I can't help but see these videos as an adult version of two kids with competing favorite superheroes debating who's would win in a fight, + I'm loving every minute of it. 🤓✊🏻
i feel like the way this would go is if the Vikings land on the beach and see a battalion of mounted samurai archers, they'll just get back in their boats, sail along the coastline and try another spot.
Eh, depends on the Vikings in question. Some might see the warriors and go "fuck that, I want to raid a village not fight professional fighters" or they might be absolutely crazy and charge in yelling and laughing. Or they might have a smart leader or be experienced enough to fight smart. Depends on what type of Vikings you are dealing with. A jormsviking fights very different to your average jarls team of raiders.
Horses and viking longboats are kind of comparable in speed. A longboat's average speed is 5-10 knots (6-12mph), with a max speed of 17 knots (20mph). A horse just trotting can go 8-12 mph, and they have canter and gallop speeds above that. The mounted archers should be able to keep up going along a coast or river, so the vikings would have to go so far out to sea they'd be out of sight in order to be not followed by the samurai.
@@lightsabermario This is very dependent on both the terrain and on the winds and currents. In a lot of places it would be very hard to ride along the coast due to all kinds of obstacles. In addition, if the winds and currents are favourable, a longship could outsail any horse.
As much as I love the samurai, I think that's fair, and what's more, the samurai were pretty bad at naval warfare and I'm sure the vikings would have a very strong edge in that department.
@@OrthoJihadican i shake your hand to share in the Blessing? I've gotten a heart in a comment before! But not a comment in response. (I keep picturing a scene in one of the later Babylon 5 episodes after Kosh saved Sheridan. "You go poke the plant while I do these customs forms" or something like that)
I'm getting flashbacks to MatPat trying to say the Samurai would just ride circles around a viking and pelt them with arrows, and he also gave the samurai points over the knight... It was so cringe, but it brought the ENTIRE HEMA community at large together XD
That is basically what Shad and Co said as well minus the knights (obviously few war bows can get through the later knight armour unless you are an amazing shot.) The Japanese would probably have had a rough time if the Vikings got to them in numbers because they were a bit behind technologically but peak Viking fighters vs a peak Samurai army (from more than 1/2 a millennium later) the Vikings would probably have just retreated to their ships and raided a less well protected town.
@@glenecollins Maybe, but shad said it well, the existence of a shield alone, even the thin ones the norse made use of, goes a LONG way in utterly rendering bows less useful. I'm assuming it's a Dane warrior, and not just some random norse pirate, so this is less a raid and more a tactical war front. So in a 1v1 the norseman has a shield to act as defense, as well as access to his own ranged weaponry (which the horse of the samurai is vulnerable) but I HATE when these debates needlessly gives one side an advantage. Because Medieval era Norse warriors also had access to cavalry and horsemen, so the advantage feels lost. Ultimately, I believe it comes down to shield and armor, and thus I'd give the norseman the win by a fairly large margin
@edwarddavis7858 I don't think Norse cavalry would have the ability to counter samurai cavalry to any functional extent. Best the Norse can hope for is a kunted infantry style advantage where the samurai can't quite catch them as long as the Norse keep moving before the samurai figure out where they went. Same applies if the Norse are operating from their longships. However, if they get caught in battle, the samurai should be able to easily win as long as the for es aren't in the thousands. Once it becomes armies clashing, you have to consider the ashigaru from the Japanese side, and the archer formations and cavalry from the Norse side. Since the Norse cavalry won't be able to hold up to the samurai, I suspect they will either try to avoid a cavalry clash and preserve their cavalry for pressing an advantage or parrying a flanking maneuver if necessary. Their archers shouldn't have a major issue since they would be VERY well practiced in using them on the hunt, and thus they should be able to limit the samurai a little while directly facing the ashigaru archers. The viking heavy infantry against standard ashigaru spearmen probably have a massive advantage, since their formation is harder to hurt and still has spears to reach the ashigaru with only a slight advantage in reach for the Japanese. Overall, Japanese infantry struggles, Japanese cavalry dominates, Norse may get flanked and retreat or maybe too much for the available samurai force to affect significantly unless the ashigaru archers manage to come out on top, in which case the Norse foot definitely looses. It' rare for infantry alone to win when archers and cavalry face them alongside even and inferior infantry force.
@@kyleheins I'm not so sure about that. Doing some research, I can see that Japanese Yumi typically have draw strengths of about 40 pounds, give or take, and while they def had higher poundage bows around, there's no hard confirmation of how common they would have been. In that light, a shield, and even close knit chain, would have a high likelihood of rendering those arrows moot, especially if the Danish warriors made use of padded armor underneath (Of which there is no archeological evidence to say they did, that's mainly a "Sites too old to have surviving pieces", but they did have chain and lamellar armor. So even in a 1v1, and we don't be stupid and force the norseman on foot and give the samurai a horse (which would be an unfair advantage), the bow would hold next to no superior aid in this battle. And even if we want to give a horse to the samurai, the best course of action would be to run the norseman over, instead of plinking him with a bow. When it comes to cavalry, while we have not a lot of info on the tactics of norse cavalry, let's just assume the Samurai have the advantage in this regard. The issue now is that the Norse also had access to their primary form of weaponry; Polearms. Spears and other forms of anti-cavalry weaponry was some of the most commonly deployed in Medieval Norse forces. Swords were often reserved for the more wealthy, so you see far more spears, javelins, and axes. Not to mention bows. Let's assume they don't have access to the English Warbows, but would have at least a halfway decent bow. If we assume it's not viable against Samurai armor (Just to be fair) it still is really effective at killing horses. So at that point there is no point win in either direction, it comes down to luck and better skill of warfare on the commanding forces part. So once again, this boils down to the main forms of defense, and much like the debate with a knight, a shield is a MASSIVE contributor in who would win. In a 1v1, where the combatants meet one another in melee, assuming equal skill, I'd give a point advantage to the Norse by virtue of superior armor. And if we are counting Ashigaru gunmen (which is what comes up first then I look them up) if it's the same relative time frame, the Swedish and Danish armies also got a hold of firearms in the same century that the Ashigaru did. So this stops being a battle of shields and bows, and is now a battle of guns, which nothing else matters anymore.
One other point I have to make as someone who is translating stories about samurai from around the same time the vikings were active, the go to weapon of choice for them was the bow. In every story I've read they specifically praise a warrior's archery skills when playing up how good of a warrior he actually is. In one story that sees two early samurai duelling, they essentially joust with each other but shoot arrows instead of using a lance. Do with that info what you will.
I think I know the story you mean, it was an invasion of the northern province wasn't it? The arrows cut the straps on the early lamellar armour until it fell apart?
@@riverraven7359 Although that sounds like a fascinating story that I actually would love to know more about, it's not the one I'm thinking of. The one I mentioned is a duel between Minamoto no Atsuru and Taira no Yoshifumi. They got into a spat because their subordinates kept badmouthing each other until the two lords decided to take it personally, set up a fight, both demonstrate their martial prowess, and then decided that each is a worthy warrior and that killing each other would be a terrible waste so they become good friends after that. It's quite the amusing folktale and I love it.
@@TalesofDawnandDusk if I remember, the incident I mean was when the minamoto clan began pushing into northern Honshu against the Ainu and related clans. Nine years war I think, two generations before the genpei war.
@@riverraven7359 Ah, it's from the Former 9 years war. I know of those wars but I haven't read anything on them. I'll have to look into it though and see if I can't unearth what the original sources for it are because that sounds like it's absolutely packed with good stories, the one you mentioned being included.
Samurai's main weapon is katana. The source of the theory that katana is not samurai's main weapon is Masaya Suzuki's book Katana to Kubitori published in 2000. Masaya Suzuki is a civil servant and is not a historian and does not have a degree. His book is not an academic book, with a lot of speculation and few primary sources. Many errors in his theory have been pointed out by qualified historians. In Japan, it was customary to keep records of soldiers' injuries and causes of death on the battlefield. Historian Thomas D. Conlan created statistical data from many records. His statistics conclude that katana and spears cause more blade kills, and bows and arrows cause more injuries. The period when spears were prevalent on Japanese battlefields was from the late Sengoku period (around 1540) to the peace after Genna era (1615). Katana was also effective against polearms.That is why China, Mongolia, Korea, and Southeast Asia imported katana from Japan after the 10th century.The "wo" in the name of the sword wodao, which became mainstream in Asia, means Japanese style.
@@TheSteam02 The Norse sl@ughtered the Steppes people who were mounted archers with higher poundage bows then brought them into their tribe. How do you think Varangians form the garthrriki=walled/fenced Reich/empire that formed Ukraine & Russia. You have any idea how many nations the Norse formed in Europe & the fact they were the most sort after mercenaries in across Europe, North Africa & the middle east.
@@arnijulian6241 Eh I mean, lets not forget that it was steppe nomads that ran rough shot over Byzantine and large swaths of Eastern Europe and conquered Nordic founded/ruled societies like Rus under the Mongolians
Reminds me of that FAF Spike TV show, Deadliest Warrior. Honestly, it was likely what made me want to start learning history. Like when even trash TV was fun .
I loved that episode, felt my heart burning in pride. It came down to culture tradition in that show and there gave the edge to the samurai, if I remember correctly.
@@benwagner5089 I have a love/hate relationship with that show. Some of the conclusions they came to for who had the "edge" in something was often times quite too generous.
There was a show years ago called “The Deadliest Warrior” where they take two types of warriors and pinned them up against each other and used stats and readings from weapons and armor to see who would win, and they actually did Viking vs Samurai.
Despite the naginata, the Vikings still win unmounted. I am surprised that they left it out though, as it was a very important part of Japanese warfare.
Yeah, I would have pitted the naginata against the dane-axe, or just use that as the special weapon rather than the huge sword that we already know isn't going to change the outcome of the fight.
@@benwagner5089 I thought the Japanese spear was a great idea against the dane-axe. The examples they showed of the Japanese spears showed how it wasn't uncommon to have, and I don't know the technical term, but attachments that could be used to grab/trip.
Feel like the samurai are missing something here. Begins with nagi, ends with nata. Not saying that absolutely changes things, but I do feel that'd be their answer to the Dane Axe as a single edged pole arm.
If you fit it to the same time period when all there coexisted, around the 1000s, the classic samurai armor hadn't existed yet and Vikings and "knights" of the same social status would have worn very similiar stuff. Thegnthrand did a vid of this a long time ago. I disagree cus just Viking comes from that just means raider. Knights but most denitions are elite heavy calvary with more formalized training and social system (feudalism) to support becoming a warrior elite heavy calvary. Their would be few Knights but each knight in average would a more skilled head to head fighter than a Viking. It comparing a religion that glorifies combat to having a social/economic to produce well trained warriors. Basically comparing more self taught to those that have semi formal combat education. Knight verus Samurai would come down to terrain cus you basically comparing a elite heavy calvary shock trooper to a heavy armored horse archer. A horse archer than can fire and run and resupply at his leisure is hard to beat. A horse archer than been forced to is just a large target to be run over.
@@anderporascu5026 The amount of maneuverability avaliable to the person in dependent of the terrain the fight is set in. The Mongols had a ahrder fighting in heavily forested areas and laying sieges to castles cus that both hampers mobility. Renaissance knights and late crusades didn't coexist with Vikings at all and Samurai armor very different at that time to.
@@anderporascu5026 The Mongols, and even you can argue against them. The Huns were essentially nomadic pillagers of a decaying empire whose leader died of a nosebleed, not that impressive.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 The Samurai as people imagine them didn’t appear until the 13th century, and really we mostly think about 16th century samurai. The Vikings stopped existing in the 11th century, but really people mostly think about them in the 10th century. This is fundamentally anachronistic. If you want to compare people who are contemporaneous and of the same social class, you do not want to compare Samurai to Vikings.
But did most Viking’s have chain link armor, and what was the grade of steal in the chain link? Video idea: would love to see a video where you compare different grades of chain link armor based on time period. (I know you did armor comparison in the past that included chain link, but is there different grade of steal in chain link specifically?)
