skill (much more highly valued in Japan than Palestine) would flatten the Christians. The only difference is population, I'm not sure how many Japanese there were in the 1600s as compared to Crusades-era Middle-East.

Well, didn't Samurai use armour of laminated wood at that period?
I'm no expert on Samuraiology, but if true this would prove a major disadvantage.

The Crusader armies would outnumber the samurai, I think. Depends on which Crusade.

Peregrin Toker wrote:Well, didn't Samurai use armour of laminated wood at that period?
I'm no expert on Samuraiology, but if true this would prove a major disadvantage.

they did. mainly due to the fact that most other types of armor would have been ineffective against their sword techniques. with a properly made katana used with the correct technique can easily slice through metal. so the armor they wore was mostly decorative than anything. but since they had limited contact with europe during the era in question, they wouldn't have known, or had very little knowledge of knightly armor and weaponry.

Numbers are the main problem, if the Japanese are outnumbered as badly as I think they are they'll lose, but at equal strength they'd likely pull it off.

If they had evolved instead of England chances are they would have had a more significant population in response to fairly militant neighbours.

Sorry, just to elaborate- if they had been where England was, they would have used metal armour because they would have seen that it had use against other enemies. The infighting in Japan was so common that they didn't bother with it because it was ineffectual against other samurai, but if all the samurai are on the same side then metal armour would become more popular.

It's impossible to tell, really. John Clements wrote a good article about this at http://www.thehaca.com/essays/knightvs.htm . Basically, neither one has a real advantage. The katana, as has been said, could cut through thin metal. However, both a longsword and metal armor would easily hold up under most circumstances. The real reason for the silk-tied lacquered metal armor of the samurai was to prevent slices. The katana could not pierce easily, so the armor was not designed to stop stabbing wounds. While the samurai's katana would be slightly lighter than a greatsword, and the same weight as a longsword (roughly for both), the greatsword is about a foot longer, and a longsword the same length. The knight's biggest advantage would lie in the ability to back-cut with the two-bladed sword (it cuts the enemy both ways), or in the shield if using a one-handed sword, as blades often became stuck in wooden shields.

The samurai's advantage would lie in (slightly) lighter armor, and thus slightly greater mobility. The katana is a much "tighter" sword, wielded in smaller arcs. This gives it slightly greater speed but less power than a comparable longsword. While katana is wielded with wrist and hip twists, the longsword uses elbow and shoulder with full strides. The katana is wielded linearly, with motion forward and back, while longsword is a more circularly wielded weapon, with side-steps and shuffles being common.

Other minor things should also be noted:

Knights would have a large height and reach advantage. The average suit of armor from Europe in the mid-15th century was from ~5'11" to 6'5", while samurai of the same time were 5'3" to 5'5". The knight will have somewhere from a 6 inch to 14 inch height advantage, suggesting a 3-7 inch reach advantage.

Despite the supposed uselessness of metal armor against the katana, indigenous Japanese armor was of metal tied with silk. Additionally, 16th century samurai would purchase European plate armor and wear it into battle as superior to their own.

The katana, unless one of the few master-made swords (~100 known to have ever existed), would be likely to chip or shatter on plate armor. Most katana, in order to maintain their edge, were very brittle compared to normal carbon steel.

Most samurai were, at best, adequate swordsmen. Their primary weapons were spear and bow. After all, the code of the samurai is The Way of the Horse and Bow, not the Way of the Sword. While virtually every knightly duel was with sword (either longsword and shield or greatsword), most duels of samurai recorded in history were with daggers.

However, it would be impossible to say as far as individual combat went. Most Crusades involved far more knights than there were samurai, so in the first case the Crusaders would likely overrun the Holy Land. If the samurai were in Britain, they likely would develop weapons and armor more similar to the Continent, as in that environment of heavy armor and mass over mobility, they would be necessary for ground combat.

The crusaders would rampage and slaughter, hands down. The Tokugawa bakufu was designed to keep the most powerful forces in Japan off guard and weak. In fact, at the height of Tokugawa(1720), the armies of the various daimyo and the shogunate were at their weakest levels since the Ashikaga bakufu, centuries earlier.

In Tokugawa, the samurai were bureaucrats. They were required to attend school and held to strict standards of behavior, based mostly on the Confucian gentleman. The military heirarchy of the earlier bakufu was supplanted by a bureaucracy. Most of these samurai only wore swords because they had to. In fact, the samurai revivals undergone by the ronin came far, far later in Tokugawa (about 1830 until the Restoration).

I think a more fair scenario would involve the Kamakura bakufu, which was born out of the aftermath of the Genji/Heike wars(1180-85). It was more of a 'classic' feudal state, with might making right. This period was the souce of the samurai ethic which was revived by the ronin and the shishi(post Restoration, that is). They might fare a little better against the crusaders.

Darth_Zod wrote:they did. mainly due to the fact that most other types of armor would have been ineffective against their sword techniques. with a properly made katana used with the correct technique can easily slice through metal. so the armor they wore was mostly decorative than anything. but since they had limited contact with europe during the era in question, they wouldn't have known, or had very little knowledge of knightly armor and weaponry.

I thought the reason was cause Japan simply did not have enough iron and in good quality to afford making entire suits of armor with.

And also the reason why they had to layer a lot to make their swords, cause the steel they worked with was poor quality.