Wow, this is so much faster

Comments

• Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Web search is failing me for a primary source under the deluge of web/pop culture fascination with katanas, but I swear I’ve read that their primary killing tool in battle was the Yumi bow, usually fired from horseback.

  Guns displaced every warrior-caste from multiple different societies; the samurai held on to power through arms control first for swords, then later guns once the colonial powers invited themselves in.

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  • snooggums@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Bows (or other projectiles) and spears ruled the battlefield in Japan and everywhere else on the planet when combat was primarily hand to hand. Sometimes there were situations where swords or maces and other close in weapons had the advantage, but in general killing someone from a distance with a weapon that could be primarily made of wood and relatively simple is just going to be the most commonky used tool of war.

    Romans, known for the gladius short sword, would initially start combat with slings, javelins, and spears. They only switched to swords up close. Same for samurai.

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    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      primarily made of wood and relatively simple

      Also, less maintenance/ material required for its creation.

      A spear point with a couple of langets is something a blacksmith can knock out by the hour. Good swords take longer and are more technical to make. You break your spear shaft in training? Well tough as, but you can find a suitable replacement and remount it on campaign.

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    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The sword has always been the last option as a weapon. Like a handgun would be today. A spear would always be preferred.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Even more than that, while we think of the gladius as their iconic weapon, the only weapon that served for the entire history of the Roman military is the bronze spear, though it eventually became ceremonial.

      Swords are flashy and the weapon of a noble in town, as they’re expensive, high skill, and a reasonable sidearm for relative safety. They weren’t replaced in function by the rifle, but by the pistol. This is actually quite similar to the mindset of revolvers in the American west. The primary armament of that period’s conflicts was the lever action rifle, but the revolver was better in town.

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    • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Don’t forget the Plumbata!

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  • Cypher@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Nobunaga is literally the most successful of the Japanese warlords because he looted a Spanish merchant vessel and obtained guns and powder.

    Then he did everything possible to get more.

    This narrative that evil Europeans forced them to use guns is absurd.

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    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It’s more that guns were hard to get until the British and Americans forced Japan to open its borders. They were generally imported through the Spanish/Portuguese, or the Dutch after they established trade relations. Even after they started making their own matchlocks, I believe they were only produced in small batches due to the high percentage of impurities in Japan’s iron deposits.

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    • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      You’re right, that last sentence is ham fisted - I was referring to the gunboat diplomacy opening the trade free for all after decades of isolation, not colonial annexation.

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  • Madison420@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I too have watched batosai the manslayer.

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  • JustZ@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’ve heard that as well about the bows.

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• vanderbilt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s rather complicated. In the “in-between” times, firearms were considered a coward’s weapon, making the user a “sniper” and thus less honorable than those who used more traditional arms. This faded with time however, as most ideas do.

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  • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    This faded with time however

    Yeah, because the people that thought that way got fucking shot.

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    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      "what’re you going to do, coward? shoot me?"

      • Man who got fucking shot

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    • BenFranklinsDick@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Words of wisdom

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  • veni_vedi_veni@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The Pope tried banning crossbows

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    • yamanii@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      In latin languages it’s even called “besta” to indicate it’s from the beast (Satan)

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  • cumskin_genocide@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Bro American Sniper was a fucking badass film. No politics or anything. Just a guy shooting terrorists.

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    • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Bro really called “just a guy shooting terrorists” apolitical

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    • Emmie@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It had the same value as that nazi propaganda sniper movie from inglorious basterds

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• GrymEdm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Image

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  • Rebels_Droppin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Meatbag

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    • casmael@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Correction, you are a bag of meat

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  • stanka@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Explanation: It’s just that… you have all these squishy parts, master. And all that water! How the constant sloshing doesn’t drive you mad, I have no idea. HK-47

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• NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Longbow was the main battle weapon of samurai.

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  • lapislazuli@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    FTFY: Longbow was the main battle weapon of the English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi was the main battle weapon of the samurai.

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    • reliv3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Reading your links, the correction you made seems semantically insignificant. Yumi is the word for “bow” in Japanese and longbows describe a bow that are long. Longbows are not unique to the English, and there are a lot of bows that can be described as longbows. So my point is, if samurais used yumis that are long (which some did) then saying they used longbows is not incorrect. Nevertheless, thank you for letting us know what the Japanese called their bows, it was educational.

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    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yumi (弓) is the Japanese term for a bow.

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• thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yo Jimbo should be required viewing.

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  • cmbabul@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Seven Samurai too, although less central

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• captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yeah they were soldiers. Alexander the Great had engineers in his army for a reason. Genghis Kahn would lose his shit over a magnum gun.

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  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Depending on the era, they were rich thugs who could and would slice a homeless person in half for looking at the wrong.

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    • Emmie@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      War never changes

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  • Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Genghis Khan would love M114 howitzers.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Genghis Kahn would love the Toyota hilux. The modern technical is endowed with his spirit of “let’s make the real shit of war more mobile”

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• EvilLootbox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  but then what would Spike TV show in the place of Deadliest Warrior?

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• FireTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  lemmy.world/post/8810706

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