No most vikings dident have chain mail until some later periods, then it was actually quite common, cause they ofc take it of people who died/they killed. But also most Japanese wasn't samurai and not every dude in medieval times where a knight, so it's more about comparing the elite fighters of all cultures. 😁
There's a very important fact they're overlooking, what are the Vikings wearing under their armor? People just didn't talk about clothing with armor at the time and it didn't start to get standardized until the gambeson came along. I think the maille will hold together through many hits but the bones and organs underneath the clothing will be in trouble.
FINALLY!! You are the first creator I'm subscribed to that has a proper hoodie drop! If a hoodie doesn't zip up then I don't buy it, period. I have a burning hatred for pull over hoodies, so thank you Shad. I will be ordering one!
Also I might add that cavalry were know to be far less effective against combatants with high morale and bracing tactics. Vikings being know for being off their rocker with morale and masters of using the shield wall. I actually think that cavalry would be less effective than the total wipeout you may normally expect.
It’s about the weapons to a point. But what most videos seem to overlook is that training of the fighters is probably the most important factor to success.
The yumi (japanese bow) may have been a lower poundage than the European longbow, but being able to shoot from a galloping horse is going to up the effective force as well. I think Mythbusters handled that during one of their Genghis Khan/Mongol horde episodes. Compared to a longbowman running around and having to stop and bracing themselves more solidly to loose their arrows, especially at the higher poundages, mobility wins.
they would still carry ~100 pounds bows for both sides. The mongol khan empire made longbow poundage in a smaller package to be used by their mounted archers.
I've read the opposite from military historians at times. Foot archer > horse archer in a straight-up duel. Smaller target, much more stable aiming platform than the back of a horse.
from my 20ish years of riding i can say it also depends on the kind of riding your doing, a casual slow - med paced trail ride isn't bad after 6+ hours, any form of racing or higher paced trails can get rough after long periods
We will NEVER know unless there's an alternate world out there where the Vikings and Samurai meet in combat. All we can do is guess based on what we know
Meh, Idk why this is even a contest, just look at the size of a Viking compared to some tiny japanese dude. I bet in most 1vs1 melee fights, the Viking would win with his bare hands
@@mcmarkmarkson7115 Samurais were around 5'5 while Vikings were around 5'7. There would've been shorter and taller individuals. People back then didn't have the nutrition we have today and that's why they were shorter on average. But in terms of bulkiness and mass, Vikings were bigger. Samurais tend to be slimmer. But here we're merely talking about swordsmanship and sword combat, not one on one UFC style combat because in that case, Vikings would always win
@@ironiccookies2320 The raiding Vikings were taller because they could afford a better diet + Samurai had weak bodies because they did no manual labor unlike the Vikings Combat with weapons and armor also heavily relies on your physique. There is simply no way weak japanese would have a chance against a Viking shieldwall Archery would be the only thing going for Samurai, but not enough to win again shields + chainmail, Vikings were very much used to breaking into places while constantly under archer attack
to see how hard a mounted sword hits against a shield, hit a target from a vehicle moving at horse speed vs shield for the lulz. it'd be a awesome video lol. prolly go viral.
Though a horse wouldn't normally gallop into a spearwall or quickly get stopped in its tracks. Generally light cavalry doesn't go into melee combat unless the opposing formation is properly broken up.
@@holtec333 1v1 the viking would use the reach of the dane axe to hit the samurai or his horse before the sword can reach him. Ofcourse someone on foot always is at a disadvantage against someone on horse back, but that is why a Viking wouldn't pick a 1v1 battle with a (skilled) mounted opponent to start with.
Yep, yep. They also had slings and stone-shooting crossbows, and there was no mention of javelins or thrown spears. Then there's the throwing axes, 'Viking' groups like the Franks perfected, bouncing them off the ground underneath an opposing shield-wall. Consequently, the Nodachi was thrown into enemy formations rather than weilded like a daito, but it looks like the whole 'horse leg removal' thing is being perpetuated on the samurai side.
@@Myomer104 I'm searching but having trouble finding the detail. I don't think it was Metatron, but perhaps Antony Cummins. I know it was mentioned somewhere in a Sengoku history and tactics, and in Museum Replicas magazines. I'm afraid, without being able to search in Japanese, which I can't read, I can't get to the historical source. There's artwork though.
@@christiansorensen7567 i dont say this to be condescending, i am genuinely curious: can you provide any further information on stone shooting crossbows? any sources? ive studied the viking age pretty extensively and ive never heard of or seen this before
@@einarr7301 There was an episode of Forged in Fire where the final challenge was making stone-shooting crossbows. Otherwise, I just have some books with the few historical examples in them. Additionally there's the sling-staff- I forgot the name. Fistabula or something. Anyway, they were in Mount & Blade Viking Conquest, so I looked them up and they're legit. You-Tuber tutorials on making both the staves and the crossbows. I could probably find some links on Skandehoovian historical sites.
Intresting note. The Samurai already had to deal with Chainmail wearing Shield using sea invaders. It was the Mongol invasions of Japan. Side note. Samurai also used full chaimail armor called Kusari, And would look very similar to a viking just without a shield.
Very good point about the Mongol invasions. That’s a solid parallel despite someone else’s comment that Vikings tended to be bigger and stronger than the Japanese of the same era.
The Mongols came over ready for war, but died in a tornado. But they tried again and had a nice time fighting with the Japanese, but then died in a tornado. - Bill Wurtz
The Mongol invasions are quite a bit after the Viking Age though. The Gempei Wars would fit a bit better but still be a bit late. That's a problem the video completely omits: The Viking Age is a lot shorter and ends a lot earlier than the Samurai. Wanna compare late Edo Period Samurai to Vikings?
Thing is the viking was cunning ppl, I would say more then Mongols, however if a samurai wear chainmail I counter with a berserker drugged up out of he's mind.
Battlefield tactics are the more important thing. At the battle of Hastings, Harold's English infantry threw back several heavy cavalry charges and arrow fire. England lost to the Normans because the cavalry feigned a retreat and then doubled back on the broken line after England came off their hill to pursue.
The one thing about the shield argument is the Viking has to eventually drop it to use a bow, so then the question becomes will the Viking drop the samurai’s horse before the mounted samurai can seriously wound the Viking. If the Viking can’t use his bow there’s no way he’s getting close enough to a mounted warrior to pose much threat. Aha, you basically addressed that another minute into the video lol
Yeah, the katana was more heavily associated with the samurai in the peaceful Edo period. Which makes sense, since if you just want a weapon to be armed for everyday use in case you need to defend yourself, you’d pick a weapon that’s easy to carry, out of the way (since it won’t be used 99.99% of the time), yet quick to draw. That tends to favor a shorter, easier to draw sword much like I, as an American, carry a handgun for my EDC rather than a rifle.
The handgun comparison is apt. Primary weapon of war would be a rifle, and the handgun a backup sidearm of convenience and last resort, much like the katana would be to the samurai.
@@TenMillionYearProgram42 Swords in general, really. A lot of people mention that the spear is a better weapon than the sword, which then makes people wonder why people care about swords so much. The reason is because even warriors don’t spend every day of their life on the battlefield. Most of the time is spent living their everyday life. So that tends to favor the more convenient to carry swords (like handguns) over more powerful spears (like rifles). After all, the pistol you have on you beats the rifle you left locked in a safe at home because it was too much of a pain in the butt to carry, just as the sword you have on you beats the spear you left hanging over the mantle place at home.
There's also the edge construction. A Tachi is more robust so not to get damaged too easily whereas a Katana is as sharp as possible because it's not supposed to be used against armour. Of course early Katana were basically shorter Tachi for infantry use.
I personally strongly suspect that the term sidearm is literal. It's the weapon you keep at your side ready to use at all times. The arming sword, the everyday carry weapon of history is probably where the term originated. There's even a sword called a side sword if I remember correctly. Today, pistols serve the same function, so we transitioned the name, sidearm, from the sword to the pistol. I have no idea if any of that is accurate or not, and I enjoy it too much to go look any of it up because I'm probably wrong in there somewhere.
@@CowCommando At least for pistols, that’s very much accurate. A sidearm is something you wear on your side, since most pistols are carried on your right hip (though appendix carry is popular for concealed carry, but even then it’s the front side rather than right side).
I think that a battle between samurai and Vikings would all depend on who could maintain their tactical advantage. If the samurai could keep a distance and just continually harass the Vikings they have the edge, but, if the Vikings can take the fight to close quarters, they have the clear advantage. So strategy would ultimately decide the battle.
Mounted Cavalry throwing a spear with any amount of training that allows for accuracy on the move will have enough momentum to pierce a thin shield and most likely pierce through your armor as well. Loose formations can easily get run down by Cavalry, horses are between 900 and 2,200 pounds. Any group of Horse archers would have the high ground and could circle around your group firing from every angle. You can't defend every angle with your shield. *Samurai pulls out Gatling Gun. Filthy Casuals!
The viking being taller and stronger would make the viking win more often. Bows in combat - You only have a limited amount of arrows and often they were shot in volleys (in combat). Lastly bows would be on the best, and only the best archers shooting from behind the protection of the shields, not standing in the open to be shot freely. And since most of northern Europe was covered in wood at the time, horses wasn't really a big advantage. And lastly they would be at least 200 years apart...
The poundage of a samurai bow was, like the rest of his kit, completely tailored to the samurai to an exacting degree. If his bow's draw weight was a 毛 too heavy or a 毛 too light, a samurai wouldn't just notice, but they'd go out of their way to point to the bowyer exactly who they didn't kill because of the bowyer's mistake.
Anyone else bothered by the fact that the Samurai armour is made by Iron Mountain Armory, not Romance of Men? It is a beautiful Yoroi don’t get me wrong, but I feel Iron Mountain Armory should get the recognition for it. Great video Shad!
About shad mentioning that samurais are often light skirmish cavalry, I think one of Nobunaga's enemies are renowned for heavy cavalry tactics and he has to prepare a fortifications with lines of matchlocks and spears while goading the samurai cavalry to make a frontal charge which they did. While it didn't end well to them, there is a precedence on samurai being able to do a heavy cavalry charge and while it is not a lance, a man on a horse transferring the full gallop and weight on a spear is still enough to kill a man even in a shield wall though in my opinion a skirmish cavalry is significantly more effective and far more devastating in locking down and slowly whittling down an army on foot though to be honest the vikings probably run away back to the sea than stand and fight anyways as they are more like raiders than actual soldiers.
The Takeda clan. They had a good chance of winning the Sengoku Jidai but some not so good battles against the Uesugi and the unlucky death of Shingen meant that they ultimately lost. They are still quite famous in Japan and while the main family was destroyed they also had branches. The martial arts of the one to the east are the foundation of Aikidou and they also had a small branch that held the only Japanese castle on Hokkaidou, Matsumae.
I did service one summer at a physical therapy place. To help improve muscles for a person to walk, the place used horses. Riding across a field is just as tiering as walking it, and in some cases, it is not faster. Horses will not run head long into a wall. Standing next to each other and the horses will turn and run down the line. This is why most European armies started having calvery that was trained to be dismounted to fight.
In my opinion you're forgetting the most important aspects of tactics and actual matchup context. The vikings would likely be outnumbered and raiding. They'd basically be fine attacking small villages etc because of the lack of protection but basically within a day or two something tells me the local lord would quickly make short work of them. They'd have no reason to disengage from mounted combat, no likely loss to unmounted archers and once they've annihilated the majority or the Viking raider's with arrows the shields aren't going to hold up to even the period accurate swords. I'd say that returning raids if someone escaped and told other vikings about Japan and the riches there and their warriors it'd still be a moot point because now they'd have arguably the best steel of the time at their disposal from the fallen vikings. Plus traditionally iirc Vikings up the ante after a failure and attacking a Japanese castle would not go well for them. I will say I agree that a random viking against a random samurai would likely mean a Samurai loses on foot. But the chances of that historically happening would be astronomical in my opinion. Although I also disagree on the "coverage" provided by chainmail as even with the coif and helm the open face viking will likely get arrowed long before the "open shouldered/armpit etc. samurai" gets like treatment via sword or arrows. Also Samurai had shields as well idk why that was glossed over.
