sultantutan

Both at their prime? Who do you think would win?

BTW

I voted Janissary, because of superior training, weaponry and combat experience.

Naomasa298

One ninja to rule them all.

sultantutan

Okay, I understand, your sex life is like a ninja, it's unseen. Even you can't see it.

Jake10

Naomasa was politely trying to tell you that your question is a subjective open end.

sultantutan

He could have said it directly. Obviously there's no Ninja in the poll.

Anyway, back to topic, I'm no history expert. Just wanna know your thoughts.

Naomasa298

Actually, ninjas, for the most part, were samurai, so they are in the poll.

You want it directly? You got it.

Which samurai? Which janissery? Samurai existed from the 11th century through to 1867. The samurai were a social class. Some of them were administrators, some of them were doctors, some of them didn't know which end of a sword to point at the enemy. Their weapons ranged from highly curved tachi cavalry swords in the early days through to breech-loading rifles in the 19th century.

Japan was in a constant state of civil war from the mid 1400s through to the early 1600s, and then was at peace for 250 years. How much experience does this samurai have? Who trained him? What fighting style does he use? What about his armour? Is he wearing lacquered o-yoroi from the Heian period, or is he wearing metal nanban style armour designed to stop bullets? What are the weather conditions like?

Any given samurai could probably defeat any given janissary and vice versa, given the right conditions. Questions about X vs Y are utterly pointless for these reasons. There is no "average" samurai or "average" janissary. It depends entirely on the individual, their training, experience, luck, equipment amongst many, many other factors.

Are we all clear now?

sultantutan

Hey dude! nice info. But, we're in speculative history section of this forums, it's all about speculation. It's not that hard to decide, or click that poll and state your reasons why. And based on your posts, almost 13,000, you know a lot about history, maybe you bring history to your sleep. Dunno, maybe, who knows.

infestør

if i may speculate on their common weapons:

samurai equipped with: katana
yeniceri equpped with: yatagan

both are offensive weapons. if they strike at each other katana would be severely damaged. katana's sharp edge is perlite and its back is martensite. yatagan on the other hand has a martensite structured sharp edge (aka hard).

so the samurai has to win without taking many blows to his sword. otherwise he would have to pay a fortune to fix his blade. for steel and craftmanship was very expensive in japan back then.

Naomasa298

OK then, let's speculate.

Samurai equipped with breech loading rifle, at 100 yards.
Janissery wearing his underpants, with a heavy rock tied to his leg.

Samurai wins.

Naomasa298

The katana was never a common battlefield weapon. It was a backup weapon, for use when the primary weapon, the yari, or yumi if the samurai was an archer, was broken or otherwise unavailable.