Okay folks I have found a video posted yesterday on who would win, and ehm… This is embarrassing.
I don’t want to start a huge argument but I think it will be inevitable. Don’t do game theories on real history lol.
Here is a reply from someone who actually knows about the medieval times…
all we need is skallagrim to make a video replying to this lol
I hope we can all agree that it wouldn’t be the vikings.
Because of no horses, yes.
Otherwise, they were very successful for a reason.
Did vikings ever actually fight proper armies? I’ve never researched them very much, as far as I know all they did was raid settlements.
idk, not going to spew anything else out of my mouth 
I’m sure at one time they did…
We dont know much about them, but i wouldnt say so. If shield wall and, what we call today, asymetric warfare is best they did, then I dont think they actually had some kind of “proper”, means disciplined (in roman or modern way) army. We know too little about their combat, there are only some mentions hiw fierce warriors they were, but wouldnt call them soldiers. And as we know from history, discipline often means a lot. However they were succesful, but i think it was only thanks to weakneses of their foes (no proper, disciplined, hardly trained army, well equipped). Certainly nothing worth mentioning like german-styled knights, few centurues later.
Interesting topic, but again, it compares uncomparable.
Well Vikings did humilate Paris with siege and they did hold half of England at one point. Viking boy started to learn fighting skills as soon as he could walk and reason was that we scandinavians loved to have war and raiding with eachother all the time. When you compare that to Englands summertime warfare and training no wonder they lost so badly. Same thing happened with romans in their day cause of training.
Knight would beat them all based on equipment alone. I’m honestly not sure if the samurai could get past the vikings huge shield. Also what kind of “viking” we talking about, a rich one would probably be wearing mail armour, and have a nice helmet and sword.
Well even poor viking would have proper one-handed axe that can cut mail like cheese.
Well, no.
An axe does not cut through maille like cheese. The great advantage of an axe is not its superior cutting ability but the heavy impact of it. An axe is more topheavy than cutting weapons like a sword and therefore strikes sharder.
Maille is less effective against axes than against swords, but not because the axe cuts through the rings so easily.
Actually the maille does not soften incoming blows and therefore an axe hit might break your bones, unlike a swordhit.
jesus forgot how accurate you need to be here, what i tryed to say was that axes fucked mail totally and guy inside it. Happy now?
Did they wear gambeson, or some similar padding to soften blows?
Have you not taken part in discussion, or arguments on this forum before?
Well you do not need to be that accurate and tell me what ringsize and width in maille armor was common for that period.
But I am satisfied that we have sorted out the cutting through maille thing. Blunt impact and thrusts are more effective on maille, but it protected against cuts extremely well when properly made.
SirWarriant this is the problem that research is facing concerning the Vikings:
Gambesons from the 8th, 9th 10th and 11th century, the so called viking period, just did not survive.
As far as I know there are surviving examples of maille armor, but only of the upper class and mostly from the 10th and 11th century.
So for the common viking raider we have two remaining options of armor: Either they wore regular linen clothing, just like civilians, or they had some form of padded armor, similar to a Gambeson/Aketon in the later medieval period.
This is the point where most people start to speculate/assume because of the lack of evidence and I will just give my personal opinion here:
If you ask me, in the early viking period, the 8th and most of the 9th century, civilian scandinavian clothing was predominant, because the norse people were only raiding and not trying to conquer or win big battles.
If you wear regular clothing in battle, you do not have to make padded armor and therefore going on a raid is cheaper and easier.
But things changed in the 10th and 11th century and the scandinavians probably caught up to the Anglo-Saxons and Francs in development of armor and therefore used padded armor, consisting of several layers of linen, more often.
You also have to consider that the “Viking” culture slowly began to fade and the Kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark emerged, which brought the scandinavians closer to european culture and as I believe also to the european fighting style and armor.
It might be that I am wrong and that the raiders who attacked Lindisfarne in 793 already wore padded armor with 10 layers of linen like in the High Middle ages, but the text above is my personal guess.
If you come to think of your own opinion, please keep in mind that we are always talking about processes of change which probably lasted for a longer period of time. So you have to not only ask yourself if they used padded armor, but also since when and how common it was to get a more complete overview over the situation.