People favor their heritage-adjacent fandoms, and cherry pick weapons and armor. Most samurai are not depicted with shields, so ppl forget it happened at all...
Vikings are a hit and run type of combat and use boats for everything which I imagine would negate any advantage of a Calvary I’d imagine they’d have been just as legendary in Japan as they were in Europe and the Mediterranean
Check out the history of England. A lot of pitched battles and seiges in the Migratory Period, all on English soil. It led to half of England being ruled by the Danes. (See 'The Danelaw.') One of the greatest threats was "The Great Heathen Army" under Ivar the Boneless. He literally formed a horde, and zerged the Anglo-Saxons. It wasn't all Lindasfarne.
@@christiansorensen7567 correct and I'm aware but look at the globe and tell me you think they'd be able to dedicate the same amount of resources in the time required to an initiative in Japan...they might have made it to America first but that didn't work for them either and that's arguably the easier territory to conquer for the Vikings.
@@mrgandolf5349 correct but the Japanese were used to sea attacks from Korea and China by this point and they're not going to set sail in numbers this far from home even with fairly accurate Intel of what's to be gained.
I would like to point out that the steppe tribes that confronted the Vikings were mounted archers. They definitely gave them (the Russ specificly) a run for their money when they were employed by the late roman empire.
Didn’t see video yet. Samurai are professional warriors. A Viking (pirate, raider) could be anything from a seasoned veteran to a shepherd with an axe.
@deriznohappehquite idk about that. An average Samurai was an alright archer, swordsman ect, but they still weren't the best. They didn't have the perfect armour always depicted, most was weaker than that the main leader Samurai wore. As for their weapons, a Viking typically has better quality weapons, both in terms of the fact they used steel (rather than folded iron) and in the actual weapons in comparison to the Samurai. In addition,Vikings were typically better trained than their stereotypical savage farmer idea makes them out to be. It's actually kinda even, at least until you take cavalry, shields ect into account.
@@owenwoolley3394 The point was that a samurai devotes huge amounts of their time and life in training, practicing, strategy, and discipline. Vikings were usually just common people who had some experience fighting, but were typically not as trained. So, the median samurai was going to simply be better at fighting, more skilled. In a case where the two warriors have very different styles but are otherwise equally armed, the more skillful warrior usually wins.
@@jeremiahbell6129 I sort of disagree with this but not entirely. Vikings trained very much as well, and their training was similar to Samurai in many senses, with training in hand to hand grappling, swordsmanship and other respective weapons, their respective modes of transport (longship or horse) and more. Along with this, a Viking would most likely be better fed, bigger and stronger than a Samurai. When the gap in skill isn't that much, these things can tip the edge, especially size which equals reach which can make a huge difference in the way a fight turns out. Better equipped, better physically, I would way that on average they are equal in skill, perhaps with a slight edge to the Samurai on average. While Vikings certainly did come from normal common folk a lot, they also came from good fighting stock a lot as well.
@@owenwoolley3394 Average samurai would be better fed than an average Viking. A samurai's lord would usually make sure that their strongest warriors are well fed. Vikings, on the other hand, were usually fed by themselves, and Scandinavia is notoriously difficult to farm and gather in. That being said, Vikings were usually bigger people, physiologically, but if a battle occurs, it's more likely a samurai would be fighting on a full stomach. And yes, Vikings would be training as well. Certainly! Their culture loved wrestling and feats of strength. We can read the epics and see the virtues they extolled. But if you have to spend a lot of your time farming, gathering, preparing your house, and doing day-to-day things, there's a limit to how much you can invest in improving with weapons. Beyond that, samurai often trained in schools called goju for many years. Vikings also would train under masters, but their curricula would be more scattered. There wouldn't be a high chance that they'd become as disciplined and technical in their skills. It would be more wild and savage, which can leave lots of openings that samurai were trained to exploit. (That's literally what a lot of kendo focuses on.)
Sword/shield vs katana = Viking Samurai bow vs shield and sword = samurai Axe vs spear = samurai kanabo vs axe = Viking Kanabo iron vs axe = samurai Short axe/shield vs anything but the iron kanabo, bow, or spear = Viking Bow vs bow = samurai Small axe vs nodachi = samurai odachi vs just sword = samurai Armor I'll say it's about a tie with exception of Viking head gear for bladed weapons. The samurai armor is apparently very nimble and can recover from a knock down and shove. The lighter armor and distance a samurai could keep the Viking would help for an endurance battle. The skill I believe a samurai would have the edge. The Viking could be a seasoned raider and be equivalent or a merc from a prior military background. There no knight when it came to practice and skills but a seasoned fighter is nothing to ignore. I assume there both about the same in skills with the foot fight. There's about a 3inch hight difference and I assume a good amount of weight difference as well so the samurai would have to be careful not to get handled like a child. Vikings except the rare events aren't actually very tall on average I believe and correct me if I'm wrong about 5'6 - 5'9. A Japanese person probably in that time 5'3-5'6 today most people here are about 5'7 I look down at almost every one here and stand out. It makes a difference when a 250 5'9 male charges u when ur 5'6 150 pounds and get shield bashed. Overall it's mostly a coin flip 50/50 and all depends on who has what.
@@אורן-ב8ע the wakizadhi(small katana curved, and or tanto(straight dagger like blade with one side being sharp and tapered single edge) (European daggers often had two blades edge's allowing you to cut on any side of the blade which is great for cqc) bends easily but if a samurai could say tackle a Viking down it would be the best weapon available to dispatch even a plated soldier. I do believe Vikings had daggers available though so dagger v tanto I'd say the dagger wins. The pinning of an enemy is often what ends up killing people, say legs on the arms near the armpits and u stabbing a person in the face. You don't need to kill people right away if u get stabbed in the face ur virtually useless and out of the fight. The samurai axe is dope but most of them are heavy and large. The axe could be useful against the shield but it would be one swing and done. The Viking has a sword that could take advantage of the axe if stuck in the shield or as the samurai pulls back. I'd say the Viking may have enough adrenaline even if the axe breaks his arm. He still has one good one to counter or pin. These scenarios are all very dependent on what is used and what it's going against. This is why I think it's a coin flips chance for either one. I'd even suggest they probably end up all dying. I doubt these two groups on a one on one would walk very far after the fight. I have to check into it later when I have the time but these fights normally end with the "winner" walking away but later dying from blood loss, broken bones and unable to move, internal bleeding, and or fatigue. At best one walks away with a long term injury.
@@DemiSamaKun The samurai will definitely try to lock the viking and stab him with a dagger and will also be skilled at this. This was an important part of samurai battles, not really viking battles, and it's very likely to happen because the samurai is heavily armored so it's hard to stop him if the samurai gets very close the viking will be in trouble, but even if he's far the viking will be in trouble because of his bow and armor, or his spear , the Viking will have to fight from medium range. The viking's sword will not do much to the samurai because of the armor the viking will have to hit the samurai faster than the samurai hits him no matter what weapon he used he can always use his shield to hit the samurai but it is not really lethal. The thing is I think the samurai can handle a viking even with only a tanto, I also think the average samurai before the Edo period would be much more skilled than the average viking, he was a professional fighter
i might be SLIGHTLY biased as a Nordic decendant of the viking, Erik The Red. but i would say that out of 10 fights the Viking wins 200 TIMES! WITH EASE! EVERYSINGLE TIME!.
Yeppers. Vikings clearly won. These kind of things are making a lot of assumptions though. Pitched battle, and everyone is wearing/weilding best in tech. No logistics or weather to worry about ect...
@@craytherlaygaming2852 Some part of the Viking migration indeed went east (Rurik in 862), but the timeline is important here. Mongol battle in Vienna took place in 1241, Mongols in Japan 1274 and 1281. The most commonly referred to Vikings are the great Dane army that came in 865. Vikings did not have to face the Mongols and the Japanese were never as good as Mongols, with the whole story of heavenly winds saving them.
@@KyaragoThere are many conflicting opinions on the success of the Mongol invasions, prior to the kamikaze, with some sources say the Japanese were doing fine against them once they adjusted their tactics. The samurai as the existed in the mongol invasion, don’t really resemble the samurai of 15th-16th century, and happened during a time period where Japan hadn’t really seen any major wars in a generation. They were used to skirmishes and glory duels at the time. Their tactics changed drastically over the course of the invasions.
Period Vikings were legit twice as big as period samurai. It would be like me fighting The Mountain from GoT. Imagine the power a 300 pound Berserker can generate with that Dane Axe!
Samurai have two left out weapons they employed a lot. The Naginata, and you barely mentioned the Kanabo or the fact that it is basically an iron bat and would absolutely be devastating to be hit by. If you want to know battlefield wise what weapon was comperable to the Dane Axe, it was a full Kanabo, not a Tachi. The Kanabo would be made out of iron or knotted with iron throughout and was surprisingly a pretty nimble weapon for Anti-Armor. The Dane Axe's big flaw was the fact all the power was in the end and behind it was a weak point. A well placed Kanabo strike against a shield would be either on the rim to slam it downward, smashing a thin shield, or into the knuckles if it's just a center held shield which would most likely break the hand of the one with the shield. As for Samurai Shields, they did exist but they served a different function to act for approaching fortified positions against arrows, such as castles and where disguarded. Instead relying on armoring for protection. As you're basically 'dressed in shields'. Many Samurai had chain under their armor and others had effective cloth protection on par with the gambeson. Lastly, most Samurai you'd find in a battlefield are life long career fighters. Where as unless you had a Jomsviking you where dealing with a part-timer. Lastly Tyrenth admitted it himself he wasn't wearing his armor right so it wasn't a perfect example of full kit. The full effective Samurai armor was a thing of effectiveness. It had both structure and mobility and in it was clad a trained warrior. I believe however weapon wise, the Viking had a 'somewhat' better kit with the Axe and Shield combo. But the BIG, BIG reason I give the Samurai the win... you take 10 random 'Vikingr' and 10 random 'samurai' you're more likely to get more professional warriors with the Samurai. Jomsviking where somewhat rare. The Samurai on the other hand where super common and the most predominant and dominant caste in Japan and had tons of different clans each with differing warfare ideals. 10 Random... You'd get 8 civilian combatants, 2 Jomsviking a lot in the draws. With the Samurai you'd get 9 trained warriors to every 1 undertrained or apprentice. My lot doesn't figure the whole culture, but it draws on the people who'd be called into a battlefield and draws and even number from both pools. Population wise the nordics who went viking maxed around a million at one point in history, while the samurai class where up to 18 million in their peak. Giving a numbers advantage to the Samurai by a vast margin if you take both at their peak.
The naginata I think would be great for mounted combat (and they already rightfully gave them the point for mounted combat), but comparing it to spears and the axe + shield combo, i don’t exactly see it winning. However, I think the Kanobo stands much more of a shot since it could probably mess up a spear pretty badly and win out pretty well against the dane axe and axe + shield combo. The main thing is that this scenario would be specific to *metal* kanobos. Not all kanobos were fully metal as you noted, but the extra mass of the metal I feel is necessary to give them a decisive victory. I could also see victories with ones that aren’t fully made of metal, i just see the alternative being much more decisive. So assuming most of the samurai had full metal metal kanobos, i could see them being extremely useful with the only real issues they’d be facing being the spear which has a much longer reach. In this scenario with full-metal kanobos, i think the fight becomes a lot more even and it really depends on what weapons the vikings are using to decide the victor in this scenario. If all of the vikings happen to have spears, i could see the vikings still coming out on top in some/most scenarios. However, if the vikings employ primarily axes or swords, I think the samurai have a pretty good chance of winning.
