Spear vs Sword in Real World

[PrivateXTC]

Would a samurai unit with swords really beat a unit of samurai with spears in reality? Always wondered this but it's hard finding real people who would be willing to test it out.

[Beanus]

Kiddo 2 TE eredeti hozzászólása:

sword, first the japanese never used sheilds second. One of Musashis last buots was were he faced a retainer who was a master of the spear but musahi beat him with a short sword

All that proves is that Musashis was better at fighting than the retainer.
You have told us nothing of what happened in that fight. For all i know the retainer could have tripped on a rock and pitched himself over a cliff.

[Mile pro Libertate]

madking eredeti hozzászólása:

Kiddo 2 TE eredeti hozzászólása:

sword, first the japanese never used sheilds second. One of Musashis last buots was were he faced a retainer who was a master of the spear but musahi beat him with a short sword

All that proves is that Musashis was better at fighting than the retainer.
You have told us nothing of what happened in that fight. For all i know the retainer could have tripped on a rock and pitched himself over a cliff.

Yeah, Musashi was obviously an exceptional swordsman and duelist, as his life attests.

I mean, Musashi also killed a renowned swordsman by using an oar from a boat...in one move. So are we to conclude "oars or a 2x4 beats the sword in melee" ? :D

Skill is more important than anything with melee combat, and there is always a part for luck to play.

Also, it's not necessarily true that the Japanese never used shields. Check out these excellent overviews by a guy who is reviewing the primary material:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R2GcZWl1XGA

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0C19fMHVW-w

The problem with looking at Japanese military practice from the Sengoku or earlier is that so much of the literary evidence remains untranslated or buried away in archives, not even known to us in the West. And then you have all of the embellishments and romanticism from 200+ years of the Edo period.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Metadragon eredeti hozzászólása:

madking eredeti hozzászólása:

You can still form a phalanx without shields.
At any rate even without a shield a spear is still better than a sword.

You cant just claim it to be true. Wheres your evidence? Wheres the argument? hell Id take rhetoric. But you havent done any of these things so I guess were done discussing things.Let me know when you actually want to talk otherwise were done here.

You might enjoy my first post in this thread, especially parts "B" and "C."

[Mile pro Libertate]

Metadragon eredeti hozzászólása:

If using shields the spear. If no shield then swords. Generally speaking anyway. Spears are always better against cavalry for instance.

This doesn't jive with either European or Japanese historical military practice though.

The samurai seemed to have overwhelmingly preferred the yari or naginata, with war clubs and long "field swords" to a lesser extent as well, in a melee from the Nanbokucho period onwards.

The European men at arms preferred to use polearm like the halberd, poleaxe, lochaber axe, partisan, glaive, voulge, bill/billhook and "half lance" without shield from around the end of the High Middle Ages onwards. The time depended on what area you are looking at, as early as 1200 in some areas, to the Modern era in others, for example large parts of Eastern Europe where the bow, javelin and light spear remained in use from horseback.

But generally, by about 1300 the European man at arms fought with a two handed polearm as his main weapon in any dismounted melee, and the sword was relegated to sidearm.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Dayve eredeti hozzászólása:

In Japan during this era, spears were obviously the superior weapon for battle. Nobody used shields, so spears were superior as they had better reach.

Maybe in small combats, 1v1 or a little more, a sword might be more suitable. But in pitched battles certainly the spear was the more sensible choice when nobody uses shields.

In other parts of the world, where the shield was carried by almost every soldier, the spear is less useful, as we see in Rome's conquering of spear-using nations like Greece/Macedonia/Seleucid Syria/Ptolemaic Egypt and so forth.

The Romans winning against spear-and-shield armies is frequently used as some proof that the sword beats spear, but I think we need to be careful about confusing the efficacy of an entire system with that of a weapon.

It was the Roman tactical system that was prove superior, and the gladius and scutum was a portion of that system: it doesn't follow that the sword, shield, or sword+shield was inherently superior to the spear or spear+shield.

We shouldn't forget, for example, that the Italic Celts were unable to defeat the Romans in various battles when the Romans were still fighting in the phalanx system, with spears, and many of the Celts were using long swords.

We also need to remember that Hannibal defeated the Romans tactically again and again, even though the main weapon for many of his men was the spear.

We shouldn't forget either that long before Rome, the Greek system of spear and shield had beaten many different nations that used swords, sycthes, clubs and such. Philip and Alexander's system was proven superior to the enemies of the time, from Thrace to India, and it was the fact that the Successor States had decayed in various ways and their armies were not as honed or professional as Alexander's had been that contributed much to their defeats by Rome, more than just the simple fact that they used the spear or pike.

The battles of Pydna and Cynoscephalae are the classic examples of the superior Roman army defeating the Successor style army. But it wasn't because the Romans had sword+shield and the Greeks had spear/pike+shield.

At Pydna, the Romans weren't able to make any headway against the phalanx until they moved the fight into rough and wooded terrain, to create gaps in the phalanx that the Romans could exploit. At Cynoscephalae, it was the quick thinking of a Roman junior officer, and the ability to quickly peel off rear centuries into a strike force that hit the Greeks in the flank and rear, that turned the battle.