Wouldn’t state it as a sign of military art. King Charles The Bald had dificult reign, as he had problems with internal disputes, disputes with his brothers and even more, Vikings raiding his realm. He wasn’t able to assemble large enough army to effectively use defense network built by Charlemagne and deny Vikings to attack core of Frankia. Several sackings of Paris during 840s and 860s were results of false planning and lack of Frankia to unite and hold incoming outer enemy imho. Charlemagne was able to unite Frankish tribes and form them into state, that means he had working army that could protect his empire from northern threat. His successors actually failed in this and first who succesfully defended Paris was Odo during 885-6 siege.
Again, same as in Frankia. No real big threat, no strong leader that could unite whole Anglia to actualy stop invaders. British Isles were full of petty kingdoms and duchies, remnants of fallen Roman Empire.
This is what was used during whole middle ages. Most of warfare took place during summer, because it was much easier to obtain supplies to keep marching that colossus of several (tens of) thousands soldiers. And I believe that meeting of knights of high middle ages era with vikings of their era, would end conclusively in knights success. But this is what I think is uncomparable, because right now we are comparing two “doctrinas” that are divided by 200-400 years of military advancements.
Back to the topic.
Basically fully equipped knight is heavy infantry or heavy cavalry, while vikings were light infantry. Mobile and deadly, but single blow from a knight makes end to him. And those people, that say “faster swordsman is better than armored one” can go to (insert some shiny place with flowers and birds here). Heavily equipped knight losses his breath after longer fight, not instantly after first two blows (he trains that whole life!), light foot can withstand this longer, but usually he gets hit much sooner. That would have to be fight of heavily equipped greenie against lightly equipped vet. Something like me standing in full armor against Anton Kohutovič => jelly good show! Lasting few seconds…
And from what I saw, Samurais were in fact light infantry/cav, compared to mid European knights…
The Byzantines and the Persians. Diplomacy and cunning > battle skills. Always.
Plus they fielded the best military unit ever… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphract
Well light armored archers did beat knights with axes and blunt weapons in agincourt after they had managed get that muddy field with arrows raining on em to other end…
Ranged units always beats melee… 
Best military unit ever? I think that title belongs to these guys. No one is stronker than Poland Winged Hussars.
Well light armored archers did beat knights with axes and blunt weapons in agincourt after they had managed get that muddy field with arrows raining on em to other end…
Alright, you’ve entered my realm now, so buckle up.
Those archers were vastly outnumbered. VASTLY. The odds are normally accepted as 30 to 1, though some say it was anywhere between 20 to 1 odds all the way up to 50 to 1 odds. Regardless, the English were outnumbered, underfed, weakened from a long campaign, all manners of things. They had been on the run from the French for weeks as they did not have the numbers for a pitched battle. But Agincourt. Agincourt the English were caught in and they had to fight. In the night it is said the English, laying on nothing but their own clothing and eating wormy bread and watered porridge, could see and hear the French feasting on foods that wafted to the English camp. Yet God had favored the English that night.
You see, the English man-at-arms, despite having horses, were commanded to fight on the ground. Why?
The field was muddy.
Now the French, being the arrogant frogs they are, mounted onto their plated destriers and thought the battle would be won the way the French always won; through horseback. On the other side of the field was the English archers hammering stakes into the ground, affixed to aim for a horse’s chest. Behind those stakes the archers waited and the men-at-arms behind the archers.
Now, you can obviously tell me what happens when a horse tries to charge in mud. It won’t charge. It’s bogged down.
At the same time, in that rainy night before Agincourt, the English had dug holes in the muddy field in order that, when the French charged on their horses as they were expected to do, the horse’s legs would break and the French would be forced to the ground.
The muddy ground.
So here we are, French charging their destriers and faltering. The English archers firing volley after volley, piercing flesh and mail as their yew longbows strained again and again. And when the French fell, their plate, now bogged in the mud, suffocated them. Trapped them. Killed them. And from the English ranks, when the French retreated on October 15th, 1415, did the archers and squires file onto the field, searching for French knights who could be held for ransom and sliding their rondels into the visors of those who were worthless.
So without that muddy field, those archers would have been killed. In a one-on-one fight, the archers are worthless against knights, lightly-armoured or not.
And before you say, ‘‘what about French archers?’’ Genoese Crossbowmen. And crossbows don’t have the range a longbow has, so those crossbowmen had to walk onto the field just to get in range, where they, in their light armor, walked into archer fire and died despite their pavises. So they ran back to their lines. The French lines.
And the French charged the mercenaries and killed them all before they themselves were slaughtered.
Didn’t the crossbow men also leave their crossbows out in the rain over night, and thus make them worthless? Or am I thinking of Crecy…