What? A Viking would brutalize a Samurai with his bare hands. Japan being stuck in the middle ages for so long isn't the advantage you think it is. They got humiliated by a single warship. Vikings switched to modern times hundreds of years before Japan, compared population size of different time periods is just stupid
@@mcmarkmarkson7115 I think this argument has some merit in the sense that samurai got very used to fighting each other and developed specific skills and technologies to help fight other Japanese warring states over the course of hundreds of years. However, this example is a huge oversimplification. You site one example and let it be the be-all and end-all of your argument. One example of samurai being crushed by a foreign warship isn’t a good example because it’s a single example compared to potentially dozens of others. You’re telling me you’re going to compare all samurai (which were around from 1100-1800 AD) to one combat they had somewhere during that time? This is ~700 years of history and you brought a single example from a specific group and time period to back up your claim, which just doesn’t make sense or account for the nuances of their defeat. You also say “vikings switched to modern times” but this argument falls incredibly flat because you don’t say anything to back it up. For all intents and purposes, the Viking Age was 800-1050 AD, so why would “being stuck in the Middle Ages” be any detriment to the samurai if this time period was also in the Middle Ages? It seems like a reasonable fight if the comparison is that both are Medieval Age warriors. What does the fact they “switched to modern times” even mean? Do you mean vikings switched faster into working a 9 to 5 and driving cars? Do you mean they developed OUT of typical viking equipment into stronger equipment that were more prevalent at a different era (aka NOT the Viking Age)? You don’t explain, and if the vikings modernized and change aspects of themselves, can you still call them vikings at that point? You might, but there is no detail that went into what you said, so we can’t be certain. Your argument has to be held up by a lot more than one naval defeat and a comparisons about “switching to modern times.”
I think Shad severely underestimates just how powerful a horse is as a weapons platform. Even just the physical presence of the animal is terrifying on the battlefield, much less what it is going to physically do to you. The horse itself can be used as a weapon to push and trample.
Not really, the you won't be able to impart the full force of the horse's weight into your weapon as he pointed out, and while the horse can be used as a weapon. Thats just asking for the viking to dismount you by abusing your horse's eight against it and jabbing their wapon directly into it's body which will either kill it. Or cause it to flee, and once again that shield will definitely allow you to tank the single kick it's gonna send your way before it flees... which then just evens the battlefield. People also often forget the viking's were well documented for taking on and beating places with cavalry and what not, so they did have tactics against them. Yes, keeping distance and pining a viking from a far is going to be a winning srtat, but if you foolishly charge in, your horse will be taken out. Vikings, especially berserkers were *known* for intimidation tactics and being veeeeerry hard to kill, just not as hard as the stories make it seem. And as someone else pointed out, they were generally larger than samurai physically
Vikings dealt with horses with those large axes and spears... The problem is the Vikings were just bigger and were much more capable at handling a samurai and his army.
Shad, you should definitely review the old series "deadliest Warrior" and just give us your insights on the outcomes of the battles. That'd be pretty neat
Two more things to consider... 1) Nordic men are significantly bigger than Japanese men. 2) I feel like the Samurai were professionally trained warriors, while Vikings were a bunch of unruly tough guys.
@@kaltaron1284 Yeah, there were many peaceful eras where they didn't have real fights, so they probably got lazy with training. By the end, it was mostly nobility cosplaying as warriors 😆
Vikings are it seems culturally just as likely to be professional warriors as merchant, its easy to let the portrayal of the raiders facing no real opposition and usually reported on by the victims. If they really were the wild, entirely uncoordinated wild men they are often painted as they would simply not be effective on those occasions they faced real opposition...
@@Bosnerdly Even in those peaceful times there were a few revolts here and there to keep them busy. It wasn't until the late Edo Period that samurai really become more of cosplayers. Esp. the lower ranks.
Viking boats had benches. Depending on how big it was, it could accommodate 6 or more people. I came across information several times that some commanders required one crossbowman for each bench. I can't find these sources, but it's quite an interesting concept because crossbows in the context of Vikings practically do not appear in pop culture. At that time, the Picts also used them (crossboes with wooden arms)so the Vikings probably saw them on the battlefield and know.
It's mindblowing to know that the ones to use the good ol' STICK were actually the Samurai and not the Vikings. Like, imagine a Samurai refining his combat skills throughout his entire life, then reaching for the stick and going "Eh, good enough"
They just forgot a teeny tiny detail. Both Kanabou and Tetsubou were at least partly iron. It's in the freaking name. But if you want an example for a samurai taking a stick and going "Good enough." look up Miyamoto Musashi.
@@Myomer104 I'm sure he had other options for that battle but he purposefully went for an unusual weapon and length and arriving late. Although to be honest it's difficult to tell how much of the stories is true. But they are entertaining and believeable.
Calling what they had a Kanabou is fairly disingenuous a proper Kanabou isn't a uniform thickness so that it has a proper handle and has multiple flat sides with metal studs along the entire length. What they have looks like it had cloths hanging on it in a closet.
One could cherry pick a lot of combinations. An 11th-early 14th century Samurai might win unless he got unhorsed and preferred mounted archery. 15th-mid 19th century Samurai would be tough for a Viking and may actually lose unless he's an arquebusier/musketeer in which case it's a stomp. 19th century Samurai would stomp thanks to far superior technology with rifled muskets at WORST; The lack of armor wouldn't even matter. A typical Viking is about average for Medieval foot soldiers but if he's a Housecarl, then he's an elite warrior like a knight. Also, I'm confident a Redcoat would beat both.
The problem here is that samurais and Vikings were so far apart in history. By the time we have samurai, Vikings had already assimilated (or created) into the local cultures and had become traditional European armies. And during their own time, they weren't that much different to the armies they fought against, it's just that men in Scandinavia are taller on average and their belief in dying on the battlefield, with the additional spice of nowhere to return to made them extremely fierce. A video analysing the difference between Alfred's army and the invading Vikings would be more interesting.
@@jeffreygao3956 Must admit that I didn't double check and always imagined that samurai were much later (14th century). But even then, looks like the true rise to power of samurais happened in 12th century (so we could include 11th as well). The Vikings we refer to most commonly are the ones that invaded the British isles with the great Dane army arriving in 865 (according to Wiki).
@@jeffreygao3956 they were but the armor and weapon types they became known for were later inventions. For example, the laminated iron technique that made formidable tachi and katanas were not perfected until the 14th century. Vikings were using Damascus and crucible steels imported from the near east in the 9th century. The only point at which Japanese military tech has ever exceeded western military tech was for a brief period in the beginning of the 20th century when they were the first to properly understand the potency of naval aviation.
@@AaronLDeWolf Katanas didn’t even exist until 1392 so Samurai coexisting with Vikings would of course have tachi as their sidearm and preferred mounted archery.
Ok, the whole not getting through chain arguments miss a ton of context. Namely, not getting through doesn't mean not getting injured. A decent hit anywhere on the chain is a problem, even if it won't kill you. As such, while the weak points aren't as weak, they are far more numerous than the samurai armor which can take full hits and the wearer barely noticing. Yari are awesome and should be considered more seriously on this discussion. Shad also continues underestimating how absolutely terrifying horses are in the battlefield.
Also too the Samurai had access to muskets far sooner then the European line infantry. You have to get into post-renaissance era before guns and cannons started to become more mainstream in European armies. But I always picture the Samurai with a match-lock musket before having a bow and arrow.
Well, where'd they get that matchlock arquebus? It's from Portuguese traders in the 1550s. German and French cavalry (some of them knights) at the time were carrying two wheellock pistols.
thats too modern... and boring.., we must enjoy weapons before the gunpowder times, besides, samurai is too advanced, i think the asian parallel of the viking is the mongol warrior, and the european counterpart of samurai is the knight
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
No way this ends well for either fandom…
the plot armor thickens
It seems the Pirates and ninjas have fallen by the wayside.
You will be remembered with honor. (Dishonor? Remembered at least either way).
@@Grandwigg (hands you a baked potato)
Well at the end of the day the knight wins
@@guts_and_glory
*makes any point in favor of the samurai*
Shad: "SHIELD"
I mean…. SHIELD tho
Horse archers. F your shield wall.
Matchlock arquebus.
@@lloydgush Imagine depending only in open terrain to use your most powerful weapon
@@lloydgush samurai in horseback weak against guerilla warfare.
I can't help but see these videos as an adult version of two kids with competing favorite superheroes debating who's would win in a fight, + I'm loving every minute of it. 🤓✊🏻
My dad can beat up your dad!😂
i feel like the way this would go is if the Vikings land on the beach and see a battalion of mounted samurai archers, they'll just get back in their boats, sail along the coastline and try another spot.
Eh, depends on the Vikings in question. Some might see the warriors and go "fuck that, I want to raid a village not fight professional fighters" or they might be absolutely crazy and charge in yelling and laughing. Or they might have a smart leader or be experienced enough to fight smart. Depends on what type of Vikings you are dealing with. A jormsviking fights very different to your average jarls team of raiders.
And get slaughtered if they didn't retreat fast enough. Hit and run vs mounted enemies is quite risky.
Horses and viking longboats are kind of comparable in speed. A longboat's average speed is 5-10 knots (6-12mph), with a max speed of 17 knots (20mph). A horse just trotting can go 8-12 mph, and they have canter and gallop speeds above that. The mounted archers should be able to keep up going along a coast or river, so the vikings would have to go so far out to sea they'd be out of sight in order to be not followed by the samurai.
@@lightsabermario This is very dependent on both the terrain and on the winds and currents. In a lot of places it would be very hard to ride along the coast due to all kinds of obstacles. In addition, if the winds and currents are favourable, a longship could outsail any horse.
@@lightsabermario Horses are not machines! They can't run for very long without being rested. A ship will sail forever if the wind keeps blowing.
If samurai gets a horse the vikings get a boat
So the viking runs away?
As much as I love the samurai, I think that's fair, and what's more, the samurai were pretty bad at naval warfare and I'm sure the vikings would have a very strong edge in that department.
So if the Viking has a ship, the samurai has guns.
@@r0derick439Yeah cause gun vs anything is fair
It's just like grabboids. Stand on a rock and they can't touch you!
TH-cam’s finally making this pop up in my feed.
Good to hear, my notification popped up about half an hour ago as well.
👍👍👍👍😎😎😎😎
Weird, this was the first time I have ever had a Shadiversity video not pop up right away.
Maybe just subscribe and turn on notofications and it will always come up.....moron
WHERE IS THE POLL SHAD!!! I was promised a POLL!!!
it's there now ^_^
@@shadiversity OMG OMG!! SHAD ANSWERED ME! ILL NEVER CLEAN MY PHONE SCREEN AGAIN! Seriously though bud love your content!
@@OrthoJihadican i shake your hand to share in the Blessing? I've gotten a heart in a comment before! But not a comment in response.
(I keep picturing a scene in one of the later Babylon 5 episodes after Kosh saved Sheridan. "You go poke the plant while I do these customs forms" or something like that)
Don't see the poll. But I vote for the Viking
HE LOOKED AT ME! I AM AWAITED! I AM AWAITED IN VALHALLAAAAA!
Thanks to the affiliates for providing the hardware - makes for an awesome show.
I'm getting flashbacks to MatPat trying to say the Samurai would just ride circles around a viking and pelt them with arrows, and he also gave the samurai points over the knight...
It was so cringe, but it brought the ENTIRE HEMA community at large together XD
That is basically what Shad and Co said as well minus the knights (obviously few war bows can get through the later knight armour unless you are an amazing shot.)
The Japanese would probably have had a rough time if the Vikings got to them in numbers because they were a bit behind technologically but peak Viking fighters vs a peak Samurai army (from more than 1/2 a millennium later) the Vikings would probably have just retreated to their ships and raided a less well protected town.
@@glenecollins Maybe, but shad said it well, the existence of a shield alone, even the thin ones the norse made use of, goes a LONG way in utterly rendering bows less useful. I'm assuming it's a Dane warrior, and not just some random norse pirate, so this is less a raid and more a tactical war front.
So in a 1v1 the norseman has a shield to act as defense, as well as access to his own ranged weaponry (which the horse of the samurai is vulnerable) but I HATE when these debates needlessly gives one side an advantage. Because Medieval era Norse warriors also had access to cavalry and horsemen, so the advantage feels lost.