In both battles, it was the Roman system of organization, command and control, initiative allowed for unit leaders, and systematized training of the Roman soldier that beat the Greek style armies, not simply the gladius.

The gladius itself was not used like a katana or European arming sword was used anyway, so it is arguably a poor comparison just on that fact alone.

Even though the gladius was a sword, it was used by Roman infantry more like a short spear, to make thrusts either over the shield, or coming from down low under an enemy's guard. The Roman infantry held the gladius like a thrusting spear, at waist or chest level, not in a high ward like a European knight might do with a bastard sword or the Japanese often do with the katana. The gladius is very heavy relative to it's size, is not long, and both the shape of the blade and documentary evidence (e.g. Polybius, Tactica, etc.) indicate it was intended to be thrust, unlike a katana or tachi which is made for slashing.

Other peoples used similar tactics with the spear. One of the most interesting examples are the Zulu and their iklwa spear. The Zulu used their shields and iklwa basically exactly like the Romans used gladii and scuta. And like the Romans, it was the Zulu system taken as a whole that allowed them to smash other tribes: organization, logistics, command and control, formations, ustcombined arms, etc., not just the iklwa.

The iklwa was used essentially like a thrusting short sword, but was still technically a spear, just like the gladius was used essentially like a thrusting spear, but was still technically a short sword; and in both cases, it was the overall tactical system that allowed the Zulu or Romans to get close in, and to use stabbing attacks to high effect.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Another thing I notice in these types of debates is the "sword is superior" camp highlighting how, at very close distance in a crowded melee, the blade may be easier to use, like in grappling with an enemy.

The fault of this argument when talking about the sword is not that it isn't true, it's that it is too true.

If shorter blade = greater handyess in the press of a melee, (which history seems to show is true) then why would you want a 32" to 46" blade? Wouldn't a shorter blade be ideal? How does the greater utility of a short blade in a crowded melee make the case for the longsword? The answer is...it doesn't!

There is a reason that the samurai carried wakizashi and tanto, just like European fighters had dirks, rondels, katzbalger, degen, bollock daggers, etc. all sorts of knives and short swords.

So when people describe hypothetical situations where a samurai with a yari loses his advantage over the samurai with a katana when it comes to extremely close range in the press, i.e. grappling, it seems to go unnoticed that the katana, with its long blade, would also lose most of its advantages.

If you had a samurai with a naginata or yari grappling with another samurai who had a katana, realistically both men were going to draw either their wakizashi or tanto, and try to stab at vulnerable, unarmored areas or weak parts of the armor.

So a guy with a yari or naginata has a distinct advantage at distance against the katana, and if it comes to grappling, he has the same tanto or wakizashi tactics. At no point is the pole weapon armed samurai "helpless" or "beat" simply because his opponent has a katana.

[Brave and Fearless Sir Shiba]

very informative mile. im learning things

[Mile pro Libertate]

Some good clips about general aspects of polearm vs. sword, and some sparring:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8RWLxlzTiM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l2YgGY_OBx8

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YpUcsIwW0kQ

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VDR06Rsx-5E

Some sparring between naginata and katana:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0KTrFURcMJQ

[Forlorn]

@Mile pro Libertate Thank you for posts, pretty much everything that i may wanted to know about this stuff.

[George Flowberry]

ThatGuy eredeti hozzászólása:

Would a samurai unit with swords really beat a unit of samurai with spears in reality? Always wondered this but it's hard finding real people who would be willing to test it out.

depens of the type of training. if the spear unit trained alot like the spartans did they would win. simply the katana could not get close anough to the spear wielder before getting cut to peices by the spear.

[Dan]

Spears because historically swords were almost completely replaced by spears

[Battel8080]

Sword are useless without a shield or armor that can protect you to get close enough to kill the spear wielder. You cant just deflect the spear with a sword, and even if you do you will then most likely be killed by the guy behind the first guy.
Only way the sword could alone put up a fight against the spear wielder is if the spear unit do not have any type of formation but even then would fail, and fail badly. In medieval history knights would use shields until later when they got better armor then stop using the shield over having double handed weapons like the long sword.

Also a later medieval knight would absolutely destroy a samurai in a 1v1 situation. The armor alone would make it impossible for the samurai to actually damage the knight without having to run around him to hit his weak points. And that would not work as a knight armor is actually quite flexible and not even realistic even if the knight where very slow.

[Halogen]

WickedRequiem eredeti hozzászólása:

No.
Spear > swords, especially if fought as a unit.

Are you stupid?

A Kantana would cut the spear in have with ease..

HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THE OPENING MOVIE FOR THE GAME?

[Halogen]

WickedRequiem eredeti hozzászólása:

No.
Spear > swords, especially if fought as a unit.

Are you stupid?

A Kantana would cut the spear in have with ease..

HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THE OPENING MOVIE FOR THE GAME?

[Halogen]

WickedRequiem eredeti hozzászólása:

No.
Spear > swords, especially if fought as a unit.

Are you stupid?

A Kantana would cut the spear in have with ease..

HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THE OPENING MOVIE FOR THE GAME?