Ultimately, I believe it comes down to shield and armor, and thus I'd give the norseman the win by a fairly large margin
@edwarddavis7858
I don't think Norse cavalry would have the ability to counter samurai cavalry to any functional extent. Best the Norse can hope for is a kunted infantry style advantage where the samurai can't quite catch them as long as the Norse keep moving before the samurai figure out where they went. Same applies if the Norse are operating from their longships. However, if they get caught in battle, the samurai should be able to easily win as long as the for es aren't in the thousands. Once it becomes armies clashing, you have to consider the ashigaru from the Japanese side, and the archer formations and cavalry from the Norse side. Since the Norse cavalry won't be able to hold up to the samurai, I suspect they will either try to avoid a cavalry clash and preserve their cavalry for pressing an advantage or parrying a flanking maneuver if necessary. Their archers shouldn't have a major issue since they would be VERY well practiced in using them on the hunt, and thus they should be able to limit the samurai a little while directly facing the ashigaru archers. The viking heavy infantry against standard ashigaru spearmen probably have a massive advantage, since their formation is harder to hurt and still has spears to reach the ashigaru with only a slight advantage in reach for the Japanese. Overall, Japanese infantry struggles, Japanese cavalry dominates, Norse may get flanked and retreat or maybe too much for the available samurai force to affect significantly unless the ashigaru archers manage to come out on top, in which case the Norse foot definitely looses. It' rare for infantry alone to win when archers and cavalry face them alongside even and inferior infantry force.
Yeah bro. Ask the Romans how their big shields rendered the horse archers useless.... 🤡 @edwarddavis7858
@@kyleheins I'm not so sure about that. Doing some research, I can see that Japanese Yumi typically have draw strengths of about 40 pounds, give or take, and while they def had higher poundage bows around, there's no hard confirmation of how common they would have been. In that light, a shield, and even close knit chain, would have a high likelihood of rendering those arrows moot, especially if the Danish warriors made use of padded armor underneath (Of which there is no archeological evidence to say they did, that's mainly a "Sites too old to have surviving pieces", but they did have chain and lamellar armor. So even in a 1v1, and we don't be stupid and force the norseman on foot and give the samurai a horse (which would be an unfair advantage), the bow would hold next to no superior aid in this battle. And even if we want to give a horse to the samurai, the best course of action would be to run the norseman over, instead of plinking him with a bow.
When it comes to cavalry, while we have not a lot of info on the tactics of norse cavalry, let's just assume the Samurai have the advantage in this regard. The issue now is that the Norse also had access to their primary form of weaponry; Polearms. Spears and other forms of anti-cavalry weaponry was some of the most commonly deployed in Medieval Norse forces. Swords were often reserved for the more wealthy, so you see far more spears, javelins, and axes. Not to mention bows. Let's assume they don't have access to the English Warbows, but would have at least a halfway decent bow. If we assume it's not viable against Samurai armor (Just to be fair) it still is really effective at killing horses. So at that point there is no point win in either direction, it comes down to luck and better skill of warfare on the commanding forces part.
So once again, this boils down to the main forms of defense, and much like the debate with a knight, a shield is a MASSIVE contributor in who would win. In a 1v1, where the combatants meet one another in melee, assuming equal skill, I'd give a point advantage to the Norse by virtue of superior armor.
And if we are counting Ashigaru gunmen (which is what comes up first then I look them up) if it's the same relative time frame, the Swedish and Danish armies also got a hold of firearms in the same century that the Ashigaru did. So this stops being a battle of shields and bows, and is now a battle of guns, which nothing else matters anymore.
I appreciate how much Nate is being included into some of the conversations while not being there any longer
One other point I have to make as someone who is translating stories about samurai from around the same time the vikings were active, the go to weapon of choice for them was the bow. In every story I've read they specifically praise a warrior's archery skills when playing up how good of a warrior he actually is. In one story that sees two early samurai duelling, they essentially joust with each other but shoot arrows instead of using a lance. Do with that info what you will.
I think I know the story you mean, it was an invasion of the northern province wasn't it? The arrows cut the straps on the early lamellar armour until it fell apart?
@@riverraven7359 Although that sounds like a fascinating story that I actually would love to know more about, it's not the one I'm thinking of. The one I mentioned is a duel between Minamoto no Atsuru and Taira no Yoshifumi. They got into a spat because their subordinates kept badmouthing each other until the two lords decided to take it personally, set up a fight, both demonstrate their martial prowess, and then decided that each is a worthy warrior and that killing each other would be a terrible waste so they become good friends after that. It's quite the amusing folktale and I love it.
@@TalesofDawnandDusk if I remember, the incident I mean was when the minamoto clan began pushing into northern Honshu against the Ainu and related clans. Nine years war I think, two generations before the genpei war.
@@riverraven7359 Ah, it's from the Former 9 years war. I know of those wars but I haven't read anything on them. I'll have to look into it though and see if I can't unearth what the original sources for it are because that sounds like it's absolutely packed with good stories, the one you mentioned being included.
Samurai's main weapon is katana. The source of the theory that katana is not samurai's main weapon is Masaya Suzuki's book Katana to Kubitori published in 2000. Masaya Suzuki is a civil servant and is not a historian and does not have a degree. His book is not an academic book, with a lot of speculation and few primary sources. Many errors in his theory have been pointed out by qualified historians. In Japan, it was customary to keep records of soldiers' injuries and causes of death on the battlefield. Historian Thomas D. Conlan created statistical data from many records. His statistics conclude that katana and spears cause more blade kills, and bows and arrows cause more injuries. The period when spears were prevalent on Japanese battlefields was from the late Sengoku period (around 1540) to the peace after Genna era (1615).
Katana was also effective against polearms.That is why China, Mongolia, Korea, and Southeast Asia imported katana from Japan after the 10th century.The "wo" in the name of the sword wodao, which became mainstream in Asia, means Japanese style.
If Viking isn’t winning I’m suing for false information and emotional abuse
Don’t try me
Welp, turns out that the Dane axe and the shield are huge equalizers. The main equalizer that samurai has would be horses.
@@TheSteam02 I think the horse archery really gives the samurai a big advantage.
@@TheSteam02 The Norse sl@ughtered the Steppes people who were mounted archers with higher poundage bows then brought them into their tribe.
How do you think Varangians form the garthrriki=walled/fenced Reich/empire that formed Ukraine & Russia.
You have any idea how many nations the Norse formed in Europe & the fact they were the most sort after mercenaries in across Europe, North Africa & the middle east.
@@arnijulian6241
Eh
I mean, lets not forget that it was steppe nomads that ran rough shot over Byzantine and large swaths of Eastern Europe and conquered Nordic founded/ruled societies like Rus under the Mongolians
Reminds me of that FAF Spike TV show, Deadliest Warrior. Honestly, it was likely what made me want to start learning history. Like when even trash TV was fun .
When they did vampire vs zombie I think it jumped the shark a little...
@@TheRedBaron1917 I think that episode was more of a one-off Halloween special.
I loved that episode, felt my heart burning in pride. It came down to culture tradition in that show and there gave the edge to the samurai, if I remember correctly.
@@matthewsuchomski2593 And series finale
You just want to redo Ultimate Warrior and I'm here for it
It's Deadliest Warrior
@@Madmax45247 And in their samurai/viking episode, they used the bow and hit the viking in BOTH EYES, exactly where he was unarmored.
@@benwagner5089 I have a love/hate relationship with that show. Some of the conclusions they came to for who had the "edge" in something was often times quite too generous.
I agree, however, my wife and I LOVED watching that show with nachos and pausing it to debate!@Th1sUsernameIsNotTaken
@@Madmax45247 Apparently it was called Ultimate Warrior in some places, Shad also refers to it by that name
There was a show years ago called “The Deadliest Warrior” where they take two types of warriors and pinned them up against each other and used stats and readings from weapons and armor to see who would win, and they actually did Viking vs Samurai.
that was the worst and dumbest episode (and show) ever.
@@pupper5580 idk… The Acolyte was pretty terrible
2:30 "...whoever we feel has the edge..."
**Deadliest Warrior flashbacks intensify**
Yeah I remember that episode!
Shad! Tyranth! Where is the damn naginata?! The primary weapon of a samurai, alongside the longbow!!!
Despite the naginata, the Vikings still win unmounted. I am surprised that they left it out though, as it was a very important part of Japanese warfare.
Changes nothing.
most samurai would never touch a naginata
Yeah, I would have pitted the naginata against the dane-axe, or just use that as the special weapon rather than the huge sword that we already know isn't going to change the outcome of the fight.
@@benwagner5089 I thought the Japanese spear was a great idea against the dane-axe. The examples they showed of the Japanese spears showed how it wasn't uncommon to have, and I don't know the technical term, but attachments that could be used to grab/trip.
Infinity more watchable than something in the various TV channels with similar debates 🙂👍
Feel like the samurai are missing something here. Begins with nagi, ends with nata.
Not saying that absolutely changes things, but I do feel that'd be their answer to the Dane Axe as a single edged pole arm.
Im Calling it the Knight wins every time
I agree
If you fit it to the same time period when all there coexisted, around the 1000s, the classic samurai armor hadn't existed yet and Vikings and "knights" of the same social status would have worn very similiar stuff. Thegnthrand did a vid of this a long time ago. I disagree cus just Viking comes from that just means raider. Knights but most denitions are elite heavy calvary with more formalized training and social system (feudalism) to support becoming a warrior elite heavy calvary. Their would be few Knights but each knight in average would a more skilled head to head fighter than a Viking. It comparing a religion that glorifies combat to having a social/economic to produce well trained warriors. Basically comparing more self taught to those that have semi formal combat education. Knight verus Samurai would come down to terrain cus you basically comparing a elite heavy calvary shock trooper to a heavy armored horse archer. A horse archer than can fire and run and resupply at his leisure is hard to beat. A horse archer than been forced to is just a large target to be run over.
@@anderporascu5026 The amount of maneuverability avaliable to the person in dependent of the terrain the fight is set in. The Mongols had a ahrder fighting in heavily forested areas and laying sieges to castles cus that both hampers mobility. Renaissance knights and late crusades didn't coexist with Vikings at all and Samurai armor very different at that time to.
@@anderporascu5026 The Mongols, and even you can argue against them. The Huns were essentially nomadic pillagers of a decaying empire whose leader died of a nosebleed, not that impressive.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 The Samurai as people imagine them didn’t appear until the 13th century, and really we mostly think about 16th century samurai. The Vikings stopped existing in the 11th century, but really people mostly think about them in the 10th century.
This is fundamentally anachronistic. If you want to compare people who are contemporaneous and of the same social class, you do not want to compare Samurai to Vikings.
When it comes to archery in norse context, you have a famous archer from Norway called Einar Eindrideson Tambarskjelve.
You also have to take into account the difference in size and strength, which greatly favors the skandinavian vikings.
I love those studded leather hoodies.
100% as real as studded leather!
But did most Viking’s have chain link armor, and what was the grade of steal in the chain link?
Video idea: would love to see a video where you compare different grades of chain link armor based on time period. (I know you did armor comparison in the past that included chain link, but is there different grade of steal in chain link specifically?)
I'm surprised how nobody is talking about the body fighting there. A norse Viking would be seen as a superhuman compared to some tiny japanese dude.
No most vikings dident have chain mail until some later periods, then it was actually quite common, cause they ofc take it of people who died/they killed. But also most Japanese wasn't samurai and not every dude in medieval times where a knight, so it's more about comparing the elite fighters of all cultures. 😁
There's a very important fact they're overlooking, what are the Vikings wearing under their armor? People just didn't talk about clothing with armor at the time and it didn't start to get standardized until the gambeson came along. I think the maille will hold together through many hits but the bones and organs underneath the clothing will be in trouble.
They covered that, with the blunt force weapons, but that went both ways
FINALLY!!
You are the first creator I'm subscribed to that has a proper hoodie drop!
If a hoodie doesn't zip up then I don't buy it, period.
I have a burning hatred for pull over hoodies, so thank you Shad. I will be ordering one!
I hate pullovers I will never wear them again
Why it's just a jumper with a hood ,?
@@RichardPhillips1066
I don't know what a jumper is.
@@ShrockWPSpullover hoodie without a hood
@@Tuck-Shop
Ah, so a sweater.
I don't have any of those either
Also I might add that cavalry were know to be far less effective against combatants with high morale and bracing tactics. Vikings being know for being off their rocker with morale and masters of using the shield wall. I actually think that cavalry would be less effective than the total wipeout you may normally expect.
If you pick your ground carefully (forest, hilly, marshy) that can negate the cavalry advantage.
Here is the usual full support for your videos.
Deadliest Warrior: Season 1 episode 2.
It’s about the weapons to a point. But what most videos seem to overlook is that training of the fighters is probably the most important factor to success.
Great video Shad!!!
Tyranth's *rocking* the new samurai armour!
10:42 Robin Hood Men in Tights reference.
The yumi (japanese bow) may have been a lower poundage than the European longbow, but being able to shoot from a galloping horse is going to up the effective force as well. I think Mythbusters handled that during one of their Genghis Khan/Mongol horde episodes. Compared to a longbowman running around and having to stop and bracing themselves more solidly to loose their arrows, especially at the higher poundages, mobility wins.
they would still carry ~100 pounds bows for both sides. The mongol khan empire made longbow poundage in a smaller package to be used by their mounted archers.
I've read the opposite from military historians at times. Foot archer > horse archer in a straight-up duel. Smaller target, much more stable aiming platform than the back of a horse.
Ever ridden a horse for 6 straight hours? I have. It's exhausting. You're sore, sweaty, tired. So is the horse, by the way. Something to consider.
from my 20ish years of riding i can say it also depends on the kind of riding your doing, a casual slow - med paced trail ride isn't bad after 6+ hours, any form of racing or higher paced trails can get rough after long periods
Pretty Samurai armor, Metatron should do a react
And comment the lack of Samurai Guns. Mathclock type aquabusses
Well, this won't be controversial at all.
Personally I think the Viking would be a way better kisser
We will NEVER know unless there's an alternate world out there where the Vikings and Samurai meet in combat. All we can do is guess based on what we know
Meh, Idk why this is even a contest, just look at the size of a Viking compared to some tiny japanese dude. I bet in most 1vs1 melee fights, the Viking would win with his bare hands
@@mcmarkmarkson7115 Samurais were around 5'5 while Vikings were around 5'7. There would've been shorter and taller individuals. People back then didn't have the nutrition we have today and that's why they were shorter on average. But in terms of bulkiness and mass, Vikings were bigger. Samurais tend to be slimmer. But here we're merely talking about swordsmanship and sword combat, not one on one UFC style combat because in that case, Vikings would always win
@@ironiccookies2320 The raiding Vikings were taller because they could afford a better diet
+ Samurai had weak bodies because they did no manual labor unlike the Vikings
Combat with weapons and armor also heavily relies on your physique. There is simply no way weak japanese would have a chance against a Viking shieldwall
Archery would be the only thing going for Samurai, but not enough to win again shields + chainmail, Vikings were very much used to breaking into places while constantly under archer attack
Been awhile since I last watched Shadiversity
It's pretty cool to show equipement that actually benefit of special prices.
to see how hard a mounted sword hits against a shield, hit a target from a vehicle moving at horse speed vs shield for the lulz. it'd be a awesome video lol. prolly go viral.
it does sound a bit tricky and/or dangerous but I'd like to see this 100%
Though a horse wouldn't normally gallop into a spearwall or quickly get stopped in its tracks. Generally light cavalry doesn't go into melee combat unless the opposing formation is properly broken up.
@@MDP1702 in the spirit of a 1v1 like they were tallking about.
@@holtec333 1v1 the viking would use the reach of the dane axe to hit the samurai or his horse before the sword can reach him. Ofcourse someone on foot always is at a disadvantage against someone on horse back, but that is why a Viking wouldn't pick a 1v1 battle with a (skilled) mounted opponent to start with.
@@MDP1702 Where is this magical dane axe going to teleport to him lmao
So this is the shadiversity version of the deadliest warrior episode.
The time range is different between Vikings and the Samurai.
Heian Period (794 - 1185) The Viking Age (793-1066 CE)
@@achtungpanzer7728 Samurai were persistent until the 1870s. The viking arsenal is from the 11th century, the samurai arsenal is from the 19th.
Is this castle in his back yard? I REALLY WANT TO SEE THIS IN REAL LIFE! I love castle and medieval stuff like so much.
13:38 The Vikings even had a goddess/giantess of winter, hunting and skiing who used a bow, Skaði
Yep, yep. They also had slings and stone-shooting crossbows, and there was no mention of javelins or thrown spears. Then there's the throwing axes, 'Viking' groups like the Franks perfected, bouncing them off the ground underneath an opposing shield-wall. Consequently, the Nodachi was thrown into enemy formations rather than weilded like a daito, but it looks like the whole 'horse leg removal' thing is being perpetuated on the samurai side.
@@christiansorensen7567Never, and I mean *never*, have I heard about throwing nodachi. Could you post a source?
@@Myomer104 I'm searching but having trouble finding the detail. I don't think it was Metatron, but perhaps Antony Cummins. I know it was mentioned somewhere in a Sengoku history and tactics, and in Museum Replicas magazines. I'm afraid, without being able to search in Japanese, which I can't read, I can't get to the historical source. There's artwork though.
@@christiansorensen7567 i dont say this to be condescending, i am genuinely curious: can you provide any further information on stone shooting crossbows? any sources? ive studied the viking age pretty extensively and ive never heard of or seen this before
@@einarr7301 There was an episode of Forged in Fire where the final challenge was making stone-shooting crossbows. Otherwise, I just have some books with the few historical examples in them. Additionally there's the sling-staff- I forgot the name. Fistabula or something. Anyway, they were in Mount & Blade Viking Conquest, so I looked them up and they're legit. You-Tuber tutorials on making both the staves and the crossbows. I could probably find some links on Skandehoovian historical sites.
An interesting matchup would be 10 samurai on horse with bow vs 20 Vikings with 10 bows and 10 shields.
Intresting note. The Samurai already had to deal with Chainmail wearing Shield using sea invaders. It was the Mongol invasions of Japan.
Side note. Samurai also used full chaimail armor called Kusari, And would look very similar to a viking just without a shield.
Very good point about the Mongol invasions. That’s a solid parallel despite someone else’s comment that Vikings tended to be bigger and stronger than the Japanese of the same era.
Also Japanese: relying on storms to take out many Mongols. 😂
The Mongols came over ready for war, but died in a tornado. But they tried again and had a nice time fighting with the Japanese, but then died in a tornado.
- Bill Wurtz
The Mongol invasions are quite a bit after the Viking Age though. The Gempei Wars would fit a bit better but still be a bit late.
That's a problem the video completely omits: The Viking Age is a lot shorter and ends a lot earlier than the Samurai. Wanna compare late Edo Period Samurai to Vikings?
Thing is the viking was cunning ppl, I would say more then Mongols, however if a samurai wear chainmail I counter with a berserker drugged up out of he's mind.
Battlefield tactics are the more important thing. At the battle of Hastings, Harold's English infantry threw back several heavy cavalry charges and arrow fire. England lost to the Normans because the cavalry feigned a retreat and then doubled back on the broken line after England came off their hill to pursue.
hm tactics matter between equals, in this case, the superior body anatomy of Vikings alone would let them win.
The one thing about the shield argument is the Viking has to eventually drop it to use a bow, so then the question becomes will the Viking drop the samurai’s horse before the mounted samurai can seriously wound the Viking. If the Viking can’t use his bow there’s no way he’s getting close enough to a mounted warrior to pose much threat.
Aha, you basically addressed that another minute into the video lol
Can we talk about how badass Tyranth's armor looks? The color scheme is fire.
Yeah, the katana was more heavily associated with the samurai in the peaceful Edo period.
Which makes sense, since if you just want a weapon to be armed for everyday use in case you need to defend yourself, you’d pick a weapon that’s easy to carry, out of the way (since it won’t be used 99.99% of the time), yet quick to draw. That tends to favor a shorter, easier to draw sword much like I, as an American, carry a handgun for my EDC rather than a rifle.
The handgun comparison is apt. Primary weapon of war would be a rifle, and the handgun a backup sidearm of convenience and last resort, much like the katana would be to the samurai.
@@TenMillionYearProgram42 Swords in general, really. A lot of people mention that the spear is a better weapon than the sword, which then makes people wonder why people care about swords so much.
The reason is because even warriors don’t spend every day of their life on the battlefield. Most of the time is spent living their everyday life. So that tends to favor the more convenient to carry swords (like handguns) over more powerful spears (like rifles). After all, the pistol you have on you beats the rifle you left locked in a safe at home because it was too much of a pain in the butt to carry, just as the sword you have on you beats the spear you left hanging over the mantle place at home.
There's also the edge construction. A Tachi is more robust so not to get damaged too easily whereas a Katana is as sharp as possible because it's not supposed to be used against armour. Of course early Katana were basically shorter Tachi for infantry use.
I personally strongly suspect that the term sidearm is literal. It's the weapon you keep at your side ready to use at all times. The arming sword, the everyday carry weapon of history is probably where the term originated. There's even a sword called a side sword if I remember correctly. Today, pistols serve the same function, so we transitioned the name, sidearm, from the sword to the pistol. I have no idea if any of that is accurate or not, and I enjoy it too much to go look any of it up because I'm probably wrong in there somewhere.
@@CowCommando At least for pistols, that’s very much accurate. A sidearm is something you wear on your side, since most pistols are carried on your right hip (though appendix carry is popular for concealed carry, but even then it’s the front side rather than right side).
Good video. I agree, I'd give the edge to the Viking on foot and the Samurai on horseback.
Sengoku period samurai armor heheheh nice shad almost the right century
I think that a battle between samurai and Vikings would all depend on who could maintain their tactical advantage. If the samurai could keep a distance and just continually harass the Vikings they have the edge, but, if the Vikings can take the fight to close quarters, they have the clear advantage. So strategy would ultimately decide the battle.
Mounted Cavalry throwing a spear with any amount of training that allows for accuracy on the move will have enough momentum to pierce a thin shield and most likely pierce through your armor as well. Loose formations can easily get run down by Cavalry, horses are between 900 and 2,200 pounds. Any group of Horse archers would have the high ground and could circle around your group firing from every angle. You can't defend every angle with your shield.
*Samurai pulls out Gatling Gun. Filthy Casuals!
The viking being taller and stronger would make the viking win more often.
Bows in combat - You only have a limited amount of arrows and often they were shot in volleys (in combat).
Lastly bows would be on the best, and only the best archers shooting from behind the protection of the shields, not standing in the open to be shot freely.
And since most of northern Europe was covered in wood at the time, horses wasn't really a big advantage.
And lastly they would be at least 200 years apart...
Gotta hype up my heritage, Let’s Go Vikings, Let’s Go! Fyrir vinninginn!
Hann stóð svá vel til hǫggsins. 🙂
The poundage of a samurai bow was, like the rest of his kit, completely tailored to the samurai to an exacting degree. If his bow's draw weight was a 毛 too heavy or a 毛 too light, a samurai wouldn't just notice, but they'd go out of their way to point to the bowyer exactly who they didn't kill because of the bowyer's mistake.
Cmon Vikings! 👀🍿
Shad rocking the Viking drip and Tyranth looks like he could be in a video with Metatron!
Oh, Nice!
Anyone else bothered by the fact that the Samurai armour is made by Iron Mountain Armory, not Romance of Men? It is a beautiful Yoroi don’t get me wrong, but I feel Iron Mountain Armory should get the recognition for it.
Great video Shad!
That is our armor, just to clarify
About shad mentioning that samurais are often light skirmish cavalry, I think one of Nobunaga's enemies are renowned for heavy cavalry tactics and he has to prepare a fortifications with lines of matchlocks and spears while goading the samurai cavalry to make a frontal charge which they did. While it didn't end well to them, there is a precedence on samurai being able to do a heavy cavalry charge and while it is not a lance, a man on a horse transferring the full gallop and weight on a spear is still enough to kill a man even in a shield wall though in my opinion a skirmish cavalry is significantly more effective and far more devastating in locking down and slowly whittling down an army on foot though to be honest the vikings probably run away back to the sea than stand and fight anyways as they are more like raiders than actual soldiers.
That was warlord Takeda Shingen who was the cavalry expert.
The Takeda clan. They had a good chance of winning the Sengoku Jidai but some not so good battles against the Uesugi and the unlucky death of Shingen meant that they ultimately lost.
They are still quite famous in Japan and while the main family was destroyed they also had branches. The martial arts of the one to the east are the foundation of Aikidou and they also had a small branch that held the only Japanese castle on Hokkaidou, Matsumae.
Thanks for the additional info!
Relevant and Supportive Comment to feed the Algorangim
very cool.
I did service one summer at a physical therapy place. To help improve muscles for a person to walk, the place used horses. Riding across a field is just as tiering as walking it, and in some cases, it is not faster. Horses will not run head long into a wall. Standing next to each other and the horses will turn and run down the line. This is why most European armies started having calvery that was trained to be dismounted to fight.
In my opinion you're forgetting the most important aspects of tactics and actual matchup context. The vikings would likely be outnumbered and raiding. They'd basically be fine attacking small villages etc because of the lack of protection but basically within a day or two something tells me the local lord would quickly make short work of them. They'd have no reason to disengage from mounted combat, no likely loss to unmounted archers and once they've annihilated the majority or the Viking raider's with arrows the shields aren't going to hold up to even the period accurate swords.
I'd say that returning raids if someone escaped and told other vikings about Japan and the riches there and their warriors it'd still be a moot point because now they'd have arguably the best steel of the time at their disposal from the fallen vikings. Plus traditionally iirc Vikings up the ante after a failure and attacking a Japanese castle would not go well for them.
I will say I agree that a random viking against a random samurai would likely mean a Samurai loses on foot. But the chances of that historically happening would be astronomical in my opinion. Although I also disagree on the "coverage" provided by chainmail as even with the coif and helm the open face viking will likely get arrowed long before the "open shouldered/armpit etc. samurai" gets like treatment via sword or arrows. Also Samurai had shields as well idk why that was glossed over.
People favor their heritage-adjacent fandoms, and cherry pick weapons and armor.
Most samurai are not depicted with shields, so ppl forget it happened at all...
Vikings are a hit and run type of combat and use boats for everything which I imagine would negate any advantage of a Calvary
I’d imagine they’d have been just as legendary in Japan as they were in Europe and the Mediterranean
Check out the history of England. A lot of pitched battles and seiges in the Migratory Period, all on English soil. It led to half of England being ruled by the Danes. (See 'The Danelaw.') One of the greatest threats was "The Great Heathen Army" under Ivar the Boneless. He literally formed a horde, and zerged the Anglo-Saxons. It wasn't all Lindasfarne.
@@christiansorensen7567 correct and I'm aware but look at the globe and tell me you think they'd be able to dedicate the same amount of resources in the time required to an initiative in Japan...they might have made it to America first but that didn't work for them either and that's arguably the easier territory to conquer for the Vikings.
@@mrgandolf5349 correct but the Japanese were used to sea attacks from Korea and China by this point and they're not going to set sail in numbers this far from home even with fairly accurate Intel of what's to be gained.
Deadliest Warrior got it wrong, but they made a pretty good, fast game from the show
I would like to point out that the steppe tribes that confronted the Vikings were mounted archers. They definitely gave them (the Russ specificly) a run for their money when they were employed by the late roman empire.
The same blunt force weapons that gave Vikings advantage against armor also help equalize against mounts.
Horses are useless with broken legs.
Didn’t see video yet.
Samurai are professional warriors. A Viking (pirate, raider) could be anything from a seasoned veteran to a shepherd with an axe.
Yeah, the median samurai unquestionably beats the median Viking.
@deriznohappehquite idk about that. An average Samurai was an alright archer, swordsman ect, but they still weren't the best. They didn't have the perfect armour always depicted, most was weaker than that the main leader Samurai wore. As for their weapons, a Viking typically has better quality weapons, both in terms of the fact they used steel (rather than folded iron) and in the actual weapons in comparison to the Samurai. In addition,Vikings were typically better trained than their stereotypical savage farmer idea makes them out to be. It's actually kinda even, at least until you take cavalry, shields ect into account.
@@owenwoolley3394 The point was that a samurai devotes huge amounts of their time and life in training, practicing, strategy, and discipline. Vikings were usually just common people who had some experience fighting, but were typically not as trained. So, the median samurai was going to simply be better at fighting, more skilled. In a case where the two warriors have very different styles but are otherwise equally armed, the more skillful warrior usually wins.
@@jeremiahbell6129 I sort of disagree with this but not entirely. Vikings trained very much as well, and their training was similar to Samurai in many senses, with training in hand to hand grappling, swordsmanship and other respective weapons, their respective modes of transport (longship or horse) and more. Along with this, a Viking would most likely be better fed, bigger and stronger than a Samurai. When the gap in skill isn't that much, these things can tip the edge, especially size which equals reach which can make a huge difference in the way a fight turns out. Better equipped, better physically, I would way that on average they are equal in skill, perhaps with a slight edge to the Samurai on average. While Vikings certainly did come from normal common folk a lot, they also came from good fighting stock a lot as well.
@@owenwoolley3394 Average samurai would be better fed than an average Viking. A samurai's lord would usually make sure that their strongest warriors are well fed. Vikings, on the other hand, were usually fed by themselves, and Scandinavia is notoriously difficult to farm and gather in. That being said, Vikings were usually bigger people, physiologically, but if a battle occurs, it's more likely a samurai would be fighting on a full stomach.
And yes, Vikings would be training as well. Certainly! Their culture loved wrestling and feats of strength. We can read the epics and see the virtues they extolled.
But if you have to spend a lot of your time farming, gathering, preparing your house, and doing day-to-day things, there's a limit to how much you can invest in improving with weapons.
Beyond that, samurai often trained in schools called goju for many years. Vikings also would train under masters, but their curricula would be more scattered. There wouldn't be a high chance that they'd become as disciplined and technical in their skills. It would be more wild and savage, which can leave lots of openings that samurai were trained to exploit. (That's literally what a lot of kendo focuses on.)
i recall reading in a book that samurai historically used stone arrowheads. which would significantly influence their effect vs chainmail.
The mounted samurai could use the kanabo to bludgeon the viking's shield into his face. It'd be like they're playing polo.
This video is guaranteed to make so many people cry
The keen observer would be wondering why you're dressed like a strawberry...
Deadliest Warrior: Vikings vs Samurai 2.0
Sword/shield vs katana = Viking
Samurai bow vs shield and sword = samurai
Axe vs spear = samurai
kanabo vs axe = Viking
Kanabo iron vs axe = samurai
Short axe/shield vs anything but the iron kanabo, bow, or spear = Viking
Bow vs bow = samurai
Small axe vs nodachi = samurai
odachi vs just sword = samurai
Armor I'll say it's about a tie with exception of Viking head gear for bladed weapons. The samurai armor is apparently very nimble and can recover from a knock down and shove. The lighter armor and distance a samurai could keep the Viking would help for an endurance battle.
The skill I believe a samurai would have the edge. The Viking could be a seasoned raider and be equivalent or a merc from a prior military background. There no knight when it came to practice and skills but a seasoned fighter is nothing to ignore. I assume there both about the same in skills with the foot fight. There's about a 3inch hight difference and I assume a good amount of weight difference as well so the samurai would have to be careful not to get handled like a child. Vikings except the rare events aren't actually very tall on average I believe and correct me if I'm wrong about 5'6 - 5'9. A Japanese person probably in that time 5'3-5'6 today most people here are about 5'7 I look down at almost every one here and stand out. It makes a difference when a 250 5'9 male charges u when ur 5'6 150 pounds and get shield bashed.
Overall it's mostly a coin flip 50/50 and all depends on who has what.
and who is the more experienced warrior.
@@ethannehring3355 this would be the most important thing but for the argument I'd suggest they all get the same skill.
And what about the samurai's ax? They will also use hinges
And what about the shields of the samurai?
And what about daggers?
@@אורן-ב8ע the wakizadhi(small katana curved, and or tanto(straight dagger like blade with one side being sharp and tapered single edge) (European daggers often had two blades edge's allowing you to cut on any side of the blade which is great for cqc) bends easily but if a samurai could say tackle a Viking down it would be the best weapon available to dispatch even a plated soldier. I do believe Vikings had daggers available though so dagger v tanto I'd say the dagger wins. The pinning of an enemy is often what ends up killing people, say legs on the arms near the armpits and u stabbing a person in the face.
You don't need to kill people right away if u get stabbed in the face ur virtually useless and out of the fight.
The samurai axe is dope but most of them are heavy and large. The axe could be useful against the shield but it would be one swing and done. The Viking has a sword that could take advantage of the axe if stuck in the shield or as the samurai pulls back. I'd say the Viking may have enough adrenaline even if the axe breaks his arm. He still has one good one to counter or pin.
These scenarios are all very dependent on what is used and what it's going against. This is why I think it's a coin flips chance for either one. I'd even suggest they probably end up all dying. I doubt these two groups on a one on one would walk very far after the fight. I have to check into it later when I have the time but these fights normally end with the "winner" walking away but later dying from blood loss, broken bones and unable to move, internal bleeding, and or fatigue. At best one walks away with a long term injury.
@@DemiSamaKun The samurai will definitely try to lock the viking and stab him with a dagger and will also be skilled at this. This was an important part of samurai battles, not really viking battles, and it's very likely to happen because the samurai is heavily armored so it's hard to stop him if the samurai gets very close the viking will be in trouble, but even if he's far the viking will be in trouble because of his bow and armor, or his spear , the Viking will have to fight from medium range.
The viking's sword will not do much to the samurai because of the armor the viking will have to hit the samurai faster than the samurai hits him no matter what weapon he used he can always use his shield to hit the samurai but it is not really lethal.
The thing is I think the samurai can handle a viking even with only a tanto, I also think the average samurai before the Edo period would be much more skilled than the average viking, he was a professional fighter
Be wary of the 2x4 handle, unless it is made of a strong wood like hickory, it could very well snap and splinter on you. Love the video!
You forgot one thing, Samurai armed with firearms would wipe the floor with against both traditional armed Samurai and Vikings.
i might be SLIGHTLY biased as a Nordic decendant of the viking, Erik The Red. but i would say that out of 10 fights the Viking wins 200 TIMES! WITH EASE! EVERYSINGLE TIME!.
Didn’t Deadliest Warrior do Viking vs Samurai?
Yes
Yeah, and did a terrible job at it.
Yeppers. Vikings clearly won. These kind of things are making a lot of assumptions though. Pitched battle, and everyone is wearing/weilding best in tech. No logistics or weather to worry about ect...
@@alexyehendal9495 that show was absolute horseshit XD
These are two very wealthy warriors with all the best equipment and even horses trained for battle.
Of ultimate destiny
Historically, Vikings were conquering more land until Ghengis Khan swept in with its calvary.
also fully mailed armies with shields were often shot to pieces by Mongol horse archers
I'm pretty sure the vikings did trade with the mongols... and became the russians, although im probs mixing it up
@@craytherlaygaming2852 Some part of the Viking migration indeed went east (Rurik in 862), but the timeline is important here. Mongol battle in Vienna took place in 1241, Mongols in Japan 1274 and 1281. The most commonly referred to Vikings are the great Dane army that came in 865. Vikings did not have to face the Mongols and the Japanese were never as good as Mongols, with the whole story of heavenly winds saving them.
@@KyaragoThere are many conflicting opinions on the success of the Mongol invasions, prior to the kamikaze, with some sources say the Japanese were doing fine against them once they adjusted their tactics.
The samurai as the existed in the mongol invasion, don’t really resemble the samurai of 15th-16th century, and happened during a time period where Japan hadn’t really seen any major wars in a generation. They were used to skirmishes and glory duels at the time. Their tactics changed drastically over the course of the invasions.
Mongols were giant armies with thousands of horses and resupply lines for arrows. Nothing compared to what the Japanese had to work with.
It’s not the size, it’s where you stick it - Black Adder
Period Vikings were legit twice as big as period samurai. It would be like me fighting The Mountain from GoT. Imagine the power a 300 pound Berserker can generate with that Dane Axe!
Shad speaking that language seemed to really awaken something deep within me
Samurai have two left out weapons they employed a lot. The Naginata, and you barely mentioned the Kanabo or the fact that it is basically an iron bat and would absolutely be devastating to be hit by.
If you want to know battlefield wise what weapon was comperable to the Dane Axe, it was a full Kanabo, not a Tachi. The Kanabo would be made out of iron or knotted with iron throughout and was surprisingly a pretty nimble weapon for Anti-Armor. The Dane Axe's big flaw was the fact all the power was in the end and behind it was a weak point.
A well placed Kanabo strike against a shield would be either on the rim to slam it downward, smashing a thin shield, or into the knuckles if it's just a center held shield which would most likely break the hand of the one with the shield.
As for Samurai Shields, they did exist but they served a different function to act for approaching fortified positions against arrows, such as castles and where disguarded. Instead relying on armoring for protection. As you're basically 'dressed in shields'. Many Samurai had chain under their armor and others had effective cloth protection on par with the gambeson.
Lastly, most Samurai you'd find in a battlefield are life long career fighters. Where as unless you had a Jomsviking you where dealing with a part-timer.
Lastly Tyrenth admitted it himself he wasn't wearing his armor right so it wasn't a perfect example of full kit. The full effective Samurai armor was a thing of effectiveness. It had both structure and mobility and in it was clad a trained warrior.
I believe however weapon wise, the Viking had a 'somewhat' better kit with the Axe and Shield combo.
But the BIG, BIG reason I give the Samurai the win... you take 10 random 'Vikingr' and 10 random 'samurai' you're more likely to get more professional warriors with the Samurai. Jomsviking where somewhat rare. The Samurai on the other hand where super common and the most predominant and dominant caste in Japan and had tons of different clans each with differing warfare ideals.
10 Random... You'd get 8 civilian combatants, 2 Jomsviking a lot in the draws. With the Samurai you'd get 9 trained warriors to every 1 undertrained or apprentice. My lot doesn't figure the whole culture, but it draws on the people who'd be called into a battlefield and draws and even number from both pools.
Population wise the nordics who went viking maxed around a million at one point in history, while the samurai class where up to 18 million in their peak. Giving a numbers advantage to the Samurai by a vast margin if you take both at their peak.
You know what weapon would be similar to the giant dane axe? A huge samurai axe
ono
The naginata I think would be great for mounted combat (and they already rightfully gave them the point for mounted combat), but comparing it to spears and the axe + shield combo, i don’t exactly see it winning.
However, I think the Kanobo stands much more of a shot since it could probably mess up a spear pretty badly and win out pretty well against the dane axe and axe + shield combo. The main thing is that this scenario would be specific to *metal* kanobos. Not all kanobos were fully metal as you noted, but the extra mass of the metal I feel is necessary to give them a decisive victory. I could also see victories with ones that aren’t fully made of metal, i just see the alternative being much more decisive. So assuming most of the samurai had full metal metal kanobos, i could see them being extremely useful with the only real issues they’d be facing being the spear which has a much longer reach.
In this scenario with full-metal kanobos, i think the fight becomes a lot more even and it really depends on what weapons the vikings are using to decide the victor in this scenario. If all of the vikings happen to have spears, i could see the vikings still coming out on top in some/most scenarios. However, if the vikings employ primarily axes or swords, I think the samurai have a pretty good chance of winning.
@@crolithebard4964 Awesome and thought provoking reply, thanks.
What? A Viking would brutalize a Samurai with his bare hands.
Japan being stuck in the middle ages for so long isn't the advantage you think it is. They got humiliated by a single warship. Vikings switched to modern times hundreds of years before Japan, compared population size of different time periods is just stupid
@@mcmarkmarkson7115 I think this argument has some merit in the sense that samurai got very used to fighting each other and developed specific skills and technologies to help fight other Japanese warring states over the course of hundreds of years.
However, this example is a huge oversimplification. You site one example and let it be the be-all and end-all of your argument. One example of samurai being crushed by a foreign warship isn’t a good example because it’s a single example compared to potentially dozens of others. You’re telling me you’re going to compare all samurai (which were around from 1100-1800 AD) to one combat they had somewhere during that time? This is ~700 years of history and you brought a single example from a specific group and time period to back up your claim, which just doesn’t make sense or account for the nuances of their defeat.
You also say “vikings switched to modern times” but this argument falls incredibly flat because you don’t say anything to back it up. For all intents and purposes, the Viking Age was 800-1050 AD, so why would “being stuck in the Middle Ages” be any detriment to the samurai if this time period was also in the Middle Ages? It seems like a reasonable fight if the comparison is that both are Medieval Age warriors.
What does the fact they “switched to modern times” even mean? Do you mean vikings switched faster into working a 9 to 5 and driving cars? Do you mean they developed OUT of typical viking equipment into stronger equipment that were more prevalent at a different era (aka NOT the Viking Age)? You don’t explain, and if the vikings modernized and change aspects of themselves, can you still call them vikings at that point? You might, but there is no detail that went into what you said, so we can’t be certain.
Your argument has to be held up by a lot more than one naval defeat and a comparisons about “switching to modern times.”
In the end, all that matters is who has the high ground.
I think Shad severely underestimates just how powerful a horse is as a weapons platform. Even just the physical presence of the animal is terrifying on the battlefield, much less what it is going to physically do to you. The horse itself can be used as a weapon to push and trample.
Not really, the you won't be able to impart the full force of the horse's weight into your weapon as he pointed out, and while the horse can be used as a weapon. Thats just asking for the viking to dismount you by abusing your horse's eight against it and jabbing their wapon directly into it's body which will either kill it. Or cause it to flee, and once again that shield will definitely allow you to tank the single kick it's gonna send your way before it flees... which then just evens the battlefield.
People also often forget the viking's were well documented for taking on and beating places with cavalry and what not, so they did have tactics against them.
Yes, keeping distance and pining a viking from a far is going to be a winning srtat, but if you foolishly charge in, your horse will be taken out. Vikings, especially berserkers were *known* for intimidation tactics and being veeeeerry hard to kill, just not as hard as the stories make it seem. And as someone else pointed out, they were generally larger than samurai physically
On an open battlefield, yes. Fight anywhere else and they're much less of an advantage, if they don't have to be abandoned.
Vikings dealt with horses with those large axes and spears... The problem is the Vikings were just bigger and were much more capable at handling a samurai and his army.
Shad, you should definitely review the old series "deadliest Warrior" and just give us your insights on the outcomes of the battles. That'd be pretty neat
hmm...but that show was horseshit, americans are very ignorant, they only know about guns and mcdonalds
Two more things to consider...
1) Nordic men are significantly bigger than Japanese men.
2) I feel like the Samurai were professionally trained warriors, while Vikings were a bunch of unruly tough guys.
Depending on the era Samurai had a bit of the unruly touch too. After all your rewards depended on how much personal glory you achieved.
@@kaltaron1284 Yeah, there were many peaceful eras where they didn't have real fights, so they probably got lazy with training. By the end, it was mostly nobility cosplaying as warriors 😆
Vikings are it seems culturally just as likely to be professional warriors as merchant, its easy to let the portrayal of the raiders facing no real opposition and usually reported on by the victims. If they really were the wild, entirely uncoordinated wild men they are often painted as they would simply not be effective on those occasions they faced real opposition...
@@Bosnerdly Even in those peaceful times there were a few revolts here and there to keep them busy. It wasn't until the late Edo Period that samurai really become more of cosplayers. Esp. the lower ranks.
Viking boats had benches. Depending on how big it was, it could accommodate 6 or more people. I came across information several times that some commanders required one crossbowman for each bench. I can't find these sources, but it's quite an interesting concept because crossbows in the context of Vikings practically do not appear in pop culture. At that time, the Picts also used them (crossboes with wooden arms)so the Vikings probably saw them on the battlefield and know.
It's mindblowing to know that the ones to use the good ol' STICK were actually the Samurai and not the Vikings. Like, imagine a Samurai refining his combat skills throughout his entire life, then reaching for the stick and going "Eh, good enough"
They enhanced it in two ways:
1) Making it out of iron,
Or
2) Applying iron studs along its length.
They just forgot a teeny tiny detail. Both Kanabou and Tetsubou were at least partly iron. It's in the freaking name.
But if you want an example for a samurai taking a stick and going "Good enough." look up Miyamoto Musashi.
@@kaltaron1284 Hmm. All I have is this knife and a paddle.
**Carve, carve, whittle**
*Two-shots opponent*
@@Myomer104 I'm sure he had other options for that battle but he purposefully went for an unusual weapon and length and arriving late.
Although to be honest it's difficult to tell how much of the stories is true. But they are entertaining and believeable.
Calling what they had a Kanabou is fairly disingenuous a proper Kanabou isn't a uniform thickness so that it has a proper handle and has multiple flat sides with metal studs along the entire length. What they have looks like it had cloths hanging on it in a closet.
Idea for a new series. More of This! Essentially your version of a Deadliest Warrior, but with actual logic and history.
One could cherry pick a lot of combinations. An 11th-early 14th century Samurai might win unless he got unhorsed and preferred mounted archery. 15th-mid 19th century Samurai would be tough for a Viking and may actually lose unless he's an arquebusier/musketeer in which case it's a stomp. 19th century Samurai would stomp thanks to far superior technology with rifled muskets at WORST; The lack of armor wouldn't even matter. A typical Viking is about average for Medieval foot soldiers but if he's a Housecarl, then he's an elite warrior like a knight.
Also, I'm confident a Redcoat would beat both.
The problem here is that samurais and Vikings were so far apart in history. By the time we have samurai, Vikings had already assimilated (or created) into the local cultures and had become traditional European armies. And during their own time, they weren't that much different to the armies they fought against, it's just that men in Scandinavia are taller on average and their belief in dying on the battlefield, with the additional spice of nowhere to return to made them extremely fierce. A video analysing the difference between Alfred's army and the invading Vikings would be more interesting.
@@Kyarago Strange, I had the impression Samurai were also around in the 11th century.
@@jeffreygao3956 Must admit that I didn't double check and always imagined that samurai were much later (14th century). But even then, looks like the true rise to power of samurais happened in 12th century (so we could include 11th as well). The Vikings we refer to most commonly are the ones that invaded the British isles with the great Dane army arriving in 865 (according to Wiki).
@@jeffreygao3956 they were but the armor and weapon types they became known for were later inventions. For example, the laminated iron technique that made formidable tachi and katanas were not perfected until the 14th century. Vikings were using Damascus and crucible steels imported from the near east in the 9th century. The only point at which Japanese military tech has ever exceeded western military tech was for a brief period in the beginning of the 20th century when they were the first to properly understand the potency of naval aviation.
@@AaronLDeWolf Katanas didn’t even exist until 1392 so Samurai coexisting with Vikings would of course have tachi as their sidearm and preferred mounted archery.
Shad "speaking" old norse is my new favourite thing on youtube😂
They both believe in honorable death by combat
going to valhalla, or seppuku/honor , people of that era were real giga-chads, now we have drag queens...
Ok, the whole not getting through chain arguments miss a ton of context. Namely, not getting through doesn't mean not getting injured. A decent hit anywhere on the chain is a problem, even if it won't kill you.
As such, while the weak points aren't as weak, they are far more numerous than the samurai armor which can take full hits and the wearer barely noticing.
Yari are awesome and should be considered more seriously on this discussion.
Shad also continues underestimating how absolutely terrifying horses are in the battlefield.
Also too the Samurai had access to muskets far sooner then the European line infantry. You have to get into post-renaissance era before guns and cannons started to become more mainstream in European armies. But I always picture the Samurai with a match-lock musket before having a bow and arrow.
Well, where'd they get that matchlock arquebus? It's from Portuguese traders in the 1550s. German and French cavalry (some of them knights) at the time were carrying two wheellock pistols.
thats too modern... and boring.., we must enjoy weapons before the gunpowder times,
besides, samurai is too advanced, i think the asian parallel of the viking is the mongol warrior, and the european counterpart of samurai is the knight